La Baye la Baye

The earliest Western individual depiction of the Gulf of Albay.

Very rare map of the Gulf of Albay in the southern Luzon province of the Philippines by Olivier Van Noort. First published in Description du Penible Voyage Faict entour de l'Univers ou Globe Terrestre by Cornelis Claes in 1602. The example was printed from the same plate and comes from Isaac Commelin's Begin ende Voortgangh van de Vereenighde Nederlantsche Geoctroyeerde Oost-Indische Compagnie published in 1646. Theodor de Bry published a reduced copy of this map.

The map shows the Albay Bay on the Southeast Coast of Luzon, with the northern tip of Samar depicted in the lower right corner. Noteworthy mountains in the upper left lead to Mayon Volcano, a crucial landmark for sailors. The map illustrates the voyage of Olivier van Noort, with Chirino noting it as the "first scene of Albay in the southern Luzon province, where Admiral van Noort paused en route to Manila" (Chirino, Cartography of the Philippines p. 20). Two galleons in the bay are shown, and the land is dotted with mountains and trees, featuring the Straet van Manille in the bottom right corner. According to Lach, this account provides "the earliest first-hand Dutch descriptions of the Ladrones (Marianas), the Philippines, and Borneo."

In October 1600, van Noort and his ships reached Albay Bay, using it as a base for attacking incoming junks from China and Japan intended for trade with the Spanish in the Manila-Acapulco route. In December 1600, Spanish ships under Antonio de Morga engaged the Dutch in battle just outside Manila Bay. The Spanish flagship sank, and 19 of Van Noort's crew were captured and executed.

Olivier van Noort was a Dutch pirate and captain who was the first Dutchman to sail around the world.

Born in Utrecht in 1558, Olivier van Noort set sail from Rotterdam on July 2, 1598 with four ships to attack Spanish possessions in the Pacific and trade with China and the Spice Islands during the Eighty Years' War between the Netherlands and Spain. However, his ships were inadequately equipped, especially in terms of armament, and his crews proved unruly. He successfully crossed the treacherous Strait of Magellan and captured several Spanish ships on the Pacific coast of South America. During the passage through the strait, his crew killed around forty indigenous Selknam, making it one of the bloodiest events in the region up to that point.

Despite the challenges, which included the loss of two ships, Van Noort carried on. In November and December 1600, he docked with his two remaining ships near the island of Corregidor in the Bay of Manila in the Philippines. There he undertook activities that were considered piracy by the Spanish. This led to the naval battle of Fortune Island on December 14, 1600, in which the Spanish lost their flagship, the galleon San Diego, and captured the Dutch Eendracht. This forced Van Noort to retreat from the Philippines. Van Noort completed his circumnavigation and returned to Rotterdam on August 26, 1601 with his last ship, the Mauritius, and only 45 of the original 248 crew members via the Dutch East Indies and the Cape of Good Hope. Although the venture was hardly financially profitable, it served as an inspiration for subsequent expeditions. The founding of the united Dutch East India Company followed just a few months later.

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Southeast Asia - Noort, Olivier van - La Baye la Baye