Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Explorers of the Pacific: European and American Discoveries in Polynesia

Summary

page 67

Summary

The credit of finding the important northwestern group of the Marquesas goes, without doubt, to Ingraham. However, the French voyager Du Petit-Thouars, as late as 1840, held that they were discovered by Marchand because nothing had been published to prove that they had been previously discovered by Ingraham. Inasmuch as the Bishop Museum possesses a photostat copy of Ingraham's journal of the voyage of the Hope in which the dates of discovery are clearly written, the Literary and Historical Society of New England has been strangely neglectful in not publishing the journal and so making available the definite published proof that was due Joseph Ingraham. It is also remarkable that three other voyagers should have discovered these islands which had eluded discovery so long within two years of the original discovery. Confident of being first, each explorer naturally gave his own set of names to the islands. Even Fanning, as late as 1798, thought the two most northerly islands were new discoveries and gave them a fifth set of names. To clear up the confusion, the following table gives the names applied by the various voyagers in the order of their contact with the islands. Fanning accepted the native names of the islands he did not name.

Though Fanning came in last in the Marquesas, he discovered the uninhabited equatorial islands of Fanning (June 11, 1798) and Washington (June 12, 1798). He also seems, on his own evidence, to have discovered Palmyra on June 15, 1798, though it was left to a fellow American to name it.

Northwest, or Washington, group of Marquesas
Native Name Ingraham (April 1791) Marchand (June 1791) Hergest (March 1792) Roberts (Feb. 1793) Fanning (May 1798)
Huapu, Uapou Adams Marchand Trevenens Jefferson
Motuoa Lincoln Plate (Flat) not named Resolution
Nukuhiva Federal Baux Sir Henry Martins Adams
Huahuna, Uahuka Washington not seen Rious Massachusetts
Motuiti Franklin Two Brothers Hergests Rocks Blake
Eiao Knox Masse Roberts Freeman New York
Hatutu Hancock Chanal Roberts Langdon Nexsen