HOM.19
The Freycinet Expedition, 1818-1819, is the nineteenth 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.19 is roughly 65MB.
Levesque's Summary
Volume 19 contains 14 documents from 1818, plus extracts from four books about the Freycinet expedition of 1819, with 50 illustrations.
The French scientific expedition led by Captain Freycinet was the most thorough to visit Micronesia ever. Its 12-volume official report includes information about life there up to 1819: history, anthropology, sociology, native customs, industry, commerce, flora and fauna, linguistics, etc. Captain Freycinet’s narrative is given here in full; it includes special reports by many of Ids officers, notably Lamarche, Berard, Doctors Quoy and Gaimard. So are the letters of his wife who was part of the crew, and the letters of Jacques Arago, the artist. Arago’s book is also reproduced; it is a poetic rendering that reads like a historical novel.
“The Carolinian is at once a man, a fish and a bird." “The Mariana Islands are neither wild nor civilized... Contrasts are so close together that the historian appears as if contradicting himself when he is so truthful as to be too candid. ” “Let us have no fiction in the history of the world. I prefer the most abstract truth, to the most brilliant and ingenious invention. ” All three quotes are from Jacques Arago, as reproduced in this volume.
So wrote the first French artist, Arago, upon visiting Micronesia, in the spring of 1819. His poetic book, which is here translated for the first time, does read like a historical novel—the first to be reproduced in this documentary encyclopedia, and the last document in this first series on the history of Micronesia. Arago’s letters, and those written by the first educated woman to visit Micronesia, Mrs. Freycinet, are also published in this volume.
As for Captain Freycinet, his was the only French scientific expedition around the world in the age of sail; it was also the best one to visit Micronesia. The Frenchmen spent nearly three months in the Marianas and lost no time, investigating everything in sight. Captain Freycinet and his secretary were the only non-Spanish men who, before Lieutenant Safford of the U.S. Navy in 1900, did intensive research in the government archives at Agafia. These archives were obviously still intact in 1819.
After his return to Paris, Captain Freycinet single-handedly wrote, or edited, the 12 volumes that comprise his Voyage around the world. Before writing his Narrative, Captain Freycinet continued his historical research in libraries, and came up with a reasonably correct history of Micronesia. However, his best work has to do with his local observations about the social life of the islands, their economy, industry, and commercial potential. For instance, the information that his team collected about canoes, navigation, plants, birds, fish, etc. is interesting indeed, even for modern scientists.
Arago, the poet, may not have written fiction, but his style was definitely romantic, specially when he described the Carolinians whom he met in the Marianas. The Carolinian chief who saved him from drowning at Rota came in for special praise. His own romantic affair with a local girl adds pathos to his story.
Captain Freycinet was the first modern writer to have realized the true nature of the latte stones that are still to be seen on some of the Marianas: they were the columns of ancient houses that had belonged to chiefs.
Freycinet copied and published the official census of the population of the Maria-nas, from 1710 to 1818, a total of 45 tables which can be found in this volume. Many of those had already been published in this series, but some are new and they provide a rapid appreciation of what happened in those islands during the 18th century.
Publication Details
Lévesque Rodrigue. History of Micronesia : A Collection of Source Documents. Vol. 19 The Freycinet Expedition: 1818-1819. Gatineau Québec: Lévesque Publications; 2002.
ISBN-10: 0920201199
ISBN-13: 978-0920201190
LCC: DU500 .H58 2000
