Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, 1729–1811 Expedition (1766–1769): Two ships (Boudeuse and Etoile), 330 men [Click on the images below for high resolution versions.] |
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Portrait of Louis-Antoine de Bougainville. From vol. 1 of Jules-Sébastien-César Dumont d’Urville’s Voyage pittoresque autour du monde . . . (Paris, 1834-1835). [Rare Books Division] |
Born in Paris during the Age of Enlightenment, Bougainville enjoyed the advantages of an upper-middle-class life: a boarding school education, access to aristocratic salons, influential acquaintances through his father’s elected position in Paris’s municipal council. Deciding against following his father into a legal career, Bougainville entered the army in 1753. In London, on a diplomatic appointment, he published two volumes on integral calculus, for which he was elected to the Royal Society, Britain’s prestigious scientific organization. Later, he participated in the French defense of Quebec when it was besieged by the British and fell in September 1759. (Coincidentally, James Cook, then only a ship’s master, had supplied the British Navy with more accurate maps of the St. Lawrence River in that area, allowing General Wolfe safer amphibious access to the city.) On returning to France at the end of 1760, Bougainville embarked on a plan to colonize the Falkland Islands. But the settlement there that he established and helped finance in 1763 irked Spain and Great Britain, who already had claims on the islands; as a result, in December 1766, Bougainville was sent back to transfer ownership to Spain. From the Falklands, he continued westward on a circumnavigation of the world. |
Books:
Though favorably reviewed, Bougainville’s account of his voyage was not a runaway best-seller. The first edition consisted probably of only a thousand copies; the second edition, in two volumes, was published the next year, as was the first English edition, in a translation by J. R. Forster. But the book continued to stay in print—in abridged versions, new impressions, additional translations—into the twentieth century.
The first extensive work specifically on Tahiti. After its successive discoveries by Wallis, Bougainville, and Cook, Tahiti came to symbolize a living social and political experiment in the minds of many European philosophers: a primitive paradise that became spoiled and tainted by Western decadence. In this little work, often attributed to Bougainville—perhaps because it borrows extensively from his narrative and the earlier accounts of Cook and his accompanying naturalists, Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander—Taitbout speculates on the fundamental differences between the “homme sauvage” and the “homme civilize,” drawing from the example of Tahiti. He suggests that societies like Tahiti, that evolved in isolation, could offer political lessons to European nations, but acknowledges that the arrival of Europeans on their shores will deal them a death blow. Taitbout’s purpose, in his own words (translated), is revolutionary: “to assist in bringing about the much-desired general revolution, to which the human spirit will one day owe the free, complete, and perfect union of all men.” |
“Monsieur Bougainville Hoisting the French Colours on a Small Rock Near Cape Forward in the Streights of Magellan.” From vol. 4 of David Henry’s An Historical Account of All the Voyages Round the World, Performed by English Navigators . . . (London, 1773). [Cotsen Collection]
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Upon entering the Pacific Ocean, strong southeasterly winds forced Bougainville to abandon plans to seek Juan Fernández Island; instead, the expedition headed north to the Tropic of Capricorn, then west. Unable to land on any of the Tuamotu Islands because of threatening reefs, Bougainville called them the Dangerous Archipelago. In early April they encountered Tahiti, and after seeking a port for several days finally moored on April 6, 1768, less than a year after Wallis had arrived. |
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Illustration of three different Pacific “canoe” styles observed by Bougainville: at Tahiti, Choiseul (one of the Solomon Islands), and Navigators Islands (Samoa). From Bougainville’s A Voyage Round the World . . . (Dublin, 1772). [Rare Books Division] |
Sailing westward from Tahiti, Bougainville reached the islands of Samoa, which he named the Navigators Islands. Like the Spaniard Pedro Fernandes de Queirós before him, he found the natives of the New Hebrides (today’s Vanuatu), which he called the Great Cyclades, to be ferocious and inhospitable. Bougainville sailed west near the Great Barrier Reef, then north through the Solomons, and then northwest to New Britain in July. There he found a plaque left by British explorer Philip Carteret in August 1767. (For more on Carteret, see Wallis/Carteret in the Explorers section.) Eventually, the voyage around the northern coast of New Guinea ended, and the expedition reached Ceram in the Moluccas in September. Bougainville’s crew received welcome succor from the Dutch in Buru and needed supplies and medical care in Batavia (today’s Jakarta, Indonesia), from which they departed on October 17, 1768. Though much impressed with the Dutch control and operation of the spice trade, Bougainville felt that a “mortal stroke” was coming, from revolts within the islands and from pressures from without, particularly as more European countries learned the geography of the area. He returned to France via Mauritius (where Commerçon and Baré were deposited) and the Cape of Good Hope, arriving in Saint-Malo on March 16, 1769. Over the course of twenty-eight months, Bougainville had lost fewer than a dozen men, a real credit to his leadership and marine abilities. Both ships had survived. More important, in one successful voyage, he had jettisoned France into the forefront of Pacific naval exploration, despite failing to claim any land near China. Bougainville continued to serve France in naval operations against the British in the American Revolution; he barely escaped the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution and was made a count of the empire by Napoleon I in 1808. Bougainville died in Paris in 1811. |
“Dévelopement de la route des vaissaux du roy La Boudeuse et L’Étoile autour du monde.” From Bougainville’s Voyage autour du monde . . . (Paris, 1771). [Rare Books Division] Bougainville’s route around the world. A note accompanying the mid-ocean placement of the Solomon Islands states that both their existence and location are in doubt. The map’s longitude is measured from Paris, France, emphasizing the national nature of mapmaking at this time. (Greenwich, England, was not internationally adopted as the prime meridian until 1884.) |