Dutch Round Cape Horn

In early 1616, a Dutch expedition led by Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire sailed around the southern tip of South America and named it Cape Horn. The voyage proved that a sea passage existed south of the Strait of Magellan, opening a new route between the Atlantic and the Pacific. It also showed that Tierra del Fuego was not part of a vast southern continent, as many Europeans had long imagined.

The expedition grew out of the commercial rivalry of the early Dutch Republic. The Dutch East India Company, founded in 1602, held a monopoly on trade through the Cape of Good Hope and the Strait of Magellan. Isaac Le Maire, a wealthy merchant who had fallen out with the company, backed a rival venture led by his son Jacob and the experienced navigator Willem Schouten, from the town of Hoorn. Their aim was to find a different path to the Pacific and the riches of Asia, one that would let them trade legally outside the company's monopoly.

Two ships, the Eendracht and the Hoorn, set out in 1615. The Hoorn was lost to a fire while being cleaned and repaired on the Patagonian coast, leaving the Eendracht to continue alone. In January 1616 the crew passed through a strait they named for Le Maire, between Tierra del Fuego and an island they called Staten Landt, today's Isla de los Estados. They then pushed southwest into rough, cold seas and rounded the headland at the continent's southern end. The name Hoorn honored both the ship and the home town of Schouten and many of the crew. Strictly speaking, the southernmost tip of the continent's island group lies on other islands nearby, but the name came to stand for the whole region.

The expedition's ending was bitter. After crossing the Pacific, the Eendracht reached Java, where Dutch East India Company officials seized the ship and cargo, claiming the voyage had infringed their charter. Le Maire died on the return journey in 1616. A legal fight followed, and the company eventually had to make some compensation, though the ruling did little to help the investors.

Cape Horn's long-term legacy was maritime. The route avoided the narrow, twisting Strait of Magellan and later became a major sailing path, especially in the nineteenth century for clipper ships carrying goods and travelers, including those bound for the California Gold Rush. It was also notorious for violent storms, strong westerly winds, high waves and icebergs, and many ships and sailors were lost there. The voyage of Schouten and Le Maire thus marked both a geographic breakthrough and the start of one of the world's most feared sea passages.