Abel-Nicolas Bergasse Dupetit Thouars
Quick Facts
Biography
Abel-Nicolas Georges Henri Bergasse Dupetit Thouars (March 23, 1832 – March 14, 1890) was a French sailor, vice-admiral, saver of Lima and a hero in Peru.
He was born in Bordeaux-en-Gâtinais, Loiret. He was adopted by his maternal uncle Vice Admiral Abel Aubert Dupetit Thouars, adding the Dupetit-Thouars to his name.
He took part in the Crimean War, where he was wounded and was made a Knight of the Légion d'honneur. In 1868, he commanded the corvette Dupleix during the Japanese revolution. On 8 March 1868, a skiff sent to Sakai was attacked by samurai retainers of the daimyo of Tosa; 11 sailors and a midshipman were killed. The attack and French demands for punishment of the samurai involved became known as the Sakai incident. In 1870, he commanded a floating battery on the Rhine river during the Franco-Prussian War.
As a rear admiral, he was in charge of the 1880 pacification of the Marquesas Islands, which had been conquered by his uncle Abel Aubert Dupetit Thouars forty years before. On the way back to France, he commanded the French Navy observation mission at the War of the Pacific. Promoted to vice admiral in 1883, he died at Toulon on 14 March 1890.
A key south-to-north broad one-way street in Lima, Avenida (du) Petit Thouars, is named after him. It runs through Miraflores, San Isidro, Lince, and downtown Lima wards.
Family
- Louis-Marie Aubert du Petit-Thouars (1758–1831), was a famous botanist.
- Aristide Aubert du Petit Thouars (1760–1798) was a French Navy officer, a hero of the Battle of the Nile.
- Abel Aubert Dupetit Thouars (1793–1864), his uncle, was a French Navy admiral who took possession of Tahiti for France.