Henry Hudson's Half Moon Voyage (1609) up the Hudson River

Henry Hudson’s voyage on the Half Moon (Halve Maen) in 1609 was a Dutch East India Company expedition that explored the coast of North America and sailed up the river now named after him. Hudson was looking for a shortcut to Asia, and the river did not provide one. Yet his reports of a fertile land rich in furs led directly to Dutch trade in the region and the colony of New Netherland, whose capital, New Amsterdam, became New York City.

Background: an Englishman in Dutch service

Henry Hudson was an English navigator, probably born around 1565-1570, about whom little is known before 1607. In 1607 and 1608 he made two voyages for the English Muscovy Company in search of a northern route to China. The first reached Svalbard; the second tried to pass Novaya Zemlya and was blocked by ice.

The Dutch had been seeking a Northeast Passage since Willem Barentsz’s voyages in the 1590s. In January 1609 the Amsterdam chamber of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) hired Hudson to try again, sailing north of Novaya Zemlya. The contract told him to search only for that route and to return if he could not find it.

Hudson had other ideas. Through his friend, the English promoter and writer Richard Hakluyt, and from letters and maps sent by Captain John Smith in Virginia, he had heard of a possible sea passage across North America at around 40 degrees north. He seems to have kept this option in mind from the start.

The ship and crew

The Half Moon was a small, three-masted ship of a type the Dutch called a jacht, about 20 metres long. Its crew numbered around 16 to 20 English and Dutch sailors. The most important surviving source for the voyage is the journal of Robert Juet, Hudson’s English mate, published in 1625 by Samuel Purchas. Hudson’s own log has not survived, apart from fragments quoted by the Dutch historian Johannes de Laet.

What happened

From the Arctic to America

The Half Moon left Amsterdam in early April 1609 and headed for the waters off northern Norway. By May it was meeting ice and fog near the North Cape and the approaches to Novaya Zemlya. The crew, used to warmer East Indies voyages, grew restless, and there may have been a quarrel between the English and Dutch sailors.

Instead of returning home as his contract required, Hudson turned west across the Atlantic. In July he reached the coast of Nova Scotia or Maine, where the crew cut a new foremast and traded with local people. He then sailed south along the coast, passing Cape Cod in August.

By late August the Half Moon had reached the entrance to Chesapeake Bay, near the English colony at Jamestown, but Hudson did not go in. He turned north, briefly explored Delaware Bay, judged it too shallow, and continued up the coast of what is now New Jersey.

New York Bay

On 2 and 3 September 1609 the Half Moon reached Sandy Hook and anchored in the Lower Bay of New York. Over the following days the crew traded with the Lenape people, who brought tobacco, maize and other food in exchange for knives, beads and cloth. Juet’s journal records both friendly meetings and growing mistrust.

On 6 September a boat crew sent to explore the Narrows, the channel between Staten Island and Brooklyn, was attacked on its return. A sailor named John Colman was killed by an arrow in the throat and was buried on shore, at a spot the crew called Colman’s Point. Its exact location is not known.

Up the river

On 12 September the Half Moon entered the river. Hudson sailed north past Manhattan, the high cliffs now called the Palisades and the Highlands. The river was wide and deep, and the tide was felt far inland, which encouraged hope that it might lead to the Pacific.

Further north, near present-day Catskill and Albany, Hudson met the Mahican (Mohican) people. Accounts describe friendly feasting and trading; one account says that Hudson went ashore and was entertained by an elderly chief. Around 19 to 22 September the ship anchored near the site of Albany, about 240 km from the sea. A boat sent further upstream found the water too shallow. It was clear that the river was not a strait to Asia.

The return

On the way back down the river relations with local people worsened. Near the northern end of Manhattan, on 2 October 1609, a fight broke out with canoes that attacked the ship. Musket and cannon fire killed several Native Americans.

On 4 October the Half Moon left the river and crossed the Atlantic. Instead of sailing to Amsterdam, Hudson put in at Dartmouth in England on 7 November 1609. English authorities, unhappy that an Englishman was making discoveries for a rival nation, ordered him and the English crew members to stop sailing for the Dutch. The ship and Hudson’s reports were sent on to the Netherlands, arriving in 1610.

Key people

• Henry Hudson (c. 1565-1611): English navigator who made four voyages in search of a northern route to Asia.
• Robert Juet: Hudson’s mate and author of the main journal of the voyage. He later took part in the mutiny on Hudson’s final voyage.
• John Colman: English seaman killed near the Narrows on 6 September 1609.
• Lenape and Mahican peoples: the Native American nations living along the lower and upper river, whose trade with the crew showed the commercial value of the region.

Consequences

Hudson did not find a passage, but his account of the river was valuable. He described a fertile land with abundant timber, fish and, above all, beaver and otter furs. Dutch merchants quickly sent ships to trade. Adriaen Block explored the area in 1613-1614 and produced a map that first used the name “New Netherland”. The New Netherland Company received a trading monopoly in 1614.

In 1621 the Dutch West India Company was founded, and in 1624 it sent settlers who built Fort Orange near present-day Albany. In 1625-1626 the company established New Amsterdam on Manhattan. The colony was taken by England in 1664 and renamed New York.

For Native American peoples the consequences were profound. The fur trade brought European goods such as metal tools, cloth and firearms, but also new rivalries between nations competing to supply furs, epidemics of European diseases and, from the 1640s, wars with the Dutch colonists. Within a few generations the Lenape had lost most of their homeland along the lower river.

The voyage also changed European maps. Dutch cartographers soon showed the river and the surrounding coast in detail, and the Dutch claim to the land between the English colonies of Virginia and New England rested largely on Hudson’s exploration.

Hudson’s own story ended tragically. In 1610 he sailed again, this time for English backers, and his final voyage ended in mutiny in Hudson Bay in 1611.

Myths and facts

• Myth: Hudson discovered New York harbour. Giovanni da Verrazzano entered New York Bay in 1524. Hudson’s achievement was the detailed exploration of the river and the commercial interest it created.
• Myth: Hudson was Dutch. He was English, but sailed under contract to the Dutch company on this voyage.
• Myth: Hudson named the river after himself. The Dutch usually called it the North River or the Mauritius River, after Prince Maurice of Orange. The name “Hudson River” became common only later, especially under English rule. The Lenape and Mahican had their own names for it.
• Fact: in the same summer of 1609, the French explorer Samuel de Champlain reached the lake now named after him, roughly 150-200 km north of the furthest point of Hudson’s voyage.

Legacy

In 1909 New York held the Hudson-Fulton Celebration to mark 300 years since the voyage and 100 years since Robert Fulton’s steamboat on the river. A replica of the Half Moon was built in the Netherlands for the event, and another replica was launched in 1989. The voyage remains part of the founding story of New York and of the long relationship between New York and the Netherlands.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 1609, 8 January: The VOC signs a contract with Hudson to search for a Northeast Passage.
• 1609, early April: The Half Moon leaves Amsterdam.
• 1609, May: The ship meets ice off northern Norway; Hudson turns west.
• 1609, July: Landfall on the coast of Nova Scotia or Maine.
• 1609, late August: The Half Moon reaches the mouth of Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay.
• 1609, 3 September: The ship anchors in New York’s Lower Bay.
• 1609, 6 September: John Colman is killed near the Narrows.
• 1609, 12-22 September: Hudson sails up the river to the Albany area.
• 1609, 4 October: The Half Moon leaves the river for Europe.
• 1609, 7 November: Hudson arrives at Dartmouth, England.

Why it matters

Hudson’s 1609 voyage failed in its goal of finding a route to Asia, but it changed the map of North America. By drawing the Dutch to the river and its fur trade, it led to New Netherland and New Amsterdam, and so to the Dutch roots of one of the world’s great cities.