Willem Cornelisz Schouten

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Willem Cornelisz Schouten (1631, i.e. published post-mortem)

Willem Cornelisz (oon) Schouten (* around 1580 in Hoorn , † 1625 in Baie d'Antongil , Madagascar ) was a Dutch seafarer. Among other things, he discovered 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 (* around 1558; † 1624) for an expedition. He should have a new route to the Dutch East Indies find that neither of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) as a monopoly claimed routes around the Cape of Good Hope to South Africa nor by the Strait of Magellan in South America should lead.

Schouten and Isaac Le Maire's son, Jakob Le Maire , set sail on June 14, 1615 from the Dutch island of Texel in two ships - the Eendracht and the Hoorn . Hoorn , north of Amsterdam , was the hometown of Schoutens and Le Maires, and Hoorner merchants had financed the trip.

The ships reached Patagonia in December . During the repairs that followed, the Hoorn accidentally caught fire and the journey had to be continued with only one ship. Schouten and Le Maire found the passage they were looking for around the southern tip of South America - this was named after the lost ship and its hometown in Holland Cape Horn , but the shipping route was named Strait of Le Maire .

Travel routes from Spielbergen, Le Maire and Schouten

As we continued through the Pacific , various islands were discovered that today belong to Tonga , Papua New Guinea (including New Ireland ) and Wallis and Futuna . In Ternate on the Spice Islands the ship was loaded full of spices and the journey home was started via Java . On Java, Le Maire and Schouten were arrested on charges of violating the VOC's monopoly - the story of the newly discovered sea route was not believed. The two were sent back to the Netherlands in chains on the fleet of Joris van Spielbergen , who was also sailing around the world at the same time, and the ships were confiscated. Jacob Le Maire died on this voyage between Batavia and Amsterdam. Schouten was able to prove her discovery back in the Netherlands and was rehabilitated.

Schouten had only lost three of the 86 man crew on the 16-month voyage, which was unusually small for the time ( scurvy and lack of fresh water) and testified to the great caution of this captain.

See also Jakob Le Maire for the history of the journey

Fonts

literature

Web links

Commons : Willem Cornelisz Schouten  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Schouten, Willem Cornelisz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schouten, Willem Corneliszoon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch navigator
DATE OF BIRTH around 1580
PLACE OF BIRTH Hoorn
DATE OF DEATH 1625
Place of death Baie d'Antongil , Madagascar