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9666073

Title
Capitaine E. Cugnet journal describing the French annexation of the Marquesas Islands and Tahiti
Creator
E. Cugnet, Capitaine
Call number
MLMSS 11702/Box 1X
Level of description
fonds
Date

17 September 1842 - 27 March 1845
Type of material
Textual Records, Manuscript Cartographic Materials
Reference code
9666073
Physical Description
0.30 metres of textual material (1 outsize box) - manuscript volume in pencil & ink - 29 x 21 cm; 178 pages
ADMINISTRATIVE/ BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY

Capitaine E. Cugnet was an officer of marines on the 24-gun French corvette Le Bucéphale, one of three ships under the overall command of Rear Admiral Abel Du Petit-Thouars, commander of the French Pacific Naval Division. In 1842, Du Petit-Thouars took formal possession of the Marquesas Islands for France. In the same year he established a French protectorate over Tahiti.

After the first European visits to Tahiti by Samuel Wallis in 1767 and Louis-Antione de Bougainville less than a year later, the island played an important role in the history of European exploration of the Pacific. Some parallels can be drawn between the French annexation of the Marquesas and Tahiti and the English colonisation of Australia.

References:
Vendor's catalogue
Library acquisition file
Collection history
Originally from the Cugnet family, who sold it to the French trade. It then went to an English dealer from whom Maggs bought it.
Scope and Content
Capitaine Cugnet’s journal covers the years 1842 to 1845 during which the French annexed the Marquesas and Tahiti. It is a detailed account of the early years of French occupation of these islands. There is a brief itinerary on the verso of the title page, stating that he departed Tahuata on 24 September 1843 for Vapoha (Ua Poa), arriving on the 25th and left that same day for Nuku Hiva, where they landed on the 26th. They spent three months there before they sailed south-west for Tahiti on 26 December, arriving on the first day of 1844. The first 76 pages comprise a daily record and the next 60 pages are more of a journal.

The journal begins with Cugnet’s arrival at the island of Tahuata in the Marquesas. The islands’ chief soon acceded to French demands, a treaty was signed and the Marquesas became a French protectorate on 1 May 1842. The French commander Du Petit-Thouars then left for Tahiti leaving Michel Halley in charge as governor. He established military garrisons at Taiohae and Vaitahu and Cugnet includes a full page pencil sketch map of Vaitahu Bay, the French fort and the buildings around it. Relations between the French and the Marquesans gradually deteriorated leading to open warfare. Cugnet describes the resulting battle in detail and his role in it. Although Halley was among the French losses they retained control of the islands.

Cugnet left Tahuata on 24 September 1843 and his journal moves to Tahiti where tensions between the French and Tahitians had been simmering for years even though the Tahitians had agreed to annexation in 1842. The situation was complicated by the rival interests of French and English missionaries, prominent among the latter being Rev. George Pritchard who had incited the Tahitians to revolt against the establishment of a French protectorate. Commencing on 1 January 1844, Cugnet’s journal dives straight into this inflammatory situation. He describes some of the excesses of the French such as the governor, without any provocation, ordering soldiers to fire at a group of Tahitians. With the English determined to maintain their influence over Tahiti the tensions escalated. Eventually the Tahitians rebelled and Cugnet devotes five pages to the ensuing Battle of Mahaena during which 36 French and about 100 Tahitians were killed.

The political intrigue that followed the battle is fully described by Cugnet who claims that the war could easily have been stopped – Queen Pomare and the leaders of the insurgency were prepared to surrender - but for the machinations of influential “people who had the greatest interest in things not getting better.” Cugnet is disparaging of George Pritchard, the English missionary and consul, and Jacques-Antoine Moerenhout, the Chief of Police and Native Affairs. Cugnet clearly sympathises with the Tahitians, citing with apparent disapproval the prohibition on Tahitians singing, dancing and playing cards and the appropriation of their property and its sale to “Europeans who flock from Sydney”. As with the Marquesas, it is a story of invasion and displacement.

In the back of the journal, there is a table listing the ships (French, American and English) that visited Vaitahu Bay.
Language
French
Copying Conditions
Out of copyright:
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
Subject
France. Marine--Officers--Diaries.
Bucéphale (Corvette)
Voyages and travels--19th century.
Pomare IV, Queen of Tahiti, 1813-1877.
Du Petit-Thouars, Abel, 1793-1864.
Halley, Michel Edouard
Pritchard, George, 1796-1883.
Moerenhout, J. A. (Jacques Antoine), 1796-1879.
French Polynesia--History--19th century.
French Polynesia--Race relations.
French Polynesia--Politics and government.
Place
Marquesas Islands (French Polynesia).
Tahuata (French Polynesia).
Tahiti (French Polynesia : Island).
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