Frederick de Houtman ( – 21 October 1627) was a Dutch explorer, navigator, and colonial governor who sailed on the
first Dutch expedition to the East Indies
The First Dutch Expedition to East Indies (Dutch: ''Eerste Schipvaart'') was an expedition that took place from 1595 to 1597. It was instrumental in opening up the Indonesian spice trade to the merchants that eventually formed the Dutch Ea ...
from 1595 until 1597, during which time he made observations of the
southern celestial hemisphere
The southern celestial hemisphere, also called the Southern Sky, is the southern half of the celestial sphere; that is, it lies south of the celestial equator. This arbitrary sphere, on which seemingly fixed stars form constellations, appears ...
and contributed to the creation of 12 new southern
constellations
A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object.
The origins of the earliest constellation ...
.
Career
East Indies
De Houtman was born in
Gouda. De Houtman assisted fellow Dutch navigator
Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser
Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser (occasionally Petrus Theodorus; – 11 September 1596) was a Dutch navigator and celestial cartographer who mapped several constellations on the southern celestial hemisphere.
Voyages and star observation
Little is ...
with
astronomical observations during the
first Dutch expedition to the East Indies
The First Dutch Expedition to East Indies (Dutch: ''Eerste Schipvaart'') was an expedition that took place from 1595 to 1597. It was instrumental in opening up the Indonesian spice trade to the merchants that eventually formed the Dutch Ea ...
from 1595 until 1597. In 1598, de Houtman sailed on a second expedition led by his brother,
Cornelis de Houtman
Cornelis de Houtman (2 April 1565 – 1 September 1599) was a Dutch merchant seaman who commanded the first Dutch expedition to the East Indies. Although the voyage was difficult and yielded only a modest profit, Houtman showed that the Po ...
, who was killed during the voyage. Frederick was imprisoned by the
Sultan of Aceh
The Sultanate of Aceh, officially the Kingdom of Aceh Darussalam ( ace, Keurajeuën Acèh Darussalam; Jawoë: كاورجاون اچيه دارالسلام), was a sultanate centered in the modern-day Indonesian province of Aceh. It was a major ...
,
Alauddin Riayat Syah, in
northern Sumatra.
He used his two years of captivity—from September 1599 until August 1601—to study the local
Malay language
Malay (; ms, Bahasa Melayu, links=no, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , Rejang script, Rencong: ) is an Austronesian languages, Austronesian language that is an official language of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, and that is also spo ...
and to make astronomical observations. These observations supplemented those made by Keyser on the first expedition. The constellations formed from their observations were first published in 1597 or 1598 on a globe by
Petrus Plancius
Petrus Plancius (; 1552 – 15 May 1622) was a Dutch-Flemish astronomer, cartographer and clergyman. He was born as Pieter Platevoet in Dranouter, now in Heuvelland, West Flanders. He studied theology in Germany and England. At the age of 24 he ...
, and later globes incorporated adjustments based on De Houtman's later observations.
Credit for these constellations is generally assigned jointly to Keyser, De Houtman, and Plancius, though some of the underlying stars were known beforehand. The constellations are also widely associated with
Johann Bayer
Johann Bayer (1572 – 7 March 1625) was a German lawyer and uranographer (celestial cartographer). He was born in Rain, Lower Bavaria, in 1572. At twenty, in 1592 he began his study of philosophy and law at the University of Ingolstadt, a ...
, who included them in his celestial atlas, ''
Uranometria
''Uranometria'' is a star atlas produced by Johann Bayer. It was published in Augsburg in 1603 by Christoph Mangle (''Christophorus Mangus'') under the full title ''Uranometria: omnium asterismorum continens schemata, nova methodo delineata, a ...
'', in 1603. After De Houtman's return to Europe, De Houtman published his stellar observations in an appendix to his dictionary and grammar of the
Malayan and
Malagasy language
Malagasy (; ) is an Austronesian language and the national language of Madagascar. Malagasy is the westernmost Malayo-Polynesian language, brought to Madagascar by the settlement of Austronesian peoples from the Sunda islands around the 5th ce ...
s.
Australia
In 1619 De Houtman sailed in the
Dutch East India Company
The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...
ship , along with Jacob Dedel in the .
They sighted the Australian coast near present-day
Perth
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...
, which they called Dedelsland. After sailing northwards along the coast he encountered and only narrowly avoided a group of shoals, subsequently called the
Houtman Abrolhos
The Houtman Abrolhos (often called the Abrolhos Islands) is a chain of 122 islands and associated coral reefs, in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia, about west of Geraldton, Western Australia. It is the southernmost true coral ...
.
De Houtman then made landfall in the region known as
Eendrachtsland
Eendrachtsland or Eendraghtsland ( nl, het Landt van d'Eendracht and ) is an obsolete geographical name for an area centred on the Gascoyne region of Western Australia. Between 1616 and 1644, during the European age of exploration, ''Eendraghtsl ...
, which the explorer
Dirk Hartog
Dirk Hartog (; baptised 30 October 1580 – buried 11 October 1621) was a 17th-century Dutch sailor and explorer. Dirk Hartog's expedition was the second European group to land in Australia and the first to leave behind an artefact to record his ...
had encountered earlier. In his journal, De Houtman identified these coasts as
Locach Lochac, Locach or Locat is a country far south of China mentioned by Marco Polo. The name is widely believed to be a variant of ''Lo-huk'' 罗斛: the Cantonese name for the southern Thai kingdom of Lopburi (also known as Lavapura and Louvo), which ...
, mentioned by
Marco Polo
Marco Polo (, , ; 8 January 1324) was a Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. His travels are recorded in ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (also known as ''Book of the Marv ...
to have been a country far south of China and indicated as such on maps by cartographers
Plancius and
Linschoten.
See also
*
Dutch celestial cartography in the Age of Exploration
The history of cartography refers to the development and consequences of cartography, or mapmaking technology, throughout human history. Maps have been one of the most important human inventions for millennia, allowing humans to explain and navig ...
(
Early systematic mapping of the far southern sky, c. 1595–1599)
*
*
John Davis – English explorer who accompanied De Houtman on the first East Indies' expedition as its pilot
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
English
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Dutch
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External links
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Frederick de Houtman’s catalogue
{{DEFAULTSORT:Houtman, Frederick De
16th-century Dutch explorers
16th-century Dutch cartographers
17th-century Dutch cartographers
17th-century Dutch colonial governors
17th-century Dutch explorers
1570s births
1627 deaths
Cartography in the Dutch Republic
Dutch celestial cartography in the Age of Discovery
Dutch East India Company people
H
Explorers of Western Australia
People from Gouda, South Holland
Sailors on ships of the Dutch East India Company
Year of birth uncertain