Discovery of Cape Horn

Timeline

1. 1615Texel · TexelIsaac Le Maire formed the Australasian Company in Hoorn, sending his son Jacob and the experienced captain Schouten to find a new route south of the Strait of Magellan to the Pacific and the Spice Islands, bypassing the VOC's monopoly on the Strait of Magellan and Cape of Good Hope routes. The Eendracht and Hoorn sailed from Texel; the Hoorn was later destroyed by fire off the coast of Patagonia.
2. 1616Le Maire Strait · Le Maire StraitSouth of the Strait of Magellan, the Eendracht sighted a channel about eight miles wide, with Tierra del Fuego (which they called Mauritius Land) to the west and Staten Land (today's Staten Island) to the east. This channel, later called the Le Maire Strait, proved that Tierra del Fuego was not part of a southern continent and that open sea lay to the south, leading to the Pacific.
3. 1616Cape Horn · Cape HornOn January 29, the fleet sighted a towering, snow-capped headland at about 57°S, naming it Cape Horn after Schouten's hometown of Hoorn and the wrecked Hoorn. Two days later they rounded the cape in heavy seas into the Pacific, opening a new route around the southern tip of South America connecting the two oceans. Drake had earlier entered the waters to the south but had not identified or named this headland as the continent's southern tip.
4. 1616–1618Batavia · BataviaAfter crossing the Pacific, the fleet arrived at Batavia in October 1616. The VOC refused to recognize the new route as legitimate, confiscated the ships and cargo, and sent the two men back; Jacob Le Maire died on the return voyage. Schouten returned to Holland in 1617 and published his account the following year, spreading the name Cape Horn and the rounding route across Europe as an important passage in and out of the Pacific.