Henry Hudson

English explorer

• Born: September 12, 1565
• Birthplace: England
• Died: 1611
• Place of death: Hudson Bay?

Hudson led four expeditions in search of the Northwest Passage. Although he failed to find the fabled route to China, he did, by his explorations, clarify the contours of Canada’s northern territories and make known in Europe the locations of several natural resources of the New World.

Early Life

Apart from his four voyages of exploration, Henry Hudson is a shadowy figure in history. Almost nothing is known for certain about his early life, not even the year of his birth or the names of his parents. A boy named John Hudson sailed with him on his last voyage (1610-1611), and it is assumed that the boy was probably one of Hudson’s sons. On this slender evidence, it has been thought that Henry may have been born in the 1560’s. Henry Hudson might have been the grandson of an alderman of London with the same name, although some scholars object to this assumption. The London alderman Henry Hudson was one of the founders of the Muscovy Company, which sought to open trade routes to Russia in the far north.

Hudson was married to a woman named Katherine and had three sons and one daughter. The marriage is confirmed by the existence of a contract with the Dutch East India Company, which provided for payment of money to his wife and children and a further payment to the widow should Hudson not return from his voyage for the Dutch. At some time prior to his appearance on the stage of history, Hudson had become an experienced seaman and, like his presumed grandfather, he dreamed of discovering new sea routes for trade.

By the time of his first voyage of exploration, Hudson was a skilled and bold navigator. He was a man who was not easily deterred from his goals. Seen in the best light, he was persevering and committed; from a darker point of view, he might be considered obstinate and willful. He could ignore the sailing orders given him by the company outfitting his expedition in order to further his own plans for exploration. He had heard geographers discuss their belief that because the sun shone twenty-four hours a day in the Arctic summertime, there must be a warm area in the far north, and that once one had found a way to penetrate the ice barrier, one could sail through warm seas all the way to the Far East. Hudson became obsessed with the dream of finding this warm region that would provide an easy route from Europe to China, India, and the Spice Islands (Moluccas). He was determined to be the first person to find this fabled passage.

Perhaps Hudson’s greatest fault was an inability to hold his men under the firm authority necessary for an expedition into such remote and uncivilized regions. On his third voyage, he permitted the ruffians aboard his ship to land on the New England coast and with their firearms to enter a peaceful Indian village to seek plunder. This lack of discipline, along with a tendency to show either favoritism or prejudice toward certain members of his crew, seems to have contributed to the mutiny on his fourth voyage, which cost him his life.

Hudson was a pious man. He liked to assign religious names to the areas he discovered. After fighting ice and contrary winds for a month after his entrance into Hudson Bay on his fourth voyage, he found a group of islands, which he named Isles of God’s Mercies. Before setting sail on his first voyage of exploration, he took ten members of his crew with him to attend services at Saint Ethelburga’s Church in London.

Life’s Work

On May Day in 1607, Hudson, under the auspices of the Muscovy Company, set sail from Gravesend, England, to find a polar passage to China. With ten men and a boy aboard the small ship Hopewell, he vainly sought an opening in the ice barrier along the east coast of Greenland. On June 27, the intrepid explorers reached the island of Spitsbergen, known to the Dutch as Newland. Hudson did not find any previously undiscovered land on this voyage, but he did report sighting an abundance of whales and walruses at Spitsbergen, a discovery that led to the development of the Spitsbergen whaling industry. On his return to England, the expedition passed by an island that they named Hudson Touches (Jan Mayen Island), although it actually had been previously discovered.

In April, 1608, again with the sponsorship of the Muscovy Company and with the same ship, Hudson set out to find a northeast passage. On this second voyage, he intended to sail into the polar area by finding an opening in the ice pack to the west of Novaya Zemlya (east of Spitsbergen). According to Hudson, two of the men saw a mermaid in the icy waters alongside the ship and described her as having white skin, long black hair, and a tail shaped like a porpoise but speckled like a mackerel. A more credible report was the entry in the record of finding birds and eggs on Novaya Zemlya to replenish the store of goods on the ship. As on the first voyage, ice forced the return of the ship to England, and in August, the Hopewell docked once more at Gravesend.

Because Hudson’s English investors refused to outfit a third expedition, Hudson turned to the Dutch for support. When the suspicious Amsterdam merchants dallied with Hudson, he began secret negotiations with the French to sail under their flag. The Dutch East India Company suddenly came to terms with Hudson when it discovered the French connection. He was ordered to sail from Holland to the northeast and, if unsuccessful, to return directly to the Netherlands. The instructions clearly restricted Hudson to a northern or northeastern search, yet the wily mariner had a different view of things.

In Hudson’s opinion, the search for a passage to Asia should be conducted in the northwest, and while in Amsterdam, he pondered two tempting theories, the belief of Captain John Smith , communicated to Hudson by a letter with maps, that there was a water channel to the Pacific at about 40 latitude (in the area from Chesapeake Bay to New York) and the view of Captain George Weymouth that a passage existed at 62 latitude (at the present-day Hudson Strait). Hudson had earlier heard of John Davis’s discovery of a “furious overfall” in the 62 area. The rapid current seemed to suggest that beyond the strait lay a very large body of water—possibly the Pacific Ocean. The possibility of a passage to the northwest rather than to the northeast appealed to Hudson, but he did not reveal his inclinations to his Dutch backers.

On April 6, 1609, Hudson sailed from Amsterdam aboard the Half Moon with a mixed crew of Dutch and English sailors. In the ice at Novaya Zemlya, the crew grew mutinous and easily induced Hudson to abandon the Dutch orders. The Half Moon turned toward North America to pursue the mythical passage suggested by Captain Smith. Sailing along the coastline of North America, Hudson entered the river that now bears his name. One of Hudson’s officers, Robert Juet, described it as a broad, deep, and easily navigable river, full of salmon and other fish, which led into a scenic mountainous country. Hudson followed the river, until he reached a point near present-day Albany where it was no longer navigable. On its return voyage, the Half Moon harbored at Dartmouth, England. The English government forbade Hudson and the English members of his crew to return to Holland and to sail under the Dutch flag in the future.

On April 17, 1610, Hudson made his last voyage. Now under the sponsorship of English entrepreneurs, he made his way to the “furious overfall.” In August, he passed through the strait that now bears his name and into what is now known as Hudson Bay. He explored the east coast of Hudson Bay and then entered James Bay. The harsh northern winter then forced him to find shelter and wait for the winter months to pass. With provisions in short supply, the crew spent a miserable winter. The sailors grew mutinous as rumors spread that the captain had been showing favoritism in the distribution of the meager provisions. Historians depend on the prejudiced accounts of the mutineers, intent upon self-justification, for a record of the events. These scanty accounts are interesting but only partly credible. Whatever the true course of events or reasons, the crew seized Hudson, his son, and seven others, including the sick and disabled, and on June 23, 1611, set them adrift in Hudson Bay. Nothing was ever again heard from the castaways. Presumably, Hudson and his small band died a wretched death in the cold bay region.

Significance

Hudson’s name has been immortalized by its attachment to a river, a strait, and a bay. He was not the first explorer to discover the great northern river that would bear his name—that honor belongs to Giovanni da Verrazano. Yet Hudson deserves credit for making the river known to the Dutch, who then colonized the area they called New Amsterdam. Hudson’s work paved the way for Dutch colonization and influence in North America. Similarly, Hudson was not the first to pass through Hudson Strait and into Hudson Bay, but his ill-fated expedition publicized the region’s resources, and in later decades the area would see a flourishing fur trade. Hudson’s achievement was not so much the discovery of new areas as it was the careful exploration of and reporting on regions scarcely known.

Spitsbergen would not bear Hudson’s name, but his expedition there revealed the presence of whales, seals, and walruses in the region. The Dutch explorations had not reported on the abundance of whales at Spitsbergen. As a result of Hudson’s reports, English, Danish, and Dutch whalers plied the waters off Spitsbergen for three centuries.

Perhaps one of Hudson’s greatest achievements came by way of his greatest disappointment. His failure to find a northwest passage after careful search helped finally to dispel the persistent myth that a navigable waterway through or around the North American continent existed.

Bibliography

Asher, George M., ed. Henry Hudson the Navigator. London: Hakluyt Society, 1860. Reprint. New York: Burt Franklin, 1964. Asher collected a number of original accounts of Hudson’s voyages and added them to the 1625 account of Samuel Purchas. This collection includes the bulk of the narratives that were available up to 1860.

Barrow, John. A Chronological History of Voyages into the Arctic Regions: Undertaken Chiefly for the Purpose of Discovering a North-East, North-West, or Polar Passage Between the Atlantic and Pacific. London: John Murray, 1818. Reprint. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1971. Though an old work, it provides a useful narrative of the search for the Northwest Passage. Hudson’s journeys are described and set in the context of the ongoing search for a passage. The author, a secretary of the Admiralty, sought to stimulate further English exploration.

Janvier, Thomas A. Henry Hudson. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1909. Janvier appraises the aims and achievements of Hudson. One of the book’s chief claims to importance is the fact that it provides the previously unpublished testimony of six mutineers.

Johnson, Donald S. Charting the Darkness: The Four Voyages of Henry Hudson. Camden, Maine: International Marine, 1993. Reprint. New York: Kodansha Globe, 1995. The author uses Hudson’s original logs to recount his voyages.

Millman, Lawrence. “Looking for Henry Hudson.” Smithsonian 30, no. 7 (October, 1999): 100. Describes Hudson’s search for a northwest passage, providing information on the Half Moon’s voyage, the mutiny on Hudson’s final trip, and Hudson’s impact on the fur trade.

Murphy, Henry Cruse. Henry Hudson in Holland. New York: B. Franklin, 1972. A reprint of Murphy’s 1859 account of Hudson’s third voyage, along with notes, documents, and a bibliography.

Powys, Llewelyn. Henry Hudson. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1928. A well-written biography that makes the various characters in the drama of Hudson’s life come alive. Powys not only narrates the gripping story of a mariner’s adventures but also describes the personality of each of the mutineers.

Shuster, Carl. “Into the Great Bay.” Beaver 79, no. 4 (August/September, 1999): 8. The article, published in the journal of the Canadian National Historical Society, recounts Hudson’s exploration in Canada.

Thomson, George Malcolm. The Search for the North-West Passage. New York: Macmillan, 1975. A fascinating adventure narrative of the men who pursued the myth of a channel through the polar regions. There are only two chapters on Hudson, but they are among the most readable and accurate summaries available.