Abraham Duquesne-Guitton Explained

Office:Governor general of the French Antilles
Term Start:1714
Term End:1717
Predecessor:Robert Cloche de La Malmaison
Successor:Antoine d'Arcy de la Varenne (interim)
François de Pas de Mazencourt
Birth Date:1648
Death Date:1724
Death Place:Rochefort
Nationality:French
Occupation:Naval officer

Captain, later Admiral, Abraham de Bellebat (Belébat?) de Duquesne-Guitton, also spelled Duquesne-Guiton, (1648-1724) was a French naval commander.

In 1687 he sailed from the Cape of Good Hope in L'Oiseau, with a French Ambassador, Claude Céberet du Boullay, on board, to establish a French embassy in the Kingdom of Siam.

He sighted Eendracht Land on the Western Australian coast and sailed in close to shore near the Swan River on 4 August; this was France's first recorded contact with Australia. He wrote that it looked very attractive, and fully covered with green despite "the fact that we were in the middle of winter in this country".[1]

His nephew Nicolas Gedeon de Voutron also sighted the western coast of Australia that year on another ship at the same latitude.[1]

He was appointed Governor General of the Windward Islands in the West Indies ("Gouverneur général des Isles du Vent") in reward for renouncing Protestantism and becoming a Catholic, and held that office from 1714 to 1717.[2]

Notes and References

  1. French maritime history in WA - wait, there's more - and it's sensational! . The Australian Association for Maritime History, Quarterly Newsletter . 79 . 3–4 . June 2000 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20070830001123/http://www.aamh.asn.au/news/0079.pdf . 2007-08-30 .
  2. Book: Pritchard , James . In Search of Empire: The French in the Americas, 1670-1730 . Cambridge University Press . 2004 . Cambridge . 512 . 0-521-82742-6. p245