Discovery and Empire: the French in the South Seas

The French connection with the South Seas stretches back at least as far as the voyage of Binot Paulmier de Gonneville (1503-1505) who believed he had discovered the fabled great south land after being blown off course during a storm near the Cape of Good Hope. The story of his voyage remained largely forgotten for over 150 years but eventually resurfaced in 1664 thanks to the publication by the Abbé Jean Paulmier of a document in which he argued on the basis of this supposed discovery for the establishment of a Christian mission in this third part of the world. While historians today contest the authenticity of various aspects of the Abbé Paulmiers Mémoires there is no doubt about the impact it had in France both on the collective imagination and more concretely on French plans for exploration and colonial expansion. It was not until the eighteenth century however that France began sending mariners to the southern oceans on a regular basis and by that time a new maritime power had begun to emerge: Great Britain. Together these two nations would play a decisive role in determining the configuration of these little known parts of the globe and particularly of the Pacific which had for so long been the almost exclusive preserve of Spain. (From the Introduction by John West-Sooby.)Discovery and Empire is a collection of essays originating out of a symposium that was held at the State Library of South Australia on 8 July 2009. The symposium formed one of the strands of the XVIIth Biennial Conference of the Australasian Association of European Historians (6-9 July 2009) the overall theme for which was Europes Expansions and Contractions.