William Dampier

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William Dampier : biography

5 September 1651 – March 1715

Honours

The following geographical places/features are named after William Dampier:

  • Dampier Archipelago, Western Australia;
  • Dampier County, a cadastral division of New South Wales;
  • Dampier Land District, a cadastral division of Western Australia;
  • Dampier Peninsula, Western Australia;
  • Dampier Ridge, part of the submerged continent of Zealandia
  • Dampier Seamount, off Saint Helena;
  • Dampier Strait (Indonesia);
  • Dampier Strait (Papua New Guinea) and;
  • the town of Dampier, Western Australia.

Between 1913 and 1922, an electorate of the Australian House of Representatives, the Division of Dampier in Western Australia, was also named after Dampier.

HMS Dampier, a British frigate/survey ship, saw service with the Royal Navy between 1948 and 1968.

In 1966 and 1985, William Dampier was honoured by Australia Post with postage stamps depicting his portrait. Retrieved 2011-09-13

First circumnavigation

Map from "A New Voyage Round the World", published in 1697 by William Dampier, the English sea captain, naturalist, and occasional [[buccaneer. The Miskito coast is marked with a star. Dampier and his associate, the surgeon and buccaneer Lionel Wafer describe the Miskito peoples in the period 1690–1700. These tribal groups, often mixed with runaway slaves, formed a distinct culture in the coastal region, sometimes forming alliances with pirates against Spanish authorities in the 16th–18th centuries.]]

In 1679 Dampier crewed with buccaneer Captain Bartholomew Sharp on the Spanish Main of Central America, twice visiting the Bay of Campeche or "Campeachy" as it was then known (see map opposite) on the north coast of Mexico. This led to his first circumnavigation during which he accompanied a raid across the Isthmus of Darién in Panama and captured Spanish ships on the Pacific coast of that isthmus. The pirates then raided Spanish settlements in Peru before returning to the Caribbean.

Dampier made his way to Virginia, where in 1683 he was engaged by the privateer John Cooke. Cooke entered the Pacific via Cape Horn and spent a year raiding Spanish possessions in Peru, the Galápagos Islands, and Mexico. This expedition collected buccaneers and ships as it went along, at one time having a fleet of ten vessels. Cooke died in Mexico, and a new leader, Edward Davis, was elected captain by the crew.

Dampier transferred to Captain Charles Swan’s ship, the privateer Cygnet, and on 31 March 1686 they set out across the Pacific to raid the East Indies, calling at Guam and Mindanao. Leaving Swan and 36 others behind on Mindanao, the rest of the privateers sailed to Manila, Poulo Condor, China, the Spice Islands, and New Holland (Australia). Contrary to Dampier’s later claim that he had not actively participated in actual piratical attacks during this voyage, he was in fact selected in 1687 to command one of the Spanish ships captured by the Cygnet’s crew off Manila.Lopez Lazaro, 2011

On 5 January 1688 Cygnet was beached on the northwest coast of Australia, near King Sound. While the ship was being careened Dampier made notes on the fauna and flora and the indigenous peoples he found there.

Later that year, by agreement, he and two shipmates were marooned on one of the Nicobar Islands. They obtained a small canoe which they modified after first capsizing and then, after surviving a great storm at sea, called at "Acheen" (Aceh) in Sumatra. 

After further adventures, Dampier returned to England in 1691 via the Cape of Good Hope, penniless but in possession of his journals. He also had as a source of income the famous painted (tattoed) Prince Jeoly and his mother, whom he had purchased as slaves and subsequently exhibited in London, thereby also coming to be better known while his book was being printed.Barnes, G.(2006) Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 6(1), 31–50. University of Pennsylvania Press. Retrieved 12 June 2012, from . State Library of New South Wales.