Manuel Quimper

Manuel Quimper Benítez del Pino (c. 1757 – April 1844) was a Spanish Peruvian explorer, cartographer, naval officer, and colonial official. He participated in charting the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Sandwich Islands in the late 18th century. He was later appointed a colonial governor in his native Peru at the beginning of the fight for independence there. He retired to Spain, but was able to return to Peru where he served as a naval officer in the new republic and pursued a literary career, publishing over 20 books about his experiences before his death there in Lima.

Quimper was born in Lima, Peru to a French father and Spanish mother. At the age of thirteen he became a cadet with a company of the Spanish navy stationed at Callao, Peru, and participated in the exploration of Chiloé Island. In April 1771, with the endorsement of Peruvian Viceroy Manuel de Amat y Juniet, he was accepted at the Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Marcos in Lima, where he studied mathematics and their nautical applications, graduating in June 1774. Little is known of Quimper's family. In 1792, El Mercurio Peruano, a publication of the Sociedad Académica de Amantes de Lima, published a letter he had apparently written to a brother in Lima during his 1790 stay at Nootka Sound.

Following his university studies, Quimper was assigned to the frigate Áquila on a mission to re-affirm Spanish sovereignty over the island of Tahiti in the South Pacific and in the latter part of 1777 to deliver lumber from Guayaquil for naval construction at Callao. In late 1780 he was promoted to Frigate Ensign (Alférez de Fragata) and assigned the transport of food from Callao to Talcahuano. Two years later he was sent to chart the Juan Fernández Islands in the South Pacific and upon his return to port at Valparaiso received recognition for his cartographic skills. In 1786 he embarked on a four-month sail to the Spanish port of Cádiz. Within a month he had been promoted to Ship Ensign (Alférez de Navío) and received permission to serve at the court of King Carlos III in Madrid for four months before returning to sea assigned to the protection of the Gulf of Cádiz.

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