Mapping Travel Knowledge The Use of Maps on the First Dutch Voyages to Asia in the 1590s

When it comes to long-distance voyages to the other side of the world, the decade of the 1590s is perhaps the most exciting one in Dutch history. In these years, several companies were established in several cities in the coastal provinces of Holland and Zeeland, which would in 1602 merge into the United Dutch East India Company. In the 1910s and 1920s, on the wave of modern imperialism and a developing national self-consciousness, growing interest in Dutch maritime and colonial history, paired with a demand for Dutch heroes, resulted in the appearance of many travel journals. Several of the first Dutch endeavours to reach Asia in the late sixteenth century were recounted in some of the first volumes they produced. During the first voyages, travel knowledge, especially geographical knowledge, not only had to be gathered prior to departure, but it also had to be collected during the voyage, guarded closely when recorded and submitted back to the company upon return.