Henry Hudson, an English sea explorer and navigator in the early 17th century, is best remembered for his explorations of what is now Canada and portions of the Northeastern United States. He was born around 1565 and vanished on June 23, 1611.
Hudson attempted twice, in 1607 and 1608, to locate the Northeast Passage, which was supposedly located above the Arctic Circle and would lead to Cathay, on behalf of English merchants. On behalf of the Dutch East India Company, he arrived in North America in 1609 and travelled the area surrounding the present-day New York metropolitan area. In search of a Northwest Passage to Asia, he sailed up the Hudson River, which would later bear his name, in his ship Halve Maen (“Half Moon”). This laid the groundwork for Dutch colonization of the region. He made a substantial and enduring contribution to the New World’s exploration. His travels aided in the development of trade and commerce as well as European contact with North American aboriginal peoples.
Almost nothing is known for sure about Hudson’s early years. Estimates for his birth year range from 1560 to 1570. He might have been born in London, and his father might have served as an alderman there. Hudson was already a seasoned sailor with enough qualifications when he made his historical debut in 1607, leading an expedition tasked with finding a trade route across the North Pole.
Travels of 1607 to 1608
Hudson was hired in 1607 by the English Muscovy Company to locate a route that would take him north to the Pacific coast of Asia. The English and Dutch were fighting each other economically at the time for control of northwest routes. It was believed that the ice would melt and a ship could sail across the “top of the world” because the sun shone for three months in the summer in the northern latitudes.
Hudson set sail on the 80-ton Hopewell on May 1, 1607, with a crew of ten men and a boy. On May 13, they arrived at Greenland’s east coast and continued northward until May 22. The group called this headland “Young’s Cape” and the “very high mount, like a round castle” that was next to it. During this voyage, Hudson reported seeing a lot of whales in the waters off Spitsbergen. His reports are credited by numerous authors as being the impetus behind several countries’ whaling expeditions to the islands. This assertion is debatable; others have cited compelling evidence that the establishment of English whaling was facilitated by Jonas Poole’s reports from 1610 and the Dutch, French, and Spanish whaling industries by Nicholas Woodcock and Willem Cornelisz van Muyden’s expeditions in 1612. Hudson and Poole did not create the whaling industry itself; both men passed away by 1612.
Dutch East India Company merchants in the Netherlands selected Hudson in 1609 to discover an easterly route to Asia. He became aware of reports of a northwest passage through North America to reach the Pacific while waiting for orders and supplies in Amsterdam. Hudson was instructed to sail to the Far East by way of the Pacific, the Arctic Ocean, and the region north of Russia. On April 4, Hudson, commanding the Dutch vessel Halve Maen (English: Half Moon), sailed from Amsterdam. As with all previous such voyages, ice blocked the passage, preventing him from completing the designated (eastward) route, and somewhere east of Norway’s North Cape in mid-May he turned the ship around.
On July 2, they arrived at the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, and in the middle of July, they made landfall close to the LaHave region of Nova Scotia. They came across Canadian Indigenous peoples who were used to trading with the French here; they were willing to exchange beaver pelts, but it doesn’t seem like any deals were made. For roughly ten days, the crew of the ship fished for food and repaired a broken mast while they were in the area. On July 25, twelve men from the Halve Maen attacked the village close to their anchorage with small cannon and muskets. After forcing the settlers to leave, they stole their boat and other belongings, most likely trade goods and pelts.
The Last Exhibition 1610–1611
Hudson received support in 1610 for a second expedition, but this time it was flying the English flag. The British East India Company and the Virginia Company provided the funding. Leading his new vessel, the Discovery, he stayed north (some say he purposefully stayed too far south on his Dutch-funded journey); on May 11th, they arrived in Iceland; on June 4th, they reached the south of Greenland; and on May 11th, they rounded the southern tip of Greenland.
The explorers arrived at the northernmost point of Labrador, which is now the Hudson Strait, on June 25. On August 2, the vessel entered Hudson Bay by travelling along the strait’s southern coast. The expectation that the ship had finally discovered the Northwest Passage through the continent was causing a great deal of excitement. The next few months were devoted to mapping and exploring its eastern shores by Hudson and his crew, but they were unable to discover a route to Asia. The crew moved ashore for the winter when the ship got stuck in James Bay’s ice in November.
Mutiny
The majority of Hudson’s crew was eager to get home, but when the ice broke in the spring of 1611, Hudson intended to use his Discovery to continue exploring Hudson Bay in hopes of finding the Passage. When things got out of hand in June, a large portion of the crew mutinied. Because only the mutineers and those who supported the mutiny were able to recount their experiences, accounts of the successful mutiny are biased.
Abacuk Pricket, the ship’s navigator and a survivor, was in the latter class. He kept a journal that would be used as one of the sources for the mutiny story. Pricket claimed that Robert Juet and Henry Greene were the mutiny’s leaders. As a navigator, he had travelled with Hudson on the expedition in 1609, and his report is considered “the best contemporary record of the voyage”. According to Pricket’s account, the mutineers abandoned the Discovery and left Hudson, his teenage son John, and seven crew members—men who were either devoted to Hudson or ill and frail—adrift in an open boat, or small shallop, leaving them effectively marooned in Hudson Bay. According to the Pricket Journal, the mutineers gave the castaways clothes, shot, powder, a few pikes, an iron pot, some food, and other miscellaneous items.
Following the rebellion, Hudson’s shallop took to the oars and attempted to row alongside the Discovery for a while. Pricket recalled that the mutineers eventually became weary of the David-Goliath chase and raised more sails on the Discovery, allowing the larger ship to pass the small open boat. Never again would Hudson and the other seven people on the shallop be seen. Their whereabouts remain a mystery despite several searches.