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Souvenirs d’un Aveugle. Voyage Autour du Monde, volume 3

Author Jacques Etiene Victor Arago (French, 1790 - 1855)

Date1840

Object number00056229

NameBook

MediumPaper, vellum

DimensionsOverall: 245 × 165 × 25 mm, 715 g

ClassificationsBooks and journals

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum Collection Purchased with the assistance of the Louis Vuitton Trust Fund

Terms

DescriptionThird volume out of five by Jacques Etiene Victor Arago titled 'Souvenirs d’un Aveugle. Voyage Autour du Monde'. These five volumes are the classic account of the Louis de Freycinet voyage around the world in 1817 – 1820 by Jacques Etiene Victor Arago.HistoryOver 1817-20, in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, Louis de Freycinet commanded a substantial French voyage of global exploration in the corvette URANIE. During this period the vessel visited Australia (New Holland), Timor, numerous Pacific islands from New Zealand to Hawaii, and then South America. URANIE was wrecked in the Falkland Islands in 1820 so the expedition returned to France on a newly purchased vessel, PHYSICIENNE. The task of the Freycinet expedition was vast, including the accumulation of information and specimens to document the peoples and cultures they encountered, in addition to local geography, natural history, trade, art and religions. The first official accounts of the voyage were published in France in 1824. URANIE’s complement of 153 included artist Jacques Arago, an accomplished but eccentric draftsman and writer. In addition to creating a series of illustrations for the expedition, Arago drafted his own two-volume account of the voyage, which was published in 1822, two years ahead of the official account. This original edition was accompanied by an ‘Atlas’ of lithographed illustrations. His ‘Souvenirs d’un Aveugle. Voyage autour du monde’ went on to become one of the most popular French travel accounts of the nineteenth century, prompting multiple editions and translations. Over the following decades, Arago expanded the text and illustrations, culminating in a five-volume set featuring 60 lithographs, hand-coloured in some rare editions. Arago’s writing and illustrations are important not only for the rich material that they capture and describe, but also because of their perspective. The Freycinet expedition occurred in the immediate aftermath of the definitive military and naval defeat of France during the Napoleonic Wars. As such, the expedition did not herald overt colonial or imperial intentions, but focused on re-establishing French scientific and cultural prestige. The accounts thus are quite distinct from contemporaneous British and American surveying expeditions, and afford a noted degree of agency and respect to First Nations people encountered throughout the Pacific. Arago's account highlights the ways in which non-British voyagers viewed and represented the Pacific Ocean after the establishment of several Australian colonies (New South Wales, Van Diemen’s Land and Swan River Colony), but prior to the significant expansion of free settlement around Australasia in the mid-late 1830s (South Australia, Port Phillip Colony, New Zealand). The French at this time had neither the means nor the strategic power to mount major colonial projects. Therefore, their understanding of First Nations cultures – including Indigenous connections to lands and seas – stands in contrast with the perspective of Britain as the world’s pre-eminent industrial economy and maritime power. The works were also created in the aftermath of the first decades of frontier violence in the Australian colonies. This was a time of growing Colonial Office consternation about the human and political consequences of colonisation, in addition to the mounting anti-slavery campaign and Christian agitation for more considerate treatment of Indigenous peoples around the British Empire. Although one of the most frequently published of all nineteenth-century voyage accounts, this third edition is the only version in which the plates appear as coloured lithographs. The images and text concentrate on Hawaii and Micronesia, plus Western Australia and New South Wales. This set also includes the scarce fifth supplementary volume devoted to hunting, but the plates in this volume are not coloured. It contains details of hunting experiences during the voyage, including a 14-page description of a kangaroo hunt in New South Wales. Over 140 pages of the text and five lithographs are related to Australia, including five lithographs which feature representations of Aboriginal hunting, warfare and ceremony. Additional lithographs depict important colonial ventures such as sealing, plus a pronounced focus on the dwellings and villages of First Nations peoples throughout the Pacific. Significance'Voyage Autour du Monde’ went on to become one of the most popular travel accounts of the nineteenth century, prompting multiple editions and translations. These five volumes provide opportunities with other Anglophone accounts, to demonstrate different forms of encounters during nineteenth-century European voyaging.