Willem schouten biography for kids
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Willem Schouten facts for kids
Willem Cornelisz Schouten (c. 1567 – 1625) was a Dutchnavigator for the Dutch East India Company.
Willem schouten biography for kids
He was the first to sail the Cape Horn route to the Pacific Ocean.
Biography
Willem Cornelisz Schouten was born in c. 1567 in Hoorn, Holland, Seventeen Provinces.
In 1615 Willem Cornelisz Schouten and his younger brother Jan Schouten sailed from Texel in the Netherlands, in an expedition led by Jacob Le Maire and sponsored by Isaac Le Maire and his Australische Compagnie in equal shares with Schouten.
The expedition consisted of two ships: Eendracht and Hoorn. A main purpose of the voyage was to search for Terra Australis. A further objective was to explore a western route to the Pacific Ocean to evade the trade restrictions of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the Spice Islands.
In 1616 Schouten rounded Cape Horn, which he named after the recently destroyed ship Hoorn, and the Dutch city of Hoorn, after