Jean-François-Marie de Surville
Jean François Marie de Surville (* 1717, † April 1770 ) was a French trader and navigator.
He was the first European who spent a longer time on the island group of the Solomon Islands. De Surville gave some islands the French name which they bear to this day. After returning to France, he told there of his stay in the "land of the Arsacids " ( Terre des Arsacides ).
In 1767 de Surville drove his ship St Jean Baptiste to India to trade in India and China between the French subsidiaries.
In 1768 he heard during a stay in India that the British had discovered the South Pacific island with fabulous wealth and decided to look for this island.
During the journey, forcing him a large number of sick and dying of scurvy crew members to find a safe anchorage. De Surville followed the charts of Abel Tasman and drove to New Zealand. On December 12, 1769 at 11:30 we sighted the New Zealand coast. Soon after you pass James Cook's ship Endeavour, due to bad weather but not sighted you look.
Coincidentally, both de Surville and Cook held at the same time on here. They were the first Europeans to visit Abel Tasman a century earlier.
De Surville anchored on 17 December 1769 in the eight days before named by Cook Doubtless Bay before Brodie 's Creek, north of the Māoridorfes Whatuwhiwhi. He gathered in the coastal area herbs for healing of scurvy.
On December 27, a group of the crew was stranded during a storm at Whatuwhiwhi, where they were treated kindly by the Maori. The same storm tore the anchor of the ship from the ground that had to be cut then. The other one in tow yawl the ship ran on to rocks and also had to be cut loose.
After the storm the stranded sailors returned to the ship. On 31 December, the yawl on the coast of Tokerau Beach, surrounded by Maori, sighted. You put down an armed group to retrieve the boat. It encountered in armed with spears group Māori and the chief Ranginui who approached with a green leafy branch as a peace sign de Surville. De Surville took Ranginui for the " theft " of his boat fixed, burned down about 30 huts destroyed a canoe filled with nets and stole another. They brought Ranginui on their ship. There, the stranded during the storm crew members identified him as the Māori chief who had treated her kindly.
However, De Surville was determined to keep his prisoner and sailed on the same day in the direction from Peru. Ranginui died after 12 days in captivity from scurvy. Gary Webb wrote about the event, the poem " Surville at Doubtless Bay ".
A plaque was unveiled at this event in Whatuwhiwhi 1969. The capped anchors were located and lifted on 21 December 1974.
The St Jean Baptiste drove east across the Pacific and suffered further losses by the scurvy among the crew. De Surville drowned in April 1770 in heavy seas off the Peruvian coast, where he sought help for his team.