Frederick de Houtman (1571 – 21 October 1627), or
Frederik de Houtman, was a
DutchThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
explorer who sailed along the Western coast of
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
en route to
BataviaJakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. It also has a greater population than any other city in Southeast Asia. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa , Jayakarta , Batavia , and Djakarta . Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,489,910...
.
Frederick de Houtman was born in 1571 in
GoudaGouda is a city and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. Gouda, which was granted city rights in 1272, is famous for its Gouda cheese, smoking pipes and its 15th century city hall....
,
HollandRotterdam
The Hague
Haarlem
Dordrecht |} Holland is a name in common usage given to a region in the western part of the Netherlands. The name 'Holland' is also often informally used to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands...
,
Seventeen ProvincesThe Seventeen Provinces were a personal union of states in the Low Countries in the 15th century and 16th century, roughly covering the current Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, a good part of the North of France , and a small part of the West of Germany.The Seventeen Provinces were originally held...
.
He assisted fellow Dutch navigator
Pieter Dirkszoon KeyserPieter Dirkszoon Keyser , a.k.a. Petrus Theodori, was a Dutch navigator who mapped the southern sky....
with
astronomicalAstronomy is the scientific study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere...
observations during his first expedition from
HollandRotterdam
The Hague
Haarlem
Dordrecht |} Holland is a name in common usage given to a region in the western part of the Netherlands. The name 'Holland' is also often informally used to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands...
to the East Indies in 1595-1597.
During subsequent expeditions he added further stars to the list of those observed by Keyser.
Frederick de Houtman (1571 – 21 October 1627), or
Frederik de Houtman, was a
DutchThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
explorer who sailed along the Western coast of
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
en route to
BataviaJakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. It also has a greater population than any other city in Southeast Asia. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa , Jayakarta , Batavia , and Djakarta . Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,489,910...
.
Biography
Frederick de Houtman was born in 1571 in
GoudaGouda is a city and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. Gouda, which was granted city rights in 1272, is famous for its Gouda cheese, smoking pipes and its 15th century city hall....
,
HollandRotterdam
The Hague
Haarlem
Dordrecht |} Holland is a name in common usage given to a region in the western part of the Netherlands. The name 'Holland' is also often informally used to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands...
,
Seventeen ProvincesThe Seventeen Provinces were a personal union of states in the Low Countries in the 15th century and 16th century, roughly covering the current Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, a good part of the North of France , and a small part of the West of Germany.The Seventeen Provinces were originally held...
.
He assisted fellow Dutch navigator
Pieter Dirkszoon KeyserPieter Dirkszoon Keyser , a.k.a. Petrus Theodori, was a Dutch navigator who mapped the southern sky....
with
astronomicalAstronomy is the scientific study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere...
observations during his first expedition from
HollandRotterdam
The Hague
Haarlem
Dordrecht |} Holland is a name in common usage given to a region in the western part of the Netherlands. The name 'Holland' is also often informally used to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands...
to the East Indies in 1595-1597.
During subsequent expeditions he added further stars to the list of those observed by Keyser. Between them the
constellationIn modern astronomy, a constellation is an area of the celestial sphere, defined by exact boundaries.The term "constellation" can also be used loosely to refer to just the more prominent visible stars that seem to form a pattern in that area.-Definitions:...
s at the bottom of this article are credited to them as discoverors.
De Houtman was the elder brother of
Cornelis de HoutmanCornelis de Houtman , brother of Frederick de Houtman, was a Dutch explorer who discovered a new sea route from Europe to Indonesia and managed to begin the Dutch spice trade...
who in a second expedition in 1598-1599 was killed. Frederick was imprisoned by the
SultanSultan is an Islamic title, with several historical meanings. Originally it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", or "rulership", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power"...
of
AcehAceh is a special territory of Indonesia, located on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra. Its full name is Nanggröe Aceh Darussalam. Past spellings of its name include Acheh, Atjeh and Achin.It is thought to have been in Aceh where Islam was first established in Southeast Asia...
in northern
SumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world .-Etymology:Sumatra was known in ancient times by the Sanskrit...
, but made good use of his two years in prison by studying the local
Malay languageMalay is a group of languages closely related to each other to the point of mutual intelligibility but that linguists consider to be separate languages. They are grouped into a group called "Local Malay", part of a larger group called "Malayan" within the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the...
and making astronomical observations.
In 1603, after his return to Holland, Frederick published his stellar observations in an appendix to his dictionary and grammar of the Malayan and
MalagasyMadagascar, or Republic of Madagascar , is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the fourth-largest island in the world, and is home to 5% of the world's plant and animal species, of which more than 80% are endemic to...
languages (
Spraeck ende woordboeck inde Maleysche ende Madagaskarsche talen).
In 1619 he, in the VOC ship
Dordrecht and Jacob d'Edel, in another VOC ship
Amsterdam, sighted land on the Australian coast near present day
PerthPerth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. With a population of 1,650,000 , Perth ranks fourth amongst the nation's cities, with a growth rate consistently above the national average....
which they called
d'Edelsland. After sailing northwards along the coast he encountered and only narrowly avoided a group of shoals, subesequently called the
Houtman AbrolhosThe Houtman Abrolhos is a chain of 122 islands, and associated coral reefs, in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia. Nominally located at , it lies about eighty kilometres west of Geraldton, Western Australia...
. Houtman then made landfall in the region known as
Eendrachtsland which previous explorer
Dirk HartogDirk Hartog was a 17th century Dutch sailor and explorer. Dirk Hartog's expedition was the second European group to land on Australian soil. He left behind an artefact to record his visit, the Hartog plate. His name is sometimes alternately spelled Dirk Hartog, Dirck Hartog or Dirch Hartichs...
had encountered.
De Houtman died on 21 October 1627 in
AlkmaarAlkmaar is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of Noord Holland. Alkmaar is well-known for its traditional cheese market. For tourists, it is a popular cultural destination.-History:...
, Holland, Dutch Republic.