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Willem Schouten

Willem Cornelisz Schouten (1567?-1625) 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.

Schouten described his travels in his Journal, published in a Dutch edition in Amsterdam in 1618 but soon translated into several other languages.

• Journal Ofte Beschryvinghe van de wonderlicke reyse, ghaedaen door Willem Cornelisz Schouten van Hoorn, inde Jaren 1615, 1616, en 1617. Hoe hy bezuyden de Strate van Magekkanes een nieuwe Passagie tot inde groote Zuyzee onteckt en voort den gheheelen Aerdkloot angheseylt, heeft. Wat Eylanden, vreemde volcken en wonderlicke avontueren hem ontmoet zijn, Amsterdam 1618. (Journal or description of a miraculous voyage, made by Willem Cornelisz Schouten from Hoorn, in the years 1615, 1616, and 1617. How he sailed south of the Strait of Magelhaes and found a new passage to the South Sea and the sailed around the Globe. Discoveries of islands, alien people and miraculous adventures.
• Latin edition: Diarium vel descriptio laboriosissimi et molestissimi itineris, facti a Guilielmo Cornelii Schoutenio annis 1615-17..., Amsterdam 1619.
• German edition: Journal, oder Beschreibung der wunderbaren Reise W. Schouten auss Hollandt, im Jahr 1615-17, Frankfurt am Main 1619.

(Several later editions not included.)

• Alexander H. Bolyanatz, "Where Is Claes Pietersz Bay? An Episode in the History of the Sursurunga of New Ireland", Ethnohistory 45:2 (1998), p. 319-347.
• Dirk J. Barreveld, Tegen de Heeren van de VOC - Isaac Le Maire En De Ontdekking Van Kaap Hoorn, Sdu uitgeverij, 2002