Joseph Bruny d'Entrecasteaux
Joseph-Antoine-Raymond Bruny d'Entrecasteaux (born November 8, 1737 in Aix-en-Provence , † July 20, 1793 in front of the Hermit Islands , Manus Province / Papua New Guinea ) was a French navigator and explorer.
Life
D'Entrecasteaux belonged to a small noble family in Provence and was educated in a Jesuit school. He wanted to join the Jesuit order, which his father prevented. Instead, he took him to the French Navy when he was 17 .
After participating in sea battles off Mallorca , the rest of the career was rather calm. D'Entrecasteaux discovered a new route between the Empire of China and the Spice Islands and was appointed governor of Mauritius .
In the summer of 1788, the last news of Jean-François de La Pérouse's expedition reached France. After that, the two ships from La Pérouse were lost. That was shortly before the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789. It was only after two years that the situation had calmed down so much in September 1791 that the National Assembly wanted to send two ships to search for La Pérouse. D'Entrecasteaux and the Breton Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec got the job .
On September 28, 1791, the two set sail in Brest . D'Entrecasteaux was appointed rear admiral before departure and commanded the frigate La Recherche ("the search"), Houn Kermadec commanded the very similar L'Esperance ("the hope").
The search for the missing ship from La Pérouse turned into a catastrophe. The officers and crew were politically divided into royalists and republicans and fought bitterly. In addition to the officers, there were a number of researchers on board who often represented their own interests. The hydrograph Charles Beautemps-Beaupre should be mentioned in particular , who created excellent nautical charts of large areas that are still valid today. Thanks to his maps, the trip wasn't a total scientific failure. The botanist Jacques Julien Houton de Labillardière also took part in this expedition.
The two ships crossed in the South Seas and followed different tracks, but found neither La Pérouse nor his ship. It was not until 1827 that the Irish-British merchant captain Peter Dillon discovered the wreck of La Pérouse's expedition ship off the island of Vanikoro . Bruny d'Entrecasteaux and Huon Kermadec explored and discovered many previously little-known areas during their search. The Huongolf near Lae , the Trobriand Islands (after Lieutenant Denis de Trobriand from l'Esperance ), Cape Cretin (after Lieutenant Lionel Cretin from La Recherche ), the D'Entrecasteaux Islands (all in Papua New Guinea ), and several islands, reefs, rivers and sea routes in and around Australia (including the D'Entrecasteaux Canal ) were named after the two captains, their officers and the ships.
After almost two years of searching, the two captains died in quick succession. Huon Kermadec died of consumption in the port of Balade, d'Entrecasteaux of scurvy on July 20, 1793 at sea off the Hermit Islands in northern New Guinea. He was one of the few captains who died of this vitamin deficiency disease.
The new commanders were the loyal d'Auribeau and EPE de Rossel, another officer of La Recherche . When d'Auribeau of the execution of Louis XVI. and heard the terror of the revolution , he handed his ship over to the Dutch in the next port . Shortly afterwards he died too. De Rossel's ship fell into the hands of the British , and it wasn't until 1802 that the travelogue and scientific results were given to France.
Ambiguity of the name
There are several spellings of d'Entrecasteaux's name. Sometimes the first name is Antoine , sometimes Joseph . Bruny, which is actually part of the surname, is also often spelled Bruni. The spelling d'Entrecasteaux is undisputed . The discoverer is usually recorded under this name; accordingly (with the exception of Bruny Island ) all geographic places named after him are called that.
literature
- Edward Duyker , Maryse Duyker: Bruny d'Entrecasteaux. Voyage to Australia & the Pacific, 1791-1793 (= Miegunyah Volumes. Ser. 2, Vol. 36). Melbourne University Press, Carlton 2001, ISBN 0-522-84932-6 (Paperback edition. Ibid 2006, ISBN 0-522-85232-7 ).
- Edward Duyker: Citizen Labillardière. A Naturalist's Life in Revolution and Exploration (1755-1834). Miegunyah Press, Melbourne 2003, ISBN 0-522-85010-3 (Paperback edition. Miegunyah Press, Carlton 2004, ISBN 0-522-85160-6 ).
- Hélène Richard: Le voyage de d'Entrecasteaux à la recherche de Lapérouse. Une grande expédition scientifique au temps de la Révolution française (= Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques . Mémoires de la Section d'Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques. Vol. 3). Editions du Comité des travaux Historiques et Scientifiques, Paris 1986, ISBN 2-7355-0080-2 (also: Ecole des Chartes, dissertation, 1978).
Web links
- Leigh Rayment: Antoine Raymond Joseph de Bruni D'Entrecasteaux. In: Discoverers Web of the Eindhoven University of Technology . Archived from the original on December 20, 2012 ; accessed on July 20, 2018 .
- Edward Duyker, Maryse Duyker: Voyage to Australia and the Pacific 1791-1793. Melbourne University Publishing, archived from the original on June 15, 2005 ; accessed on August 17, 2018 (English).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Entrecasteaux, Joseph Bruny d ' |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Entrecasteaux, Joseph-Antoine-Raymond Bruny d ' |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French navigator and explorer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 8, 1737 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Aix-en-Provence |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 20, 1793 |
| Place of death | at the Hermit Islands, Manus Province , Papua New Guinea |