|
|||||||||||||||||
The British explorer Henry Hudson (?-1611) was hired by Hollands United East India Company to find a safe passage to the so-called Spice Islands of the East. Hudson had twice before attempted this feat for an English company. |
|||||
|
|||||
Hudson left Amsterdam on March 25, 1609, aboard the Half Moon, a small, 80-ton yacht with a crew of 18 sailors. Sailing along the coast of Norway, he reached the North Cape on May 5. Fearful of a setback in the Arctic waters and worried about quarreling among the Dutch and English sailors on his crew, he made a bold decision to head westward toward North America, following a map that his friend Captain John Smith had shown him. There he hoped to find a westward passage to the Far East -- an inlet that would lead to a river across America and into the Pacific. Hudson made landfall on Labrador and then began to head south along the coast. He entered Chesapeake Bay and stopped briefly at the mouth of the Delaware River before turning north again. In early September he entered what would later be called New York Harbor and the Hudson River. Still searching for a passage to the Far East, the Half Moon sailed almost as far north as present-day Albany before Hudson turned back, convinced by the increasingly shallow water that the river would not lead to the open sea. Although disappointed that he was unable to find the fabled route to Asia, Hudson was impressed by the wealth of the New World. The ship's log describes a country teeming with beaver, deer and otter and dotted with Indian villages that cultivated corn and beans. |
|||||
|