The Medusa Shipwreck

Join Kelli as she goes over the tragedy of the Medusa Shipwreck. When a French frigate bound for Senegal hits a sandbank and sinks, some get on the lifeboats, while a large portion are stuck on a hastily erected raft. The raft was too heavy and abandoned by the boats, and 147 people on board this flat wooden rectangle were left to try and survive without provisions, a compass, a proper sail, or a rudder. And it doesn't end well.

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Chapters

• 0:28 Intro
• 3:20 Historical Context
• 10:31 Voyage to Senegal
• 14:55 Shipwreck!
• 23:27 The Raft
• 34:50 The Aftermath
• 38:21 Outro

Transcript

The Medusa Shipwreck
Intro
Welcome to A Popular History of Unpopular Things, a mostly scripted podcast that makes history more fun and accessible. My kind of history is the unpopular stuff - disease, death, and destruction. I like learning about all things bloody, gross, mysterious, and weird. 

I want to start with a shoutout to my newest cannibal patron over on the APHOUT Patreon - Joaquin! I’m so glad you love the show, and thank you so much for your support! Keep an ear out for your name popping up somewhere in today’s podcast! 

If you want to be cool like Joaquin, you can support me and the show on Patreon, just look up either A Popular History of Unpopular Things or APHOUT: A-P-H-O-U-T. And you can also now watch episodes on YouTube - so go subscribe to my channel there! I appreciate all the love and support :) Thanks again, Joaquin!
—
In early July, 1816, the French frigate Méduse ran aground on a sandbank in the Bay of Arguin, off the coast of today’s Mauritania, Western Africa. It’s a French ship, but since I don’t do French (which is going to be a struggle for this episode) I’m just going to use the anglicized version - the Medusa. The Medusa’s mission was to colonize Senegal. In the years after the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Age, the newly restored monarchy under King Louis the 18th was interested in settling on the West African coast to take advantage of commodity trade - things like cotton, cocoa, sugarcane, and gum from the acacia tree, used in medicines, inks, dyes, and sweets.

And, because this is an APHOUT episode, you know this goes horribly, horribly wrong. Beyond just a normal shipwreck, I mean, which is bad enough.

Now as we normally do here on the APHOUT podcast, we’ll start with the historical context - what was happening in the world that explains why a French ship went to settle in West Africa? Why that moment in French history? Why Senegal? And why Africa in general? There’s actually quite a lot of context to explore here, so we’ll go through that first before we get into the shipwreck itself and all the tragedies that befell the 400 people on board the Medusa. 


And get ready, because my faaaavorite thing happens - cannibalism! Yep, that’s right APHOUT fans, there are moments when things got so bad, and the situation was so dire, that they turned to cannibalism to survive. 

So batten down the hatches, historians, and let’s get started!

Historical Context
So first let’s talk big picture. Why were the French heading to Africa in the early 19th century? For those of you who remember anything about 1800’s trade… perhaps your brain goes immediately to the Atlantic Slave Trade. And to that, I say - kind of. The infrastructure of trade between Europe, Africa, and America was still there, and while the slave trade was still a thing, the French slave trade was starting to wind down a bit by this point.

But it’s important to note that the slave trade was the primary reason why Europeans became interested in Africa in the first place, at least from this colonial/imperial perspective. Let’s rewind a bit further.

Europe first started exploring the African coastline by ship in the Age of Exploration. After the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, which I’m not going to get into again since I’ve done that so many times in past episodes, Europeans were eager to find new trade routes to Asia, but by sea instead of land. The Portuguese were the first to find into the Indian Ocean by sailing around Africa. After that point, Europeans started setting up trading posts on African coastlines. 

At the same time, the Spanish headed West to what they later realized were the Americas. And then Portugal, England, France, and the Netherlands followed suit. They set up colonies there as well, right? I mean it’s why the US exists as an English-speaking nation; we were colonized by the English. So now we’ve got Europe engaging in trade with colonies in Africa and the Americas - the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade.

North America was well suited to grow things like rice, indigo, and tobacco. I mentioned this in my Jamestown episode; Pocahontas’ husband John Rolfe got that tobacco plantation thing going in Virginia, right? In the Caribbean and South America, it was mostly about sugar cane. But they also grew tobacco, and then there were gold and silver mines. Essentially, raw materials that came from the Americas were sent to Europe to be turned into manufactured goods.

So how did Africa factor into this? Well, Africa also provided Europeans with raw materials, but there was one commodity above the rest that Europeans wanted from their trading posts in West and Central Africa - humans. The enslavement of Africans depopulated towns and empires along the West and Central African coasts. And it wasn’t just a case of Europeans stealing African men, women, and children in the night, absconding with them to head across the ocean - I mean sure, this happened occasionally - but the slave trade was a whole economy that stronger African empires and nations engaged in. But I’m not getting into all that today. Maybe in another episode.

So throughout the early modern era, global trade was centered over the Atlantic. Sure, trade in the East was still a thing, but the money coming out of the Americas really dominated the global economy. And France made a good chunk of money off of all of this trade, which allowed them to do things like, I don’t know, attack the English. Settle colonies in the Americas. Engage in imperialism throughout the world.

But things started to change in France with the French Revolution. The cost of various French wars - against the Dutch, against the English, helping the Americans during our revolution - essentially bankrupted them. It also didn’t help that the French elite really liked to party, despite the common people starving in the streets. Long story short and simplified - the French rebelled against their monarchy, cut off Louis the 16th’s head, cut off his wife Marie Antoinette’s head, and established a republic.

But the republic didn’t last long, because it was a hot mess. And this is when Napoleon took over. 

Under Napoleon, the French saw their territory grow as an empire in Europe. Napoleon was around from 1799 until 1814 when he was exiled to Elba in the Mediterranean Sea. The French brought monarchy back with Louis the 18th, the beheaded king’s brother. But he was pretty unpopular, so Napoleon escaped from Elba and attempted a coup to regain power. It only lasted 100 days before he saw the writing on the wall and decided to flee, but ended up surrendering and being exiled to Saint Helena in the middle of the South Atlantic between South America and Africa. And he died there.

Why am I telling you all this? Our ship, the Medusa, was mired in that tension. So you’ve got those in France who were loyal to the monarchy and Louis XVIII, or maybe more generically his family, the Bourbons, and then you’ve got those who were either pro-Napoleon or just anti-monarchy.

And that political tension, present in France, was also present on board the Medusa as the newly instated monarchy decided to refocus its efforts on colonizing West Africa, engage in trade, and boost its economy again after all the chaos it had just endured. But why Senegal? Well, the 1783 Peace of Paris, which ended the American Revolutionary War, divvied up a lot of land. Not only were the British to leave their American colonies, hello to the United States, but France also got a bunch of surrendered British colonies and lands. And Senegal was part of that. So it was a relatively new area in which the French could now explore, settle, and trade.

And that context very much factors into what happened, and why the ship wrecked in the first place. And that’s why I think context is super, super important in history - without knowing the basics of why the French were heading to Africa, or what the political tensions are, then the shipwreck itself is just another shipwreck. But knowing all of the context makes the story even juicier - and I don’t just mean the cannibalism part. Because from the very beginning, with the very political appointment of the ship’s Captain, the whole expedition was doomed.
Voyage to Senegal
The man chosen to captain the ship was Hugues Duroy de Chaumareys [shaw-moray]. Now to be fair, Chaumareys did have some experience at sea - as a midshipman in 1779 during the American Revolutionary War, and then again as a captain on a transport ship right before the French Rev. So, about a quarter of a century before the expedition to Senegal. Definitely the guy you want in charge of a fleet of ships convoying to the African coast.

So why this guy? If he was a bit…rusty, why was he chosen? Well, my friends, that’s where the political context comes into play - he was a loyalist. This was a political appointment. He came from an old bourgeoisie family with ties to the Bourbon monarchy, so once Louis the 18th came back into power, he was given the job of captaining this mission to Senegal.

And let me just put it out there right now - he was incompetent. But more on that in a bit.

Now because this trip to Senegal is happening just after Napoleon’s Hundred Days and second exile, some of the men joined the expedition to get away from the political chaos, or because they were upset that the revolution had essentially failed and the monarchy was back. Some joined because they wanted to support the monarchy on this mission. So it was a real mish-mash of people heading to West Africa. It was a new opportunity. A fresh start. Maybe some distance from the tensions back home in France.

And it’s important to note as well that it wasn’t just sailors on board - this was a settlement expedition, so there were men and women of varying jobs and social classes. In fact, of the 400 people on board the Medusa, 166 were officers and crew, 61 were passengers, 10 were artillerymen, 161 were soldiers from two different companies of the African battalion, and there were 2 soldiers' wives. A good mix in there - sailors, settlers, and protection. And this was just on the Medusa; there was a whole convoy of ships heading down there.

To make things more complicated, the trip itself was fraught with danger. It was bad enough having a substandard captain who was basically just a political appointee, but the area was just not well-mapped. The waters were treacherous and peppered with sandbanks, and mapmakers didn’t really have accurate data to share - a fact they relayed on the maps themselves. It wasn’t a big secret. 

There were some men that Chaumareys was supposed to speak to, men with actual experience and advice, but the Captain was above speaking to them and properly learning about the dangers. 

And with the winds and weather patterns, it was recommended to arrive on the African coast in November, so they could properly acclimatize before the June to October rainy season hit. The expedition left in June. But to be fair, this wasn’t Chaumarey’s choice; this is when they were told to leave. So I can’t blame him for that move.

But it reminds me a lot of the warning the Donner Party got before their fateful and deadly trip out West - get there before the snows arrive or you’ll be stuck. But they thought they knew better and figured they’d use some shortcuts, so leaving later would be fine. But as we all know, it wasn’t fine. So listen to that episode if you haven’t already; it was my first one! 🙂

So anyways, the incompetent Chaumareys and his politically divided crew arrived along the coast of Africa during the rainy season, with incomplete maps. There were some on board that knew better, but because of the political situation, they weren’t able to get a word in edgewise. And as a result of this combination of factors, the Medusa hit the Arguin sandbank off the coast of today’s Mauritania on July 2nd, 1816.

Shipwreck!
So first things first with a ship that’s run aground - can we wait for the tide and get it off the sandbank? Well, they certainly tried. Sailors with more experience than the captain attempted to use a kedge anchor to free themselves. A kedge anchor is a lightweight secondary anchor, usually smaller than the main one. But they come in handy when trying to change the ship’s position; they can dig nicely into vegetation on the ocean floor and can be used to help swing the boat around. And in the case of the Medusa, the crew were able to do this! They managed to reposition the grounded boat so only the stern, or the rear, was touching the sandbank. But the boat was still too heavy, and the men on board with actual sailing experience were not permitted to throw extra stuff off the boat to lighten the load. So this didn’t work.

Seeing the writing on the wall, some of the crew got to work building a raft of sorts to help ferry people away. But this isn’t your Jack and Rose from Titanic type of raft - and by the way I am adamant that Rose could have made room for Jack, and I will die on that hill. But no, this raft was approximately 65 feet by 21 feet. The idea was for smaller boats to tow the raft to shore with supplies and people, and then they’d all carry on to Senegal by foot. *Look suspiciously*

And it’s a good thing they got to work on this backup plan because strong waves a few nights later split the Medusa’s keel in two. And you need the keel because it helps keep the ship stable and provides structure and resistance to waves and the wind. You’re not sailing without it. And then the hull of the ship started breaking apart.

A couple of hours later, the Medusa started taking on water, and soon enough the order was given to evacuate. Not by the Captain, mind you, but by the Governor who would be in charge of the new Senegal colony. Governor Schmaltz. So everyone piled into either a boat or on the raft, depending on their rank and class, really, and fled the ship. The raft was overloaded though, sinking up to 2 feet in some places, so they had to chuck a bunch of provisions into the water. Which is unfortunate, because in a survival situation, you need as many provisions as you can get, right?

Chaumareys left the ship too, before everyone else had gotten off, which he wasn’t really supposed to do. And just to add insult to injury, a non-commissioned officer named Petit told him, as he fled his vessel, quote, 
“Since you are leaving us, at least give us the pleasure, if you reach France, of giving our families the news.” End quote.

Ouch.

64 men were still on the Medusa after the Captain, the boats, and the raft set off for the coast. And just to give you an idea of how some of these men felt about being ditched when their Captain left them… one attempted to shoot Chaumarey with his rifle, but another fought with him and the shot missed. More were eventually rescued, and only 17 were left behind - they chose to stay on the sinking ship and wait for help instead of being cast out into the unknown.

Now this raft was heavy. So heavy, in fact, that the boats that were meant to be towing it to shore were instead being pulled out to sea with the tides and currents.

Some of the boats were more packed than others, and here’s where more political and class divisions come into play - the Governor’s boat had room, but he didn’t want the common rabble onboard with him. And then, a Lieutenant on the Governor’s boat decided they didn’t want to tow the raft, lest they be pulled out to sea, so they cut the towing line and abandoned them. It wasn’t an accident - there were several hatchet blows, one after another until the rope was split. And I really like how Jonathan Miles puts it in his book, The Wreck of the Medusa, so I’m going to quote him here:
“After a few moments, the cries from the raft died down as the silence of apprehension settled on its ill-fated occupants. The half-submerged structure, void of sails, oars, ropes, anchors, instruments, and charts, was abandoned, ungovernable, in the middle of the sea.” End quote.

Yikes.

So the raft is going to have a bad time, but what of the boats? Some of the boats made it to land and struggled to find drinking water. Most of the boats decided to stay on the water, fearing the locals, but eventually had to come to shore anyway because of the lack of supplies. But what exactly did they fear? Well, the indigenous. The French, and Europeans more broadly, were terrified of cannibal tribes and assumed all African peoples to be cannibals. Here’s a source from a contemporary German doctor, George Henrich von Langsdorff, which helps illustrate the prejudice and fear that Europeans had about so-called African cannibals. Quote:
“There have been, and are still… people who feed upon human flesh merely on account of its delicacy, and as the height of [indulgence]. These nations not only eat the prisoners they take in war, but their own wives and children; they even buy and sell human flesh publicly… White men…, Englishmen, are preferable to Frenchmen… The flesh of young girls and women, particularly of new-born children, far exceeds in delicacy that of the finest youths or grown men. Finally they tell us that the inside of the hand and the sole of the foot are the nicest parts of the human body.” End quote.

And that last part right there tells me that this whole source is garbage. I mean come on now. Who says the palm or sole of the foot is the best part? What cannibal has ever been like “Yeah give me that tough, leathery foot-meat please.” Come on now. American serial killer and cannibal Albert Fish made it clear that it’s the fatty, juicy parts that taste best. Soles of the feet… psh. Yeah, ok.

My point here is that the Europeans were the ones afraid of being cannibalized by the Africans. And not just in this one instance, but over this whole period of time - in reality, it was a way of “othering” non-white populations, dehumanizing them, and justifying the European colonization and imperialism of American and African lands. More on that in another episode, when I eventually get to the Belgian Congo, perhaps. Or maybe I’ll do one on the decimation of New World populations with the arrival of the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the smallpox virus. We’ll see. You know I like a good disease story.

Sorry - you know I can’t help a good tangent.

Anyway, those that made it to shore never encountered cannibals. And not everyone survived getting to shore, anyway - one guy had his legs smashed up and they had no choice but to leave him stretched out on the beach, where he likely died from either heat exposure or dehydration. This shore party, after a few difficult days, later saw another one of the ships in their original convoy, the Argus, which had arrived safely in Senegal. It left the group with plenty of provisions and went out in search of the Medusa. These provisions were enough to keep the group going - and don’t get me wrong, the walk was fraught with danger, fear, chaos, and delirium - but in the end, eighty survivors made it to their destination after 3 days in a lifeboat and 5 days marching through the coastal desert. 

There were other groups, from other boats, and most made it to Saint-Louis alive. This included Governor Schmaltz and our ineffectual Captain Chaumareys. But I don’t want to focus on them right now. I want to talk about what happened to those on board the raft, abandoned by the boats meant to tow it to shore, left adrift and without supplies or means of getting help.

The Raft
When the raft was abandoned by the boats, there were 147 people on board, including the surgeon Henri Savigny and a geographical engineer named Alexandre Correard. It was almost all men, just one woman. The most senior naval position on the raft was a midshipman, which is the lowest ranking officer. The higher officers and indeed most of the crew had all secured places on the boats, so it was quite a mixed bag of people and occupations left on the raft. There were also some mercenaries, captives, and ex-convicts on board, which you can imagine made things more stressful. And it was also super clear to everyone on the raft that they were abandoned. 

The Lieutenant who cut the rope from the governor’s boat promised that there was a compass, charts, and anchor on board the raft, so when the shock turned to rage and anger, and then determination to survive and make them pay, the rafters started looking for those crucial instruments. But of course, they weren’t actually on board. One guy happened to have a compass in his pocket, but when he went to hand it over, it slipped from his hands and fell between a crack in the raft and sank. 

The surgeon Henri Savigny ended up becoming the de-facto leader of the raft since the midshipman had a leg injury before the Medusa sank and couldn’t put any weight on it. And the first thing he did was to have the men erect a mast and small sail, with whatever they could use. They didn’t have a compass, though, so navigation was more difficult. And the raft didn’t have a rudder, so they couldn’t steer it anyway. They were just at the mercy of the ocean.

It didn’t take long for food and liquid provisions to be consumed - after all, there were 147 people crammed onto this 65 by 21-foot raft. And also keep in mind - it’s just a flat raft. So people were constantly being swept off by the wind and waves and had to latch themselves onto whatever they could with rope so they wouldn’t fall overboard. 

And in the chaos, some people were crushed and mangled between the masts when the waves hurled the raft and its inhabitants around. Others started dying from injuries sustained from the wreck and panic to get off the ship. Some slipped off the raft and just sank… after the first night, over a dozen had died. A few purposefully jumped off the raft to just end the suffering. Some got crushed in a stampede of people trying to help balance the raft as it bobbed around. 

At some point, some soldiers figured “well, we’re gonna die, so let’s get drunk,” so they popped open a cask of wine, which was now filling up with seawater thanks to the hole they put in it. They got drunk and super rage-y. In their anger, they drunkenly decided to start killing people and destroying the raft, because they’re all gonna die anyway, right? So the drunks started hacking and slashing their way around. Some went for the men, others went for the mast, which they cut down. It was absolute chaos. One of the African battalion captains was hit when the mast fell, and the drunks set upon him, gouging his eyes out. Eventually, the drunks-turned-mutineers were subdued, and the mob controlled. But not before a whole lot of people were killed, and some serious damage was done to the raft.

There was a bit of this kind of chaos in the aftermath of the USS Indianapolis sinking too, if you remember from that episode. Just the chaos that comes with panic, rage, starvation, and dehydration - it can lead you to do some truly wild things and/or hallucinate. 

I like what Miles wrote about this in his book, quote, 
“Horror, half-dreams, and hallucinations were merging the real with the imaginary so that existence on the raft became an impossible kaleidoscope of fact and fiction.” End quote. 

Luckily, I’ve never been in a situation where the dehydration, starvation, and chaos was so extreme that I hallucinated and went into a murderous rage, or was victim to one. I’m glad most of us haven’t. But this seems part and parcel for shipwrecks - when it’s a survival situation, and there are a lot of people involved, it devolves into chaos. Can you imagine, though, what it was like for that one woman on board? She’s there with her husband too, watching these drunken mutineers just slash everyone and try to destroy the whole ship. Can you imagine looking and seeing, like, Joaquin over there, destroying the only thing keeping everyone alive? Sheesh.

By the end of the rampage, 60 people were dead. Two barrels of water and two barrels of wine had been flung into the water, leaving only one barrel of wine left for the whole raft. Oh and by the way - this chaos happened on the second day. And the raft wasn’t found for another ten days after that.

On the third day, they tried fishing but weren’t very successful, so they started getting desperate and ate leather pouches, or the grease that kept their hats sealed. One sailor almost ate some, err, excrement, but stopped himself right before he shoved it into his mouth. I guess they felt like they were at the eat-leather stage, but not the poop-eating stage. Day 3. I mean, I’d be starving too, but the lack of water was more pressing than the lack of food.

And then they looked to the pile of dead bodies heaped up in one corner of the raft. 

Now curiously, in that contemporary book I mentioned before by the German George Henrich von Langsdorff? The one that warned Europeans about African cannibals? He had also written that in times like these, when survival was at stake, it was acceptable to break the taboo of not eating human flesh in order to make it out alive. And the men on board the raft remembered that. And in fact, this exact situation had happened in half a dozen or more wrecks prior to the Medusa. Cannibalism, though normally taboo, was considered one of those things that had to happen to survive. At sea or on land. When there’s no other food, and you’ll die if you don’t eat, then you eat.

And at sea, when a wreck resorts to this, there’s even a name for it - the custom of the sea. While not specifically just about cannibalism, the custom of the sea are the rules that officers and crew follow in the open sea, when maritime law doesn’t apply. Cannibalism is part of that, and also drawing lots to decide who will be killed and eaten to help the others survive. I’ve got another episode lined up alllll about that, coming out sometime later this year.

And so, on the third day aboard the raft, some of the survivors hacked limbs off and ate the meat raw, pulled the skin away from the shoulder and stomach and thigh, gnawed away at it, and then scooped out the meat below it. Not everyone did at first, though - some weren’t ready to consume their fellow man to survive.

On the fourth day, they awoke to more deaths - another ten to twelve. All but one was buried at sea (so, tossed into the depths), with the one guy kept aside to be eaten by the survivors. I’m not sure why they only saved one - I mean, I feel like they already crossed that line, right? Why not keep more? 

But anyways. They managed to catch a few fish that day as well, so they decided to grill the fish. And some people grilled up some human meat, too. But that was the last BBQ they had since they used up all of the supplies needed to start a fire, so the rest of the cannibalism had to be raw. And similarly to what we saw with the Andes plane crash, the Raft survivors also hung strips of meat and flesh up to dry to make it slightly more palatable.

Another riot broke out overnight between the fourth and fifth days, and after it was quelled, and the rioters killed and/or thrown overboard, there were only 30 survivors left. Of the original 147. After 4-5 days.

There was one barrel of wine still left, so the 30 survivors calculated they could last 4 days on it while rationing. But of course, some of the men are going a little haywire, so two decided to drill a hole in the barrel and steal some - they were killed for their crime.

Things were getting progressively worse. What little supplies they had left needed to be rationed, but it was also becoming abundantly clear that some were weaker than others, and they were going to die regardless. So, to hasten their seemingly inevitable deaths and try to prolong their own lives, the stronger threw the weaker overboard. The sole woman was one of the “weaker” ones thrown overboard, along with her husband. After this organized murder, there were fifteen survivors left.

Soon enough, they started to see signs of the shore - first butterflies, then a seagull. They had a small glimmer of hope.

But things were still bad; they were dying of thirst. Their tongues were swollen, their lips cracked. Some tried to drink urine to keep their mouths wet. As they edged closer to shore, some supplies washed up to the raft - a single lemon almost caused more murder, as they all wanted a taste of it. 

On the tenth day, a bunch of sharks surrounded the raft - and it wasn’t just sharks but also some Portuguese man-o-wars, who have that crazy long stinging tentacle. They’re not technically jellyfish, but they’re related to jellies. Some of the men, who were cooling off in the submerged part of the raft, were stung badly, which induced vomiting, fever, and stomach cramps. Because you know, things aren’t bad enough, right?

But on the twelve day, right on the brink of death by starvation, exposure, and dehydration, they saw a sail! At first, the sail disappeared, and the survivors thought they were doomed, but two hours later it returned. It was the Argus, one of their companion ships that was part of the original convoy. They were saved. The Argus, though it wasn’t actively looking, had come across the raft just in the nick of time.

The Aftermath
The survivors had endured murder, drunken mutinous frenzies, stabbings, theft, cannibalism, starvation, dehydration, exposure, sharks, man-o-war stings, drinking urine… but they had made it, and they were brought to the colony, Saint-Louis.

Unfortunately, five died after the rescue - they weren’t able to recover from the stress of survival on the raft. But ten men, including the surgeon who took charge from the first day, survived. And so did the geographer Correard, who went on to co-write an incredibly successful book with the surgeon about the experience.

Was some of what happened exaggerated? Probably. But we also have a source from the captain of the Argus, who wrote to Governor Schmaltz about what he saw when he rescued the survivors. Quote:
“I found on this raft fifteen people… [They] had been obliged to fight and kill a large number of their comrades who had revolted in order to seize the provisions… Others had been taken by the sea, or died of hunger or madness. Those that I had rescued had fed themselves on human flesh for several days, and, at the moment when I found them, the ropes which held the mast were covered with morsels of this flesh which they had hung up to dry. The raft was also covered with scraps which further attested to the food which these men were obliged to consume; they had been sustained by a little wine which they handled as carefully as possible; they still had several bottles when I found them.” End quote.

The super undeserving Captain Chaumareys was interested in what happened to the Medusa, and more importantly the gold on board the Medusa, so he sent a salvage crew to see what was still there. The crew found only 3 alive of the 17 left behind, 54 days later.

Eventually, Chaumareys was put on trial. He was tried on five counts of abandoning his men, failing to re-float the ship, abandoning the ship, incompetent and complacent navigation, and abandoning the Medusa before all the passengers were off first. He was acquitted of the first three charges, and found guilty on the last two - bad navigation, and abandoning before the rest of the passengers. He should have been put to death for his crimes, but he was only given three years in jail - a product of being a loyalist. Because he was a stalwart Bourbon follower, which was how he got that Captaincy in the first place, the whole thing was covered up as much as possible and he was given a light sentence. 

No wonder political tensions were high when the monarchy does stuff like this, ey? They put an incompetent captain in charge of a convoy of ships, and when his incompetence leads to the chaos that was the wreck of the Medusa and the tragedy that befell the raft, the whole thing is covered up so as not to make the Bourbons or the French monarchy look bad.

And in the end, the ten raft survivors did make it back home. And when Savigny’s and Correard’s book was published, detailing the horrors of the customs of the sea, it did actually make some tangible, positive change - French military promotions were now to be done on merit, not by politics. Captains were to earn their position, not given it freely because of who they supported politically. 

It’s just a shame that so many people had to die, or be eaten, for that change to happen.

Outro
Thanks for joining me for this episode of A Popular History of Unpopular Things. My name is Kelli Beard, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the story of the Médusa Shipwreck. Thank you for supporting my podcast, and if you haven’t already checked out my other episodes, go have a listen!

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