This Day in Exploration History (Hudson Marooned by Mutineers)

June 23, 1611—Having gotten his ship and crew intact through an icebound winter in desolate, then-unknown reaches of Canada, Henry Hudson was heading home when his men, embittered and hungry, mutinied. The 46-year-old English seaman, together with his 17-year-old son and seven supporters, was set adrift in a small, open boat. Neither Hudson nor the others in his small boat ever made it home to complete his fourth voyage in search of the Northwest Passage to Asia.


Early in the 20th century, in tones reminiscent of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Ulysses” (not surprising, as the British poet laureate was one of the three people that, he admitted, influenced him the most), Henry Van Dyke evoked the bravery of the embattled explorer in “Hudson’s Last Voyage”:




“For, mark me well, the honour of our life
Derives from this: to have a certain aim
Before us always, which our will must seek
Amid the peril of uncertain ways.
Then, though we miss the goal, our search is crowned
With courage, and we find along our path
A rich reward of unexpected things.
Press towards the aim: take fortune as it fares!”



Van Dyke’s attitude is no longer so widely shared. Like other explorers once lionized—Columbus, Magellan, James Cook, and Robert Scott—Hudson has come in for historical revisionism. Visionary, the Englishman might have been, the argument now goes, but the mutiny that blasted his hopes did not come out of nowhere. Hudson was at least partially responsible for his own misfortune.

On his prior voyage, Hudson--for the only time in his four voyages, in the service of Holland--broke his agreement with the Dutch East India Company return to Holland if his northeast voyage proved unsuccessful. Instead, he crossed the Atlantic, where, he had heard, a strait might take him through the American land mass to Asia. The voyage of the Half Moon is best known to us now because he explored the New York river now named for him. (Indeed, F. Scott Fitzgerald, in his rhapsodic ending to The Great Gatsby, alludes to “the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes-a fresh, green breast of the new world.”)

It would have been interesting to see what the Dutch East India Company would have done if Hudson made it back. But he and his crew were intercepted when they stopped in England, where, they were told, they could no longer enter the service of foreign powers. For his next voyage, then, Hudson would be back in the employ of the company that financed his first two trips.

As before, Hudson made great discoveries, including, between Greenland and Labrador, two bodies of water later named for him: Hudson Strait and Hudson Bay. But things came a cropper for him in the James Bay. He spent three months in the eastern part of the bay--an oddity, given that the object of his trip was to find a passage to the west. He continued there until well past the point when it was clear it offered no passage to the Pacific. Then, in November, his ship--the hopefully Discovery--became trapped in the winter ice.

Given that the boat lacked food and supplies, it was a miracle that all hands didn’t die over the next seven months they were trapped. But the crew suffered enough, and toward the end of that period, hunger combined with resentment got the better of the men.

Most of his men didn’t like what had been happening at all:

* In September, when they had a chance at an ample supply of food, Hudson disregarded his crew‘s pleas and pressed on.

* Hudson set anchor in the James instead of heading home when he could.

* Hudson gave one crew member, Henry Green, a gray gown, then took it back when Green displeased him.

* Many in the crew suspected their captain of hoarding food and doling it out to favorites.

* Hudson decided to demote captain’s mate Robert Juet and a boatswain. Why Hudson decided to act mid-voyage instead of at the end of his last one, when Juet had mutinied already on the trip to the northeast, is mysterious. But it left him with an enemy in his midst.

* Hudson promoted a carpenter who happened to be illiterate, leading the crew to believe “the Master and his ignorant Mate would carry the Ship whither the Master pleased.”

Once the mutiny unfolded, the captain was cast into the boat with a few supporters, a couple of crew members judged to be too old and infirm to last on the return voyage, and Hudson’s 17-year-old son John. (The famous image accompanying this post, by John Colliers, appears to lower the age of the teenager considerably. It heightens the pathos of the son—young Hudson even clings in fear to his father—but by taking some creative license with the facts.)

For awhile, Hudson’s tiny shallop attempted to keep pace with the larger ship, but once the Discovery hoisted another sail, the mother ship swiftly left its former captain and his small band to their own devices. They were never heard from again, and the only clue to their fate was discovered 20 years later, when another explorer came across the remains of a shelter, possibly erected by the castaways.

On the way home, Juet and Green were killed in an attack by Eskimos. This proved extremely convenient for the other mutineers, who could place most of the onus for the mutiny on their slain comrades.

Surprisingly, the Discovery survivors were prosecuted not for mutiny—of which they were manifestly guilty—but rather for murder, a far more difficult charge to prove. (After all, where were the bodies?) Naturally, they were acquitted of the latter charge. The unlikely prosecution strategy might have resulted from the need of the British East India Company and the Muscovy Company, the backers of the voyage, for seasoned hands who could continue to look for the Northwest Passage. By this reasoning, mutiny had to appear to be punished, but with no reasonable outlook for success.

It would take nearly three centuries and more tragedies (notably, the failure of Sir John Franklin’s 1845-47 expedition in the Arctic) before Scandinavian explorer Roald Amundsen made the full transit by sea and reached the long-unattainable goal of the Northwest Passage.
Ironically, global climate change has sparked speculation that melting icecaps in the North might make it easier for ships to traverse the routes that defeated Hudson, Franklin and many others.