Willem Schouten

Willem Schouten
Willem Schouten by Mattheus Merian in 1631
Born	c. 1567 Hoorn, Holland, Seventeen Provinces
Died	1625 Antongil Bay
Nationality	Dutch
Occupation	Navigator

Willem Cornelisz Schouten (c. 1567 – 1625) was a Dutch navigator for the Dutch East India Company. He was the first to sail the Cape Horn route to the Pacific Ocean.

Willem Cornelisz Schouten was born in c. 1567 in Hoorn, Holland, Seventeen Provinces.

In 1615 Willem Cornelisz Schouten and his younger brother Jan Schouten sailed from Texel in the Netherlands, in an expedition led by Jacob le Maire and sponsored by Isaac Le Maire and his Australische Compagnie in equal shares with Schouten. The expedition consisted of two ships: Eenddracht and Hoorn. A main purpose of the voyage was to search for Terra Australis. A further objective was to explore a western route to the Pacific Ocean to evade the trade restrictions of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the Spice Islands. In 1616 Schouten rounded Cape Horn, which he named after the recently destroyed ship Hoorn, and the Dutch city of Hoorn, after which the lost ship was named, the town in which Schouten himself was born. Schouten named the strait itself "Le Marie Strait". Jan Schouten died on 9 March 1616 after the expedition left Juan Fernández. He crossed the Pacific along a southern role, discovering a number of atolls in the Tuamotu Islands, including Pukapuka, Manihi, Rangiroa and Takapoto, followed by Tafahi, Niuafoʻou and Niuatoputapu in the Tonga Islands, and Alofi and Futuna in the Wallis and Futuna Islands. He then followed the north coasts of New Ireland and New Guinea and visited adjacent islands, including what became known as the Schouten Islands before reaching Ternate in September 1616.