Descriptio Hydrographica Accomodata ad Battavorum Navigatione in Javan Insulam Indie Orientales. Eygentliche und ausfuhrliche mappa de Orientassischen Indien…

Theodore de Bry’s important two sheet map, showing the outbound and return routes of the first Dutch voyage to the East Indies in 1595, under the command of Cornelius de Houtman and Pieter Dircksz.

After gaining their independence from Spain, the Dutch found all Iberian ports closed to them and facing financial ruin, sought alternative sources of supply for trade goods from the East. These events coincided with the publication of Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s Reysgeschrift van der Navigatien der Portugaloysers in Orienten in 1595, the first publication to detail the secret Portuguese navigational information required to sail from Europe to the East Indies.

Within a year of Linschoten’s publication, the first Dutch expedition to the East Indies left the Netherlands under the command of Frederick de Houtman, taking the route recommended by Linschoten via the the Cape of Good Hope, across the Indian Ocean and through the Sunda Strait. After almost fifteen months at sea, they reached the important Javanese port of Bantam where they stayed for almost four and half months. Despite the presence of the Portuguese in the port, Houtman was able to purchase spices and concluded a trade contract with the sovereign. He then continued the voyage along Java’s north coast, before setting sail for the Netherlands in January 1597. Although the commercial results of Houtman’s voyage were disappointing, it was significant in confirming the exact location of the Moluccas and the sea route via the Cape, through the Sunda Strait. In the five years succeeding Houtman’s voyage, some sixty heavily-armed ships made their way between Europe and the East. Before long, the thirst for the potential wealth that could be gained from the spice trade, led to infighting between individual Dutch merchants. In order to resolve the situation, the competing companies were amalgamated into the newly formed Dutch East India Company (VOC) and granted a charter by the States-General in 1602 for a period of twenty-one years, effectively giving the company a monopoly of this lucrative trade.

Terra Australis Incognita is shown with the names Beach, Maleteur and Lucach as derived from the scribed accounts of Marco Polo’s travels.

From de Bry’s Petits Voyages.

References:

Clancy p.70, ill. map 5.15, Clancy (R) p.74, ill.pp.70-71, NLA p.61, Parry pp.87-92, ill.pl.4.6, Quirino p.99, Richardson 71, Schilder (K) p.16.