An unknown celebrity
The Englishman Henry Hudson was born in 1570 (some sources say 1550), son of the wealthy London tanner Henry Hudson and his wife Barbara. His grandfather was one of the founders of the English Muscovy Company, an organization that traded with what is presently Russia. Not a great deal is known of Henry Hudson’s life. The factual information is limited to the period 1607 to 1611, and all known portraits of him were painted after his death.

Hudson probably began his career as an explorer in 1587, when he went in search of the Northwest Passage under the leadership of John Davis. The Northwest Passage was an imagined sea route that supposedly ran along the coast of present-day Canada. The journey was not successful. In 1607, Hudson made his first voyage as captain in the service of the Muscovy Company. This time his orders were to explore the Northeast Passage to China. His superiors thought the journey to the Far East could be made more quickly and under safer conditions by sailing along the northern coast of Russia. Because of the great amount of floating ice he was forced to terminate his journey near the island of Spitsbergen. His second journey brought him no farther than the coast of Nova Zembla, but even so his reputation as an explorer was internationally established.

In the service of the Dutch East India Company
In 1609 he entered the service of the Dutch East India Company, or the VOC (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie). The VOC was trying to build up a trade network in Asia but was thwarted in its efforts by the Portuguese, who had discovered the sea route to Asia around the Cape of Good Hope in 1500. This gave them control of the spice trade between Asia and Europe. In order to avoid the Portuguese and their warships, both the Dutch and the English tried to reach Asia via a northern route.

Hudson was given the order to further explore the northern route. On 6 April 1609 he left Amsterdam with the ship De Halve Maen (The Half Moon), bound for the northeast. The ship quickly ran aground in the pack ice and Hudson was forced to change course. He had been expressly told by the Lords XVII (the board of directors of the East India Company) that in such an event he was to return to Amsterdam. Instead he decided to make a new attempt at finding the Northwest Passage. But events took another turn.

On 18 July he reached the coast of Maine. After the ship, badly damaged by storms, had been patched up, he sailed farther south along the coast. On 3 September he passed the present Staten Island and entered a broad river that would later bear his name. After sailing for some time he discovered that this river did not lead to the fabled India. He did meet some of the local inhabitants, however. These contacts were friendly for the most part, and the inhabitants offered him pelts in exchange for various metal objects. Hudson used the island that they called Manna Hatta as a base from which he explored the rest of the area.

One month later he set sail for the Netherlands. When the ship approached England, the crew, who were mostly English, forced him to put in at the port of Dartmouth. A great many of the English crew then abandoned ship. While awaiting money for a replacement crew, Hudson wrote a report to the Lords XVII in Amsterdam. He described the region he had discovered as ‘a land of milk and honey’.

As soon as the English authorities realized that Hudson, while in the service of the VOC, had been exploring an area that they claimed for the English crown, they had him arrested. He was then forced to sail for the Muscovy Company once again.
 

A miserable death
In 1610 he returned to North America, still searching for the Northwest Passage. It was an unhappy voyage. Bad weather forced the expedition to winter in Penobscot Bay, and as he prepared to set sail once again in the spring of 1611 a mutiny broke out. Hudson and eight other crew members were forced to leave the ship in an open sloop. They were never heard from again.