Why dosen't anybody really know about Henry Hudson, the founder or the Hudson Bay and Hudson river?

Question

I did a project on Henry Hudson a while back and I couldn't find much on him. No one knows when he was born, when he died, where he died, and his parents. Why is he such an unknown mystery? I know he was mutantied by his crew two times.

Answer 1

Watching the history channel on him some time back, I believe the crew which was starving to death placed him on land and abandoned him and headed back to England.  No one knows what ever happened to him after that.

Answer 2

Henry Hudson

1570(?) -1611(?)

Almost everything we know about Hudson and his four voyages in four years comes from just one work: Hakluytus Posthumous or Purchas his Pilgrimes, by the Rev. Samuel Purchas, first published in 1625 In book  III of this sprawling 20-volume set, Puchas reprinted all of the remaining records of Hudson's voyages: Hudson's own journals for 1607 and 1608, and the incomplete journal of 1610-11. Purchas added the 1609 journal by Robert Juet (one of Hudson's crew members), and the record of the 1610-11 voyage written by another crew member, Abacuck Prickett. Finally, Puchas reprinted the single page written about 1610 discovered in the desk of Thomas Woodhouse, himself abandoned on the great bay. Purchas himself provided very few comments on the journals.

Most of the ships' journals are not commentaries, however, but rather terse records of the ship's speed, position and the conditions of the sea or weather. Sightings of land were also recorded because they identified a definite location.

Another journal - Hudson's log of his 1609 voyage in which he sailed up the river that now bears his name - has never been reprinted. It went with his ship, the Half Moon, to Amsterdam after his return. In 1625, Flemish geographer Jan de Laet published his Nieuwe Werelt, a history of the exploration of the New World. In it, he reprinted fragments of Hudson's own journal of 1609. The actual journal was lost to history when it was sold to an unknown buyer, along with other archives of the Dutch East India Company, at a public auction in 1821. de Laet also reprinted a map by Dutch cartographer, Hessel Gerritz, showing the route of Hudson's 1610-11 voyage, apparently received from Abacuck Prickett (one of the survivors). Gerritiz (or Gerritsz) also printed a tract about Hudson in 1613.

There are a few brief, tantalizing references about Hudson in other documents, seldom more than a few lines each. All in all, the printed historical records of Hudson's voyages listed above are less than 100 pages, easily read in an hour.

Answer 3

Hudson shows up in the historical record as a grown man. Little is known of his origins. See bio from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online

Answer 4

How do you "found" a piece of nature? He didn't create them, he just discovered them first.

Answer 5

One of the reasons for the confusion may be the limited literacy of the era, which led to multiple spellings of the same surname. Hudson also was very terse when it came to describing his four voyages.