Jacques-Antoine Moerenhout

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Jacques-Antoine Moerenhout

Jacques-Antoine Moerenhout (born January 17, 1796 in Ekeren, now part of Antwerp , † July 11, 1879 in Los Angeles ) was a Belgian businessman, adventurer, diplomat and travel writer.

biography

Moerenhout was born in Ekeren in 1796, when this part of Belgium was still part of France. He served in the Napoleonic army from 1812 and then went to Paris to study painting. In 1826 he emigrated to Chile and became secretary of the French consul in Valparaíso , but soon he became self-employed as a businessman. Moerenhout undertook several extensive trade and research trips through the Pacific with the schooner Volador from Valparaiso .

  • The first trip led from Chile to Pitcairn Island , the Tuamotu Archipelago and Tahiti in December 1828 . In the Tuamotu Archipelago, he discovered the uninhabited atoll Maria Est , which was henceforth shown on the maps as Moerenhouts Island . On March 1, 1829, he discovered the Minerve Reef belonging to the Tuamotu Archipelago , which he named Bertero Island after the botanist Carlo Bertero (1789–1831), with whom he was friends . Then it went back to Valparaiso via the Austral Islands.
  • The second journey began at the end of 1830 in Valparaiso and led via Easter Island and some Tuamotus islands to Tahiti. Moerenhout married a Chilean woman in Valparaiso in 1833, but she died five years later.

He traveled to Europe and the United States . In 1836 he returned to Tahiti as Consul of the United States. In this capacity he became involved in the dispute between the French ( Catholic ) and British ( Anglican ) missionaries. He tried to mediate between the two sides, but when Moerenhout was temporarily absent, the missionary and incumbent British consul George Pritchard was able to obtain his resignation a year later by influencing Queen Pomaré IV .

But Pritchard's interference was only short-lived, as Admiral Abel Aubert Dupetit-Thouars (1793–1864) installed Moerenhout as French consul in Tahiti a short time later. In this capacity and later as commissioner of the Tahitian royal family, he served six years until British naval officers with whom he had come into conflict and the missionaries of the London Missionary Society achieved his replacement again. Moerenhout left Tahiti and went to Monterey (California) as French consul in 1845 and to Los Angeles in 1859 . Moerenhout witnessed the California Gold Rush of 1848 and reported the events in a detailed and extensive correspondence known as The Moerenhout Documents . He died on July 11, 1879 in Los Angeles.

His book Voyages aux îles du Grand Océan , published in 1837 , a description of the Pacific islands that is still interesting to read today, was translated into several languages ​​and reprinted several times into modern times.

literature

  • Jacques-Antoine Moerenhout: Voyages aux îles du Grand Océan . Bertrand, Paris 1837. ( Online Vol. 1) , ( Online Vol. 2 ).
  • Arthur R. Borden: Travels to the Islands of the Pacific Ocean , Lanham (MD) 1993 (English translation of "Voyages aux îles du Grand Océan" with a preface and a short biography by Moerenhout)
  • Jacques Antoine Moerenhout: The inside story of the gold rush, California Historical Society, San Francisco 1935
  • Paul de Deckker: Jacques-Antoine Moerenhout, 1797-1879, ethnologue et consul, Papeete 1997 (biography in French)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John Dunmore: Who's Who in Pacific Navigation , Honolulu 1991, p. 181
  2. ↑ Arthur R. Borden: Travels to the Islands of the Pacific Ocean , Lanham (MD) 1993 (English translation by Jacques-Antoine Moerenhout: Voyages aux îles du Grand Océan ), p. 77
  3. ↑ Peter H. Buck : Explorers of the Pacific - European and American Discoveries in Polynesia, Honolulu 1953, pp. 85-86
personal data
SURNAME Moerenhout, Jacques-Antoine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian businessman, adventurer, diplomat and travel writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 17, 1796
PLACE OF BIRTH Ekeren, now part of Antwerp
DATE OF DEATH July 11, 1879
Place of death los Angeles