The Last Voyage of Henry Hudson

On June 22 or June 23, 1611, the crew of English explorer Henry Hudson mutinied, on his fourth voyage to discover the "Northwest Passage" through North America to Asia. Captaining the British East India Company's ship Discovery (which had earlier been one of the ships led by Captain Christopher Newport on the voyage which ended with the founding of Jamestown), Henry Hudson had sailed 'round the tip of Iceland and Greenland, then reaching the Hudson Bay in Canada; everything going according to plan until the ship became trapped in the ice in James Bay in November of 1610. Hudson and his crew were forced to disembark and spend the winter along the bay. After the ice cleared in the spring, Hudson wanted to resume his exploration, but the tired crew wished to return home, and staged a mutiny; setting Hudson, his son John, and a few sick and/or loyal crewmen adrift in a small river barge. None of these abandoned men were seen of or heard from again. Eight of the eleven mutineers survived the trip back to England, and named two of the deceased as the leaders of the rebellion. The surviving mutineers were never punished for their crimes- perhaps because the knowledge they carried of routes to and around the New World was too valuable.

This painting, entitled "The Last Voyage of Henry Hudson," was done in 1881 by English artist John Collier.