Background
Henry Hudson was born circa 1565-1570 in England.
Henry Hudson was born circa 1565-1570 in England.
Henry Hudson's life is undocumented prior to his famous voyages but he was described in documents of the time as "Henry Hudson, Englishman, " thus establishing his nationality. .
The enterprise was undertaken on behalf of the English Muscovy Company, founded in 1555 by Sebastian Cabot and another Henry Hudson, probably not related.
On May 1, 1607, Hudson set sail from Gravesend in the Hopewell, with a crew of ten men and his young son, John.
An important result of this expedition was to open up the profitable whale fisheries in Spitsbergen to the English.
Hudson was forced to look elsewhere for employment and in 1609 obtained a contract from the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch East India Company to search for a passage to the Far East north of Novaya Zemlya.
He sailed from Amsterdam in April 1609 on the Half Moon, with a mixed crew of 18 Dutch and English seamen, but after doubling the North Cape of Norway his crew mutinied because of the severity of the weather, and Hudson thereupon offered them a choice between searching for a passage through Davis Strait or sailing toward the American coast at 40°40d latitude, where, according to letters and maps sent him by Captain John Smith of Virginia, there was a passage leading to the western ocean.
The latter plan was adopted and he accordingly sailed west.
Reaching Newfoundland early in July, he headed south as far as Chesapeake Bay, then turned north again, entering the Delaware River, but soon headed back and sailed up the New Jersey shore to the Lower Bay of New York.
Taking to small boats, he explored even farther north, perhaps above Troy, still in hopes of finding a passage to the South Seas.
The Half Moon and Hudson's reports and charts, however, were later dispatched to the Dutch East India Company, which began trading in the Hudson River the very next year.
Hudson's fourth and last voyage was undertaken in the interests of a group of London merchants and enterprisers.
The following month he entered the great inland sea (Hudson Bay) where, after many weeks of fruitless exploration for an outlet to the Pacific, his ship was finally frozen in for the winter.
Hudson's crew had been disorderly throughout the voyage, and in September he had been obliged to depose his first mate, Robert Juet.
The latter nursed his grievance, and, as supplies ran low during the long and bitterly cold winter months, Juet and the discontented crew plotted against Hudson.
Sailing from London on April 17, 1610, in the bark Discovery, with the intention of finding the Northwest Passage to the Pacific, he sighted Greenland in June and in July passed through the strait that now bears his name.
Finally, three days after the ship broke free of the ice in June 1611, the mutineers seized Hudson, his son John, and seven others, and set them adrift in a small boat with no provisions.
The Discovery reached England two months later, with only a handful of men who had survived starvation and the attacks of Eskimos, but nothing was ever heard of the fate of Hudson and his companions.