December 1, 2014 • 24 mins
Henry Hudson's voyages have all the makings of a juicy story: maritime exploration, horrible treatment of indigenous peoples, treacherous waters, treacherous shipmen, a mercenary switch in loyalties to countries, mutiny -- even a mermaid sighting.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you stuff you missed in history class from
how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Frum and I'm Tracy D. Wilson. And the
topic today was actually one that was suggested by our
senior editor, Allison, after she stumbled across a little bit
(00:22):
of information about it. She came running over to my
death and said, you know who you should do? Uh,
And she was spot on about the interesting nature of
the story. It's got everything, so those of you who
love maritime exploration covered. Unfortunately, there's also horrible treatment of
indigenous people's their treacherous treacherous waters, treacherous shipman, a mercenary switch,
and loyalty to countries. There's some mutiny action and there's
(00:45):
even a little bit of mermaid action going on. So
it's a pretty full tale, so full in fact, that
we had to round it out into two episodes because
it ran super duper long. So we are going to
be talking today about Henry Hudson, who was an explorer
and commander of ocean vessels, and the four voyages that
he took while he was trying to suss out a
(01:05):
new trade route for various different bosses, and it is
a wild ride. It is also a cold ride, so
pack packet jacket or sweater and maybe bring up flotation best. So,
as is often the case when we go this far
back in history of the case where pretty much Henry
Hudson appeared on the world stage fully formed as an
(01:26):
adult human. We know he was born sometime around fifteen
sixty five, but we don't really know exactly when, and
various accounts suggest that it could have been any time
in the fifteen sixties or fifteen seventies. We also know
that he was born in England, and that's basically all
we know about the entirety of his youth and even
his early adulthood. Even the portraits that are usually identified
(01:50):
of him as a young man or a child could
really be someone else, And there's not a lot of certainty,
and instead a whole lot of wobbliness about his whole
life outside of the maritime adventures that wind up making
him historically famous. Yeah, there's some historians that think that
even the portraits that were painted of him as an
adult were painted after the fact and taken just from
(02:12):
random descriptions, and they may or might not actually look
like him at all. Uh. We do know that he
did marry at some point, and that he and his
wife Katherine, we do not know her maiden name, had
three sons together, named Richard, John, and Oliver. He's just
not really much in the record until seven. He was
a ship's commander by that time, and that marked his
(02:35):
first major voyage, and prior to that he has to
have had some kind of seafaring experience to have risen
up to the role of commander. So there's all kinds
of speculation that he probably, as you would expect, started
in a low ranking role and then worked his way up. Yeah,
but that's literally just stabs in the dark. We do
not know. All we know is that it would be
(02:55):
really bizarre and freaky if someone just said, here, you
want to be a commander. So it's assumed by most
historians that he either learned from local uh sea vessels,
or he traveled with other sailors and kind of picked
up the trade that way, or he did the usual
like start as the you know, cabin boy and slowly
came up through the ranks. But it's still a mystery.
(03:18):
So on that six seven voyage that Tracy mentioned, Hudson
was employed by an English firm called the Muscovy Company,
and his family actually had a lot of connections to
this company, and his directive was to find a northern
passage to Asia. And Hudson was chosen by the directors
of the Muscovy Company because he had quote secret information
(03:38):
that would help him navigate a new passage. At this point,
there was a huge competition going on globally to try
to secure better shipping routes two more lucrative trade locations.
Both private companies and governments were sending expeditions out hoping
to be the first to discover some previously unknown passage,
particularly to India or a Uh. Yeah, those were very
(04:03):
lucrative places to trade, and you had to do a
lot of wheeling and dealing to get sort of land
based trade routes passable. We'll talk about that a little
bit in one of the upcoming voyages. So the secret
information that Hudson was believed to have had was most
likely a pamphlet that was written eighty years earlier, so
decades earlier by an agent of the Bristol Trading Company
(04:25):
named Robert Thorne that suggested a northern passage to Cafe
Commanding a vessel named the Hope Well, Hudson set out
from London on April. The crew included William Collins who
was the mate, James Young, John Coleman, who was the Boston,
John Cook, James Bobery, James Scratton, John Place, Thomas Baxter,
(04:50):
Richard Day, James Knight, and Henry's son John Hudson as
the ship's boy. And the first of Hudson's four lifetime
trips was actually plagued by ice in its early stages,
which ended up cutting things a little bit short. This
is a theme that's going to play out over and
over throughout this whole story. Uh. Though the voyage had
begun in spring to hedge bets for favorable weather, the
(05:12):
winter persisted and really caused problems. And the thinking had
been that because the Northern Pole received five months of
continuous daylight and sunshine, that it was going to be
unfrozen in smooth sailing in the spring, but that theory
was of course not correct. Hudson and his crew managed
to reach Greenland in early June. They spent two weeks
(05:34):
mapping the coastline before turning northeast towards Spitzbergen. Island and
that's where they discovered areas populated by pods of whales.
This was really lucrative information for the whaling industry. Hudson
and his career then spent the next several months exploring
and mapping the islands around Greenland. Yet said that once
(05:55):
that news got back to um London and then spread,
there were just whaling ships kind of swarming the area,
which is unfortunate, uh, but interesting and as we said,
unfortunately lucrative part of this voyage, But the ongoing frozen
conditions really meant that no new passages or trade routes
were going to be discovered this time around. The voyage
(06:18):
was finally called off when they just could go no further,
and the Hope Well returned to England on September. And
in addition to the whale locations, the voyage was noteworthy
because it had traveled farther north than any other known
expedition at the time. And before we get to his
second voyage, which he began planning immediately, do you want
(06:38):
to take a word from a sponsor, let's do so.
After that somewhat disappointing first voyage in seven, Hudson spent
the winter, preparing to make another go at finding a
northern passage to Asia. So he had gotten back in September,
and then he basically just buckled down and did tons
of research and map reading and plotting of courses uh
(06:59):
and this time the plan was going to be to
travel north of Russia through the Arctic waters, still trying
to find that passage to Asia. The voyage once again
set out in the spring, and this time it was
on April twenty six eight. Hudson once again took the
Hope Well and his crew was quite tiny. It was
only fourteen men, plus his son John. Only three of
(07:20):
those fourteen men had been with him on the first voyage,
so he had quite a bit of turnover. The crew
members included Robert Jewett, who was the master's mate. He
recorded his own accounts of Hudson's travels, and he will
become a rather pivotal character later on in the story.
Also traveling with him where Arnold Lovelow, John Cook, who
was the bos in, Philip Stacey, who was a carpenter,
(07:40):
John Barnes, John Braunch who was a cook, John Andrey,
James Strutton, Michael Fierce, Thomas Hills, Richard Thompson, Robert Rayner,
and Humphrey Gilby. The Muscovie company was pretty fearful at
this point that if sorry Ivan the Terrible died, England
was gonna lose its access to land passages for trade
(08:01):
that Russia had controlled. So they really really wanted Hudson
to figure out a new way to go by sea. Yeah,
they really wanted to hedge their bets so that they
would have some options other than land travel for trade.
But once again, you know, they're still going into the
same latitudes at the same time, so I see conditions
impeded progress. Several of the crew members, including the carpenter
(08:24):
who was on board, to continue the reinforcement of the
ship that had begun at port so that they could
hopefully have a better go at these icy waters were
taken quite ill very early on. Hudson was able to
get to the archipelago of Novaya Zemilia, but he couldn't
go any farther. He tried to go south into the
Kara Sea, but that was frozen, and at this point
(08:46):
Hudson was starting to have some problems with his crew.
After the blockage at Nevaa, Zemilia, which happened at the
beginning of July. He had actually decided that what he
was gonna do was head to North America, but he
didn't all the crew. Uh So, as they turned away
from the Russian archipelago, the men aboard thought that they
were calling it quits like the first voyage had, and
(09:08):
that they were headed home. It was August when the
men finally realized that they were not going back to London,
and there was almost a mutiny when the decision finally
was made to return to England and abort the mission
yet again. Hudson wrote that the crew had not forced
his hand in the matter. This is often speculated to
have either been written under darrest or as a means
(09:30):
to placate the crew in the face of a potential coup. Yeah,
it was clear, based on the journals that were being
kept by the people aboard that that were literate, that
they were unhappy with him, and I think there was
concern that, uh, you know, they would somehow be in
trouble that the voyage had ended. But in his journal
Hudson wrote, quote, I used all diligence to arrive at London,
(09:52):
and therefore I now gave my crew a certificate under
my hand of my free and willing return without persuasion
or forced by anyone or more of them. For when
we were at Nova Zemlia on sixth of July, void
of hope of a northeast passage, I therefore resolved to
use all means I could to sail to the northwest.
To me, that would sound so suspicious, like if you
(10:15):
were a boss in a company and you got to
note that said we had to cut the voyage short.
No one made me do it, Like, yeah, it does
sound when an eyebrow, he's protesting a little too much
on that uh. Accounts also indicate that even at the
start of the journey, Hudson and Jewett had had some
kind of conflict between the two of them, and Hudson
(10:37):
described him as quote a man of mean tempers. And
because Hudson had failed to find a see passage to
Asia a second time, the Muscovy company was really pretty
uninterested in pursuing the idea. Further to their thinking, two
times out, they really didn't get very far, so it's
probably not worth throwing more resources at this. And they
(10:58):
had also lost all faith in Hudson, and so when
he came back and requested to make a third attempt
at finding a northern passage to Asia. He was flatly refused.
The most interesting footnote from the eight voyage is probably
the log entry on when they spotted the mermaid on June.
Crewman Thomas Hills and Robert Rayner were the first to
(11:19):
see it and yelled for the rest of the crew
to come and see. Hudson described the mermaid really matter
of fact Lee in his entry, is having long black hair,
pale skin, a woman's breasts, and the tail of a
purpose which was speckled like a mackerel. His log indicated
that she looked quote earnestly on the men as they
gathered on the side of the ship to look at her. Yeah,
(11:42):
he pretty clearly believed mermaids were a real thing. There's
no like speculation about was this some sea animal, whether
he's like there was a mermaid, we saw it. Here
are the details. It's kind of interesting. Before we get
to his third voyage, do you want to take a
word from a sponsor, Let's do that. So at this
point Hudson is back in England. He really wants to
(12:06):
continue his exploration. He feels like he has some plans
and ideas that will get him further than these previous
two attempts. But he really could not find any backers
in England. His reputation was pretty damaged at that point,
so instead he joined up with one of England's rivals
in this whole world trade uh race, which was the
(12:28):
Dutch East India Company, and he hooked up with them
in sixteen o nine. His new employers made Hudson commander
of a ship named the half Moon and sent him
on a mission that basically had the same orders as before.
He was supposed to find a passage to Asia via
the waters north of Russia, and the half Moon was
(12:49):
apparently not a great vessel. It was a little bit
old that needed some work, It sat high in the water.
It was expected that it was going to be troublesome
if they encountered any type of inclement weather heavy winds,
and Hudson actually tried to petition his new bosses to
try to get a different ship for the voyage, but
he received a reply from the Dutch East India Company
(13:10):
that said, quote, the half Moon is the only ship
at the disposal of the Dutch East India Company. We
can give you no other ship. If you do not
want the half moon. The company will be obliged to
find another captain to carry out this assignment. His contract
with the Dutch East India Company was really specific about
the objectives that Hudson was supposed to meet, and it
was even stipulated that his wife and children had to
(13:32):
live in Holland under the care of the company while
he was to be at sea. There was also a
really clear stipulation that all journals and logs kept by
Hudson would be turned over to the company at the
end of the voyage. Once again, on this voyage, confronted
by impassable ice, Hudson made the exact same decision that
he had attempted to follow through on with his second
(13:53):
voyage when he was working for the Muscobie Company. He
headed for North America. He thought there might be a
passage to the Pacific Ocean through the North American continent,
and their speculation that he may have heard this first
through famed explorer and his friend John Smith, maybe because
they knew of his somewhat rash decision during the second voyage,
(14:13):
or maybe because they knew he had been discussing North
America with John Smith. The Dutch East India Company amended
his mission contract before the half moon set sail and
this amendment included the word the wording that Hudson was
quote to think of discovering no other route or passage
except the route around the north or northeast above Nova. ZEMBLA. Yeah, hey,
(14:38):
don't get any funny ideas like last time around Champ
you will be a breach of contract. Uh. Apparently he
didn't feels so strongly about that agreement. But we'll get
to that just a bit. So the crew that he
took with him number between sixteen and twenty. Accounts differ,
and most of them say that twenty would be a
very large crew, but somebody say that there were to money. Uh.
(15:00):
They included both English and Dutch sailors, and there was
a huge language gap between them because they did not
speak each other's language, nor did they speak any language
that any of them had in common. Uh. They also
have different seafaring experience. Some of them were accustomed to
cold water, some are accustomed to warmer waters. Their experiences
did not really overlap. This made for a general distrust
(15:24):
among them, like they all felt that the others weren't
as experienced or weren't going to be as able to
cope with changing situations as as they were. You know,
it was kind of a problem. So in his journal, Jewett,
who despite having friction with Hudson, was on board for
this third voyage, described the Dutch sailors as quote an
ugly lot. Because of the requirement that Hudson hand over
(15:48):
its journals to the company after the voyage, Jewet's accounts
are pretty much everything we know about it. Yeah, so
it's there's some bias there. Probably. They're pretty basic journals
and you can read all of them online and we
will include a link to his journals from this voyage.
But what we know is that in April the half
(16:08):
Moons set out from Amsterdam, and by mid to late
May it became parent apparent that once again getting beyond
Novaya Zemia was going to be impossible. Yet again, it's
kind of that thing where people keep saying, if you
keep trying the same thing over and over expecting a
different result, you're kind of an idiot. Um he kind
of was doing that. Uh. The crew was once again unhappy,
(16:32):
They were cold, They were distrustful of Hudson's leadership because
the few that were repeats from the last voyage were
like didn't we just do this? Uh? And some level
of revolt did take place, though not a full mutiny,
and Hudson did indeed turn towards North America. Unlike in
the second voyage, though Hudson told the crew about the plan,
(16:52):
and he actually offered them a choice. They could use
the information he had, which included maps and notes from
John Smith, to had for warmer waters, or they could
keep on trying to force their way through the icy
waters of davis Is straight at the north end of
the Labrador Sea to try to find a passage to Asia,
since a northeast passage really seemed impossible. So not very surprisingly,
(17:16):
the crew opted to head for warmer waters. Yeah, and
just for clarity, So he offered them a choice, but
they were He was still like, we're going through North America.
We can either go north through the really cold part
or go a little south through the warmer part. So
they had a choice, but it still was his plan
to completely reverse their their initial um orders, and despite
(17:38):
traveling through some incredibly rough storms and be slightly delayed
at one point by trying to chase another ship down
for a period of time, and it's speculated that they
were after them for plunder, to steal their booty or
their supplies. The Half Moon did indeed reach North America
uh they landed in what is now Nova Scotia in
July of six nine. The half Moon traveled down the
(18:01):
American coast, exploring and making contact with Native Americans, and
while Jewett describes the natives as friendly and welcoming in
his journals, he's also very clear that he didn't trust
them to It's journals detail all kinds of ill behavior
on the part of the half Moon's crew toward the
Native Americans that they encountered. There are lots of tales
(18:22):
of theft and looting and even kidnapping. In his daily entries.
They kept on encountering and interacting with Natives along their
journey despite their very obvious xenophobia. Yeah, I feel compelled
to point out it was not uncommon for explorers who
landed in North America or any foreign lands to kidnap
(18:42):
the natives of those lands or the indigenous peoples and
try to bring them back to Europe as sort of novelties.
So it's not unusual that they did that. Still reprehensible,
but pretty common in the day. And you know, they
kind of just thought they were exploiting people that were
not equal to them. So they were just they just
felt like they were entitled to go and steal their
(19:03):
things and do horrible things. It's quite awful. But we
are going to cliffhang you there. So we are mid
voyage and we know that, but things are about to
take a pretty significant turn. Uh. And so rather than
delve into that now, which we do not really have
time to get deep into, We're going to save that
for the next time. Uh. And instead we're gonna shift
(19:25):
gears and go to listener mail. And I have a
piece of mail from our listener, Miss Jade, and it
is about our House of Worth podcast. Uh. Jade says, Hello, ladies.
I'm an avid listener and was so extremely excited to
listen to the recent episode on the House of Worth.
I'm a professional seamstress and costume designer. Listening to the
podcast has certainly gotten me through some very long days
(19:47):
in the shop. I share Holly's love of not only
historical clothing, but also of undergarments and foundation garments. I'm
still trying to sift through the archives to find your
podcast on undergarments that you recently mentioned on this show.
That was a wild back. I want to say that
was fall to help narrow that for her. Uh, it
was lovely to learn about the life of Worth himself
as well as the brand. There was one thing that
stuck out to me, however, that was a bit off.
(20:09):
It was the use of the word stitcher in regards
to the people that soaked could tour garments. The correct
word is seamstress, as stitcher implies a machine operator and
not one with exacting skills and garment construction. A stitcher
is someone who, say so, is the left patch pocket
on a pair of jeans and a dentom factory for
twenty years many people in the business of making bespoke
garments get their panties in a wrinkle about language here,
(20:31):
seamstress is gender specific, and we haven't quite figured out
a way around that yet, as there are many men
out there that are quite skilled in garment construction as well. Taylor. Traditionally,
a trade and title held by men is actually a
specific skill set separate from being a seamstress, though you
can of course be both, like myself. There are different
camps about the interchangeable use of the word stitcher and seamstress,
(20:51):
but especially when speaking to people who are in the
business of constructing tour garments. Uh, these people are masters
of the art. So maybe I cleared that up, just
muddied the water. Uh, I alo a long time ago.
This is one of my personal pecadillo's. I just kind
of adopted stitcher for everything because of the very reasons
she points out. Uh, seems stress doesn't apply to everyone,
(21:15):
and it seems weird to use ditto with taylor, even
though I feel while taylor is usually associated with men,
just as a word on its own, it feels less
male specific to me. So I will use that interchangeably
with men and women. But I do tend to use stitcher.
And I certainly don't mean to offend anyone who is
an accomplished couture sower. It's just for me. It seems
(21:39):
just really bothers me because I feel like it's exclusionary. Um.
But I do understand, like she pointed out, there are
many camps and schools of thought on this, and uh
not everyone feels the same about it. So but it's
a great thing to point out and think about. It's
one of those things I probably should have mentioned the podcast,
so my apologies that I didn't, because those are those
(21:59):
words that are they become very specific and emblematic of
certain sort of levels of of skill and degrees of knowledge.
And it's kind of like how when I worked in
the library for a long time, people always wanted to
call me a librarian, but I was not. I do
not have a master of library science, and I would
try to correct them, but eventually I got tired and
just said whatever works, which I meant no disrespect to
(22:21):
the actual librarians in my life, but sometimes you get
into a very awkward discussion that becomes about esoteric nomenclature
to the average person. So that is the scoop, And
then many thanks to Jade for pointing out that little
uh gap in gap in mind um information that I shared.
If you would like to write to us, you can
do so History podcast at house to Works dot com.
(22:43):
You can connect with us on Twitter at mist in History,
at Facebook dot com slash mist in history and missed
Industry dot tumbler dot com, and at pinterest dot com
slash misst in history. You can also get Delightful misst
in History merchandize at mist in history dot spreadshirt dot com.
If you would like to research uh a little bit
of info related to what we talked about today, you
(23:04):
can go to our parents site, how stuff Works. Type
in the words famous explorers and you are going to
get loads of stuff, a lot of brief articles on
famous explorers throughout history. Uh in putting Henry Hipson. If
you would like to visit us on our history website,
you can go to misston history dot com. You will
get archive of every episode that has ever been done,
as well as show notes for the more recent episodes
(23:26):
since Tracy and I have been on the podcast, as
well as the occasional blog post. And if you get
to look at the fun pictures that we associate with
different podcasts wrote them I often like because not very
visual person. But you can do that and a whole
lot more at our parents site, house stuff works dot
com and our site missed at history dot com. For
(23:48):
more on this and thousands of other topics, it has
to works dot cal
Welcome to you stuff you missed in history class from
how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Frum and I'm Tracy D. Wilson. And the
topic today was actually one that was suggested by our
senior editor, Allison, after she stumbled across a little bit
(00:22):
of information about it. She came running over to my
death and said, you know who you should do? Uh,
And she was spot on about the interesting nature of
the story. It's got everything, so those of you who
love maritime exploration covered. Unfortunately, there's also horrible treatment of
indigenous people's their treacherous treacherous waters, treacherous shipman, a mercenary switch,
and loyalty to countries. There's some mutiny action and there's
(00:45):
even a little bit of mermaid action going on. So
it's a pretty full tale, so full in fact, that
we had to round it out into two episodes because
it ran super duper long. So we are going to
be talking today about Henry Hudson, who was an explorer
and commander of ocean vessels, and the four voyages that
he took while he was trying to suss out a
(01:05):
new trade route for various different bosses, and it is
a wild ride. It is also a cold ride, so
pack packet jacket or sweater and maybe bring up flotation best. So,
as is often the case when we go this far
back in history of the case where pretty much Henry
Hudson appeared on the world stage fully formed as an
(01:26):
adult human. We know he was born sometime around fifteen
sixty five, but we don't really know exactly when, and
various accounts suggest that it could have been any time
in the fifteen sixties or fifteen seventies. We also know
that he was born in England, and that's basically all
we know about the entirety of his youth and even
his early adulthood. Even the portraits that are usually identified
(01:50):
of him as a young man or a child could
really be someone else, And there's not a lot of certainty,
and instead a whole lot of wobbliness about his whole
life outside of the maritime adventures that wind up making
him historically famous. Yeah, there's some historians that think that
even the portraits that were painted of him as an
adult were painted after the fact and taken just from
(02:12):
random descriptions, and they may or might not actually look
like him at all. Uh. We do know that he
did marry at some point, and that he and his
wife Katherine, we do not know her maiden name, had
three sons together, named Richard, John, and Oliver. He's just
not really much in the record until seven. He was
a ship's commander by that time, and that marked his
(02:35):
first major voyage, and prior to that he has to
have had some kind of seafaring experience to have risen
up to the role of commander. So there's all kinds
of speculation that he probably, as you would expect, started
in a low ranking role and then worked his way up. Yeah,
but that's literally just stabs in the dark. We do
not know. All we know is that it would be
(02:55):
really bizarre and freaky if someone just said, here, you
want to be a commander. So it's assumed by most
historians that he either learned from local uh sea vessels,
or he traveled with other sailors and kind of picked
up the trade that way, or he did the usual
like start as the you know, cabin boy and slowly
came up through the ranks. But it's still a mystery.
(03:18):
So on that six seven voyage that Tracy mentioned, Hudson
was employed by an English firm called the Muscovy Company,
and his family actually had a lot of connections to
this company, and his directive was to find a northern
passage to Asia. And Hudson was chosen by the directors
of the Muscovy Company because he had quote secret information
(03:38):
that would help him navigate a new passage. At this point,
there was a huge competition going on globally to try
to secure better shipping routes two more lucrative trade locations.
Both private companies and governments were sending expeditions out hoping
to be the first to discover some previously unknown passage,
particularly to India or a Uh. Yeah, those were very
(04:03):
lucrative places to trade, and you had to do a
lot of wheeling and dealing to get sort of land
based trade routes passable. We'll talk about that a little
bit in one of the upcoming voyages. So the secret
information that Hudson was believed to have had was most
likely a pamphlet that was written eighty years earlier, so
decades earlier by an agent of the Bristol Trading Company
(04:25):
named Robert Thorne that suggested a northern passage to Cafe
Commanding a vessel named the Hope Well, Hudson set out
from London on April. The crew included William Collins who
was the mate, James Young, John Coleman, who was the Boston,
John Cook, James Bobery, James Scratton, John Place, Thomas Baxter,
(04:50):
Richard Day, James Knight, and Henry's son John Hudson as
the ship's boy. And the first of Hudson's four lifetime
trips was actually plagued by ice in its early stages,
which ended up cutting things a little bit short. This
is a theme that's going to play out over and
over throughout this whole story. Uh. Though the voyage had
begun in spring to hedge bets for favorable weather, the
(05:12):
winter persisted and really caused problems. And the thinking had
been that because the Northern Pole received five months of
continuous daylight and sunshine, that it was going to be
unfrozen in smooth sailing in the spring, but that theory
was of course not correct. Hudson and his crew managed
to reach Greenland in early June. They spent two weeks
(05:34):
mapping the coastline before turning northeast towards Spitzbergen. Island and
that's where they discovered areas populated by pods of whales.
This was really lucrative information for the whaling industry. Hudson
and his career then spent the next several months exploring
and mapping the islands around Greenland. Yet said that once
(05:55):
that news got back to um London and then spread,
there were just whaling ships kind of swarming the area,
which is unfortunate, uh, but interesting and as we said,
unfortunately lucrative part of this voyage, But the ongoing frozen
conditions really meant that no new passages or trade routes
were going to be discovered this time around. The voyage
(06:18):
was finally called off when they just could go no further,
and the Hope Well returned to England on September. And
in addition to the whale locations, the voyage was noteworthy
because it had traveled farther north than any other known
expedition at the time. And before we get to his
second voyage, which he began planning immediately, do you want
(06:38):
to take a word from a sponsor, let's do so.
After that somewhat disappointing first voyage in seven, Hudson spent
the winter, preparing to make another go at finding a
northern passage to Asia. So he had gotten back in September,
and then he basically just buckled down and did tons
of research and map reading and plotting of courses uh
(06:59):
and this time the plan was going to be to
travel north of Russia through the Arctic waters, still trying
to find that passage to Asia. The voyage once again
set out in the spring, and this time it was
on April twenty six eight. Hudson once again took the
Hope Well and his crew was quite tiny. It was
only fourteen men, plus his son John. Only three of
(07:20):
those fourteen men had been with him on the first voyage,
so he had quite a bit of turnover. The crew
members included Robert Jewett, who was the master's mate. He
recorded his own accounts of Hudson's travels, and he will
become a rather pivotal character later on in the story.
Also traveling with him where Arnold Lovelow, John Cook, who
was the bos in, Philip Stacey, who was a carpenter,
(07:40):
John Barnes, John Braunch who was a cook, John Andrey,
James Strutton, Michael Fierce, Thomas Hills, Richard Thompson, Robert Rayner,
and Humphrey Gilby. The Muscovie company was pretty fearful at
this point that if sorry Ivan the Terrible died, England
was gonna lose its access to land passages for trade
(08:01):
that Russia had controlled. So they really really wanted Hudson
to figure out a new way to go by sea. Yeah,
they really wanted to hedge their bets so that they
would have some options other than land travel for trade.
But once again, you know, they're still going into the
same latitudes at the same time, so I see conditions
impeded progress. Several of the crew members, including the carpenter
(08:24):
who was on board, to continue the reinforcement of the
ship that had begun at port so that they could
hopefully have a better go at these icy waters were
taken quite ill very early on. Hudson was able to
get to the archipelago of Novaya Zemilia, but he couldn't
go any farther. He tried to go south into the
Kara Sea, but that was frozen, and at this point
(08:46):
Hudson was starting to have some problems with his crew.
After the blockage at Nevaa, Zemilia, which happened at the
beginning of July. He had actually decided that what he
was gonna do was head to North America, but he
didn't all the crew. Uh So, as they turned away
from the Russian archipelago, the men aboard thought that they
were calling it quits like the first voyage had, and
(09:08):
that they were headed home. It was August when the
men finally realized that they were not going back to London,
and there was almost a mutiny when the decision finally
was made to return to England and abort the mission
yet again. Hudson wrote that the crew had not forced
his hand in the matter. This is often speculated to
have either been written under darrest or as a means
(09:30):
to placate the crew in the face of a potential coup. Yeah,
it was clear, based on the journals that were being
kept by the people aboard that that were literate, that
they were unhappy with him, and I think there was
concern that, uh, you know, they would somehow be in
trouble that the voyage had ended. But in his journal
Hudson wrote, quote, I used all diligence to arrive at London,
(09:52):
and therefore I now gave my crew a certificate under
my hand of my free and willing return without persuasion
or forced by anyone or more of them. For when
we were at Nova Zemlia on sixth of July, void
of hope of a northeast passage, I therefore resolved to
use all means I could to sail to the northwest.
To me, that would sound so suspicious, like if you
(10:15):
were a boss in a company and you got to
note that said we had to cut the voyage short.
No one made me do it, Like, yeah, it does
sound when an eyebrow, he's protesting a little too much
on that uh. Accounts also indicate that even at the
start of the journey, Hudson and Jewett had had some
kind of conflict between the two of them, and Hudson
(10:37):
described him as quote a man of mean tempers. And
because Hudson had failed to find a see passage to
Asia a second time, the Muscovy company was really pretty
uninterested in pursuing the idea. Further to their thinking, two
times out, they really didn't get very far, so it's
probably not worth throwing more resources at this. And they
(10:58):
had also lost all faith in Hudson, and so when
he came back and requested to make a third attempt
at finding a northern passage to Asia. He was flatly refused.
The most interesting footnote from the eight voyage is probably
the log entry on when they spotted the mermaid on June.
Crewman Thomas Hills and Robert Rayner were the first to
(11:19):
see it and yelled for the rest of the crew
to come and see. Hudson described the mermaid really matter
of fact Lee in his entry, is having long black hair,
pale skin, a woman's breasts, and the tail of a
purpose which was speckled like a mackerel. His log indicated
that she looked quote earnestly on the men as they
gathered on the side of the ship to look at her. Yeah,
(11:42):
he pretty clearly believed mermaids were a real thing. There's
no like speculation about was this some sea animal, whether
he's like there was a mermaid, we saw it. Here
are the details. It's kind of interesting. Before we get
to his third voyage, do you want to take a
word from a sponsor, Let's do that. So at this
point Hudson is back in England. He really wants to
(12:06):
continue his exploration. He feels like he has some plans
and ideas that will get him further than these previous
two attempts. But he really could not find any backers
in England. His reputation was pretty damaged at that point,
so instead he joined up with one of England's rivals
in this whole world trade uh race, which was the
(12:28):
Dutch East India Company, and he hooked up with them
in sixteen o nine. His new employers made Hudson commander
of a ship named the half Moon and sent him
on a mission that basically had the same orders as before.
He was supposed to find a passage to Asia via
the waters north of Russia, and the half Moon was
(12:49):
apparently not a great vessel. It was a little bit
old that needed some work, It sat high in the water.
It was expected that it was going to be troublesome
if they encountered any type of inclement weather heavy winds,
and Hudson actually tried to petition his new bosses to
try to get a different ship for the voyage, but
he received a reply from the Dutch East India Company
(13:10):
that said, quote, the half Moon is the only ship
at the disposal of the Dutch East India Company. We
can give you no other ship. If you do not
want the half moon. The company will be obliged to
find another captain to carry out this assignment. His contract
with the Dutch East India Company was really specific about
the objectives that Hudson was supposed to meet, and it
was even stipulated that his wife and children had to
(13:32):
live in Holland under the care of the company while
he was to be at sea. There was also a
really clear stipulation that all journals and logs kept by
Hudson would be turned over to the company at the
end of the voyage. Once again, on this voyage, confronted
by impassable ice, Hudson made the exact same decision that
he had attempted to follow through on with his second
(13:53):
voyage when he was working for the Muscobie Company. He
headed for North America. He thought there might be a
passage to the Pacific Ocean through the North American continent,
and their speculation that he may have heard this first
through famed explorer and his friend John Smith, maybe because
they knew of his somewhat rash decision during the second voyage,
(14:13):
or maybe because they knew he had been discussing North
America with John Smith. The Dutch East India Company amended
his mission contract before the half moon set sail and
this amendment included the word the wording that Hudson was
quote to think of discovering no other route or passage
except the route around the north or northeast above Nova. ZEMBLA. Yeah, hey,
(14:38):
don't get any funny ideas like last time around Champ
you will be a breach of contract. Uh. Apparently he
didn't feels so strongly about that agreement. But we'll get
to that just a bit. So the crew that he
took with him number between sixteen and twenty. Accounts differ,
and most of them say that twenty would be a
very large crew, but somebody say that there were to money. Uh.
(15:00):
They included both English and Dutch sailors, and there was
a huge language gap between them because they did not
speak each other's language, nor did they speak any language
that any of them had in common. Uh. They also
have different seafaring experience. Some of them were accustomed to
cold water, some are accustomed to warmer waters. Their experiences
did not really overlap. This made for a general distrust
(15:24):
among them, like they all felt that the others weren't
as experienced or weren't going to be as able to
cope with changing situations as as they were. You know,
it was kind of a problem. So in his journal, Jewett,
who despite having friction with Hudson, was on board for
this third voyage, described the Dutch sailors as quote an
ugly lot. Because of the requirement that Hudson hand over
(15:48):
its journals to the company after the voyage, Jewet's accounts
are pretty much everything we know about it. Yeah, so
it's there's some bias there. Probably. They're pretty basic journals
and you can read all of them online and we
will include a link to his journals from this voyage.
But what we know is that in April the half
(16:08):
Moons set out from Amsterdam, and by mid to late
May it became parent apparent that once again getting beyond
Novaya Zemia was going to be impossible. Yet again, it's
kind of that thing where people keep saying, if you
keep trying the same thing over and over expecting a
different result, you're kind of an idiot. Um he kind
of was doing that. Uh. The crew was once again unhappy,
(16:32):
They were cold, They were distrustful of Hudson's leadership because
the few that were repeats from the last voyage were
like didn't we just do this? Uh? And some level
of revolt did take place, though not a full mutiny,
and Hudson did indeed turn towards North America. Unlike in
the second voyage, though Hudson told the crew about the plan,
(16:52):
and he actually offered them a choice. They could use
the information he had, which included maps and notes from
John Smith, to had for warmer waters, or they could
keep on trying to force their way through the icy
waters of davis Is straight at the north end of
the Labrador Sea to try to find a passage to Asia,
since a northeast passage really seemed impossible. So not very surprisingly,
(17:16):
the crew opted to head for warmer waters. Yeah, and
just for clarity, So he offered them a choice, but
they were He was still like, we're going through North America.
We can either go north through the really cold part
or go a little south through the warmer part. So
they had a choice, but it still was his plan
to completely reverse their their initial um orders, and despite
(17:38):
traveling through some incredibly rough storms and be slightly delayed
at one point by trying to chase another ship down
for a period of time, and it's speculated that they
were after them for plunder, to steal their booty or
their supplies. The Half Moon did indeed reach North America
uh they landed in what is now Nova Scotia in
July of six nine. The half Moon traveled down the
(18:01):
American coast, exploring and making contact with Native Americans, and
while Jewett describes the natives as friendly and welcoming in
his journals, he's also very clear that he didn't trust
them to It's journals detail all kinds of ill behavior
on the part of the half Moon's crew toward the
Native Americans that they encountered. There are lots of tales
(18:22):
of theft and looting and even kidnapping. In his daily entries.
They kept on encountering and interacting with Natives along their
journey despite their very obvious xenophobia. Yeah, I feel compelled
to point out it was not uncommon for explorers who
landed in North America or any foreign lands to kidnap
(18:42):
the natives of those lands or the indigenous peoples and
try to bring them back to Europe as sort of novelties.
So it's not unusual that they did that. Still reprehensible,
but pretty common in the day. And you know, they
kind of just thought they were exploiting people that were
not equal to them. So they were just they just
felt like they were entitled to go and steal their
(19:03):
things and do horrible things. It's quite awful. But we
are going to cliffhang you there. So we are mid
voyage and we know that, but things are about to
take a pretty significant turn. Uh. And so rather than
delve into that now, which we do not really have
time to get deep into, We're going to save that
for the next time. Uh. And instead we're gonna shift
(19:25):
gears and go to listener mail. And I have a
piece of mail from our listener, Miss Jade, and it
is about our House of Worth podcast. Uh. Jade says, Hello, ladies.
I'm an avid listener and was so extremely excited to
listen to the recent episode on the House of Worth.
I'm a professional seamstress and costume designer. Listening to the
podcast has certainly gotten me through some very long days
(19:47):
in the shop. I share Holly's love of not only
historical clothing, but also of undergarments and foundation garments. I'm
still trying to sift through the archives to find your
podcast on undergarments that you recently mentioned on this show.
That was a wild back. I want to say that
was fall to help narrow that for her. Uh, it
was lovely to learn about the life of Worth himself
as well as the brand. There was one thing that
stuck out to me, however, that was a bit off.
(20:09):
It was the use of the word stitcher in regards
to the people that soaked could tour garments. The correct
word is seamstress, as stitcher implies a machine operator and
not one with exacting skills and garment construction. A stitcher
is someone who, say so, is the left patch pocket
on a pair of jeans and a dentom factory for
twenty years many people in the business of making bespoke
garments get their panties in a wrinkle about language here,
(20:31):
seamstress is gender specific, and we haven't quite figured out
a way around that yet, as there are many men
out there that are quite skilled in garment construction as well. Taylor. Traditionally,
a trade and title held by men is actually a
specific skill set separate from being a seamstress, though you
can of course be both, like myself. There are different
camps about the interchangeable use of the word stitcher and seamstress,
(20:51):
but especially when speaking to people who are in the
business of constructing tour garments. Uh, these people are masters
of the art. So maybe I cleared that up, just
muddied the water. Uh, I alo a long time ago.
This is one of my personal pecadillo's. I just kind
of adopted stitcher for everything because of the very reasons
she points out. Uh, seems stress doesn't apply to everyone,
(21:15):
and it seems weird to use ditto with taylor, even
though I feel while taylor is usually associated with men,
just as a word on its own, it feels less
male specific to me. So I will use that interchangeably
with men and women. But I do tend to use stitcher.
And I certainly don't mean to offend anyone who is
an accomplished couture sower. It's just for me. It seems
(21:39):
just really bothers me because I feel like it's exclusionary. Um.
But I do understand, like she pointed out, there are
many camps and schools of thought on this, and uh
not everyone feels the same about it. So but it's
a great thing to point out and think about. It's
one of those things I probably should have mentioned the podcast,
so my apologies that I didn't, because those are those
(21:59):
words that are they become very specific and emblematic of
certain sort of levels of of skill and degrees of knowledge.
And it's kind of like how when I worked in
the library for a long time, people always wanted to
call me a librarian, but I was not. I do
not have a master of library science, and I would
try to correct them, but eventually I got tired and
just said whatever works, which I meant no disrespect to
(22:21):
the actual librarians in my life, but sometimes you get
into a very awkward discussion that becomes about esoteric nomenclature
to the average person. So that is the scoop, And
then many thanks to Jade for pointing out that little
uh gap in gap in mind um information that I shared.
If you would like to write to us, you can
do so History podcast at house to Works dot com.
(22:43):
You can connect with us on Twitter at mist in History,
at Facebook dot com slash mist in history and missed
Industry dot tumbler dot com, and at pinterest dot com
slash misst in history. You can also get Delightful misst
in History merchandize at mist in history dot spreadshirt dot com.
If you would like to research uh a little bit
of info related to what we talked about today, you
(23:04):
can go to our parents site, how stuff Works. Type
in the words famous explorers and you are going to
get loads of stuff, a lot of brief articles on
famous explorers throughout history. Uh in putting Henry Hipson. If
you would like to visit us on our history website,
you can go to misston history dot com. You will
get archive of every episode that has ever been done,
as well as show notes for the more recent episodes
(23:26):
since Tracy and I have been on the podcast, as
well as the occasional blog post. And if you get
to look at the fun pictures that we associate with
different podcasts wrote them I often like because not very
visual person. But you can do that and a whole
lot more at our parents site, house stuff works dot
com and our site missed at history dot com. For
(23:48):
more on this and thousands of other topics, it has
to works dot cal
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Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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