Blutspur einer Zirkumnavigation. Ein Südsee-Epos von Carl Friedrich Behrens aus dem Jahr 1728
A Blood Trail of a Circumnavigation. A South-Sea Epic by Carl Friedrich Behrens from 1728

Summary/Abstract: In 1721, a fleet under the command of Admiral Jakob Roggeveen set out on a circumnavigation. The armed ships of the Dutch East India Company advanced into the South Pacific, where a landing party committed a massacre on the island of Rapa Nui. European prospectors were supposedly willing to resort to violence in order to secure profits for the investors. An analysis of the reports by Carl Friedrich Behrens, a member of the ship’s militia, shows that the crew feared falling victim to the natural force of the ocean or the savages of the Southern Sea associated with it. This paranoid projection of one’s own savagery significantly encouraged the use of violence.

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