7. The Maori in New Zealand cannibalized 27 French sailors at one time in 1772
Marion du Fresne was a naval officer during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740 – 48) who rose to the rank of Captain before entering the merchant service following the war. He served in the French East India Company, which failed in 1769, and led him to lobbying the court of Louis XVI to equip him with an expedition to the South Seas, in search of the east coast of Australia, a mission which placed him in competition with James Cook. With two ships, du Fresne discovered the Prince Edward Islands and the Crozet Islands before embarking for Tasmania and New Zealand.
In 1772, du Fresne’s expedition anchored in the Bay of Islands, needing to refit their ships and obtain fresh vegetables to treat the scurvy which had broken out in their crews. There, according to two separate contemporaneous accounts written by survivors, they were befriended by a local Maori Chieftain named Te Kauri. On June 12, 1772, du Fresne and 26 sailors with him ashore were attacked by Maori tribesmen under Te Kauri, killed, and eaten. The Maori later attempted to destroy the rest of the expedition, but French firearms defeated Maori spears. Upon return to France, the story of the cannibals’ massacre of the French party was used to refute the fashionable ideas of Rousseau of the natives living as “noble savages”.