Tombeaux de la Baie de Castries.

Title

Tombeaux de la Baie de Castries.

Description

View shows the graves in the bay of Castries in Siberia.

ca. 1797

Artist

Perousse,de La (1741-1788)

Jean-François de Galaup de La Pérouse was a French navigator, circumnavigator and geographer in the Age of Enlightenment. At the age of 15, La Pérouse went to Brest and started a career in the French Navy. The officers were divided into noble 'red' and bourgeois 'blue'. To make his career better, La Pérouse added a noble title to his family name de Galaup, which refers to a small family farm outside of Albi called La Peyrouse. The recent outbreak of the Seven Years' War led La Pérouse to Québec, among others. The return of the circumnavigator Louis Antoine de Bougainville to France in 1769 inspired La Pérouse to do similar things. From 1772 to 1776, La Pérouse sailed on behalf of the French governor in the Indian Ocean between the French-controlled colonies of Mauritius, Reunion, Pondicherry in southern India and Madagascar, where he completed his geographic knowledge. La Perouse took part in the American War of Independence on the American side for the French. He commanded a squadron and in August 1782 captured the Fort Prince of Wales without a fight and captured the English explorer Samuel Hearne there. La Pérouse was ennobled and promoted for special services on his return. Two ships - the Astrolabe and the Boussole - were equipped and a top-class team of scientists from the fields of astronomy, mathematics, geology, mineralogy and botany were assembled for the trip. Her mission was to study the geography of the Pacific and its trade opportunities there, from the far north to Australia, from Asia to America. On August 1, 1785, the two ships set sail from Brest. The first stop was Tenerife. Patagonia was reached in January 1786. Via Cape Horn and Easter Island we went to Hawaii and further to Alaska. La Pérouse, who was one of the enlighteners, was the first European to consciously refrain from taking possession of unexplored islands. In Alaska, he made important contacts with Indians before touring the California coast. Winter was used to cross the Pacific. In January 1787, the two ships landed in Macau. Now the so far little-known East Asian side seas, the Chinese Sea and the Japanese Sea, have been systematically researched and mapped, as well as the large Siberian Kamchatka Peninsula, which was interesting because of the wealth of fur. After Sakhalin and the Japanese Kuriles were explored, the South Pacific was headed for. On December 11, 1787, Samoa's second captain and close friend La Pérouses, the scientist Paul Fleuriot de Langle (1744–1787), was killed by locals.

Historical Description

During the Russian Empire, Siberia was chiefly developed as an agricultural province. The government also used it as a place of exile, sending Avvakum, Dostoevsky, and the Decemberists, among others, to work camps in the region. During the 19th century, the Trans-Siberian Railway was constructed, supporting industrialization. This was also aided by the discovery and exploitation of vast reserves of Siberian mineral resources. The early history of Siberia was greatly influenced by the sophisticated nomadic civilizations of the Scythians (Pazyryk) on the west of the Ural Mountains and Xiongnu (Noin-Ula) on the east of the Urals, both flourishing before the Christian era. The steppes of Siberia were occupied by a succession of nomadic peoples, including the Khitan people, various Turkic peoples, and the Mongol Empire. In the late Middle Ages. They had long maintained relations with the people of the Siberian forest (taiga). Tibetan Buddhism spread into the areas south of Lake Baikal. As early as the 11th century the Novgorodians had occasionally penetrated into Siberia. After the fall of the Novgorod Republic its communications between Northern Russia and Siberia were inherited by the Grand Duchy of Moscow. With the breakup of the Golden Horde late in the 15th century, the Khanate of Sibir was founded with its center at Tyumen. The non-Borjigin Taybughid dynasty vied for rule with the descendants of Shiban. In the beginning of the 16th century Tatar fugitives from Turkestan subdued the loosely associated tribes inhabiting the lowlands to the east of the Ural Mountains. In the mid-16th century the Tsardom of Russia conquered the Tatar khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan, thus annexing the entire Volga Region and making the way to the Ural Mountains open. The main treasure to attract Cossacks to Siberia was the fur of sables, foxes, and ermines. Explorers brought back many furs from their expeditions.