Frederick de Houtman ( – 21 October 1627) was a Dutch explorer, navigator, and colonial governor who sailed on the first Dutch expedition to the East Indies from 1595 until 1597, during which time he made observations of the

southern celestial hemisphere The southern celestial hemisphere, also called the Southern Sky, is the southern half of the celestial sphere; that is, it lies south of the celestial equator. This arbitrary sphere, on which seemingly fixed stars form constellations, appear ...

and contributed to the creation of 12 new southern

constellations A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the earliest constellatio ...

Career

East Indies

De Houtman was born in

Gouda Gouda may refer to: * Gouda, South Holland, a city in the Netherlands ** Gouda (pottery), style of pottery manufactured in Gouda ** Gouda cheese, type of cheese originally made in and around Gouda ** Gouda railway station * Gouda, Western Cape, a s ...

. De Houtman assisted fellow Dutch navigator

Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser (occasionally Petrus Theodorus; – 11 September 1596) was a Dutch navigator and celestial cartographer who mapped several constellations on the southern celestial hemisphere. Voyages and star observation Little is ...

with astronomical observations during the first Dutch expedition to the East Indies from 1595 until 1597. In 1598, de Houtman sailed on a second expedition led by his brother,

Cornelis de Houtman Cornelis de Houtman (2 April 1565 – 1 September 1599) was a Dutch merchant seaman who commanded the first Dutch expedition to the East Indies. Although the voyage was difficult and yielded only a modest profit, Houtman showed that the Po ...

, who was killed during the voyage. Frederick was imprisoned by the Sultan of Aceh, Alauddin Riayat Syah, in northern Sumatra. He used his two years of captivity—from September 1599 until August 1601—to study the local

Malay language Malay (; ms, Bahasa Melayu, links=no, Jawi: , Rencong: ) is an Austronesian language that is an official language of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, and that is also spoken in East Timor and parts of the Philippines ...

and to make astronomical observations. These observations supplemented those made by Keyser on the first expedition. The constellations formed from their observations were first published in 1597 or 1598 on a globe by

Petrus Plancius Petrus Plancius (; 1552 – 15 May 1622) was a Dutch-Flemish astronomer, cartographer and clergyman. He was born as Pieter Platevoet in Dranouter, now in Heuvelland, West Flanders. He studied theology in Germany and England. At the age of 2 ...

, and later globes incorporated adjustments based on De Houtman's later observations. Credit for these constellations is generally assigned jointly to Keyser, De Houtman, and Plancius, though some of the underlying stars were known beforehand. The constellations are also widely associated with

Johann Bayer Johann Bayer (1572 – 7 March 1625) was a German lawyer and uranographer (celestial cartographer). He was born in Rain, Lower Bavaria, in 1572. At twenty, in 1592 he began his study of philosophy and law at the University of Ingolstadt, ...

, who included them in his celestial atlas, ''

Uranometria ''Uranometria'' is a star atlas produced by Johann Bayer. It was published in Augsburg in 1603 by Christoph Mangle (''Christophorus Mangus'') under the full title ''Uranometria: omnium asterismorum continens schemata, nova methodo delineata, a ...

'', in 1603. After De Houtman's return to Europe, De Houtman published his stellar observations in an appendix to his dictionary and grammar of the Malayan and

Malagasy language Malagasy (; ) is an Austronesian language and the national language of Madagascar. Malagasy is the westernmost Malayo-Polynesian language, brought to Madagascar by the settlement of Austronesian peoples from the Sunda islands around the 5th cen ...

Australia

In 1619 De Houtman sailed in the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock c ...

ship , along with Jacob Dedel in the . They sighted the Australian coast near present-day

Perth Perth is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the Australian states and territories of Australia, state of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth most populous city in Aust ...

, which they called Dedelsland. After sailing northwards along the coast he encountered and only narrowly avoided a group of shoals, subsequently called the

Houtman Abrolhos The Houtman Abrolhos (often called the Abrolhos Islands) is a chain of 122 islands and associated coral reefs, in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia, about west of Geraldton, Western Australia. It is the southernmost true coral ...

. De Houtman then made landfall in the region known as Eendrachtsland, which the explorer Dirk Hartog had encountered earlier. In his journal, De Houtman identified these coasts as Locach, mentioned by Marco Polo to have been a country far south of China and indicated as such on maps by cartographers Plancius and Linschoten.

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

English * * * * Dutch * * * * * *

External links

*
Frederick de Houtman’s catalogue
{{DEFAULTSORT:Houtman, Frederick De 16th-century Dutch explorers 16th-century Dutch cartographers 17th-century Dutch cartographers 17th-century Dutch colonial governors 17th-century Dutch explorers 1570s births 1627 deaths Cartography in the Dutch Republic Dutch celestial cartography in the Age of Discovery Dutch East India Company people H Explorers of Western Australia People from Gouda, South Holland Sailors on ships of the Dutch East India Company Year of birth uncertain