Willem Schouten

Willem Cornelisz ( oon ) Schouten, (* 1580 in Hoorn, † 1625 in Baie d' Antongil, Madagascar ) was a Dutch navigator. He discovered, among others, Cape Horn and the Tonga Islands.

Schouten had already made ​​three voyages to the South Seas and one to Novaya Zemlya, when he was hired by Isaac Le Maire for an expedition. He should find a new route to the Dutch East Indies, which should lead neither by the Dutch East India Company (VOC ) claimed as a monopoly routes around the Cape of Good Hope to South Africa even through the Strait of Magellan in South America.

Schouten and the son of Isaac Le Maire, Jacob Le Maire, stabbed on 14 June in 1615 by the Dutch island Texel with two ships at sea - the Eendracht and Hoorn. Hoorn, north of Amsterdam, was the hometown of Schouten and Le Maire, and Hoorn merchants had financed the trip.

In December, the ships reached Patagonia. For now following repairs the Hoorn came accidentally on fire, and the trip had to be continued with only one ship. Schouten and Le Maire found the sought passage around the southern tip of South America - this was named after the lost ship and the hometown in Holland Cape Horn, the shipping route but Strait of Le Maire.

In the further journey through the Pacific different islands were discovered today, Papua New Guinea belong to Tonga (including New Ireland ) and Wallis and Futuna. In Ternate in the Spice Islands, the ship was fully loaded spices and the journey home was started via Java. On Java, but Le Maire and Schouten were arrested because you accused them of having violated the monopoly of the VOC - you did not believe them the story of the newly discovered lake road. The two were sent back in chains on the fleet of Joris van Bergen game, which also undertook a voyage around the world at the same time, in the Netherlands, the ships confiscated. Jacob Le Maire died on this ride between Batavia and Amsterdam. Schouten was able to prove their discovery back in the Netherlands and was rehabilitated.

Schouten had a crew of 86 to 16 -month journey lost only three, which was unusually low for that time ( scurvy and lack of fresh water) and fathered by the great prudence of this captain.

See the history of the ride even Jacob Le Maire

Writings

  • Journal où description you merveilleux voyages ( 1619)
  • Spilbergen, Joris van: Oost West -Indian border Spigelian ( 1621) - Fully digitized travelogue Schoutens from 1621 with original maps and illustrations
  • Edward Duyker (ed. ) Mirror of the Australian Navigation by Jacob Le Maire: A Facsimile of the ' Spigelian the Australian Navigatie. . . ' Being an Account of the Voyage of Jacob Le Maire and Willem Schouten 1615-1616 published in Amsterdam in 1622, Hordern House for the Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney, 1999, pp. 202, ISBN 1-875567-25-9.
Maluku Islands Joris van Spilbergen Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie Integrated Authority File
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