The Mutiny of Henry Hudson
HISTORY This Week
The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios
4.5 • 4.2K Ratings
🗓️ 16 June 2025
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
June 22, 1611. It’s been a long, cold winter. Henry Hudson and his crew have been stranded in the Canadian Arctic for months, living on the ice in wooden shacks - starving, sick, and ready to go home.
And yet, Hudson wants to carry on and search for the Northwest Passage, a theoretical trading route to the Pacific that could bring him untold fortunes. His crew has had enough.
How does this journey go so wrong? And what happens when you push a crew of sailors beyond the extreme?
Special thanks to Peter Mancall, historian at the University of Southern California and author of Fatal Journey: The Final Expedition of Henry Hudson.
Transcript
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| 0:30.2 | The History Channel, original podcast. |
| 0:35.4 | History this week, June 22, 1611. I'm Sally Helm. |
| 0:45.0 | It's not been an easy time in Henry Hudson's life. He and his men have been stranded in the |
| 0:52.0 | Canadian Arctic. Their ship, the discovery, got stuck in the ice, and the men have been stranded in the Canadian Arctic. Their ship, the discovery, got stuck in the ice. |
| 0:58.0 | And the men have been living in crude wooden shacks on the coast, |
| 1:01.0 | with barely any food or heat, starving, freezing, waiting for the ice to thaw. |
| 1:08.0 | Now it's thawing. And understandably, a lot of Hudson's men want to go home. |
| 1:17.5 | They've been gone for more than a year, and it seems like their mission is a bust. But the captain, |
| 1:23.8 | he wants to keep going. He still thinks they can accomplish their goal, |
| 1:29.4 | finding the Northwest Passage, |
| 1:32.4 | a theoretical trading route between Europe and South Asia |
| 1:35.2 | that would bring untold riches to the man who discovers it. |
| 1:51.6 | When Henry Hudson emerges from his cabin aboard the discovery this morning, the rough time he's having gets much, much worse. |
| 1:56.5 | His crew attacks. |
| 2:00.2 | Their captain shouts, demanding to know what's going on, and he's told, |
| 2:04.6 | you'll know when you're in the shallop. |
| 2:06.6 | That's a smaller boat tied to the discovery, used for fishing and shore excursions. |
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