Editing Spitsbergen (section)

===Early claims===

[[File:Spitsbergen labelled.png|thumb|left|Map of Spitsbergen]]
Early [[whaling]] expeditions to Svalbard in general and Spitsbergen in particular tended, because of currents and fauna, to cluster on the western coast of Spitsbergen and the islands off shore. Shortly after whaling began (1611), the [[Denmark–Norway|Danish–Norwegian]] crown in 1616 claimed ownership of Jan Mayen and the Spitsbergen islands, as all of Svalbard was then known, but in 1613, the English [[Muscovy Company]] had done the same.

The primary and most profitable whaling grounds of this joint-stock company came to be centered on Spitsbergen in the early 17th century, and the company's 1613 Royal Charter from the English Crown granted a monopoly on whaling in Spitsbergen, based on the (erroneous) claim that [[Hugh Willoughby]] had discovered the land in 1553.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hudson |first=Henry |authorlink=Henry Hudson |author2=Georg Michael Asher |title=Henry Hudson the Navigator: The Original Documents in which His Career is Recorded, Collected, Partly Translated, and Annotated |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_IwcVAAAAQAAJ |year=1860 |publisher=Hakluyt Society |location=London |pages=clix–clx }}</ref><ref>Schokkenbroek, Joost C.A. (2008). [http://de.scientificcommons.org/30176828 ''Trying-out: An anatomy of Dutch Whaling and Sealing in the Nineteenth Century, 1815-1885''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721023214/http://de.scientificcommons.org/30176828 |date=21 July 2011 }}, p. 27.</ref> Not only had they wrongly assumed a 1553 English voyage had reached the area, but on 27 June 1607, during his first voyage in search of a "northeast passage" on behalf of the company, [[Henry Hudson]] sighted "Newland" (i.e. Spitsbergen), near the mouth of the great bay Hudson later named the Great Indraught ([[Isfjord (Svalbard)|Isfjorden]]). In this way, the English hoped to head off expansion in the region by the Dutch, at the time their major rival.<ref>pp.1-22. Georg Michael Asher,(1860). ''Henry Hudson the Navigator''. Works issued by the Hakluyt Society, 27. {{ISBN|1-4021-9558-3}}.</ref><ref>William Martin Conway, (1906). ''No Man's Land: A History of Spitsbergen from Its Discovery in 1596 to the Beginning of the Scientific Exploration of the Country''. Cambridge, At the University Press.</ref>
Initially, the English tried to drive away competitors, but after disputes with the Dutch (1613–24), they, for the most part, only claimed the bays south of [[Kongsfjorden]].<ref>Schokkenbroek, p. 28.</ref>