Willem Cornelisz Schouten (
1567?,
Hoorn -
1625,
Antongil Bay) was a
Dutch navigator.
In 1615 Willem Cornelisz Schouten and Jacob le Maire sailed from Texel in the Netherlands, in command of an expedition sponsored by the Australische Compagnie whose objective was to evade the trade restrictions of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) by finding a new route to the Pacific and the Spice Islands. In 1616 he rounded Cape Horn, which he named for his birthplace, the Dutch city of Hoorn. He followed the north coasts of New Ireland and New Guinea and visited adjacent islands, including what became known as the Schouten Islands.
Although he had opened an unknown route, the VOC claimed infringement of its monopoly of trade to the Spice Islands. Schouten was arrested (and later released) and his ship confiscated in Java. On his return he would sail again for the VOC, and on one of these trips he died of the coast of Madagascar. He was buried in the Noorderkerk in Hoorn.
Schouten described his travels in his Journal, published in a Dutch edition in Amsterdam in 1618 but soon translated into several other languages.
