Cornelis and Frederik de Houtman

Cornelis and Frederik de Houtman (respectively, born c. 1540, Gouda, Neth.—died Sept. 11, 1599, Aceh, Sumatra, Dutch East Indies; born 1571, Gouda, Neth.—died Oct. 21, 1627, Alkmaar) were brothers who navigated and led the first Dutch trading expedition to the East Indies, an area whose trade previously had been a Portuguese monopoly.

Cornelis and Frederik were sent to Lisbon in 1592 as commercial representatives of nine Dutch merchants. The brothers were imprisoned by the Portuguese for attempting to steal secret charts of East Indian sailing routes. After their release in 1595 they returned to Amsterdam, where Cornelis was appointed commander of four merchant ships of the Verre Company, a syndicate founded by the nine merchants to establish trade with the East Indies. The brothers set sail with the fleet on April 2, 1595, and navigated the voyage with the aid of sailing directions written by the Dutch explorer Jan Huyghen van Linschoten. After reaching the East Indies in 1596, Cornelis established trade relations with the rulers of Java, Sumatra, and Bali, all now part of Indonesia; the brothers returned to Amsterdam with a cargo of spices in 1596. On a second voyage (1598–99), they established trade with Madagascar. The brothers returned in 1599 to Sumatra, where Cornelis was killed in a battle against the forces of the sultan of Aceh.

Frederik, who was imprisoned by the sultan, studied the Malay language during his confinement and, after his release and return to Amsterdam in 1602, wrote the first Malay dictionary (1603). He later served as governor of Amboina (1605–11; now Ambon) and the Moluccas (1621–23), both now part of Indonesia; in 1619 he discovered Houtman’s Abrolhos, shoals on the west coast of Australia.