Willem Schouten

Timeline

1. c. 1567–1615Hoorn · HoornSchouten grew up in the North Holland port of Hoorn and in his early years sailed the East Indies route as a merchant captain, familiar with the monsoons of the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean. In 1615 he and his brother Jan Schouten joined Isaac Le Maire's Australasia Company, preparing to find a new passage free of the East India Company's Strait of Magellan monopoly and to explore the unknown southern continent.
2. 1615–1616Cape Horn · Cape HornIn June 1615 Schouten and Jacob Le Maire sailed from Texel with the Eendracht and the Hoorn. After the Hoorn was destroyed by fire in Patagonia, the Eendracht passed through the Le Maire Strait between Tierra del Fuego and Staten Island in January 1616, and at month's end rounded the southern tip of South America, naming it Cape Horn after his hometown and the lost ship, proving a passage to the Pacific existed south of the Strait of Magellan.
3. 1616–1617Batavia · BataviaEntering the Pacific, the fleet resupplied at the Juan Fernández Islands, where Jan Schouten died of scurvy. Schouten and Le Maire continued via the Tuamotus, Tonga and the Hoorn Islands (present-day Futuna), then along New Ireland and the north coast of New Guinea to Ternate, entering Batavia in October 1616. The East India Company refused to recognize the new route, confiscated the ships and cargo, and sent the two men back. Le Maire died on the return voyage; Schouten reached Holland in July 1617 and later secured the publication of his log and charts.
4. 1618–1625Antongil Bay · Antongil BayBack in Holland, Schouten published his voyage account in 1618, spreading the name Cape Horn. He then entered the East India Company's service, continuing on Indian Ocean and Asian routes. In 1625 he died at Antongil Bay on the northeast coast of Madagascar while traveling to or from the East Indies. The Cape Horn route he opened later became a common passage for European ships into and out of the Pacific.