As the VOC launched itself toward building a Dutch commercial empire in the East Indies, a determined Amsterdam entrepreneur and VOC director named Isaac Le Maire laid down a challenge to the powerful monopoly. After arguing unsuccessfully with his fellow directors to push the VOC to fight the Spanish, seek other routes to the East, and forge new trading opportunities, Le Maire decided to start his own commercial enterprise, the Southern Company.

The spice trade promised huge profits and, if he could find a new route to the Indies Le Maire stood to gain enormously from trading independently of the VOC. He suspected it was possible to reach the Indies by sailing around the southern tip of South America, south of the Strait of Magellan.

In 1614, Joris Spilbergen departed the Netherlands with a fleet of six VOC ships on a voyage to reach Spanish waters by sailing through the Strait of Magellan. That same year, Isaac Le Maire convinced the States General to issue trading rights to any citizen who discovered new passages to the South Seas. With the able assistance of Willem Corneliszoon Schouten, a master mariner from Hoorn, Holland, who had already made three trips to the East Indies, Le Maire meticulously and skillfully organized his expedition.

Supported by the people of northern Holland and the citizens of Hoorn the expedition purchased two ships, the 220-ton Eendracht and the 110-ton Hoorn. Le Maire's son Jacob lead the voyage of discovery with Willem Schouten serving as chief navigator and captain of the Eendracht. The two ships cleared the harbor at Texel on June 14, 1615, and reached Port Desire on the Atlantic coast of South America on December 7. The Hoorn was destroyed by fire at Port Desire due to a tragic accident, leaving the solitary Eendracht to continue the journey alone.

Departing Port Desire on January 13, 1616, the Eendracht continued south far beyond the entrance to the Strait of Magellan. At a position they reckoned to be 54° 46' South Latitude, the crew spotted an opening in the rugged coastline on January 24. Turning southwest, they sailed through the strait, where they saw large numbers of penguins, whales, and seals, and a great abundance of fish before emerging into the South Sea. In honor of his father, Jacob named the newly discovered passage "Le Maire Strait" and named the landmass south of his track "Staten Land," after the States General.

The Eendracht was the first European ship, perhaps the first ship ever, to sail around the southern tip of South America in open seas. The discovery not only proved Isaac Le Maire was right about the existence of a southern passage to the South Seas, but that "Terra Australis" was not connected to the Americas. In his log, Jacob wrote about the Eendracht's approach to the Pacific,

"That night with a heavy roll from the southwest and very blue water, from which we opined and were certain that we had open and deep water on the weather side, not doubting that it was the great South Sea, whereat we were very glad, holding that a way had been discovered by us which had until then been unknown to man, as we afterwards found to be the truth."

The Eendracht continued across the Pacific, sailing north of New Guinea before reaching safe harbor at Batavia in Java. Governor-General Jan Pieterszoon Coen, though a native of Hoorn, had little sympathy for the new arrivals. As founder of the VOC's commercial enterprises in the East Indies he refused to believe reports that the Eendracht had found a new navigable passage around South America. The dictatorial governor considered the expedition a serious threat and charged both Le Maire and Schouten with infringing on the VOC's trade monopoly. Joris Spilbergen's VOC fleet had recently arrived in Batavia after sailing through the Strait of Magellan and Coen was not willing to accept that a single ship from the Southern Company had found a better passage, especially one that would challenge the VOC's exclusive trading privileges in the area.

Instead rewarding the men for their triumphant discovery, Governor-General Coen ordered Jacob Le Maire and Willem Schouten arrested, seized their possessions, confiscated the Eendracht, and shipped them back to Amsterdam in disgrace with Spilbergen's fleet. On December 22, 1616, during the long voyage home, Jacob Le Maire died, ostensibly of a broken heart.

In the summer of 1617, Isaac Le Maire sued the VOC for the return of his property, including his son's journal, and got a government injunction to keep the results of the expedition secret in the hope that Le Maire Strait might be used exclusively by ships of his own Southern Company. News of the new passage spread like wildfire among Dutch ports however, and Le Maire never made his fortune with new trading routes and exclusive use of the passage.

The Southern Company soon folded and Le Maire faded into history, but the strait that bears his name became the preferred passage of navigators during the seventeenth century, a route that shortened the voyage from the south Atlantic to the Pacific from weeks to days. At great personal cost, the tenacity of Isaac and Jacob Le Maire opened a new passage to the East Indies and ultimately changed Europe's perception of world geography. It seems quite fitting the passage should bear the name Le Maire.