Frederick de Houtman

Frederick de Houtman ( – 21 October 1627) was a Dutch explorer, navigator, and colonial governor who sailed on the first Dutch expedition to the East Indies from 1595 until 1597, during which time he made observations of the southern celestial hemisphere and contributed to the creation of 12 new southern constellations.

Early life Frederick de Houtman was born about 1571 in Gouda, in the Dutch Republic, the son of Pieter Cornelisz and his wife Agnes (née Frederiksd.). He had an elder brother, Cornelis de Houtman.

De Houtman assisted fellow Dutch navigator Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser with astronomical observations during the first Dutch expedition to the East Indies from 1595 until 1597. In 1598, de Houtman sailed on a second expedition led by his brother, Cornelis de Houtman, who was killed during the voyage. Frederick was imprisoned by the Sultan of Aceh, Alauddin Riayat Syah, in northern Sumatra.

De Houtman spent roughly two years in captivity between 1599 and 1601. After his return to Amsterdam in 1602, he developed these notes into a Malay–Dutch dictionary. Published a year later in 1603, it was among the earliest printed works to systematize the language for European readers. They sighted the Australian coast near present-day Perth, which they called Dedelsland. After sailing northwards along the coast he encountered and only narrowly avoided a group of shoals, subsequently called the Houtman Abrolhos.

De Houtman then made landfall in the region known as Eendrachtsland, which the explorer Dirk Hartog had encountered earlier. In his journal, De Houtman identified these coasts as Locach, mentioned by Marco Polo to have been a country far south of China and indicated as such on maps by cartographers Plancius and Linschoten.

Death Frederick de Houtman died on 21 October 1627, probably aged about 56; his exact date of birth remains unknown.