Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne

Who is Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne?

Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne was a French privateer captain and explorer born in Saint-Malo, Brittany. In 1771 he led an expedition intended, officially, to return a Tahitian man named Ahutoru to his homeland after a stay in France, and unofficially to continue the French search for the southern continent Terra Australis. Commanding the ships Mascarin and Marquis-de-Castries, his expedition sighted the Prince Edward Islands on 13 January 1772, and days later, on 24 January 1772, discovered a further archipelago in the far southern Indian Ocean. His second-in-command, Julien Crozet, landed on what is now Île de la Possession and buried a bottle containing a parchment claiming the islands for the French crown; the archipelago was later named the Crozet Islands after him. The expedition then sailed on to Tasmania and New Zealand, where Marion du Fresne was killed, along with several of his men, during a violent encounter with Māori at the Bay of Islands in June 1772. Crozet took command and completed the voyage. The Crozet Islands remain one of the five districts of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands today.

Sources: TAAF (Terres australes et antarctiques françaises), "L'Expédition de Marc Joseph Marion du Fresne" (taaf.fr) · Institut de France / Canal Académies, "L'infatigable capitaine Marc-Joseph Marion-Dufresne (1724-1772)" · "Crozet Islands" and "Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne", historical voyage records