The Curious Case of Henry Hudson by D eirdre O'Regan Four hundred years ago, Henry Hudson sailed up the river that today bears his name in search of a northwest passage to the Indies. Hudson, an English subject, had been hired for the 1609 expedition by the Dutch East India Company, and so it was the Netherlands th at could lay claim to the territory along his sailing route, covering a region that stretches from present-day Delaware to Connecticut and includes Manhattan. This year, New York State and th e Kingdom of the Netherlands put together NY400 to "celebrate 400 years of enduring friendship between the Netherlands and the United States." Teams in New York and in the Netherlands organized a host of events and educational programs, including: historic and replica ships sailing up the Hudson River, online educational sites, exhibitions in museums, programs in schools, public presentations and symposia, and displays of art-both contemporary and historic works. New York, a city like no other, still exemplifies some of the character left by its original Dutch founders, and NY400 celebrates the "free spirit, openness, entrepreneurship, and tolerance of those D utch-American pioneers, and th eir continued relevance today and beyond." Let's look at the man whose obsession with discovering a northern sea route to Asia started it all.
s John Smith was stepping ashore in Virginia for the first time in May of 1607, his countrym an Henry Hudson was at sea, heading in the o pposite direction. The Muscovy Co mpany out of London had hired Hudson to find a northeast passage to Asia, over the top of Russia in the Arctic. The ice eventually forced him to turn back, bur he had made some strides in mapping that part of the wo rld and brought back information , specifi cal ly abo ut the presence of whales near Spitsbergen Island. He tried again in 1608, once more sailing for the English trading company, and turned back afrer reaching Novaya Zemlya. By then, his reputation as an expert on sailing in this part of the world was well known, but the M uscovy Company had given up ho pe that a northeast passage was possible. 1he fo llowing year, the Dutch
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East India Co mpany was looking to find a sea route to Asia via a similar route and hired the Englishman H enry Hudson and provided him with a small ship, the Halve Maen (" half moon"). This business of hiring a foreigner to lead an expedition, either for the Crown or private enterprise, was not a new concept: recall Christoffa Corombo, the Genoese sea captain who sailed for the King and Queen of Spain in 1492; Giovanni Caboto (a.k.a. John Cabot), the Venetian mariner who sailed for King H enry VlI of England in 1496; and the Italian G iovanni da Verrazzano, who sailed for the French in 1523. Hudson's crew aboard Halve Maen was a mix of English and Dutch sailors. Few facts have been co nfirmed about Hudson before his 1607 voyage. H e was born sometime in the 1570s in England.
No contemporary portrait of Henry Hudson has ever been found, but this rendering is one of the more common portraits attributed to his likeness. (Courtesy NY Public Library) His family held shares in the Muscovy Company, which would explain his connection with that company. As an expedition leader, Hudson conducted research and collected charts and information from contemporaries such as Richard Hakluyt and John Smith. Smith had sent word back that a possible navigable water route to the Pacific might lie at approximately 40° N latitude through No rth America, starting about halfway up what is now New Jersey. Hudson had, of course, failed to make it to Asia via a northeas tern route rwice before. This time, once he encountered the ice pack, he did not wait long before reversing his course and setting sail for the wes t, in direct opposition to his sailing orders from his employers. The Durch East India
Because H enry H udson's 1609 voyage took place while he was under contract with the Dutch East India Company, the Netherlands was able to claim the territory he had explored, from the Delmarva Peninsula northeast to Bu=ards Bay. 7his reprint of a 1656 map by Nicolaes Visscher is considered one of the best contemporary representations of Nieuw Nederlands. 22
SEA HISTORY 129, WINTER 2009-10