The name of navigator Henry Hudson is immortalized in the annals of exploration and discovery. He is most famous for his search for the Northwest Passage across the Arctic Ocean in an attempt to chart a westerly sea route from Europe to Asia. His journeys led to greater understanding of the lower Hudson River valley and the waters around present-day New York City, and the expansive interior bodies of water in Canada, including Hudson Bay. Both are named in his honor.
Except for the period between April 19, 1607, and June 22, 1611, however, our knowledge of his life is sketchy due to a scarcity of source materials. He was born in the mid-1560s in London to a rich family. He might have been educated in astronomy, cartography, and navigation. His wife’s name was Katherine, and the couple had three sons, John, Richard, and Oliver. Henry Hudson’s grandfather bore the same name and was an alderman and founder of a company known as the Merchant Adventurers on December 18, 1551. In 1553, this venture was renamed the Muscovy Trading Company; fellow founders were London merchants, including the explorer Sebastian Cabot. This company was chartered by Queen Mary I of England two years afterward and was the first major English joint-stock trading company. The newly opened Russian trade was the monopoly of the Muscovy Trading Company. Thus it was a company founded by his grandfather that commissioned Henry Hudson to explore a northwesterly route to Asia’s Pacific coast. On May 1, 1607, the small and aging 80-ton Hopewell sailed from London’s main port at Gravesend.
Henry Hudson (ca. 1565–1611) was an English explorer who helped influence the colonization of America with his extensive journeys into unknown regions. Hudson’s quest for the Northwest Passage took him far into the interior of North America, and he charted the waterways of the river and the great bay which both bear his name. (Library of Congress)
Henry Hudson arrived at the east coast of Greenland on June 14 and later stopped in Whale Bay, situated about 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The freezing weather prevented him from going further and Hudson returned, arriving at Tilbury Hope in England on September 15. But finding a faster trade route from Europe to Asia proved to be too great a temptation, and Hudson sailed on April 22, 1608, from St. Katharine’s Docks on the Thames River in London. He had to stop halfway because the ship came into thick ice. Thus, his second voyage also ended in fiasco and Hudson reached Gravesend, England, on August 28. Undaunted by failure, Hudson was ready to take a third expedition, but could not find a sponsor. The Dutch finally agreed to finance the trip and a contract was signed on January 8, 1609, between Hudson and the Dutch United East India Company. The contract specified that Hudson should find a northeasterly route and report the finding to the directors of the company. With a crew of twenty, both Dutch and English, the old ship, called Half Moon (Halve Maen in Dutch), sailed from Amsterdam on April 4, 1609, toward the cold waters of Norway.
Hudson was again blocked by ice and, contravening his contract, he decided to sail in a westerly direction toward warm waters in the middle of May. The ship reached Grand Banks on July 2 and ultimately landed at La Have, Nova Scotia, in present-day Canada. On July 18, the Half Moon anchored at George’s Harbor and Hudson made his maiden visit to the New World. Some sort of trading contact for furs was made with indigenous peoples and then Hudson’s ship passed Jamestown. On September 3, Hudson reached the estuary of a river passing Staten Island and Coney Island. This river has been known as the Hudson ever since. The land was claimed for Holland, as Hudson was sailing under the Dutch flag. Some Native Americans came on board the ship for commercial transactions, but after a skirmish, a crew member named John Colman was killed. Sailing further, Hudson reached Manhattan in New York Bay on September 11, 1609. Still moving northward, Hudson anchored near Albany after a week. As the river widened into Tappan Zee, Hudson wrongly believed that he would reach the waters of the Pacific. But on September 22, his hope was dashed as he found the end point. His log books showed that he met friendly as well as unfriendly Native Americans, and on October 2, about a dozen of them were killed by Hudson’s men. The next day, the ship was caught in a storm and on October 4 the crew decided to return home. The Half Moon reached Dartmouth, England, on November 7 and Hudson was arrested because he had sailed under a Dutch flag and undertaken a voyage detrimental to the interests of England. The Privy Council ordered him not to return to Holland or to take further service on non-English ships. But the Half Moon went back to Holland with the records and log books of Hudson’s voyage. The ship that had taken Hudson to New York and other places in North America finally met its end on March 6, 1615, in the waters near Mauritius. One of the important results of Hudson’s voyage was the Dutch claim over the region charted by Hudson, as well as the establishment of a trading post at Albany. In 1625, New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island was designated as the capital of New Netherland.
Hudson was again employed by the Muscovy Trading Company to find the Northwest Passage to the Far East. The Discovery started its journey on April 17, 1601, from St. Katharine’s Docks, London, and passed through the coastal waters of Scotland, Greenland, and Iceland. In June, Hudson came across a strait leading to the northern waters of Canada. It was later named the Hudson Strait. The nearby headlands were named after two notable members of the Muscovy Company: Cape Digges and Cape Wolstenholme. The Discovery sailed through the strait and arrived in a bay, which was later named for Hudson. Hudson spent quite some time searching unsuccessfully for a route to Asia through eastern shores, until the Discovery became stuck in the icy waters of James Bay at the southern tip of Hudson Bay. Hudson and his crew members suffered cruelly in the Canadian Arctic: the indigenous people of the region were hostile and there was also a shortage of food. Some of the crew members were growing impatient to return home and began to rebel against Hudson, who was bent upon continuing the expedition. The mutineers were led by Robert Juet and Henry Greene. On June 22, 1611, Hudson—along with his son John and loyalists such as Arnold Lodlo, Sidrack Faner, Philip Staffe, Thomas Woodhouse, Adam Moore, Henry King, and Michael Brute—were cast adrift in a boat without any food and left to die. The Discovery, with eight surviving mutineers, sailed back to England in October 1611. In spite of a plea by the Muscovy Company, they were not punished, as they were found not guilty in 1618 by the High Court of Admiralty.
Although Hudson died ignominiously, his seminal contributions to the world of geographical exploration and discovery are undeniable. Some of his discoveries of waterways, bays, and straits were of tremendous importance. This intrepid and daring navigator of the early seventeenth century sailed in unchartered waters in the face of miserable conditions in small ships, freezing weather, and with the almost constant threat of mutiny by shipmates. His name has been immortalized in the metropolis of New York, and his discoveries not only changed the course of history of the New World, but also were responsible for laying the foundation of New York as a global capital. Although Hudson could not find an all-water route to the Far East, he did explore extremely significant geographical features of the North American continent. In addition, the Hudson Bay Company was set up in 1688. In 1909, the Netherlands donated a replica of Hudson’s ship Half Moon to the United States to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the discovery of New York. The Hudson Bridge in New York was opened in 1936. Two years afterward, a park was named in Hudson’s honor. His pathbreaking efforts led to a new wave of exploration, leading to the mapping of the world as we know it.
The Northwest Passage
Like an icy El Dorado, the fabled “Northwest Passage” enticed generations of explorers; many died attempting to open up a sea route around the edge of North America. Jacques Cartier, Sir Francis Drake, and even Captain James Cook of Hawaiian fame all sought the passage, and Henry Hudson was marooned by his crew for his failure to find it. Roald Amundsen navigated a polar route in the opening decade of the twentieth century, although it was another four decades before anyone managed the journey in a single season. Modern ice-breaking technology and more powerful ships have opened channels through the polar ice, which has made some commercial shipping through the region feasible, but it may well be global warming—a scientific reality treated as myth by some climate change deniers—that finally opens up the passage that during many cooler centuries adventurous souls sought in vain.
C. Fee
Patit Paban Mishra
See also Columbus, Christopher; Founding Myths; Legends
Further Reading
Bacon, E. Mayhew. 2004. Henry Hudson: His Times and His Voyages. Belle Fourche, SD: Kessinger.
Hunter, Douglas. 2009. Half Moon: Henry Hudson and the Voyage That Redrew the Map of the New World. New York: Bloomsbury Press.
Janvier, Thomas A. 1909. Henry Hudson: A Brief Statement of His Aims and His Achievements. New York: Harper and Brothers.
Johnson, Donald S. 1993. Charting the Sea of Darkness: The Four Voyages of Henry Hudson. Camden, ME: International Marine.
Sandler, Corey. 2007. Henry Hudson: Dreams and Obsession. New York: Citadel Press.