HOM.11
French Ships in the Pacific, 1708-1717, is the eleventh volume of the History of Micronesia: A Collection of Source Documents (HOM), compiled and edited by Rodrique Levesque.
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The History of Micronesia: A Collection of Source Documents was complied, edited and published by Rod Levesque from 1992 to 2002. Copyrights were obtained by the Habele Outer Island Education Fund, a US nonprofit, in 2022, which digitized the content to facilitate noncommercial access to, and use of, the twenty-volume series. The PDF file for HOM.11 is roughly 65MB.
Levesque's Summary
Volume 11 contains 62 chapters totalling 158 documents and 42 illustrations. The bulk of these documents have to do with the appearance of French ships at Guam during this period, at least 17 of them. The illustration above is that of the ship St.-Antoine-de-Padoue, Captain Frondat.
Other documents deal with English pirates such as Woodes Rogers, with more Spanish voyages of exploration to the Carolines (including one led by a German sailor), with subsidies, etc. The population of Guam had been reduced to one-third its size at conquest.
Some countries are less skilled than others at travelling “back to the future.” France is one of them. Most Frenchmen ignore that many French ships crossed the Pacific Ocean before their more famous Bougainville in the 1760s. In fact, the first French ship to go around the world was the Grand-Dauphin, Captain Dufresne, and also the first to go around the world twice in a row. I have researched this topic and discovered to my amazement that at least 17 French ships visited Guam in the short period from 1708 to 1717. Many of those continued their voyage around the world after visiting China, some more than once. The aptly-named ship Decouverte discovered a new island, Clipperton, still a French possession. Many more French ships must have crossed the Pacific, but left no records, except that we know from a Captain Boislore (whose story will unfold in future volumes) that he had himself visited the area of the Philippines earlier, in 1703. This was before the first recorded voyage by Captain Frondat in the ship Saint-Antoine, in 1708. For political reasons in Europe, and the stipulations of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, the French government forbid French ships from going to the Pacific. Threats of confiscation and fines were of no use until the King issued a decree, on 29 January 1716, ordering the death penalty for any captain who contravened this edict. It took time for this news to reach all corners of the world. Meanwhile, the largest French fleet in history to visit Guam was there at the beginning of June 1716. One straggler came by in 1717, but the end of a prosperous period of free trade had come to an end.
This volume also contains more documents about the continuing exploration of the Caroline Islands. In 1700, a boat from Guam had accidentally rediscovered Ulithi Atoll. In 1710, a Spanish ship from Manila finally discovered new islands, the Palau Group. However, lack of success was a normal outcome of such voyages of exploration. Another 20 years would pass before an attempt at colonization would be made. In the meantime, many shipwrecks occurred and 16 Spanish were marooned forever at the islets of Sonsorol, including two Belgian Jesuit missionaries. Father Serrano, the Superior of the Caroline Mission, died in a shipwreck among the Philippines in 1711.
In 1709, some English pirates led by Woodes Rogers were able to capture another Manila galleon off California. On the way home they dared to stop at Guam with their prize. The Spanish prisoners were ransomed, but the pirates got their refreshments after threatening destruction of the colony. Governor Pimentel had to suffer through endless law-suits for years to come, for not having fought with these pirates, although he saved the colony by not doing so. The reaction of the Manila officials made him coy about reporting the visits of other foreign ships; from then on, he wrote few reports, and not one word about French ships, though France was a friendly country. By the way, Rogers carried another Chamorro canoe to England, perhaps at the suggestion of William Dampier, who was then on his third voyage around the world.
Father Bouwens, the “second founder” of the Mariana Island Mission, died of a bout with diarrhea in Saipan in 1712. Soon after that. Father Cruydolf, his companion, closed the mission station at Anaguan (now called Garapan) and the people were concentrated at the main station at Fatiguan (now called Chalan Kanoa). By 1727, the whole island of Saipan was depopulated, and the people moved to Guam. Already in 1710, the native population of Guam had decreased to about 5,000, that is, one-third of the population at contact, but there was hardly 1,500 able-bodied men remaining. At least half of the natives suffered from disfiguring skin diseases, according to French visitors, and from other miseries, which they bore with patience, according to the missionaries.
Normally, fictional stories have no place in this collection of historical documents, but I could not resist reproducing part of an imaginary voyage around the world by Daniel Defoe, the famous author of the Robinson Crusoe story. What he says about the Philippines, Guam, and the exploration of the Pacific may interest some readers. Defoe’s ideas must certainly have some effect on the conceptions and misconceptions that learned people in England had of Pacific navigation at that time.
Publication Details
Lévesque Rodrigue. History of Micronesia : A Collection of Source Documents. Vol. 11 French ships in the Pacific: 1708-1717. Gatineau Québec: Lévesque Publications; 1997.
ISBN-10: 0920201113
ISBN-13: 978-0920201114
LCC: DU500 .H58 2000
