The motivations that resulted in the discovery of a new continent in 1492 were to search for a new route through the West to reach the eastern markets of India and China. During the following centuries, that same motivation led new and intrepid navigators to look for other alternative routes that had been opened after the discovery of America. This was the case of Henry Hudson, English navigator and explorer, whose great obsession was to find a new route to the northwest of the American continent, through the Arctic Ocean. In this article titled Henry Hudson, the connection between Europe and Asia, We are going to learn more about the life of this great navigator, how many trips he made, what places he discovered and if he managed to achieve his goal. Let’s start at the beginning, what data we have about life.
Early Years of Henry Hudson in Europe and Asia
Practically nothing is known of his life, It is known that he was born in London, England in approximately 1565 and that he died in Hudson Bay in 1611. Practically all his life was spent at sea, starting at the bottom as a cabin boy and gradually rising in responsibility until he reached the ship captain title.
Until the year 1607, very little is known about his life, there are no data that could have been contrasted as true. But in 1607, henry hudson begins to write a page in the history of navigation and discoveries when he was hired by the company English Muscovy Company, based in London, to get find a way to the East crossing the Arctic oceans.
Henry Hudson’s First Voyage
The mission entrusted to henry hudson It was to find a way to go through the northeast towards the Asian continent, crossing the Arctic Ocean, to reach the Pacific Ocean that way. But the English were not the only ones looking for a new passage through the northeast, Dutch people they were also in need of finding a new route for trade and both competed in the same strip.
The trip was prepared to depart in summer, since it was believed that the sun’s rays at that time lasted up to three uninterrupted months, so as the ice melted, ships could pass without any problem until reaching the paradise of spices.
We must remember that of all the existing routes to India, they were already being exploited. The Silk Road had been closed after the Islamic invasion, the route bordering the African continent was used by Portugal, the route to the West, crossing the Atlantic Ocean was occupied by the Spanish and Portuguese.
Countries like Holland and England, were in need of being able to access Asian markets without having to pay tariffs or taxes that made their products more expensive, they needed a route of their own that they could exploit.
The boat with which he left on May 1, 1607 from the town of Gravesend, it was called Hopwell and his somewhat small crew consisted of ten sailors plus his son, still a child.
On June 13, Hudson reached the easternmost coast of Greenland.skirted the coast northward until they reached Prince Charles Island, following the coastline of present-day Svalbard, then called Spitzberg, reaching latitude 80ยบ N, that is, managed to reach the closest point to the North Pole, a place that European man had not yet reached.
He continued to progress north, convinced that somewhere there would be a passage to the west, but he did not find the desired exit, so he was forced to turn south, towards more southern latitudes where he discovered Jan Mayeu Island.
But soon the summer gave way to a cold and icy autumnthe low temperatures threatened to leave the ship trapped in the ice, which would spell its end. Hudson he made the right decision and returned to England.
Second Voyage of Henry Hudson
A year later, on April 28, 1608, Henry Hudson was again hired by the same company and with the same boat, to undertake a second attempt to locate the pass that would give them glory, but this time he would try it by a somewhat longer route, coasting the northern part of Russia.
It skirted the coast of Norway heading north, reaching the barents sea, until reaching the islands of Nova Zembla. Curiously, and for the second time, Henry Hudson had come closer to the North Pole than any other navigator. But again they seemed to be in a sea with no outlet to the Pacific.
This fact caused a great disappointment in the crew and in Henry himself, which added to the fatigue and cold that began to make an appearance, caused Captain Hudson decided to head for England without having achieved its goal, which took place on August 26, 1608.
Two failures in a row had dampened the company’s interest English Muscovy for supporting more expeditions. This refusal to continue with the expeditions was taken advantage of by the Dutch East India Company, who, like Hudson, were sure of the existence of a passage linking Europe with Asia by the East.
The route to follow was navigate the arctic ocean, skirt the north coast of Russia to reach the East. The captain whom the Dutch Company trusted to carry out this undertaking was henry hudson. This time in command of the half moon ship and with a crew made up of 20 sailors of English and Dutch nationality.
This time they set out from the North Sea port of Texel, but when they reached the North Cape coast, the crew refused to continue, the ice sheets that were beginning to appear was the reason for such refusal by the crew. But Hudson didn’t want this mission to be a third failure, so he calmed his crew down by offering them an alternate route.
The idea was to try again to find the passage to the West, to try to find the passage that must exist in North America. Quickly the half moon set course west. In September 1609, Hudson had finally reached the American coast.
Henry Hudson’s Third Voyage
On September 11, 1609, Hudson sailed along the coast of what is now New York, the next day he decided to go up the river, a river that years later would receive the name of Hudson in his honor. The Hudson River had already been discovered in the year 1524, for the crown of King Francis I of France.
In 1625, what is now Manhattan was called New Amsterdam, declared the capital of the region they called New Holland. After long years of expeditions and navigation, Henry Hudson began his journey back to Holland, making a stop in the port of Dartmouth, a region under British rule.
As soon as Henry reached port, the Privy Council ordered the ban on re-serving a foreign country and with the same interests as England. He was held back and an attempt was made to search the ship, full of furs and pearls, sure to have been confiscated. Through the Dutch ambassador and on behalf of Holland, owner of the ship and therefore its contents, Hudson managed to clear the way back to Amsterdam.
Henry Hudson’s Fourth Voyage
The work that Hudson had developed as an explorer, for the country with which England maintained a great rivalry for commercial dominance, meant that Hudson was prohibited from reporting on the results and discoveries that his expeditions had achieved, for the Dutch West India Company. The only recourse left to Henry Hudson was to work for the English crown.
In 1610, on April 17, Hudson made his last voyage, this time aboard a new vessel called Discovery, now financed by the government of England. It went back to the old and primitive project to find a passage through the Northwest. The English West India Company was the company created to compete both in name and philosophy with its Dutch namesake.
This time the project was going to reach the Davis Strait, as the best way to achieve success in finding the desired step. Hudson set sail with the Discovery and an important crew where, in addition to being a doctor, they also had a mathematician to carry out navigation calculations.
May 11 they had reached Iceland, where a technical stop was made to rest the crew and wait for the ice to finish dissolving. But this trip was going to have a different connotation from previous trips, as soon as the journey began, the first problems between the crew began to manifest.
On June 4 he arrived at the south coast of Greenland, on the 25th it was reached Island of Good Fortune where the beginning of the Davis Strait and the Hudson Strait are located, reached the Labrador Peninsula.
But the cold was coming again and Hudson was trapped by the ice again, this time they were the ice sheets of the Hudson Strait that obstructed their exit. But this time he would not turn around, he was determined to go ahead, a decision that frightened the crew, already at that time quite divided between continuing with the company or turning around.
As the Discovery tried to push through the ice sheets, thick enough layers as if to move the Discovery at will, leaving the boat without control and pushing it towards the different reefs of the coast. The moments of anxiety and terror were happening inside the ship.
In the vicinity of the akpatok island, the crew couldn’t take it anymore and riotedThey removed Captain Hudson. To his credit, r Hudson was counting on the fact that the insurrection was not total, that is, the Henry Hudson continued to maintain the loyalty of part of the crew, managing to reverse the situation and regain command of the Discovery.
After a month and a half skirting the southern coast of the strait, they reached Digges Island and on August 2nd Hudson Bay. The rest of the months the captain dedicated to map and explore the multiple islands, as well as the newly discovered eastern shoreline, were in Canada.
The Henry Hudson Mutiny
Yes now, Hudson I was convinced that I had reached the Pacific Oceanso he headed his boat totally euphoric towards the south, reaching the james bay. But as seemed to be the general pattern of Hudson’s travels, the southern exit did not exist.
The weather began to harden, so the expedition was forced to take shelter in the bay until Discovery was finally trapped by ice, forcing the crew to move ashore in a region where ice and cold are intense. After spending a winter on land with virtually no food and barely surviving, spring came.
With the optimism that seemed to flood the character of the captain, he made the decision to continue exploring a way out to the south. On June 23, taking advantage of the darkness of the night, there was a riot seconded by most of the crew.
The captain, his son, and other sick crew members loyal to Hudson, were…