Pursuing Respect in the Cannibal Isles: Americans in Nineteenth-Century Fiji 9781501740350

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PURSUING RESPECT IN THE CANNIBAL ISLES

A volume in the series

The United States in the World edited by Mark Philip Bradley, David C. Engerman, Amy S. Greenberg, and Paul A. Kramer

A list of titles in this series is available at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

PURSUING RESPECT IN THE CANNIBAL ISLES Americans in NineteenthCentury Fiji

Nancy Shoemaker

Cornell University Press Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2019 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu. First published 2019 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Shoemaker, Nancy, 1958– author. Title: Pursuing respect in the Cannibal Isles : Americans in nineteenth  century Fiji / Nancy Shoemaker. Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2019. | Series: The United   States in the world | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019002355 (print) | LCCN 2019004117 (ebook) |   ISBN 9781501740350 (pdf ) | ISBN 9781501740367 (epub/mobi) |   ISBN 9781501740343 | ISBN 9781501740343 ­(cloth: ­alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Americans—Travel—Fiji—History—19th century. |   Fiji—Foreign public opinion, American—History—19th century. |   Visitors, Foreign—Fiji—Attitudes. | Fiji—Social life and customs—   19th century. | United States—Social life and customs—19th century. |   Fiji—Description and travel. | Public opinion—United States. Classification: LCC DU600 (ebook) | LCC DU600 .S477 2019 (print) |   DDC 996.11—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019002355 Jacket photograph: A canoe landing on the island of Bau. Conway Shipley, “Mbure’ or house of a Spirit. Mbau. Feejee Is,” from Sketches in the Pacific (London: T. McLean, 1851), T 601 (Folio A), File Number 3559220-0010, lithograph, Paul Mellon Collection, Yale Center for British Art.

Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction: Why Go a Fiji Voyage? 1. Butenam: Knowledge

vii 1 14

Part I: The Beachcomber: David Whippy 2. Mata ki Bau: Respect Vakaviti

47

3. Chief of All the White Men: Character

76

Part II: The Sea Captain’s Wife: Mary D. Wallis 4. By a Lady: Moral Authority

105

5. Marama: Social Class

132

Part III: The Merchant: John B. Williams 6. This Hell upon Earth: Competence and Wealth

161

vi

Contents

7. Tui America: Power

186

Epilogue: Continuity and Change in U.S.-Fiji Relations

211

Appendix A: Sandalwood Voyages

219

Appendix B: Bêche-de-Mer Voyages

227

Appendix C: Foreign Naval Vessels in Fiji to 1860

237

Abbreviations

243

Glossary

245

Notes

247

Bibliography

289

Index

327

Acknowledgments

This project was supported by a residential fellowship at the Massachusetts Historical Society sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. I thank Conrad Wright, Kate Viens, and others at that remarkably resourcerich and friendly institution for the supportive and intellectual camaraderie they provide to all their research fellows. I also received crucial research travel funds from the University of Connecticut Research Foundation. The majority of written records related to Fiji history before 1860 are at the Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum. I shamelessly overworked the staff with my requests. They were always prompt, gracious, and welcoming, and I feel supremely grateful for their patience and endurance. I also owe special thanks to the staff at the National Archives at Boston, John Thomson of the First Baptist Church of Beverly, Joan Duffy in Special Collections at the Yale Divinity School Library, the staff of the National Archives of the Fiji Islands, and the University of Connecticut interlibrary loan office. The several opportunities I had to present portions of this work were extraordinarily fruitful in prodding me to think through my objectives. For anyone who may have contributed suggestions or questions along the way, I appreciated your engagement with the history of a place that, for nearly

viii

Acknowledgments

all of you, was far outside your own areas of expertise. To Seth Rockman, who invited me to speak at the Nineteenth-Century History Workshop at Brown University; Konstantin Dierks, who invited me to participate in an early American globalism workshop at Indiana University; and the organizers of the Human Trafficking Conference at the McNeil Center, thanks for allowing me to share my work in these venues as these discussions greatly influenced the course taken by various chapters in the book. Other historians sharing my interest in the Pacific, the role of maritime trade in the history of America and the world, and history in general supported this project with advice and encouragement. I particularly thank Ann Fabian, Edward Gray, Vicki Luker, Brian DeLay, Emily Conroy-Krutz, Ann Plane, Brian Rouleau, Susan Sleeper-Smith, and my University of Connecticut colleagues Peter Baldwin, Martha Cutter, Cornelia Dayton, Shawn Salvant, and Chris Vials. When I first conceived of this project, I had an opportunity to speak with Ian Campbell and David Routledge while in Fiji, and I greatly appreciated their insights and recommendations. Michael McGandy (acquisitions editor at Cornell University Press), Amy Greenberg (coeditor of Cornell’s United States in the World book series), and two anonymous manuscript reviewers also offered invaluable suggestions that have found their way into the book. I thank them for the attention they showed the project.

N VANUATU

FIJI Levuka TONGA

NEW CALEDONIA

AUSTRALIA

SOUTH PACIFIC OCEAN

Sydney Bay of Islands

NEW ZEALAND 0

300

600 mi

0

500

1000 km

Map 1. Fiji and the Southwest Pacific

VITI LEVU

Galoa Bay Wailea Bay Tacilevu

Vutia

Suva Somosomo

Solevu

Kaba Point

Rewa

i R.

Bua

Bua Bay

Laucala Nukulau

Whippy land at Yadali

0

5 mi

0

8 km

Koro

Rakiraki Ovalau

KO R O SE A

Wakaya Levuka

Nadi V I T I L E V U a R. ok a R. Rew

Nairai

Siga t

Malolo

R.

VANUA LEVU Dreket

Viwa Bau

Rewa

N

c Ma

Raviravi Tavea

st a Coa uat

Suva Beqa

Lakeba

Area Enlarged above Moala

Kadavu Galoa Bay 0 10 20 30 40 50 mi 0

S OU TH PA CIFIC OCEAN

20 40 60 80 km Vatoa

Map 2. Fiji Islands

MACUATA

0 10 20 30 40 50 mi 0

N

20 40 60 80 km

BUA CAKAUDROVE

BA

RA

KORO SEA

VERATA NADI

BAU NAMOSI

LAU

REWA

SOUTH PACIFIC OCEAN

Map 3. Leading matanitu of nineteenth-century Fiji

PURSUING RESPECT IN THE CANNIBAL ISLES

Introduction Why Go a Fiji Voyage?

For Americans today, Fiji evokes paradise, from the tropical-themed FIJI water on grocery store shelves to the islands’ luxury beach resorts.1 This is the opposite of how Americans thought of Fiji in the nineteenth century, when the islands reputedly harbored the most horrid specimens of humanity. As Captain John B. Knights remarked in 1833, if a friend expressed “a desire, to view, human nature, in its most disgusting colours, pass a considerable portion, of his own life, in intense anxiety, subsist entirely on oily pork, and yams, without, a shadow of pleasure, to cheer his dull hours,” Knights would say to him, “‘Go! my friend Go! a Fegee voyage.’”2 But if Fiji was so horrible, why did Americans go there? Several thousand of them voyaged to Fiji on merchant, whaling, and naval vessels in the decades before British colonization of the islands in 1874. And more than a hundred Americans lived and died there. From a macro perspective, explaining the American presence in Fiji seems simple. Their rationale was economic: Americans went to Fiji to extract resources to sell in China. In 1804, a castaway American sailor broke the news that the aromatic sandalwood tree grew plentifully on Vanua Levu, Fiji’s second-largest island. American and British ships rushed to harvest this commodity highly valued by the Chinese as incense. A second boom

2

Introduction

targeting the sea slug bêche-de-mer, a food delicacy esteemed in Chinese cuisine, flourished a generation later and attracted another wave of traders to the islands, this time almost entirely from Salem, Massachusetts. Thus Fiji became one leg in the U.S.-China trade and a source of great wealth for the American merchants who gambled their fortunes on it.3 Zoom in closer, and it becomes apparent that the foot soldiers of early U.S. global expansion, the individual Americans who ventured overseas, did so for more complicated reasons. They were not mere cogs in a U.S. foreign relations history that treats big-picture abstractions—capitalism, resource extraction, or imperialism—as the motor. Rather, an assortment of personal ambitions impelled Americans to travel to distant locales. Their motivations, albeit multiple and divergent, often derived from a desire to be respected by others and thereby attain a sense of self-worth, or so I propose in this book. Their strivings to rise in others’ estimation influenced the course of Fiji’s history and, albeit more subtly, the history of the United States. To study this phenomenon up close, I delve into the Fiji experiences of the three Americans who left the deepest imprint on the islands’ history: Fiji’s most respected foreign resident, David Whippy, a runaway Nantucket whaleman and beachcomber (the term used in Pacific studies for foreigners who settled in Oceania); sea captain’s wife Mary D. Wallis, author of Life in Feejee: Five Years Among the Cannibals, By a Lady (1851), an essential source for nineteenth-century Fiji history; and Salem merchant John B. Williams, whose greed is often cited as a factor in Britain’s accession of the islands.4 In three sections, with two chapters devoted to each person, I explore the different paths they took to earn others’ respect and the larger consequences of their activities on two places half a world apart. Differing in their social backgrounds, personalities, and objectives, these three individuals otherwise had characteristics in common. They came from Massachusetts port towns and identified as American, even the expatriate Whippy. They had a stake in the extractive economy, which altered local environments and transformed Fiji’s material culture by introducing muskets, gunpowder, metal tools, and machine-woven cloth. They meddled in internecine affairs by siding with one of Fiji’s multiple polities in wars against another, and though forced to ally with Fijians to further their own ends, they wished to see Fijians reduced to tractability. Their persistent belittling of Fijians as the world’s most savage people helped push Fijians to abandon various traditions and accept Christianity, monogamy, and other foreign practices in their stead. In short, all three whittled away at Fiji’s economic,

Why Go a Fiji Voyage?

3

political, and cultural autonomy and thereby opened up the archipelago to further foreign encroachment. These three Americans figure large in histories of nineteenth-century Fiji. But their collective story falls outside the usual scope of American history and the paradigms prevailing among historians at this moment: this book is not about empire, borderlands, or settler colonialism. It may look like empire to those historians who use that word to signal expansionist power, but I prefer limiting empire to mean formal, administrative control over a stretch of territory.5 By that definition, there never was a U.S. empire in Fiji. During the peak years of American activity in the islands, the 1800s through the 1850s, Americans ceded deference to Fiji’s power structure. Infiltrating Fijian polities in a piecemeal fashion—along with the British, Tongans, and to a lesser extent the French—Americans exerted influence from within until, made vulnerable by the multitude of forces angling for supremacy, Fiji ultimately fell to British subjugation and became part of the British Empire. For the same reason, Fiji cannot be considered an American borderland. Popularized by Greg Dening’s Islands and Beaches, a history of Europeannative encounters at the Marquesas (on the other side of the South Pacific from Fiji), and Richard White’s The Middle Ground, which deals with Europeannative encounters in the Great Lakes region, a borderlands approach imagines people meeting at the edges of sovereign territories or at places in between that no one polity controls. However, casting parts of the American West or the Pacific as European borderlands risks denying natives sovereignty over land and sea.6 The cross-cultural exchanges and political contestations mediating encounters between Americans and Fijians might resemble what Dening described for the Marquesas or White for the Great Lakes, but Fijians had the upper hand in Fiji at least into the 1850s, when they began to lose political control over parts of the archipelago to Tongans, and later to the British. As for settler colonial theory, in a short essay published in 2016, “A Typology of Colonialism,” I addressed my concerns about how it has become dogma in indigenous studies and shut out other lines of inquiry. Settler colonial theory sheds light on the egregious dispossession and depopulation of native peoples as European settlers became the majority. It has little to say about Fiji, where today about 85 percent of the land is deemed “Native Land” and remains in possession of ethnic Fijians (“Itaukei”), who make up over half the islands’ population. The second-largest demographic group

4

Introduction

consists of ethnic Indians, descendants of plantation workers imported by the British.7 If colonialism is defined as interference by outsiders, Fiji experienced colonialism, just not settler colonialism. In “A Typology of Colonialism,” I sketch out twelve forms of colonialism differentiated by colonizers’ intentions: settler, planter, extractive, imperial power, trade, transport, legal, missionary, romantic, rogue, not-in-my-backyard, and postcolonial. Many of these forms of colonialism swept through Fiji at some point in the country’s history. The first major foreign intervention occurred with the extractive colonialism of the sandalwood and bêche-de-mer trades: over five decades, about one hundred trading vessels, most of them American, spent months, sometimes years, in Fiji harvesting natural resources.8 Missionary colonialism began in the 1830s with the founding of the English Wesleyan Methodist mission.9 In the 1850s, Tongans from the neighboring archipelago to the east invaded in a bid to aggrandize Tonga’s domains and sphere of influence, which I categorize as imperial power colonialism.10 Planter colonialism took hold in the 1860s when the collapse of cotton markets during the U.S. Civil War brought aspiring planters, mostly British, to the islands.11 Fiji remained a planter colony after British annexation, when sugar replaced cotton as the islands’ leading export.12 Transport colonialism also shaped Fiji’s history, first whale ships, then steamships, then airplanes, all needing replenishment of food or fuel.13 Fijian independence in 1970 initiated postcolonial colonialism as the British legacy continued to inform Fiji’s fraught politics, race relations, and international allegiances.14 Finally, even though Fiji is an independent nation today, tourism, or romantic colonialism, has become the mainstay of the islands’ economy and a force for change as Fijians adapt to meet outsiders’ desires.15 If the only framework we had was settler colonialism, there would be no way to comprehend the large-scale changes in Fiji brought about by an assemblage of adverse foreign intentions. If this book is not about empire, borderlands, or settler colonialism, then what is it about? It is one example, perhaps the most extreme example, of the vast global reach of the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century. From the nation’s origins, Americans could be found nearly everywhere. Some lived overseas. Most just worked there. The usual term for such people is Americans Abroad, but that is so insipid a phrase, I prefer extending the legal term extraterritorial. I elaborate on the extraterritorial United States as a “non-territorial yet still national space constituted by mobile Americans” in a 2018 essay in the journal Diplomatic History. This article compares five of the most common vectors drawing nineteenth-century Americans outside

Why Go a Fiji Voyage?

5

the country—the China trade, whaling, missionizing, the consular service, and the navy—and illustrates how early U.S. foreign relations bubbled up from the bottom. Extraterritorial Americans’ varied initiatives gave global expansion its momentum, and the federal government enlarged its overseas presence and authority to meet their needs.16 The extraterritorial United States deserves more notice as a place where American history happened. Two impulses explain why it has been understudied. First, a territorial bias leads us to favor events occurring inside the nation’s current borders. Many histories of the United States in the world represent the nineteenth century as a period of continental consolidation and mark U.S. entrance onto the world stage with the territorial acquisitions of Hawai‘i, Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico in 1898.17 Multiple history books deal with the massacres of Native Americans at Sand Creek in 1864 and Wounded Knee in 1890, yet there is no book, not even a single research article, on the massacre at Malolo (see figure I.1), where in 1840 the U.S. Navy went on a rampage, slaughtering about one hundred men, women, and children, destroying their houses, planting fields, and fruit-bearing trees.18

Figure I.1. Alfred T. Agate, one of the artists employed by the U.S. Exploring Expedition, made this drawing of the expedition’s July 1840 assault on Malolo, which resulted in the deaths of about one hundred Fijians. Courtesy of Navy Art Collection, Naval History and Heritage Command.

6

Introduction

Lately, historians have begun addressing U.S. history’s territorial myopia with a burgeoning literature on early globalization, the Pacific, and the connections between foreign relations and indigenous histories. Instead of conceptualizing global expansion as westward expansion’s successor, more historians are pointing out their concurrence and symmetry. In the American West and the Pacific, the same tactics—a discourse of native savagery, extortion, violence, the application of Euroamerican legal traditions, and a sense of entitlement—characterized Americans’ economic and political engagements.19 This similitude between westward and Pacific expansion does not mean that they were identical processes. Without articulating why, the nation’s leaders delegated continental and overseas regulatory responsibility to different branches of the federal bureaucracy. The army defended Americans from Indians; the navy defended Americans from Pacific Islanders. In 1824, the War Department created the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which in 1849 moved to the Department of the Interior; the State Department managed the problems posed by U.S. nationals, including American Indians, who traveled, lived, or worked abroad. Most important, land acquisition and settlement predominated on the continent whereas few Americans overseas planned to settle there permanently. The majority were employed at some other endeavor—resource extraction, commerce, or proselytization—that did not aim at the acquisition of territory for settlement but nonetheless bore heavily on indigenous people.20 The second reason why the extraterritorial United States rarely makes it into the history books is because U.S. foreign relations history has in the past been told more from the top down than from the bottom up. This, too, is now changing as more foreign relations scholars look for protagonists beyond the small cadre of high-level officials headquartered in Washington, D.C. As actors in U.S. foreign relations history, ordinary Americans are sometimes called “non-state actors.” This is misleading, however, since they were as embedded in the state as their elected and appointed leaders.21 This is especially evident in the early American period, when extraterritorial Americans constituted the vanguard of U.S. global expansion. Their activities greatly benefited the nation as a whole. Most tangibly, the federal government depended on commercial shipping for its operating funds. By 1833, the U.S. Treasury had taken in $624 million in customs duties, more than ten times the second-largest source of federal income, the $45 million gleaned from the sale of lands previously in Indian possession.22 One shipowner involved in Fiji’s bêche-de-mer trade, Salem merchant Joseph Peabody,

Why Go a Fiji Voyage?

7

was credited at his death with having paid a remarkable $1.8 million in customs duties to the federal treasury in the period from 1825 to 1833. How much Fiji by itself contributed to the U.S. economy would be impossible to calculate. But it can safely be said that Peabody was not the only merchant magnate who made money in Fiji and brought those profits home.23 Capital acquired abroad financed westward expansion and domestic improvements as merchants active in global commerce invested in banks, insurance companies, railroads, and textile mills.24 Extraterritoriality’s rewards also trickled down to consumers. Luxury imports and produce extracted from the sea and tropics enriched the daily lives of stay-at-homes.25 And a prolific literature detailing the strange customs of distant lands based on extraterritorial Americans’ firsthand observations allowed Americans at home to imagine themselves as a distinct and superior people.26 Fiji similarly had a role in the political evolution of the United States. The U.S. government oversaw extraterritorial space with a growing and at times heavy-handed infrastructure of consuls, diplomats, and naval forces. These government agents acted under the obligation to protect Americans who ventured outside the nation’s borders. American shipping in the Pacific, especially the whaling industry and China trade, made that region a special concern. In 1821, the government commissioned the Pacific Squadron, a naval fleet stationed off Chile, and charged it with periodically touring hotspot archipelagos where Americans had gotten into trouble. From 1838 to 1842, the United States Exploring Expedition, or Ex Ex, plied Pacific waters to chart reefs, shoals, and safe harbors. It spent three months in Fiji in 1840 conducting the first extensive survey of the islands. Six years later, anticipating the British by more than ten years, the U.S. government, at merchant Williams’s request, appointed him its consular representative in Fiji. Every few years thereafter, U.S. warships visited the islands to redress a proliferating litany of American grievances against Fijians.27 As one British writer put it, “In those days the American Eagle ‘screeched considerable’ throughout the Great South Sea and enforced the demands of its subjects almost indiscriminately.”28 The value of extraterritoriality and the government protection afforded extraterritorial Americans pushed the United States to enlarge its global scope and power. With extraterritorial Americans as the motor, it can be difficult to make sense of how U.S. foreign relations worked in the early American period. It looks like an uncoordinated mess of individuated ambitions. In the contentious politics of nineteenth-century Fiji, for example, Americans often took

8

Introduction

opposite sides and aligned with like-minded people regardless of national affiliation: Whippy with other beachcombers, Wallis with the English missionaries, and Williams with whoever was expedient. Even though they set about realizing their objectives through different means, this concatenation of divergent intentions cumulatively advanced American expansion overseas, albeit in uneven, often contradictory, ways. Their underlying motivations were self-serving, not because they were inordinately selfish but because they were human. Other studies in U.S. foreign relations history and in the history of the Pacific offer parallel observations. Frank Costigliola, my colleague at the University of Connecticut, has highlighted emotions as factors in the foreign policy of Franklin Roosevelt, George Kennan, and other American officials.29 If the inner selves of twentieth-century politicians and diplomats impinged on policymakers’ decisions, as Costigliola delineates, then the same could be assumed for early nineteenth-century foreign relations when extraterritorial Americans spearheaded expansion from the bottom up. Personal emotions shaped British expansion into the Pacific as well, according to literary scholar Jonathan Lamb. In Preserving the Self in the South Seas, he delved into the mental worlds of familiar figures usually depicted as rational, confident, and decisive. Captain James Cook and other European explorers of the Pacific, Lamb contends, were instead anxious, confused, and prone to spontaneous fits of unruly passions.30 In the case of Whippy, Wallis, and Williams, the aspect of their inner selves most conspicuous in their words and deeds is how they sought others’ respect. Respect has yet to be recognized as a causal factor in historical change. The closest historiography is on respectability, which is typically cast as an obsession of the middle classes, as in studies about consumption and politeness in Britain and the United States or about the “politics of respectability” among African Americans. In this literature, respectability invokes a host of cultural ideals related to taste, manners, and virtue. Believing oneself to be a respectable person or trying to pass as a respectable person required self-regulation of public behavior while offering individuals in return a language for asserting moral authority and a higher social status.31 I see respect as serving a similar social function but without the class connotations. The term resists concrete definition because it is an intangible human striving lacking uniform, stable criteria. Being respected means that one has others’ approval, admiration, or deference. But the traits making someone worthy of others’ respect vary across time, space, culture, personality, and context.

Why Go a Fiji Voyage?

9

If the pursuit of respect is fundamental to the human psyche, the Americans in Fiji could be considered unexceptional. Yet, they were a bit peculiar since their ambitions took them to the geographic and cultural antipodes. One would expect Fiji’s dangers, deprivations, and cannibal notoriety to keep outsiders away. Instead, Fiji offered Americans a unique platform to express social superiority. Hobnobbing with cannibals, people in American society deemed undeserving of others’ respect, could have made self-enhancement seem easy. On the issue of cannibalism, scholars have disagreed strenuously as to whether any society has ever condoned it. Fiji features prominently in this debate. Some writers take the view that descriptions of cannibalism in historic records are mere “cannibal talk,” European fabrications intended to dehumanize natives. Other writers, cultural relativists, point to the preponderance of evidence showing that Fijians conceived of cannibalism as “a perfectly normal social institution” and that to argue otherwise privileges European morality as a universal standard.32 This narrowly conceived debate ignores the many other Fijian customs foreigners castigated and ridiculed— widow strangling, euthanistic burials of the sick and elderly, and elaborate hairstyles—to compose a tableau of savagery against which to assert precedence.33 Yet, more than any other Fijian custom, cannibalism constituted the idea of civilization as its antithesis. Sensationalist accounts of Fijian cannibalism sanctified economic exploitation and military interventions while buttressing Americans’ self-identification as civilized people. After the Malolo massacre, Ex Ex midshipman William Reynolds likened the expedition’s three months in the islands to “some hideous dream”: “Ye who read or hear of Cannibals in your quiet Homes can have but a faint idea of the absolute & nervous horror & the loathsome disgust that oppresses one who has been among them & witnessed the foul traits that place them below the beasts.”34 Reynolds saw no cannibalism while in Fiji, yet the specter of it afforded him a foil against which to measure himself and his compatriots so as to come out on top. Such stigmatizations of Fijian culture barred Americans in Fiji from pondering the moral implications of their actions, since the absolute savagery of Fijians legitimated whatever Americans did there. Civilization, like respect, was a system of social one-upmanship, a means to assess people’s value and to determine whether they were better or worse than other people. But the ideology of civilization starkly distinguished good from bad whereas respect was more ambiguous and contestable. Who among the civilized most deserved others’ respect and why? Antebellum

10

Introduction

Americans could not agree. They saturated their speech and writings with “respect” and “respected” as though the meaning of these words was patently obvious to all, but they never specified exactly what conditions or behaviors would guarantee others’ respect. As Americans, along with the British and French, coalesced around a collective identity as civilized people in opposition to Fijians, the pursuit of respect enmeshed them in a hornet’s nest of animosity, backbiting, and recrimination. The key figure and lens through which to see the consequences of their jostling for self-esteem is Cakobau, ruler of Bau at midcentury and the most powerful person in precolonial Fiji. One of many independent polities making up the Fijian archipelago before unification under British colonization, Bau began its rise to power at the start of the nineteenth century by gaining an advantage in the sandalwood trade. In 1845, the English missionary John Hunt estimated that Bau had only 15,000 of the islands’ 300,000 people under its authority, yet it was revered and feared throughout the Fiji group. Cakobau’s aggrandizement of his domains through military conquest and strategic alliances made him the “Napoleon of Feejee.”35 Under Cakobau’s leadership, Fiji seemed on the verge of consolidating into a kingdom as King Kamehameha I had accomplished at Hawai‘i, the Pomare dynasty at Tahiti, and King George Tupou I at Tonga.36 Then, in the 1850s, amid a crescendo of warfare, resistance from his people at the imposition of new labor demands, and convoluted political realignments that involved Whippy, Wallis, Williams, the English missionaries, and the Tongans King George and Ma‘afu as major players, Cakobau’s ascendancy faltered. For years, he had defended Fijian customs. To abandon tradition would entail losing the respect of other Fijians. But foreigners despised cannibalism and widow strangling, and the pressures to accept what these foreigners called “civilization” mounted. To save his crumbling empire, he became Christian and outlawed polygamy, widow strangling, and cannibalism.37 Cakobau also wished for respect, but to preserve his status and authority, he had to adjust to new criteria introduced by outsiders. Before turning to the microhistories of Whippy, Wallis, and Williams, I set the stage with an overview of the sandalwood and bêche-de-mer trades, which brought the majority of Americans to Fiji and through which much of the earliest information about Fiji spread to the rest of the world. To assist readers in keeping track of the many foreign vessels visiting Fiji, I provide three appendixes listing the voyages of sandalwood traders (A), bêche-demer traders (B), and foreign naval vessels prior to 1860 (C). In accord with

Why Go a Fiji Voyage?

11

how later chapters focus on individuals and one form of respect, the first chapter uses as focal points two Salem sea captains, William P. Richardson and Benjamin Vanderford, with knowledge as the avenue by which they pursued others’ respect. Overtly, Richardson and Vanderford came to Fiji to make money by extracting the islands’ natural resources, but simultaneously, possession of a rare and specialized knowledge offered them the means to elevate their social status. Other Americans in Fiji also deployed knowledge as a way to gain respect. The remaining chapters are organized in approximate chronological order but also overlap since these three Americans knew each other well and participated in some of the same events. Chapter 2 recounts how Whippy initially accommodated to Fijian customs to earn respect vakaviti (according to Fijian ways). Certain Fijian customs he derided, however, and tried to change. Chapter 3 is about Whippy’s turn away from dependence on Fijians as he engineered the emergence of an independent foreign community. Increasingly, he sought the regard of other foreigners and made himself the helpmate of missionaries, traders, and naval commanders. His knowledge of Fiji now satisfied their needs, and they commended him for his usefulness and good character, ironically so since he lived in polygamy with a large family of half-Fijian children. Chapter 4 analyzes Life in Feejee to illustrate how Wallis challenged the double standard of gendered respectability in her own society by claiming the credentials to speak about Fijians’ moral inequities. Chapter 5 documents how her comfortable middle-class status sprung from the forced labor of Fijians, which became increasingly oppressive with the rise of foreign trade and from which all Americans in Fiji benefited. Chapter 6 details Williams’s frustrated efforts to live up to the legacy of Salem’s mercantile culture. Even though he failed to acquire other Salemites’ respect for his business acumen, he achieved a different kind of respect by marshaling U.S. warships to attack and threaten Fijians on his behalf, events described in chapter 7. As Whippy, Wallis, and Williams pursued respect in different ways, they became party to the many changes taking place in Fiji due to foreign influence. Although I see this book as contributing mainly to U.S. history by spotlighting the global reach of the early United States and the role extraterritorial Americans played in bringing that about, I have tried to do right by the history of Fiji. To convey a person’s social position or a cultural practice that has no English-language equivalent, I use Fijian words, which are defined in the text when they first appear and also in a glossary in the back of the book. Except when quoting, I adhere to the Fijian orthography developed

12

Introduction

by Wesleyan Methodist missionaries David Cargill and William Cross in the late 1830s, which is the country’s official orthography today: C=th, B=mb, D=nd, G=ng, Q=ngg. Note that in writings from the time period, the spellings are more random but accord with how English speakers pronounced words. For example, Bau usually appears in the documents as “Ambow,” “Mbau,” or “Bow”; Cakobau as “Thakombau”; Nadi, a place name on both of Fiji’s largest islands, as “Nandy”; Gavidi, head of the Lasakau fishing clan and Cakobau’s great friend and henchman, as “Navinde”; and Qaraniqio, Cakobau’s foe during the Bau-Rewa war, as “Naringio.”38 Fiji had a complex political structure in which the largest unit was the matanitu, a confederated polity usually called in English-language texts “territory,” “district,” “state,” or “kingdom” (see Map 3). Bau referred both to the islands’ most powerful matanitu and to that matanitu’s headquarters, the small island of Bau situated off Viti Levu’s southeastern coast. Rewa was a large and important town on Viti Levu and the name for another powerful matanitu, which embraced satellite peoples on the islands of Viti Levu, Kadavu, and Beqa. Other matanitu that saw a lot of American ship traffic were Bua, Cakaudrove, Lau, Macuata, and Ba. The Americans in Fiji were usually able to figure out who belonged to which matanitu even though diplomacy and war put allegiances between allied and subject peoples in constant flux.39 Individuals’ political roles and titles also have no direct match in the English language. Americans in Fiji usually called ruling men “kings” and “chiefs.” “Chiefs” were elite men, turaga, who inherited a high rank from their mothers; marama was the female equivalent and translated into English as “queen” or “queens.” A ruler over a territory, or “king,” was tui, as in Tui Levuka, ruler of Levuka, or Tui Cakau, ruler of Cakaudrove. The title did not always match the place. For instance, Tui Dreketi ruled Rewa, and Tui Nayau ruled at Lakeba. A turaga levu was a “great chief,” very likely the same man as tui. The majority of Fijians were kaisi, which English speakers in nineteenth-century Fiji interpreted as commoners, poor people, or slaves. The willingness of kaisi to heed the turaga class without question or complaint made their status appear akin to slavery, but more precisely kaisi meant someone without rank or land and subject to turaga. Kaisi carried with it “a dash of contempt” and often appears in the documentary record as an insult regardless of a person’s actual rank.40 The overarching social, or ethnic, division operating in island politics broke the population into three groups: Kai Viti (Fijian people), Kai Toga (Tongans), and Kai Papalagi (foreign people). Papalagi encompassed

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13

Americans, British, French and, as best as can be discerned from scattered remarks in the documents, Filipino, Lascar, and Pacific Islanders who were neither Fijian nor Tongan, men who had arrived as sailors on trading vessels and stayed on as beachcombers. The term papalagi occurs throughout the Pacific and has uncertain origins, meaning perhaps ghosts, spirits, ships and their sails, musket fire bursting through the sky, clothed people, or people trading in certain manufactured goods such as cloth or beads. Those who translated the word into English in the nineteenth century usually treated it as a synonym for “white,” “white men,” or “Europeans,” but given the racial and ethnic diversity of people who came by ship, its meaning best approximates foreigners.41 I use papalagi frequently because it is the term people at the time employed and because it frees me from having to resort to the wordier “Americans and Europeans” or the word whites, which would be a misnomer since Fiji’s foreigners included several African Americans and the Seminole Indian John Sparr, about whom I have written in Native American Whalemen and the World. I do not say much about Sparr in this book since I have told his story elsewhere, but he associated closely with the merchant Williams. As consul, Williams advocated for Sparr’s rights as a U.S. national as did U.S. naval commanders. From the Fijian perspective, Williams and Sparr were both papalagi. Besides their shared status as foreigners in Fiji, their nationality as Americans also shaped their experiences, since that was the pretext for the protections the U.S. government extended to Sparr in his complaints against Fijians. Sparr’s race mattered to some extent since Americans and Britons often attached “Seminole” or “Indian” to his name when mentioning him in their writings. But as I argued in Native American Whalemen and the World, the racial divides among Americans lost valence overseas.42 Even though the ideology of civilization had a racial cast in that lightskinned people typically claimed civilized superiority over dark-skinned people, the racial diversity among Americans in Fiji limited race’s potency as a weapon to diminish others. And so even though Americans sometimes referred to Fijians as blacks or used more derogatory racial epithets, race was not as powerful a dynamic in nineteenth-century Fijian social relations as was indigeneity versus foreignness, nationality, and culture. Cannibalism especially became the hallmark of Fijians’ savage natures. Fijians had complexions “bordering close to the Negro,” bêche-de-mer trader John H. Eagleston noted when speaking of his first glimpse of them upon arrival in Fiji on the Peru in 1831. With more drama, he penned, the “long talked of Savage and Cannibal was now before us.”43

Chapter 1

Butenam Knowledge

The American seafarers who came to Fiji for sandalwood and bêche-demer earned a slight share of the wealth generated but derived additional satisfaction from their time in the islands. Their unique experiences granted them a rarefied, socially elevating expertise. Returning home with fantastic stories and curiously wrought souvenirs, they became knowledge brokers whose firsthand observations shaped American perceptions of Fiji and Fiji Islanders for decades to come. They produced two kinds of knowledge, one pragmatic and logistical, the other ethnographic and ideological. Practical knowledge made navigation safer and faster, fostered commercial networks and routines, and identified exploitable natural resources. In the mercantile culture of the early republic, this kind of knowledge was critical. Merchants advised younger generations that “knowledge is power” and that they should learn foreign languages and customs regulating the conduct of business unique to each country. They corresponded incessantly with family, friends, and strangers to ask about current prices at Batavia, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Canton, and other places around the globe, to inform associates of the availability or impossibility of obtaining certain cargos at certain ports, and to maintain channels of sociability through which news of commercial value flowed. Accurate and timely information decided the

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fate of financial speculations.1 This was especially so for the carrying trade, which derived profit from the differential value of things: buying low in one place, selling high somewhere else. Cultural differences in consumer tastes and demand created the large gaps in value that made the triangular trade between the United States, Fiji, and China immensely profitable.2 Ethnographic knowledge intersected with pragmatic knowledge but resulted in more than monetary rewards. By reporting on the bizarre customs of Fijians, Americans consigned its people to the opposite end of the humanity spectrum and affirmed for a larger public Americans’ cultural superiority. Americans who traveled overseas occupied a singular position from which to demonstrate intellect, initiative, and worldliness. Their esoteric knowledge attached them to the enlightenment traditions that celebrated knowledge accumulation as the epitome of civility and progress. To “know what men are and may be in a savage state” was bound up with the effort to comprehend “the human character in a civilized state” to thereby “arrive at a better knowledge of human nature in the abstract.”3 To know the other was to know oneself. Both pragmatic and ethnographic knowledge production were fundamental to U.S. global expansion. In Fiji, American traders had to learn to navigate the archipelago’s island-studded, reef-ridden geography; what sandalwood and bêche-de-mer were, where to find them, and how to process them so as to meet the quality standards of Chinese consumers; and how to negotiate with Fijians to access their knowledge, territory, and labor. American traders could not harvest Fijian resources without Fijian help, so they needed to figure out how to communicate with Fijians, what trade items appealed to Fijian consumers, and who held power over whom. At the same time, Fijians became knowable in American popular culture as ethnographic objects, the ultimate savages.Two traders nicknamed “Butenam” exemplify the practical and ethnographic rewards awaiting Americans who entered the Fiji trade. When in 1811 Captain William Putnam Richardson of the Active came to Fiji after sandalwood, Fijians called him by his middle name because Richardson was too cumbersome to pronounce. Benjamin Vanderford, second mate on the Active and later a captain and supercargo in the bêche-de-mer trade, inherited Richardson’s nom-de-trade.4 Richardson and Vanderford hailed from Salem, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the United States due to its preeminence in global commerce. Salem was also home to the nation’s most renowned maritime knowledge repository, the East India Marine Society. The society encouraged its members to deposit logbooks in its library and bring back oddities for its museum. Put on display

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Figure 1.1. This magazine illustration captures the contrast between the gentility of museum goers and the exoticism of the East India Marine Society artifacts exhibited in Salem. A carved wooden god acquired in Hawai‘i is visible in the display case on the left. Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 4 Sept. 1869, 393. Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society.

in the hodgepodge manner typical of cabinets of curiosities, these artifacts allowed for the museum’s many visitors to marvel vicariously at the primitivity of distant places (see figure 1.1). Richardson and Vanderford joined this prestigious association as soon as they were eligible and donated a large amount of Pacific material to the society’s collections.5 As one of the last Pacific island archipelagos visited by Europeans, Fiji was a cipher on maps of the world when the sandalwood trade started in 1804. Over the next fifty years, a more detailed picture of Fiji emerged, much of it produced by Americans whose jobs took them there. Before the sandalwood boom, Americans knew only two things about Fiji: it was northwest of the Tonga Islands, and Fijians were ferocious cannibals. These inklings came from scant, secondhand remarks in the writings of British explorers.6 Captain James Cook’s famous voyages of exploration included a sighting of Fiji and comments about Fijian people. In 1774, on his second voyage to the Pacific, he reached Vatoa on the archipelago’s eastern edge but saw its

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inhabitants only from a distance. He named it “Turtle Island” and noted its location. At Tonga three years later, while on his third voyage, Cook heard of a large island to the west called “Feejee,” probably a reference to Viti Levu, and met Fijians, whom he described as “a full shade darker” than Tongans and “addicted, like those of New Zealand, of eating their enemies, whom they kill in battle.” Cook further claimed that Fijians were “much respected” in Tonga for the “cruel manner of their nation’s going to war” and their ingeniously crafted clubs, spears, tapa bark cloth (masi in Fiji), mats, and pottery.7 Cook influenced other travelers’ expectations. Captain James Wilson of the Duff, at Tonga in the late 1790s to drop off London Missionary Society fieldworkers, cribbed from Cook nearly verbatim in his account of the Duff’s voyage, describing Fijians as “cannibals of a fierce disposition.” He imagined them “dancing round us, while we were roasted on large fires.”8 Thus the earliest images of Fiji to circulate in Europe and the United States fixated on cannibalism. Other seafarers sailing through the archipelago on the way to somewhere else filled in more specifics on the location and extent of “Feejee” as it appeared on early charts of the Pacific.9 William Bligh sighted northern Viti Levu and the Yasawa group as he steered the Bounty launch from Tonga to Timor after the 1789 mutiny by members of his crew.10 On a second voyage in 1792, this time successfully transporting breadfruit from Tahiti to the Caribbean, Bligh more deliberately marked islands passed on his course from Tonga through southeastern Fiji and claimed “Bligh’s Islands” as his discovery.11 Americans, too, recorded islands spotted while traversing the archipelago. On the Ann & Hope—a Providence, Rhode Island, trader en route to China—someone charted several islands and later publicized their geographic coordinates in American newspapers.12 The impact was moot, however, since no one in the United States had any reason to go to Fiji. The China trade made Fiji an American destination. Chinese luxury goods had been imported into the British North American colonies since the seventeenth century, but the British East India Company’s monopoly thwarted colonists’ ambitions to conduct their own trade.13 Immediately after the revolutionary war, in 1784, the Empress of China departed New York, the Grand Turk from Salem two years later, and every year thereafter several vessels from Boston, Providence, Philadelphia, and other eastern port cities. American ships carried the medicinal herb ginseng and Spanish dollars around the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn, returning home flush with tea, silk, and porcelain wares.14 Because the Chinese had little interest in what Americans had to offer, merchants set about to discover what

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else besides ginseng and dollars the Chinese might want. They sent ships to North America’s Northwest Coast to trade with Indians for sea otter pelts and other ships southward to slaughter seals. Slashing and burning through one commodity after another, they happened upon Pacific sandalwood.15 The essential oils found in the slow-growing heartwood of the sandalwood tree exude a heady, ethereal aroma. Pacific peoples favored sandalwood as a scent and soaked scrapings of it into coconut oil. Fijians valued it most as a trade item, and before papalagi came in search of it, they regularly exchanged it with Tongans for stingray barbs, tapa, and other items of Tongan manufacture. Some sandalwood grew in Tonga but not very well. The Chinese also treasured sandalwood. Americans in China remarked on the sandalwood “Joss” or “Josh” sticks burned before altars in religious rites and the fans, boxes, and chests carved from it. But unlike ginseng, sandalwood did not grow in North America and so was not feasible as an American export. The highest quality sandalwood came from India and arrived in China on British East India Company ships. Pacific sandalwood was not as fragrant as Indian sandalwood, but the species that grew in Fiji, santalum yasi, was one of the more aromatic. Small cargos of Pacific sandalwood dribbled into China’s foreign trading entrepôt at Canton in the 1790s, but it was not until the American sailor Oliver Slater noticed extensive sandalwood groves in Fiji in 1804 that foreign ships began large-scale cutting of Pacific sandalwood. The rush began at Fiji, spread to the Marquesas in the 1810s, lasted at Hawai‘i into the early 1820s, and ended at the New Hebrides and New Caledonia in the 1830s and 1840s.16 Little is known about Slater and his ship, the Argo, which wrecked on a reef while sailing through Fiji around 1800. He found refuge among Fijians at Bua Bay on Vanua Levu. Two years later, El Plumier, a former Spanish vessel owned by Sydney merchants, pulled into Bua Bay to make repairs and transported Slater to Manila. He then took a Manila-registered ship named the Fair American, to Port Jackson, the harbor of Sydney, New South Wales. At that time mainly a penal colony for British malfeasants, Sydney was emerging as a shipping hub for Pacific commerce, and a Sydney firm run by former convicts—Lord, Kable, and Underwood—responded to Slater’s report of Fijian sandalwood by sending him back to Bua Bay on their schooner Marcia in September 1804. The Marcia soon returned with fifteen tons, the first cargo of sandalwood collected at Fiji bound for Chinese markets.17 Meanwhile a sandalwood frenzy erupted at Sydney. British vessels licensed through the East India Company to enter the port of Canton and colonial vessels that operated out of Sydney left for the islands. The

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Americans involved early on were sealers in the China trade who happened to be anchored at Port Jackson, replenishing food stores and waiting out harsh winter weather on southern sealing grounds. The Fair American, the ship that had brought Slater to Sydney, and the Union, a sealing brig owned by New York merchants Edmund Fanning and Willet Coles, stocked up on scrap iron and trinkets and left for Bua Bay. The Union thwarted an attack by islanders at Tonga, retreated to Sydney, and departed again for Fiji, but upon arriving in the Fiji group, shipwrecked off Koro Island. Its crew and passengers were never heard from again.18 The Fair American apparently loaded up on sandalwood and sailed to Manila or Canton.19 The following year, Captain Peter Chase of the Nantucket sealer Criterion collaborated with Sydney investors and, with Slater in company as guide and interpreter, made a highly profitable voyage to Fiji and Canton.20 When the news reached merchants in the United States, they added Fijian sandalwood to the lengthening roster of items Chinese consumers wanted and began directing vessels to Bua Bay. The promise of stellar profits outweighed the risks of shipwreck and savagery. Unfazed by the loss of the Union and demise of its crew, Fanning financed at least three more voyages to Fiji: the Hope in 1807, Tonquin in 1808, and Hope again in 1809.21 John Dorr and Company, a family firm headquartered in Boston, sent out the Jenny in 1807, commanded by the owners’ cousin, William Dorr Jr.22 The Dorrs instructed Jenny supercargo Lewis Francoeur to consider “procuring sandal wood like the sample of a fan given you, Birds’ nests or other articles suitable for China” but warned him, “At the Island of Fegie and others the natives are generally hostile so that not the least dependence can be placed on them.”23 Concurrently, Brown & Ives of Providence dispatched the Eliza, Captain Ebenezer H. Corey. They had heard that Sydney vessels had “made very great profits by carrying Sandal Wood from the Fejee Islands to Canton,” and if Corey deemed it “safe,” they recommended it.24 In June 1808, the brig crashed into a reef off Nairai, near where the Union had wrecked. Most of the crew survived, but they could not retrieve all of the Eliza’s $30,000 in Spanish silver, which along with sandalwood was meant to purchase a homebound cargo in Canton.25 Fijians on Nairai stripped the crew of their possessions, then housed and fed them. With Tui Nairai’s permission, Corey and some of his men took a boat to Bua Bay two weeks later and went aboard the Jenny. The remaining castaways continued to live off Fijian hospitality until they escaped the islands over the next few years on other sandalwood vessels. A Swedish sailor in the Eliza’s crew, Charles Savage, would become notorious in Fijian history. He and some of his shipmates stayed on as

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Chapter 1

beachcombers, abetting Bau in its wars of expansion, until one by one they met a violent end.26 The islands were now a hive of foreign activity. More than fifteen American and British trading vessels visited Bua Bay in 1808 and 1809.27 Most of what we know about the trade comes from this time period due to two accounts written by the Jenny’s Scottish-born first mate, William Lockerby: a short manuscript called “Directions for the Fegee or Sandle Wood Islands” drafted while in Fiji and a later memoir edited and published in 1925. When the Jenny sailed for Canton in July 1808, Captain Dorr stranded Lockerby and a boat’s crew at Bua Bay. Tui Bua invited Lockerby into his home until the British Favourite and General Wellesley arrived in October, at which point Lockerby went to work for them. Eight months later, he sailed with the Wellesley to Canton and from there left on another ship for Boston.28 Lockerby became fully versed in the sandalwood trade. His urge to write a memoir and, as will be discussed, the utility of his “Directions” to other traders testify to the high value placed on knowledge possession as a conduit to reputability. Reputations were much at stake in a trade roiling with personal animosities. Captain Dorr of the Jenny especially drew others’ ire. On the passage to Guam, where the Jenny stopped to repair storm damage, Dorr abused Captain Corey of the shipwrecked Eliza with insults and deprivations. Inexplicably, he then turned Corey over to the island’s Spanish authorities, telling them a half-truth about how Corey had piloted an invasion of British troops up the River Plate in South America. Corey thought Dorr the “worst of villains” and as “grate a Rogue” as he had ever met in his life.29 Dorr also had a falling out with Lockerby and abandoned him in Fiji deliberately. Dorr gave two reasons for leaving Lockerby behind. He told Corey that he dismissed Lockerby for stealing some of the Eliza’s Spanish coins but, to his cousins in Boston, claimed that contrary winds forced him to leave the islands suddenly.30 Lockerby offered a third explanation, one that made Lockerby out to be a dedicated ship’s officer—courageous, ambitious, intelligent, and possessed of critical knowledge about Fiji and the sandalwood trade. When Dorr saw how risky the trade was, he tried to ensure Lockerby’s loyalty by offering him a privilege of several tons to trade in sandalwood on his own account. Then Dorr retracted the offer, “and high words passed between us.” The “real cause” of their dispute, Lockerby then put forth, was that Dorr did not want Lockerby to make his knowledge of the trade available to competitors. While in Fiji, Lockerby had recorded “the bearings of the headlands, the

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soundings, with the time of high water at the full and change of the moon, with other necessary information to enable me to make a correct chart, and accompanied with directions for making the Islands.” Dorr, “the craven coward,” knew of Lockerby’s plans to “publish the same on my return to America.” Thus, “it was not unnatural for him to wish to secure for his friends the monopoly of this equal-to-coining [super-profitable] business, or at least until he might make one or two trips before his countrymen knew the secret.”31 Boasting aside, Lockerby’s knowledge indeed had value. After Jenny owner John Dorr apologized and compensated Lockerby for his cousin’s treatment of him, he asked to buy “the copyright of my chart.” Lockerby chose instead to advertise it for sale, first in Boston and a year later in New York newspapers, “should any Gentlemen wish to engage upon the speculation of SANDAL WOOD.” He did not offer his services, only his information, but that alone was worth $100 each to two buyers who separately purchased a copy of it. One buyer must have been Richardson or a Richardson business associate because, even though Lockerby’s chart has not survived, the seven densely packed pages of “Directions” did and are among Richardson’s contributions to the East India Marine Society.32 Since Richardson gave Lockerby’s “Directions” to the East India Marine Society and not, as was more common, a logbook he had kept himself, he must have found Lockerby’s advice accurate and useful. However, Richardson did not rush blindly to Fiji with only Lockerby’s text to guide him. Though young (Richardson had just turned twenty-five years old when the Active left Salem on June 1, 1810, he was an experienced master mariner and far from naive as a consumer of information. Part owner of the Salem-built Active since 1806, he had made two voyages as its captain, one to Marseilles and the other to Sumatra. In 1810, he partnered with Salem merchants James Cook, John Dodge, and Charles Saunders under the rubric James Cook and Company. Cook was also a seasoned investor in global commerce.33 In determining whether to undertake a Fiji voyage, Richardson and his partners had to weigh profit and risk. Before acquiring Lockerby’s “Directions,” Richardson likely knew about the enormous gains to be had from a sandalwood voyage with only a miniscule investment in trifles. An 1806 “Letter written . . . by an Intelligent American” in Canton and reprinted in dozens of newspapers throughout the United States reported that, for only $1,500 in trade goods, the Criterion sold 3,000 piculs of Fijian sandalwood at $27 per picul (a picul was an East India and China trade measure equivalent

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to 133 pounds). The Criterion thus generated an $81,000 return on a $1,500 investment.34 Price was as much a risk as it was an incentive, however, since Richardson could not count on sandalwood prices staying high. By 1810, prices had already dropped. In his memoir, Lockerby exaggerated the rate of return by estimating that the Jenny’s £50 in scrap iron, beads, and looking glasses would have multiplied to £20,000 at Canton. Lockerby’s estimate would have entailed a better return on investment than that of the Criterion. The Jenny instead resulted in a complete loss since the British charged Captain Dorr with violating a blockade at Guam, condemned his vessel at Calcutta, and impounded its cargo. When Lockerby arrived in Canton on the General Wellesley, its sandalwood sold for only $18 per picul, a sharp reduction from the Criterion’s $27.35 A Sydney merchant in Canton in September 1809 attributed “so extraordinary a depreciation in the price of sandal-wood” to “the immense quantities of that commodity lately sent to that market.”36 The possibility of a speculation ruined by quixotic markets was compounded by the three to six months news took to travel the globe in the age of sail. Richardson would have anticipated that Lockerby’s information could have been out of date at the moment of its purchase. Another risk—or so one might think—was the savagery thought to be rife in the Pacific and especially in Fiji. Surprisingly, however, it did not deter trade. Even insurers seemed undaunted by it. Underwriters of the Active, Brutus, and Sally voyages to Fiji asked for a high premium in the range of 15 percent, but the most expensive marine insurance premiums at the time, on the eve of the War of 1812, were the 22½ to 25 percent charged U.S. vessels bound for certain European ports. Hence places believed to be at the apex of civilization engendered the highest shipping risk. In their insurance applications, owners of the Brutus and Sally identified Fiji as the destination, but James Cook and Company did not do so for the Active, suggesting that Richardson took Lockerby’s “Directions” along with Fiji in mind as a prospect, pending further enquiries upon arriving in the vicinity.37 Once in Fiji, Richardson appears to have heeded Lockerby’s recommendations and benefited from how Lockerby’s lengthy stay in the islands made him attuned to the intricacies of Fiji’s physical environment, political divides, and cultural distinctiveness. No logbook or journal survives from the Active, but one of its eighteen crew members, seaman Thomas Saul, later superintendent of the East India Marine Society museum, recorded the ship’s course. From Salem, the Active headed around the Cape of Good Hope to the Isle of Bourbon, on to Sydney, and then Fiji.38 When the Boston

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ship Hunter arrived at Vanua Levu in May (its owners were possibly the second purchaser of Lockerby’s “Directions”), one of its crew mentioned in his journal that the Active, anchored in Bua Bay, was “partly loaded with sandalwood.”39 With Lockerby’s “Directions” in hand, Richardson had access to Lockerby’s experience to help him manage the trade’s greatest hazards: reefs, sandalwood depletion, and cannibals. Though optimistic in tone, so as not to scare off buyers, the “Directions” address these risks while portraying them as surmountable for those armed with specialized knowledge. In his “Directions,” Lockerby advised ships to sail northwest from Tonga, past Vatoa, to the island of Koro, where the people were friendly, hogs and fowls could be had, and a pilot could be brought on board to guide the vessel to Bua Bay. He warned that vessels must keep a sharp lookout, for a clutter of reefs, often submerged and hidden from view, encircled most islands. For narrow passages, he suggested that a boat go ahead to steer the ship along the safest track. Having lived in Fiji for over a year, Lockerby was able to pass along insights into how seasonal weather patterns changed the direction of the winds. The bulk of Lockerby’s “Directions” delve into the trade itself: how to overcome scarcity after five years of intensive cutting and how to manage local politics to obtain a workforce. Lockerby directed ships to head directly to Bua Bay and make contact with Tui Bua. Lockerby knew him by the title Buli Bouwalu and called him “King.” Of the four “kings” who ruled over different parts of Vanua Levu, Lockerby wrote in his memoir, Tui Bua was “considered the most powerful, being able to bring into the field three thousand men.” Tui Bua’s political connections made him still a player in the trade, even though, as Lockerby acknowledged in the “Directions,” “more than one Thousand Tons of sandlewood has been procured from the chief Beumbowala & his subjecks but it is rarther scarse now.” By 1808, the trade had migrated north to Wailea Bay, which is where the Jenny, Favourite, General Wellesley, and Tonquin sent their boats while the ships remained near Tui Bua’s town. Soon Wailea Bay faced shortfalls. In company with other vessels’ boat crews, Lockerby made excursions further north to Galoa Bay and inland along the Dreketi River, searching for untapped sandalwood reserves. Although his memoir admits that sandalwood grew only on Vanua Levu, his “Directions” paint a more positive prospect of “plenty of wood” reportedly at Cakaudrove to the east of Bua Bay and on Viti Levu, about which foreigners in Fiji then knew almost nothing, not even that it was the largest island in the group.40

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Richardson found enough sandalwood while anchored at Bua Bay to make his voyage but must have noticed its rarity. Francoeur, Lockerby’s coworker on the Jenny, hesitated to recommend another venture to his employers partly for this reason. “It is very astonishing,” he wrote John Dorr from Calcutta as he waited for the fate of the Jenny to be determined in British courts, that “this wood grows only on one Island & only on one end of that.” Moreover, so many ships had come for sandalwood, the Fijian men employed to cut and carry it to the ship’s boats were now “obliged to pack it a long ways, from 6 to 8 miles.”41 The Hibernia and Hope, both at Galoa Bay from November 1809 to January 1810, found the trade so dismal, they left with at most only a few tons each.42 Conducting trade in a war zone was an even greater obstacle. When Francoeur informed his employer that “the Feegie Trade I expect is about over,” he mentioned foremost how “the Natives are getting very troublesome and hostile.” Francoeur blamed the unrest on the growing population of “European” castaways and deserters turned beachcomber. These new residents of Fiji encouraged the islanders to “attempt bolder enterprises than they otherwise would.”43 Lockerby’s “Directions” compensate for these difficulties by listing the trade goods that Fijians would find most appealing and dissecting the internal and external politics of the Bua matanitu. In his lengthy recitation of trade goods, Lockerby emphasized whales’ teeth. In Fijian culture, Lockerby explained, whales’ teeth held a privileged place as exchange items. They sealed marriages and political pacts. Fijians “that is possessd of any of them lays them up as graet riches as porshens for their Daughters & Making peace with their offended Supiriors.” If actual whales’ teeth could not be had, any ivory—elephant tusks from India or Chinese fans—could be cut into the shape of a tooth and would be as desirable. A tooth weighing one pound could buy two tons of sandalwood. Also on Lockerby’s list were red fibers “for Slinging the Teath” around the neck or hanging them from rafters, white shells, axes, nails, knives, razors, scissors, cloth, beads, and looking glasses.44 In addition, Lockerby supplied Richardson with a glossary of trade jargon. A whale’s tooth was “Tamboo” (tabua). Sandalwood was “Iarse” (yasi). Questions such as “What will you take for this pile of wood?” gave Richardson and his men the phrases needed to complete a transaction. Lockerby listed the verbs “to cut wood,” “to sap wood” (strip the bark and sap to trim the log to its heartwood), “to carry wood,” and “to put it up in piles,” thus breaking down the process of sandalwood harvesting into stages. Lockerby further informed Richardson that it had become common practice to hand

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out axes and saws to Fijians to do the cutting in the interior, mountainous regions because sending “Europeans into the bush to cut the wood” had proven “dangerous.”45 With comments like this, Lockerby addressed the trade’s violent setting, yet he promised traders success if they understood the political landscape. Ships should go “well armed & niver to be of their gard for althow they are a hospitable people yet they are Canables & will take every Advantage from their propensity to Stealing the low Class of them in particular.” Even if the people one was trading with were “friendly . . . they are always at war among themselves & those that are their Enomies will be yours.” Lockerby ended with brief character studies of the eight most important men on the northwestern side of Vanua Levu, stressing the need to find trading partners who could command territory and labor or, as Lockerby described them, “the prinsipal Chiefs with Whome it is best to be on good termes with that they may encurage the poor people to cut wood.” He most recommended Tui Bua, who “having more men than any of the other chiefs is the most powerfull of them all & is understood to be the King of the Island.” He was “very parshall to Europeans” and would go along to Galoa Bay “& Introduce you to the Chiefs their.” Lockerby also spoke favorably of one Fijian ruler who had “his people under good subjection” and another who was “very usefull he can speack a few words of English.” Several others would arrange to have wood cut but had to be watched carefully: Tui Korovatu was “a grait Villen,” the people of Wailea were “grait theaves,” and the Tavea islanders were “a set of Rubbers and lives by Plunder.”46 The alleged villainy of the people of Korovatu, Wailea, and Tavea stemmed not from the innate savagery Lockerby implied but from rivalry for dominance in foreign trade. Initially, sandalwood traders had found Tonga the more dangerous place. The Portland, Union, and Port-au-Prince had been attacked at Tonga, and other ships, such as the Jenny, had fired on Tongan canoes or experienced skirmishes on deck while stopping there on the way to Fiji. In contrast, the only difficulty encountered by the earliest foreign vessels in Fiji came from colliding into reefs. By 1808, the trade had turned violent. When the Jenny arrived at Bua Bay in May, its crew immediately fell into a brawl with seamen on the Sydney brig Elizabeth, who “tried to run our ship on shore” to rid the islands of competition. Thereafter, however, British and American traders afforded each other mutual protection. All subsequent acts of hostility in Lockerby’s memoir pitted Fijians against papalagi except for two major battles between Fijians, in which papalagi took a side. Muskets were not yet a trade item as they would be twenty years later,

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but sandalwood vessels had armament galore—four-pounder and twelvepounder cannons and swivel guns loaded with grapeshot—while crew members always went ashore carrying pistols and muskets. Sandalwood traders resorted to firepower whenever they felt threatened and to support Fijians who promised to bring them wood.47 Tui Bua remained the ally of choice for foreign traders even though the sandalwood in his domains was now tapped out. The environmental serendipity bestowing on him the role of kingpin had a ripple effect across Vanua Levu and further south to the island of Bau. The influx of trade goods empowered him but simultaneously energized rivals to take his trading monopoly from him. In mid-1808, a number of towns affiliated with the matanitu of Bua balked when he refused to give up “a part of the property he had received from Europeans.” He told Lockerby that “ever since the white men traded with him, he had always given them a portion of what his own subjects had worked hard for; but now he and his people had determined to give them no more.”48 Bua’s rebels, the towns of Tacilevu and Korovatu, combined forces with Bau and others jealous of Bua’s supremacy in the papalagi trade. These challengers to Tui Bua formed a fleet of 150 war canoes, the largest of which came from Bau and carried two hundred men. They attacked Tui Bua’s nephew at Tavea first and killed several hundred people in a battle lasting three days. The fleet then headed toward Tui Bua’s stronghold, but the Favourite and General Wellesley, soon joined by the Tonquin, inadvertently blocked the fleet’s passage upriver to Tui Bua’s fort. These foreign ships were not passive bystanders but intervened on the side of Tui Bua. During the battle at Tavea, the Bau alliance kidnapped Lockerby and two boats’ crews belonging to the Favourite. In retaliation, its captain fired his ship’s guns on the town of Tacilevu, killing many inside the fortress.49 For the sandalwood traders, the immediate crisis was that warfare among Fijians kept Fijian men from leaving their forts to cut wood in the highlands. The traders encouraged Tui Bua to negotiate peace with his rebels, some of whom came back into the fold. But the people of Tacilevu, resenting the Favourite’s bombardment of their town, refused. So an armed party of papalagi joined nearly two thousand of Tui Bua’s men in a devastating raid on Tacilevu. The battle so “reduced” the town, it had still not recovered forty years later, when survivors told a missionary that “Tui Bua at that time was very angry with the people of Tacilevu, so he agreed to give a cargo of sandalwood on condition that the captain should destroy Tacilevu.” Trade resumed, and the three trading vessels, one after the other, quickly arrived at a full cargo. Lockerby’s list of Vanua Levu’s most influential men sidesteps

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the increasingly deadly politics of the trade by identifying who was amenable and powerful without elaborating on the historical events that had made them so.50 When the Active arrived at Bua Bay, the same problems described in Lockerby’s “Directions” still prevailed: sandalwood depletion, a dependence on Tui Bua whose hold on the trade was slipping, and wars between Fijians. Because there was no longer any sandalwood to be cut in Bua, the other vessels in Fiji at the same time as the Active—the Boston ship Hunter, a British ship from Calcutta also named Hunter, the ship Bordeaux of New York, and the brig Brutus, commanded by William Dorr Jr., Lockerby’s nemesis from the Jenny—did not anchor in Bua Bay. They passed through the reefs to move closer to the remaining stands of sandalwood on northern Vanua Levu, near Wailea Bay and at the mouth of the Dreketi River. They all found that “sandalwood was very hard to be got in this place as the natives were constantly at war with each other.”51 Captain Dorr took the initiative. He made a deal with the head man of the town of Dreketi, whose people would not go into the mountains to cut wood for fear of the people of Druadrua. If Dorr would join Dreketi in an assault on Druadrua, the ruler of Dreketi promised Dorr he “would fill his Brigg with S wood.” So Dorr sent his first mate and four other men armed with muskets, pistols, and cutlasses to attack the Druadrua fort. But their wet muskets would not fire, and the five men from the Brutus were all “speard to deth by those savige Canibals, 3 of them was rosted and eat.” A few days later, Dorr sent a cannon ashore with orders to his men to take Wailea by force. Again defeated, the Brutus in company with the Bourdeaux headed for Viti Levu, where Dorr’s hopes to find rich sandalwood reserves in less war-ridden climes would have come to naught, since not much sandalwood grew on Viti Levu. These two vessels soon left the group, probably for the Marquesas or Hawai‘i. With only forty tons of Fijian sandalwood, the Hunter of Boston sailed to the Marquesas and, adding two hundred more tons, arrived in Canton in February 1812 with a cargo that sold for $75,000.52 As the Marquesas began to draw most sandalwood traffic, a few traders continued to visit Fiji, where the wars on northern Vanua Levu continued. In 1813, these conflicts climaxed in a battle at Wailea. As recalled in a memoir by Peter Dillon, then an officer on the Hunter of Calcutta, Charles Savage and other beachcombers working for Bau and the Hunter were killed in a failed offense on the town of Wailea. A few sandalwood traders appeared in the group subsequently, but that infamous battle served as a dramatic finale to Fiji’s sandalwood boom.53

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Despite sandalwood depletion and mounting warfare, the Active’s voyage was highly profitable. Richardson had left Salem with $18,000 in preserved meats, tobacco, codfish, liquor, iron bars, nails, spermaceti candles, glassware, shoes, hats, and tar, goods that he probably sold at the Isle of Bourbon and Sydney in exchange for the Fiji trade items on Lockerby’s list. He returned to Salem less than two years later with a cargo of tea and other China merchandise valued by the customs inspector at nearly $180,000.54 As was common in the life course of Salem merchants, Richardson’s several voyages as captain gave him a sufficiency to leave the seafaring to others and enter fully into the life of a merchant.55 Although Richardson apparently never left New England again, he continued in the sandalwood business. In 1815, he and several previous partners bought the ship Indus. He hired his second mate on the Active, Vanderford, to act as first mate under Captain Nathaniel Page and sent the Indus to the Marquesas. The Indus left again for the Marquesas in 1817, with Vanderford as captain, and stopped in Fiji for more sandalwood on its way to Canton.56 In 1821, Richardson sent the newly purchased Roscoe, under Vanderford’s command, to Bua Bay, where in four months the vessel took aboard several thousand pounds of sandalwood per day.57 Scarcity thwarted a dedicated trade in it, however. Just as the news of Chinese demand for sandalwood and the islands’ possession of it had spread quickly around the world, the knowledge of sandalwood’s decline snuffed out foreign interest in Fiji. Utilitarian knowledge, which was so critical to the profits merchants hoped to amass from their speculations, worked like a faucet to turn on and off the flow of foreign ships through the archipelago. Another boom, targeting bêche-de-mer, revived ship traffic in the late 1820s. Although the two rushes on Fijian resources fell into distinct time periods, there was some overlap. The Roscoe, in Fiji from April through July 1822, could be considered either the last sandalwood trader or the harbinger of the next big thing, since Captain Vanderford collected bêche-de-mer as well.58 And the Clay, under Vanderford’s command five years later, initially had sandalwood as its objective but turned into a bêche-de-mer operation, inspiring a deluge of copycats.59 Bêche-de-mer—called “beach la mar” by Yankee traders, dri in Fiji, trepang in Manila, and sea cucumber on Chinese restaurant menus in the United States—feeds on and alongside coral reefs. The many species vary in texture, color, size, and edible desirability. The Chinese preferred a six-inch black variety and used it to flavor soups (see figure 1.2). Like bird’s nests, coral moss, and shark fins, which foreign vessels also harvested in the Pacific to sell in China, bêche-de-mer’s distinctive taste did not appeal to Americans,

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Figure 1.2. The most valuable bêche-de-mer was a black variety that, when dried, measured about four inches in length. Captain Benjamin Wallis acquired this specimen in Fiji. Specimen, Fiji, 1 1/8 × 1 1/2 × 3 5/8 inches, E30533. On loan from the Heirs of George Swan, 1952, Peabody Essex Museum.

who appreciated it only for its monetary value in Chinese markets.60 Fijians also had little need for it. They rarely ate dri.61 From the Fijian perspective, a useless object suddenly gained value as a trading commodity. The bêche-de-mer trade differed from the earlier sandalwood trade in when, where, and how it operated and who was involved. Salem sent only the Active to Fiji during sandalwood’s heyday but dominated the bêche-demer trade. There were other geographic differences. Instead of taking cargos directly to China, bêche-de-mer traders preferred to deal with Chinese merchants in Manila for that port’s affordability and proximity. And in Fiji itself, natural habitats of these valuable resources altered the routes traders took: sandalwood grew only on northwestern Vanua Levu, but bêche-demer flourished on coral reefs throughout the archipelago. Although it still was the case that the Fijians who controlled territory and laborers had the advantage, bêche-de-mer traders more often dealt with the two powerhouse matanitu of central Fiji: Bau and Rewa. Even more important a contrast between the two trades was that sandalwood had not required any shore facilities, whereas bêche-de-mer had to be cured in a laborious and delicate

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Figure 1.3. Inside bêche-de-mer houses, workers smoke-dried the slugs over wood fires. Original by Alfred T. Agate in Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, During the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, 5 vols. plus atlas (Philadelphia: C. Sherman, 1844), 3: 232. Courtesy of Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut Library.

process at specially constructed bêche-de-mer houses (see figure 1.3). Supervision of a workforce at these houses increased the risk of violence.62 Otherwise, the two trades had much in common: Chinese tastes inspired the harvesting of a natural product found in Fiji, little outlay in cost promised a high rate of return, foreign traders had to motivate Fijians to do the heavy labor, traders embroiled themselves in Fijian power struggles to secure a cargo, and success depended on the acquisition of knowledge. While trading for sandalwood, Edmund Fanning warned, it took “the judgement of an experienced person” to distinguish “genuine” sandalwood from a “spurious” look-alike, the smell of which evoked sandalwood but faded quickly. Fanning similarly cautioned those seeking bêche-de-mer. Once taken from the sea, the slugs had to be kept out of the sun, or they would dissolve into a gooey mass. On shore, workers slit each slug open with a knife to remove its guts, submerged it in a boiling “pickle” of water, saltpeter, and “a mite of allum” to give it the “clear amber color” prized in the China market and then placed the slugs on racks or “flakes” to dry over a wood fire. Fanning strongly advised “that a person who undertakes to collect it should have had

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experience in the business.”63 Of the two extractive industries, bêche-de-mer had the steepest learning curve, so steep that one or two cargos of rotten slugs delivered at Canton or Manila could explain why bêche-de-mer did not electrify speculators as sandalwood had. European and American traders knew early on of the Chinese demand for bêche-de-mer but were slow to exploit it. A British surveying expedition of 1803 observed “Malays from Macassar” diving for slugs in the Gulf of Carpentaria, north of Australia, and reported that it “seems to bring the Malays a good many thousand dollars annually from the Chinese.”64 Sandalwood traders in Fiji, on the Jenny in 1808 and the Hibernia a year later, itemized bêche-de-mer as part of their cargos but without stating if they had procured it in Fiji.65 Lockerby’s “Directions,” in the manuscript itself and as announced in his newspaper advertisements, included a recipe “for the curing of BEACHLEMARE,” but there is no evidence that he or Richardson dealt in it.66 In 1810, one American vessel—the Amethyst of Boston (like the Jenny, owned by the Dorrs)—did collect bêche-de-mer, but at Palau, not at Fiji. Captain Seth Smith intended to go to Fiji for more bêche-de-mer and sandalwood, but a rotting hull cut short his venture.67 Not until 1827, with the Clay, did the bêche-de-mer trade at Fiji take off. The earlier effort, on the Roscoe, may have failed out of ignorance. Vanderford had put a twenty-year-old New England seaman “on shore to inform the natives in curing beach-le-mar,” but how would he have known what to do?68 Maybe he followed Lockerby’s instructions, but as an American in charge of a bêche-de-mer house in the 1840s attested to, experience with the arduous and finicky curing method made the best teacher: it “requires considerable practice to be a judge of it . . . if boiled too much or too little, it will spoil, if dried too much or not enough it is equally liable to rot, while if any of it touch iron or has not air enough, or if the least bit of water should get amongst it, in two weeks the ship’s hold would be nothing but one mass of slimy corruption.”69 If the Roscoe had succeeded, surely Vanderford would not have waited another five years to return for more. And the Clay had trouble at first. Rainy weather “destroyed much of our Beach lee Marr,” second mate William Driver recorded in his journal. Then a barrel of it “spoilt . . . the sun not having power enough to dry it.” This remark suggests that the crew did not yet know that smoke drying the slugs worked better than leaving them out in the sun. In an addendum to his journal written nearly sixty years later, Driver claimed credit for figuring out how to prepare bêche-de-mer correctly: “Here I stayed & cured 480 Piculs of Beach le mar, the first ever cured by white men. Ben Vanderford

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had Read Kotzbues Russian Voyages and dreamed of cureing a fortune by boiling snails in a dinner Pot after punching their Enterels out with a Stick . . . but he knew no more of curing Beach le Marr than my Dog does of the Nicene Creed.” Of course, Driver knew nothing of it himself until he learned the process correctly from others. Fortuitously, the crew from a Manila brig, variously referred to as the bêche-de-mer trader Laurice or sandalwood trader Concepción, had mutinied in Fiji two years before the Clay’s arrival. After murdering the captain and officers, the mutineers abandoned the brig near Bau, where the islanders broke it apart for its iron. The Clay hired these “Manilla Pirats” to man the bêche-de-mer house under Driver’s management, and he acquired their expertise through observation.70 Once learned, the process lost its mystery. Interest in bêche-de-mer mushroomed among Salem’s leading merchants. N. L. Rogers and Brothers, Stephen C. Phillips, Joseph Peabody, Robert Brookhouse, S. Chamberlain and Son, and others commissioned more than a dozen vessels to enter the trade, including the Quill, Glide, Niagara, Charles Doggett, and Peru.71 Barring shipwreck, native attempts to commandeer vessels, and periodic slug depletion, such voyages reaped great profits for their investors. As with sandalwood, the gap in the exchange value across three locales—Salem, Fiji, and China (by way of Manila)—produced high rates of return. In an 1847 report to the U.S. State Department, John B. Williams summarized average expectations. An investment of $3,500 in trade goods, the most valuable of which from the islanders’ perspective were whales’ teeth, would result in twelve hundred piculs of bêche-de-mer and one thousand pounds of tortoise shell, reaping $40,000.72 Bêche-de-mer and other Pacific products inspired a need for more knowledge to mitigate danger and maximize profits. So in 1838, the U.S. government responded to merchants’ demands for greater protection by sending the U.S. Exploring Expedition to the Pacific on a mission of discovery. Commerce in bêche-de-mer made Fiji a priority, and Salem’s influence on the Ex Ex was conspicuous. One Salem bêche-de-mer vessel, the Leonidas captained by John H. Eagleston, happened to be in the Fiji group while the Ex Ex was there, but in addition Salem contributed key personnel, including Vanderford, who was hired as master’s mate and expert in all things Fijian.73 In truth, before the Ex Ex gave Vanderford an outlet for demonstrating his Fijian expertise, he appears to have been the least respected of Salem’s bêche-de-mer traders. Others besides his second mate, Driver, did not like him. While competing with Vanderford for bêche-de-mer houses on the

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Macuata coast in 1834, Eagleston railed against Vanderford’s “unmanly doings” and “treacherous and underhanded proceedings.” Even Fijians were “not over fond” of Butenam, according to Eagleston’s clerk, Warren Osborn.74 And yet, Vanderford’s six voyages to Fiji over two decades (the Active, Indus, Roscoe, Clay, Niagara, and Consul) had taught him “a smattering of the language,” who ruled Fiji’s multiple polities, and how to barter for hogs, yams, coconuts, and bananas, all of which helped make the first large-scale American exploration of the Pacific a success. Bemused, Ex Ex naturalist Charles Pickering observed how Vanderford as Butenam was “evidently known to more persons among the Feejees, than in his native town.”75 But after his March 1842 death on the Vincennes’ homeward passage, Vanderford became known to other Americans as well. In the Ex Ex’s official, published report, expedition commander Charles Wilkes eulogized Vanderford for his “usefulness” and “familiarity with the manners and customs of the Feejee Islands.”76 Knowledge of global markets, manufacturing processes, and varied consumer cultures undergirded Salem’s prosperity and had the power to establish some among its citizenry as men of ability and attainment. Richardson and Vanderford were just two among hundreds of seafarers who parlayed their foreign experiences into a modicum of public recognition. They advanced American commercial expansion into the Pacific by learning how to exploit and sell exotic commodities, while on the domestic front, they had another kind of influence as ethnographic collectors and commentators. Traders in sandalwood and bêche-de-mer returned home eager to tell others about their adventures in such a strange, faraway place. In their writings and display of artifacts, they elaborated on British explorers’ depictions of Fijian savagery without resolving what seemed like contradictions between “the ferocity of their character, their ceaseless treachery, and shameless Cannibalism” and how Fijians simultaneously seemed “very good natured,” “very hospitable,” “segacious,” and more “civilised” than other Pacific Islanders.77 Images of Fiji that reached a broader American public tended to obliterate these complexities to portray a unidimensional, horrific caricature of the “Feejees” as a Hobbesian nightmare, in which there were no rules, only an innate desire for ruthless warfare and an appetite for human flesh. The sandalwood trade introduced an array of Fiji materials and tales into American popular culture. Probably it was some crew member from the Tonquin or Hope who acquired the objects that Mix’s Museum in New

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Haven, Connecticut, put on display in 1812: a “collection of Battle Axes, War Clubs, Spears, Darts, Death Malls, and Death Clubs brought from the Fegee and other Islands.”78 That same year, John Scudder’s American Museum in New York City advertised its “WAR CLUBS—BATTLE AXES— DEATH MALLS, and BOWS and ARROWS, all curiously wrought, and used in the wars by the natives of South America and the Fegee Islands.”79 This panoply of frightful weaponry in museums cast Fijians as war hungry and lethal. British accounts also circulated in the United States. In 1810, numerous American newspapers reprinted “The Fejee Islands” from the Sydney Gazette, retitling it “An Island of Savage Cannibals.” The article assailed the violence the British sandalwood trader Favourite met with, as though the ship’s crew were victims of an unreasonable Fijian hostility, and not, as would have been more accurate, leading actors in the violence that ensued: Fiji islanders had recently been “considered of an amicable turn of mind, until, by a recent conduct, they also [like Tonga islanders] have betrayed affections more to be dreaded than caressed.”80 The Gentleman’s Magazine was another early purveyor of Fiji imagery in a two-part series originating with British sandalwood trader Richard Siddins. In the first story, Siddins described the ceremony by which a widow accompanied her husband into the afterlife. She approached the body of her husband and kissed it. She then sat in the lap of another woman who held the back of her neck and mouth. Suddenly, a man wrapped a cord around her neck, which six other men pulled taut to strangle her in an instant. The second story details the rites of cannibalism against a captured enemy, how the islanders cut off first the hands and feet, then the legs at the knee joint and midway along the thigh, and finally the head. They cooked the body parts in an earth oven heated with hot stones and planned to eat it the next day.81 American sandalwood traders made the most substantial contributions to world knowledge about Fiji. In May 1812, after the Active returned from Canton, Richardson entered the ranks of the East India Marine Society, its 143rd member. Vanderford joined in December 1820, once his command of the Indus’s 1817–19 voyage made him eligible. Along with Lockerby’s “Directions,” Richardson deposited a “Fegee Vocabulary” and at least sixteen Fijian objects with the society. Most were weapons of war: clubs, spears, bows and arrows, and several “Sceptres,” one of which Tui Bua gave him. Also attributed to Richardson were two liku, described in the society’s catalog as “Girdles or Sashes being the entire dress of females at the Fegee Islands.” The

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tagline “entire dress,” a common refrain in descriptions of Pacific women’s clothing, conveyed the near-nudity of women in tropical climes. Vanderford’s numerous gifts included war clubs as well as armlets, necklaces, and gorgets.82 These things joined other artifacts from around the world in the society’s collections. Visitors to the East India Marine Hall found its cornucopia of curiosities wondrous, and the society’s annual parades, when members dressed outlandishly in foreign garb and carried paraphernalia from the society’s collections through the streets of Salem, were widely celebrated and well attended.83 Richardson’s “Fegee Vocabulary” proved to be one of the society’s most significant items. Just as artifact collection had become common ethnographic practice by the time Richardson left for Fiji, vocabularies too had developed into a form of humanistic enquiry. Richardson heeded the call of such luminaries as Catherine the Great and Thomas Jefferson, who encouraged the compilation of vocabulary lists for comparative philological study.84 Richardson’s word list resembles Lockerby’s in its many references to finding, cutting, carrying, and buying sandalwood and the whales’ teeth, hatchets, beads, scissors, and other barter necessary to acquire it. But while Lockerby’s list was entirely oriented toward the trade, Richardson produced a more deliberately ethnographic document. He made some effort to organize terms systematically, beginning with numbers and methods of counting to large sums, followed by the words and phrases useful for trading. He then translated into English the Fijian words for social categories such as husband, wife, mother, “a great chief,” “a petty chief,” “a prophet,” and “a white man or a ghost” (“Pappelange”). Next are about two pages of words for common foods, one of which is “Boegoolah the dead body of an enemy which they intend to eat.” His two pages of warrelated words often comment on customs. Thus, “Cumbah ne Coro” was “to take a fort or town or to burn it, which is their constant practice when at war.” The remaining pages then become more random, suggesting that after composing an overview he began adding new words as they came up in conversation.85 Some of Richardson’s explanations of words may have had commercial utility from a trader’s perspective but deserved inclusion more as a way of seeing and describing cultures not one’s own. For “Tamboo,” he wrote, “anything forbidden by a chief is tambooed . . . the chiefs are in the habit of tambooing the different kinds of provisions . . . while this restriction remains any person eating of the forbidden articles would be put to death.”

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This could have been useful for a trader to know, but it also was a custom foreigners would have found unusual and savage in the autocratic, capricious powers chiefs held over life and death. Richardson’s final page breaks from the usual ethnographic content to list what we might call rude or dirty words. These are nine words that he translated into English as “the privates of a man, a womans privates, Copulation, a private vice, to piss, to fart, excrements, lice, a crooked c-t.” The East India Marine Society cultivated a public persona as a gathering of “gentlemen,” but one wonders if, behind closed doors, they did not share reminiscences in a more ribald manner.86 An abbreviated, alphabetized version of Richardson’s vocabulary reached a broader readership through the auspices of Salem lawyer, politician, and noted philologist John Pickering. Recognized in his time for expertise in North American Indian languages, Pickering reflected a cosmopolitanism beyond North America in his approach to philology. He was an early advocate for the development of a universal orthography to make possible more systematic comparison of “the barbarous and unwritten languages of the globe in general.” In his European correspondence and scholarly objectives, Pickering represented the opposite of the American exceptionalism promoted by the isolated crank Noah Webster. Situated in a region deeply connected to the rest of the world through commerce and missionary organizations, such as the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Pickering became a node for ingoing and outgoing data within a global philological network.87 Pickering recognized the value of Richardson’s vocabulary and forwarded notes on it to colleagues as a sample of a little-known language. He either saw the East India Marine Society version or received a copy directly from Richardson, whom Pickering referred to as “an intelligent supercargo.”88 One recipient of Pickering’s notes, William Ellis, reproduced them in his Journal of a Tour around Hawaii, published in 1825, and concluded that “the Fejeean language has not probably the same origin with the Polynesian.” A former British missionary in the Society Islands and Hawai‘i, Ellis later published the four-volume, ethnographic classic Polynesian Researches, which helped popularize the term Polynesia, a Greek word for “many islands.”89 Ellis’s observations on differences between Fijian and the languages of the Society Islands and Hawai‘i aligned with theories then unfolding among nineteenth-century ethnologists whose attention to racial, cultural, and linguistic variety in the Pacific led them to place Fiji in “Melanesia,” a term

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coined in an 1832 address by French explorer and philosophe Jules-SebastiénCésar Dumont D’Urville.90 In 1828, Pickering sent his “Fegee Vocabulary” notes to his longtime German correspondent Wilhelm von Humboldt, who shared with Pickering the view that language investigation necessitated a global, comparative framework. As European philologists amassed and published compendia of the world’s languages, the Pacific was underrepresented, and Humboldt greatly appreciated access to the Fijian language. Richardson had died in 1826, and so he would not have known that Pickering credited him in European and American philological circles as the source of the world’s first Fiji vocabulary.91 That Richardson had collected a Pacific vocabulary useful to the budding field of comparative ethnology had a spin-off effect in institutionalizing linguistic study. As the Ex Ex replicated European voyages of discovery in gathering a team of scientists, Pickering declined the invitation to serve as philologist but lobbied for a young Harvard student, Horatio Hale, to go in his stead. Richardson’s amateur contribution was a stepping stone to more formal philological practices, albeit still premised on the value of firsthand experience.92 While Richardson’s ethnographic data spread to intellectuals attempting to make sense of the world’s cultural and linguistic diversity, more general readers had their first exposure to Fiji in the Narrative of the Adventures and Sufferings of Samuel Patterson, published in Massachusetts in 1817, the first book-length account of the islands. An ordinary sailor from Rhode Island, Patterson became stranded when the Eliza wrecked at Nairai in 1808. He and Lockerby lived in Fiji simultaneously and spent about the same amount of time there. Like Lockerby, Patterson also could be said to have sold his firsthand knowledge of the place. After returning to the United States, Patterson’s ailments and poverty worsened, so neighbors wrote up his story to raise funds for his support. The editors touted the book as educational, reassuring readers that they had taken care in “preparing this work for public view, to render it truly useful and beneficial to the world.” They lined up nine hundred subscribers. Sufficient demand justified a second edition eight years later. The title of the 1825 enlarged edition added “Privations” to “Sufferings and Adventures” and emphasized the book’s ethnographic content, its “Particular Description of the Manners, Customs, &c. of the People of the Sandwich and Fejee Islands.” The similarity in the book’s original title to A Narrative of the Adventures

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and Sufferings, of John R. Jewitt, Only Survivor of the Crew of the Ship Boston, During a Captivity of Nearly Three Years Among the Savages of Nootka Sound: With an Account of the Manners, Mode of Living, and Religious Opinions of the Natives, published in Connecticut in 1815, and the editors’ inclusion of Jewitt’s story as a point of comparison suggest that Jewitt’s memoir was their model.93 Patterson’s saga is framed as a morality tale to sailor youth. He went to sea as a boy, forsaking his mother and squandering his earnings. Inside that narrative is the trauma of the Eliza shipwreck, his physical and emotional decline while living with “ignorant savages” on Nairai, and a formulaic, laconic survey of Fijian food ways, religious rites, the ceremonial drinking of kava (yaqona in Fiji), circumcision, polygamy, widow strangling, clothing (the male maro and female liku), and the wooden pillows Fijians rested their heads on at night to preserve their outlandish hairstyles. Cannibalism comes up twice, as part of the discussion of food and while recounting a visit to Bua with Tui Nairai. There Patterson saw a turaga from elsewhere killed and eaten, which led Patterson, or his editors, to universalize cannibalism as a barbarism instilled by nature: “The greediness of these people, and all cannibals, for human flesh is astonishingly great; . . . even after the practice has been renounced, and the persons christianized, still a lurking hankering appetite has remained a long time.”94 Patterson never feared becoming a cannibal victim himself. He felt his life was in danger only after he and another Eliza castaway laughed at a turaga for choking on lice he was trying to swallow and at the marama’s efforts to hold back a sneeze, for sneezes were considered bad omens. Enraged at their disrespect, Tui Nairai nearly had them clubbed. Readers would have learned much about Fiji from Patterson’s account since he described many customs and beliefs, but their main impression would have been that Fijians were a cruel and superstitious people. Still, there is an aspect to Patterson’s Narrative that connects all of humanity, civilized and uncivilized, into a relationship. The editors expected the book’s readers to find “the miserable state of the heathen . . . quite affecting. While we like rational beings are plenteously clothed and fed, millions are in the most abject state of uncivilization, naked, and nearly so, and many considering the flesh of their fellow beings a most delicious morsel.”95 Despite the glimpses of a hospitable and kind-hearted people evident in the earliest American and European writings about Fiji, the emphasis was on savage alterity.

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Commerce in bêche-de-mer introduced into American popular culture little in the way of new information about Fiji but solidified impressions already held. A younger generation of captains and supercargos passed around Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, became eligible for membership in the East India Marine Society, and donated artifacts to its collections.96 What information about Fiji came before the public continued to position Fijians foremost as cannibals addicted to a diet of human flesh. Fijian visitors to the United States had no impact in allaying such depictions. The first Fijian known to have stepped foot in the United States disembarked from the Eliza at Salem in May 1835. The Salem Gazette described him as a “dwarf, about four feet in height,—said to have been a man of some distinction at home.” He probably returned to Fiji on the Eliza two months later. At least, he was back home at Rewa by 1840, when members of the Ex Ex made his acquaintance.97 In March 1835, another Fijian, an “ugly looking youngster about ten years old” called Ringey, or Tom Pipes, left for Salem on the Emerald with Eagleston. In his extensive writings—journals from multiple voyages to Fiji and an unpublished autobiography—Eagleston makes almost no mention of Ringey.98 But newspapers reported the boy’s presence in Baltimore, from where Eagleston originated and where he still had family. In April 1836, the Baltimore Museum and Gallery of the Fine Arts put Ringey on display, genteelly, by advertising that a Fijian native brought to the city by Captain Eagleston “will visit the Museum THIS EVENING” and that he was an “interesting youth, and remarkable as one of a race of most inveterate canbals [sic].”99 Those who turned out to see the cannibal must have been disappointed. No Fijian person could be as gruesome and disgusting as a cannibal of the imagination. The boy returned to Fiji on Eagleston’s subsequent voyage on the Mermaid.100 Although Americans associated cannibalism with Fiji, it would take a while for Fiji to become fixed in popular culture as the Cannibal Isles, since cannibalism was thought to be rampant around the world among uncivilized peoples, especially in the Pacific. The earliest reference to Fiji as “the Cannibal Ids.” that I have seen is in a March 1835 entry in Osborn’s journal. A search on the word cannibal in American newspapers reveals that “New Zealanders” (Maori) were the reigning cannibals in American popular culture until Captain John Morrell’s sensational report of an 1830 attack on his vessel, the Antarctic, at “Massacre Island.” In The Captain and “The Cannibal,” anthropologist James Fairhead identifies Massacre Island

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as today’s Uneapa, Papua New Guinea and pieces together Morrell’s subsequent display of captives Dako and Monday as real-life cannibals. When in 1840 Ex Ex naturalist Charles Pickering met the Fijian dwarf who had been to the United States and back, he said that this was the first he had heard of it; all he could recall was Morrell’s well-publicized exhibitions. In 1846, with the release of Herman Melville’s bestselling, quasi-autobiographical novel Typee, the Marquesas became notorious as cannibal islands.101 By that time, however, Fiji had surpassed all other places in cannibal infamy. When the Ex Ex arrived in Fiji after visiting several other Pacific archipelagos, one of its members wrote “now amongst the Cannibal Islands” in his journal.102 The Ex Ex added more substance to Fiji’s cannibal reputation in the official expedition report published in 1844 and in the fate of Veidovi of Rewa. He died on the Ex Ex flagship Vincennes in New York harbor, imprisoned in 1840 for having led the 1833 assault on Salem’s Charles Doggett. While Veidovi’s skull was preserved for scientific study, the broader public had an opportunity to gaze at a mock-up of the head of the “cannibal” created by showman extraordinaire P. T. Barnum.103 Barnum took further advantage of the hype by opening an exhibit called the “Feejee Mermaid” (see figures 1.4 and 1.5). This fossilized monstrosity, half fish, half monkey, had nothing to do with Fiji. The American sea captain who bought it in India heard that some Japanese had found it at sea. Barnum gave the “mermaid” a new provenance as a living being “taken in a fisherman’s net at the Fejee Islands.”104 One of Barnum’s most famous hoaxes, it fostered debates over authenticity, nature, and race. Those who saw it questioned if these cobbled-together, petrified remains could have been a mermaid or a product of nature at all. Few have wondered why Barnum named his mermaid “Feejee.”105 By the 1850s, “Fejee chief,” “Fejee islander,” “Feejee cannibal,” and other variants had seeped into Americans’ everyday speech as popular metaphors conveying the antithesis of American ideals. In diatribes against tightrope walking, spiritualism, and protective tariffs, writers evoked the Fiji cannibal to mock or castigate other Americans for poor taste, false beliefs, and ignorance.106 Political discourse also made use of the metaphor. Slavery and antislavery proponents alike found the comparison rhetorically potent. Horace Mann proclaimed that the southern slave owner “has no more right to call himself a Christian, than has the Fejee islander, when he rises from his cannibal banquet.” In debate with Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas asserted

Figure 1.4. The Feejee Mermaid as an object of wonder and horror. P. T. Barnum, Life of P. T. Barnum, Written by Himself (New York: Redfield, 1855), 233–34. Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society.

Figures 1.5. The Feejee Mermaid close up. P. T. Barnum, Life of P.T. Barnum, Written by Himself (New York: Redfield, 1855), 233–34. Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society.

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that the Founding Fathers in signing the Declaration of Independence had no intention to declare all men equal, not “the negro, the savage Indians, the Fejee, the Malay, or any other inferior and degraded race.”107 While it was mainly Barnum who so effectively proliferated this popular perception of the Fijian as an antonym to American values, and to humanity writ large, the initial purveyors of such imagery were the Americans who had been to Fiji to trade for sandalwood and bêche-de-mer and those who came subsequently to abet American trade in Fiji as members of the U.S. Exploring Expedition. As American commerce flourished in Fiji, the islands became knowable in American popular culture, but knowable only as cannibal islands. What happened in Fiji was part of a larger ideological juxtaposition of civilization and savagery that supported commercial expansion around the globe. The two forms of knowledge production about Fiji—one pragmatic and focused on financial gain and the other an exercise in claiming cultural supremacy through ethnological description—kept pace with each other and were compatible endeavors. Although the knowledge foreigners produced about Fiji stigmatized the islands on a global stage, Fijians were not hapless victims. When foreign traders began arriving in the islands, Fijians became active participants. They sold environmental resources that had little value and acquired luxury goods in exchange: whales’ teeth, metal tools, and new ornamental materials in the form of machine-woven cloth, glass beads, and looking glasses. Moreover, they were quick to spot the advantages in trade. Ultimately, however, the sudden wealth in the form of interesting and useful objects flowing into the archipelago introduced a novel dynamic into Fijian politics. Those Fijian rulers who cultivated friendships with foreigners became newly empowered, and monopolizing the trading economy emerged as an essential political strategy between rival polities. Richardson, Vanderford, and other American seafarers in the sandalwood and bêche-de-mer trades earned a living the best way they knew how, by profiting from the global carrying trade—that is, from the gap between buying cheap goods in one place and selling them at a higher price in another. They were simultaneously historical agents whose economic activities in the islands influenced the region’s environment and politics and ideological propagandists whose firsthand encounters with exotic peoples contributed to Americans’ self-understanding as a culturally superior people. Fiji did not bring Richardson and Vanderford extraordinary wealth but did afford them a

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livelihood and an opportunity to earn others’ respect for their unique experiences. Little known in their own time and largely forgotten today, Richardson and Vanderford left their most valuable legacy in the rare Fijian artifacts that now reside in the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, which inherited the East India Marine Society’s materials.

Chapter 2

Mata ki Bau Respect Vakaviti

In 1826, a young whaleman from the Massachusetts island of Nantucket unexpectedly met a childhood friend halfway around the world. Sole survivor of the wreck of the whale ship Oeno and the massacre of its crew at Vatoa the year before, William Cary was now a beachcomber. He traveled throughout the Fiji group, living off the patronage of one Fijian ruler after another, repairing their muskets, fighting their wars, learning to speak Fijian, and scanning the horizon for a ship to rescue him. The two old friends met at sea as Cary sat in a flotilla of twenty canoes laden with masi, coconut oil, and whales’ teeth, tribute Cary’s patron, Tui Nayau of Lakeba, was carrying to Bau. After a trip that had taken days and with their destination only fifteen miles away, a canoe approached from Bau’s direction. A “white man reached out his hand and addressed me by name,” Cary recalled. “I was dumb with astonishment. At last he said, ‘don’t you know David Whippey?’ ‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘I formerly knew him. He was a townsman of mine and an old playmate.’ ‘Well,’ said he, “I am that David Whippey.’” Whippy told Cary that he had been in Fiji thirteen months and “had no desire to leave the island, as he was a particular favorite with the king and chiefs and was a chief himself.”1 How Whippy earned the respect of his fellow Americans and positioned himself as a key intermediary assisting foreign encroachment on Fiji will

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be discussed in chapter 3. Here I reconstruct his first few years in Fiji as he established himself in the islands. With little surviving correspondence and no journal or memoir, the only explanation for why Whippy chose to remain in Fiji is this brief, secondhand remark recorded in Cary’s memoir—that he was a “favorite with the king and chiefs and was a chief himself.” Clearly, Whippy found some kind of pleasure or self-fulfillment in the respect Fijians showed him and, initially, that appears to have been his rationale for staying in the islands. Among Fijians, who deserved the most respect was determined at birth. Turaga inherited their high rank from their mothers.2 Foreigners should not even have been eligible, or recognizable, as turaga. But since the sandalwood era, Fijians had observed an equivalence between their highly stratified social system of elite men and commoners (turaga and kaisi) and the hierarchy aboard foreign vessels that granted officers more authority and status than common seamen. Former first mate on the Jenny William Lockerby ate sumptuously while a guest in Tui Bua’s household compared to the several seamen stranded with him, who struggled to survive “with the lower class of natives” and felt “much distressed for want of provisions.” Treated as a great chief, a turaga levu, Lockerby could not touch food and water and had to be fed by a servant. Recognizing these strictures as an “honour,” an indicator of high status, he abided by them.3 Acceptance into Fiji’s upper echelons was a novel, flattering, and seductive experience. This elevation in status from the lower echelons of one society to the higher echelons in another explains some of the appeal American and European men took from Pacific beachcombing. From the late eighteenth into the nineteenth century, every Pacific island, from the largest archipelagos to the most out-of-the-way atolls, seemed to have at least one, usually several, sometimes twenty, thirty, or more American, British, French, and other European occupants. Whereas transitory Americans passing through the Pacific puzzled over why men born to civilization would denigrate themselves by choosing to live among savages, men from low to middling classes in the United States and Europe, especially those who bristled at the degradations heaped on lowly sailors aboard ship, could realize a turnaround in how others treated them, if they could figure out how to maneuver in a new social system.4 Whippy was particularly adept at learning how Fijian society worked and at carving out a place for himself in that world. Fijians did indeed grant him the status of a turaga, and by 1834 if not earlier, he had attained the political position of Mata ki Bau, variously translated as a messenger, herald,

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or ambassador to the Bau matanitu.5 Thus, in a twist of irony, what was by some reckonings the most barbarous place on earth afforded Whippy social advancement. Described by a fellow American as nothing more than “a steady honest man possessing the ordinary abilities of the better portion of working mechanics in our country,” Whippy joined the ranks of Fiji’s upper class.6 He associated with the islands’ most elite men and received wives, labor, gifts, and homage from commoners in keeping with his station. Fijians treated Whippy like a turaga, but he was far from being a turaga levu, a great chief. His position in Fijian society originated in the connections he formed shortly after settling in the islands and, as was the case with other beachcombers, from his knowledge of how to use, repair, and acquire papalagi goods, most notably firearms. His utility to Fiji’s most powerful men garnered him the privileges of a turaga, but sustaining that social status obligated him to serve their interests. During his first few decades in the islands, he and other beachcombers lived vulnerably as marginal actors, often pawns, in the state affairs of Fiji’s warring territories.7 And at first, Whippy had little to no impact on events occurring in the islands. His early activities in Fiji hint at more profound consequences to come, both for Fiji and for U.S engagement with the Pacific. Even though Whippy immersed himself in Fijian culture, he was at the same time a foreigner who introduced Fijians to new practices and technologies, especially that of the gun. Moreover, he did not accept Fijian culture wholeheartedly but rather critiqued aspects of it—most vehemently, cannibalism and widow strangling—as morally wrong. Subversively, so as not to put his survival at risk, he undermined Fijian custom while in other ways appearing to embrace it. By vocalizing and acting out his abhorrence, he set himself apart from his adopted people, revealing that he never forgot or put aside who he really was. In choosing to make Fiji his home, Whippy realized an even greater significance than that of a turaga. He became the most famous American beachcomber in the Pacific and Fiji’s most respected foreign resident. In Fiji today, he is remembered as the founding father of Levuka (the first capital of Fiji under British colonial rule) and the patriarch of a large clan of “partEuropean” Fijians (see figure 2.1).8 Born in 1801 on Nantucket, home to “the most expert whalemen in the world,” by tradition Whippy should have made a name for himself as a whale ship captain.9 For a man to be respected on Nantucket, all he had to do was succeed at whaling, something Whippy’s antecedents had all done. His

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Figure 2.1. David Whippy. Courtesy of the Nantucket Historical Association.

grandfather Samuel Whippy had been a whaling captain, his father David had been a whaling captain, and his brother Josiah, his elder by eleven years, had become a whaling captain by the age of twenty-seven.10 As expected of Nantucket’s young men, David shipped on his first whaling voyage at sixteen, on the sloop Elizabeth out of New Bedford, under his brother Josiah’s command.11 They both embarked again in 1819 on a longer, Pacific-bound voyage on the Nantucket ship Francis, with Josiah as first mate and their sister Lydia’s husband, Timothy Fitzgerald, as captain. Whippy fumed over the debasing insults directed at him as a lowly foremast hand. Finally, his brother and brother-in-law’s “unbrotherly treatment” drove him to desert two years later when the Francis stopped for provisions at Guayaquil, Ecuador. In a letter written shortly afterward to “Dearest Parents,”

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Whippy told his mother and stepfather of his discontent and decision to leave the ship.12 So few Nantucket men questioned that their futures would be in anything other than whaling, Whippy’s resentment toward his relatives’ tyranny must have been great indeed. Disgusted with whaling, Whippy signed aboard an English merchant vessel and made several trips between London and South America.13 Then, at Valparaiso, Chile in 1824, he shipped on the Calder, a British brig from Calcutta captained by Peter Dillon, formerly involved in Fiji’s sandalwood trade and now a well-known trader throughout the Pacific. Hoping foremost to acquire sandalwood, Dillon planned to take the Calder from Valparaiso to Sydney and stop along the way at Fiji, the New Hebrides, and New Zealand. Sometime in late 1824, while the Calder loitered near Bua Bay, a canoe arrived from Bau with men eager to renew their acquaintance with Dillon. Though disappointed in how little sandalwood was to be had in Fiji, Dillon set about reestablishing trading ties with Bau. He arranged for Whippy to go to Bau (see figure 2.2) with gifts for “the king of Ambow” and to “collect

Figure 2.2. A canoe landing on the island of Bau. Conway Shipley, “Mbure’ or house of a Spirit. Mbau. Feejee Is,” from Sketches in the Pacific (London: T. McLean, 1851), T 601 (Folio A), File Number 3559220-0010, lithograph, Paul Mellon Collection, Yale Center for British Art.

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all the turtle shell he could.”14 As the months passed, Whippy would have realized at some point that Dillon was not coming back for him. While at Bau, Whippy lived under the protection of its ruler, Naulivou, whose title was vunivalu, “the root of war.” Foreigners translated this term as “king.” The missionary Joseph Waterhouse defined it more precisely as “the commander in times of war, the great state executive officer in seasons of commotion, and the prime minister of all the political departments.” Naulivou had risen to the post of vunivalu in 1802 upon the death of his father Banuve in an epidemic, said to be cholera brought to Fiji by a foreign vessel that wrecked off Lakeba. Naulivou led Bau to unprecedented power. He conquered Verata, allied Bau with Rewa, involved Bau in the sandalwood trade, and enlisted Charles Savage and other shipwrecked sailors from the Eliza to stay at Bau and bring their muskets to bear in wars on Bau’s behalf.15 Sometime after his arrival at Bau as Dillon’s trading clerk in January 1825 and before his meeting with Cary a year later, Whippy went to live in the village of Levuka on Ovalau, one of the most beautiful islands in the group (see figure 2.3). From the dramatic volcanic peak that loomed

Figure 2.3. Levuka in 1838, in [Charles Hector] Jacquinot, Voyage au Pole Sud et dans l’Océanie sur les Corvettes l’Astrolabe et la Zélée: Exécuté par Ordre du Roi Pendant les Années 1837-1838-1839-1840, sous le Commandement de M.J. Dumont d’Urville, Capitaine de Vaisseau, vol. 1, Atlas Pittoresque (Paris: Gide, 1846), Plate 88. Courtesy of Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

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up in the island’s center, a stream of pure water flowed through the village of several dozen thatched houses to a small, tranquil harbor accessible by a break in the reef surround. Taro and yams grew plentifully in the rich soil.16 Levuka’s charming situation and safe harbor explain only some of its appeal. Whippy had also found the ideal patron in the quiet, unassuming Tui Levuka (see figure 2.4). Americans who met Tui Levuka described him as “a very pleasant, agreeable man,” “a kind-hearted and honest chief ” popular with his people, possessed of “great qualities as a statesman,” and “the most civilized, or most humane, chief in the whole group.”17 Tui Levuka’s domains encompassed several other towns on Ovalau and dependencies on nearby islands. Politically affiliated with the formidable Bau but more than twenty miles away, Levuka offered a refuge from Bauan intrigue. Moreover, as bati to Bau, Levuka received Bau protection without the burden of excessive subjugation. As a political condition, bati meant that Levuka supplied

Figure 2.4. Tui Levuka, David Whippy’s patron. Original by Joseph Drayton in Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, During the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, 5 vols. plus atlas (Philadelphia: C. Sherman, 1844), 3: 50. Courtesy of Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut Library.

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Bau with fighting men on request and received protection and periodic gifts of property in return. U.S. Exploring Expedition linguist Horatio Hale conveyed the nature of the political relationship succinctly in his definition of bati as “a dependent ally to a protecting power.” Bati thus referred to a politically inferior people but of higher standing than those who were qali, subject peoples obliged to pay tribute.18 Since Whippy told Cary that he “had given up all hope of seeing the brig again” and intended to stay, he had already made up his mind to make Levuka his home after just one year in the islands. When the Clay, the first of Salem’s bêche-de-mer traders, left for Manila in 1828 with Cary aboard, Whippy remained behind. “David’s chief,” Cary wrote, “was almost beside himself with joy [that Whippy] had not the remotest idea of leaving.”19 Reconstructing Whippy’s early years in Fiji entails piecing together anecdotes acquaintances told about him and analogizing from other men in a similar situation. Cary’s memoir provides the most direct information on Whippy at this stage of his life. And as a beachcomber, Cary followed the same path toward vakaviti as Whippy. Also insightful are the accounts of two bêche-de-mer trading clerks, Warren Osborn in the 1830s and Charles Thompson in the 1840s. Clerks were “a kind of supercargo” but with less authority and experience. Amiable, open-minded, and trustworthy young men, they resided in a native village to trade and embody an assurance of the ship’s return.20 Hence, just as Dillon had done with Whippy, Captain John H. Eagleston of the Emerald placed Osborn at Bau for three months in 1834 “as a pledge to his word that he will come back again after [turtle] shell.”21 Nine years later, as captain of the Charles Wirgman, Osborn sent Thompson, his clerk, on shore. Thompson lived for a while at Bau and then oversaw operations at a bêche-de-mer house at Kaba Point, near Bau but located on the Viti Levu mainland. While at Bau, Osborn kept a journal with detailed ruminations on ethnography, political history, and rival traders. He even recorded a few conversations with “Mr. Whippy.” Thompson’s memoir, also richly descriptive, was probably written under the influence of Herman Melville’s recently published Typee because Thompson exaggerated “living alone amongst naked, wild, and savage natives.” Although Bau in the 1840s would have seen frequent visits from traders and missionaries, the only foreigners Thompson mentioned were beachcombers Tom Granby and an ex-mutineer from the Manila brig, whom Thompson called Valentine and who offered

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his services to Thompson as interpreter. Otherwise, Thompson’s references to places, events, and people align closely with other sources, suggesting that he restrained from the outlandish fantasies Melville indulged in.22 Since Osborn and Thompson resided at Bau nearly ten and twenty years after Whippy and because they had no intention of staying there permanently, their accounts are not exact proxies for re-creating Whippy’s adaptation to Fijian culture. But from Whippy’s introduction to Fiji in late-1824 to Thompson’s 1843 sojourn, no large-scale cultural transformation occurred in the islands, only a series of political upheavals. When Naulivou died in 1829, his younger brother Tanoa Visawaqa became vunivalu. Three years later, a faction headed by Ratu Mara, Seru Tanoa, and other principal men at Bau deposed Tanoa Visawaqa, who fled to Somosomo, the capital of the matanitu of Cakaudrove. This was the state of Bau during Osborn’s time there. He associated most closely with the rebels then in power. In 1837, Tanoa Visawaqa reclaimed his position with the help of his son Ratu Seru, who was then about twenty years old (see figures 2.5 and 2.6). Seru stunned the rebels in a surprise onslaught.23 Legend has it that Seru adopted the name Cakobau, “‘Bau is bad,’” for this consummate victory over his father’s usurpers.24 Osborn’s journal of 1834 refers occasionally to Ratu Seru as one of several turaga leaving Bau to collect turtle shell or tribute or to take part in a war expedition, but so casually, neither he nor anyone else, except perhaps Cakobau himself, foresaw his emergence in the 1840s as Fiji’s most imposing political figure.25 While Thompson resided at Bau in 1843, Tanoa Visawaqa officially held the title of vunivalu, but Cakobau was Bau’s de facto ruler. He handled all of Bau’s trade negotiations and spearheaded the eleven-year war with Rewa that began the year Thompson was there.26 No matter which party held power at Bau, all three trading clerks—Whippy in the 1820s, Osborn in the 1830s, and Thompson in the 1840s—would have had similar experiences in how Fijians welcomed them to Bau and tried to incorporate these young men into the daily life of the community. Landing at Bau in January 1825 as Dillon’s representative and with a stock of trade goods in hand, Whippy would have been regarded as a turaga from the beginning. He probably was greeted with the same fanfare as Thompson in 1843. When the Charles Wirgman appeared off Bau, Cakobau boarded it from a large war canoe (see figure 2.7). After brushing noses with Thompson and taking his hand, Cakobau descended to the cabin below to hammer out a contract with Captain Osborn for a bêche-de mer station and laborers in exchange for cannons, muskets, and gunpowder. Cakobau then

Figure 2.5. Tanoa Visawaqa, Cakobau’s father and vunivalu of Bau until his death in 1852. Original by Alfred T. Agate in Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, During the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, 5 vols. plus atlas (Philadelphia: C. Sherman, 1844), 3: 58; courtesy of Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut Library.

Figure 2.6. Cakobau. From frontispiece, “Thakombau, Vu-Ni-Valu,” in Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians (London: Alexander Heylin, 1858), DU600 W72 1858, File Number 3413071-0001, chromolithograph, Paul Mellon Collection, Yale Center for British Art.

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Figure 2.7. The fast-sailing canoes belonging to Fiji’s ruling men were large and impressive, as evident in this illustration of one next to HMS Daphne. Americans and Fijians often interacted at sea in settings like this. “Double Canoe Off Moalu, Feejee Islands Septr 26th 1849 (Fiji).” © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.

took Thompson back to Bau with him. They disembarked at the island’s canoe landing at night and, in the eerie light of torches dipped in coconut oil, traversed the gauntlet of an excited crowd that had gathered at the beach to welcome them. They proceeded to “an immense building” as hundreds of people crouched down before Cakobau, who received “a kind of back handed grunt from everyone as he passed.” Thompson then sat down among the men to gorge on whole pigs baked in underground ovens, fish, yams, bananas, and puddings made from taro and coconut milk. Leaves spilling over with “enough to feed our whole ship’s company three days were placed before me by a man on his knees,” Thompson marveled, “and it pleased me much to think that as wild as he seemed he had to bend the knee to me.” Perplexed at what to do with the roasted pig set before him, Thompson saw that Cakobau distributed it to the men around him, and so “motioning with an air of authority to one of my neighbors to cut the beast up . . . I did the same thing.”27 Over the next few months, Thompson reveled in how he was considered “a Chief, and exceedingly rich in the bargain,” “favored, feasted, petted and honored by every one,” and “treated rather like a god than a human being.”28 The crouching supplicants, the tama or “shout of respect” (Thompson’s

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“back handed grunt”), the presentation of food, and the authority to give that food away were all privileges reserved to the turaga class, and Thompson could not help but let it go to his head, even though he knew that his exalted position derived from a rather ordinary status aboard ship, that of captain’s clerk.29 Bau elites courted these young trading clerks to gain an advantage in foreign trade. Thompson stayed a few days in Cakobau’s house until he was farmed out to Gavidi, head of the Lasakau clan of fishermen, who lived in a separate village on Bau and owned many canoes. The Lasakau were to collect the bêche-de-mer that Cakobau had promised Captain Osborn. In the Lasakau village square, Gavidi formally proclaimed Thompson a Lasakau in a speech intended for all to hear, “‘He who steals anything from Charlie or he who says anything to Charlie to make him angry or afraid, I will myself kill, cook and eat.” The crowd shouted and clapped. Gavidi pounded his war club on the ground to drive home the point. He loaned Thompson one of his finest canoes and designated ten men to act as bodyguards.30 Osborn also spent most of his time with Bau’s leadership, the rebel faction then in power. Initially, Seru Tanoa acted as his host. After Osborn placed his belongings in Seru Tanoa’s house, Whippy, at Seru Tanoa’s request, interpreted a speech in which Seru Tanoa promised Osborn his protection, “that when I went out some of his people would follow me to see that no one troubled me.” A few days later, as ordered by Captain Eagleston, Osborn went to stay at “the king’s house,” the home of the titular head of the rebel government. He later moved in with “Botowinigane, cheif head Breaker &c to Ratoo Maru, one of the highest knobs in the city of Bowe.” Seru Tanoa protested Osborn’s choice of Botowinigane over himself, and the two argued over “which house I should live in. . . . They however settled it by my still stopping with Boto & Sarah sending me a good sized pig. So that if he cannot keep me altogether he means to do what he can towards it.”31 Strangers visiting a Fijian village usually lodged in the bure ni vulagi, a public building used for hosting guests.32 But Whippy, like Osborn and Thompson, probably lived at first in a turaga household, perhaps even that of Naulivou. For men of the highest rank, these were expansive establishments that sheltered and fed as many as fifty to a hundred wives, children, and servants (see figure 2.8). Except for the mosquitoes and the bustle of activity, Thompson and Osborn reported that they slept comfortably on mats in compartments formed by hanging draperies of masi. As he waited for a

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Figure 2.8. Qaraniqio’s house at Rewa, “the most elegant house” in Fiji. Original by A. T. Agate in Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, During the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, 5 vols. plus atlas (Philadelphia: C. Sherman, 1844), 3: 126. Courtesy of Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut Library.

bêche-de-mer house to be built by Cakobau’s people, Thompson devoted his days to leisurely eating, smoking, swimming, watching women pound bark into masi and weave mats and baskets, watching men braid coconut fibers into sinnet, learning new Fijian words and phrases, attending meke (dances) and fighting matches, and visiting around the neighborhood to gossip, joke, and tell stories.33 Whippy would have been even more precious a personage than Osborn and Thompson since papalagi were a rarity when he settled in the group. Cary noted of the day he met Whippy that it had been “about a year since I had seen a white man.”34 Of the estimated twenty-seven beachcombers who took up residence in the islands during the sandalwood trade, only two had survived to 1824. One was a man named Devereaux, who lived with Whippy at Levuka before dying around 1827. The other was Paddy Connel (O’Connell, Conner, “Old Barry”), the third most famous Fiji beachcomber after Savage and Whippy. An Irish ex-convict who came to Fiji on the General Wellesley, Connel became a favorite of Tui Dreketi, ruler of Rewa. Connel’s reputation, shared by papalagi and Fijians, was that of an “old villain being

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always mischief making.” But under Rewa patronage, Connel acquired property, wives, and other privileges.35 At some point early on, Whippy transitioned from trading clerk to beachcomber. Once his stock of trade goods ran out, he had to find ways to leverage his papalagi skills in exchange for patronage and protection. Cary observed from his own reception at Bau that Naulivou “valued the white men highly” for the fear “white men’s muskets” inspired. When Cary told Naulivou that he planned to stay at Bau a while, Naulivou was pleased and “told me Charlie [Savage] stopped a great many years with him, was a great warrior and conquered all the islands.”36 Even though Whippy came to Bau as a clerk, Naulivou must have calculated his potential to replicate Savage in military talent. Whippy did not follow Savage’s course exactly, but both he and Cary earned Fijians’ respect by flaunting a knowledge of firearms that was routine on Nantucket but a rare skill of mounting importance in Fiji. Whenever Cary met Fijian headmen, they immediately asked him about muskets. How many muskets did he have? Did he know where there were muskets? Could he fire his musket to show how it worked? Could he clean muskets? Muskets had circulated throughout Fiji since the sandalwood trade but remained scarce in Cary’s time and concentrated among those at the top of Fijian society. Even though many Fijians “were excellent shots,” firearms technology still inspired awe and suspicion, causing some to wonder if guns and the management of them meant “that the white man’s Caloo [God] was superior to theirs.” Cary saw that he owed his privileged status to an insider knowledge of papalagi weapon technology and tried to keep that know-how to himself. When asked to fire a musket as a demonstration, he loaded and fired as fast as he could, so they would not see the time it took to reload the gun. When asked to clean or fix old, rusty muskets, he disassembled and reassembled them rapidly and with ease. When others asked if they could fire his musket, he crammed in extra gunpowder so the retort of the gun would force it out of their hands, a trick that exaggerated his own skill.37 Cary recounted fighting in several battles. From Bau, he went with a large expedition of four thousand men, one hundred of whom carried muskets. They marched into the interior of the island of Koro, and in a day captured seven villages, burning them to the ground. The musket fire so frightened one village, they begged for peace, offering in return “all their whales’ teeth and the chief ’s daughter.” Refusing these expressions of submission, Bau forces kept up their attack, killing forty and taking away “five

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or six female prisoners and some of the dead bodies for a cannibal feast.” Another time, Cary and Whippy were asked to join an assault on a town on Vanua Levu. Both men had been working as interpreters for the Clay, whose captain, Benjamin Vanderford, paid them by giving each man a new musket, keg of gunpowder, and other trade goods. In this fight, Cary regretted wearing clothes, which made him a “mark,” while “David, dressed like a native, led our party. He got shelter behind a stump, singled out one of their chief warriors, fired and shot him through the head. . . . We killed all who had not made their escape, plundered the town and set it on fire, then marched back to Navarto, singing songs of victory. Here we were paid for our services with hogs, turtle, fishing nets and whales’ teeth.”38 Beachcombers had so often served as mercenaries, Whippy and Cary had little choice but to fall into this role. Once, as Whippy accompanied the Clay’s second mate, William Driver, to Bau, contrary winds forced them to stop at a town anticipating an enemy raid. The two papalagi were “very kindly treated,” Driver wrote. The townspeople said on seeing them, “We are glad you have come for we shall now have plenty of Bugolao [bokola] to eat or dead men thinking we had come to fight for them.”39 The next day, however, Whippy and Driver continued on their way. Under different circumstances, Whippy might have felt obliged to assist this Bau-affiliated town in its defenses. Even though Whippy fought at the behest of Fijian patrons, he did not acquire a reputation for military ferocity as Savage had. Savage’s Fijian title, Koroi na Vunivalu, honored him for feats in war. Savage lived five years at Bau after the wreck of the Eliza in 1808 until his 1813 death in battle at Dillon’s Rock, named after Peter Dillon who from atop this outcrop on northern Vanua Levu witnessed Savage’s murder. As the story would be told and retold, men fighting on behalf of the town of Wailea held Savage’s head in a pool of water until he drowned and then ate his baked flesh and whittled his bones into sail needles. Temperamental rages, insatiable greed for women and war booty, and megalomania added to Savage’s persona as a swashbuckling soldier-of-fortune who earned others’ respect with his musket. The mythology that arose out of his brief life and sensational death carried the message that violent men deserved a violent end.40 Whereas stories about Charles Savage and Paddy Connel cast them as mercenaries who exploited their high status to accumulate wives and property, Whippy was a mercenary with a reputation for moderation. His position as a Mata ki Bau evoked the more peaceable alliance building

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that took place among people sitting down together to drink a bowl of yaqona. When precisely and under what circumstances he advanced to this title is uncertain. He was definitely accepted as a turaga early on. When Eagleston first visited Fiji, on the Peru in 1831, he met Whippy in company with four other beachcombers and remarked on Whippy’s singularity: “He appeared to be a man above his companions and much more respected by the Natives, they saluting him with expressions of welcome” (the tama).41 But it is unlikely that Whippy entered into the trusted post of a Mata ki Bau immediately. Soon after his arrival at Bau, he likely received a Fijian-style name as Osborn did. As Eagleston told Osborn, “the chiefs wish you to be called ‘Warren e Bowe.’” After they “tacked a Bowe onto my name,” Osborn wrote, “all hands now call me Warren e Bowe.”42 Another American who said he received a name attendant with social significance was beachcomber James Magoun. After the wreck of the Fawn in 1830, Magoun spent nearly a year arming the matanitu of Cakaudrove by repairing muskets and axes, stuffing cartridges with gunpowder, and turning iron hoops into knives. Then, “one day I was given by the Chief the Fijian name Na Kalou Vula-vula ‘the White God’ [or spirit] and the people ever after when they saw me approaching paid obeisance to me and tamaad.”43 Mata ki Bau was a ranked status, not a name, and entailed political responsibilities. A mata, or matanivanua, was empowered to represent a matanitu such as Bau, Rewa, or Cakaudrove. As the eyes or face of the land, the matanivanua visited tributaries and allies to collect tribute and rally war parties. During diplomatic negotiations, matanivanua served as speakers and seconds-in-command for turaga levu. The missionary Thomas Williams described them as “exceedingly useful men” who oversaw “the state of affairs” and acted as “the legitimate medium of communication between the Chiefs and their dependencies.” Williams’s classification of Fijian society into six ranks positioned the mata high up in the Fijian social hierarchy but still far from its pinnacle: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Kings and Queens. Chiefs of large islands or districts. Chiefs of towns, priests, and Mata-ni-vanuas. Distinguished warriors of low birth, Chiefs of the carpenters, and Chiefs of the fishers for turtle. Common people. Slaves by war.44

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What precisely Mata ki Bau meant in Whippy’s case is open to speculation. William T. Pritchard’s definition of the term makes Whippy out to be one representative among many, but whose interests did he represent? “Every District has a resident Representative at the capital, (Bau.),” Pritchard wrote. “He is called ‘Mata-ki-Bau.’ Through him all the King’s commands are communicated to his district, and through him the people have access to the King. . . . This Representative is also a hostage for the loyalty of his chief.” Whippy may have been the message carrier sustaining the ties of allegiance between the Bau matanitu and Levuka as bati. No doubt Tui Levuka also commissioned Whippy to act as envoy to Levuka’s tributaries and allies.45 However, Bau leaders employed Whippy most often as go-between in Bau’s dealings with papalagi, suggesting that Fijians saw Whippy mainly as the funnel through which dealings with other papalagi were to be managed.46 This seems to be what Seru Tanoa expected when he called Whippy from Levuka to witness his offer of protection to Osborn, as though Whippy was the official medium through which to seal political agreements with papalagi. As a Mata ki Bau, Whippy had to operate within strict Fijian protocols, which would have taken time to learn, but which he mastered well enough to comply with Fijian expectations. When the Ex Ex was in the group, neither Charles Wilkes, its commander, nor Tanoa Visawaqa spoke directly to each other as the two discussed formal regulations for the protection of American commerce. Whippy took on the role of Wilkes’s speaker while Tanoa “had his ‘speech-explaining counsellor,’ Ma[t]ani-vanua Vakanduna, or prime minister,” speak for him. Wilkes thought these diplomatic rituals absurd rigamarole: it was “amusing to see their mode of conducting the business, and to understand that Tanoa’s dignity would be offended by holding discourse with our friend Whippy as interpreter.”47 In contrast to Wilkes’s attitude, Whippy approached Fijian ceremony with gravity and humility. In general, Whippy knew his role and its bounds. He was not high up in the Fijian hierarchy but high enough so that kaisi shouted the tama as he passed. And as a matanivanua to the most powerful matanitu in the islands, he was party to high-level conversations. However, he had little influence or authority in his relationship to Bau’s rulers. He seems to have been most useful to them as someone who could act as intermediary with other papalagi. Despite the privileges of rank conferred on trading clerks and beachcombers, these men remained beholden to the powerful Fijians under whose protection they lived, and they had to tread carefully in these relationships. Those

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who survived Fiji intuited early on the necessity for geniality. They tried to accept Fijian ways without hesitation or complaint, though deference had its limits. Whippy, Cary, Osborn, and Thompson all succeeded at navigating a path between too little and too much obeisance. Some Fijian customs were easy to pick up and did little damage to the civilized sensibilities that foreigners writing about Fiji claimed for themselves. There were even many pleasurable aspects to a Fijian life. Yet in the end, they all, Whippy included, had to decide how far they would go, which practices they would partake in and which they would refuse. Cary realized immediately upon landing in Fiji by shipwreck that his survival depended on compliance. He believed that his massacred crewmates on the whale ship Oeno had brought about their own end by causing offense. As the ship broke apart on a reef in April 1824, the crew found refuge at the nearby island of Vatoa. The island’s inhabitants salvaged muskets, chests, clothing, iron, and whatever else they could carry from the ship and provided the castaways with housing and food. Within days of the wreck, a large party of Ono islanders dressed for war showed up at Vatoa with what seemed like hostile intentions. The Oeno’s captain advised his men “not to use force and let them take everything they wanted.” But while sitting down to eat, “one of the visitors put his hand in the dish to take out a piece, when one of our crew rapped his knuckles, telling him to keep his black paws out of the victuals. This so enraged him that he went out of the house, got his club and beat the ground, using many threatening gestures.” Two days later, recognizing the shouts in the distance as an attack, Cary saved himself from the slaughter by hiding in a rock crevice until starvation forced him out. With passions sated, the visitors from Ono let him live. Henceforth, Cary made “it a rule never to oppose them and thus had got their perfect good will.”48 He worked his way up the hierarchy of power to become a favorite of Tui Nayau at Lakeba, later attaching himself to even more powerful patrons at Bau and Rewa. As clerks anticipating a brief stay, Osborn and Thompson worried less that a misstep could put their lives at risk and more about the failure of their trading ventures. They believed it their job to win the good will of Bau’s ruling class by behaving amiably and bestowing liberal presents on these men and their wives. Captain Eagleston gave Osborn explicit instructions “to keep in favour with all the chiefs & Queens.”49 Nine years later, Osborn must have told Thompson the same. When Thompson arrived at Bau, he resolved “to conform to their manners and customs as much as possible” and avoid “offending their feelings by ridiculing more than I could help their suspicious notions.”50

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Like Cary, Osborn, and Thompson, Whippy had to choose when to accommodate to local customs and when he would not. Their accounts each cite moments that challenged their will to adapt. The drinking of yaqona presented one hurdle early on. When Cary first came before Tui Nayau at Lakeba, he watched as young men chewed the kava root and spit the softened mass into a large wooden bowl. Stirring in water and then straining the muddy, milky liquid into coconut shell drinking cups, Tui Nayau’s mata passed the yaqona to Cary first and then to others in the room according to rank. Cary had a visceral response: “I dared not refuse, although my stomach loathed it, and it was with much difficulty that I kept it down. . . . Disgusting as this beverage was to me at first, my repugnance gradually wore away and after a while I could drink it with as good a relish as I can now swallow a glass of beer, though as I look back it makes my stomach turn to think of it.”51 Thompson also had trouble with it at first: “tho I did not admire the manner of preparation or the dirty dishwater look of the stuff, I took it and, after the greatest efforts, succeeded in getting it down.”52 Another step taken to please Fijian hosts was to change into Fijian clothing, what Cary called “Feejee costume (that is no dress at all—only a strip of cloth around my body).”53 After less than two months at Bau, Osborn wrote in his journal that “The cheifs having long wanted me to take off clothes & put on a Tapper [tapa] today to please them I mounted a Marlo,” a maro, the masi loincloth Cary described.”54 From Cary’s account of the battle fought alongside Whippy, we know that Whippy dressed like a Fijian on that occasion. He must have done so at other times as well, especially as his sailor garb frayed and before the bêche-de-mer trade furnished new supplies of papalagi clothing. A seaman on the Glide in 1830 described frequent visits from “David Whelpy, the American chieftain at Overlou; sometimes accompanied by two or three of his warriors.” That Whippy was “usually dressed as a sailor” suggests that there were times when Whippy dressed otherwise. This account gives further insight into Whippy’s first few years in Fiji. He “had with him a loaded rifle, whose good qualities were the main topic of his conversation. He also told us much concerning his singular life, and his adopted people, over whom he seemed to have great influence, owing to his superior wisdom, and the good terms existing between him and the powerful king of Bou.”55 Other Fijian customs rankled but were acceded to. One day Thompson went with Cakobau to the bure kalou (“spirit house”) to observe the bete (“priest”) forecast the outcome of a prospective battle through spirit possession of his body and entrance into a “convulsive” state. After listening to the

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bete’s favorable prognosis, Cakobau “took off his own splendid tapa and gave [it] to the priest and as I always did in Bowe as the Romans did, I gave him mine, and put on a nasty old greasy thing . . . which contained some very life preserving qualities if I was to believe his yarn.” Returning to Gavidi’s house, Thompson learned that “having been in a spirit house and put on a spirit tapa I must eat no meat that day and must sleep in a spirit house for three successive nights.” He wanted to throw the “spirit tapa” on the fire and have a “blowout” feast on pork, but told by all that this would make “the spirit angry,” Thompson “submitted with as good a grace as I could muster.”56 There was one line Thompson refused to cross: polygamy. Elite marriages in Fiji were a political tool for cementing bonds of allegiance.57 Turaga adapted this practice to entice foreign traders and beachcombers into trading relationships. While Thompson lived in Gavidi’s house, Unon, a female relation of Gavidi’s, looked after him as though she was his wife. Shortly after Thompson and Unon settled in at a house in the bêche-de-mer complex at Kaba that Cakobau had had built for the Charles Wirgman, more wives began to arrive unexpectedly. A long line of men “painted and greased in the extreme of fashion” came in a grand procession and deposited at Thompson’s feet gifts of masi, mats, food, spears, and clubs. Women followed, their skin saturated in coconut oil, “their hair dressed most fantastically and stained various colors,” flowers and vines wrapped around their bodies. Unon leaned over to Thompson to explain, “Ko[r]otalatoka, chief of an island town of great wealth and power,” had sent him a wife. An old man came forth with an offering of a whale’s tooth and made a long speech, while in consternation Thompson regarded the future “Mrs. Thompson . . . trembling all over with fright, for she had never seen a white man before.”58 Thompson rushed to decline the offer, but Unon told him to be careful, for rejecting the gift would be a great insult. Thompson wished Valentine was on hand to advise him, but he was then “absent in search of one of his wives who had run away.” While Thompson fretted over what to do, Unon rushed to his side, “‘Charlie, Charlie, here comes a canoe from Bowe with another wife for you from Re[v]elete, Saro’s [Cakobau’s] brother.’” And then even a third wife was sent by someone else. Thompson kept Unon, who proved invaluable as an interpreter and trading counselor, but sent away the other three women, expending from his stock a liberal outlay of muskets and trinkets to appease them. When Valentine returned and then Gavidi, they both tried to help him patch it up with the men whose gifts had been refused. Thompson had no regrets but realized the consequences Unon had

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warned him of: “Those chiefs never did me any injury because they dared not, but they never did me a good turn again.”59 Thompson accepted Unon but refused to live “a la turque.”60 Whippy went further with Fijian customs and lived in polygamy as did all the beachcombers who later joined him at Levuka and had “four or five wives each, and some of them as many children.”61 While at Levuka in 1840, Americans belonging to the Ex Ex were “startled” to find the “resident whites . . . living in a state of Polygamy.” One Ex Ex officer, baffled by “why such men should voluntarily lead a life of servillence [servileness] among a set of savages,” thought polygamy “the only indulgence that I am aware of that they would not enjoy under the Laws of our Land—to counterballance which they are denied nearly all the natural rights belonging to man.” Beachcombers, however, cast polygamy as thrust on them, thus not an “indulgence” but more like an obligation and a means to fit into Fijian society. One of them— probably Whippy because he spent considerable time with the expedition and was their main source of information on Fijian customs and politics— confessed that he “disapproved of the practice,” but there were reasons for it: women had to live separately from their husbands for one and a half years after conceiving (by implication, their sexual abstinence placed hardship on the husband) and “that as the Feejee world goes, one cannot always avoid too much happiness being forced on him—thus, it would not be well to refuse a present from a great chief!”62 If not Whippy, the man they spoke to may have been James Magoun. Planter Edwin J. Turpin included in his collection of early Fiji tales a story told him by Magoun about his first few years at Somosomo. Magoun explained that “polygamy was not my forte but my friend Na Vono told me ‘not to be a fool the more women I had, the easier times I should have, I should live better, and be above the petty chiefs . . . [Wives would] plant your yams and other vegetables fish and make all your mats baskets &c. besides if you return them, or any one of them, she will be disgraced and her friends will then become your enemies.’” While living under Tui Cakau’s protection, Magoun accepted eight wives, who initially “looked sullenly towards another,” but once he appointed Boate the “boss,” “she rapidly put things into quiet order.” Whippy’s house at Levuka probably resembled Magoun’s at Somosomo, a Fijian-style house with “a raised dais for sleeping . . . partitioned off from the other part with a large screen of painted tapa [which] was tabu’d as my sleeping place the other end was the resting place of my wives” (see figure 2.9).63 Men visiting Levuka with the Ex Ex described the homes of its papalagi residents as Fijian in layout, “clean and in good order” but “no better furnished

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Figure 2.9. Interior of a typical Levuka domicile in 1838 from [Charles Hector] Jacquinot, Voyage au Pole Sud et dans l’Océanie sur les Corvettes l’Astrolabe et la Zélée: Exécuté par Ordre du Roi Pendant les Années 1837-1838-1839-1840, sous le Commandement de M.J. Dumont d’Urville, Capitaine de Vaisseau, vol. 1, Atlas Pittoresque (Paris: Gide, 1846), Plate 94. Courtesy of Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

than those of the natives. They eat, sleep, and sit on the floor like the savages with whom they associate.”64 One Ex Ex member, in reference to Tui Levuka, commented, “Several white men have received wives from him and live in the town.” Another said, they had “bought themselves Fejee wives.”65

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Whippy appears to have had four wives. They may have come to him as gifts of alliance in the manner Thompson described or as war captives awarded for military service. His family life is not well documented unfortunately.66 Cary’s memoir is no help. It says nothing about who lived in Whippy’s household, even though Cary was a frequent guest there. Nor did Cary mention any women or children in his own life either, which would have been peculiar for a beachcomber resident in the islands for several years. Perhaps Cary wished to forget women and children left behind or, more likely, was circumspect about such matters in a memoir he intended to publish. The deepest glimpse into Whippy’s family comes from Robert Coffin’s memoir of the wreck of the American whale ship Logan near Fiji in January 1855. Drawn to Coffin’s classic Nantucket surname, Whippy invited him to stay with him to await passage home, and so for three months, until Coffin left on the Salem trading bark Dragon, he lived in Whippy’s household. Coffin called it “headquarters” because it was the home of “the most important [white] man on the island or for that matter on the whole Fiji group.” While living with the Whippys at Levuka, Coffin met Whippy’s first wife, who came on a visit to the family: “Whippy had entirely lost track of her when she disappeared more than twenty years before. She had fled to Viti Levu and ruled over one of the towns as Queen. She was a tall woman with strongly marked features.” Why she came then, after such a long absence, Coffin does not say. A woman of high rank from distant lands who “fled” to return to her own people suggests that Tui Levuka, or perhaps Naulivou, presented her to Whippy as recognition for his valor and fidelity in battle. She and Whippy had two children together: David Jr. and an unnamed daughter, both adults with children of their own when Coffin met them.67 Whippy’s principal wife was Tui Levuka’s daughter. Coffin refers to her as Tui Levuka’s sister because the Tui Levuka Coffin knew was son and successor to Whippy’s patron, who was killed in an attack on Levuka by the Lovoni people in 1846. Whippy’s marriage to Tui Levuka’s daughter would have strengthened the bond between the two men. Coffin called her Dorcas, her baptismal name. Whippy’s son Samuel and others testifying before the British colonial Land Claims Commission in 1881 referred to her as Delewa, or Delia. Whippy and Dorcas had several other children besides Samuel, including a daughter Kezia, named after Whippy’s mother, and a son Peter. According to the historian Stanley Brown, Whippy had two other wives: one from Tokelau, Ovalau, and the other from Koro, who had a son Dan. Probably these wives were the two “serving women” Coffin met in the Whippy

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household: “Rachel, who had a pretty little girl; and Snowball, who had a son Joelong—both [of the wives] as black as Erebos.”68 The high rank of Whippy’s first and second wives confirms that he was indeed viewed as a turaga by Fijians, who otherwise would have allotted him only kaisi women as marriage partners.69 Whippy’s growing family no doubt provided another incentive for him to stay on in the islands. Yet this family had hardly begun when Whippy happened on his former friend William Cary in the Koro Sea and pronounced his desire to remain in Fiji. But for the naming of his children after family members on Nantucket, he apparently felt no sense of loss or regret at adopting a manner of living so contrary to the institutions and values of the land of his birth. Whippy adapted to vakaviti but compartmentalized Fijian culture into acceptable and unacceptable customs. He rejected those Fijian practices that most repelled papalagi. He refused to feast on bokola after a battle, and he condemned widow strangling. Since both were customs associated with treatment of the dead, perhaps they seemed to violate more deeply held American taboos than did drinking yaqona, dressing in a maro, or living in polygamy. Outlandish stories circulated among papalagi about this-or-that beachcomber who was so degenerate that he enjoyed sitting down to a meal of human flesh. Missionary Thomas Williams reported how in Cakaudrove in 1847 there lived “a low American who has so degraded himself as to take thoroughly to a Feejeean life,” very likely the same “white baptized man-eater” whom Williams said partook in a cannibal meal a few months later.70 However, no rumors of that sort marred Whippy’s reputation. Even Charles Savage and Paddy Connel, reckoned the most dissipated, ultraaccommodationists to a Fijian way of life, reviled cannibalism openly. To avoid alienating their Fijian protectors, savvy beachcombers promoted the idea that their Christian God would punish them for it.71 Thus Fijians learned early on that papalagi did not eat their enemies and, moreover, that the prospect disgusted them. Fijians stopped extending invitations and eventually developed logical explanations for excluding foreigners. Disparaging American and European bodies, whites and blacks, as too salty or tasting too much like tobacco, Fijian lore devised a dual standard that reserved the ritual cannibalism of Fijian culture to Fijians alone.72 At first acquaintance, Whippy would have been asked to share in the postbattle festivities, especially if he had been a soldier in the war that brought

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the bodies back, but his recusal would have been eased by others before him having established a precedent. Despite their condemnations of cannibalism and other practices deemed equally bestial and unconscionable, some foreigners through intimate acquaintance with Fijians developed culturally relativistic perspectives. Cary’s instinctual surrender to revulsion occurs early on in his narrative, at a kava drinking ceremony. He later mentions the occasional “cannibal feast” but always briefly and in a matter-of-fact manner. Laconically, he recounted a funeral at Rewa after the younger brothers of Tui Dreketi conspired in his assassination. The corpse, swaddled in masi and with the face painted black as if for war, was laid out on mats, a musket and war club at his side. His four widows were then strangled, one by her own brother, so that the women could serve their husband in the afterlife. The day after the burial, the men and women of the town shaved their heads and the little fingers of children were cut off at the joint “to show their sorrow and respect for the deceased.”73 Cary observed these customs as an outsider but did not use the occasion to rant about Fijian barbarity. Instead, he gave a humane, cultural translation of the meaning Fijians invested in these ceremonies. Thompson went even further in his cultural relativism, though perhaps that is because he had Melville’s Typee as his model. His section on the “revolting acts I was a daily witness to” tells of one incident that especially shook him. He came across “an old grey-headed man by the side of a deep hole in the earth, while around him were assembled some dozen or two men, women and children; the latter crying and moaning most piteously.” As Thompson stood by, “utterly bewildered,” the man’s sons proceeded to bury him alive. The man had been ailing a long while, Thompson later learned, and his sons had reluctantly heeded their father’s wish to bring it to an end. Thompson’s memoir laments “their idea of right and wrong, such they had been taught was the way to please their God.” But he simultaneously acknowledged a kind of humanity in the burial scene in that the distraught family “felt almost heart-broken at the duty they had to perform.”74 Thompson also claimed to have been an eyewitness to cannibalism. He accompanied Bau war parties in two campaigns against towns loyal to Rewa. The first ended in defeat, but Bau won the second and brought home the bodies of thirty men and four women. Thompson wanted to observe what happened next without participating in the feast. He changed his war dress of masi and black paint for a clean white suit and stood at the periphery of the spectacle. He was surprised at how they had piled up the bodies so carelessly, mixed in with brush and dirt, not how one would expect to

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see food treated. “I asked why they were not more easy with them, they answered me characteristically ‘Oh it is only a dead enemy.’” In a long ceremony, the returned war party relived the battle before vunivalu Tanoa and two thousand spectators in the public square grounds, “pounding and hacking the [corpses] in a truly horrible manner,” while “cheering and shouting most noisily whenever any smart act or speech was made by the warriors.” Then, each man came forward and received his reward from the plunder of “whales’ teeth, muskets, tapa, clubs, mats, spears, necklaces, etc.” The community washed the bodies in the river, disjointed the limbs, wrapped the arms and legs in banana leaves, and put them in special ovens to bake. The men then retired to the bure kalou to talk over their victory. Thompson stayed with the women. Cakobau’s wife offered to cook a meal for him separate from the rest, while the women clustered around him and, through Valentine, asked questions about “‘Salem,’” his country. The next morning Thompson headed up to the central plaza and saw all the men happily eating their cooked yams and human meat.75 Thompson intended his graphic details to scandalize his readers but expressed surprise at his own emotional response, how he gazed on these “horrid sights, with the greatest nonchalance. I neither felt sick, frightened or disgusted, but looked on it as a matter of course, which I could not help and consequently was no fault of mine.” If he had not recognized the odd foot or hand among the meat, “I should not have hesitated to have sat down and joined them, for all our notions about the smell and sickening appearance and sickening effects of human flesh are fudge. It looked nice, it smelled nice and, by the actions of the natives, must have tasted nice.”76 Surprisingly, Whippy’s stories of Fijian horrors, as told to other papalagi, lack the inflection of cultural relativism found in Cary’s and Thompson’s memoirs. Because Whippy seemed more committed to Fiji than these other men, one would expect him to be more accepting. But according to Wilkes, who spent a lot of time with Whippy during the Ex Ex’s survey of Fiji, Whippy characterized Fijians as thieves and liars, “treacherous in the extreme, and, with all their ferocity, cowards.”77 Whippy regaled Americans new to Fiji with “many a long tale of the manners and customs of the Natives, and especially of their cannibalism.”78 For instance, in 1831, Eagleston heard that “the Bau people had made a large kill.” Whippy filled him in on what happened. The people of Bau had long nurtured “a deadly spite” against Naigani, a small island close to Ovalau. Under siege, the people of Naigani finally consented to leave their stronghold and be carried to another island in Bau canoes. As this exodus

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was underway, the Bau army turned on them, killing 104 people, saving ten “fine looking young girls” and “two nursing children, But only to undergo death in a more cruel and shameful manner. One was put in a basket made of cocoanut leaves and [the] basket tied to lower yard of sail, while the other poor little innocent was suspended by its arms a few feet from the basket with its head below the yard.” Carried to Bau, they “were all cooked” as were the two infant banners of Bau victory.79 This may have been the same incident Whippy told Osborn of—how he had seen Bau canoes returning from war “ornamented by having dead children slung by the legs along the lower yards.”80 Whippy further distanced himself from any taint of barbarism by telling papalagi acquaintances about his efforts to prevent cannibal feasting on such occasions. Osborn recorded one of Whippy’s battle stories. Victorious, they carried away “property (tapper, sennit, clubs spears &c)” and 250 corpses. “The canoe that I was in,” Whippy told Osborn, “had 20 which I threw overboard, (this is the custom of the whites when they go to a fight to prevent their eating human flesh as much as possible) We then went to a small uninhabited I[slan]d to sleep, where they cut up the dead bodys & cooked them, during this feast I kept out of the way as it would not do to interfere too much with them.” The next day Whippy saw “several baskets of cooked flesh” when he reboarded the canoe and threw those overboard, too. After he “found the chief [Tui Levuka] eating some I made him promise to do so no more.”81 Whippy similarly intervened in the strangling of widows. On one occasion, retold by Wilkes, Whippy “drove away the murderers, rescued the woman, and carried her to his own house, where she was resuscitated.” Instead of thanking him, “she loaded him with abuse, and ever afterwards manifested the most deadly hatred towards him.”82 Whippy certainly knew that his “rescue” of this woman denied her the fulfillment of a sacred and heartfelt obligation and that he was consigning her to a life of shame. Pregnant women or women of the highest rank who lacked relatives of an even higher rank to perform the deed might escape the strangling cord, but most went happily to the grave for it was both a responsibility and an honor. Turaga levu who did not defend the custom risked offending their “Callow, or God, and the different chiefs of the surrounding islands, as it is the duty of the principal of them to see such laws put into force.” When William Lockerby tried to buy a widow from her fate with whales’ teeth and asserted that the “white man’s Callow” would punish the town if she were strangled, the response of the turaga levu was that “if she was not put to death her

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husband’s relations, joined by all the different chiefs in the neighbourhood, would attack and destroy him [. . . and] his own Callow would be angry with him.”83 Widow strangling was as fully embedded in Fijian understandings of law, morality, and respectable behavior as the Fijian customs Whippy accepted, but it so absolutely contradicted his own sense of right and wrong that he could not make sense of it. Whether Whippy’s yarning dealt with cannibalism or widow strangling, the moral of his stories centered around his efforts to prevent atrocities amid an entrenched barbarism. Even though polygamy bore the taint of savagery, too, that line was easier for Whippy to cross. It was the customs associated with death that he found most abominable and unfathomable—yet not so abominable as to drive him from the islands. Since Whippy’s decision to stay on in Fiji shows attachment to the Fijian way of life, it could be that Whippy was more of a cultural relativist than his yarning about Fijian savagery conveys. As will become more evident in the next chapter, he was extraordinarily likable, and that likability could have originated in an ability to become the person others wanted him to be.84 Thus, the same personality trait that eased his passage into Fijian society might have, in turn, led him to gratify the curiosity of newcomers to Fiji with sordid tales that substantiated their expectations. Even though Whippy had nothing good to say about the islands, as reported in the writings of American and European acquaintances, he chose to live there and appeared to take pride in his role as a kind of petty chief. It brought him a modicum of respect and certain privileges: precedence at public celebrations, kowtowing commoners shouting the tama, large abodes made comfortable by the labor of multiple wives and servants, gifts of women and war booty, and connections to elite circles and centers of power. However, that respect came at a price. He knew that his place within Fijian society depended on the good will of Fijian patrons and his willingness to assist them in their military and political causes. His surreptitious efforts to hinder war parties’ cannibal feasts illustrate his powerlessness, marginality, and insignificance despite his position as Mata ki Bau. Furthermore, the stories he told other papalagi point to a profound ambivalence. He adopted elements of a Fijian way of life, yet he derided the Fijian character as inherently deceitful and Fijian customs as horrific. In so doing, he represented himself as a person instinctually civilized and superior in morals to his Fijian hosts, thereby distancing himself from the people among whom he had chosen to live.

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Curiously, his successful adaptation to vakaviti made the most respectable of Americans admire him even more. They especially made much of his title as a sign of his having assimilated into a position of authority within Fijian society. In the official report of the Ex Ex, Wilkes described Whippy as “a royal messenger, or Maticum Ambau, and is much looked up to by the chiefs,” as though Whippy’s attainment of a political position within Fijian society was key to the expedition’s safety and success.85 And Mary Wallis, who in Life in Feejee indicted beachcombers as “a lazy, lying, thieving set,” said of Whippy that he “is truly respected by all who are acquainted with him.” She spelled his title “Matta ge Mbau” and credited him mistakenly with being “the only white man who has ever been honored with a Feejeean office.”86 Although Whippy had little impact on Fiji’s history during his first few years in the islands, his early immersion in vakaviti—his deep understanding of the language, geography, manners, and complex politics of the archipelago—made him an essential aide to the accelerating foreign intrusions of the 1830s and 1840s. In cultivating relationships with other foreigners newly arrived in Fiji, he was able to exploit his infiltration into Fijian society to gain their friendship and esteem.

Chapter 3

Chief of All the White Men Character

Living in a Fijian village, dressing as a Fijian in wartime, and marrying Fijian women integrated Whippy into Fijian society but deceptively so since he retained a more profound loyalty to his own kind. As the number of foreigners in Fiji increased with each passing decade, he directed his energies toward meeting their needs. The relationships he formed with traders, missionaries, naval officers, and other beachcombers had at least three outcomes. His eagerness to help them earned him their accolades and gratitude. His efforts on others’ behalf enabled them to fulfill their myriad intentions and make inroads on Fijian cultural and political autonomy from all directions. And his ties to other foreigners made him less dependent on Fijian patronage and fed the emergence of an independent enclave of “white men” at Levuka with Whippy as “their chief.”1 The most influential and high-status foreigners to visit Fiji in the first half of the nineteenth century nearly all interacted with Whippy and spoke highly of him. The comments made by Charles Wilkes in his official report of the U.S. Exploring Expedition are typical. He met Whippy, accompanied by “one of his naked children,” when the flagship Vincennes sailed into Levuka harbor in May 1840. Wilkes had already heard of Whippy’s “worth and excellent character” and knew him to be “a prudent trustworthy person.”2

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Despite his nonconformity to antebellum American social mores, exemplified in the anecdotal aside about his naked Fijian child, Whippy appeared to possess all the virtues thought to belong to men of good character. He exhibited polite manners, an open and intelligent countenance, sound judgment, courage, honesty, generosity, benevolence, fidelity, and a sense of responsibility, especially for family members, business partners, and country.3 That a beachcomber would be lauded for his good character was an anomaly. Men in Whippy’s position usually evoked more ambivalence. Beachcomber was a derogatory word when applied to the riffraff of runaway convicts and sailors populating Pacific islands in the nineteenth century. It was the “worst insult you can offer an able seaman,” according to one American whaleman, who told of how a “villainous beach-comber” encouraged a native assault on several whale boats, showing “how low a white man will get when he sells his birthright and goes to live with savages.”4 Beachcombers were the Pacific manifestation of what in the American West were called squaw men, white men who had married one or more Indian women and lived among Indians. Both terms conveyed the discomfort raised by men who had voluntarily plummeted down the social ladder by violating their own society’s taboos against racial and cultural mixing. Undergirding the depictions of beachcombers and squaw men as habitual liars and indolent parasites was the suspicion that they would use their insider knowledge to further their own interests and not those of their countrymen.5 But many beachcombers supported the endeavors of other, self-proclaimed civilized people over the interests of natives and, like squaw men in the American West, became “Advance Agents of Civilization.”6 As guides and intermediaries, they eased newcomers’ passage through the intricately twined thickets of cultural inscrutability. And as the earliest generation of foreigners to permanently settle in the islands, they presaged and abetted later waves of immigrants. More than any other beachcomber in Fiji, Whippy indeed appeared to be civilization’s advance agent. He helped traders gain access to Fijian resources. He helped the English missionaries make Fiji a Christian place. And he helped naval officers survey the islands, conduct diplomacy with turaga levu, and threaten Fijians into submission. Americans steeped in the moral standards of New England granted Whippy the status of a respected person, despite his transgressions from civilized law and custom, because they benefited so much from his presence in Fiji. Eventually, Whippy’s papalagi connections allowed him to assert independent power outside the indigenous patronage networks beachcombers relied on for their survival. The situation of the Levuka beachcombing community

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had parallels in Fijian society. Within Fiji, there were several distinct peoples, sometimes referred to as clans, who were identified by a common heritage and certain artisanal skills but whose lack of territory made them dependent on others. The Lasakau fishing people, for example, lived on the island of Bau and owed the Bau matanitu allegiance but worked within that relationship to prioritize their own interests.7 From the Fijian perspective, the kai papalagi in residence at Levuka may have seemed like just another landless dependency whose useful skills could be tapped by those in power.8 But emboldened by a sense of camaraderie with other foreigners—traders, missionaries, and naval personnel—Whippy and his fellow beachcombers distanced themselves from Bau. In the early 1850s, in a dramatic break with Cakobau, the kai papalagi at Levuka, largely led by Whippy, emerged as its own political force in the islands. Levuka’s mixed-race settler community then became the gateway through which other foreigners entered the archipelago. From the start, while ingratiating himself with Fijians, Whippy simultaneously cultivated relationships with other foreigners. During Whippy’s first decade in the islands, foreigners in Fiji were of two types: traders and beachcombers. These two foreign constituencies maintained close ties. Beachcombers were former seamen, who had arrived on trading vessels or whale ships, and after taking up residence in the islands, continued to work for traders on a temporary basis. They were never as idle as the stereotype presumed. Their skills contributed enormously to each trading venture. Traders cut deals with at least one, usually several, beachcombers, hiring them for the duration of the ship’s sojourn in the islands in exchange for muskets, gunpowder, and other trade goods. Beachcombers provided varied services as interpreters, cultural consultants, managers of bêche-de-mer processing stations, messengers, pilots, carpenters, small boat charterers, and ship provisioners. In addition, they became petty traders in their own right and traveled about the islands stockpiling turtle shell and other locally produced materials to sell whenever trading vessels from Salem, Sydney, or elsewhere made an appearance.9 Arriving in Fiji shortly before the bêche-de-mer trade took off, Whippy was ideally placed to become one of that industry’s most valued laborers. While working for foreign traders, he maintained a home at Levuka. His first job may have been on the Manila brig Laurice, which within a few months of Whippy’s settlement in the islands suffered a mutiny. He was on the brig when the mutiny occurred, though it is not known if he had agreed to work for the brig or had come aboard merely on a social visit.10

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The brig’s mutineers settled at Rewa and Bau while some of its less rowdy crew members opted to reside at Levuka with Whippy: a Scotsman named Bill and several Caroline Islanders from the island of Yap, whom William Cary said had “attached themselves to David and had been with him ever since.” Whippy invited Cary to stay at Levuka, too, but Cary thought his chances of encountering a foreign vessel to return home on were best at Bau. As evident from Cary’s account, even at this early date, Whippy was soliciting other beachcombers to join him at Levuka.11 When the Clay showed up in October 1827, initiating the American bêchede-mer trade, Whippy immediately offered his services. Cary recounted how this came about. He and Whippy learned that a ship was anchored at Bua Bay, so they left Levuka in a canoe in hopes of running into the vessel. On the way there, they met William Driver, the Clay’s second mate, in a canoe heading toward Bau. Cary recalled, “David offered to go back with him to assist in trading, and after some hesitation he took him.” Driver had no cause to trust beachcombers, even if they were fellow Americans, but both Whippy and Cary proved their worth. Cary joined the Clay as its interpreter while Whippy became Driver’s second-in-command at a bêche-de-mer house on the island of Viwa. Whippy also carried communications from Viwa to the Clay at Bua Bay and returned to Viwa with more trade supplies. Whippy and Cary continued on as ad hoc crew members of the Clay until it left for Manila four months later.12 Thereafter, trading vessels made Levuka a routine stop to pick up pilots and interpreters and to load up on fresh water, pigs, and yams. With two, three, sometimes even four vessels in the group at a time over the next few years, Whippy had plenty of occasions to hire out his services and could choose among them. He developed an especially close working relationship with Captain John H. Eagleston, who from 1831 to 1840 came to Fiji on four Salem vessels—the Peru, Emerald, Mermaid, and Leonidas.13 Another trader Whippy dealt with was, ironically, Peter Dillon, who more than ten years before had promised to retrieve Whippy at Bau. Dillon was not after bêche-de-mer but merely passed through the islands in 1837 on the Jess.14 No one at the time recorded the two men’s responses when they met up again, but they did so amicably. Dillon drafted a testimonial on Whippy’s behalf, similar to what all the Levuka beachcombers carried to present to ship captains. Whippy showed this document to French explorer Dumont D’Urville a few months later. Dillon testified to Whippy’s complete knowledge of the native language and customs and his ability to pilot vessels throughout the archipelago.15

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As pilots and interpreters, all beachcombers exchanged their familiarity with the islands for trade goods. What distinguished Whippy from the other beachcombers was his trustworthiness and how he proactively offered traders protection and advice. Several times, he alerted ships’ crews to imminent danger. As with the sandalwood trade two decades earlier, the bêche-de-mer trade became a fulcrum for violence between foreigners and Fijians. The first incident calling for Whippy’s intervention happened off Ovalau in 1830. While Whippy was sitting on the Glide’s taffrail “with some members of his tribe,” he heard a musket shot and warned the Glide’s crew, “‘There is trouble with your shipmates ashore!’” Two crew members were killed as they fled toward the safety of the Glide. Whippy took the bodies back to Levuka and buried them in a spot that over the years would develop into a foreign cemetery cared for by the Whippy family.16 In 1833, Whippy was able to prevent an attack on the Spy. Tui Levuka warned Whippy that a large double canoe alongside the Spy was not there to trade in turtle shell but had armed men aboard who planned to capture the vessel. A “much agitated” Whippy quickly paddled a small canoe to the Spy, climbed over the side and grabbed a cannonball in each hand while shouting to Captain John B. Knights to arm his crew. The Fijians scrambled to get away. Knights said of Whippy that he was “the only one, I had the least confidence in” and that he “saved the vessel, & ourselves, from destruction.”17 If Whippy had been aboard the Charles Doggett in September 1833 maybe the assault on that vessel would not have succeeded. Beachcomber James Magoun described what happened in an 1840 deposition recorded by the U.S. Exploring Expedition to justify its imprisonment of Veidovi of Rewa for slaughtering half of the Charles Doggett’s crew. While tending the Doggett’s bêche-de-mer house at Kadavu, Magoun noticed a suspicious development. The hostage, a Fijian of high rank who had agreed to stay aboard the vessel as security for the crew’s safety, slipped away from the vessel, a sign that the islanders planned to renege on their contract. Shortly afterward, a marauding party set fire to the slug drying shed, and Magoun heard Veidovi issue orders to kill all the papalagi. Magoun and several others escaped with wounds. Ten died, several of them beachcombers from Levuka.18 The following year, another incident occurred involving a French vessel, which Whippy tried to prevent but to no avail. When Eagleston returned to Fiji on the Emerald in May 1834, he wondered why no one flocked to his vessel to greet him. He suspected that “the devils had been up to some mischief with some other vessel” and sent a letter to Whippy at Levuka asking him

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to come to the ship. “I wanted to see him to obtain more correct information.” Whippy soon boarded and told him of the attack on the Doggett, the earlier plot against the Spy, and the ominous proceedings surrounding the undermanned French brig, L’Aimable Joséphine, then in the islands collecting bêche-de-mer and turtle shell.19 The long saga of L’Aimable Joséphine sheds light on Whippy’s activism on behalf of traders but also underscores that he had a higher priority, which was the security of the beachcombing community at Levuka. His remarks to Eagleston about L’Aimable Joséphine proved prescient. Whippy was wellacquainted with the brig and its skeleton crew because he and another Levuka beachcomber had taken care of its second mate for six weeks after he came down with smallpox while the brig was on a side trip to Tahiti.20 When the French brig returned from Tahiti, its inexperienced captain, named Bureau, disregarded all warning signs. Promised bêche-de-mer by the rebel faction then ruling at Bau, Captain Bureau agreed to take a large party of fighting men to attack Bau’s rightful vunivalu, Tanoa Visawaqa, at Somosomo. Once there, the rebel army failed to breach Tanoa’s fortified retreat. When Warren Osborn, Eagleston’s clerk in residence at Bau, witnessed the war party’s homecoming—their celebratory “singing & brandishing their clubs muskets &c” as they unloaded tapa, sennit, and chests from the brig— he thought they had commandeered the vessel.21 He was wrong. That had not happened yet but was about to. Sharing Osborn’s concerns about the French brig’s safety, Whippy urged Eagleston to send a letter to Captain Bureau advising him to be “on your guard” for the natives, as Eagleston wrote in the letter, “are a treacherous set of Devils & you can place no dependance on them.”22 The predicted assault on L’Aimable Joséphine took place a few weeks later, in mid-July, but from an unexpected direction. A Bau subordinate and influential turaga levu in his own right, Namosimalua of Viwa, ordered his nephew and other Viwa islanders to kill Captain Bureau and take the vessel. The brig’s first and second mates also died in the affray. The Viwans took control of the brig and headed for Ovalau to enlist papalagi to serve as sailors. The Levuka beachcombers refused to board it, so the assailants returned home to Viwa, where they stripped the brig of its cargo and fittings.23 While the French brig lay off Viwa, a flood of Salem traders belonging to the Emerald, Consul, Augustus, Eliza, and the Eliza’s tender, the Coral, vied with each other to gain possession of it. Whippy became involved in their schemes but for his own reasons. Namosimalua had threatened to kill all the papalagi at Levuka if any American ship tried to retake the brig, which

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is what John Winn of the Coral proposed. Benjamin Vanderford, supercargo on the Consul, tried to negotiate a purchase instead. He and Whippy went to Bau at the end of July to address the principal men. Osborn, the Emerald’s clerk and therefore representing a rival trader, was relieved to see “from Davids maneuvres, that he was not acting altogether for Butenam [Vanderford].” With the Emerald away at Tahiti, Osborn turned to Whippy for guidance, referring to him as “a longheaded fellow & well acquainted with Fegee fashions & what is more is a good friend of Capt. Eaglestons & is trusted by him.” Whippy worried that “if they keep her the white men will have to sail her, & if they come across another ship they will have to fight her or be clubbed & if they did fight the law would probably call them pirates.” If Winn had his way and took the brig by force, “the whites here have got to leave their wives their children their homes & their property or most probably be clubbed by the natives.” Whippy and Osborn agreed to pursue one of Winn’s suggestions, and the next day Whippy asked the Bau leadership to persuade Namosimalua to accept the Coral in place of the more valuable brig, worth five thousand to eight thousand dollars by Eagleston’s estimate. Bau’s rulers were amenable but could not change Namosimalua’s mind. They did, however, promise Whippy that “no white man should be called upon to work her & that if Capt. W. [Winn] took her no white man should be hurt.”24 Haggling over the fate of the French brig lasted several more months, but Whippy had achieved what he needed to, an assurance that no harm would come to Levuka’s beachcombers no matter what the American traders might do. In late August, Winn did try force, and from the Coral rained armament down on Viwa. The cannonade damaged a few houses but not enough to compel Namosimalua to give up the brig.25 When Eagleston returned from Tahiti, he tried to purchase it from the principal men at Bau. He offered a hundred muskets, twenty kegs of gunpowder, and a hundred whales’ teeth, but still Namosimalua would not release it. Finally, Eagleston proposed to Tanoa, still in exile at Somosomo, that he “was ready to assist him in his war against the Bow people,” thereby “putting him in power again” at Bau, but only if Eagleston received the brig in exchange. Tanoa agreed but “wanted more time to gather his troops,” time Eagleston could not spare.26 In the end, no one got the brig. Someone set it on fire. The denouement would come four years later when men from the French exploring vessels L’Astrolabe and Zélée, commanded by D’Urville, burned Namosimalua’s town on Viwa in retaliation for the sacking of the L’Aimable Joséphine.27

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During these contested negotiations, Whippy earned the confidence of American traders. In an August 1834 letter to Whippy, Joseph Winn informed him that the Eliza would soon depart for Manila to sell its cargo and then return to Fiji for another load. Winn worried about the hazards facing his brother John, who was to remain behind with a small crew on the Coral. Joseph had arranged with Eagleston for the Coral to serve as the Emerald’s tender, and the Winns and Eagleston had the same employer, Stephen C. Phillips, so their interests were conjoined. And yet Joseph did not trust Eagleston as much as he did Whippy. “Eagleston understandably will think only of his voyage,” Joseph wrote as he solicited Whippy and his “comrades” at Levuka to look after John in the Eliza’s absence: “Dont neglect him on account of Capt Eagleston, for God & my sake.” In compensation, Joseph sent Whippy a musket, keg of gunpowder, lead for bullets, two whales’ teeth, a looking glass, beads, vermilion, and for all the Levuka papalagi, a barrel of salted beef and ship’s bread.28 As Whippy’s machinations during the incident of L’Aimable Joséphine reveal, he saw the Levuka community as vulnerable to a host of outside forces. From Fijians came the threat of demands on the beachcombers’ labor and the destruction of their lives, families, and property if they refused. If the papalagi complied and sailed a pirated vessel, would they then be treated by their home countries as renegades who had violated maritime law? Furthermore, beachcombers needed to sustain friendly relations with foreign traders. Winn’s gift of salted beef and ship’s bread no doubt had sentimental value as familiar foods from a past life, but guns, gunpowder, whales’ teeth, and beads were currency that enhanced beachcombers’ ability to get along with Fijians. The small number of beachcombers in the group made them vulnerable. From the increased ship traffic due to bêche-de-mer, Levuka received new residents as the occasional sailor in the trade decided to stay on in the islands. However, deaths by violence and dysentery kept their numbers down. Through the 1830s, the papalagi population at Levuka stayed stable at about twelve to fifteen men.29 A member of D’Urville’s expedition counted twelve Levuka beachcombers in 1838: eight English and American men, a Hawaiian, a Tahitian, a black (of what nationality is unsaid, probably American), and a Bengali.30 William L. Hudson of the Ex Ex stated in 1840 that the village of Levuka consisted of about two hundred people altogether, of whom six were English and four American. He listed the latter as David Whippy, a resident of the islands for sixteen years; Jacob Cunningham of

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New York, eleven years; James Magoun of Salem, eight years; and William Valentine of New York, four years.31 Levuka was home to the majority of Fiji’s beachcombers, but others lived scattered about the group. Some avoided Levuka deliberately. William Diaper, a British beachcomber residing at Somosomo in the 1840s under Tui Cakau’s protection, believed that Levuka’s beachcombers “incurred more danger in this kind of semi-civilization and apparent independence than I actually did.”32 Other beachcombers were unwelcome at Levuka. The Levuka papalagi had long ago banished Paddy Connel, the islands’ oldest surviving foreign resident, because they did not trust him. For the same reason, they “shunned” Charles Pickering of New South Wales, Australia.33 Whippy arranged to have another beachcomber removed from the islands in 1833 on the Spy, a Caroline Islander, presumably one of the men Cary said had attached themselves to Whippy after the Laurice mutiny but who was then suspected of originating the plot to take the Spy.34 A complete tally of Levuka’s beachcombers cannot be constructed because no one bothered to keep track of who they were and because the population was so transitory. A few men recur in the records, though sometimes only by first names or nicknames. Osborn’s passing reference to “Dirty Dick,” aka Richard Wise, as “a great fighting character” from Cornwall, England, is more information than what is available for the majority of the Levuka papalagi in the 1830s and 1840s.35 Another longtime beachcomber mentioned more often than most was Tom Granby, a Briton commonly employed by foreign vessels as pilot.36 After Whippy, the best-known American beachcomber was James Magoun. Not everything Magoun allegedly told British planter Edwin Turpin was true, so Turpin’s account of how Magoun ended up at Levuka through Whippy’s auspices may not be true either, but it seems plausible. After his bêche-de-mer vessel, the Fawn, wrecked near Cakaudrove, Magoun lived at its capital town, Somosomo. Tui Cakau’s son Ra Bici talked about Magoun while on a visit to Bau, and shortly afterward, Magoun’s principal wife, Boate, told him that negotiations were underway for his release. Whippy sent Magoun a letter on behalf of the “White Men living at Bau, Rewa, Ovalau and other places” encouraging him to leave Somosomo for “here” and then arranged for an exchange, handing over to Magoun’s “captors” six muskets, two kegs of gunpowder, two bolts of red cloth, and one “Tongan girl.” Magoun moved to Levuka, taking two of his eight wives with him.37 Even though one can find out quite a bit about Magoun, no other

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beachcomber besides Whippy emerges so fully from the sources as a distinct person with a history, personality, and perspective. Whippy stands out as the only leader this disorderly foreign community had, but his leadership style was understated. He reached out to other papalagi to surround himself with them but did not dictate what others should do. He was an anchor of stability but not a commanding figure. When the two French corvettes belonging to D’Urville’s exploring expedition anchored off Levuka for eight days in 1838, D’Urville and his officers conversed at length with Whippy and his associates. They assessed Whippy as intelligent and sensible but did not recognize him as a leader. The French described Levuka’s beachcombers as living in idleness, leaderless, following no laws but those they made themselves, discontented, and full of hatred for each other.38 In contrast, a decade later, British warship commander John Elphinstone Erskine characterized Whippy as “the most influential man” among the Levuka beachcombers. Erskine attributed to the Levuka papalagi some selfgovernance, which took the form of “expelling or refusing to receive persons of dissipated habits or guilty of egregious misconduct.”39 The Levuka papalagi did enact a more drastic measure in 1839, when a Hawaiian and another, non-Fijian Pacific Islander killed an Englishman, James Carter, at the island of Wakaya. In this instance, as reported by the missionary Thomas Williams, “The people residing at Ovalau captured the murderers, and, after a full inquiry, executed them by hanging.”40 Despite these efforts to self-regulate, the Levuka beachcombers often were as dissipated as beachcombers inhabiting other parts of the archipelago. Not Whippy, however. In March 1835, Eagleston wrote Whippy a frustrated letter from his anchorage at Rewa complaining about the “set of D—d rascals” at Levuka who were luring seamen away from the Emerald. “I fear this gang you are getting round you will be the cause of breaking up your establishment,” Eagleston advised, further threatening that “if any person runs from her [the Emerald] in Lebouka & is not sent on b[oar]d again, I shall find a way to make both the American & English Governments acquainted with those you have around you.” Regarding Whippy and another Levuka beachcomber named George, Eagleston assured them that “I believe you as I always have done to be two honest & upright men, possessed of principal & Truth & I assure you I feel thankful to you for the favours you have done for me.” He closed with the salutation “wishing you all the hapiness a Ciabeter’s [Kai Viti’s/ Fijian’s] life will afford.”41

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Levuka’s reputation for dissolution stemmed largely from the beachcombers’ penchant for drunkenness. At Levuka in 1851, Mary Wallis recounted their assorted ruses to finagle brandy and rum from ship captains’ and missionaries’ medicinal stores. Whippy, who did not drink or at least not to excess, had told her “that such was their appetite, that some would drink spirits even if they knew them to contain arsenic.” A few months later, she reported that two papalagi had died from excessive drinking while another, “half-crazed” with liquor, beat his Fijian wife “senseless.” Whippy took the battered woman to his home and treated her wounds.42 Along with sobriety, industriousness was another Whippy virtue. Foreigners spoke favorably of the small shipbuilding and trading enterprise he embarked on in partnership with two other beachcombers, the Irish blacksmith William Cusick and shipwright William Simpson of London, with the later addition of a third English shipwright, William Miller. Simpson would become Whippy’s closest friend, longtime business partner, and a kind of relative, since their children would one day intermarry. Whippy’s first shipbuilding effort was the schooner Opposition, later renamed the Jane, built while the Emerald was in the islands in 1833–36, partly with materials provided by Eagleston, and put into service as the Emerald’s tender. It was small, only fifteen tons, but well-crafted and, according to Eagleston, “a credit to her builders.” Whippy and his team of carpenters usually had at least one vessel under construction at a time, ranging in size from twenty to thirty tons.43 Without Whippy, it seems likely that the papalagi at Levuka would never have cohered into a community. Although during Whippy’s time Levuka teetered on the edge of disreputability, any claims the place had to respectability derived largely from his low-key leadership, the good will he showed to strangers, and the aura of decency and steadiness he exuded. Whippy had been a resident of Fiji for ten years when a landmark event occurred: the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society of London founded a Fiji mission. William Cross and David Cargill moved to Lakeba with their families in October 1835 from a prior posting in Tonga. They were the vanguard for an expanding missionary enterprise that would eventually bring the majority of Fijians to lotu (convert to Christianity).44 Beachcombers and missionaries throughout the Pacific were notoriously at odds, but Whippy managed to get along well with the Wesleyans and even earn their respect despite a beachcombing lifestyle fundamentally antithetical to missionary preachings. Initially a faltering initiative, the Wesleyans found themselves, like beachcombers, at the mercy of Fiji’s most powerful men, who valued the

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missionary presence only as a mark of distinction and for affording access to trade goods.45 Cross’s and Cargill’s sponsor at Lakeba, Tui Nayau, was not enthusiastic about their presence, however. He encouraged them to reach out to the superior matanitu of Bau or Cakaudrove. If turaga levu at these places endorsed Christianity, Tui Nayau told them, then lesser turaga would follow. Hence, in late 1837, Cross paid Peter Dillon to carry him, his family, and household furnishings to Bau on the Jess. Cakobau had recently restored his father to power at Bau in a climactic battle that had devastated the island and destroyed hundreds of houses. Cross realized that proximity to Fiji’s most powerful duo, Tanoa and his son Cakobau, was not compensation enough to make up for the island’s residual political instability and lack of lodgings suitable for him and his family. And even though Cakobau told Cross that he would be willing to have a missionary settle at Bau, he had also said that he would be unable to guarantee Cross’s safety. Nearly as powerful a polity was Bau’s neighbor and then ally Rewa. So Cross chose that populous and prosperous town at the mouth of the Rewa River on Viti Levu as the site for the mission.46 Soon thereafter, Viwa replaced Rewa as the wellspring of missionary activity. Namosimalua invited the missionaries to live under his protection, and he proved an effective, though not always dependable, patron.47 Having rebuilt his town after the punitive raid by the French, Namosimalua had a transparent motive for befriending the missionaries: he hoped that supporting Christianity would protect him from the wrath of European warships, a belief the missionaries cultivated.48 Mission histories credit Whippy with a key role in the survival and growth of the Wesleyan Methodist missionary enterprise. Soon after Cross established himself at Rewa, he fell seriously ill. There were some “European sailors” residing at Rewa, but they were “very bad characters” and unable and unwilling to help out. Having heard “a favorable account” of a sizable foreign community at Levuka, Cross sent word to them. Whippy soon showed up at Cross’s house and stayed on until Cross recovered, providing “invaluable help to the sufferer and his family.”49 Cross, Cargill, and the three newcomers to the mission arriving in Fiji in December 1839—James Calvert, John Hunt, and Thomas Jaggar—depended on Whippy and his Levuka colleagues in other ways. Levuka’s small sailing vessels carried mail and sometimes the missionaries themselves between islands.50 The missionaries came to view the papalagi at Levuka as a population in need of and receptive to their ministerial care even though their disapproval

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of the beachcombers’ way of life put a strain on their relationship. Cargill and Calvert reported being “treated with kindness & respect by the British & American residents” on a visit to Levuka in May 1839, but the following year Charles Pickering of the U.S. Exploring Expedition heard the beachcombers complain that the missionaries were not “friendly” to this “class of people” and “will not christen the children of the whites.” Pickering concluded, “There is fault on both sides.”51 Knowing that the papalagi desired a mission in their town, Cross sent two native teachers to Levuka in September 1841. The papalagi provided the lay preachers with a place to live and another building to double as a schoolhouse and chapel.52 According to one of these native teachers, Solomoni Raduvi, Cross assigned them to Levuka “to instruct the wives of the whites at Ovalau.”53 When John Hunt subsequently took charge of the Viwa mission station, he made Levuka a frequent stop on his preaching circuit.54 By the mid-1840s, perhaps because Christian instruction had by then taken place at Levuka, the missionaries regularly performed baptisms and marriages for beachcomber families. One of Whippy’s daughters married a beachcomber named Christy in the chapel at Viwa in April 1845.55 And Whippy himself married Dorcas (Delewa), Tui Levuka’s daughter, in a ceremony conducted by one of the English Wesleyan Methodist missionaries.56 Despite the proliferation of chapel weddings among beachcombers, the greatest divide continued to be missionaries’ and beachcombers’ contrasting marital relations. The missionaries each brought one wife with them whereas the Levuka beachcombers lived in polygamous marriages with native women. Given Robert Coffin’s account of Whippy’s household in 1855—consisting of his wife Dorcas and two “serving women,” each of the latter with a young child—Whippy appears to have been one of the beachcombers who outwardly endorsed church-sanctified, monogamous marriages while maintaining a polygamous household. The Wesleyans indicted sham monogamy as common practice at Levuka: men “pretend to be married” to one wife; “the others they call servants; but all are treated alike.”57 Marrying one wife in a ceremony before a missionary while disguising surplus wives as household servants was one of many ways in which Levuka beachcombers tried to meld support for the lotu with the more freewheeling domestic life Fiji afforded them. By 1849, if not earlier, the papalagi’s native wives had put aside the customary liku and “dressed decently in long cotton garments,” as did other Fijians who had lotu’d. This shift in clothing signaled their transition to the new faith and new way of life (see figure 3.1), but it was neither fully Fijian nor fully papalagi.58

Figure 3.1. This 1849 drawing of a wife of a Levuka beachcomber is perhaps of Dorcas (Delewa) Whippy. John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific, Including the Feejees and Others Inhabited by the Polynesian Negro Races, in her Majesty’s Ship Havannah (London: John Murray, 1853), 217. Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society.

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In other ways, Levuka’s beachcombers did not subscribe to American and British gender ideals. They used the pretext of necessity to avow a patriarchal extreme. Wilkes, in his official report of the Ex Ex, stated that in Fiji “women are kept in great subjection” and on occasion tied up and flogged. He added, “Even the whites punish their native wives, which they say they are compelled to do, as without the discipline to which they are accustomed, they could not be managed.”59 Mary Wallis noticed that women showed some initiative under this patriarchal burden by running away, “a common practice by which the ladies of Feejee revenge themselves on their husbands.”60 An anecdote in Coffin’s memoir hints at Whippy’s acceptance of an extreme patriarchy that would have been unheard of on Nantucket. While living with the Whippy family, Coffin spent nearly all his time with Whippy’s sons Samuel and David Jr., who were close to Coffin in age and bilingual. One day, Samuel, in jest, queried Coffin as to which of the young women he thought the prettiest. Coffin innocently pointed out Elizabeth. Afterward I learned she was the wife of David Jr., and the rest teased her so much that David became insanely jealous, abusing her so that she ran away up in the mountain. David hunted for her several days. . . . In a few days Elizabeth came back. When I came in to dinner, David had her chained up to the centre post of the house. He came in just behind me, kicked her, and commenced upbraiding her. I interfered at once, telling him he ought to be ashamed of himself—what was the use of keeping her chained up?—she had come back of her own free will. Then I went out. When I came in again, she was free. He really became ashamed of his conduct, and we were ever after good friends.61

Where David Whippy Sr. was in the midst of this drama, Coffin did not say. Wives found some subversive relief and independence from their husbands through the lotu, though not always in a manner condoned by the missionaries. The papalagi complained to Hunt that their wives did not “attend to the domestic affairs” as they should. “They were in the habit of assembling together at night to chant the catechism,” afterward splintering into “private parties” and talking late into the evening. In addition, the wives attended the mission school “so late in the afternoon that the women had not time to prepare their husbands suppers.” Hunt sympathized mostly with the husbands and commiserated with them on their wives’ other flaws, particularly their propensity to gossip. But Hunt cast some blame on the husbands, who were

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“very inconsistent in their conduct, and who hinder them [the wives] a good deal in their religious course.”62 Whippy advocated a church and school at Levuka not so much to satisfy his own needs since there is no evidence that he was especially devout but in order to educate beachcombers’ native wives and the “half-caste” children, as they would come to be called. He wanted his own children to acquire knowledge of the world beyond Fiji. His eldest son, David Jr., the only child of Whippy’s to visit the United States, joined the crew of the Gambia in the care of Captain Benjamin Wallis and spent much of 1842 living with the Wallises in Beverly, Massachusetts, and attending school before returning to Fiji on the Gambia’s subsequent voyage.63 In Fiji, there were no schools except what the missionaries offered. John Hunt, who assumed the chairmanship of the Wesleyan Methodist Mission in Fiji after Cross’s death in 1842, tried to accommodate beachcombers’ wishes to see their children educated by inviting some of the boys, among them David Whippy Jr., to live at Viwa and receive instruction alongside native teachers. Hunt and the other Wesleyans saw great potential in the half-caste children as moral preceptors for other Fijians “if they are wisely trained,” an objective that beachcombers and missionaries shared.64 Levuka’s beachcombers hoped to see aspects of their own upbringings instituted in Fiji. They wanted the Wesleyans to establish a mission at Levuka and for their wives and children to receive an education and become Christian. They were not exactly paragons of civilization, however. They lived in polygamy, trafficked in women, and chained recalcitrant women up to prevent them from running away. Levuka, an unruly town heading toward civilized respectability largely through Whippy’s efforts, and the missionaries, who viewed themselves as bearing the burden of bringing civilization to Fiji, coexisted uneasily. They found common ground in their belief in the superiority of civilization and were all vulnerable to Fiji’s ruling powers, but their different reasons for being in Fiji and their contrasting lifestyles set them at odds. Five years after the founding of the Wesleyans’ Fiji mission, another landmark event of greater personal significance for Whippy took place in Fiji: the first large-scale naval expedition to the islands by any foreign power, the U.S. Exploring Expedition. The Ex Ex employed many beachcombers, but Wilkes singled out Whippy as critical to the expedition’s success. As apparent in Wilkes’s commendation of Whippy’s “excellent character,” Whippy’s amoral lifestyle paled next to the valuable services he performed for his country as ex-

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pedition interpreter, ethnographic informant, and diplomatic intermediary. For all Americans with interests in Fiji, the Ex Ex marked a turning point. By commissioning this expedition, the United States pronounced the Pacific a region vital to the American economy and made Fiji visible to a larger public as a site of American industry. While in Fiji, the Ex Ex devoted three months to a minute survey covering most of the archipelago, collected its largest number of artifacts, reached its emotional nadir in the deaths of Henry Underwood and Wilkes Henry, and committed its most deadly and notorious outbreak of violence in the retaliatory massacre at Malolo.65 The Ex Ex had origins in a long campaign led by an exploration enthusiast from Ohio, Jeremiah N. Reynolds. Losses to American lives and property in Fiji featured in arguments for the expedition. In an 1836 address to Congress laying out reasons to invest in such a massive venture, Reynolds cited the “massacre” of the Oeno crew and other incidents of violence, including a native attempt to take the whale ship Awashonks, which did not actually take place in Fiji but was initially reported to have occurred there. In a memorial accompanying Reynolds’s published address, Salem’s East India Marine Society endorsed Reynolds’s vision and singled out Fiji as an uncharted place “contributing no inconsiderable amount to our national revenue.” A lengthy list of American ships conducting business in Fiji highlighted the Fawn, Glide, and Niagara shipwrecks and massacres of seamen on the Oeno and Charles Doggett.66 Congress acceded to support the expedition, and two years after its departure from the United States, the Ex Ex entered the Fiji group. From early May to mid-August of 1840, the Ex Ex engaged in an ambitious survey covering most of the archipelago. Made up of the sloop of war Vincennes as flagship, sloop Peacock, brig Porpoise, schooner Flying Fish, and boats Bear, Elephant, Fox, Greyhound, Leopard, Lion, Lizard, Nightingale, Turtle, White Handkerchief, and two cutters, the Ex Ex made an impressive display of American military power while its officers, crew, and scientists tramped over land and sea collecting information and artifacts related to native customs, natural history, and navigational hazards.67 Whippy became immediately absorbed in the expedition’s mission. In an autobiography written near the end of his life, Wilkes recollected that Whippy “was of great use to me. . . . I found him at all times reliable.”68 One of Wilkes’s first agenda items was to climb the interior of Ovalau to measure the altitude of one of its highest peaks to use as a reference point in the survey. The day after the expedition flagship anchored off Levuka, Whippy led the surveying crew up the mountain. He later went with Wilkes

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and a smaller surveying party to another high point on Ovalau. Since this was to a part of the island outside of Tui Levuka’s domains, Whippy did so reluctantly. When some of the locals began collecting around them, Whippy “ordered them to go beyond club distance,” and when he had brought Wilkes safely back to the beach, Whippy expressed relief and surprise, for “he never expected to get to the boat without killing some of those rascals.” Even though Wilkes’s sense of danger during this excursion seems exaggerated, it helps explain why he became so fond of Whippy: “Whippy’s great care was to get me out of the reach of accident.”69 Whippy negotiated with Tui Levuka for a landsite near the beach where the Ex Ex established a small tent city, observatory station, and garden. In late June, another land deal was made at the instigation of Levuka’s papalagi who wanted “a mission-school for their children.” The Vincennes purser, Richard Waldron, bought a parcel of land from Tui Levuka and presented it to the Wesleyan Methodist missionaries, who in turn promised to staff the chapel and school to be built on the site, so that “the white men might enjoy their own religion, or lotu.”70 With a team led by Lieutenant Underwood, Whippy visited several islands in various states of vassalage to Bau: Gau, Nairai, and Batiki. Here is where the official report makes the most of his Mata ki Bau title, as though it were a talisman enabling Whippy to acquire provisions and “hold proper authority over the natives.” At Batiki, Whippy received “taro and yams in plenty” but could not convince the islanders to give up pigs reserved for the vunivalu of Bau. At Nairai, Whippy, “acting as the ‘Maticum Ambau,’” “obtained . . . all kinds of provisions” and spent the night “superintending the cooking.” At Gau, Whippy had to chase these “much more shy” islanders into the woods “before he could make them understand that he was the great Maticum Ambau of whom they had heard so much.”71 Whippy was later on board the Vincennes, with pilot Tom Granby, when an expedition boat grounded on a reef in Solevu Bay, and 150 to 200 islanders gathered threateningly around it. As was customary in Fiji for shipwrecked vessels, the people living along the bay claimed it as salvage. Wilkes sent Whippy and Granby “to hold a parley, and to state to the natives, that if they restored the boat and every thing belonging to her, I would, for this time, forgive them.” The islanders returned the boat but nothing else, and so Wilkes “determined to make an example of these natives.” A landing party burned sixty buildings and a large canoe in one town and fifteen to twenty buildings in another. “Fortunately,” the head of the expedition, William Hudson, afterward remarked, no natives were killed in the action, yet he anticipated that

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so “prompt and salutary a lesson on these savages—will no doubt operate beneficially throughout the Group.”72 Within the month, the Ex Ex exacted its more notorious and deadly retribution at Malolo. Whippy was not directly a party to it, for he was helping the Vincennes survey northern Vanua Levu while others, including Wilkes, surveyed the islands west of Viti Levu. At the latter place, Wilkes’s nephew, Wilkes Henry, and Lieutenant Underwood, died in an impromptu shoreside melee. Distraught and overcome with the loss of young Henry in particular, Wilkes ordered the raid on Malolo. Roundly defeated, the islanders sent a woman to make peace and return Underwood’s and Henry’s belongings, but Wilkes insisted that the Malolo Islanders had to “beg pardon and sue for mercy . . . according to their own mode.” So on the following day, the surviving villagers approached the prearranged meeting place. Forty men crawled toward Wilkes on their hands and knees, “occasionally stopping to utter piteous moans and wailings . . . their leader, in the most piteous manner, begged pardon, supplicating forgiveness, and pledging that they would never do the like again to a white man. He said, that they acknowledged themselves conquered, and that the island belonged to us; that they were our slaves, and would do whatever I desired.” Wilkes instructed them to return the next day to fill his vessels with water and provisions since it was “according to their customs, that the conquered should do work for the victors.”73 News of the U.S. assault on Malolo spread through the Fiji group, and when the expedition departed in August, many Fijians, anxious at the prospect that “theirs would be the next Town to share the same fate,” were happy to see them go.74 Wilkes’s personal loss loomed large in his vindictiveness, but he defended his actions as retaliation for all “the wanton murders that have been committed on the whites in this group of islands, merely to gratify the desire of plunder or the horrid appetite for cannibal repasts.”75 Beachcombers on Ovalau endorsed “the punishment inflicted on the people of Malolo, saying that it was well merited” and would act as a preventative against “any similar outrage in future.”76 A letter Wilkes received from Whippy after the expedition’s return to the United States confirmed the efficacy of the Ex Ex’s actions by stating that vessels trading at Malolo found the natives there “very friendly and civil.”77 About ten years later, David Whippy Jr. told an American traveler to Fiji that he remembered the Ex Ex’s visit and how Wilkes’s “prompt and decided punishment” had made the islands safer for “foreigners.”78 Whippy’s visibility as front man for much of the expedition’s negotiations with Fijians made tangible his allegiances to other foreigners, especially

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other Americans. As Wilkes gained access to the Ovalau interior and to land at Levuka for a garden and observatory, Whippy voiced whatever Wilkes wanted. When Wilkes asked Tanoa to mark his consent on the regulations aimed at protecting American commerce, Whippy was the interpreter. At Solevu Bay, Whippy mediated the conflict right before the Ex Ex made its punitive raid. And even though Whippy was not at Malolo personally, he and his fellow beachcombers were beneficiaries of the awe and fear that descended on the archipelago afterward. In all his dealings with Fijians, Wilkes “took care through our interpreter Whippy and others to impress upon them [natives] that whenever they did a service for the Whites or Strangers they were sure to be rewarded sooner or later and if treacherous or inflicted any injury they would certainly suffer.”79 The Ex Ex did more than right past wrongs to American shipping in the islands; its salutary lessons intended to pave a more secure future there for American traders and residents. As Wilkes prepared to leave Fiji in early August, he paid off his papalagi pilots and interpreters, praising them for “their respectability and good conduct.”80 Earlier Wilkes had appointed Whippy “Acting Consul to watch over our interest and [gave him] an American flag to hoist over his dwelling.”81 Wilkes never questioned Whippy’s eligibility for such a position. Whereas a man living openly in polygamy as patriarch of a large, mixed-race family within the United States might have been a tough sell as a reputable appointee for public office, Whippy’s unorthodox domestic situation was not a liability for someone representing the United States in Fiji. Several years after the Ex Ex’s visit, when John B. Williams of Salem received a more official consular appointment for the Fiji Islands, Wilkes sent U.S. Secretary of State John C. Calhoun a letter vouching for “David Whippy’s character” and nominating him as “a very suitable person for the situation of Vice Consul.” Since this part of Fiji history is as much Williams’s story as it is Whippy’s, I will say more about it later and mention here only that Wilkes had his way. Williams followed up on “the request of the President” and made Whippy his vice consul.82 Wilkes’s initial appointment of Whippy as acting consul did not leave much of a mark in the historical record, but with Williams’s arrival in the islands, Whippy became more visible and active as a U.S. consular agent. The Ex Ex’s Fiji sojourn counted as a major event in the islands’ history in several ways. The detailed descriptions of Fijian culture publicized in Wilkes’s official report in 1844 and in a host of books written by members of the expedition’s scientific corps, junior officers, and ordinary seamen became the window through which the rest of the world envisioned Fijian people.

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Wilkes’s charts, much admired for their accuracy, came to be regarded as fixtures in shipboard libraries.83 On a personal level, the Ex Ex was also a turning point for Whippy. He appeared almost a hero in his service to the expedition, and the commendations showered on Whippy for his contributions to the expedition’s achievements added to his reputation as the man on the ground who had the integrity and know-how to advance American commerce and interests in the Fiji Islands. The Ex Ex’s display of American military might have had other, deeper ramifications for Whippy’s life in Fiji. It emboldened him to embark on a long contest for independence from Bau, motivated in part by animosity toward the political ascendancy of Cakobau. In November 1839, before the transformative visit of the Ex Ex, missionary Thomas Jaggar reported that “the white men of Ovalau” had taken part in Cakobau’s military campaign against Verata. This indicates that Levuka’s papalagi at that time still accepted their obligation to serve the Bau matanitu as soldiers.84 But while the Ex Ex lay at anchor off Levuka a few months later, the beachcombers expressed much frustration at their dependent status. They complained to Ex Ex personnel about how Cakobau was “exceedingly haughty and overbearing towards the natives” and wont to “plunder the lower order of chiefs of their whales’ teeth, muskets, knives, or anything else they have in their possession, which he fancies.”85 They boasted that their own “influence here is paramount . . . from the arms they possess.”86 And they claimed that their presence at Levuka had brought an “increase of wealth and power” to the town, which was a source of “uneasiness” at Bau. They believed that the Bau leadership was plotting against them with the aim of “weakening the strength of their too powerful subject.”87 Clearly, Levuka’s beachcombers thought Cakobau underestimated both their value and their power. Yet they confided their seditious murmurings to members of the Ex Ex, not openly before Cakobau. Cakobau did indeed seem concerned about the papalagi factor in the region’s power dynamics, made even more palpable by the Ex Ex’s preference for Levuka as its headquarters. In a conversation Wilkes recorded, Cakobau asked him, “‘Why I had not gone with my ship to Ambau? why come to Levuka, where there were no gentlemen [turaga], none but common people (kai-si)? all the gentlemen lived at Ambau.’”88 After the Ex Ex left the group, seething bitterness erupted into more open conflict. Whippy wrote Wilkes a letter describing what happened. War had broken out between Bau and Cakaudrove, and Cakobau enlisted the

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papalagi to join his troops in an assault on Somosomo. The beachcombers begged off saying that they had to stay home to safeguard their property. This greatly “affronted” Cakobau. To make matters worse, Cakobau’s expeditionary force returned from Somosomo defeated. Anticipating that war with Bau would result from their recusal, the people of Levuka strengthened their fortifications, but surprisingly Cakobau chose to ignore their insubordination. All acted as though the bond between Bau and Levuka remained firm. Then, nine women living with the papalagi at Levuka ran away to the mountainous Ovalau interior to reside among the Lovoni people. Levuka appealed to Bau for assistance in negotiating, or forcing, the women’s return. Cakobau sent a whale’s tooth to the Lovoni requesting the women’s release. When the Lovoni refused to give up the women, Cakobau told the people of Levuka that he would help them make war on the Lovoni. But secretly, Cakobau’s messenger had told the Lovoni to keep the women, “an act of duplicity which the whites accounted for by their refusal to join him against Somu-somu.”89 Circumstances worsened for the Levuka beachcombers over the following year as Cakobau made demands on them “for their property.” They gave in to his demands, yet he continued to threaten them. “To please him they find to be impossible,” Whippy wrote Wilkes, with the ominous prediction that “if his reign be not shortened, their lives will be.” Then, in July 1841, Levuka burned to the ground. Whippy’s home and possessions, including his books and papers, perished in the fire. They suspected Cakobau had ordered the conflagration. Such surreptitious acts of arson were, in Jaggar’s words, “the Feejeean way of revenging an enemy.” There was little else to do but rebuild.90 The Levuka papalagi’s strained relationship with Bau reached its breaking point during the Bau-Rewa War, which Cakobau launched in 1843. Given the costs incurred from their prior refusal to send fighting men, they may have sent some of their own to join Cakobau’s army when in January 1844 “all the people of Ovalau belonging to Bau that bear arms are sent for.”91 Events came to a head six months later when the Rewa-allied beachcomber Charles Pickering wrecked his trading schooner near Lakeba. Cakobau saw the accident as an opportunity to capture Pickering and dispatched an envoy to Lakeba to take him prisoner. But in the meantime, some Levuka papalagi trading near Lakeba rescued Pickering in exchange for his stock of turtle shell and returned him to Rewa. Enraged, Cakobau sent word to Tui Levuka to send the papalagi away immediately. Tui Levuka agreed to do as Cakobau asked. Whippy came to Bau with a whale’s tooth and soro’d (begged

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forgiveness). Cakobau remained adamant. The next day, Cakobau went to Viwa to ask Hunt “to write to the white men to go away from Levuka and to tell them they might go to Lakemba, Somosomo, Bua, Mathuata or any other place connected with Bau.” The papalagi immediately packed up all their possessions and moved across the Koro Sea into Bua territory, to Solevu Bay on the southern shores of Vanua Levu, near the towns the Ex Ex had ravaged four years before. Whippy suffered considerable loss at this removal. They had only three boats in which to transport thirty papalagi with their wives, children, and belongings, and Whippy and his boatbuilding partners had to abandon a large vessel under construction.92 Solevu proved a poor choice in the end. On a visit there in May 1845, Hunt described it as being in a “pleasant situation.” But the papalagi town, Nawaido, was not as “well-built” as it looked, and in rainy weather, everything was damp. Whippy and company had resumed building boats, “which shows that they are industrious.”93 However, the five years spent at Solevu were the lowest in Whippy’s life. It was not a convenient port of call for foreign ships. More distressingly, the place was unhealthy, and many died. Whippy himself barely survived a severe bout of dysentery in October 1845.94 In leaving Levuka, Whippy and his associates conceded to Cakobau’s authority, but the harsh punishment only deepened their resentment. It also fueled beachcomber and missionary antagonism since the Wesleyans had latched onto Cakobau as the pivot by which they hoped to bring all of Fiji to lotu. While the missionaries did everything they could to support Cakobau’s preeminence and gained influence by it, the beachcombers had suffered a political defeat that straitened their ability to act as middlemen in Fiji’s foreign trade and weakened their health and morale.95 Even though Whippy’s anti-Cakobau stance conflicted with missionary objectives, his beneficence continued to impress them. In the Wesleyans’ hagiographic “autobiography” of the Tongan Joel Bulu, a dedicated teacher in the Fiji mission, Whippy appears in a familiar role as a man providing crucial aid in times of need. While living at Solevu, near where Bulu was then stationed, Whippy twice rendered assistance without expecting compensation. When Bulu’s flock of Christian Fijians anticipated a raid from an anti-Christian turaga levu, Whippy first offered Bulu guns and gunpowder so that Bulu could arm his people. Preferring pacifism, Bulu rejected the offer of weapons. The conflict escalated, and Whippy himself arrived, “leading the white men and the half-castes, all with their guns, and the bayonets fixed. ‘Here we are, Joel,’ he said; ‘we have come to look after you.’” On another occasion, when Bulu had to inform the mission doctor Richard Lyth that

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Calvert had a bad case of dysentery, “Whippy sent me to Viwa in his own schooner with his own men, and brought me back again, never asking so much as a yam for payment.” The autobiography sums up Whippy’s character: “A kind man was this Mr. Whippy, just and upright in all his dealings, and always ready to help forward the good work.”96 In 1849, Cakobau permitted the exiles at Solevu to return home to Levuka. Everyone understood the politics behind Cakobau’s concession. As trading intermediaries, the beachcombers had helped channel property into the Fiji group, and Cakobau hoped that their reinstatement at Levuka would enliven the bêche-de-mer trade, which he relied on for supplies to conduct his military campaigns.97 British beachcomber William Diaper saw Cakobau’s stores of foreign armament in the late 1840s and described what it consisted of. His stock was then at a low point. He had only forty to fifty pigs of lead, two hundred kegs of gunpowder, and a few muskets. He had recently had in possession five thousand muskets but had distributed them to his people. Diaper was in awe of the large stash, but Cakobau worried it was not enough. He handed Diaper keys to twenty chests holding, among other war materiel, several American-made bullet-molds and asked Diaper to start running bullets. When Diaper asked how he had acquired all of this, Cakobau “said he considered himself very badly off, and wished some biche-de-mer vessels would soon come, so that he could make up his standing quantity of powder, which, he said, was six hundred kegs, with pigs of lead in proportion.”98 Cakobau’s plan to reengage the beachcombers as useful allies in foreign trade fizzled as their resentment festered. After resettling at Levuka, they refused to live peaceably under Bau thralldom. Instead of endeavoring to maximize Bau’s trading opportunities, they increasingly followed their own path. According to some accounts, they now controlled foreign trade and were growing in population, with fifty papalagi resident on Ovalau in 1852. Tanoa’s death in December 1852 and Cakobau’s formal installation as vunivalu in his father’s place in July the following year did not make the beachcombers any more inclined to defer to Cakobau as their ruler.99 A major fallout occurred within weeks of Cakobau’s succession as titular ruler of Bau. Fijians plundered The Wave, a trading cutter operating out of Levuka. This incident happened near Malaki, a town subject to Viwa. Instead of bringing the matter to Bau or Viwa for resolution, Levuka’s papalagi, with Tui Levuka and some other native men in company, took their own revenge. They attacked Malaki, killing fourteen of its people and capturing thirteen

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women as war booty. When Levuka fell victim to arson yet again in September 1853, with Whippy’s house among those destroyed, the beachcombers accused a Wesleyan lay preacher of setting fire to the town on Cakobau’s orders.100 The violent back-and-forth between Bau and Levuka resulted in what Calvert termed Levuka’s “declaration of independence” as the entire island of Ovalau “was severed from Mbau and Viwa.” The charges of wrongdoing directed at a Wesleyan teacher deepened the political rift between the missionaries and Cakobau on one side and the beachcombers and Tui Levuka on the other. The missionaries were especially disappointed with Whippy. To their surprise and consternation, he joined others in plotting Cakobau’s assassination. The “American Vice-Consul . . . a man highly respected, and exercising the greatest influence among the whites, and even the natives” had told Calvert, “it is only the death of one man, and all will be right in Fiji.”101 Independence meant that Whippy and his fellow papalagi established themselves as free agents, one among many political constituencies competing for precedence in the islands. Independence did not bring security, however. In July 1858, Levuka burned yet again in another politically motivated conflagration. Later British Land Claims Commission investigations into Whippy family landholdings on Ovalau captured the instability of Whippy’s circumstances in a passing reference to “the numerous fires which so often used to destroy the houses of Mr. Whippy.” According to Samuel Whippy, after this fire, his father constructed a wood-framed house across the stream from the native village. Previously, the family had always lived in Fijian-style houses within the village.102 Stylistically and in its geographic siting, this domicile symbolized Whippy’s transition from beachcomber to settler. The removal of Whippy’s house away from the native village of Levuka toward Totoga placed it amid the larger, rapidly expanding papalagi town that would come to be known as Levuka. This Levuka was dominated by and associated with its foreign population. A native village, under the authority of Tui Levuka, survives up to the present, but “Levuka” in accounts of Fiji’s history refers to the frontier town of rough-hewn, wooden bungalows that sprung up outside it. The proliferation of new construction adopted an architectural style popularized by British colonialism in Australia. These colonial-style bungalows marked the next wave of foreign economic enterprise in Fiji as Levuka became the commercial center and depot for the influx of aspiring planters entering the archipelago in the 1860s and 1870s.103

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Whippy would be remembered as the man originally responsible for setting Levuka on course to become the entrepôt for foreigners during the early planter era and in 1874 the capital of the British colony. However, he chose to leave Levuka after the 1858 fire. He handed the Levuka property over to the care of his son Samuel and left for the island of Wakaya with his partner William Simpson, a few other beachcombers, and their families. There, in partnership with the American trader Isaac M. Brower, Whippy began experimenting with sugar. His 1862 attempt to process sugar was the first such effort in the islands.104 Whippy also became a landholder. In October 1860, he and his son David purchased a nine-thousand-acre tract called Yadali from Tui Wainunu for an estimated $398 in gunpowder, muskets, pig lead, cloth, and iron pots. They moved there two years later. Located on Vanua Levu, near Solevu where the Whippys had lived in the late-1840s, Yadali became home to “a large colony of halfcastes.” On this property, the family built a wood-framed house with a large verandah. They engaged in shipbuilding as before and cut timber, operated a sawmill, planted cotton, raised cattle, and harvested coconuts for oil.105 Whippy retreated from the islands’ political affairs until 1869 when he briefly served aboard a court of arbitration held on the U.S. warship Jamestown.106 He died at Yadali in 1871. An obituary published in the Fiji Times—founded at Levuka two years earlier and the islands’ first newspaper—eulogized him as the “oldest settler, a man who for his good qualities was held in high esteem by both the natives and residents of Fiji.”107 Over the course of his long life in Fiji, Whippy was instrumental at helping beachcombers, traders, missionaries, and navy personnel gain access to the islands’ resources and people. By forging bonds with other self-styled civilized people, he made himself an agent for American expansion and foreign expansion more generally. At the same time, he achieved a unique kind of social advancement. Point man for a host of foreign initiatives, he built up a reputation as Fiji’s most respected foreign resident. Although many foreigners in Fiji cited Whippy’s deep familiarity with vakaviti as a useful attribute, his good character proved to be of even greater value to foreign interests. As he directed his virtuous traits toward the assistance and protection of other foreigners, his relationships with Fijians deteriorated. The growth and eventual independence of the foreign enclave at Levuka made the patronage of powerful Fijians less necessary. It was this community of foreign men, native wives, and half-caste children that appears to have been Whippy’s highest priority. Cultivating connections to traders, missionaries, and the Ex

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Ex enabled his hybridized domestic lifestyle. And the good will he generated with outsiders offered him an alternative route to secure his place in the islands. Traders supplied him with muskets and whales’ teeth for bartering with Fijians. The English missionaries provided his children with an education. And the Ex Ex, most importantly, advertised Whippy’s belonging to a well-armed, quick-triggered military power. Although Whippy died three years before British colonization, his actions indirectly had a hand in bringing that about. Despite his antagonism toward Cakobau and the Wesleyans’ support of Cakobau’s reign, Whippy sanctioned the English missionaries’ larger objective to bring Christianity to the islands. He helped empower them. He also made Levuka a haven for foreigners. Even though he left Levuka before the influx of planters developed that town into a political and commercial hub, he had set Levuka on that path by soliciting other beachcombers to join him there. His resettlement on Vanua Levu did not signal a rejection of the changes in Fiji that he had witnessed and participated in. His land purchase and sugar experiments show instead that he was keeping pace with the next phase of foreign economic activity. He may have withdrawn from politics, but he continued to identify foremost with Fiji’s papalagi minority.

Chapter 4

By a Lady Moral Authority

Why Mary D. Wallis accompanied her husband Benjamin to Fiji in 1844 is a bit of a mystery. The book she published after two voyages to the islands, Life in Feejee: Five Years Among the Cannibals, by a Lady, never gives a reason. Since Captain Wallis was the only American trader who brought his wife to Fiji, her choice was an unusual one. His fellow traders disapproved of it. One of them who heard of it remarked, “‘When I bring a wife to Feejee, she shall be blind and dumb.’”1 Although several European women were then living in Fiji as wives of missionaries, even their husbands thought it “terrible for a lady to come here.”2 Wallis might have had multiple motivations. Maybe she was lonely without her husband. More than half of their married life had been spent apart while he was away at sea.3 Or perhaps it made sense financially, especially since they had no home of their own or children for her to oversee during his absence.4 From the style of Wallis’s writing, the most logical explanation is that she just wanted to see Fiji for herself and have adventures that antebellum American women typically could only glean secondhand from male relations. If that was indeed her rationale, no wonder she did not admit it to her readers. A woman seeking to be respected by her peers could hardly declare herself a thrill seeker. In Mary Wallis’s world, women

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had few avenues to gain others’ respect. About the most they could hope for was respectability, a devil’s bargain in which women accepted restrictions on their public comportment in return for respectability. To mingle with cannibals yet still declare oneself a “lady” was an oxymoron and a situation that put Wallis’s respectability at risk. As a writer and as a character in her book, Wallis successfully maneuvered between the outlandishness of an American woman in Fiji and the respectability she claimed with the tagline “by a lady.” She pushed at the boundaries of antebellum Americans’ expectations for a woman of her race and class and deployed her encounters with Fijians to lodge a subversive critique against the gendered order of her own society.5 She represented herself as a lady but did not write like one. With wit, irony, and sarcasm, she appropriated men’s stories of Fijian history and politics and claimed the authority to speak because she had seen cannibal Fiji firsthand. Particularly fascinated by Fiji’s warring turaga levu, Wallis documented their ambitions, foibles, and rivalries with detail, accuracy, and insight. Instead of avowing a woman-centered moral reform ideology in keeping with how women’s charitable and reform associations justified their activism, Wallis identified with powerful men and claimed their entitlements to moral authority and public space for herself.6 She simultaneously ridiculed the social strictures hindering women’s mobility and independence. She did so without damaging her respectability. Fiji—or rather Americans’ conceptions of Fiji as beyond the pale of civilization—made this possible. Talking back to cannibal kings afforded her a moral high ground from which to assume superiority over one class of men and broach the prospect of equality with another class of men closer to home. On its surface, Life in Feejee is formulaic in its awe for sublime scenery, lurid fantasies of cannibal feasting, and hopes for Christian redemption in the style of Reverend James Watkin’s famous refrain, “Pity, O pity, cannibal Fiji!”7 On a deeper level, Wallis’s book endures as one of the most highly regarded sources for nineteenth-century Fiji history.8 Since Life in Feejee had origins in Wallis’s private journals, presumably she initially wrote with only herself and intimate acquaintances as audience. However, as a published book, Life in Feejee became useful to others—people in her own time and historians, who would later appreciate her careful recordkeeping of events and personages. For her contemporaries, Life in Feejee’s advocacy of the missionary cause sounded a call to arms for changing Fijian culture through foreign intervention. Part of a vast genre of missionary reform literature circulating in the antebellum United States, the book was one of many to divide the

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world into halves, with civilized readers on one side and savage heathens on the other. That was the book’s palpable intent. More profoundly, the example Wallis set of a bold and knowing woman conducting a kind of personal conquest in Fiji offered readers an entry point into questioning and reframing their own society’s rules surrounding gendered propriety. Wallis was not a professional writer and, so far as is known, never published anything except Life in Feejee. Born Mary Davis Cook, she married Benjamin Wallis Jr. in 1825. She was twenty. He was twenty-three. The couple had deep roots in Beverly, Massachusetts, a small coastal town immediately to the north of Salem. Both came from working-class families of modest means whose men made their living on the sea.9 Wallis also worked, as a mantuamaker, the most prestigious of the needlework trades.10 However, fine watercolor miniatures painted of Benjamin and Mary in Paris (see figures 4.1 and 4.2), where they went as newlyweds, hint at an extravagance beyond their humble origins and an aspiration to supersede their parents in social class and gentility. Benjamin’s success in Fiji’s bêche-de-mer trade helped them achieve a higher socioeconomic status. Since the age of fifteen, he had sailed on Salem merchant vessels and by the early 1840s had risen to captain. He made seven voyages to Fiji. His first took place three years after his marriage to Mary, when he served as second mate on the brig Quill. He returned to Fiji in 1835 as first mate on the Edwin, then made two voyages in the early 1840s in command of the Gambia, followed by the three voyages with his wife, two on the Zotoff and his last ever, on the Maid of Orleans. He retired from the sea in 1853.11 The income Captain Wallis earned in the Fiji trade provided the couple with a good living. By the early 1850s, his property holdings put him high on the list of Beverly taxpayers, though still well below that of the town’s wealthiest individuals.12 Upon his return from Fiji in 1853, he invested a thousand dollars in a large multifamily dwelling on the corner of Stone and Bartlett streets in Beverly village, in which he and Mary lived, with room for two other families, apparently renters.13 The 1860 federal census enumerator gave the value of Wallis’s real and personal property as ten thousand dollars and his occupation as “Gentleman,” a fitting occupation for the spouse of a “Lady.”14 Except for the presence of his wife, Captain Wallis’s last three voyages were routine trips after bêche-de-mer. In July 1844, they left Salem on the Zotoff, owned by S. Chamberlain and Company, also known as Wests and Chamberlain, the same employer Captain Wallis had on the Gambia.15 Mary kept a journal, though seasickness and boredom kept her from writing. After four

Figure 4.1 and 4.2. These French miniatures of the Wallises were painted shortly after their marriage in 1825. Captain Benjamin Wallis, Jr., and Mrs. Benjamin Wallis, Jr. Paper, watercolor, gouache, pencil, 8 1/4 × 7 1/4 inches, Museum purchases, 1977, M17119 and M17120. Peabody Essex Museum.

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months, at the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, she took up her pen in earnest. Entering the Fiji group a few weeks later, the Zotoff stopped first at Ovalau, where the Wallises learned that the Levuka papalagi had been forced into exile at Solevu. Off Levuka, several Fijians boarded the Zotoff from canoes alongside, giving Wallis her first glimpse of the people about whom she would write at length over the next few years. From the start, she positioned herself as an ethnographic observer of an exotic people. “They are nearly in a state of nudity,” she noted, musing over their dark skin and bizarre hairstyles.16 The Zotoff quickly proceeded to Bau so that Captain Wallis could negotiate with Cakobau for laborers to take to the rich bêche-de-mer reefs off Macuata. A large and powerful matanitu on northern Vanua Levu said to consist of one hundred towns, Macuata had recently become subject to Bau.17 After some wrangling over terms, the two men came to an agreement. Concerned about the safety of his wife in Macuata, Captain Wallis arranged for Mary to board with the family of the chairman of the Wesleyan Methodists’ Fiji mission, John Hunt, on the island of Viwa. After four months in the missionary compound, Wallis returned to live on the Zotoff for another nine months while her husband and his crew tended to the string of bêche-de-mer houses they had contracted for at Macuata. The Zotoff carried one load of bêche-demer to Manila, then sailed back to Fiji for another cargo, this time harvesting off the Ba coast on northern Viti Levu. Though situated on the opposite side of Viti Levu from Bau, Ba fell within Bau-controlled territory for it was subject to Bau’s close ally, Viwa.18 Wallis again visited with the missionaries at Viwa for a spell but spent most of this leg of the voyage on the Zotoff. Fourteen months later, the Zotoff took its second load of bêche-de-mer to Manila. Peele, Hubbell, and Company, a firm with Salem connections, brokered the sale of the Zotoff’s two cargos to Chinese merchants and put the Wallises up in grand style at their establishment. For the homeward passage, the Zotoff took aboard such Philippine products as plantain bark, sugar, sappan wood, and hemp cloth. The Wallises arrived home by way of St. Helena in June 1848.19 After a brief four-month respite in Beverly, the Wallises left again for Fiji on the Zotoff, following the same circuit but taking only one cargo of bêche-de-mer from Fiji. Hunt had died in the meantime, and so Wallis’s closest friends among the missionaries now became the Thomas Williams family stationed at Bua Bay, near the reefs off northern Vanua Levu and Viti Levu, which Captain Wallis’s bêche-de-mer enterprise targeted. This was such a profitable voyage, Captain Wallis told Williams on parting that he expected it to be his last. After again unloading its bêche-de-mer in Manila, the Zotoff arrived back in Salem in 1850.20 At home for another short stint of ten months, Wallis had just enough time to see the journals she had written during the Zotoff’s two voyages published

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when Chamberlain and Company asked her husband to leave for Fiji again. The captain of their bark Pilot had become ill while en route to the islands. First mate Thomas C. Dunn replaced him but suggested to his employers that Captain Wallis be sent out soon as his guidance would be helpful.21 Wallis packed up printed copies of Life in Feejee to take with her, and she and her husband left in May 1851 on the Maid of Orleans. Wallis kept up with her journal writing but did not publish again. David Routledge edited the Maid of Orleans journal for publication in 1994.22 When the Maid of Orleans arrived in Fiji, Captain Wallis began operations at Ba and Macuata as before but after a few months tried new fishing grounds at New Caledonia, an island group west of Fiji with plenty of reefs ripe for exploitation. He took several dozen Fijian laborers along and dropped them back in Fiji four months later. During Wallis’s final weeks in Fiji, the Maid of Orleans anchored off Levuka, since 1849 once again home to the majority of Fiji’s papalagi population. The Maid of Orleans then sailed for Manila, St. Helena, and home. This time, when Wallis wrote in her journal “Farewell to foreign climes and savage lands,” she meant it (see figure 4.3).23

Figure 4.3. In Fiji while in her mid- to late-40s, Wallis appears older than that in this picture of her. Mary Wallis Photograph 9 1/2 × 7 1/2 inches, M17121, Museum purchase, 1977, Peabody Essex Museum.

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The original manuscript of Life in Feejee has not survived, but the book reads much like Wallis’s journal on the Maid of Orleans, suggesting that she made few alterations before it went to press beyond adding a preface and introduction. Moreover, she did not have much time to edit the journals. She returned to Beverly in July 1850 and submitted the manuscript to her publisher in November.24 If Wallis had written her journals with the intent to publish, she might have infused them with a style more in keeping with her pronouncement that the book was written “by a Lady.” Her preface and introduction make the most vehement claims to a refined femininity, while the rest of Life in Feejee, the actual journal entries, depicts a woman emboldened to speak her mind. In Life in Feejee, Wallis shows herself fully aware of the social prohibitions regulating antebellum American women as travelers and as writers. Both roles entailed entering public spaces that could endanger a woman’s reputation. Travel in foreign places especially bedeviled women’s best efforts to stay within the bounds of proper womanhood because outside their home communities the rules were not only different, they were opaque. On a trip to Cuba in the early 1830s, the Bostonian Mary Gardner Lowell, to her great embarrassment, learned too late that “none but women of the lowest and most profligate character” went about in hired hacks. From then on, she vowed to ride in them only if attended by her husband.25 Female relatives of American men employed in the China trade similarly suffered the consequences of not being “circumspect.” The foreign merchant communities in Macao and Manila roiled with gossip, slander, and sex scandals. The stakes were highest for young single women. Harriet Low and Mary Ann Southwick found themselves frenetically courted by unmarried merchants and then humiliated by the taint of impropriety implied by these men’s attentions.26 The all-male setting of ships at sea also put the lone captain’s wife in awkward situations, exposing her to the constant inspection and brutal criticism of the crew. Whalemen on the Rebecca Sims in 1853, for instance, went so far as to concoct a rumor that their captain’s wife was “fast, and that the Captain brought her along to save her character and his purse.”27 Even missionary wives had their respectability questioned. Evangelical publications extolled them for broadening their nurturing instincts to include the heathen. But some writers, most notoriously Herman Melville in Typee in 1846, caricatured the New England women belonging to the Honolulu-based Sandwich Islands Mission as harridans and hypocrites. One “robust, red-faced, and very lady-like personage” drove around town

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Figure 4.4. This “Street View at Honolulu” may have inspired Melville’s caricature of missionary wives in Typee. Original by A. T. Agate in Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, During the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, 5 vols. plus atlas (Philadelphia: C. Sherman, 1844), 3: 415. Courtesy of Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut Library.

in a cart pulled by naked Hawaiian men, yelling at them to make them pull harder (see figure 4.4).28 Foreign settings allowed women to do the unthinkable but at the same time provided fodder for recrimination and ridicule. By making public her travel diaries, Wallis had to tread carefully. Even though women of her generation were publishing more than ever before, print culture still belonged to men. In subject matter, Life in Feejee was the kind of book a woman could get away with. It fit within two literary genres that featured women: travel and reform. Topically, Life in Feejee’s closest predecessor was Abby Jane Morrell’s Narrative of a Voyage to the Ethiopic and South Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Chinese Sea, North and South Pacific Ocean; in the Years 1829, 1830, 1831. Harper Brothers published it in 1833, a year after the similarly titled memoir of Abby’s husband, Captain Benjamin Morrell.29 The books attracted a large readership even though their ghost writers—Samuel Woodworth for Benjamin and Samuel L. Knapp for Abby Jane—did a poor job of it. The narratives are painfully obtuse and jumbled, so much so that many readers have been misled into thinking that the native assault on the schooner Antarctic at “Massacre Island” took place in Fiji. Captain Morrell had aimed for Fiji to collect bêche-de-mer when he left Manila in 1830 but only managed to reach Papua New Guinea.30

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Woodworth and Knapp adhered to gendered scripts. Benjamin comes off as a daring and ingenious seafarer and commander while Abby Jane’s memoir works to overcome the problem posed by an adventure story written by a woman (even though it was in actuality written by a man). “To my countrywomen” on the dedication page projects other women as her audience. The opening line of chapter 1 anticipates readers rejecting her for her presumption: “Perhaps I owe the public an apology for appearing before them as author.” And the preface claims “philanthropic sympathy” and “the amelioration of the condition of American seamen” as her motivation in writing. Some might think it “strange that a woman should take up a subject so foreign to those which generally occupy the attention of her sex,” she acknowledges, but she hopes that “the public” will allow her the same tolerance as “a pet child,” whose ideas can be listened to and, if thought foolish, ignored.31 Wallis would never have suggested to readers that they disregard her views as childish, but in other ways she conformed to the same pressures pervading Abby Morrell’s travel account. To add weight to her book’s moral purpose, Wallis contextualized it within the genre of philanthropic reform literature. Even though Wallis belonged to the Home Seamen’s Friend Society, which in Beverly began in 1833 as the Baptist Seamen’s Friend Society, Wallis did not pitch sailor reformation as her cause, probably because she did not care much for sailors. Life in Feejee portrays the seamen on the Zotoff as dissolute vagabonds unworthy of moral redemption.32 Wallis chose heathen cannibals for her underclass. In her preface, Wallis hopes that readers will find Life in Feejee “both entertaining and useful [as] the means of exciting deeper feelings of philanthropy, and of awakening a livelier interest in Christian missions, which aim at the enlightenment and elevation of the benighted and degraded of our race.”33 The book goes on to glorify Fiji’s English missionaries as tireless and selfless, reflecting the same perspective as the voluminous literature produced by the nineteenth-century Protestant foreign missionary movement. Working to bring the heathen to civilization and Christianity was a socially acceptable cause for antebellum New England women. Wallis would have been steeped in the rhetoric of foreign missions since childhood because the Salem area had been a center of missionary fervor from the start of the nineteenth century. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missionaries (ABCFM), made up predominantly of Congregationalists, had originated nearby at the Andover Theological Seminary and had Salem merchants as early backers. Foreign missionary support saturated

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New England communities with fundraising societies, public lectures, magazines, and memoirs dedicated to defending the missionary cause by relating the sufferings and piecemeal successes of American and British Protestant missionaries located around the world.34 Wallis preferred the Baptists. She was baptized in the Baptist Church of Beverly in 1830 and was active in its affairs.35 The Baptists had missionaries, too, most notably Adoniram Judson. In 1812, he and his wife Ann Haseltine Judson had left Boston in the ABCFM’s first contingent of foreign missionaries. On the way to India, he converted to the Baptist faith and thus almost by accident initiated the first American Baptist missionary society. The Judsons settled on Burma as the site for their mission. Unlike the ABCFM, whose missionaries were men accompanied by wives, the Baptists involved wives in preaching and translating religious texts into native languages, and beginning in the 1830s even sent single women to teach at overseas mission stations.36 This more high-profile role for women in the Baptist Church may have been part of its appeal for Wallis. A substantial literature by and about Baptist missionary wives granted them a kind of celebrity status as virtuous women. In 1823, the writings of Ann Judson, Adoniram’s first wife, appeared in a compilation called An Account of the American Baptist Mission to the Burman Empire; in a Series of Letters, Addressed to a Gentleman in London. After her death in 1826, an edited collection of her journals and correspondence also came out in print. Judson’s second wife, Sarah Boardman Judson, was similarly memorialized postmortem. Commissioned to undertake the project, the writer and poet Emily C. Chubbuck, under the pseudonym Fanny Forester, wrote an account of Sarah Judson’s life and faith in 1848. (Incidentally, Chubbuck’s writing assignment brought her into contact with Adoniram, and she soon left for Burma to become his third wife.) Wallis may have known Sarah Judson personally, since she was from Salem and about the same age as Wallis. Another memoir with a wide circulation, published in 1846, documented the life and good works of China missionary Henrietta Shuck. Thus, while Wallis was in Fiji with her husband on the Zotoff, back home in New England, the memoirs of Sarah Judson and Shuck were stirring up interest in the significant contributions women made to the Baptist foreign missionary movement.37 Although these texts portrayed missionary wives as courageous and intelligent, their authors projected particular feminine ideals onto their protagonists. Even Chubbuck, by profession a writer, kept her predecessor well

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within the bounds of gendered respectability. When widowed from her first husband, Baptist missionary George Boardman, Sarah took up the task of preaching before several hundred of Burma’s ethnic minority, the Karens. As she did so, she was “meek” and “humble.” She spoke in “low, gentle accents” and in a “modest manner,” for “these acts . . . were not in accordance with her feminine taste or her sense of propriety.”38 By coating Sarah’s public speaking in the language of female subordination, Chubbuck disguised and made more palatable those actions some readers might have interpreted as unwomanly and brazen. This same portrait of the demure missionary wife informed another biography Wallis probably read, at home in Beverly or while staying with the Hunt or Williams families in Fiji, David Cargill’s Memoirs of Mrs. Margaret Cargill, first published in 1841, a year after his wife’s death from dysentery and burial at Rewa. Except for a few reprinted letters that Margaret wrote to her mother, Cargill’s memorial to his dead wife mostly repeated ethnographic observations and Fiji history taken from his journal. Portraying himself as a “pioneer” and Margaret as his “co-operator,” he praised missionary wives for the “unreserved dedication of themselves to the cause in which their partners are engaged,” for “stimulating their husbands to continued and increased exertions” and for not “stepping beyond the limits of that circle of duty which nature has prescribed for them, and within which modesty and prudence require them to move.”39 Wallis used Life in Feejee’s front matter to place her journals within this familiar genre of the missionary tract and to stamp her book with the imprimatur of male authority. Her publisher’s track record helped situate the book within the genre of religious reform literature. Reverend William Heath of Boston, on behalf of the New England Sabbath School Union, had previously printed hymnals, instructional manuals for Sunday School teachers, and other texts with religious themes.40 On Life in Feejee’s title page, the author’s name does not appear, only Heath’s as publisher. The book’s copyright was issued in the name of her husband. She gave her initials, “M.D.W.,” at the end of the preface, but it and the introduction are mostly taken up with two endorsements, both from ministers. The first is a letter dated December 7, 1849, from Viwa, written by James Calvert of the Fiji Wesleyan mission, no doubt made at Wallis’s request before she left Fiji for home. Calvert addressed his letter to Wallis’s pastor, Charles W. Flanders of the First Baptist Church of Beverly. His letter commends Wallis’s journals for being “correct,” “instructive,” and uniquely important because “no account has been given to the public, which details so

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fully the past and present abominations of cannibal Feejee.” (Seven years after Life in Feejee’s publication, Calvert and his colleague Thomas Williams would make their own contribution in a two-volume history and ethnography, Fiji and the Fijians, in which many of the stories in Wallis’s book are retold.) The second endorsement came from Flanders himself, who in the same vein vouched for the authenticity of Wallis’s narrative and its moral purpose.41 Crowding the first few pages of the book with the voices of so many men—her publisher, her husband, an English missionary, and her pastor—Wallis used their authority to buttress hers, enabling her to present herself to the public as authorized to speak while maintaining the appearance of gentility. In the journals, Wallis continued to highlight her relationships with men, but she was not as self-immolating as she appears in the front matter. She acted the unctuous acolyte to Fiji’s male missionaries but chipped away, increasingly, at the authority and power of other men: male authors writing about the Pacific, Fiji’s turaga levu, and her husband. Wallis seems to have preferred associating with men even as a reader. Life in Feejee makes no reference to any books authored by or featuring women. And yet, it is very likely that she had Chubbuck’s memoir of Sarah Judson and the writings of another, more prominent, woman author, Lydia Maria Child, in her shipboard library. Every December, Thomas Williams recorded in his journal the books he had read the previous year, and in 1849, a year in which he had spent much time with the Wallises both in his home at Bua Bay and on the Zotoff, his annual tally included “F.F.’s life of Mrs Judson, a volume of American Mission” and “Child’s Letters from New York.”42 Child’s writings ran across a political spectrum from antislavery and women’s rights advocacy to housewifery advice manuals. Letters from New-York, vignettes of Child’s rambles in the greater New York area, was extraordinarily popular, and although its pieces selected for inclusion did not convey Child’s most radical views, Letter 34 dealt explicitly with “Women’s Rights.” Child asked why men should not be held to the virtues of meekness and humility as women were. “Books addressed to young married people abound with advice to the wife, to control her temper, and never to utter wearisome complaints, or vexatious words, when the husband comes home fretful or unreasonable, from his out-of-door conflicts with the world. Would not the advice be as excellent and appropriate, if the husband were advised to conquer his fretfulness, and forbear his complaints,

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in consideration of his wife’s ill-health, fatiguing cares, and the thousand disheartening influences of domestic routine?” Carolyn L. Karcher’s biography of Child depicts her as conflicted between the desire to have the kind of marital domesticity popularized in antebellum middle-class culture and a more visionary future based on gender equality.43 That same ambivalence flits through Life in Feejee. But if one used only Wallis’s writings to reconstruct her reading habits, her mental world was wholly male-centric. Her Maid of Orleans journal mentions three books: Sir John Froissart’s Chronicles of England, France, Spain, and Adjoining Countries, a classic work of history; Deck and Port, navy chaplain Walter Colton’s memoir of a voyage to California on the U.S. frigate Congress; and Wesleyan mission supervisor Walter Lawry’s recently published account of a tour through Tonga and Fiji. Froissart failed to sustain her interest, surrounded as she was at the time with daily news of Bau’s military campaign against Macuata. She referred to the other two books in a discussion of coconut trees. She found Lawry’s book “replete with interest” but faulted Colton for inaccuracy.44 This pattern prevails in Life in Feejee. All the authors Wallis comments on were male, and all wrote about the Pacific. Among these, Peter Dillon was, predictably, the most pertinent. Dillon’s 1829 memoir about his search for and discovery of the fate of the lost French explorer La Pérouse has extensive material on his own experiences in Fiji during the sandalwood boom. Wallis twice discusses Dillon’s memoir and includes a lengthy excerpt from it. Life in Feejee also pays brief homage to William Ellis’s Polynesian Researches. The peculiarity of the tides at Viwa made Wallis suspect that “his remarks appear to apply only to Tahiti.”45 And in June 1849, Wallis read Melville’s Typee, followed by Omoo, Melville’s second book and a continuation of his saga of Pacific beachcombing. It can be inferred that Melville’s books had the deepest impact on Wallis. Typee dwelled on one of her favorite topics, cannibals. She had never been to the Marquesas, where Typee was set, but she saw herself as something of an authority on cannibal isles. She thought Melville “writes most beautifully. Every word has a meaning.” Yet, she questioned whether a Marquesan women could have blue eyes and refuted outright his depiction of breadfruit hanging “‘in golden spheres’”: “the fruit when ripe is green, when unripe is green, and the leaves are green.” She further criticized him for romanticizing “heathenism and cannibalism”: “Melville should never come to Feejee, for there would be some danger of his readers becoming cannibals.”46 The timing—that she read Melville in 1849 and submitted

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her journals to a publisher one year later—implies that Typee inspired her audacity to publish her own, more accurate portrait of Pacific cannibals. Even though Wallis commented only rarely on what she was reading, she showed herself a critical reader willing to challenge male writers’ claims about the Pacific. More influential on Wallis’s understanding of Pacific history and culture were Fiji’s male missionaries, whom she pandered to with praise and deference. She acquired most of her stories from them. When Wallis first came to Fiji, in December 1844, the Wesleyan Methodist mission was nine years old and, except for an attempt by French Catholic priests to make inroads at Lakeba a few months before, the Wesleyans were as yet the only foreign denomination in the Fiji group. By the end of 1844, the Wesleyans had succeeded at converting a paltry number of Fijians to Christianity, but they were well established with seven families—the Hunts, Jaggars, Watsfords, Calverts, Hazlewoods, Lyths, and Williamses—spread out over three mission stations located at Viwa, Lakeba, and Somosomo. The Jaggars had recently abandoned the Rewa mission when the Bau-Rewa war threatened their security.47 They were living with the Hunts when Wallis joined them. This made the house crowded, so Wallis had built a small, thatched hut of native design close by. Her cottage had the additional features of a lock on the door, floor boards, wall-to-wall mats, glass windows “prettily ornamented with white fringed curtains,” a bed over which white curtains also hung, and a desk, where she must have done her journal writing (see figure 4.5). She continued to take meals with the Hunts.48 At Viwa, Wallis cast herself as a passive listener and the male missionaries as her teachers. Her great love of stories—her fascination for epic historical tales and for news of military conquests and defeats happening nearby—is what endowed her journals with lasting significance as essential documents in Fijian history. She often, albeit irregularly, says who told her which story. Hunt was her lead informant. “At the dinner table to-day,” she wrote in her journal soon after settling in at Viwa, “Mr. Hunt related some anecdotes respecting Verani,” Namosimalua’s nephew and the second highest ranked man at Viwa. Another day it was, “At breakfast this morning Mr. Hunt gave some account of the conversion of the principal priest of Nandy.” Wallis enjoyed mealtime so much because it was “the only time that the gentlemen allow themselves any relaxation from their arduous labors. This is the time when I inquire all about Feejee and Feejeeans, and Mr. Hunt (who always delights to impart information,) never seems weary of answering my inquiries; nor does he merely answer quickly, and dismiss the subject, (as

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Figure 4.5. The Wesleyan Methodist mission compound at Viwa (the area inside the picket fence at the center of this drawing) had several small buildings, one of which may have been Mary Wallis’s cottage. The Wesleyan chapel appears atop the hill on the left while a bure kalou, or “heathen temple,” occupies the hill on the right. Walter Lawry, Friendly and Feejee Islands: A Missionary Visit to Various Stations in the South Seas, in the Year MDCCCXLVII, edited by Elijah Hoole (London: John Mason, 1850), 82. Courtesy of Yale Divinity School Library.

the manner of some is,) but appears interested to have me fully understand the subject of my inquiries.”49 Wallis also had access to the deceased William Cross’s journals in Hunt’s possession. And sometimes, she recorded long, quoted passages from the journals and correspondence of Hunt and Williams. The overarching theme in many of these stories was Fijian “treachery.” One of Hunt’s dinnertime “anecdotes,” for example, detailed the false rumor that had spread about one of Varani’s wives having had sexual relations with a Christian convert. Even though Varani did not believe the rumor, to save face he colluded to have the unsuspecting Christian killed. From Cross’s journal of 1840, Wallis repeated another story involving Varani. He pretended that Viwa was pulling out of the Bau matanitu to align with Namena. Macoi, a town belonging to Namena, sent 140 men to defend Viwa. But all along, Varani had plotted with Cakobau to entrap these men. Bau and Viwa forces slaughtered them all.50 Wallis added narrative verve to these stories as she rewrote them, but she interpreted them with the same lens as the missionaries, drawing the lesson from them that the Fijian character was abhorrent and flawed.

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Since Wallis was herself a woman, one would expect her to say more about the missionaries’ wives. She must have spent most of her time with them while engaged in what might be termed women’s work. For instance, Wallis did a lot of sewing to keep herself entertained, such as “making a fancy bed-quilt.” And while at Viwa, she, “Mrs. Jaggar,” and “Mrs. Watsford” taught a sewing class. Wallis also enjoyed walking and often had one of these women in company. The male missionaries overshadow their wives in Wallis’s journals, however. The wives suffered for God along with their husbands and were “lovely in their deportment,” but Wallis gave the wives no speaking roles at the “peculiarly pleasant” meals at the Hunts’ table when the “conversation is lively and intelligent.”51 Over time, Wallis as protagonist became more outspoken and independent, especially when, without a missionary at her elbow, she did her own information gathering. A statement in the journals written after Wallis rejoined the Zotoff in April 1845 signals a shift in persona from novitiate bystander to a participatory observer accumulating her own expertise on Fijian culture: “It is my wish to show the Feejeeans as I found them, and to record truly their several traits of character as they came under my own observation.” On the Macuata coast over the next nine months, she had mainly her husband to rely on for stories and her own experiences. Some of Captain Wallis’s stories covered her favorite topic—Fijian history, culture, and politics—but usually had more to do with the hazards of the bêche-demer trade, in particular the dangers a foolish captain exposed him to while he was first mate on the Edwin ten years earlier. In describing her personal encounters with Fijians, she highlighted her exchanges with the archipelago’s great men. At the intersection of these divergent relationships, that with her husband and those with Fijian elites, Wallis emerges as a strong-willed, take-charge kind of character while her husband often comes off as a feeble patriarch, incapable of exerting his authority over her and even in need of her protection. Initially, she held this inner self in check. When she first met Cakobau, who came aboard to haggle over trading terms within days of the Zotoff ’s arrival in Fiji, she conceded that he is “tall, rather good looking, appears fully aware of his consequence, and is not destitute of dignity.” But she seemed miffed at how long it took Cakobau to notice her. He was consumed with anger at how Captain Joseph Hartwell of the Gambia had treated him and warned Captain Wallis not to do the same. Hartwell had secretly made simultaneous deals with rivals Rewa and Bau to provide men to fish for bêche-de-mer off the Ba coast and had hired Rewa-allied

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beachcomber Charles Pickering as pilot. Hartwell, Cakobau retorted, had “come here and made a fool of him.” As the day wore on, Wallis sat on the sofa in the Zotoff’s cabin, watching and listening and perhaps fuming a little, too, at the insult that she was feeling: After “a long conversation and many presents [from Captain Wallis to Cakobau]. . . . His Majesty condescended to notice my humble self.” He sat beside her, took her hand, and held it up, Wallis thought so that his attendants would notice its whiteness in contrast to his own.52 A few months later, at around the time she left Viwa to return to the Zotoff, Wallis reported the first of many bantering conversations she would engage in with Fijian turaga. Tui Kaba, with four of his wives, stopped by her cottage to see her. He asked how many wives Captain Wallis had. “When I told him that he had but one, he exclaimed, ‘What a bad man to have but one wife!’ ‘No,’ I replied. ‘You are a very bad man to have so many wives.’ At this the old man laughed most heartily.” These kinds of dialogues become common in the journals thereafter, as Wallis sparred verbally with some Fijian man and always came out the victor in the war of words. In one such exchange over cannibalism, her combatant acknowledged in the end, out of politeness or fatigue, “‘You are wise.’”53 When Wallis reboarded the Zotoff a few days after Tui Kaba’s visit, in April 1845, she wrote nothing in her journal of the reunion with her husband, whom she had not seen for four months. Instead, her overriding interest was in Ritova, the usurper now ruling Macuata. With Bau help, Ritova had overthrown his uncle, the rightful Tui Macuata, and gained control of Raviravi, Macuata’s capital, while his uncle took refuge at the town of Mouta. Ritova was already on the Zotoff when Wallis rejoined the vessel. He had come to Bau with Captain Wallis to bargain over bêche-de-mer in Cakobau’s presence since Macuata was now a Bau dependency. With the deal struck, Ritova stayed aboard the Zotoff as it sailed back to Macuata. Wallis noted Ritova’s “courteous” manners, adding “I am surprised at the mild and affable behavior of all these cannibals.”54 A British traveler, acquainted with Ritova in 1860, described him as “a tall, well-made man, with intelligent features; every inch a chief.”55 The Wallises’ trust in Ritova gradually deteriorated, however. In August 1845, Ritova lured his uncle to Raviravi to talk peace and had him killed. Two months later, some of Ritova’s people murdered four beachcombers employed by the Zotoff. The Wallises suspected Ritova had a hand in it. When Ritova stayed aboard the Zotoff one night in November, Wallis lectured him on his misdeeds: “The God of heaven is angry when we commit murder, and

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will punish you for it.” Soon after, Ritova visited again with what seemed malicious intentions. Captain Wallis ordered the crew to arm themselves while he tucked a small pistol into his pocket. His wife grabbed some scissors. Ritova asked to look over axes to pick one due him as part of the trade agreement. “I was standing near,” Wallis wrote, “playing awkwardly with my scissors, when observing that he had possession of all the axes, I took one from his lap, and after remarking upon its goodness and beauty, handed it to my husband.” Ritova stood up to leave and held an axe over Wallis’s head, saying “‘Now, Marama, I will kill you with this hatchet.’ ‘It is very good for you to do it, and I will kill you with these scissors,’ I answered, pointing them to his heart.” Ritova laughed, saying “‘you are a good Marama,’” and departed.56 A few days passed, and Ritova returned to the Zotoff. According to Mary Wallis, the writer of these stories, her husband told Ritova, “‘You know where our powder is, and you see that Mrs. W. is always watching; if she sees any thing wrong, she knows how to send fire to the powder, and away we go all together.’” From then on, whenever Ritova came aboard, Wallis made it “my business, therefore, to watch, that Mr. W. may not get a blow on his back.”57 Wallis’s depictions of hand-to-hand (or axe-to-scissors) combat with a Fijian despot and her husband’s turning to her to destroy the ship if necessary take her out of the realm of ladyhood into an entirely different social position entirely, one in which she was charged with protecting her husband from danger (see figure 4.6). As she sparred with turaga levu to convince them of their evil ways, Wallis let her curiosity about Fijian culture lead to small acts of rebellion against her husband. Several times she insisted on going ashore against his wishes. In May 1845, while the townsmen of Vesoga were all thought to be at the reefs collecting bêche-de-mer for the Zotoff, Captain Wallis called for a boat so that he could check on the status of the bêche-de-mer house. “I expressed a wish to accompany him,” Wallis recorded later in her journal. “‘Perhaps it is not safe,’ said he. ‘If it is safe for you, it is for me,’ I replied.” She got her way and afterward described how “the glare and heat from such an immense fire, and surrounded as we were by nearly naked savages, numbering perhaps fifty in all . . . sent a strange sort of thrill through my frame.”58 While on the Maid of Orleans, Wallis again flouted her husband’s wishes. She wanted to attend a taqa, a ceremony in which men displayed their readiness for battle by waving weapons and shouting out boastful exclamations before an admiring crowd. After checking with one of the men working for the bark (“‘Is there anything

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Figure 4.6. In Life in Feejee (pp. 156, 172), Wallis mentions having received two war clubs as gifts, one from Ritova and one from Cakobau. The club pictured here, E30540, is from the Wallises’ collection in the Peabody Essex Museum. Fijian artist, Club, Fiji, 17 1/2 × 4 1/4 inches. On loan to PEM from the Heirs of George Swan, 1952. © 2006 Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA. Photography by Jeffrey Dykes.

indecent in the ceremonies?’” Wallis asked), she “committed a daring act of disobedience towards her husband” and went ashore.59 Another incident led Wallis on a rant about the unfairness of gender inequality. As she recounted in Life in Feejee, one day a Fijian couple came aboard. The woman remarked, “‘Ah! the white men make gods of their wives,’” to which the woman’s husband responded that it was so because “‘white women are wise, but Feejeean women are foolish.’” Wallis turned these idle comments into a pretext for a social critique nearly identical to that of Lydia Maria Child’s about the expectations imposed on American women: Thus it is, I thought, you are true to your kind, and had you your periodicals, we should see chapter after chapter headed, “Advice to women,” as with us. We are told that we must always meet our husband at the door with a smile,

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take his hat and cane, and see that the best chair is ready for him (although it may be occupied by an aged or infirm parent), with his slippers near it. If he is cold, we must have a good fire to warm him; if he is warm, a fan to cool him; if he frowns, we must smile; if he is angry, we must look pleased; if he is in a passion, we must look delighted; and sundry other wise suggestions to strengthen and fortify our minds, that we may be good, and bear all the infirmities of our “lords” with patience. . . . Does perfection dwell with man? or is his mind rendered impervious to improvement by his own sense of superiority? I believe that man has his part to act in the domestic relations of life, independent of his duty of supplying the means for support.60

Wallis did not fit the cultural ideal of meek helpmate to her husband. Tangling verbally with men of great power in Fiji and occasionally with a weapon (scissors being the mantuamaker’s weapon of choice) empowered her to advocate for marriage as a partnership of equals. In other ways, over the several years covered in Life in Feejee, Wallis transformed to become more assertive. In February 1845, having been in Fiji only since the previous December, Wallis and a Sydney sea captain’s wife walked to the bure kalou (“heathen temple”) at Viwa but, so far as is revealed in the journals, did not go inside. These buildings were “sacred to their gods, and no woman is allowed to enter them.” A year or so later, Wallis toured Bau with John Hunt and the Watsfords. Stopping first at Cakobau’s house, they received his permission to enter Bau’s bure. As they approached it, “several of the aristocracy were about the place, and seeing that we were going to enter, looked quite displeased, and said that no woman had ever been inside of a ‘buri,’ and it was a very great ‘tambu.’” While Hunt stopped to calm the men’s protests, “I quietly slipped my arm from that of Mr. H., and thinking my offen[c]e might be attributed to my ignorance, I hastened into the sacred building. On seeing this, the natives left talking, and looked astonished at so unheard of a thing in Feejee. Mr. and Mrs. Watsford and Mr. Hunt followed.” Inside all there was to see was “one solitary roll of cinnet, and a small quantity of native cloth.” Her disappointment at the bland interior did not forestall her daring to enter such prohibited spaces again. In June 1849, during her second voyage to Fiji and in the town of Rakiraki in company with Ilaitia (formerly Varani, now called by his Christian name, Elijah, or Ilaitia as it is spelled in Fijian), I was desirous of entering their sacred edifice, and seeing Elijah look as though he liked not to take the responsibility of such an act, I said to an

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old man, “Is it ‘tambu’ for a white woman to go in here?” “No,” he replied. “You may go in. It is ‘tambu-lavu’ for a Feejeean woman to go. If she should enter our god’s house we should kill her.” Thank heaven! I exclaimed, as I ascended the steps, that I was not born in Feejee . . . where there is so marked a distinction between God’s creatures.61

Manila also tested Wallis’s patience with its rules regarding women. A place considered more civilized than Fiji, Manila immersed the Wallises in a privileged life of spacious quarters, sumptuous meals served up by nameless servants, leisurely carriage rides into the countryside, and dinner parties with the city’s American merchants. Like Lowell in Cuba, Wallis disliked the social restrictions put on women in this foreign place, but unlike Lowell, she defied them. When told that respectable women in Manila waited on tradespeople at home, she erupted, “‘Not go a shopping! A lady not go a shopping! Who originated so barbarous a custom?’” Some man she suspected. Fearless, she declared, “I have no particular caste to lose, and I will go a shopping.” Exaggerating these prohibitions against women in the streets and shops of Manila as “barbarous” and “savage,” she played off the freedom she had pretended to enjoy in Fiji as a woman of high rank and a foreign woman who lived outside the prescriptions placed on women in Fiji.62 Although Wallis viewed herself as superior to Fijians and to the Catholic society of Manila, neither of which met her standards for civilized behavior, her relationship with the Christian convert Ilaitia affirms her sincere faith in the missionary project. Her journals show more affection and regard for Iliatia than for any other Fijian. By the end of Life in Feejee, he assumes the role of being her most frequent informant. He was the first Fijian she referred to by name. When the Zotoff anchored off Levuka in December 1844, Varani came on board. Wallis’s journal entry gives the usual story of how he acquired this name after his uncle Namosimalua forced him to kill the captain of the French brig L’Aimable Joséphine. (Varani was the Fijian pronunciation of France.) After John Hunt told her about Varani’s complicity in the murder of the man accused of dallying with one of his wives, she wrote in her journal that evening, “To see Verani, one could scarcely believe him capable of such wickedness, for there is nothing savage in his appearance.” On another occasion, after Varani had left her a gift of bananas at her cottage door, she confessed, “I feel a deep interest in this very wicked man.” Then in March 1845, while Wallis still resided at Viwa, Varani lotu’d. He married one of his wives in a Christian ceremony, handed over two others to relatives,

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and alienated Tui Bua by sending his fourth wife, Tui Bua’s daughter, back to him. At baptism, Varani took the name Elijah.63 The politics of the bêche-de-mer trade brought Wallis and Ilaitia together. On the second voyage of the Zotoff, he stayed aboard as the representative of Viwa and Bau. Although Captain Wallis had transacted his arrangement with Cakobau, it was Ilaitia who had to convince the people of Ba and other territories to collect bêche-de-mer for the Zotoff because these regions were subject to Viwa. When “Elijah told us a legend” as the Zotoff passed the town of Rakiraki on northern Viti Levu on April 7, 1849, he launched his career in her journals as a storyteller with Christian credentials.64 She did not grant Ilaitia the deferential flattery she graced the male missionaries with, but neither did she speak of him with the biting humor that was her usual tone in her anecdotes about Fijians, Tongan teachers and servants, papalagi beachcombers, and sailors. Gender, race, and religion intersected in complicated ways in her assessment of where each individual fell in the pecking order. The as-yet-unreformed elite men of Fiji were her main foil. They provided her with an unusual context in which to promote gender equality among Americans. The social critique she engaged in belonged to a larger movement then emerging in the United States, in the writings of Lydia Maria Child, the “Declaration of Sentiments” put out by the Seneca Falls women’s rights convention of 1848, revisions to married women’s property laws, and other expressions of discontent over the inferior position women held relative to men, especially within the household.65 Wallis does not address any of these developments outright but clearly had been influenced by the challenges to gender roles brewing at home. Simply by her presence in Fiji, Wallis disrupted American ideas about women’s proper place. Then, by casting Fiji’s most powerful men as indisputably her inferiors in moral righteousness, she produced a self-portrait for American readers in which she appeared as an intelligent, independent-minded woman capable of defending herself and her husband. Life in Feejee would never become as well known in the United States as it would become in Fiji even though Americans were its target audience. It belonged to two genres, foreign mission advocacy and travel literature, that were popular but also rife with competition. American readers had much to choose from among the memoirs of missionary martyrs such as Sarah Judson and the peregrinations of American sailors adrift as in Typee. Still, Life in Feejee was an accomplishment that garnered her some public recognition. As Wallis and the ministers Calvert and Flanders asserted in the book’s front

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matter, her authoritative, eyewitness testimony made the book singular, interesting, and informative. Newspapers in Boston; New Hampshire; Washington, DC; and even California announced its publication, the first notices appearing in the spring of 1851.66 In April, the Boston Recorder promoted it as “full of such truth as is stranger than fiction” and attested to Wallis’s purity of motive: “Though not a missionary, she is in full sympathy with the devoted men whose lives are devoted to bringing the naked cannibals of the Pacific to the feet of Jesus.”67 Another bookseller pitched its popularity by proclaiming in May that he had available “a Fresh supply of this interesting Book.”68 Supporters of foreign missions especially touted the book’s value. Evangelical periodicals printed short, favorable reviews of it. The Sabbath School Treasury highlighted the juxtaposition of the “brutal ferocity” of the cannibal and the “Grace” of Christian converts. Its reviewer paid homage to Wallis as a knowledgeable authority by referring to her as “a spectator, and in many instances an actor in the remarkable scenes which she describes.”69 The reviewer for the Baptist Record of Philadelphia called her “the pious wife of a sea captain” and the book itself a “plain, authentic, and vivid narrative of wonderful scenes and events.”70 Wesleyan missionary circles immediately knew of the book and promoted it. Walter Lawry’s account of visits to the Tonga and Fiji missions, which appeared in print within a few months of Life in Feejee, recommended Wallis’s book as “a beautiful volume published by a lady in America relating her own observations and experience.”71 The most avid readers of the book appear to have been people to whom Wallis personally handed out copies. On her way to Fiji on the Maid of Orleans just after its publication, she gave or sold her book to acquaintances in New Zealand. The newly appointed governor to the Auckland Islands, Samuel Enderby, who passed through the Bay of Islands while the Wallises were there, asked her for a few copies.72 Wallis’s most appreciative and enduring fan was Phebe A. Hanaford. Born Phebe Ann Coffin on Nantucket in 1829, hence a generation younger than Wallis, she and her husband moved to Beverly in 1857. Presumably she and Wallis met in Beverly, though possibly they became acquainted earlier. At around the same time Wallis published Life in Feejee, Phebe Hanaford as “Mrs. J.H. Hanaford” embarked on her own writing career with short pieces in religious periodicals. One of her early poems was an ode to “The Missionary Judson” in the February 1851 issue of Boston’s Young Reaper.73 Originally a Quaker, Hanaford gained some notoriety as a lay preacher and antislavery, suffrage, and temperance activist. In 1868, she received ordination in the

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Universalist Church, one of its few women pastors.74 She continued to write and after several biographies of men—the American expatriate and financier George Peabody, Charles Dickens, and Abraham Lincoln—redirected her literary energies toward documenting the achievements of women. Her 1877 biographical compendium, Women of the Century, included a brief commendation of Wallis in a section on “Women Travellers,” which cited Life in Feejee and further promised that Wallis’s subsequent journal of the voyage to New Caledonia would be published in a version edited by Hanaford herself. After Wallis’s death in Beverly in 1865 from congestive heart failure, Hanaford apparently had access to Wallis’s manuscript journal, which is now in the Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum collections. Either Hanaford decided not to pursue its publication, or she had difficulty interesting a publisher in it.75 Praised by its few reviewers, Life in Feejee did not draw a large following. Its publisher’s narrow circle of Baptist readers deprived the book of the promotional machine that gave the Morrell memoirs and Typee a broad reach. And even though, as the popularity of Typee demonstrated, the American public was fascinated by the exotic alterity of distant peoples, there were plenty of books on this topic. Moreover, what has made the book so useful to historians—its recounting with nuance the complexities of Fijian politics— could have made it less accessible to recreational readers ill-equipped to sort out Cakobau from Ritova from Namosimalua, and so on. However, some women readers who happened on the book, like Hanaford, may have found Wallis’s self-portrait of a respectable woman with a commanding personality a welcome contrast to American social taboos confining respectable women to submissiveness and modesty. Although Fijians did not read Life in Feejee during Wallis’s lifetime, personal acquaintance with Wallis might have introduced the prospect of a more forceful, empowering role for women in Fijian society. Fijian women appear in Wallis’s writings but not to the same extent as Fiji’s leading men. They visited her, she visited them, they presented her with gifts, she presented them with gifts, and so on. Wallis’s perceptions of these women do not differ much from those expressed by the Wesleyans. Her stories about Vatea, Namosimalua’s principal wife and the most important native woman on Viwa, match in sentiment those told by missionary Joseph Waterhouse in his biography, Vah-ta-ah: The Feejeean Princess, published in 1857. Both Waterhouse and Wallis portray Vatea as a woman of intelligence, integrity, and Christian leanings and yet pitiable for her unhappy political marriage to the elderly, tyrannical Namosimalua. Neither Vatea nor any other Fijian woman

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in Wallis’s writings appear as controllers of their own destiny, as Wallis imagined herself to be. By the 1840s, however, Fijians had begun incorporating papalagi practices, some of which bore a gendered dimension. Wallis attributed these changes to Fijians discovering a preference for civilization, but they seem to be more the natural outgrowth of cross-cultural interaction as Fijians discovered an intriguing novelty and opportunities for self-enhancement in foreign customs. In December 1849, for example, Wallis wrote in her journal about having just seen Cakobau seated in “a large armchair” strapped to his canoe, which led her to remark on how he had “greatly changed since my first acquaintance with him. He appears fond of many of the comforts of civilized life.” More astonishing, in March of that year, Cakobau made a social call to the Zotoff with his favorite wife, Samanunu, in company. Two days later, Gavidi did the same. It had previously been the custom for men and women of high rank to visit separately in gendered entourages. Once, as the Wallises entertained Samanunu and a dozen other Bau women in the Zotoff’s cabin, they learned that Tanoa had arrived, too. “The ladies appeared frightened, drew themselves into the smallest possible compass. . . . As soon as the king was seated on the sofa, they crawled from their hiding places on their hands and knees, and ascended to the deck. Many of these women were of high rank, yet none would dare to assume an upright position in the presence of any chief of rank.”76 It was no doubt Cakobau who made the decision to bring Samanunu along on a visit to the Wallises, but Fijian women may have seen in the Wallises’ relationship an appealing alternative to the supreme deference toward high-ranked men that was expected of them. The lotu most tangibly forced a reordering of Fijian gendered relations since the Wesleyans would not consider any Fijian convert fully Christian until they avowed monogamy. One Christian woman of high rank on Vanua Levu in the 1850s pushed changes in gender relations further than simply exchanging polygamy for monogamy. We know that she had Mary Wallis as her model because she bore the name Merewalesi. Wallis mentions meeting her briefly on her last voyage. She was one of several Fijian women throughout the Fiji group who took the name Merewalesi in keeping with a Fijian tradition of name exchange intended to honor and bind in friendship those who had exchanged names. None of the other Mary Wallis namesakes seem notably different from their Fijian peers as this Merewalesi of the Christian town of Nasavu. She was extraordinarily rare as a woman ruler of a town. As the nearby Wesleyan mission station at Nadi faced threats from anti-Christian neighbors, Merewalesi developed into one of the mission’s most active

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defenders and allies. Anecdotes of her reveal that she was literate and a great reader of religious texts in Fijian. And at one point she took in a widow to watch over so as to prevent her from following her husband to the grave.77 Since Mary Wallis is the best source of information on Mary Wallis— even her missionary friends do little more than make passing reference to her, and there are no Fijian sources from the time period that have not been filtered through some papalagi medium—such speculations risk overstating Wallis’s impact on Fiji society during her lifetime. She was merely one of many foreigners in Fiji, just as she was one of many antebellum American authors to put into print travel experiences that contributed to an American view of the rest of the world, refracted through the prism of her own prejudices and ambitions. Her greatest influence on Fiji would come later as historians of the islands turned to her texts to understand and document the transformative events and historical figures crucial to the country’s history at midcentury. A mantuamaker and sea captain’s wife from a small New England port town, Wallis made something of herself by voyaging halfway around the world and writing about it. Whether she was motivated foremost by the thrill of the adventure, a nascent feminism, or a mission-inspired humanitarianism, she found herself in her Fiji travels. She emerged from the experience confident in her authority to speak about Fijian history and culture and unshaken in her sense of belonging to a morally superior class of people. Although Life in Feejee was at heart an adventure tale about travels among an exotic people, Wallis truly sympathized with the objectives of foreign missions. Her advocacy of social reform was no sham cover-up as was the case with Abby’s Morrell’s memoir. In the latter, sailor philanthropy comes off as a flimsy disguise aimed at cloaking the problem an adventurous female protagonist presented to middling America’s respectability conventions. In contrast, Wallis sincerely viewed Christian salvation as beneficent patronage bestowed on heathens by self-sacrificing servants of God. In her sense of the world’s social hierarchy, those who brought the Protestant faith to heathens deserved the highest spot. Life in Feejee opened up for Wallis a gateway to step into the limelight with them. While Life in Feejee overtly elevated Wallis to the apex of the hierarchy of civilization, it more indirectly contested another hierarchy, that of gender in middle America, which the language of respectability helped to enforce. Instead of abandoning the notion of respectability altogether, Wallis tried

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to redefine it so that she could behave how she wanted to yet still attain the respect that she felt she deserved. Her greatest legacy was in how her writings became such an important source for documenting the history of nineteenth-century Fiji. In her own time, the impact she had on Fiji and the United States is less discernible because she was one of many. Isolating out a thread of changes attributable to her alone would be impossible. Life in Feejee was one of hundreds of travel memoirs, mission advocacy tracts, and reevaluations of women’s sphere printed in the antebellum period. It gave more insight into Fijian politics and society than any prior publication but did not refute what Americans thought they already knew about Fiji, since it was replete with tales of savagery and cannibalism. After encounters with her, some Fijians may have been influenced by her and opted to make changes in their own society because she modeled a novel form of womanhood or because of how she had battered them with disdain for practicing polygamy and cannibalism. However, more conspicuous to Fijians than her sympathies with the English missionaries was her position as the wife of Captain Benjamin Wallis, a familiar figure in Fiji’s bêche-de-mer trade. How and what the captain’s wife gained from that trade is the subject of the next chapter.

Chapter 5

Marama Social Class

In his ethnography of Fiji published in 1858, English missionary Thomas Williams told an anecdote about Benjamin Wallis and his wife Mary, but without actually naming them. Part of a long diatribe against Fijian culture, Williams expected the story to illustrate “the low estimate in which, on some islands, women are held.” A Chief of Nandy, Viti Levu, was very desirous to have a musket which an American Captain had shown him. The price of the coveted piece was two hogs. The Chief had only one; but he sent on board with it a young woman as an equivalent. I afterwards saw the girl, and was acquainted with her purchaser, by whose wife she was kept as a servant.1

Implying that this exchange was depraved for equating a girl with a pig, Williams expressed his disapproval, but he directed his indignation at the turaga for selling, not at the Wallises for buying. Indeed, no one seems to have wondered at the labor status of the Wallises’ servant, not in Manila, where they sold their cargos of bêche-de-mer, not in New England, and not in Fiji, to which the Wallises returned with their Fijian servant on two subsequent voyages.

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The Wallises’ acquisition of a Fijian girl and a pig for a musket worth $2.50 took place in 1847 toward the end of Wallis’s first voyage to Fiji. Her November 4 journal entry recounts the events of that day without mentioning the pig and musket. The Zotoff was anchored at Nadi on the western side of Viti Levu so that the crew could stock up on yams before leaving Fiji for Manila and from there to return to Salem. A turaga brought a girl about ten years of age into the ship’s cabin and “said that he wished her to go to America, where she might learn to cook, read, and make dresses, and when we returned, we could bring her back.” Wallis told him that she “did not expect to return to Feejee again,” to which he responded “‘No matter.’” Wallis “put a dress on to the child and concluded to take her unless she takes it into her head to jump overboard to-night and return to her home.” The next day Wallis noted that the girl “appears rather sad,” and the Wallises speculated that she was “some captive girl” because none of the Fijians who came to the bark to trade paid her any notice.2 The following day the Zotoff made sail. Believing that she was seeing Fiji for the last time, Wallis spilled a jumble of thoughts into her journal: Farewell to Feejee! Your green hills are very beautiful, but your inhabitants are dark in every sense of the word. May the gospel increase and dissipate the great moral darkness that now reigns here! Our second mate was discharged at Bau to return to Solavu, where he owns a woman. . . . We have a young man on board who has been a resident in the cannibal city for the year past. He states that dead bodies were brought to Bau as often as twice, and sometimes three times in a week. . . . The hearts and tongues are considered the choicest parts, and are claimed by the chiefs. The hands are usually given to the children.

Hopes for Christian redemption of an amoral people, disgust at beachcombers’ enslavement of native women, and sordid tales of cannibalism intermingle in what seems willful self-delusion and moral subterfuge. Six months later, we learn that the little girl, whom Wallis named Phebe, was on her way to America on the Zotoff: “My Feejeean girl is learning to sew, and appears quite happy.”3 Phebe was not “some captive girl,” Wallis later acknowledged, but born in Nadi and no doubt kaisi. Like other Fijians, Phebe would have regarded Wallis as a woman of high rank and called her marama. In her glossary, Wallis translated kaisi to mean “a poor person” and marama as “the wife or daughter of a chief.”4 Based on inherited rank, kaisi and marama belonged to a caste

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system comparable, but not identical, to an American class system muddied by opacity, fluidity, contestability, and race. Wealth, associations, manners, and especially the kind of work one did, or did not do, all entered into the inexact calculus informing American perceptions of where they and others fell in the social hierarchy. In Wallis’s time, the term “middle class” had yet to enter the American vernacular as a form of self-identification, but as can be seen from the Wallises’ self-positioning, the aristocratic terms lady and gentleman had trickled down and become accessible to the masses as claims to social distinction. Redolent with connotations of superiority and lifestyles of comfort and leisure, these titles embraced by the Wallises later in life shielded them from the taint of manual labor.5 The enhanced status the Wallises achieved in Beverly owed much to the coerced labor of Pacific Islanders half a world away: Phebe and the thousands of Fijians who over the years filled Captain Wallis’s cargo holds with bêche-de-mer. The trade’s exploitative labor practices had two underlying causes. Traders found an advantage in the power of turaga levu to command a labor force. And the American public was blind to the issue of foreign labor even while, within the United States, the issue of labor justice gave rise to acrimonious disputes pervading newspapers, novels, lecture halls, political speeches, and sermons. Radical changes in the nature of work due to industrialization and the expansion of slavery intersected with sectional animosity to fuel a debate that reduced the ethical question to the false dualism of southern slavery versus northern free wage labor. The terms under which Americans gained access to foreign labor, in Fiji and elsewhere throughout the world, fell outside the conversation completely. Thus many Americans, especially those engaged in maritime trade, occupied a gray area of ambiguous labor practices invisible or peripheral to the moral conscience of their home communities. If Wallis had concerns about injustices or hypocrisy in her relationship to Fijian labor, she did not confess such doubts in her journal. She presented herself as a highly moral person. In her story of Phebe’s acquisition, she appears a benefactor, a benevolent rescuer reforming a cannibal, rather than as Phebe’s owner or employer. Thomas Williams, however, understood their relationship as a commercial transaction of the lowest sort, which does in fact seem to be what it was. Phebe was Wallis’s servant, not her protégé. Phebe supported Wallis’s class ambitions by freeing her from drudgery and by acting as a prop, a signifier, of elitism since only the most well-to-do New Englanders could afford domestic servants. Though nameless in the historic record, the hordes of laborers in Fiji sustaining Salem’s bêche-de-mer trade

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were even more critical to the Wallises’ and other American traders’ livelihoods and aspirations. In her journals, Wallis dwelled on the outrages and absurdities of an antithetical Fijian culture wholly disrespectful of human life. But at the same time, her writings reveal just how much she and her husband benefited from the gap between Fijian and American cultures. The entire bêche-demer trade built on Fijians’ ranked social organization to make human trafficking and coerced labor commonplace. Papalagi decried the inhumane treatment and contempt that turaga directed at kaisi, even though it was precisely this inequality and customary subservience that supplied papalagi endeavors with a labor force. At Levuka in 1840, members of the U.S. Exploring Expedition heard a story from one of the beachcombers, perhaps from David Whippy, that illustrated the ultimate in kaisi obeisance and subjection. A turaga had just received a new musket and “desired a woman to place herself at a certain distance to serve for a mark. Immediately there was a disturbance among all the women within hearing, and a dispute as to who would have the honour of being shot by the Chief.” Finally, one volunteer situated herself in the offing. The turaga fired. Fortunately, he missed his target.6 Phebe was unusual only because her obligations as a kaisi took her to the United States. Other kaisi erected and tended to bêche-de-mer processing stations on shore, cut wood to boil and smoke-dry the slugs, waded and dove for six to eight hours a day to collect slugs from the reefs, and brought basketfuls of their catch to the bêche-de-mer house in return for muskets, gunpowder, axes, beads, and cloth.7 Wallis never says how many Fijians were in the employ of her husband. Other Salem traders’ accounts show the need for a massive labor force. Tui Dreketi of Rewa supplied Captain John H. Eagleston of the Peru with two hundred men to construct a bêche-de-mer house 126 feet long by 30 feet wide, a task that took them ten days.8 Captain I. N. Chapman of the Consul mentioned two hundred men cutting wood to build a bêche-de-mer house with another twenty men assigned to boil slugs at a second house.9 The greatest number of workers gathered the slugs from the sea. The Glide’s workforce consisted of eighty canoes carrying a total of eight hundred to a thousand people fishing for slugs. Most of those who collected the slugs were kaisi men, but lesser turaga and women also fished the reefs. In addition, American traders imported other Pacific peoples by trading with their social superiors. While at the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, on his way to Fiji, the Glide’s captain “purchased six of the natives from one

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of the Chiefs, who we intended to employ in procuring our cargo.” They all ran away in Fiji at the first opportunity.10 Though rewarded with trade goods, kaisi were not eager, willing laborers. According to Charles Thompson, who was in Fiji at the same time as the Wallises, Fijians were “too lazy,” and would not collect bêche-de-mer unless “forced to by their chiefs.”11 Wallis was often present as her husband negotiated with Cakobau and other turaga levu for bêche-de-mer houses, an agreed-on stretch of reef, and the promise of laborers in return for a liberal outlay of gifts in the form of muskets, gunpowder, and assorted American-made luxuries. Wallis acknowledged that her husband’s success depended on the power of Fiji’s ruling elites to make their people undertake the work. While on the Macuata Coast in 1845, she wrote that Captain Wallis had sent a whale’s tooth to “His Majesty” Ritova, asking him to visit the bark as he had promised so as “to keep his subjects from idling away their time.”12 Over the next decade, while Ritova’s rule over Macuata was in dispute, bêche-de-mer traders preferred him to his rival Bete, who lacked “power sufficient to compel the necessary number of people to procure a shipload full of that valuable article.” Ritova, in contrast, “displayed as much energy in making his people work as he did honesty in the pecuniary transactions which it involved.”13 Bêche-de-mer traders thus had good reason to prefer dealing with Ritova, who in turn rose to power in Macuata by gaining greater access to guns and gunpowder from foreign traders. The symbiosis between traders and indigenous rulers sustained both the flow of armaments into Fiji and the subjugation of peoples needed to do the heavy labor required to produce bêche-de-mer. There was another type of coerced laborer with whom Wallis had even more frequent contact. While on the Zotoff and Maid of Orleans, she lived in close quarters with what Eagleston called the “Hostage of Royal blood,” a man of high rank whose presence would prevent “the numerous wild and savage race that we were now surrounded by” from taking it into their heads to “fall upon and devour a part if not all of us.” Detaining such hostages had early on become a standard feature of the trade. Their bodily presence stood as security for the contract, but also, as representatives of the matanitu, they negotiated with and, if required, threatened subject peoples to comply with the matanitu’s directives to satisfy the labor demands of the foreign trader. Since residence aboard a papalagi vessel could be an interesting and at times pleasurable experience, petty turaga often volunteered to play the part of hostage. And yet, they were prisoners. If they left the vessel without

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permission or if anyone hurt crew members on shore at bêche-de-mer stations, the hostage risked being shot.14 Coerced and purchased sexual labor figured in the bêche-de-mer trade, too. Trading captains, supercargos, and clerks received women as political gifts, in the fashion reported on by Charles Thompson from his experiences at Bau in 1843. With less ceremony, turaga sold kaisi women for traders’ sexual enjoyment. Wallis may not have been aware that her husband had such women on his vessels on previous voyages, but the missionaries knew of it. In 1841, Thomas Jaggar recorded in his journal that “Capt Wallis had a female from the King” of Rewa (Tui Dreketi) on board the Gambia. The phrasing suggests that this woman was a gift, for Captain Wallis had also “bot yalewas” (bought women) from Tui Dreketi and his brother Cokanauto. These purchased women were probably intended to serve as sexual companions for the Gambia’s crew. Exchanges of this type were all too common, Jaggar lamented. Another captain in Fiji concurrent with the Gambia had also “bot women,” five of them for “4 kegs of powder, 2 muskets—2 square bottles of spirits.”15 David Cargill made the same complaint in an 1840 letter to the head office of the Wesleyan Methodist Mission in London. According to the islanders, Cargill informed his superiors, all the captains engaged in Fiji’s bêche-de-mer trade had “procured women for purposes of prostitution.” Cargill singled out Eagleston for particularly outrageous behavior. On his fourth and last voyage to Fiji, Eagleston had brought his American wife along but left her at Tahiti while he went on to Fiji. So his American wife never met, nor presumably knew of, the household Eagleston maintained at Rewa. This Rewa woman had had “several children” with Eagleston and, much to Cargill’s chagrin, was “spoken of by some of the natives as the equal of Missionaries’ wives!” Eagleston supplied her with “ironmongery” and had had a house built for her, surrounded by a fence, from which she engaged in a bartering business. Even more astounding was that Eagleston had told the natives “that such things are common in Britain & America. He strives to pacify his conscience by resolving to become religious after this voyage [on the Leonidas], when he flatters himself that he shall have realized a competency for his future support.”16 Captain Wallis acted a different man with his wife at his side. He risked a mutiny on the Maid of Orleans when he told his crew that “women were not allowed here They said that every other vessel that came here kept women on board and it was hard that they should be denied.” But denied they were, the captain’s wife gleefully recorded in her journal.17 In this instance, the

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moral standards of Beverly trumped those of Fiji’s bêche-de-mer trade but only because an American woman was now witness to how American men behaved in this distant locale. Throughout the Pacific, foreign ship traffic had inspired rampant prostitution. On Polynesian islands such as Hawai‘i, Tahiti, and the Marquesas, women largely took the initiative themselves. Occasionally, they faced pressure from relatives or elites, but usually their sexuality was theirs to control.18 In Fiji, by contrast, any prostitution that occurred appears to have been largely at the instigation of Fiji’s high-ranked men. Fijian women did not swim to foreign ships to barter sexual services. Wallis recounted one rare instance in 1852 when eight Fijian women fleeing war-torn Macuata begged to come aboard the Maid of Orleans. “Ritova had threatened to kill them . . . for attempting to run away,” the women explained, adding that they “had come here as they wished to live with white men.” When some beachcombers working for the bark asked for the women, Captain Wallis told them, “had I wanted them, my vessel might have been loaded long since. . . . If you want them go to the chief for them,” the price for which would have been “a musket a piece.”19 The only choice Fijian women had was to defy power and tradition by running away.20 The ambiguity surrounding the kaisi impulse to labor—its indeterminate mix of social obligation, threat of punishment, and a choice freely made to acquire trade goods—features in the other form of native labor foreigners in Fiji made use of, domestic servants. While living with missionary families, Wallis had the benefit of their servants’ services. Who these servants were is hazy since the missionaries usually only referred to them abstractly in passing comments about their not being “very bright,” of how their “clumsiness” damaged clothing and furnishings, about how “idle disobedt & impudent” they were, and other frustrations.21 Some Fijians and Tongans ended up as servants in missionary households after seeking refuge or medical treatment there. Others were gifts from powerful men. In 1840, for instance, the recently widowed Cargill left Fiji for Australia with a thirteen-year-old Fijian girl to care for his children. An American ship captain recently shipwrecked in Fiji and on the same vessel as the Cargills stated that this girl had been “given him as a servant by one of the chiefs.”22 The Williams household at the Bua mission station had at least four servants when Wallis stayed there in the early 1850s. They had brought a male cook from eastern Fiji, from whence the Fiji mission originated. Wallis praised this cook for doing “as he is told, which is a rare thing for a Fejian.” Others working in the Williams household were the cook’s assistant and

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several “girls” who cleaned house, washed clothes, and looked after the children.23 They were paid from the mission stores that were used to barter for pigs and yams, so in cloth, axes, knives, and beads, the same kinds of goods, except for muskets, that bêche-de-mer traders gave to their laborers.24 In 1860, the wife of a British official visiting Fiji who, like Wallis, lived with and associated most closely with the Wesleyan missionaries, observed that each of the mission households had “about a dozen of these half-domesticated natives,” and “as they have to be taught everything from the very beginning, the missionaries’ wives have no easy task, and require no small amount of patience and forbearance.”25 Even though neither Wallis nor the English missionaries belonged to a social class accustomed to having servants, Wallis sympathized with the missionaries’ need for so many of them.26 The Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society allowed each family only fifty dollars annually for servants, which Wallis saw as insufficient for it was so “difficult to procure them and . . . difficult to keep them.” Moreover, they were “natuarly [naturally] idle, preferring to lie about on their mats to working” and resisted their employers’ high standards of gentility: “There is not one that I have seen that will place a cloth even over a table, or set a table decently except the mistress is looking on, although they may have been taught for months.” One incident at the Williams homestead especially annoyed Wallis: “A girl led the youngest child towards some plants that had with a great deal of care on my part reached Feejee alive. I took the child from the plants and said laughingly what a stupid girl you are, if you do that again I shall give you a whipping. As soon as she found some one to take the child, she went off declaring that she was afraid of me.”27 Another servant Wallis mentioned was a Tongan woman, Amelia, who acted as her maid when Wallis boarded with the Hunt family on Viwa in 1845. When Wallis was about to rejoin the Zotoff, Amelia “stood folding some clothes that she had been washing for me, and said, ‘Ah! I can wash no more clothes for Marama;—these are the last! Why can she not continue to live at Vewa?’”28 This selfless Amelia, whose only wish was to serve marama, may have given Wallis the idea of taking a Fijian girl back home to Beverly with her, but Wallis represented herself as a passive recipient of Phebe. It was the turaga of Nadi who wanted Phebe to go to America to learn to cook, read, and sew. An earlier opportunity for a domestic servant similarly unfolds in Wallis’s journal as the inspiration of another and not arising out of Wallis’s own desires for a domestic servant. Harry, a beachcomber and temporarily one of the Zotoff’s crew, asked “if I would purchase a servant,

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a native woman that was to be killed at Vesonga to-night.” The woman had belonged to one of the crew of another Salem bêche-de-mer trader but had run away from him to become servant to the leading woman of the town of Vesoga. As Harry told it, the servant had offended the marama levu and faced death. To save the woman’s life, “A musket was sent on shore with an order for Harry to buy the offending woman, and send her on board, where she might serve me till I had an opportunity to send her home.” At Vesoga, however, the situation reached an accord, and the woman remained there.29 A few months later, at Nadi, Phebe came aboard. That six months could go by from when Phebe joined the Zotoff to Wallis’s next reference to her seems odd. Where did Phebe sleep and eat? How did she get along with the Wallises and the ship’s crew? What was Phebe’s role precisely? As a character in Wallis’s journals, Phebe appears mainly as a domestic servant in training. After Wallis’s first acknowledgment of Phebe’s presence on the bark—”My Feejeean girl is learning to sew, and appears quite happy”—Wallis added, “She hates the stewardess, however, who is a colored woman, whom we engaged in Manilla, and who breaks all our dishes, loses the spoons, knives, &c., and then lays it to the caravan, as she calls Phebe, meaning cannibal.” When the Wallises left for Fiji again in 1848, after four months at home in Beverly, Phebe now had this woman’s job, for she was “to serve as stewardess.”30 Absent from the official crew list and shipping articles, Phebe was not formally a wage-earning crew member. These U.S. Customs Office documents aimed to protect seafaring laborers from abandonment and put in writing a guaranteed rate of pay, to which crew members consented with a signature or an X. One Customs Office document does record Phebe’s presence but anonymously: the Inward Foreign Manifest listing the Zotoff’s cargo upon its return to Salem in 1850 has in the section on passengers “Mrs Wallis & servant of Beverly.”31 That Wallis considered Phebe foremost as her servant is substantiated in journal anecdotes in which Phebe answers to the Wallises’ commands: “Phebe bring the salt box,” “Phebe, did you sift the flour?” “Phebe, bring me a mug of coffee from the galley.” She completed these tasks but not to Wallis’s satisfaction, for like the “thick headed negro” cook, “there is our Phebe too she dares to think for me.” Phebe’s belonging to a darker race seems to have been part of Wallis’s perception of Phebe’s social position from the beginning. In a dialogue between mistress and servant on the Maid of Orleans

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in 1852, Wallis asked Phebe to get a box of lard. Phebe brought a firkin of lard instead. “Me think you mean this mam.” “No I mean as I said, go and bring the box.” . . . “It is dark collor mam.” “So are you but I shall be inclined to make you white if you say any more.”

Wallis summed up the incident, “And so, the box was brought and Phebe retains her colour.”32 As these stories reveal, Phebe spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Wallis thus fulfilled part of the bargain she claimed to have made with the turaga who delivered Phebe to the Zotoff and who supposedly wished the girl to learn to “cook, read, and make dresses.” Besides learning to cook, Phebe also appears to have gained competency in sewing. On the Maid of Orleans in 1852, Wallis wrote, in reference to a New Caledonia beachcomber’s native wife, that “two suits of clothing has been made for her” and that “I have not had any more made.” Someone else aboard the bark, most likely Phebe, made these outfits.33 As for learning to read, there is no evidence that Wallis undertook to give Phebe an education. A box left unchecked on the 1850 federal census for Beverly shows that Phebe had not “Attended School within the year.”34 The journals’ other, rare mentions of Phebe suggest more intimacy between her and Wallis than servant and mistress. Phebe accompanied Wallis on walks. Wallis also showed some regard for her welfare. When the Zotoff arrived in Manila in February 1850, smallpox was “raging fearfully,” and so Phebe and the half-Fijian toddler Mary Saunders, whose father was taking his child to live with his family in Salem, were “to be vaccinated at once.” Wallis did not regard Phebe as a daughter but did have some kind of emotional investment in her, most tellingly in a comment made after a group of Fijian women visited the Zotoff, “none of whom can boast of more personal beauty than our Phebe.”35 What Phebe thought does not come through in the journals. After her first sojourn in Beverly, as Phebe reboarded the Zotoff to return to Fiji, Wallis reported that the girl had been “highly delighted with all she saw in America.” And once back in Fiji, her travels earned her some notoriety. At a town on northern Viti Levu, while Wallis, Phebe, and others from the Zotoff strolled to the town’s outskirts, “Several of the inhabitants followed

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us and appeared more curious to see Phebe, who accompanied us, and who they were told had been to America, than they were to see the white woman.”36 Phebe may have felt enriched by the novelty of her experiences even if it meant estrangement from her family and other Fijians. However, one of the two Rewa men who visited the United States on bêche-de-mer traders in the mid-1830s had been derided for his “superior knowledge” and accused of lying about what he had seen. Thomas Williams remarked, “A travelled Fijian commands little respect from his countrymen.”37 When the Zotoff anchored at Nadi as its second voyage came to an end, Phebe had a chance to leave the Wallises and return to her family. Life in Feejee recounts what happened: We have given her liberty to go on shore, but no one as yet appears to notice her, although many natives are visiting the vessel. We have some Vewa men on board, who tell us not to let her go ashore alone. . . . Yesterday Phebe’s mother came to see her after I had recorded the above. She kissed (Feejee fashion) every part of her child’s face, and shed some tears. Mr. W. [Captain Wallis] gave her presents, and then she wished to return ashore. She told Phebe that she had better remain where she is, and did not invite her to visit her home. They parted without any emotion, and Phebe says, today, that she would like to go to America again.38

The first story Wallis told about Phebe—of the turaga of Nadi soliciting Wallis to educate and civilize the girl in cooking, sewing, and reading, thereby behaving in a manner completely opposite to how Wallis portrayed all other turaga in her journals—was clearly a fiction. This second story is also part fabrication, at least in the interpretation Wallis wanted readers to take from it. Wallis set aside the emotional pain she had witnessed by ending her story with Phebe’s consent to servitude. In Beverly, the dark-skinned girl in the Wallis household provoked little comment (see figure 5.1). The only person besides Mary Wallis who left evidence of her having lived in the United States is the 1850 federal census enumerator for the town of Beverly, who on September 7 listed the family of Benjamin and Mary “Wallace” residing with Wallis’s younger brother John, his wife, and their three children. Benjamin and Mary had no children of their own, only “Pheba Nandey,” 15 years old, born in “Feejee Island.”39 She was not the first Fijian to visit Beverly. Because David Whippy Jr. had come home with Captain Wallis on the Gambia for a brief visit in 1842, another Fijian in

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Figure 5.1. There is no known image of Phebe. Perhaps she looked like one of the young women in this poor-quality photograph taken at Levuka in 1860. W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, or, Life in the South Pacific Islands (London: Chapman and Hall, 1866), frontispiece. Courtesy of the Yale University Library.

the Wallis household may not have surprised friends and family. No doubt Wallis explained how Phebe came to be at her side in the same way as in her journal. She did not publicize Phebe’s exoticism or put her on display as Eagleston had done with the Fijian boy in his care.40 Beverly townspeople who saw Phebe out and about and who did not know the backstory may have assumed that she was African American. Whether she was taken for the Pacific Islander she was or mistaken for an African American, if her presence in the Wallis household raised eyebrows or spawned gossip, no one took action to put Phebe’s situation before the law or otherwise open it up to community inspection. Residents of Beverly accustomed to supporting foreign mission societies with donations would have understood the mission of civilizing savages. But as a laborer, Phebe did not fit the usual categories. Phebe was not a slave because Massachusetts residents believed that their state no longer had slaves. Technically, Massachusetts had not abolished slavery, but rather “publick opinion” and the success many individual slaves had in bringing freedom suits during the revolutionary war period created the illusion that slavery in Massachusetts had become obsolete by the nineteenth century.41 In a 1783 assault case brought by Quock Walker against his owner, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declared slavery in violation of the 1780

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Massachusetts constitution on the grounds that “there can be no such thing as perpetual servitude of a rational creature, unless his liberty is forfeited by some criminal conduct or given up by personal consent or contract.” But judicial abolition of slavery only freed those individuals who brought their cases to court.42 An earlier, failed freedom suit of another Massachusetts slave had involved a woman from Beverly. In 1774, Juno Larcom sued her owner, David Larcom, for her freedom because she wanted to prevent his selling her children away. The court dismissed the case because David Larcom died before it could be heard. Juno then entered into some arrangement with David’s widow. She declared herself and her children free but continued on much as before, living on the property of the white Larcom family and working for them. The Wallises may not have known Juno Larcom, who died in 1816, but would have heard her story and perhaps knew her daughters and granddaughters, who lived in Beverly into the 1850s and earned their living as laundresses.43 Juno Larcom’s transition from slavery to freedom around the time of the American Revolution added to Beverly townspeople’s sense that their community had progressed beyond a slaveholding past. In 1833, one of Beverly’s most prominent citizens, Robert Rantoul, delivered a lecture at the Beverly Lyceum contending that what little slavery had existed in Massachusetts historically had never been harsh and that one man’s attempt to kidnap three blacks from Boston to sell so unleashed “public indignation,” the Massachusetts legislature passed a law against the slave trade in 1788, bringing about “the complete abolition of slavery in Massachusetts.”44 Agreeing with Rantoul in his depiction of a benign and marginal slavery having existed in colonial Massachusetts compared to what prevailed in southern states, Edwin Martin Stone in his 1843 history of Beverly asserted even more vehemently that “slavery is an unqualified evil, and its perpetuity can in no way be reconciled with the principles of a republican government. The voice of humanity and the law of God demand its abrogation.” His antislavery rhetoric reveals how, by the 1840s, the political tenor of Beverly leaned toward antislavery as its creed, and views once regarded as radical had become mainstream. Beverly had two antislavery societies, one founded in 1834 and another in 1837.45 Salem had a more conspicuous visibility in antislavery circles. Several early activists lived in Salem, and a number of antislavery societies had formed there by the 1830s. Especially active was the Salem Female Anti-Slavery Society, which met regularly, raised funds by selling handicrafts at an annual antislavery

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bazaar at Boston’s Faneuil Hall, and sponsored lectures by leading activists from the region.46 Wallis had a direct connection to antislavery sentiment. In 1842, two years before she left for Fiji for the first time, her church, the Baptist Church of Beverly, voted to accept the antislavery position taken by fellow Baptists elsewhere in the country. Its resolution condemned slavery as ungodly; unAmerican in its denial of life, liberty, and happiness; and wrong for putting slaves “at the disposal of a power unauthorized and fearfully despotic.” Beverly’s Baptists seemed most concerned by rising sectionalism. They worried that, “unless speedily abolished,” slavery “will involve the North and South, in difficulties and expose them to dangers more perplexing and alarming than they have as yet experienced.”47 Sectional tensions over slavery reached a critical juncture in the ten months that the Wallises and Phebe spent in Beverly before embarking on their last voyage to Fiji in May 1851 as Wallis saw to Life in Feejee’s publication. After a heated national debate over slavery and westward expansion, Congress had arrived at a compromise in 1850, which mandated that northern states give up fugitive slaves to their owners. In April 1851, Rantoul’s son, Robert Rantoul, Jr.—a lawyer, representative to Congress, and longtime defender of workingmen’s rights—and another Boston lawyer with ties to Beverly, Charles G. Loring, unsuccessfully defended one such fugitive, Thomas Sims, from a claim brought by a Georgia slave owner. Rantoul and Loring hoped to see the Fugitive Slave Act declared unconstitutional and forewarned that southerners could come north and wantonly declare any free black their slave.48 Rantoul’s high-profile involvement in the Sims case brought the national debate home to Beverly but, like the Beverly Baptist Church, conceptualized slavery as a southern institution foreign to New Englanders’ values and a plague on national unity. Phebe may have been acquired by purchase and at a bargain price compared to the several hundred dollars an African American girl of her age would have been valued at in southern slave markets, but she clearly did not appear to be a slave from the perspective of Beverly’s townspeople, for surely someone would have raised an uproar if they had recognized her as such.49 So perhaps her labor status better approximates that of domestic servant. Maybe the Wallises paid her wages, gave her a day off occasionally, and would have allowed her to look for a job somewhere else—all conditions of employment that New England’s domestic servants took for granted. Like slavery and sectionalism, domestic service was in a state of crisis in New England at midcentury. The demand for servants far outstripped supply

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as employment options opened up for native-born, white women. Early in the century, most domestic servants were “help”: young women from neighboring families treated like housewifery apprentices. It was expected that they would someday marry and establish their own households. Orphans and families in distress added women of color and impoverished whites to the domestic labor pool. In either case, paternalism defined the relationship between mistress and servant as mutual obligation.50 But then the burgeoning textile industry tempted young, native-born, white women with an alternative. The factory’s set hours, wages, and boarding-house residence freed women workers from the open-ended demands and constant surveillance that came with living in another woman’s household. The most famous of the so-called Lowell mill girls, writer Lucy Larcom, who grew up in Beverly, looked back at that stage of her life with ambivalence. “The confinement of the mill became very wearisome to me,” she admitted, but “I defied the machinery to make me its slave.” Larcom sympathized with those who blamed the mills for the shortage in domestic servants. “Country girls were naturally independent,” however, and preferred tending a machine twelve hours a day “to going out as ‘hired help.’” Larcom regarded with nostalgia “the old idea of mutual help”—when a relative or neighbor girl moved in with a family, took meals with them, and had time to take walks and read books—but she and her peers could not countenance what domestic servitude had become. Factory work afforded them more autonomy.51 In her widely read manual for female students and housewives, A Treatise on Domestic Economy, Catharine Beecher diagnosed servant problems as the outgrowth of a republican political system and market economy: of course, women had a right to demand higher wages and seek out the most pleasing employers. More difficult to overcome was the perception of domestic service as degrading labor akin to slavery. Beecher recommended that women employing servants make them aware “that, in all classes, different grades of subordination must exist.” Showing “deference and respect” to superiors was natural. Children owed it to parents, men to political authorities, and servants to household heads. Asking servants to eat in the kitchen or use a separate entranceway did not mark them as “inferior beings” but was rather “the best method of securing neatness, order, and convenience.”52 Native-born, white women seeking employment in antebellum New England might have found Beecher’s argument about the inevitability of subordination convincing, but that did not translate into a willingness to accept subordination for themselves.

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Increasingly, New England’s middling classes looked elsewhere for women desperate enough to become their servants. One Salem woman remembered how early in the century most domestics were “colored or came from New England country towns,” but within a few decades, “respectful and well-trained Celts” dominated the occupation.53 Of the roughly 7 percent of Beverly residents who were foreign born in the 1850 federal census, one of whom was Phebe, the majority were young Irish women listed last in the wealthiest households, obviously domestic servants.54 As Irish women took the place of native-born, white women, domestic service lost its affective undertones to become more an impersonal exchange of wages for service. “Help” expected to sit at the dinner table with the family while black cooks and Irish servants ate in the kitchen. Racial and ethnic differences sharpened the divide between laboring and leisure classes and relieved both the employee and employer from the paternalism that had confounded their relationship with divergent expectations in earlier times.55 Foreign labor offered an antidote to domestic labor shortages in New England and had a long history in the Salem area predating the transition to Irish servants. In her childhood, Larcom recalled of Beverly, “There were wanderers from foreign countries domesticated in many families, whose swarthy complexions and un-Caucasian features became familiar in our streets,—Mongolians, Africans, and waifs from the Pacific islands.”56 Once textile and shoe manufacturing replaced global commerce as the region’s leading industries, New England hosted fewer “Colorful Foreigners” from Asia and the Pacific, but Phebe was not the only foreigner occupying an ambiguous labor status in Beverly in 1850.57 The census lists others whose provenance might have involved purchase. Under what circumstances did sixty-year old Cloe Motealler, born in Sumatra, arrive in Beverly? And what is the story behind Enos Fugot, a ten-year old black boy born in Cuba and resident in the household of a white merchant and his wife?58 Phebe’s situation was not singular but rather indicative of the laissez-faire nature of American labor practices in overseas settings and its occasional spillover into domestic life in New England. Global travel introduced New England mariners to places where servants came cheap. In India and China, for instance, large retinues of servants could be had for small amounts of money. Captain Richard Cleveland of Salem, marooned in Calcutta for a spell in the 1790s, rented a house and staffed it as befit local custom with a “multitude of servants.” He pondered the social malaise resulting from so many “obsequious beings, each, at the master’s nod, ready to perform the duty peculiar to his office with a cheerfulness and

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alacrity.” Gradually, he became accustomed to traveling about the city lying in a palanquin carried by four men.59 Other American travelers besides Wallis brought foreign servants—or slaves?—to New England, where their labor status seems uncertain to us today but did not appear to raise questions or qualms in the time period. In an 1829 letter from Marseilles to his family in Salem, sea captain Nathaniel Kinsman updated them on “my Malay boy,” whom he had purchased in Sumatra and named John Alley. The boy “has been taken so much notice of here,” Kinsman complained, “that he has I am afraid acquired some great notions, but being so young I can easily manage him when I get him home.” The boy’s value to Kinsman was not just his labor but how possession of a servant promised to elevate Kinsman’s status: “What will the good folks in Salem say, when they see in the newspapers arrived Ship—passenger Mr. N. Kinsman and Servant!! from a pepper voyage too.”60 Alley stayed with the Kinsman family his entire life and died in Salem in 1895, occupation “servant.”61 Another example comes from the memoir of the American philosopher George Santayana. Boston merchant George Sturgis and his Spanish-born wife, who years later would remarry and give birth to Santayana, bought a Chinese slave in Manila in 1851. When Sturgis died, his wife fulfilled a promise to her husband and moved to Boston to raise their children. Santayana described his mother’s departure from Manila: “She carried not only all her personal belongings, shawls, laces, fans, fancy costumes, and family heirlooms, but chessmen and chessboards, Chinese lacquer tables, and models of native Philippine houses in glass houses, with their glass trees, fruits, animals, and human figures. She even took with her to look after the baby, a little Chinese slave, Juana la China, whom she had bought and had had christened and of course liberated. She believed in progress, and she was making one.”62 A free person by Santayana’s reckoning (she was “of course liberated”), Juana’s lifelong service to his family, he believed, was made willingly. Other New Englanders did not import servants from abroad but wished to. Eliza Ann Richardson Chever, daughter of William P. Richardson (the sea captain who initiated Salem’s trade with Fiji in 1811) and wife to another Salem sea captain, missed her opportunity. At a merchant’s house in Manila in 1859, she envied the “troup of servants, all well trained so that there is no confussion, & scarecely any orders given.” Particularly appealing was “a little Chinese girl” who looked after the youngest children and was a fine sewer. “Had we thought of it earlier, we might have had one of these girls,”

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Chever wrote in her diary with regret and longing: “They come from Amoy, & are very tractable, & become much attached to their Mistresses.”63 Remarkably, even Africans could be imported into antebellum New England without inciting questions about their labor status. The website of the Topsfield Historical Society repeats a story collected from a resident in the early twentieth century of an “African Princess,” Sarah Baro Colcher, who “was given” to Beverly sea captain Austin Dodge off of West Africa in 1844 and raised by his sister in Topsfield. Colcher received “an excellent education. She proved trustworthy and grateful and developed into a fine woman. When she became of age she went into domestic service and was for many years cook in the home of Mrs. Gordon Dexter of Boston and Beverly Farms.”64 These other instances involving Kinsman, Chever, Santayana’s mother, and the Dodges of Beverly put Wallis’s actions regarding Phebe in a larger context. Wallis was not the only New Englander with a desire for an affordable, capable, obliging, and loyal servant, nor was she the only one to realize her desire in overseas travel. Given the pressures inherent in the market for servants in New England, domestic help would otherwise have been out of her reach. Phebe’s work around the house in Beverly gave Wallis time to do other things, such as shepherd Life in Feejee into print. Also, Wallis may have felt the same thrill Kinsman imagined for himself when the “Marine Journal” of the Salem Register reported “Mrs Wallis (captain’s wife) and servant” among the passengers newly disembarked from the Zotoff in July 1850. The darkness of Phebe’s skin and her cannibal heritage created a social distance akin to that which sequestered African American cooks and Irish domestics to the kitchen. At the same time, missionary-inspired narratives normalizing the rescue and reform of ethnic others disguised the self-serving nature of the Wallises’ purchase to make it seem a humanitarian gesture aiding the advance of civilization. Like other extraterritorial Americans, Wallis did not trouble herself much over the ethics of labor relations when presented with the prospect of the perfect servant. Nevertheless, purchasing another human being transgressed her own moral code and that of Beverly, whose residents believed themselves enlightened in their opposition to slavery and who did not directly benefit, as Wallis did, from Phebe’s labor. That the Wallises’ purchase of Phebe went unchecked in a place opposed to slavery has multiple explanations. Faith in the justice of their own society, a perception of slavery as existing only in the American South and not just around the corner, an inclination not to intrude in neighbors’ private affairs, disinterest, inertia, and a

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fleeting familiarity with Fiji compared to the Wallises’ firsthand knowledge would have combined to keep Beverly townspeople from probing too deeply into Phebe’s origins. It would have been up to Phebe, it seems, to broach the question of her status to Massachusetts officials, seek out a lawyer, and bring her case to court. But what could she have known of the U.S. legal system and the possibility of its protection? Moreover, contesting the Wallises’ proprietorship of her labor would have violated the will of the Nadi turaga who by Fijian custom had authority over her fate. Phebe and the Wallises left Salem for Fiji on the Maid of Orleans in May 1851 as the American debate over slavery reached fever pitch. Ironically, once they arrived in Fiji to collect a cargo of bêche-de-mer, the issue of slavery dramatically rose to the forefront there as well. The outcry over slavery in Fiji centered wholly on the sex trade, which alleviated Wallis from any implication in it. She was adamantly, openly opposed to white men’s sexual exploitation of Fijian women. Wallis may never have come to terms with the contradictions in her antislavery stance and her own involvement in the bêche-de-mer trade’s most destructive aspects. And yet, occasionally her journals hint of a conscience unsettled by the coercive economy of slug gathering and her complicity in it. The sex trade had long bothered Fiji’s English missionaries, less so when Fijians did it from custom and more so when beachcombers engaged in it.65 James Calvert, one of Life in Feejee’s endorsers, tried to intervene in one such purchase in eastern Fiji in 1844. Calvert advised Tui Nayau to refuse the musket and gunpowder an Englishman offered for a young woman. “‘Do not let your covetousness have the mastery over you,’” Calvert begged. “‘People are not bought and sold like pigs in England.’”66 Five years later, while interpreting for the British warship Havannah, Calvert enlisted its commander, John Elphinstone Erskine, to launch a more concerted campaign against British men who trafficked in women in Fiji. Already primed to quell slavery from policing the transatlantic slave trade, the British Navy was a natural ally, and Calvert easily persuaded Erskine to take up the cause.67 On his return to Sydney, Erskine appealed to the governor of New South Wales, Australia, Charles Fitz Roy, who sent a proclamation to Fiji threatening to prosecute British subjects for purchasing and enslaving women. Wallis was at Levuka in November 1852 when she heard that J. Everard Home of the British warship Calliope had delivered Fitz Roy’s proclamation there the month before. With great satisfaction, she transcribed the proclamation into her journal

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and commented that the “white residents” took “great offence” at the accusation.68 The beachcombers fended off the slavery charge, however. David Whippy was instrumental in extinguishing the investigation. As he helped Home resolve other issues involving British subjects in the islands, Whippy bent Home’s ear with descriptions of Fijians’ “abominable habits” and “brutal conduct to their women.” Whippy’s twenty-five years in the islands; “honest, upright conduct”; status as Fiji’s “most respectable white inhabitant”; and “warm desire to do good” added credibility to the beachcombers’ defense. They did not refute the charges but pled that they had no choice but to purchase women as “servants, or to do the duty of wives.” Because Fiji had “no law, but the will of the chief,” it was impossible to obtain servants without paying turaga a musket in exchange. And ultimately, as beachcomber William Nimmo rationalized in a letter to British authorities, a greater good resulted from such purchases in that the women led lives of “ease and comfort . . . much better than their previous condition” and were removed “from the horror of Heathenism and Cannibalism to the enjoyment of a somewhat civilized life and the happiness of a Preached Gospel.” In London, the Colonial Office ruminated over the “facts” presented, some arguing that the situation was not “so bad as was represented,” others finding it “as completely and simply slavery as the ‘domestic institution’ of the United States.” But there the matter ended.69 At least for another decade or longer, the traffic in women continued.70 Calvert’s efforts raised the question of the status of women held by white men as wives and concubines but not those held by Mary Wallis or the missionaries as servants. In his letter, Nimmo suggestively threatened to expose missionary misdeeds in a veiled reference to Calvert: he “had better see that he comes before the Governor of New South Wales with clean hands and that blame cannot be attached to him of transactions contrary to the instructions of his employer in England.”71 Overtly, Wallis’s journal seems as blindly hypocritical in condemning her fellow Americans for buying and owning women. However, she, the missionaries, and the beachcombers had a cultural connection and an ideology in common. They all defended human trafficking for domestic service as a civilizing force. Still, Phebe’s unorthodox situation may have caused Wallis more anxiety than she was willing to face. In conversations with cannibal kings about their wanton acts of murder, Wallis occasionally detected signs she interpreted as shame, which she referred to as a “monitor”: “Does this not show that there is a monitor within the breast of even a cannibal savage?”72 The thread

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of thoughts in Wallis’s journals suggests that she had a monitor, too. Her castigation of the Zotoff ’s second mate for owning a woman just after her husband bought Phebe reads as though she was pulling curtains around her own conscience. On the Zotoff’s subsequent voyage, a single paragraph ties together cannibalism (“Human heads are never eaten”), Phebe (“Phebe kept close to me, and since we have been in Feejee has shown no disposition, so common in the females, of running away”), and beachcombers’ chaining up women to keep them from running away. These statements free associate together, with Wallis concluding, “Thus we see there are slaveholders in this part of the world; but this is not surprising, as many of these slaveholders came from America, that glorious land of liberty, where three millions of the population are held in bondage!”73 So what of Phebe? Sadly, I am unable to trace her once she disappears from Wallis’s journal. The last reference to her appears in the midst of Fiji’s antislavery uproar, after Phebe had been to America twice and returned afterward to Fiji each time. On the third and last of Wallis’s Fiji voyages, Phebe was now about sixteen or seventeen years old and attracted the interest of a beachcomber known as “Long Tom.” Wallis called him “a buyer and seller of women.” He had had “several conversations with my girl about her coming to live with him when we leave the islands. He has told her that she has to work very hard here, but if she will go and live with him she need do no work as he has a plenty of servants. He also promises her handsome clothes.” Wallis thought this a preposterous proposal, but since Phebe then disappears from the journals, maybe she chose the beachcomber’s harem over Wallis’s kitchen.74 When Wallis returned to Salem in 1853, a woman named “Mary Daughnought” was listed as Wallis’s servant among the passengers disembarking from the Maid of Orleans.75 Perhaps Phebe found her way back to Nadi, but it seems more likely that her relationship with the Wallises set her permanently adrift, estranged from family and home. As for the other Fijian laborers indirectly in the Wallises’ employ in the bêche-de-mer trade, their perspective is even harder to get at than Phebe’s. In the eight-year period covering Wallis’s three voyages to Fiji, violence among islanders escalated as the archipelago’s leading men competed for territory and glory. Monopolizing foreign trade brought Cakobau and other turaga levu muskets and gunpowder for their troops and wealth to distribute to allies, thus the means to build military strength while diminishing their enemies’ access to foreign weaponry. With Viwa as Bau’s most loyal ally, Cakobau expanded his influence over the northern regions popular with bêche-de-mer traders until the early 1850s when subject peoples balked at

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his excessive demands. The Wallises were handmaidens to Cakobau’s rise to power and consequential figures in the crisis that nearly brought his rule to an end. Wallis was aware of the larger implications of the trade but sidestepped any responsibility for the violence at its core. When she first met Cakobau in December 1844, rivalry over who had rights to fish off the Ba coast of northern Viti Levu was Cakobau’s main topic of conversation with her husband. The war between Bau and Rewa was then raging. Cakobau needed arms but also wished to limit Rewa’s access. Captain Joseph Hartwell of the Gambia, which had the same Salem owners as the Zotoff, had secretly enlisted workers from both Bau and Rewa to fish at Ba. Cakobau “declared that he would go to Ba, kill the Rewa men, and burn the ‘beech de mer’ houses.” Ten days later, he left for Ba in “a fleet of thirty canoes, well filled with warriors” and routed the Rewa people from the fishing grounds. Such battles took their toll. As the Zotoff sailed along northern Vanua Levu in August 1849, Ilaitia had morosely gazed on the depopulated region, telling Wallis of how the coast used to be “lined with towns, the inhabitants of which had been mostly killed in their wars.” He blamed its ravaged appearance on “the introduction of firearms.”76 The Zotoff depended on Bau and Viwa to keep people on the northern periphery at work. In April 1849, rumor of a war brewing between Tavea and Yaqaqa necessitated Namosimalua’s and Ilaitia’s mediation. If any harm came to the Zotoff’s laborers, Ilaitia warned several towns within Macuata’s domains, “I shall send word to Bau, and they will come, as they did sometime ago, and make you all run for your lives.’” It was more important for Fijians “to collect luxuries for the Chinese, than to feed themselves with human flesh” was how Wallis summed up the situation. She knew that her husband and other Salem traders were the middlemen in this global marketplace that made possible the sale of Fijian commodities to the Chinese, but she did not assign any blame to Salem traders as motivators and arms dealers. Fijians’ appetite for “human flesh” had made this place a “land of bloodshed and murder.”77 Given the intimidating postures assumed by Bau spokesmen, resistance tended toward the covert. As Cakobau’s 1844 threat to burn Hartwell’s bêchede-mer houses shows, some of the frequent fires that demolished traders’ establishments had a rival polity as their cause, but disgruntled subject peoples could also set traders’ operations ablaze to put an end to the demands on their labor.78 In 1852, as Cakobau overreached by imposing novel, extreme production quotas on subject peoples, open rebellion resulted. The Wallises

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had a stake in this conflict, the centerpiece of which was a schooner called the Thakombau. Back in 1849, before departing Fiji on the Zotoff, Captain Wallis had promised to see what he could do to fulfill Cakobau’s desire for an Americanstyle schooner. The Flying Fish of the Ex Ex had made a dashing, elegant impression in 1840 while Whippy and other beachcombers had also built up a sizable fleet of small sailing vessels that now shared the water with Fijian craft. Besides admiring the Flying Fish, Cakobau had heard that the kings of Hawai‘i and Tonga possessed foreign schooners; they had become the ultimate status symbol in Oceania. In Beverly in 1850, as Mary Wallis put Life in Feejee into print, Captain Wallis arranged with his employers to have a beautiful schooner built for Cakobau in Manchester, Massachusetts. The Thakombau sailed into Fiji four months before the Wallises arrived in the Maid of Orleans in September 1851, at which time Captain Wallis presented Cakobau with a bill for the vessel to be paid off with a cargo of bêche-demer, coconut oil, and turtle shell. In the meantime, Cakobau had negotiated a similar deal with Sydney trader William Owen for a smaller, less appealing vessel, the Olus.79 In dire need of bêche-de-mer, Cakobau sent a hundred bags to Ritova at Macuata in October with orders to have them filled. Ritova, “behaving very saucily” as Wallis phrased it, refused. He destroyed the town of Tavea, burned one of Captain Wallis’s bêche-de-mer houses, threatened to attack Bua, and refused to meet with Ilaitia, whom Cakobau had sent to the region to ask Ritova to soro—that is, to apologize, restore his subordination, and fill the one hundred bags with bêche-de-mer. The following January, Cakobau headed north with fifteen hundred men in two hundred canoes. They were going to fight or fish, Wallis heard, and would do whatever it took to pay for the Thakombau, which remained in Captain Wallis’s possession pending payment. Over the next month, Wallis’s journal followed Cakobau’s onslaught on Macuata and his attempt to bring Ritova to heel: seven inland towns burned, then Raviravi (“Nothing but a brown spot of earth denotes where the town once stood”), another three towns up the coast. Ritova and some of his people took refuge on a heavily fortified hill. He sent word to Cakobau offering to soro and fill twice as many bags with bêche-de-mer. Cakobau visited the Maid of Orleans every day while his forces laid siege on Ritova’s hilltop retreat. He refused to accept Ritova’s soro.80 “‘Do not,’” Wallis said, “‘eat them, be more like a christian, you know to[o] much to do that now.’ ‘We will eat them,’ he said I will bring the body of Retova here, and eat him in this cabin. So I answered not while I am here.”81

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Over the next few days, as Wallis watched the siege from the decks of the Maid of Orleans, she felt pangs of guilt at what had transpired. “Poor Retova, what must be his feelings, he had better have filled the bags of fish.” She was “relieved” when Ilaitia told her that it was not payment for the Thakombau that had caused so much violence and desolation, but rather Cakobau intended these one hundred bags of bêche-de-mer to pay Owen for the Olus. In the end, Ritova proved victorious. “What hath Bau wrought?” she queried in her journal. An attempt to storm Ritova’s fort turned quickly into a resounding retreat, which Wallis presciently interpreted as a step back in Cakobau’s rise to power in the archipelago. As for the slugs that Cakobau had managed to collect, the Wallises ended up with them after all. Captain Wallis insisted that Cakobau hand over the bags for the Olus, or the Maid of Orleans would head immediately for Ba or New Caledonia.82 News of Bau’s loss of Macuata as a tributary encouraged others to rebel, and the people of Ba now refused to fill their bags with bêche-de-mer. They had even cut up some of the bags and were wearing them instead. Still owing Captain Wallis payment if he was to receive the schooner in exchange, Cakobau agreed to supply the Maid of Orleans with workers and provisions for a trip to New Caledonia. Wallis herself went to Bau to urge Cakobau along by informing him of Captain Wallis’s plans to leave for Macuata and have Ritova fish for him if Cakobau did not produce the workers, yams, and pigs for the New Caledonia expedition. Within three days, the Maid of Orleans had its food supplies and sixty-four Fijian workers on board. The Wallises later determined that using Fijian laborers in New Caledonia was not successful, however, because “if they are not disposed to work no one can compel them.” They would do as they were told insofar as heading off to the reefs, but then would pull up on shore and sleep, returning later with the claim that there were no slugs to be found on the reefs.83 Rendezvousing at Levuka, after New Caledonia and before leaving Fiji forever, a rumor circulated among the town’s papalagi that Cakobau planned to take revenge for the Thakombau fiasco by attacking their town. The following day, Captain Wallis with Captain John Goodridge, who had commanded the Thakombau, and Captain Thomas Dunn of the Pilot, met with Cakobau to discuss terms. They agreed to let Cakobau have the schooner even though he had come up short in paying the price asked for it.84 Cakobau thus took possession of the Thakombau but at great political cost. Deemed an illegitimate demand and a perversion of his power over Bau dependencies, Cakobau’s campaign for possession of the schooner turned so many against

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him, years later it still bore the reputation of being “the most unpopular act of his reign.”85 Fijian workers were instrumental in elevating Wallis’s social status in the United States. The coercion undergirding Fijian labor made it extraordinarily cheap for foreign traders. As one of the most successful American traders in Fiji, Captain Wallis knew how to negotiate with Cakobau and other turaga levu to attain the best deal for his Salem employers. The profits accrued to S. Chamberlain and Company with a share going to Captain Wallis. In addition, Wallis enjoyed the luxury of having domestic servants at her beck and call, while living with the missionaries in Fiji and through the purchase of Phebe. Although the bêche-de-mer trade allowed the Wallises a good living, they were not so high up on the social scale in Beverly to be able to afford domestic servants. Not only did Fijian servants relieve Wallis from domestic drudgery; their deference to her made manifest her sense of social superiority. Since servants and slug gatherers toiled for the Wallises practically for free, her ungenerous complaints about their laziness and stupidity underscore her complete confidence in Fijian subordination as the natural order of things. Fijians in power also found opportunities through the bêche-de-mer trade to elevate their status by exploiting the customary obligations of Fiji’s lower classes. To pursue military ambitions, aggrandize their domains, and acquire luxury objects of foreign manufacture, they contracted with foreign traders to make the labor of their subjects available for resource extraction, domestic service, and sexual relations. Their people complied with these new demands, but only up to a point. In the short term, the bêche-de-mer trade brought new wealth into the islands with the influx of goods, but over the long term, it had devastating consequences in the exacerbation of warfare, ravaging of towns and their environs, and the steady creep of foreign influence. American traders in Fiji encouraged and discouraged wars to suit their needs, supplied the weapons that sustained wars between rival and rebelling territories, and created a market in which foreigners paid little regard to their native workforce beyond valuing the cheapness of that labor and ensuring that traders had sustained access to it. While all this was going on in Fiji, most Americans were oblivious to it. They considered labor a pressing concern but only within the bounds of the territorial nation. One of the great ironies is slavery defender George Fitzhugh’s Cannibals All! of 1857. He argued that a free labor system was exploitative because employers had no obligation to care for their workers

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as slave owners cared for their slaves: “All good and respectable people are ‘Cannibals all,’ who do not labor, or who are successfully trying to live without labor, on the unrequited labor of other people . . . quite as much as any Feejee chieftain who breakfasts, dines and sups on human flesh.”86 Fijian cannibalism was the analogy Fitzhugh chose to put free labor in the worst possible light. He obviously did not know the whole story—that for several decades thousands of Fijians had been working for Americans, that Americans had collaborated with these Fiji chieftains who supped on human flesh, and that foreign labor was as fully a part of the American economy as southern slavery and northern wage labor. The sectional tensions within the United States pitting free wage labor and slavery against each other, which would soon erupt in civil war, did nothing to make this third labor system visible. Even the Americans who took advantage of forced labor in Fiji condemned such practices within their own country.

Chapter 6

This Hell upon Earth Competence and Wealth

From the U.S. consulate in Fiji in 1851, merchant John B. Williams wrote his brother Henry of his desperate circumstances. “I live on yams and Pork— Pork & yams day in and day out week in and week out month in and month out year in and year out—sometimes nothing but yams. . . . Slaving to try and get some money.” Nearly ten years earlier, Williams had left Salem for the southwest Pacific to gain riches the Salem way, through global commerce. More than anything he wanted to come home, he told Henry, “but my property—endeavouring to get hold of it, keeps me here in this prison yard—This Hell upon earth.”1 Williams never realized his aspirations. He died of dysentery, the “white man’s disease,” on Ovalau in 1860, to the last breath anticipating that someday he would return home with a fortune made in Fiji.2 Though money was what Williams wanted from Fiji, he valued money not for its purchasing power but as a symbol of his success in business, or “buisness” as he typically spelled it.3 He hoped that a fortune reaped in Fiji would command respect by demonstrating his superior commercial acumen to the people of Salem, a city renowned for having produced some of the nation’s earliest millionaires.4

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For New England’s mercantile class, the world was a proving ground that beckoned enterprising men, promising them distinction, even if it meant martyring themselves to their ambitions in one hellhole or another. Indeed, the laments of American merchants stationed abroad make Fiji sound no worse than any other place where they set up shop. When John and Joseph Dorr of Boston, the same firm that owned the sandalwood trader Jenny, sent younger brother Sullivan to represent the family’s interests in Canton in 1801, Sullivan’s letters home harped on “this d—d hole” and “abominable country”: “It is distressing to live here secluded from the world aye from happiness for I am truely unhappy.” In a better mood another day, Sullivan thought only of the ultimate reward: “I have yet youth on my side thereby I shall be able to make a handsome fortune before I am 30 years old.”5 From Smyrna, Turkey, in the 1810s, another New England merchant, Francis Coffin, grumbled to his brother about being “detained in this detestable country. . . . I hate the Turks, the Jews, the Armenians, & the Greeks.” Nearly defeated by one loss after another, he decided that in future, “I shall prefer very moderate prospects at home, to great expectations on going abroad again. . . . I am growing old apace, it is high time I began to think of fixing myself somewhere.”6 Youthful deprivations and hard work were supposed to bring New England merchants “competence and wealth.” So said Salem merchant Richard Cleveland. As was the case with Williams a generation later, Cleveland’s inability to realize what he saw as his legacy and mission left him bewildered.7 The speculations at the heart of American commercial expansion could generate extraordinary returns one day and ruin a person the next. Firm collapses, individual bankruptcies, unpayable debts, these were all part of daily life for merchant families.8 Even if failure was endemic, Williams anguished over the cause of his. Was it bad luck? Was it the incompetence or maliciousness of others? Or was it his fault? In truth, he was trapped between two competing cultural values. He believed that self-made wealth would earn him others’ esteem, but to exhibit blatant self-interest was despicable. If self-interest was the impulse driving American capitalism to discover advantageous opportunities overseas, no one wanted to confess to it. The most celebrated merchants held up as role models were said to possess good characters as well as astute business sense. They honored agreements, could be trusted, and gave back to the community through civic leadership. They appeared to deserve their wealth and the admiration it provoked.9 If Williams had accumulated a vast fortune, perhaps his acquaintances would have detected in him more evidence of a

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sound character. But every mishap exposed him as an opportunistic schemer with a vindictive streak and a willingness to stoop to lies and betrayal to advance his own interests. In contrast to David Whippy, no one ever commended Williams for integrity or an earnest desire to do good. Although Williams never achieved his objective in Fiji, his actions bore consequences for others. More than any other American, even more than Whippy, Williams influenced the islands’ history. Whereas Whippy sought foremost to protect the foreign enclave at Levuka, Williams belonged to a vast, global economy in which his self-interest constituted one tentacle. The political impact of Williams’s myriad pecuniary schemes, or debacles, will become clearer in chapter 7. Here I explore how he ended up in Fiji, the repertoire of business practices he implemented there, and his frustrated maneuvers to attain “competence and wealth.” Born in 1810, Williams came of age as Salem’s glory was fading.10 But the memory of how the city’s merchant seafarers had acquired fabulous riches at the far edges of the world was vibrant enough to mold the next generation. Speaking of his childhood in Salem, John B. Derby credited the pageantry of the East India Marine Society for instilling in the city’s youth the desire to engage in overseas commerce. Every year, for the society’s annual procession, one boy would be chosen to ride in the palanquin. “The boy who was so fortunate as to be selected to personate a native Indian of high caste, seated in his palankin, and borne aloft by four blacks, turbaned and mustachoed, was viewed with awe for a year after by his companions. Celebrations of this kind keep alive the spirit of adventure, and made the trade, which built up Salem, a favorite pursuit of the rising generation.”11 The Williams family was steeped in these traditions and the expectations they engendered. Of old stock and blue blood, Williams grew up in a cosmopolitan milieu of elegant mansions, cotillions, men’s clubs, and political bigwigs—the cultural halo of privilege and power that emanated from the city’s preeminence in global trade and the spectacular wealth that resulted from it. Most of his family’s money originated with his maternal grandfather, Aaron Wait, who rose to the pinnacle of Salem society in the 1790s, during the peak years of the East Indies trade. In partnership with Jerathmael Peirce, Wait went on to accumulate shares in ships, banks, insurance companies, and War of 1812 privateering ventures.12 Williams’s paternal grandfather had also prospered in global commerce, and his father Israel set out to do the same.13 Israel Williams captained ships for Peirce and Wait. He is best known in Salem history for commanding the newly launched ship Friendship

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when only twenty-six years old. On its maiden voyage in 1797, Captain Williams took coffee and sugar from Batavia to Hamburg, returning to Salem with gin and dry goods. He then left for La Guaira, South America, to pick up cocoa, indigo, and coffee to sell in Cádiz and London. In this manner, Peirce and Wait’s initial $50,000 investment in the Friendship mushroomed into an estimated $250,000 profit within a few years.14 In his mercantile endeavors, Israel Williams never reached the heights his father-in-law achieved, but by 1805 he had made enough to purchase a house under construction at 19 Chestnut Street for $7,900 (see figure 6.1).15 A broad avenue lined with federal-style mansions, Chestnut Street was Salem’s most prestigious residential neighborhood, deemed by many the most “aristocratic thoroughfare in America.”16 None of Israel’s efforts afforded him financial security, however. During the War of 1812, he even had to put the Chestnut House up for sale until saved by his father-in-law’s intervention. Instead of ending his days as a merchant who traveled only so far as his counting room, Israel continued to go to sea and depended on Wait to support his family.17

Figure 6.1. The house on the left is 19 Chestnut Street, Salem, which belonged to John B. Williams’s family. Photograph by Nancy Shoemaker.

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Though not as rich as others who lived on Chestnut Street, Israel Williams personified the splendor and gentility exuded by Salem’s upper class. He frequently paraded through Salem streets as captain of a local militia and in the East India Marine Society’s annual processions. Israel joined the society in December 1799, shortly after its founding. He started a two-year term as second vice president at the peak of the society’s celebrity in 1825. That year, U.S. president John Quincy Adams and other dignitaries attended the society’s procession and dinner in honor of the opening of its new building, the East India Marine Hall. Israel Williams’s donations to the society— journals of Friendship voyages to Batavia and Madras, a Sumatran dagger, oyster-shell fishhooks from the Marquesas, Chinese chopsticks, a model of a Malay proa from Java, a Swedish fossil, and many other items—hint at the extent of his travels, to just about everywhere around the world, though never to Fiji. After his death in 1831, the word most often used in memory of Israel Williams was “gentleman.”18 Over the next few decades, the Williams’ family continued to rank among the city’s most affluent. An 1851 book on Massachusetts’s wealthiest tier included John’s mother, Elizabeth (also known as Lydia) Williams, among Salem’s thirty-five richest people and estimated her worth at $100,000.19 Her share of her father’s estate, held in a trust, secured ownership of the Chestnut Street house and granted her an income of about a thousand dollars a year.20 But for Israel and Elizabeth’s children, the grandeur and status enjoyed by their forebears proved elusive. All seven sons who lived to adulthood looked to maritime trade as the means to make their way in the world. Two died young while on voyages, and of the remaining five (Israel, Charles, Samuel, John, and Henry), only Henry, the youngest, managed to live the life they anticipated for themselves. Henry started out as a clerk in the counting house of his uncle by marriage, Nathaniel L. Rogers (Rogers had married Elizabeth Williams’s sister Harriet). Henry then made a few voyages to the East Indies as supercargo for the eminent Salem merchant Joseph Peabody before entering into a partnership with Tucker Daland, whose daughter he married. At a time when most Salem merchants had retired from international commerce, Henry made a good income by specializing in India and investing the profits in railroads and banks. Viewed as a “man of high standing and respected by the whole community,” Henry participated in civic associations, philanthropy, and politics. In 1875–76, three years before his death, he held a term as Salem’s mayor.21 Henry’s life course—beginning as some business titan’s clerk, a brief stint as ship’s clerk or supercargo to

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experience the trade firsthand, partnership with a natal or marital relative, even his time as mayor—followed the ideal path in early nineteenth-century New England’s mercantile culture.22 Henry’s prosperity made him the family’s anchor, and his less successful brothers, scattered over the globe, often looked to him for assistance. John relied on Henry as his agent; most of his correspondence from Fiji had Henry as the recipient. Charles commanded vessels owned by Henry and for a few years in the early 1850s represented Williams and Daland in Manila, a place he detested. Scorching heat, rampant thievery, and high prices made it “so offensive living here.” But he resigned himself to it for he knew, “My Fortune will not be made in a hurry.”23 Samuel left for the rubber-producing hinterlands of Pará, Brazil, where he scratched out a subsistence in the cattle hide trade. At one point, he asked Henry to front him with cloth, soap, or tobacco to take into the interior to sell. Henry equivocated, to which Samuel responded, “You ask me what you can do, without injury to yourself—Dear Henry I do not wish you to do any thing for me, where in I thought you would be the looser by it.” He did not want Henry’s charity. He just wanted Henry to send him goods to sell and promised a return on his investment. Still struggling two years later, Samuel did not blame Henry for his prudence. Instead, he wished the best for Henry and hoped that “you have made money in your transactions in business & may the Almighty prosper you, and give you a full bounty of this worlds Riches.”24 Albeit unable to fulfill the family’s moneymaking creed, Samuel still believed in it. Samuel’s letters so pathetically detailed his impoverishment and isolation, even John in faraway Fiji felt sorry for him.25 John B. Williams’s ambitions were thus bred in him and reflected his class position, upbringing, and Salem heritage. His plan was to accumulate wealth outside the country and thereby vindicate himself in the eyes of Salem’s merchant community. As much as he wanted to leave Fiji for home, he could not do so until he had a fortune worthy of others’ admiration. But why Fiji? The answer is serendipity. No matter where he landed, he would probably have proceeded in much the same way since he functioned within a merchant subculture that operated according to certain premises and established practices. Two fundamentals drove Williams’s business schemes. First there was the assumption that all locations had distinctive goods that could be harvested or purchased and then sold elsewhere. Second, partners were essential. They provided capital and, more vitally, ships to transport local products to distant markets. Even though Williams

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seemed in his own mind to be doing everything right, nearly every speculation ended in disaster. Like Henry, John began his mercantile career under the wing of uncle Nathaniel. His first known voyage was to Havana in 1828 as captain’s clerk on N. L. Rogers and Brothers’ Black Warrior. His most noteworthy was in 1832 as clerk on the Tybee, also owned by his uncle’s firm. On this voyage, the Tybee opened up Salem’s trade with New Zealand and Australia and cruised around Tahiti and the Society Islands bartering for coconut oil, the same commodity Williams would later specialize in while in Fiji.26 In his youth, Williams showed no apparent interest in Fiji even though it was his uncle’s firm that initiated Salem’s bêche-de-mer trade in 1827 and over the next few years sent many vessels to Fiji. Williams must have heard others talk often of Fiji, however, not just his uncle but also William Driver, his captain on the Tybee who the year before had been in Fiji collecting bêchede-mer on the Charles Doggett. Other Salem acquaintances—Henry’s onetime employer Joseph Peabody and Chestnut Street neighbor Stephen C. Phillips—invested in the Fiji trade.27 Although several of the city’s merchants had made enormous profits in Fiji, the idea of doing business there himself developed gradually. Since Salem merchants could be found all over the world, the particular place figured less in Williams’s calculations than the potential for gains. As he mulled over options, he focused initially on the Atlantic and in 1841 traveled to Gibraltar to investigate the “Barbary Trade” on the North African coast.28 He then applied to Congress for the post of U.S. consul at Tangiers. He rallied Salem Whigs of influence to recommend him to Daniel Webster, the former Massachusetts senator who was now U.S. secretary of state. Williams’s privileged background afforded him powerful patrons who wrote letters on his behalf. Phillips, at that time Salem’s mayor, and another neighbor, congressional representative Leverett Saltonstall, were among those who vouched for Williams. His references described him as “a young gentleman of good character and talents, well informed, of considerable experience in business” and “in nautical affairs.” Furthermore, he came from a “very respectable” family and had “always sustained a good character.” In addition, a number of Salem’s “most respectable” merchants signed a petition in support of his application. Tangiers was unavailable, and so Williams asked for the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, with Fiji as his second choice.29 In April 1842, he accepted an appointment to New Zealand.30 That a consulship gave merchants a commercial advantage was well known in Salem. For example, Richard P. Waters, while U.S. consul in

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Zanzibar from 1837 to 1844, built a large fortune trading in copal, ivory, cloves, and hides. Waters’s brief return to Salem in 1840 may have given Williams the idea to seek a consulship for himself.31 This merging of private commerce with a consular position was commonplace. Before the Consular Reform Act of 1856, most consuls were merchants paid in fees for each piece of paperwork they produced as federal agents. Their duties entailed authorizing sailor discharges, assisting distressed seamen, collecting depositions in cases of shipboard malfeasance, handling ship registrations after shipwrecks and condemnations, and submitting six-month, later quarterly, returns documenting incoming and outgoing American vessels. A consular position had the advantage of situating a merchant in the thick of commercial activity.32 A consulship also endowed its holder with some status. When Thomas Jefferson as secretary of state began instituting a full-fledged consular service for the new nation in 1791, he argued against salaries by saying that appointees would be “gentlemen who are satisfied to perform their duties in consideration of the respect and accidental advantages they may derive from them.”33 Williams’s dependence on the consulship for eking out some sense of self-importance is especially apparent in the many remarks he and other people made about his uniform (see figure 6.2). Jefferson had allowed consuls to wear a navy-style uniform. Few did so.34 Williams’s uniform made a dazzling display. Even his siblings were awed by it. Writing Henry from Manila, Charles joked about John’s new position as “a Politician & a Government Officer,” adding afterwards, “I really should like to see John I expect in that uniform, he will be taller than ever.”35 After stocking up on trade goods suitable for both New Zealand and Fiji, Williams set sail on the Gambia, captained by Benjamin Wallis, who was on his way to Fiji for bêche-de-mer.36 Disembarking at the Bay of Islands in December 1842, Williams settled at Te Wahapu, where American merchant and acting consul William Mayhew had an establishment. Te Wahapu was located opposite the vice-ridden, sailor town of Kororareka (renamed Russell in 1844) and Waitangi, site of the 1840 treaty by which Britain asserted dominion over New Zealand.37 Williams immediately assessed the region’s potential. At the tail-end of an extractive boom, New Zealand’s far north had already seen hundreds of ancient kauri trees fall to the axe and sawmill, turned into ships’ spars for British warships and whale ships. The mounds of gum at the base of kauri trees was another export but of uncertain value given its brittleness. Vast fields of native flax had also enticed speculators but required intensive

Figure 6.2. John B. Williams’s uniform in the Peabody Essex Museum’s collections is probably not the one he wore in the 1840s but a similar outfit he asked Henry to have made for him in 1857. Robert W. Kenny, ed., The New Zealand Journal, 1842–1844, of John B. Williams of Salem, Massachusetts (Salem: Peabody Essex Museum, 1956), 82. Military uniform, nineteenth-century wool, brass buttons 27 inches, Gift of Miss Elizabeth D. Williams, 1919, M2425, Peabody Essex Museum.

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Figure 6.3. Kororareka, later called Russell, was the main trading center in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand. Joel Samuel Polack’s 1836 illustration of it places his store prominently in the frame’s lower left. J. S. Polack, New Zealand: Being a Narrative of Travels and Adventures During a Residence in that Country Between the Years 1831 and 1837, 2 vols. (London: Richard Bentley, 1838), 1: frontispiece. Courtesy of Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, Ref PUBL0115-1-front.

native labor to process it. English merchant Joel S. Polack, who would soon become Williams’s business partner, assayed all these industries in the 1830s and wrote two books about New Zealand’s prospects and native people, which he published in London in 1838 and 1840 (see figure 6.3).38 Along with the uncertain value of New Zealand’s three leading exports to worry about, Williams had the added disadvantage of high port fees imposed on foreign vessels in the wake of the Treaty of Waitangi.39 Williams’s business endeavors failed to turn a profit, but he did produce something to show for his time in New Zealand, a book manuscript in the same genre as Polack’s books and reminiscent of travel memoirs by East India Marine Society members.40 Surviving in his papers at the Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, the manuscript saw publication in 1956—remarkably so, since it has to be one of the worst-written books in human history. Often unintelligible and ungrammatical, it interweaves descriptions of the country’s natural resources with conflicting platitudes about the Maori as a people of “hellish cannibal propensities” and “poor, innocent simple children” dying at the hands of avaricious British colonizers. Williams assailed New Zealand’s foreign residents as “obscene, filthy,

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blasphemous,” “Satanick,” “unprincipled rakes” who lived “licentiously with lewd Mauries.”41 As a reviewer of the volume drolly commented, “Williams has an extraordinary capacity for moral indignation . . . except perhaps in relation to commercial transactions in which he himself might be engaged.”42 One of the few New Zealand acquaintances Williams spoke favorably of in his manuscript was James Busby, “a worthy and urbane Gent[leman].” Before the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, Busby represented the British government at the Bay of Islands. Williams recounted the first time Busby invited him to dinner at his house at Waitangi. Busby’s wife flattered him in her reaction to his consular uniform: “Her ladyship perhaps never before having seen an official from the UStates in a Court dress. I thoroughly excited her curiosity a little.” The Busbys’s aura of gentility made them ideal social acquaintances. He and Busby shared business interests as well since they both sought to profit from New Zealand’s resources.43 Neither one was having much luck at it though, and after barely a year at the Bay of Islands, in February 1844, Williams left for home.44 He was not giving up on New Zealand. He was rethinking his strategy. On his brother’s behalf, Henry approached prospective investors. He sent out a boosterish circular advertising the New Zealand trade, how it was “comparatively new, & opens a good field, for future operations.”45 Kauri gum was the most promising. A few months after Williams’s departure, Busby left for the United States, too, with thirty tons of kauri gum, which he sold at a high price in New York City. The timing of Busby’s trip, overlapping with Williams’s, suggests that Williams inspired Busby to try his gum in American markets.46 While Williams was in Salem, his then business associate, Polack, was accumulating a cargo of gum on their joint account. John convinced his brother Henry to send a ship to New Zealand and take the gum on consignment. However, Mayhew’s clerks happened on a letter detailing the brothers’ plans. The clerks’ rumor-mongering spawned a “mania” for gum in northern New Zealand, making Williams appear “the arbiter, at whose Direction the fate of our (present) principal export, depended,” Polack informed Henry. On his return to New Zealand, John “could not then appear in the market as it would have sent the price up 100%.”47 In short, Williams could not accumulate kauri gum cheaply now that everyone knew that he wanted to buy kauri gum. Otherwise, Williams’s 1844 sojourn in Salem was fruitful. While walking down State Street in Boston one day, he passed an old acquaintance, Samuel T. Huse of Lynn, a town near Salem. Huse proposed they meet with

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his partner, Andrews Breed, majority owner and agent for a small whaling company. In November, the two Lynn merchants signed a contract with Williams allowing him use of their brig Falco at the rate of one-fourth share investment in the vessel, outfits, and outbound cargo in exchange for one fourth of the profits. After one year, the contract called for Williams’s share to increase to one third.48 At about the same time, Williams entered into a separate arrangement with Ichabod Handy, captain of the whale ship Belle of Fairhaven, Massachusetts. Handy is known in Pacific history for starting the Gilbert Islands’ coconut oil trade in 1849. But several years earlier, Handy and Williams had some sort of partnership involving coconut oil in Fiji. It may have been Williams who first pointed out to Handy the synergies between the two oil extraction industries—how easy it would be for whalers to drop off empty casks to be filled with coconut oil by islanders while their ships cruised for whales.49 Fiji now loomed larger in Williams’s designs. As he lined up new business partners, he successfully lobbied to move the New Zealand consulate from the Bay of Islands to Auckland and to add Fiji to his consular jurisdiction. In a letter to the State Department, he purported that France and Britain were casting “a longing eye” in Fiji’s direction and that its colonization by one or the other empire would “interfere with the American commerce, which is very extensive, and spreading.”50 There was no call from within the U.S. government for a consulate in Fiji. This was entirely Williams’s idea. When Whig party leader Henry Clay heard that Williams wanted a Fiji posting, he reputedly quipped, “Mr. Williams can have it; nobody else wants to go there: that is where they eat people, isn’t it!”51 The State Department granted Williams his wish. He retained his position as U.S. consul for New Zealand and by the end of 1844 became, in addition, U.S. commercial agent for Fiji.52 For a variety of reasons, the State Department called some of its appointees “commercial agent” instead of “consul” even though their duties were the same.53 Fortified with new backers, an enlarged consular territory, and optimism, Williams left New England on Breed and Huse’s Falco in November 1844. The brig stopped in western Australia first and sold off some of its cargo at Swan River and Adelaide. In a letter home, Williams calculated that he had already made eight thousand dollars from the voyage and chided Henry for not entering into a partnership with him: “If you had given me the Lucilla, see how much more I should have made.” He expected even greater profits at New Zealand. News of war between the British and Maori would spike demand for foreign goods. He advised Henry to “pay no regard to the

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burning of the town in the Bay of Islands by the natives. Business now will be better in New Zealand than it ever had been—2000 Troops and 4 Ships of war stationed there to quell the insurrection—and 1000 more soldiers sent for. . . . The troubles at New Zealand will be the making of the place.” Speaking in the same vein as would preoccupy much of his correspondence to Henry over the years, he viewed this success as redemption. For all those who had spoken ill of him in the past, “So much for thinking the truth is not, in me.”54 An American sailor who met Williams at this time featured him in a later memoir as one of the most memorable characters he encountered in his travels. The sailor shipped on the Falco in Western Australia and watched Williams sell “all the Yankee notions, from a clock to a canoe” while “dressed in gold-lace from head to foot” with a “cocked hat . . . covered with tassels and gold-lace.” When the sailor learned that the Falco’s cargo hold contained an army’s worth of muskets, he became suspicious of the vessel’s intent and shipped aboard a whaler. A year or two later, the sailor ran into Williams in Fiji, where once again he was awestruck by the consul’s appearance, dressed in uniform, sitting in a canoe paddled by two natives. “It was a mystery to me then, as now, how he kept his regalia so well.”55 That Williams wore so outlandish an outfit in such unlikely settings amused the sailor but also shows how Williams deployed the modicum of public authority entrusted to him as consul to magnify his status. Despite the auspicious start, Williams’s luck gave out once the Falco arrived in New Zealand. After discharging cargo to eager buyers at Port Nicholson, the brig wrecked in a gale near Hawkes’ Bay in July 1845. Williams managed to save his specie, but Maori and British inhabitants came aboard and absconded with most of the Falco’s cargo including the guns and gunpowder intended for the Fiji trade. A British missionary who came to investigate the wreck empathized with Williams’s plight. Whereas the American sailor in Australia had been almost too impressed with the consul’s appearance, its gold embellishments inspiring caricature, the missionary saw only a “highly respectable man” at the mercy of ruthless thieves. Williams refused to acknowledge defeat, however. Arriving safely at Auckland, he sent a letter off to Henry projecting sixty thousand dollars in profits from his upcoming voyage to Fiji. “My prospects was never so good as at present,” he proclaimed.56 While recovering from the Falco wreck, Williams faced another dire situation. British authorities accused him of inciting the Flagstaff War, the same war he had raved enthusiastically about in Australia. It had broken out in

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March 1845, after Hone Heke asserted Nga Puhi sovereignty over the Bay of Islands by chopping down, several times, the British flagpole overlooking Russell. British forces massed at the Bay of Islands and Auckland and put down the rebellion within the year. It was Mayhew’s American clerk, temporarily acting as U.S. consul, who had involved himself in the Maori cause. He fled to the United States, leaving Williams to take the blame.57 Williams met with Governor Robert Fitz Roy “in full uniform” according to Polack (Williams called it “court dress”) in September 1845 and cleared himself of the charges. Polack, whom Williams had recently appointed to act as his vice consul for New Zealand, wrote a long letter explaining the misunderstanding to the U.S. secretary of state while Williams arranged to continue on to Fiji as planned.58 Finally, in February 1846, Williams reached Fiji. He took passage to the islands on the American whaling bark Elizabeth. Upon his arrival in Fiji, poor luck struck again. After anchoring near Levuka off the town of Totoga, the Elizabeth burned in a suspicious fire, and Williams’s time was taken up with consular duties as he collected depositions from every crew member.59 He then began working for himself. In his first four months in the islands, he set up a trading entrepôt that doubled as the U.S. consulate, made four large land purchases, and as he had done in New Zealand surveyed the islands’ commodities. Initially, Williams expected to situate the consulate at Levuka, but Levuka had lapsed as a trading hub with its papalagi then in exile at Solevu. Williams opted for Nukulau Island instead. Though a small sand spit with a sickly water supply, Nukulau had plenty of wood and a fine harbor that over the years had provided bêche-de-mer traders and warships with a safe anchorage.60 Here Williams built a large, two-story, wood-framed house with a cellar and surrounded it with huts of native construction to serve as storerooms and employee housing.61 Nukulau was the second of four properties Williams acquired in 1846. It and his first purchase, the southern half of the island of Laucala directly to the north of Nukulau, he bought from Cokanauto of Rewa. He spent a hundred dollars or more in iron planes, axes, clothing, a trunk, and other trade goods for the two properties. On the written deeds to which Williams had Cokanauto mark his consent, Williams added Breed and Huse as coowners of the twenty-five-acre Nukulau and Handy as co-owner of the onehundred-acre tract on Laucala. Williams then hired English beachcomber John Humphrey Danford to negotiate the purchase of one thousand acres of heavily forested hills at Nukubalavu, situated on the southern Viti Levu

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coast within the bounds of Namosi, where Danford resided. A week later, Williams asked Danford to arrange for the purchase of the nearby Naqara Island, too, paying for it with trunks, whales’ teeth, guns, gunpowder, and lead. Williams added Breed and Huse to the Nukubalavu deed as well. Williams thought Nukubalavu’s hills could be mined—for antimony, silver, perhaps copper. He extracted its timber but never developed this property as a mine. In a scientific analysis of the samples he collected, conducted posthumously, what Williams thought were “rich veins of copper ore . . . proved to be malachite.”62 Williams’s land purchases and mining fantasies made him unique in Fiji at the time. Even though he drew on the knowledge and connections of beachcombers—David Whippy, for instance, accompanied Williams on a prospecting venture into the Viti Levu interior—beachcombers lacked his entrepreneurial, speculative intentions toward Fiji.63 Williams therefore introduced a new dynamic into the islands. Within months of his arrival, he had become Fiji’s largest foreign landowner, a distinction he held until his death.64 Despite major setbacks—the Falco shipwreck, being charged with aiding a Maori insurrection, the destruction of the Elizabeth by fire—everything seemed to be working out as Williams planned. He was extraordinarily busy. By July, he was back in Auckland writing Henry of all he had accomplished while in the islands. Not only had he discovered assorted precious metals, he had found a gum similar to kauri gum, a bark that lathered like soap, and an oil that would work well in paint. And within just a few months, he had collected 7,200 gallons of coconut oil and a bit of bêche-de-mer.65 His affairs in New Zealand, handled by Polack, were also flourishing. With Polack in charge of the U.S. consulate, Williams was free to travel on any of the three vessels he now employed: the schooner Sir John Franklin, the bark Auckland, and the cutter Stranger, all bought or chartered out of Auckland with Breed and Huse financing. In addition, he had access to the whale ship Belle, since Handy made frequent landfalls at Nukulau. Increasingly, Fiji would become Williams’s main residence, but his vessels, sometimes with him on board, traveled widely throughout the Fiji group and to Rotumah, a day and half ’s sail to the north of Fiji. He used Auckland and Sydney to connect to global markets. It took a week to ten days to get to New Zealand. Sydney was three weeks away.66 Bêche-de-mer continued as the islands’ leading export, but Williams diversified Fiji’s nascent market economy. Coconut oil and land became commodities and brought new resources to the attention of foreign traders.

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For Williams personally, his far-ranging endeavors seemed to be paying off. He would later look back on this period in his life as a high point.67 Beginning in the late 1840s, a new onslaught of calamities put an end to Williams’s spurt of prosperity. Bad luck could not take the blame for these misfortunes, and a downward spiral consumed his optimism and fed doubts about his competence and character. As Williams’s wheeling and dealing mired him in one fiasco after another, people he had befriended, Fijians and other papalagi, took the fall for his mistakes. All the while, Williams imagined himself the victim of those who doubted his capacity to succeed. Immediately upon disembarking in Fiji, Williams had impressed Fijians as a force to reckon with. He represented a new kind of papalagi. Cokanauto called him the “King of the World.”68 Others called him Tui America (“King of America”).69 Williams thrived on these attributions but overstated Fijian wonderment as a sign of submissiveness. He wrote Henry after his arrival, “The natives fear and respect me I now have them so much under Control that I can do any thing I choose with more than half of the Group.”70 One Fijian not taken in by Williams’s pomp was Cakobau, who resented Williams for settling in Rewa under Cokanauto’s protection instead of in Bau territory. During an October 1846 visit aboard the Zotoff, Cakobau pondered Williams’s status in a dialogue Mary Wallis recorded in her journal. CAKOBAU: “They say that the king of America has come here. . . . Surely he must be much poorer than myself, to come so far for oil for his lamps.” CAPTAIN WALLIS: “The great and rich men of America are never to be seen in Feejee after oil and ‘beech de mer.’” CAKOBAU: “Mr. Williams has sent for me to collect a cargo of oil, but I sent word that he must come himself, if he wished me to do any thing for him, as I do not trade with ‘kaises.’” Mary Wallis summed up the conversation by commenting on how Cakobau “appears to understand human nature, and to appreciate character as well as any one I have seen.”71 As a U.S. consul, Williams introduced another novel dynamic into the islands. He was the first and for twelve years the only papalagi consul in Fiji. A British sea captain had angled to create a consulship for himself in 1843. The missionary John Hunt, who interpreted his conversation with Cakobau, saw that Cakobau “understood perfectly what a consul was.” After all,

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influential Tongans had long acted as bridges between Fiji and Tonga and as spokesmen and protectors of Fiji’s Tongan minority. Cakobau supported the idea of a British consul taking up residence, but it did not happen until 1858, when William T. Pritchard arrived from Samoa.72 After Charles Wilkes of the U.S. Exploring Expedition anointed Whippy acting consul in 1840, Whippy had not undertaken any of the usual consular duties. When Williams arranged for Fiji to become a commercial agency, Wilkes heard about Williams’s appointment and nominated Whippy as vice consul. Williams was not happy having Whippy foisted on him as his second. Williams acknowledged that Whippy was a “very honest and trustworthy man—yet not fully competent.” Fijians “do not pay the proper respect to him.” They “say ‘he has lived many years at the Feegee’s and is one of us’— And that ‘poor men cannot be Chiefs.’” Nonetheless, Williams conceded to accept Whippy’s services, and the two men settled into a working relationship, with Whippy an active substitute for Williams whenever he was away from the islands.73 Williams’s concern that Whippy lacked the necessary authority to be an effective vice consul reflected his own preference for a more grandiose and intimidating style of self-presentation. The illusion of wealth and power he projected made others take notice. There was the house he built on Nukulau, for instance. Cakobau “saw my board house,” John told Henry, “and he said he would build a stone one for he liked civilization.” Cakobau went ahead and hired a Kentucky beachcomber with stone masonry skills, who started building it, until the stone mason departed and Cakobau’s interest in the project lagged.74 Williams also had a reputation for profligacy in his relations with Fijians. Many thought that he was “very kind, and would not refuse them anything.” Once a turaga made a bet that “trusted in Mr. Williams’ generosity.” The turaga asked Williams for his new “water-proof coat,” and Williams gave it to him.75 Moreover, Williams’s higher prices for coconut oil led Fijians to favor him over other traders.76 A shrewder businessman might have been more penny-pinching, but Williams’s lavish spending served a purpose. It was one way to gain others’ regard. The flashy uniform further distinguished Williams. Fijians described it as “a blue coat all covered with looking-glasses,” the latter in reference to its naval buttons.77 Williams’s uniform probably had the same effect as that worn by the British colonel William Smythe a decade later. As Smythe toured parts of Fiji unaccustomed to seeing naval officers, “The people shrieked with delight on viewing the Colonel’s uniform,” the missionary Joseph Waterhouse observed. “‘A Chief like a god’ was the exclamation.”78

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A jacket of navy blue wool thickly embroidered with gold-thread filigrees and ornamented with gold epaulettes hardly seems the ideal sartorial choice for hot and humid Fiji, but it came to symbolize the man and his bravado.79 Among Fijians, Williams’s closest relationship was with Cokanauto, from whom Williams purchased Nukulau and part of Laucala. Cokanauto was the youngest of eight brothers making up the Rewa royal family, who “jealous of the other, [were] inclined to murder each other in hopes to be king.” Four brothers had died long ago by violence. In 1842, Veidovi expired in New York, a prisoner of the U.S. Exploring Expedition. In 1845, Cakobau ordered the death of Kania, who ruled Rewa as Tui Dreketi and was one of four hundred inhabitants slaughtered in Bau’s assault on the town of Rewa. So by the time Williams arrived the following February, only Cokanauto and Qaraniqio yet lived, and they were die-hard enemies.80 The two brothers had taken opposite sides in the Bau-Rewa War, three years in and still raging. Both wished to be the next Tui Dreketi, yet neither could subdue the other. With Rewa under siege, Qaraniqio fled to a stronghold in Viti Levu’s mountainous interior. Cokanauto, in alliance with Bau, abandoned the town of Rewa as well and retreated to heavy fortifications at Nukui on the Viti Levu coast near the islands of Laucala and Nukulau. Because Cokanauto’s mother was a high-ranked Bau woman, he held the high-status position of vasu to Bau, which among other rights entitled him to take Bau property with impunity. If Bau were to defeat Qaraniqio’s army, Cokanauto would become Tui Dreketi with Bau support, and the war between Bau and Rewa would end. What all this meant for Williams is that he had essentially placed his trading compound in the middle of a war zone.81 Still, Williams had good reasons to forge a relationship with Cokanauto. Before arriving in Fiji, he must have heard of Cokanauto’s friendliness to Salem traders. Captain John H. Eagleston knew Cokanauto particularly well. Eagleston nicknamed him Phillips in honor of his employer, Stephen C. Phillips; took him on a trip to Tahiti aboard the Emerald in 1834; and recommended Cokanauto to other ship captains for having several times warned traders of plots against their vessels.82 The Ex Ex’s official narrative, which appeared in print shortly before Williams established himself in Fiji, further documented Cokanauto’s historic ties to foreign traders and the “reverence” shown him as “a very high chief ” (see figure 6.4).83 More than any other Fijian at the time, Cokanauto had an “inclination for the Civilization of the whites.” He furnished his house with a table and chairs, a tablecloth, a cupboard with dishes, an organ, safes, mirrors, a large clock, and even a “white steward,” an Italian discharged from a Sydney trading vessel.84 He wore such

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Figure 6.4. Cokanauto of Rewa, also known as Phillips. Original by Alfred T. Agate in Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, During the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, 5 vols. plus atlas (Philadelphia: C. Sherman, 1844), 3: 129. Courtesy of Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut Library.

“European finery” as “white trowsers, shirt, waistcoat, and surtout.”85 He was also a great linguist, able to converse in different Fijian dialects, Tongan, Tahitian, Spanish, and French. He was more fluent in English than any other Fijian.86 According to Danford, “No interpreter was necessary in doing business with him.”87 Initially, Williams and Cokanauto found mutual benefit in their association. In Williams, Cokanauto had a pipeline to foreign goods and a connection to a man who appeared to be rich and powerful. Along with acquiring land from Cokanauto, Williams received women and protection. Williams’s dealings with native women rarely come up in the records. One glimpse comes from testimony before the British Land Claims Commission decades later. The Vutia townspeople of Laucala never accepted Williams’s purchase

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of the southern part of their island as legitimate and contended that the trade goods Williams gave Cokanauto were not for land but “for women we were in the habit of taking to him—some to stay altogether with him; some to stay 4 days; some for a month. Some ladies of Rewa used to be taken by us, by Coka Na Uto’s wish.”88 As for protection, Cokanauto did his best to look out for Williams and his property, but his own precarious situation meant that he could not guarantee Williams’s safety. Furthermore, Cokanauto’s reputation for dissolution and cruelty to his people risked tincturing Williams’s reputation with the same brush. Mary Wallis reported that, after purchasing Nukulau, Williams asked Cokanauto to keep people off the island while he made a short trip to New Zealand. Soon after, Cokanauto saw a canoe on its way to Nukulau and sent some men to it “with orders to kill all on board.” Two men died, which Williams “regretted,” Wallis wrote. He “had not a thought that his wishes would have been so strictly obeyed.”89 Though unpleasant in its consequences, the incident convinced Williams of Cokanauto’s fidelity. Whenever Williams felt endangered, all he had to do was send a message to Cokanauto, who on several occasions came to Nukulau with forty to fifty men to defend Williams’s property.90 Williams depended on Cokanauto but also hedged his bets. He gave trade goods to Qaraniqio to confirm the same land deeds for Nukulau and Laucala that Cokanauto had agreed to, just in case Cokanauto lost the war against his brother.91 As Williams built relationships with Fijians of influence and the islands’ beachcombers, he found himself increasingly in trouble with the people most like himself, other Salem traders. Shortly after settling on Nukulau, Williams became embroiled in a conflict with Captain George Cheever over the Warwick. Williams offered to buy the schooner but then reneged on their agreement. In a genteel letter to Williams, Cheever voiced suspicions that “you originally intended as you have acted” but offered to let bygones be bygones. Soon after, however, Williams angered Cakobau by employing his archenemy, British beachcomber Charles Pickering, to collect coconut oil at the island of Futuna. Cheever had contracted with Cakobau for a cargo of bêche-de-mer, and his voyage was now at risk. Williams’s arrangement with Pickering convinced Cheever that “you are willing to sacrifice your own official character & that of others to self interest.”92 Another acrimonious dispute developed between Williams and Henry T. Saunders of Salem. Saunders ended up purchasing the damaged Warwick for a pittance and set about repairing it from Laucala, where he, like Williams, lived under Cokanauto’s protection. Over several years, Saunders and

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Williams fought an escalating, nasty, neighborly war over gardens, hogs, and fences until Williams asked Cokanauto to force Saunders to leave. Saunders thought Williams a fool. In his journal, he referred to Williams as “a high official dignitary of the United States of America and also a most soft headed man.”93 Williams’s association with Polack also ended on a bitter note. Williams retained the New Zealand consulship but spent less and less time there. His neglect nearly lost him the consulate when a destitute crew member of the wrecked whale ship Delphos complained in a New Bedford newspaper of having been insufficiently housed and fed at the Bay of Islands in March 1847. Williams refuted the charges as concocted by “some disappointed man that did not get pies and turkeys.”94 When a second incident drew more fire, Williams made Polack his scapegoat. In April 1848, Williams fired him as vice consul for “not being prompt, in attending to that matter, and refusing the proper aid to shipwrecked destitute American Seamen.” Polack wrote Williams a furious letter railing against “your ungentlemanly and insulting conduct towards me in public, as wholly unexpected, as disgusting to the high official situation you have the honor to represent in this foreign country.” Adding to Polack’s rage was Williams’s dismissal of him while residing as a guest in Polack’s Auckland domicile and while Polack was at the customs office clearing Williams’s vessel for departure to Fiji.95 Williams replaced Polack with another Auckland resident, Robert A. FitzGerald, a “Gentleman of great respectability and Standing in Society,” Williams informed the State Department. FitzGerald, like Polack before him, took on the dual responsibilities of U.S. vice consul and Williams’s business agent in New Zealand.96 A greater catastrophe for Williams occurred shortly afterward. Breed and Huse failed. In self-defense they castigated Williams for inordinate expenses charged to their accounts. Williams poured out his wrath in letters to Henry. What “cowardly puppies” they were. Their “rascally reports [were] cruel in the extreme why try to injure me? I have done harm to no man—and have always dealt justly through life, and worked like a slave.” Breed and Huse’s most damning accusation was that Williams had bought the Warwick without their permission, a charge that Williams denied though his personal papers do indeed include a deed of purchase for the Warwick.97 Adding weight to Cheever’s charges of wrongdoing, Breed and Huse pricked Williams where he was most sensitive by defaming his commercial acuity within the New England merchant community. One setback after another led finally to the conflagration that became simultaneously the burden bearer of Williams’s hopes for prosperity and

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a landmark event in Fiji history. On the Fourth of July 1849 at Nukulau, an African American employee of Williams’s named John Johnston fired a cannon as part of the festivities, shooting off his own hand and setting fire to a house of native construction.98 The fire spread to envelop Williams’s woodframed house and storeroom, destroying consulate records, account books, and other belongings. Fijians from the island of Beqa, tributaries to Rewa and to Cokanauto in particular, happened to be on Nukulau at the time of the fire. They had arrived the day before to fish for turtle for a solevu (a grand feast) that Cokanauto was planning. They helped remove Williams’s property from his residence and storehouse before these buildings caught fire but kept some of his possessions, burying items around the island to retrieve later.99 Williams called Cokanauto to Nukulau to compel his people to return the goods, which they did in piecemeal fashion but, Williams claimed, not everything. Cokanauto proposed killing the thieves or cutting off a little finger of each man as punishment. Williams instead drew up a formal letter addressed to “Thokanauto or Phillips King of Rewa and its Dependencies,” which Williams attached to his next despatch to Washington, DC. The letter demanded the return of his missing property along with “a fine of one hundred large bags of the best quality of Beche-de Mar to be delivered to me at Nukulau in three months time.” Williams included in his despatch an official “Protest” and a long list of objects surrendered to him followed by those yet to be accounted for: 38 blankets, two cases of double-barreled guns, tobacco, more than a dozen razors, ten boxes of vermilion, an axe, hatchets, a crow bar, a sextant, the “arms of the American Consulate painted on tin,” six pairs of shoes, three pairs of boots, one pair of slippers, a towel, shaving equipment, a looking glass, several hundred whales’ teeth, a pair of pistols, two wash basins, 24 bottles of wine, twenty cloth remnants, crockery, glassware, a coat, vest, and six handkerchiefs.100 Williams’s pursuit of this claim factors into the events that will unfold in chapter 7. It is relevant here for marking the moment when Williams turned against Cokanauto. Once Williams had seemed touched by Cokanauto’s loyalty and concern for him. “Savages dont forget me,” he had written Henry back in 1847 when Cokanauto rushed to care for him after he had sprained his ankle. Now he held Cokanauto responsible for the plunder of his property at Nukulau.101 Blaming Cokanauto for his losses had larger ramifications. In November 1849, Mary Wallis noted that Williams had left “the dominions of Phillips” for Moturike, a small island next to Ovalau. By March 1850, he was living on Viwa at Namosimalua’s invitation.102 As Williams persisted in

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his claim against Cokanauto, he could no longer live on the lands he had purchased within Cokanauto’s domains. The biggest reversal in Williams’s affairs, the incident that sunk his spirits to their lowest, was still to come. Inspired by the Catharine’s bêche-de-mer side trip from Fiji to New Caledonia in 1848, Williams with his new business partner, FitzGerald, sent three vessels—the Sir John Franklin, schooner Minerva, and cutter Mary—to New Caledonia the following year.103 Williams did not accompany the party but sent along nineteen Fijian laborers provided by Cokanauto as partial compensation for the Nukulau property losses. New Caledonians attacked, leading to the loss of the Mary and four of its crew. Food shortages and illness killed off others. The survivors found their way to Sydney. From there, the HMS Bramble transported the eight Fijians still alive back to Fiji.104 Newspapers in Australia and New Zealand covered the scandal, for it made visible the exploitative labor practices engaged in by British subjects in the Pacific. Williams’s involvement threaded through the extensive newspaper coverage. Unable to pay the two thousand pounds he owed creditors, FitzGerald declared himself insolvent and denounced Williams as the cause of his troubles. The insolvency court balked at this excuse, however, and reprimanded FitzGerald for engaging in “a reckless and hazardous speculation.”105 In turn, Williams blamed his straightened circumstances on FitzGerald: “It has prostrated me entirely I have lost every thing.” Moreover, he now had to find himself a new vice consul for New Zealand and a new business partner.106 Miserable, bitter, and broke, Williams begged, “Please do something for me Henry.”107 Henry responded by sending a vessel to Fiji, or rather to New Caledonia by way of Fiji, after bêche-de-mer in 1852. John was to oversee the fishing while brother Charles, stationed in Manila, would receive the cargo.108 Perhaps Henry’s decision to support John with a vessel was a surrender to emotion, but it also could have been purely a business decision based on the opening up of new bêche-de-mer grounds in New Caledonia and the continuing success of Benjamin Wallis, who was himself now working the New Caledonia reefs with Fijian laborers on the Maid of Orleans.109 Henry’s John H. Millay arrived in Fiji in August. John took up residence aboard as the Millay made slow progress fishing for bêche-de-mer at Macuata. Fearing disappointment and disillusioned by his past failures, Williams fumed against “enemies” at home who derided his ability to send a cargo of bêche-de-mer to Manila. “If they curse me God Bless Them—This is what Christ done—Can I do more?” he asked Henry. In early 1853, he loaded the Millay with provisions and seventy-two Fijian laborers and proceeded to

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New Caledonia. Six months later, it was obvious that nothing could save the Millay’s voyage. John wrote Henry in August to point the finger of blame at the captain. He “thought more of women than a cargo,” so much so that Fijians had even made up “a song about him in connection with a girl mixing up the Bark and yourselves with it.” John apologized for having to tell Henry this, but “your interest compels me to do so.”110 From Manila, Williams left for Salem to recuperate for a spell at home before returning to Fiji.111 So many miscarried ventures made no dent in Williams’s expectations nor in his methods of doing business. Robert Coffin, the shipwrecked American seaman taken in by the Whippys in 1855, had just arrived in Sydney from Fiji when Williams passed through heading in the other direction. Williams heard of this young, footloose American stranded in Sydney and arranged a meeting on his vessel in the harbor. Coffin described Williams as “dressed in naval uniform, tall with a big aquiline nose,” factors that might explain why at first Coffin considered Williams’s proposal. He wanted me to go to New Zealand as Vice-Consul under him. He had my commission all made out, signed and sealed with a large U.S. seal, very imposing. But I was to get there the best way I could, with the prospect when I reached there of having my authority disputed by a present incumbent armed with a similar commission. Lastly, I was to invest every cent I received in a certain [kind] of gum which, by the way, has proved very valuable. I took his commission because he insisted on it; but the more I thought over it, the less I liked it, and it would derange my own plans, beside acting as a buffer for him against some unknown person or influence, and not a word said about my remuneration. Probably that was the trouble between him and his other agent. So I didn’t go and thus avoided being made a fool of.112

Coffin headed for the Australian gold fields instead. In exercising the techniques of mercantile capitalism, Williams knew what he was doing. By bringing commodities to market, forming partnerships with men who could provide capital or labor, purchasing land with signed deeds, and filing claims with the U.S. government for lost property, Williams adhered to practices familiar to American merchants. But nearly every agreement Williams made collapsed under the pressures that his selfinterest had promulgated, leaving him open to recrimination. Just as the bankrupted Breed, Huse, and FitzGerald threw Williams’s reputation to the dogs to safeguard their own, Williams scrambled to protect himself by sacrificing his alliance with Cokanauto, his relations with other Salem traders,

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his partnership with Polack, and others who lacked Coffin’s foresight and hopped aboard one or more of his risky schemes. Driven to demonstrate that he could make it in the world in the same fashion as his predecessors in Salem had done, Williams saw success in business as the apex of achievement and respectability. Whether that business involved selling Yankee notions in Australia, speculating in kauri gum in New Zealand, bartering with Pacific Islanders for coconut oil, mining antimony, or purchasing parcels of land did not matter so long as he could prove his mercantile credentials to a community where wealthy merchants had the highest standing. As he once said to Henry, “To go home poor its a curse in Salem.”113 As the years passed, his commercial speculations became more a source of embarrassment than an avenue to wealth as each attempt to redeem himself ended in a humiliating failure more spectacular than the last, creating the impression that character flaws, not bad luck, explained his coming up short. As his business endeavors soured, Williams came to depend more on the consulship as his consolation and source of income. The reformed U.S. consular service granted him an annual salary of a thousand dollars in 1856. The State Department used the procedural transition to limit consuls to one posting and made Williams pick either New Zealand or Fiji. He chose Fiji— ”not because I like the place, but because I can save all my salary,” he told Henry.114 He still planned to make his fortune in Fiji, if not from trade then through satisfaction of his claim for the losses he sustained at Nukulau in 1849—with interest. Initiated in July 1849 as a list of stolen items charged to Cokanauto, by November 1850, Williams’s claim carried a dollar figure, $4,022.46, and held Cakobau responsible.115 Like Jarndyce and Jarndyce in Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, Williams’s claim was a legal saga of epic proportion, enduring for decades, mushrooming in size with the passing years, its resolution bearing all the weight of his hopes and dreams. Once the claim was paid, he would return to Salem, wealthy and happy. At the time, the July 4 fire seemed just one of many disappointments. It is in retrospect that it appears as the turning point in Williams’s designs to garner wealth and respect in Fiji—somehow.

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Tui America Power

Frustrated in his mercantile ambitions, John B. Williams found another way to gain respect in Fiji, through political and military power. As he wrote his brother Henry in 1853, if a ship of war would force payment of his claim, “it will cause all the natives to fear [me] and the utmost respect will be paid to me.”1 From the moment he had set foot in Fiji seven years before, Williams had asked the State Department for military backup. The “Androphagus Feejee men” would only learn to “pay the proper respect to Commerce” with “the destruction of some of their towns commencing at Bau the seat of mischief.”2 He made the same request in nearly every despatch thereafter and in the 1850s managed to bring five ships of war to Fiji.3 Ships of war were Williams’s most potent weapon, but he had others. He leveraged his elite connections and local, national, and global networks of power. His consular position gave him direct access to the State Department and amplified whatever he said in international settings. Editorials in American, Australian, and New Zealand newspapers solicited outside intervention by attesting to Fijians’ “atrocious acts of cannibalism” and “horrible slaughter” of foreigners.4 Within Fiji, he allied with its most ambitious underdogs— Rewa, disaffected Bau turaga, beachcombers, and French missionaries—to become one of the islands’ most notorious power players in the embattled

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1850s when Fijian matanitu, Tongans, British, French, and Americans contested for a say in the islands’ future. His reputation for intrigue and deception rivaled Cakobau’s. The more he schemed, the more his opponents had to devise new strategies to foil him. Even though he operated within a larger global orbit that integrated commercial ties, foreign governments, and the press as political tools, his use of alliance building and military intimidation within Fiji paralleled the techniques of power employed by Fiji’s most formidable turaga. Unlike the young David Whippy, Williams did not seek respect vakaviti, but in a way that is what he ended up doing. He was flattered when Fijians called him Tui America.5 Thwarted in his efforts to impress people back home, he took solace in the respect shown him by Fijians, even though this form of respect was rooted in fear. Williams’s political maneuvers had larger implications. Even while American economic activity in Fiji waned with the gradual collapse of the bêche-de-mer trade, he made Fiji a larger dot on the map of the world. His ability to rally government aid on his behalf exemplifies how gunboat diplomacy worked. He was one of its most vocal proponents and beneficiaries.6 Although his power mongering aimed solely at enhancing his own position, the United States protected him as it did other Americans who ventured overseas. Since the Barbary Wars against North Africans in the early republic period, U.S. naval vessels had confronted foreign peoples deemed less civilized who interfered with American commercial expansion.7 One of the rationales fueling gunboat diplomacy was the belief that government protection was a right possessed by all American nationals. The other was the value placed on commerce. The untrammeled circulation of goods gave Americans access to the world’s resources without the costs and complications of territorial annexation. The declarations of sovereignty by Britain and France transpiring here and there in the Pacific necessitated state investment in administrative bureaucracies. In contrast, the United States privatized expansion and allowed its nationals a long leash. They reaped the benefits of global trade and resource extraction with little public expense and risk. When needed, and if feasible given the United States’ meager resources, the government could send a warship to cajole, threaten, or punish foreigners who wronged American nationals in extraterritorial settings.8 In Fiji, Williams’s exploitation of U.S. naval retribution had unexpected consequences. Albeit intimidated by the violence Williams mustered from his government, Fijians did not acquiesce. His capacious bag of tricks— claims, warships, uniforms, public opinion—instead introduced novel elements into the archipelago’s power dynamics. These instruments of power

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became available to Fijians as well as to foreigners. However, Williams’s precedent-setting initiatives, especially his claim and land speculations, hung over the islands for decades, shaping the events leading up to British colonization and lingering on as a diplomatic problem into the twentieth century. In his belief that he deserved satisfaction for losses incurred in Fiji and that he had a right to warship justice, Williams had history and the law on his side. All Americans abroad had these entitlements. Adhering to European tradition, the United States acknowledged an obligation to protect the lives and property of its nationals wherever they went so long as they engaged in lawful pursuits.9 Franklin Pierce’s inaugural address upon assuming the presidency in 1853 affirmed this principle in asserting that a citizen “can not in legitimate pursuit wander so far from home that . . . a rude hand of power or tyrannical passion is laid upon him with impunity.”10 Government protection extended to both wealthy merchants and lowly sailors, who were considered valuable agents in the advance of commerce.11 However, few possessed the insider knowledge, clout, and tenacity that empowered Williams to induce government agents to take up his cause. Having grown up in Salem’s mercantile culture, Williams knew which institutions and processes to tap into. Consuls and the navy carried the burden of protecting Americans overseas. As a consul, Williams knew well the principle of protection. The scandal that led him to dispense with Joel Polack as vice consul in New Zealand had the inadequate care of destitute American seamen as its cause. Furthermore, Williams’s despatches have much quotidian correspondence dealing with Americans whose property was stolen or whose lives were endangered.12 British consuls had the same duties. After Cakobau forced Levuka’s papalagi to leave that town in 1844, a British beachcomber complained to the nearest British consul, George Pritchard at Tahiti. The British consul general for the Pacific Islands, William Miller, was then at Tahiti to ensure the security of British missionaries and traders after French assumption of that island as a protectorate in 1842. Miller sent Cakobau a warning. Her British Majesty “will never fail to protect her own Subjects, and to punish, in a most exemplary manner, those who murder or ill-treat them.”13 Writing from Tahiti, Miller could easily be dismissed in Fiji. It was not so easy to ignore Williams since his presence in the islands made his allusions to a vindictive U.S. military more palpable. Naval officers could more effectively deliver protection to U.S. nationals compared to consuls because they had the means to inflict violence. In 1839, while urging Samoans to hand over another Samoan for the murder of

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an American whaleman, Lieutenant William L. Hudson of the U.S. Exploring Expedition, explicated the raison d’être of the warship: “America was a great and powerful nation with many vessels of war and extended her protection to all her people in every part of the world—even to poor sailors wherever they went—and never suffered them to be murdered or in any way maltreated—without demanding the most ample redress.”14 Merchants especially appreciated naval protection for ameliorating risks inherent in conducting business abroad. Williams’s frequent references to the “Coast of Sumatra” in correspondence about his claim invoked the USS Potomac’s 1832 bombardment of Quallah Battoo (Kuala Batu, Indonesia) in retaliation for assaulting the Salem pepper trader Friendship. This Friendship, built for Williams’s grandfather’s firm, replaced the ship his father had captained. Peirce and Wait sold it to Silsbee, Pickman, and Stone of Salem, who in 1831 successfully petitioned Congress to send a warship to punish perpetrators of the attack on it.15 The protection principle gave rise to claims diplomacy, a fixture in global commerce.16 Williams would have known of several high-profile claims cases. The French Spoliation Claims, for instance, engrossed numerous Salem families and their lawyers for more than one hundred years as they sought compensation for ships and cargos lost during the Quasi-War with France in the 1790s.17 New England merchants were also party to the $2 million in American claims that the United States demanded from Mexico in an 1839 convention. Mexico would not, or could not, pay until the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the Mexican-American War. One clause called for the United States to give Mexico $3.25 million, which then returned to the United States to pay off American nationals’ outstanding claims.18 Daniel Webster, secretary of state at the time of Williams’s initial consular appointment, had close ties to international claims. When in political office, he urged diplomatic settlement of American claims against other nations. When out of political office, he earned a high income as an attorney representing merchants before claims commissions between the United States and Spain in the early 1820s and the United States and Mexico in the 1840s.19 Williams’s writings reveal familiarity with what claims were and the procedural steps required. He packaged his July 4, 1849, losses within a formal document labeled a “Protest,” which included a witness’s signed deposition and an itemized list of plundered property.20 He had prior experience at filing claims. When New Zealanders took the shipwrecked Falco’s cargo in 1845, Williams promised to “hold Her Brittanic Majestiess’ Government resposible [sic] for the insult and losses that I as consul have received and the

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citizens of the US have sustained.” He did not pursue that claim with the same ferocity as his Fiji losses.21 However, his uncle Nathaniel L. Rogers had a claim against Great Britain channeling through Congress and the State Department at the same time. Rogers sought compensation for “an onerous duty” on New England rum imposed by British officials at the Bay of Islands before Britain declared sovereignty over New Zealand. The U.S.-British Convention of 1853 awarded the Rogers brothers $7,677.96.22 Even though U.S. officials saw diplomatic resolution of property disputes between American nationals and foreigners as a necessary government service, insufficient resources left many claimants waiting. Congress received tens of thousands of claims over the nineteenth century—international claims, domestic claims against the federal government, and Indian depredation claims—making it impossible to investigate every claim’s worthiness. Hence, a backlog built up. Claims that did not get shuffled under the table dragged on for years mired in federal bureaucracy.23 Williams’s challenge was to keep his claim alive in the minds of those with the power to order a ship of war to Fiji to demand payment of it. As Americans, British, and French applied the principle of protection to the vast Pacific, their ships of war became sites of diplomacy, executioners of a one-sided and brutal justice, and instruments of terror aimed at quelling native populations. This expanding foreign naval power in the Pacific unfolded unevenly as naval officers decided in situ and idiosyncratically which grievances deserved advocacy and whether to use force. In short, for Williams, a U.S. ship of war was not enough. He still had to convince its commander that his cause justified intercession. Compared to the British and French, the United States had a weak navy, but the American whale fishery and China trade scattered Americans throughout Oceania, fueling government support for a larger naval presence to protect maritime industries. Usually equipped with only three vessels in service at a time, the Pacific Squadron stationed off Chile could not regularly tour all the archipelagos with American residents and traders clamoring for protection.24 Despite the small size of the U.S. Navy, the exponential rise in the total number of foreign naval vessels in Fiji from the late 1820s to 1850s had British and U.S. naval power about evenly matched.25 Initially, traders in Fiji protected themselves. Their vessels carried cannons. Before entering the Fiji group, they erected boarding nets to prevent islanders from climbing onto the vessel. And they stockpiled cartridges stuffed with lead bullets, gunpowder, and wadding. While in Fiji, their small crews

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of ten to twenty men traveled about heavily armed.26 They occasionally unleashed this weaponry. For instance, in 1831, Captain John H. Eagleston ordered the Peru’s crew to turn four pounders and muskets on a town whose turaga had not delivered hogs as promised.27 Traders preferred the threat of violence to actual violence, however. They broadcast their capabilities with wanton displays of firepower, as in the thirty guns fired aboard the Emerald on July 4, 1834, which “astonished the natives, to see us blow away powder, as they thought to so little purpose.”28 With more armaments, larger cannons, and usually several hundred fighting men, ships of war differed in kind and scale from trading vessels. The commander of the USS St. Mary’s asserted in 1851 that his was “the largest Vessel ever known at Feegee.”29 Though equipped for war, these vessels also displayed force more than they deployed it. Naval officers invited Fijian dignitaries to warlike entertainments featuring the latest technology in guns, rockets, and shells.30 Once in a while, they took action. The first punishment by a warship in Fiji occurred in October 1838 when the French corvettes L’Astrolabe and Zélée ravaged Viwa in revenge for the sacking of L’Aimable Joséphine. Two years later, the Ex Ex caused more damage in lives lost and towns destroyed in raids at Solevu Bay and Malolo.31 British naval officers were not wholly averse to using force but, compared to the French and Americans, more often policed their own. The legacy of Australian penal colonies and a growing humanitarian, aboriginal protectionist movement in Britain compelled British naval officers to scour Pacific archipelagos for “bad characters,” “suspicious characters,” and persons not “employed in any useful or creditable manner.”32 The exemplar of this perspective was John Elphinstone Erskine, commander of the HBM sloop Havannah in 1849. Erskine derided British traders and residents in the Pacific for expecting warships to defend their “private disputes” by “striking terror into the hearts of the savages.” Instead, naval officers should show natives “the dignity of our power” by adopting “a system of forbearance and conciliation.” Retribution had to carry with it “some notions of law and justice.” Erskine did not preclude the use of violence altogether. At Solevu Bay, he reminded Fijians hostile to Christianity of the Ex Ex’s destructive escapade nine years before and that they were “completely at our mercy.”33 Not all British naval officers espoused this humanitarian perspective. The year before the Havannah’s visit, the HBM Calypso, under Henry Worth’s command, did make a punitive raid. Worth first heard of two incidents resulting in deaths of traders, but unable to ascertain all the facts, he did not act on them. When “informed that if he punished one offence, it would be

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noised throughout the whole land, and be productive of as good an effect as if he punished a dozen,” he settled on an earlier, more substantiated murder of two traders, one British, the other American. A landing party from the Calypso attacked the town responsible and killed eight or nine islanders. Probably inspired by the Malolo massacre as recounted in Charles Wilkes’s Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, Worth demanded surrender in the custom of the country. An old man “crouched down, and crawled (according to their custom) on his hands and knees to the captain’s cabin” to soro.34 Worth’s superior condoned the Calypso’s show of force: “It is satisfactory to think that a useful lesson will have been taught them, at the cost of few lives on their part, and none on our side.”35 The American naval officers Williams dealt with traveled across this same spectrum: some showed restraint; others were quick to pull the trigger. But they also, like their British and French counterparts, believed that warships could teach savages to behave better. This overriding logic of the warship as a salutary lesson drove missionaries, traders, and beachcombers to appreciate warship visitations. The Wesleyans condemned excessive force but thought warships could secure their families’ safety and that a “positive word or sentence” from a warship commander would aid the Christian cause.36 Mary Wallis took a more ruthless position. She mocked the Havannah’s demonstration at Ovalau when “the trees and bushes were most furiously attacked by those on board to show the natives the power of their fire-arms.” The use of real force at Malolo had had a more “salutary and lasting” impact. “There is no place in the group where White people can visit with more safety, and receive kinder treatment.”37 As for beachcombers, they disliked interference in their manner of living but welcomed warship commanders “who can be prevailed on to chastise the Cannibals.”38 Fijians grasped the warship threat but were not wholly cowed by it. Noisy demonstrations of cannons, fireworks, and rockets generated fear but also envy and the prospect of appropriating the manawa (man of war), “the grandest idea conceivable of wealth and power,” for their own purposes.39 The Fijian word Tuyāyā, defined in missionary David Hazlewood’s dictionary as “the fidgets” or to “go about through fear, not able to rest, as when Bau people, or a man-of-war are near,” made the fearsome military strength of Bau and foreign ships of war equivalent.40 Cakobau responded to the Havannah’s attack on Ovalau’s “trees and bushes” by saying it made him “tremble,” but he then asked Erskine to take the ship to Bau, Erskine thought probably so as to awe others with his having such a powerful ally.41

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Fijians also learned to enjoy gun salutes, the firing of large guns as a greeting and show of respect toward other nations’ ships and representatives. Traders and naval officers incorporated gun salutes into island diplomacy, and turaga levu came to expect such recognition of their rank and authority. When Tanoa came aboard the Peru in 1831, Eagleston gave him a five-gun salute, “which appeared to delight him much.” Three days later, Tui Dreketi of Rewa received a six-gun salute, the “first compliment of the kind ever paid him.” He was at first “astonished as also frightened, but when all was over, he seemed to be pleased with the respect paid him.”42 When Tanoa visited the Ex Ex flagship for a tour, nothing greeted him but Wilkes himself. Finally, at the end of the tour, Wilkes ordered a gun salute, which comforted Tanoa, who told Wilkes “that he thought I was offended with him, from my not firing when he came on board.”43 Of course, prior warship reprisals and the latent violence in festive exhibitions of firepower made Fijians wary. Not only could a ship’s guns destroy villages at little risk to its crew; the prospect of being carried away loomed large when a ship of war appeared in the offing. In 1839, a Rewa turaga heard a rumor that a missionary, taking offense at something he had done, had “written his name in a book [to] give it to the Captain of the Man of-War who will come and take him away.”44 So Fijians may not have been all that surprised when a year later the Ex Ex took Veidovi captive for the attack on the Charles Doggett. Veidovi’s removal endured for decades in Fijian lore as a fate awaiting any Fijian who did not heed a warship commander’s demands.45 In sum, before Williams arrived in Fiji, the islands’ most prominent political figures had had enough to do with warships to understand what they were and what they were capable of. Finally, in 1851, after five years of persistent begging, Williams got his wish. With Daniel Webster once again serving as secretary of state, Williams’s ties to the Massachusetts political machine kicked in. Webster requested a warship for Fiji from the secretary of the navy, and the Pacific Squadron sent not just one, but two. The USS Falmouth sailed into Fiji in February, and the St. Mary’s arrived in July.46 “These are the happiest days of my life,” John wrote Henry from on board the Falmouth, where he took up residence for the three weeks that the sloop of war spent in the group.47 Williams presented the Falmouth’s commander, Thomas Petigru, with a long list of “Robberies, Murders, and outrages and plunder since the Exploring Expedition left these Islands.” The majority of incidents involved Williams’s financial interests: an 1847 attack on the cutter Stranger “belonging to an American merchant”; the taking of Williams’s boat off Sawa Kasa;

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an order for coconut oil and arrowroot Williams had paid Cakobau for but which remained undelivered; an assault on two of Williams’s employees, America Shattuck and John Macomber, at Namuka; the theft of Williams’s property during the Fourth of July fire with “the Fine then levied upon the King of Rewa for the same treated with Contempt”; and the robbery and destruction of Williams’s property at Nukulau in 1850, when his employee and caretaker, John Foster, was killed. As the outrages accumulated, so did the dollar amount it would take to wipe the slate clean. Williams now valued the entirety of losses at $17,000, “to be demanded from the so styled King of the Feejees [Cakobau] . . . in Arrow Root, Cocoanut Oil, Tortoise Shell and Beche de Mar.”48 To cast Cakobau as the responsible party, Williams had to cultivate two fictions—that Rewa was subordinate to Bau and that Cakobau was Tui Viti, “King of the Feejees.”49 Holding the most powerful Fijian accountable made payment of the claim more likely. Petigru fended off most of Williams’s demands by deferring to his narrow instructions and a wont of provisions necessitating a short visit. He stayed long enough to oversee a dramatic and unique display of warship power on Williams’s behalf. After raising the American flag at Laucala Point accompanied by a twenty-one gun salute, Petigru held a trial on the Falmouth of a Vutia native, Koroimokuvala, charged with Foster’s murder. Williams acted as prosecutor and a panel of Falmouth officers as the judges. The following day, Koroimokuvala was hanged on a makeshift gallows on Nukulau. An account of the episode giving a “very lively sketch of the character and customs of the inhabitants—of their cowardice, treachery and ferocity—of their beastly habits and superstitious observances” circulated in American newspapers upon the Falmouth’s return to the United States. The article portrayed the sloop of war’s actions as civilized, lawful, and ceremonially resplendent, especially to the large number of Fijians, “attentive observers” to the spectacle of both the trial and execution.50 Also of value to Williams, Petigru rubber-stamped Williams’s claim as reasonable and agreed that Cakobau should pay it.51 Petigru’s sham trial gave the illusion of justice without probing into the motive behind Foster’s murder. Aggression by a savage people seemed explanation enough. Nor did Petigru grant the Vutia people a forum to voice complaints against Williams. A clan of fishermen (the men) and potters (the women) on Laucala island’s northern half, they challenged Williams’s extension of his domains onto theirs (see figure 7.1). They were subject to Rewa but had not consented to the sale of their land by Rewa’s principals. For years, they had tried to force Williams off of land they considered theirs. Foster was a casualty in this dispute.52

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Figure 7.1. This view of the town of Rewa is probably from the island of Laucala, where the Vutia people were known for their pottery. Original by Alfred T. Agate in Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, During the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, 5 vols. plus atlas (Philadelphia: C. Sherman, 1844), 3: 117. Courtesy of Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut Library.

Williams wished Petigru had acted more aggressively and submitted a formal “Protest” against the Falmouth for leaving Fiji without having done “Ample Justice to the Citizens of the U.S.” Petigru would not bombard Bau nor take Cakobau prisoner.53 Privately, in a letter to his brother, Williams called Petigru “a brave Commander.” He “has done his duty as far as his instructions would allow him to act.”54 Furthermore, Williams clearly thought the hanging an effective use of force done at his instigation. To counter stories circulating in Salem of his pandering to Fijians, John responded, “I trust too much to natives: when and where? no man looks upon natives with a more suspicious eye than myself. . . . I caused one to be hung on Nukulau—That looks like trusting them.”55 Petigru rose in Williams’s estimation when the St. Mary’s commander, George A. Magruder, showed even more restraint. After three days of deliberations on the St. Mary’s attended by Williams, Cakobau, and the English missionary James Calvert, Magruder allowed only two claims credibility: the plunder of the Elizabeth and Williams’s various losses consolidated into a single claim. Magruder then left the matter of how much Cakobau owed

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Williams for lost property plus interest up to a board of arbitration, to which he appointed Whippy and Calvert, neither of whom had the power to enforce any decision, so they came to no decision at all.56 Even though Magruder put American “commercial interests” at the top of his agenda, he bonded with the English missionaries as a fellow Christian. His official report described Williams as partly “in the wrong” and acknowledged that Cakobau objected to Williams’s meddling in “domestic Wars” and making unjust demands. Still, Magruder praised the “salutary effect” of Petigru’s execution of the Vutia man on Nukulau. And, before leaving the islands, he arranged for Williams’s boat taken off Sawa Kasa to be returned to him. Like other naval commanders, Magruder believe that “Savages” with an “appetite for plunder” had to be taught a lesson.57 Sent to Pacific archipelagos to ensure the safety of American residents and traders, U.S. naval officers could respond as they saw fit. Both Petigru and Magruder sought to appease Williams with token acts of protection that carried the appearance of justice. While their modest attentions to his grievances frustrated Williams, the warships’ actions sent a signal to Fijians that the United States did indeed have a naval fleet and would punish wrongs done to Americans in Fiji. While waiting for another ship of war, Williams politicked fervidly to tip the balance of power in his favor. He used the external media of newspapers and consular despatches to make Fiji appear to matter in world affairs. Within Fiji, he allied with Cakobau’s enemies. By the early 1850s, two bitter factions with natives and papalagi on both sides had emerged. Williams was the pivotal figure in one faction, Cakobau in the other. A series of events beginning with Cokanauto’s death in 1851 put a halt to Cakobau’s rise to power. As Cokanauto’s followers reunited around his brother Qaraniqio, Rewa gained strength at Bau’s expense. The following year, Cakobau’s exorbitant demands for bêche-de-mer to pay for the American schooner Thakombau led to his humiliating defeat in battle with Ritova and the defection of Macuata from the Bau matanitu. The year after that, Tui Levuka and the Levuka beachcombers declared independence from Bau. Bau’s conflict with Levuka also led to the murder of Ilaitia, the Wesleyans’ most influential convert and Cakobau’s great friend and ally. Weakening Bau further was the exodus of powerful turaga—Ratu Mara, Koroiravula, and others—who began amassing an army at Kaba, formerly a town subordinate to Bau, increasingly an impregnable rebel stronghold.58 Though “worn down and humbled,” Cakobau remained the Wesleyans’ hope for converting all of

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Fiji. As Cakobau became more vulnerable, the Wesleyans advanced in influence. Calvert, especially, ingratiated himself to become Cakobau’s trusted interpreter and adviser.59 The Wallises also took Cakobau’s side. They were friends of the missionaries, but more critically Captain Wallis and the other Chamberlain and Company trader in the group, Thomas Dunn, received fishing grounds and laborers through Cakobau. With traders’ economic interests dependent on different Fijian polities (Williams with Rewa; the Wallises and Dunn with Bau), Americans fell on opposite sides of the political divide. Williams told Henry that he did not like being “humbugged” by Englishmen, but the split within the American trading community points to how personal motivations carried more sway in political alignments than national affiliations.60 To thwart the growing influence of the Wesleyans, Williams tried to attract American missionaries to Fiji. In January 1850, a Salem newspaper reported that Williams had sent “an urgent appeal” from “‘the head and principal chiefs of the Fejee Islands” to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions asking for a mission to Fiji.61 Nothing came of it, but a new opportunity to weaken the Wesleyans soon presented itself: French Catholic missionaries. The Marists began making inroads at Lakeba in 1844 and moved into central Fiji in 1851. Williams befriended them, anticipating that they would be “strong competition” for his “enemies.” Williams offered to host a priest at Viwa, where Williams was then living, but a native mob sent by Ilaitia’s brother blocked his landing. Instead, the Marists set up operations at Totoga, near Levuka. Off and on, they had establishments at other places, including Rewa. “A more Godlike, charitable, hospitable, and honourable body of men cannot be found in Polynesia,” Williams averred in a dig at the Wesleyans as much as it was praise for the priests.62 As Williams plotted to displace the Wesleyans, he planted two newspaper articles in the Sydney Empire in 1853 to discredit them. “Doings in the South Sea Islands,” appearing in May, relayed a conversation Qaraniqio of Rewa supposedly had with Shattuck, Williams’s employee figuring in Williams’s Namuka claim. In the letter, Qaraniqio rewrites history and blames the July 4 fire and plunder of Williams’s property on the people of Bau. He puzzles over why Bau can rob and murder without fear of punishment by a man of war. The Wesleyans appear as the real villains, with Qaraniqio allegedly saying, “The white men’s big chiefs are here, that is the missionaries, and small chiefs at home, and still smaller on board a man-of-war.”63 Williams’s second editorial, published in December under his own name, was more provocative. It recounted the events leading up to the fire that

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had recently demolished Levuka and accused Cakobau and Ilaitia of commissioning one of the Wesleyans’ native teachers as arsonist. One passage particularly inflamed Williams’s opponents: “Bau ought to be destroyed, and the people swept from the face of the earth. . . . A ship of war could lay off Bau, knock down and destroy that town, while one is smoking a cigar.” In the longest stretch of cannibal talk in all of Williams’s writings, he referred to “the butcher inhabitants of Bau—the human slaughter-house—a cookery of cannibals. . . . The very atmosphere we breathe is filled with the fumes of roasted human flesh: it is quite enough to fill one with disgust . . . the most vivid imagination cannot describe this hell upon earth.”64 The zealous Christian ruler of Tonga, King George Tupou I, learned of Williams’s editorial while in Sydney. On his way there, he had passed through Fiji and met with Cakobau, who promised George the gift of a large war canoe, the Ra Marama, in exchange for help in subduing Bau’s rebelling towns. Back in Tonga in February 1854, George wrote Cakobau about Williams’s letter, warning him that “Fiji will be in danger” since the “consul’s letter is a bad one. He says, you commanded the property of the white people to be burnt.” George promised to visit soon and urged Cakobau to lotu. In his biography of Cakobau, Wesleyan missionary Joseph Waterhouse reprinted extracts from Williams’s editorial and wryly remarked that “Mr. Williams probably never meant to become a Methodist missionary, but this letter was worth a hundred sermons in the king’s [Cakobau’s] present excited state.” Williams’s “hostility” along with the “opposition of the white residents” was “a blessing” to the Wesleyan mission. On April 30, 1854, in a grand public ceremony, Cakobau lotu’d.65 His incentive was political, not spiritual. Few ever attributed motives of faith to Cakobau. Wallis’s Life in Feejee has an anecdote about Cakobau visiting a bure kalou to discover what could be done to cure his wife Samanunu’s illness. The god requested a horse, the bete said. Bau was then home to only two horses so Cakobau said that he might go over to Viwa and ask the missionaries for a cure. “‘Why did not the god ask something less difficult? I shall not give him a horse.’” The god then asked for a lesser gift. The moral of Wallis’s story was “I don’t think that Thakombau is very pious.”66 Though not notably devout, Cakobau had preserved Fijian customs, which the lotu would now force him to prohibit. Up until his 1854 declaration of allegiance to Christianity, he had resisted not only the missionaries but the equally persistent British and American warship commanders, who lectured him on the evils of cannibalism and widow strangling. According to Calvert, Magruder made Cakobau “wince, as he urged him not to carry out

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the strangling custom at his father’s death,” to which Cakobau replied “that so great a man as Tanoa must not die unattended—it would be a disgrace throughout Fiji.”67 During his 1852 visit on the Calliope, Home more forcefully rebuked Cakobau. Telling him that Fijians “were from their abominable customs, the scorn and pity of all the civilized world,” Home denied Cakobau the diplomatic courtesies other warship commanders had shown by initially refusing to “allow him to defile the deck of Her Majesty’s vessel with the footsteps of a cannibal” and by not shaking his hand. Humiliated by Home’s treatment, Cakobau yet remained an adamant defender of Fijian custom.68 Clearly, the new element was that an alliance with King George promised to reverse Cakobau’s declining command over much of central Fiji and that King George wished him to lotu. Williams was in Salem when Cakobau’s political victory took place. Whippy wrote a letter catching Williams up on the latest news. In February 1855, Qaraniqio of Rewa died of dysentery, and the “Rewa people begged pardon and made peace” with Bau. Two months later, a fleet of forty canoes and several thousand men sailed into Fiji from Tonga with King George at its head. This Tongan army joined with Cakobau’s troops to defeat the rebels at Kaba. In Whippy’s words, “the Good and Pio[u]s King George of Tonga Tabu, with the help of Bow and its Dependances Slaughtered nearly 300 of men women and children they are now a feasting at Bow; and threatening the Distruction of Overlow, & all the places that will not submit to them.” Whippy further speculated that King George “has not come to help Thargombow but for the conquest of this Group, and without he gits a sound Drubing . . . I think he will sucseed.”69 By the end of the decade, Whippy’s suspicions would seem substantiated when in retrospect Cakobau’s alliance with King George appeared to herald his cousin Ma‘afu’s invasion of eastern Fiji and Ma‘afu’s ascendancy as Cakobau’s primary rival for power in Fiji.70 Although the Battle of Kaba secured Cakobau’s power in Fiji, Williams achieved a victory of his own while in Salem. He lobbied successfully for another round of visits by American warships. He returned to Fiji in time to welcome Edward B. Boutwell and the USS John Adams in September 1855. Boutwell kept the John Adams in Fiji for two months doing all that Williams asked and more. For a few days in early October, the St. Mary’s returned to Fiji, with Theodorus Bailey in charge. But as soon as Williams realized that the missionaries had Bailey on their side, Williams suggested that he leave matters in Boutwell’s hands. Before departing, Bailey advised Boutwell to conduct an “impartial” investigation, “thus proving to these uncivilized

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people, now in a transition state from the worst cannibalism to Christianity, that civilized nations are just, as well as formidable.”71 Instead, Boutwell flagrantly upped the number and value of the “American claims,” as they were now called, and assumed a more aggressive posture than any other warship commander—American, British, or French. He assigned two lieutenants to a review board to hear evidence. They arrived at the stunning figure of $43,686 owed Americans, with $18,331 due Williams. They held Viwa, Rewa, and Tui Levuka responsible for some claims but made Cakobau as “Tui Viti” accountable for the lion’s share. The claims consisted of old grievances—the July 4 fire, the theft of Williams’s property at Nukulau, the Elizabeth’s losses, and the assault on Shattuck and Macomber— and new grievances. Several American beachcombers, including Whippy, jumped on board the claims bandwagon. Whippy’s claim, totaling $6,000, cited losses stemming from Cakobau’s banishment of the Levuka papalagi in 1844 and the 1853 Levuka fire. Besides the $43,686 bill, rounded up to $45,000 by the time the John Adams left, Boutwell settled several American claims while in the islands. He ordered Rewa to build Williams a new house to replace one that burned by accident, and he imprisoned Koroiravula, a former Bau rebel now aligned with Cakobau and the Wesleyans. Boutwell released his hostage once Cakobau arranged for land to be granted to John Sparr, the Seminole Indian beachcomber and Williams’s ally, as compensation for an assault and robbery several years before.72 Williams lived aboard the John Adams during its visit and made his connection to the warship visible by accompanying landing parties. He was in the contingent that left for Bau on October 20 to demand Cakobau’s presence at the hearing on the American claims. A few days later, on the John Adams, Cakobau put his X to a document in which he agreed to pay the claims in bêche-de-mer, tortoise shell, and coconut oil in three installments of fifteen thousand dollars each, the first to be delivered within one year. After “promising to behave himself for the future, [he] was permitted to leave the Ship and returned to Bau.” The document hints at the political allies Williams sought to reward along with himself. Besides agreeing to “treat all Americans with justice, and kindness, to protect them and their property,” Cakobau would “respect the Missionaries of all countries” (such as the French priests), “never invite the Tonga people to interfere in the affairs of these Islands again,” and allow exiled turaga from Bau to return home. Another clause inserted in the agreement stated that if Britain or France ever took possession of Fiji, the American claims would still have to be paid. And finally, if Cakobau did not pay the claims by the due date, upon

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the next visit of a U.S. ship of war, he was to “resign the government of Bau, and go voluntarily on board that ship, and submit to any punishment which it may be the pleasure of her Commander to inflict.”73 Boutwell then ordered raids against the Vutia people on Laucala and several towns on the Ra Coast of Viti Levu blamed for the Namuka incident, destroying five towns altogether. Armed with a sword and pistol, Williams went with the expedition to Vutia to demand two men who had threatened to kill Williams once the John Adams departed. Williams afterward described to Henry what happened. When the townspeople refused to give up the men and made “frivelous excuses, I then shouted out to the women and children to fly from the town. The officer then commenced the attack.” The fight was “a warm one but in 10 minutes we settled them and they came very submissive.” After burning sixty to seventy houses, Williams’s small army headed toward another Vutia town, but a Rewa turaga bearing a flag of peace begged pardon and saved it from devastation. “Perhaps you will say I am blood thirsty,” Williams worried but then justified his actions by stating, “I wish to benefit Religion, I wish to benefit Commerce—I wish these natives to fear and respect us—Peace and Commerce. Even now these natives all say ‘that I am the best hearted man that ever came or is now in Feejee’—said one of the chiefs ‘what a fine soldier he is how hard he fights’ . . . ‘fights like a chief ’ ‘Kind man.’”74 Earlier, Boutwell had brought Vutia’s principal men aboard the John Adams to concede legitimacy to Williams’s land purchases of 1846, and Williams no doubt expected this additional use of force to quiet Vutia’s grievances over his occupation of Laucala.75 Immediately after the John Adams’s departure, Calvert launched a counterattack with the same tools Williams was accustomed to using. He published newspaper editorials, complained to the U.S. secretary of state, and mobilized Methodist mission supporters. In January 1856, Calvert saw to the publication of two articles in the Sydney Morning Herald, one of which was a lengthy compilation of documents on Boutwell’s activities, called “American Doings at the Fiji Islands,” deliberately evoking Williams’s editorial published under Shattuck’s name. Wrongs by Fijians demanded a response, Calvert acknowledged, but “Mr. J. B. Williams was bent on doing something great in the way of revenge on Feejee.” So he fabricated extortionist claims, allowed only Cakobau’s enemies to testify against him, and exploited his “respectable family” in Salem and the “wealthy merchant” he had for a brother to gain untoward influence with the U.S. government. In addition, the Wesleyans compiled a formal “protest” in Cakobau’s name. In it, Cakobau stated that Boutwell had “threatened to take me away to America, and stamped on the

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floor right in my face because I objected to give my signature, and then I was afraid and signed it.”76 Calvert also stooped to sexual defamation by making Williams’s domestic life public. Apparently living much like Fiji’s beachcombers but without any pretense of marriage with any of the native women making up his household, the “fornicating representative of the U.S.A.,” as one of the Wesleyans called him, was vulnerable to exposure. In the Sydney Morning Herald, Calvert described how the “civilized visitors” from the John Adams, which had Williams in the party, while at Bau, “demanded and obtained of the barbarous Fijians” women for the night as a “sensual indulgence.”77 In a letter to U.S. secretary of state William L. Marcy and in Fiji and the Fijians, published in 1858, Calvert made a more unusual charge: Williams’s desire for “revenge” against Cakobau originated in “a pique against the King for having sent an improper message to the principal of the Consul’s native women,” with whom Cakobau had previously had a relationship before she took up with Williams.78 Calvert’s attempt to shame Williams as a Fiji-style philanderer—as a civilized person acting in a savage manner—fell flat, and readers of Calvert’s attack on Williams’s character ignored this aspect of his remarks. As Calvert campaigned against Williams and Boutwell, Williams naturally sent off his own editorials. He was probably behind two New York Herald articles published in February 1856. Rife with fictions about Cakobau roasting and eating white men and bearing the subheading “English Missionaries the Alleged Instigators of These Outrages,” these accounts prompted Dunn, the only Salemite still working Fiji’s bêche-de-mer trade, to enter the fray. His response, published in the Herald in November, defended the English missionaries and castigated Williams and Boutwell.79 Despite Calvert’s and Dunn’s efforts, American newspapers reported favorably on the John Adams’s actions. John asked Henry to send something to the Boston Post “eulogising Commander Boutwell” and “all the good Boutwell and his men did here.”80 An article soon appeared in that paper denouncing the “British Wesleyan filibustering missionaries at the Feejee Islands” and asserting that Boutwell “enjoys the confidence and respect of his fellow citizens.”81 Other American newspaper articles about the John Adams carried headlines that made warship violence appear a justifiable response to Fijian savagery, as in “INSULTS OF THE NATIVES PUNISHED” and “THE FEJEE ISLANDS CHASTISED.”82 Charles Sumner, the renowned abolitionist and Republican senator from Massachusetts, was one of the few bothered by what the John Adams had done but not out of concern for Fijians. In a

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May 1856 speech, he accused President Pierce of hypocrisy for not affording military protection to Americans dying in Kansas’s civil war over slavery while government resources had been liberally expended in Fiji when the John Adams had “chastised the cannibals of the Fejee Islands, for alleged outrages on American citizens.”83 Soon after Sumner’s speech, Congress launched an investigation, but it did not proceed beyond publication of documents from the John Adams’s voyage. Two years later, a court-martial found Boutwell guilty of disobeying orders in an unrelated incident. He received a five-year suspension from the navy. Inspired perhaps by Williams’s gumption, Boutwell put a claim into Congress for $14,435 in compensation, $12,500 of which was for his time in Fiji when he had to “entertain and support the United States consul” on his ship, act as diplomat and claims arbiter, and “provide for prisoners, witnesses, interpreters, and attorneys.” Congress quickly rejected Boutwell’s “extraordinary” claim.84 Even if the U.S. government had recanted Boutwell’s aggression as excessive, whatever conversations took place in Washington, DC, meant little in Fiji, where Boutwell’s rampage stood as proof of the U.S. government’s willingness to back Americans resident in the islands with violence. Cakobau did not rush to pay the American claims, but the specter of retaliation by an American ship of war hung heavy on him.85 Although Williams was only one figure in a large cast of characters with a stake in Fiji’s future, he was one of the islands’ most resourceful political masterminds. Even with the aid of American warships, Williams failed to defeat Cakobau but only because Cakobau proved the shrewder politician. When pressed to pay the American claims, Cakobau sought out stronger allies (albeit potentially more dangerous to Fijian autonomy) in King George Tupou I and Great Britain. In contrast, Williams looked for friends among those marginalized from centers of power, and his most valuable weapon, U.S. ships of war, made only episodic appearances in Fiji. Though Williams lost his war against Cakobau and the Wesleyans, his actions had consequences that rippled into the twentieth century. His success at marshaling warships inspired other Americans to seek intervention. Even after British colonization and long after Williams’s death, the United States confronted problems in Fiji requiring resolution. Within Fiji, Williams was a key figure, economically and politically. He straddled the islands’ transition from an extractive to a planter economy. And some of his ploys for exerting influence featured in island politics for years to come.

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With the political crisis of the mid-1850s settled in Cakobau’s favor, Williams’s life continued on much the same as before. He planned to return home to the Chestnut Street “mansion” once his claim was paid. In the meantime, he continued on as U.S. Commercial Agent in Fiji, living off his thousand dollar annual salary.86 Consular matters took up much of his time, especially since he no longer had Whippy’s assistance. Once Williams began receiving a salary in 1856, Whippy resigned as vice consul “till I am alowed something for so doing.”87 In 1858, Williams bought a small cottage in Totoga, the growing foreign enclave that would soon become known as Levuka after the native village nearby. Furnished simply with a table, chairs, bed, writing desk, and portraits of his mother and George Washington, this cottage served as both residence and consulate. A U.S. flag flew over it.88 British ships from the Australian naval station now frequented Fiji more often than those of other nations, yet Williams continued to have access to warship services. In mid-1858 he received help from the French corvette Bayonnaise and a few months later from the USS Vandalia.89 The Bayonnaise’s commander had the French mission as his priority and signed an agreement with Cakobau to guarantee its safety. But before departing, he also told the people of Vutia to stop building on Laucala and harassing Williams.90 The Vandalia came to check on the American claims, as yet largely unpaid. Its commander, Arthur Sinclair, extended Cakobau’s payment schedule, arbitrated new American grievances against Fijians, and based on information Williams provided, ordered an attack on a town in the Yasawas for allegedly killing and eating two Americans.91 That foreign warships kept having to make the same threats to the same people shows that brute force was not the perfect weapon to effect compliance, but Williams remained unshaken in his belief that warships held the power to press his claim. The mid-1850s did see one new, significant development: the prospect of British colonization began gaining steam. In 1855, Tui Levuka held meetings with British naval officers aboard the Herald and the Juno in which he proposed that the British make the island of Ovalau a protectorate. The Juno’s commander, Stephen Fremantle, speculated on his motivations: “Although his ideas were somewhat confused, I gathered that He and his people were afraid of King George, of the French, of the Americans, and in fact of each other.”92 After these deliberations on British naval vessels, Williams began buying land that would appeal to foreign investors as harbors, mines, or plantations. At Kadavu, Sparr arranged for Williams’s most valuable purchase, Na Ceva off Galoa Bay, reckoned by many to be Fiji’s best harbor and ideal

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for a steamship coaling station.93 Using the U.S. State Department as a deed registrar, Williams sent documentation of his land purchases—by the end of 1856, nine properties altogether including the four from 1846 with an accompanying “Notice” (“Tabu” in the attached Fijian translation) warning islanders from trespassing. Williams’s references to ships of war in papers related to his land dealings suggest that there was some truth to what Berthold Seemann heard—that Williams had brought about these land purchases through “fear of American men-of-war.”94 As for his claim, Williams now envisioned land as a commodity that in addition to coconut oil and bêchede-mer could be used to pay it off. He devised a plan to “libel and attach the whole of the Feejee Group of Islands, and sell [it] by public auction, giving 3 or 4 mos notice, as much of the lands as will pay the claims,” as though Cakobau could be treated as an American-style debtor.95 Other foreigners in Fiji followed Williams’s example and began buying land. As the only foreign consul in residence, Williams acted as their deed registrar. The burgeoning market in land attracted a new class of foreigners intent on setting themselves up as planters. Most came from Australia, but a dozen or more were Americans let loose on the Pacific by the MexicanAmerican War and the California and Australian gold rushes. Of these, Isaac M. Brower would have the greatest impact on island affairs. A medical doctor from Ohio, Brower owned an old whale ship, the Mechanic, registered out of San Francisco, and began trading for coconut oil in Fiji in 1856. He later experimented with growing cotton, sugar, and coffee and raising sheep on the island of Wakaya, which he bought from Tui Levuka, one of several American land purchases Williams recorded in despatches to the State Department.96 The influx of British subjects into Fiji prompted the appointment of a British consul, William T. Pritchard, who arrived at Levuka in September 1858 from Samoa. He was the son of George Pritchard, who at Tahiti and then at Samoa had controversially involved himself in local politics, advocated for British annexation, and ignored the conspicuous conflicts of interest stemming from his multiple roles as missionary, merchant, and consul. Almost immediately after disembarking at Fiji, William Pritchard began pushing for cession. However, the American claims remained an obstacle since Britain would have to assume responsibility for them. A few days after the Vandalia’s assault on the Yasawas, as Sinclair negotiated a new payment schedule for the American claims, Sinclair conferred with Pritchard, Pritchard conferred with Cakobau, and a plan was born. Cakobau would cede Fiji to Britain but be recognized as “Tui Viti” or king over the islands’ native population. Cakobau

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would also hand over 200,000 acres of land, the sale of which would satisfy the American claims. Neither Pritchard nor Cakobau had the authority to cede all of Fiji to Britain, but Pritchard rushed off to England to seek official approval.97 Britain did not accept Pritchard’s cession as a fait accompli but sent Colonel William Smythe, with the naturalist Seemann in company, to study the question. Once in Fiji, Smythe realized that Pritchard had misrepresented Cakobau’s authority as more centralized and complete than it was, and he recommended against annexation.98 For Williams, it no longer mattered. Shortly before Smythe’s party arrived in Fiji, Williams died in his cottage at Totoga on June 10, 1860. The Wesleyans rejoiced at his passing: “A compound of lust, fals[e]hood, defamation of God’s servants, grasper of lands—where art thou now!”99 Brower wrote Henry Williams a more sympathetic account of how “warm friends” gathered around “your respected brother” as he lay dying.100 In notifying the State Department, Brower eulogized Williams as “lamented and respected as an official and as a friend by all who knew him.” On his deathbed, Williams appointed Brower to serve as vice consul.101 Not only did Brower inherit the consulship; he also inherited Henry as a correspondent. With John’s passing, the monetary claim and Fiji lands became Henry’s great obsession. At Henry’s urging, attorney Patrick Riley, kept pressure on the federal government, and another U.S. ship of war, the Tuscarora, sailed into Fiji in 1867 and yet another, the Jamestown, in 1869. New claimants flocked to both vessels with fresh complaints. As had been the case with prior warship visits, the Tuscarora failed to achieve more than promises of payment.102 Shortly before the Jamestown arrived, however, a solution was found. Boosters favoring Fiji’s development as a planter colony engineered payment. A Melbourne, Australia, consortium of British and American investors calling themselves the Polynesian Land Company agreed to pay the American debt in exchange for 200,000 acres. The State Department received the first installment on the American claims from the Polynesian Land Company in 1869 and the final installment in 1871. Even though a board of arbitration on the Jamestown decided that Williams’s claims had been unjust, William T. Truxtun of the Jamestown deemed it too late to revoke the deal struck with the Polynesian Land Company. And so Williams’s surviving siblings and their children inherited the total sum of $19,365.50.103 Settlement of the American claims helped clear the way for British annexation three years later.104 Williams’s landholdings followed an equally tortuous but less remunerative route toward resolution. Soon after John’s death, Brower sent Henry a

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list of ten properties John had purchased in Fiji, from the one-and-a-half-acre cottage lot at Totoga where he died to the vast Na Ceva tract on Kadavu, as yet “thickly populated” with natives. John’s bombastic ravings had inflated Henry’s sense of their value. Brower gently informed Henry that most of these lands were occupied by Fijians or likely to be repossessed by them. For instance, the Vutia people, “the same people that gave your Brother so much trouble during his life,” would not look favorably on Henry’s hopes to sell Laucala to the U.S. government as a transpacific coaling station. And the Totoga cottage was small, in gross disrepair, and practically “worthless.”105 Henry’s own future now depended on making money in Fiji. He wrote Ichabod Handy, who had left the Pacific coconut oil trade to work in the oil fields of Pennsylvania and whose name was on the deed for Laucala with John’s, that “if the property can be sold—it will be good for me as I have been cleaned out twice by losses.”106 But Henry died in 1879 without realizing any profits from his brother’s Fiji landholdings. Fiji’s first colonial governor, Arthur Gordon, made aboriginal protection a priority and instituted a Land Claims Commission that in the late 1870s and early 1880s disallowed most of the American precolonial land purchases, including those made by Williams.107 These became the basis for a new round of American claims. Americans in Fiji and their partFijian descendants submitted a petition to Congress in 1887. The U.S. State Department sent an agent, George H. Scidmore, to Fiji in 1892 to investigate. Ten years later, the federal government opened diplomatic negotiations with Britain after weeding out the majority of cases to pursue only four: that of B. R. Henry, a Polynesian Land Company speculator; George Rodney Burt for a plantation at Emuri near the Sigatoka River on Viti Levu; I. M. Brower’s purchase of the Ringgold Islands; and Williams’s three most important and earliest land purchases—Nukulau, Laucala, and Nukubalavu. Finally, in 1923, sixty-three years after Williams’s death, an American and British Claims Arbitration Tribunal settled the four claims by dismissing B. R. Henry’s, granting Brower one shilling, awarding Burt £10,000, and of Williams’s landholdings allowing only Nukubalavu credence, valued at £150 due Williams’s heirs.108 The resources the United States put toward settling Williams’s monetary and land claims far exceeded their value. In other ways, Williams’s legacy lived on in Fiji. His modus operandi became legendary and inspired copycats. Williams was only one of many foreigners pushing islanders to change their political structure, society, and economy, but his extensive use of foreign instruments of power—his flashy naval-style uniform, understanding of claims and the principle of protection,

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and manipulation of government military resources for private ends—helped introduce new mechanisms for gaining the upper hand in Fiji. The islands’ beachcombers and newer arrivals—Whippy, Sparr, Brower, and dozens of other Americans—adopted claims making after Williams made it the fashion in Fiji. And Fiji’s foreign residents began to think of the United States government as aggressively on their side. British subjects envied what the U.S. Navy was willing to do for its nationals. “Uncle Sam is generally very prodigal of his awards, ten, fifteen, and even twenty thousand dollars, and sometimes out of all proportion to the injury sustained,” British beachcomber William Diaper wrote. In contrast, “John Bull . . . seldom awards at all, and hardly ever inquires, and if he does, it is generally settled against the poor unfortunate white . . . with ten years’ penal servitude, and the only wonder is that he was not hanged!”109 In the 1860s and 1870s, a number of British residents in Fiji appealed to the U.S. consul for naturalization as U.S. citizens. One went so far as to travel to the United States to seek it in person, hoping that the U.S. government would then defend his Fiji landholdings.110 More intriguing is how Fijians adopted some of these foreign elements as political tools. For instance, both Cakobau and Ma‘afu occasionally wore navy blue uniforms at meetings with foreign representatives, not solely because Williams had worn a uniform (since naval officers wore uniforms, too) but in recognition of what such uniforms meant to foreigners. They were symbols of power and authority, an outward show of underlying military strength.111 In the same vein, instead of clubbing Bau rebel Ratu Mara for plotting against him as would have been the mode of execution in earlier times, Cakobau had him hanged in 1859, perhaps thinking back to the spectacle of the Falmouth’s hanging of the Vutia man on Nukulau in 1851.112 Cakobau even put an American warship to work for him. During the Tuscarora’s 1867 visit, Cakobau presented its commander, Fabius Stanly, with a whale’s tooth and a request. Tongan expansion into Fiji made it impossible to collect enough trade goods to pay the American debt, and if the U.S. government would protect him from King George of Tonga for four years, by that time he would be able to satisfy the claim. The Tuscarora proceeded to Tonga, where Stanly told King George, “It is necessary and just to the United States government that the Tongas shall allow to Fiji sufficient rest and peace to enable her to pay her liabilities to the U.S.” The State Department later rejected Stanly’s initiative and sent a directive to Brower, as consular agent, to tell Cakobau not to count on U.S. aid against Tonga, but incidentally kept the whale’s tooth. Well into the twentieth century the so-called “Whale’s

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Tooth Treaty” would emerge from its State Department box to be exhibited at expositions as an ethnographic curiosity, Fiji’s “emblem of peace, power and savage-cannibal royalty.”113 In turn, Tongans adopted some American weapons to use against Cakobau. In 1861, King George and Ma‘afu lodged a claim against Cakobau. Ma‘afu knew about the American claims. He had once suggested to Pritchard that if Britain made him “Tui Viti” under a British protectorate, Ma‘afu would guarantee their payment. Disregarding Cakobau’s customary gift of the Ra Marama and Cakobau’s additional presentation of the schooner Thakombau to King George, the Tongans charged Cakobau $60,000 to cover Tongan expenses during the Battle of Kaba six years earlier. Ma‘afu had by then conquered most of Lau and Vanua Levu and boasted that someday Cakobau would be working for him as his cook. In negotiations with Ma‘afu, Pritchard convinced him to drop this claim.114 Since others adopted Williams’s methods, Fijians, Tongans, and papalagi alike appear to have appreciated their utility. Ironically, however, Williams himself never saw any benefit, at least not materially. The monetary claim reached resolution in his favor, but only after his death, when his family inherited the proceeds along with the later, smaller compensation for lands that the Land Claims Commission had initially ruled invalid. The only satisfaction Williams obtained was the exhilaration felt when the Falmouth and John Adams brought the military force of the U.S. government to bear on Fijians in his name—in other words, he benefited from the act of exerting power, not from its fruits. In an 1855 response to a State Department questionnaire asking consuls about local economies, Williams hinted at what American warships did for him personally. Fijians serving on foreign vessels still fell under the authority of turaga, and “if their chief should ask them (the native Sailors) for any property, fear or respect, would cause him, to give all his wages to him. . . . Chiefs can compel their Subjects to go in foreign vessels. . . . the natives are afraid to refuse . . . fearing some dreadful punishment.” Williams termed this a “false respect,” presumably because it originated in fear, and yet it was exactly this kind of respect that he achieved in Fiji by mobilizing state violence to further the aggrandizement of his person and protection of his property.115 Despite so much effort to bend Cakobau and other Fijians to his will, Williams did not succeed at it. The Vutia people never gave in to Williams, not after the Falmouth hanging and not after the John Adams’s rampage through

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their towns. And Cakobau, despite periodic harassment by American naval commanders, never put the American claims high on his agenda. He had wars with other Fijians to pursue and, as the 1850s wore on, the threat of Tongan expansion to worry about. When Diaper made the comment about how the U.S. government supported its nationals’ claims, no matter how outlandish, he added as qualifier that “by some means or other, it is hardly ever forthcoming.”116 In a letter to Henry written at the height of his feud with Cakobau and the Wesleyans, Williams contended, “I have not, nor will I have any thing to do with Feejee politics never since I have been in Feejee.”117 Though patently untrue, maybe Williams believed this. Superficially, many of the actions he took—lodging claims, filing protests, attaching property for debt, land deed registration, planting newspaper propaganda, and even asking for a warship to protect his property—do not look overtly political. They belonged to the culture of doing business in America. And yet each of these business practices had grounding in the nation-state as arbiter and protector. In transplanting these routine commercial practices to the Pacific, Williams had the U.S. government as a silent partner. That he could turn the state’s bureaucratic oversight of property and commerce into political instruments aimed at discrediting or disempowering local leaders and other foreigners in residence underscores the extent of state investment in the commercial pursuits of its nationals.

Epilogue Continuity and Change in U.S.-Fiji Relations

From the opening of the sandalwood trade in 1804 to the end of the bêche-de-mer trade in the late-1850s, Fiji was a land of opportunity for American enterprise. Over this fifty-year period, Americans traveled to the islands to extract resources. More Americans, passing through the islands on warships, came to Fiji to protect traders, American nationals who chose to reside in Fiji, and their property. During this period of intense American activity, Fijians never lost control of the archipelago. Nonetheless, the Americans who frequented Fiji contributed to wide-ranging changes in the islanders’ environment, economy, material culture, political composition, labor relations, religious practices, and family life. These ad hoc foreign interventions ultimately helped make Fiji vulnerable to formal colonization by Britain. Fiji was one of many foreign places drawing large numbers of Americans in the early republic and antebellum periods. From the origination of the United States, American nationals engaged in diverse pursuits all over the world. The vast global reach of the early United States often goes unnoticed because it was extraterritorial in nature (it did not entail the acquisition of new territories or colonies) and because individuals, not government, constituted its motivating force. The U.S. government did indeed take action in Fiji, much of it violent or at the very least threatening

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violence. However, the nation’s leaders did not initiate and organize this expansion. They merely reacted and extended a shield of protection over U.S. nationals who left for distant lands and seas to realize a hodgepodge of personal ambitions. The several Americans sampled in this book with in-depth profiles—the beachcomber and settler David Whippy, trader’s wife and author Mary Wallis, merchant and consul John B. Williams—affirm that the particularity of individuals matters in studies of global expansion. Like dots in an impressionist painting of the pointillist school, each person was unique, but, amassed together, they illuminate the nature and extent of American encroachment. Whippy, Wallis, and Williams were all involved, in one way or another, in the U.S.-Fiji trade. All could be said to have been party to the processes by which Fiji entered an increasingly interconnected global economy. They also had in common a view of themselves as belonging to a part of the world superior to Fijians in culture, intellect, and virtue—an ideological position that demonized Fijian customs, enabled labor exploitation, and cast rule by Fijians as illegitimate, tyrannical “club law.” Their activities add up to a whole, but Fiji offered each of them something different. With David Whippy, it is hard to know for sure what attracted him initially to vakaviti, but, as I suggest, he may have been flattered by the respect shown him as a turaga and Mata ki Bau. He then applied his knowledge of Fiji to earn the respect of newly arrived foreigners as he helped them navigate Fijian language and culture so as to achieve their ends, whether that was bartering for slugs, spreading Christianity, or conducting a survey of the islands. His ties to other foreigners allowed him ultimately to realize security and independence for himself, his family, and the enclave of foreigners that gathered around him at Levuka. Mary Wallis’s Fiji experiences helped her transcend respectability’s gendered confines and move up from the working class to the middle class. In Life in Feejee, she asserted herself as an authority on the strange and treacherous habits of the Fijian people while at the same time portraying herself as a witty commentator on the human condition, unintimidated by Fiji’s most ferocious cannibal kings. Treated as a marama in Fiji, she enjoyed the deference and service due a person of high rank. At home in Beverly, living off a comfortable income derived from the cheap, forced labor of Fijians, she claimed the American equivalent by identifying as a lady. John B. Williams went to Fiji to prove himself a man of business. From kauri gum in New Zealand to coconut oil in Rotumah to bêche-demer in New Caledonia, he certainly tried. In Fiji, he sought to make money by trading in the islands’ natural resources, speculating in land, and seeking

Continuity and Change in U.S.-Fiji Relations

213

government reimbursement for property losses. In the end, he had to look elsewhere to derive meaning and satisfaction in his life, to the modicum of respect shown him as a U.S. consular agent and the thrill of power and control he felt on the rare occasions when the U.S. Navy made a show of force on his behalf. Americans would continue to go to Fiji as its British population skyrocketed and the islands fell under British authority. Investigating their stories would, perhaps, reveal that they, too, saw in Fiji an opportunity to earn others’ respect, in one form or another. The most notorious Americans in Fiji in the second half of the nineteenth century do appear to have gone there to make something of themselves. Anticipating shortfalls in global cotton supplies with the U.S. Civil War, hundreds of would-be planters flooded the islands. Cotton became Fiji’s largest export. American trading vessels no longer stopped at Fiji, but individual Americans landed there anyhow and set about purchasing land and acquiring laborers to set themselves up as planters. By 1869, the papalagi in residence numbered about seven hundred, five-sixths of them British immigrants from Australia. This planter class scattered throughout the Fiji group with the largest concentration at Levuka, the usual point of debarkation and the islands’ commercial center. What Whippy had started developed further, and Levuka turned into a way station for idlers, transients, schemers, evacuees from the Australian gold fields, and journalists who reported on the islands’ prospects for readers considering emigration.1 Papalagi interference in Fijian politics manifested itself anew as foreign interests shifted from resource extraction to plantation agriculture. Other Americans replaced beachcombers and traders as men of influence, all of them investors in the plantation economy. One of the most conspicuous of these was Samuel Avery St. John. Originally from Connecticut, St. John was a California gold rusher turned Fiji cotton planter with lands at Rakiraki on northern Viti Levu and a large native workforce numbering 150 in 1871.2 He had married a Bau woman and served for a while as Cakobau’s secretary. In 1867, he drafted a constitution modeled after that of the Hawaiian Kingdom, which made Cakobau king and St. John secretary of state. This shortlived, ineffectual government was replaced in 1871 by a more elaborate but equally ineffectual constitutional monarchy: Cakobau remained king but he was now backed by a cabinet of mostly British advisers.3 Another American featuring prominently in Fiji’s history in the immediate preannexation period was the unsavory George Rodney Burt of

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Pennsylvania. Soon after settling in Fiji in the mid-1850s, he became one of Williams’s closest friends. Burt purchased multiple tracts throughout the Fiji group and began growing cotton using native Fijians and imported Pacific Islanders as laborers.4 Benefitting from the blackbirding trade (the kidnapping or procurement of Pacific islanders under the pretext of indentures), Burt treated his workers with great cruelty. When the American warships Tuscarora and Jamestown visited Fiji in 1867 and 1869, Burt brought long lists of outrages to their attention and insisted on U.S. protection of his property. Warship commanders Fabius Stanly and William T. Truxton did little for him and that only begrudgingly. Stanly went so far as to fine him $750 for flogging his Fijian laborers in response to a complaint brought by Cakobau through his secretary of state, St. John.5 Plantations on Kadavu and Viti Levu belonging to Burt and his partner, Achilles Underwood of Michigan, fell victim to the greatest violence to occur in Fiji during the planter boom. In January 1869, Fijians from the Viti Levu interior attacked Burt and Underwood’s cotton plantation on the Sigatoka River, destroying it and murdering eighteen people. Two years later, while Burt was in Washington, DC, pursuing a claim against Cakobau for that loss and others, laborers from the island of Tanna (part of what is now Vanuatu) rose up at his Kadavu plantation, killing Underwood and several others.6 Readers might remember Burt from chapter 7. He was the big winner in the 1923 settlement of American land claims with an award of ten thousand pounds for his Sigatoka River plantation, ownership of which the British Land Claims Commission had originally disallowed. The U.S. State Department defended Burt as “an enterprising and deserving settler.”7 Burt’s insistence on U.S. protection, his pursuit of claims, and his blaming Cakobau for his losses seem scripted with Williams as his model, but Stanly and Truxton responded to the problem of protecting Americans overseas in a different manner from their predecessors. Rather than threaten Cakobau into subjugation, they saw him as the solution to the islands’ “state of anarchy.”8 The item highest on Stanly’s agenda in 1867 was to find the thief who had walked off with the flag of the U.S. consulate at Levuka in 1861. Stanly demanded the culprit but then allowed “the Authorities” to punish the man in the public square at Bau, where he received fifty lashes and a sentence of one year at hard labor.9 The State Department disapproved of how Stanly handled the situation, stating that “it is against the policy of the United States to ask or sanction a barbarous punishment.”10 But Stanly, it might be said, had rejected the more sweeping retributions exacted by prior

Continuity and Change in U.S.-Fiji Relations

215

warships for wrongs done Americans and became instead the first American warship commander to grant any legitimacy to rule by native Fijians. No doubt the reason for this change in attitude was Cakobau’s American secretary of state. Although St. John left that post before the Jamestown arrived, Truxton expressed even more faith in the capacity, or necessity, of Fiji’s constitutional monarchy to provide the security and legal infrastructure that its British and American residents demanded. After the “unparalleled atrocity” on Burt and Underwood’s Sigatoka River plantation, I. M. Brower as U.S. consular agent asked the United States to send a ship of war to help Cakobau conquer and assume control over the Viti Levu interior. When the Jamestown arrived a few months later, Truxton promised Cakobau that if he would send an army of five hundred men, forces from the Jamestown would join them. Cakobau had already tried to subdue these people at the urging of the islands’ foreign residents and failed. Unwilling to try again, he disclaimed responsibility for people not subject to him. In his report summing up his activities in Fiji, Truxton wondered about whether citizens of the United States, “who leave their own country and force themselves among a savage people without law, are entitled to [government] protection. They come to these places with the hope of making enormous profits, and it seems but just, they should, to a certain extent, take the consequences.” He recommended that the United States should “continue to recognize Thakombau as the legal head of political affairs, to establish his authority, and force him (with assistance if necessary) to carry out the laws.”11 Cakobau was one of the continuities as Fiji’s foreign population shifted from resource extraction to plantation agriculture. He had survived to become the titular head of the, as yet, unconsolidated Fijian archipelago. But the constitutional monarchy of 1871 could not allay the anxiety and anger of foreign planters at what seemed to them a governmental vacuum. And on October 10, 1874, Cakobau and twelve other turaga levu including Ma‘afu, Tui Cakau, Tui Bua, Tui Dreketi, and Ritova ceded sovereignty to Britain. Cakobau no longer held formal political power. Under the British colonial administration, he received an annual pension and an honorific deference until his death in 1883.12 In the twentieth century, new incentives enticed Americans to Fiji. American global activism and private development schemes involved Fiji as much as other places around the world, and medical aid and research sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and a Carnegie Library at Suva introduced

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new forms of American influence in the islands.13 World War II, of course, brought Americans to the islands in droves. The airstrip under American control during the war transformed in the postwar period to become the commercial, international airport at Nadi on Viti Levu.14 But the main avenue by which Americans would come to Fiji was through the third wave of economic development that succeeded the sugar plantations of colonial Fiji: tourism. The pioneers, the first Americans in Fiji with no other rationale beyond leisure and curiosity, were the historian Henry Adams, a descendant of two U.S. presidents, and his friend John La Farge, the New York artist. They disembarked at Suva, the newly established British capital of Fiji, in 1891. Earlier in their tour of the greater Pacific, the beauty of the landscape at Samoa and the “child-like” gaiety of the people had charmed them. But in Tahiti, Adams felt “half angry to find that it’s a real place” contrary to what he knew from “reading about Tahiti since I was a child.” Fiji also disillusioned them. Governor John Bates Thurston invited them to stay at Government House, a kind of “English countryhouse where one dresses for dinner and has a big library to lounge in,” with “the usual cricket-ground and tennis-court” nearby and “nothing but English” living in the city. Thurston invited them on a government excursion into the interior, accompanied by a long line of native pack bearers. At each village they stopped at, Thurston conducted the business of the British Empire. They all sat down to drink yaqona, watched endless meke dances, and observed the proceedings as processions of villagers came before Thurston to hand him whales’ teeth and other tribute. The trip was exhausting but, more to the point, too tame (see figure 8.1). “We have not a fair chance of being eaten,” Adams wrote. “The natives are fairly savage yet, and have not lost their customs, as the Tahitians have. They are a generation wilder than the Samoans. I should have been sorry to miss their acquaintance, and though I know they won’t eat me, I feel better when I think they would like to.”15 Today, tourism is the largest sector in the Fijian economy and Americans the third largest constituency of visitors behind Australians and New Zealanders.16 Many of the places mentioned in this book host American tourists. Levuka, where Americans first concentrated, is gaining ground as a tourist resort. At the start of the twenty-first century, a consortium of Levuka residents sought recognition for it as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, playing up its history as a rough-and-tumble frontier town. It was a piece of history that did not mesh well with the indigenous history and cultural priorities of the Fiji Islands government, but nonetheless it received recognition as a

Continuity and Change in U.S.-Fiji Relations

217

Figure 8.1. Fiji tourists John La Farge and Henry Adams “sitting at the door of their palace,” taken by an unknown photographer in 1891. Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

protected historic site, “Levuka Historical Port Town,” in 2013. It is the only World Heritage Site in Fiji.17 Tourists are more likely to choose the Sigatoka River Safari, a half-day “eco/cultural adventure” in jet boats. Its customers “visit authentic Fijian villages and experience a day in the life of the real ‘kaiviti’ (Fijian).”18 The majority of tourists head for the dazzling beach resorts west of Viti Levu, in the Yasawas or Mamanucas, where at Malolo Island, for instance, a bure with an ocean view costs more than a thousand dollars a night.19 As with Levuka, American activities at Malolo add to that island’s “heritage” and are considered an angle in tourist development schemes, but the

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deaths and destruction that occurred there in 1840 hardly seem in tune with what Americans are seeking from the Fiji Islands today.20 After filming seasons thirty-three through thirty-six of the popular, long-running television series Survivor in Fiji, host Jeff Probst advocated making it the show’s permanent home: Fiji offers us everything that we want. . . . Incredibly beautiful water that you can see down 30 feet, beaches that are amazing, a government that is working with us, local labor that loves to say ‘Bula!’ every day because they’re just happy you’re here. And our crew has never been as happy. We actually have decent accommodations to do this show out in the jungle. It’s a win-win-win.21

Since the days of sandalwood, Fiji has been satisfying foreigners’ tastes for exoticism and luxury, and Americans continue to be a part of the islands’ history. Now that the face of Fiji presented to the rest of the world evokes pleasure instead of fear, references to the cannibal isles have become nothing more than a nostalgic nod to Fiji’s past. From the Fijian perspective, tourism is the newest economy, the latest wave, drawing foreigners to the islands. But for the Americans who visit, their relationship to the islands has radically shifted. In the nineteenth century, Fiji was a site of American wealth production. Today, the islands are a site of American consumption. What role the pursuit of respect now has in bringing Americans to Fiji is therefore open to debate. On the one hand, two other r-words, rest and relaxation, appear more prominently to be the rationale. As an escape to paradise, Fiji may have lapsed as a place to make something of oneself and become instead the antidote relieving Americans from the pressure of having to prove themselves in their everyday, work-a-day lives. On the other hand, tourism does not promote mutual respect between producers and consumers. It is a service industry that cultivates in its workforce warm welcomes, an obliging hospitality, and deference. It is a kind of “false respect,” not rooted in fear, which is what John B. Williams meant when he used that phrase, but a respect that can be purchased.

Appendix A

Sandalwood Voyages

Note: (1) Dates in parentheses indicate that the exact dates are unknown. (2) The source column gives the most direct information on that voyage, but readers wanting to know more about a particular voyage should also refer to the sources listed for other vessels in Fiji at the same time.

Vessel

In Fiji

Captain

Schooner Marcia of Sydney

(Oct.) 1804 James Aickin

Brig Union (Dec.) 1804 Isaac Pendleton, of New York Daniel Wright

Owners/ Investors

Fate

Sources

Lord, Kable & 15 tons to Underwood Sydney (Simeon Lord)

Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales, 5: 602–3; 620–22 wrecked Fanning & Fanning, Voyages, Co. (Edmund near Koro 314–26; Bladen, island, crew Historical Records Fanning & Willet Coles) lost of New South Wales, 5: 513–14, 532–34; “Ship News,” SG, 28 April 1805 (Continued)

(Continued) Vessel

In Fiji

Captain

Owners/ Investors

(Dec.) 1804 J. E. Farrell J. E. Farrell Ship Fair American of Manila Ship Criterion ( June) 1805 Peter Chase Hussey & Co. of Nantucket

Brig Harrington of Calcutta

May–July 1807

Ship Hope of May–Sept 1807 New York

Ship King George of Sydney

120 tons to Canton

William Campbell

Chace, Cheney & Co. of Madras; MacArthur, Blaxcell, & Jamison of Sydney

cargo to Canton

Reuben Bromley

Fanning & Co.

cargo to Canton

(Apr.–May) James 1807 Aickin

Ship Duchess (Sept.) 1807 Austin Forrest of York of Calcutta

Ship Duchess Feb.–Mar. 1808 of York of Calcutta

Fate

Austin Forrest

Kable & Co.

Campbell & 65 tons to Hook Sydney

full cargo sold at Penang

Sources ’Interesting Particulars,” SG, 4 Nov. 1804 Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales, 5: 620–22, 6: 92, 110, 125; “Proclamation,” SG, 13 July 1806 “Map of the Fiji Islands (1811), JCB; Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales, 6: 272, 671; Hainsworth, Sydney Traders, 67–70 Logbook, Baker Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (PMB reel 728); Fanning, Voyages, 327–39 Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales, 6: 272 Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales, 6: 404; WL, 197–99 “Ship News,” SG, 22 May, 24 July, and 23 Oct. 1808; WL, 197–99

Vessel

In Fiji

Captain

Lord, Kable, & Underwood

Fate

Sources

“Ship News,” SG, 24 July 1808; WL, 13–14; Rose, Richard Siddins, ch. 4 Brig Apr.–Sept. William Lord, 120 tons to “Ship News,” Stewart Kable, & Sydney SG, 23 Oct. Elizabeth of 1808 Underwood 1808; WL, 13 Sydney WL; Lockerby, John Dorr & 130 tons; Ship Jenny of May–July William “Directions for 1808 Dorr, Jr. Co. ship and Boston the Fegee or cargo impounded Sandle Wood Islands,” PEM, by British PMB reel 225; Ship Jenny, Dorr Family Papers, MH-21, PEM Brig Eliza of June 1808 Ebenezer H. Brown & Ives wrecked on Samuel Corey reef near Patterson, Providence Nairai Narrative (1817); Brig Eliza correspondence, 1808–9, Records of Brown & Ives, JCB; Hedges and Black, “Disaster in the South Seas” 120 tons to WL, 35–59; Brig Oct.–Nov. William Campbell, Sydney “Ship News,” Favourite of 1808 Campbell; Jamison, SG, 11 Sept. and Calcutta A. Fisk MacArthur, 27 Nov. 1808 & Blaxcell David 300 tons to WL, 39–74; Oct. 1808– David General “Ship News” Wellesley of June 1809 Dalrymple; Dalrymple; Canton Simeon Lord and “Letters of William Madras Administration,” Scott SG, 27 Nov. 1808; “Ship News,” SG, 6 Aug. 1809; Davidson, Peter Dillon of Vanikoro, 15–16 Ship King George of Sydney

(May) 1808 Richard Siddins

Owners/ Investors

110 tons to Sydney

(Continued)

(Continued) Vessel

In Fiji

Captain

Ship Tonquin Oct. 1808– Reuben of New York Mar. 1809 Bromley

Brig Favourite of Calcutta Brig Perseverance of Sydney Brig Favourite of Calcutta

Schooner Mercury of Sydney

Jan. 1809

Fanning & Co.

Fate

Sources

full cargo to WL, 52–60; Canton Patterson, Narrative (1817), 108–10 100 tons to “Ship News,” Sydney SG, 19 Feb. 1809

( Jan.–Feb.) Faulkner; 1809 Kerremgard

sandalwood “Ship News,” to Sydney SG, 26 Feb. 1809

Apr.–July, 1809

A. Fisk

full cargo

May–June 1809

Richard Siddins

Ship Hunter May 1809 of Sydney or Bengal Brig Trial of ( June–July) Kable 1809 Sydney

Brig May–July Perseverance 1809 of Sydney

Ship City of Edinburgh

Owners/ Investors

July–Aug. 1809

Ship Hunter July 1809 of Calcutta

James Robson

Martin, Account of the Natives, 2: 21–73; “Ship News,” SG, 20 Aug. 1809 Lord, 35 tons to Rose, Richard Kable, & Sydney Siddins, ch. 5; Underwood “Ship News,” SG, 6 Aug. 1809 Campbell & 75 tons Hainsworth, Co. (Robert Sydney Traders, Campbell) 175 full cargo to “Ship News,” Sydney SG, 6 Aug. 1809 and 13 Aug. 1809 returned Hainsworth, to Sydney Sydney Traders, empty 175; “Ship News,” SG, 6 Aug. 1809 and 13 Aug. 1809 “Ship News,” SG, 20 Aug., 17 Sept., and 24 Sept., 1809; “Sydney,” SG, 31 Aug. 1811 “Ship News,” SG, 13 Aug. 1809

Vessel

In Fiji

Ship Hunter 1810 of Calcutta

Captain

Owners/ Investors

James Robson

John Gilmore & Co.

Fate

Nov. 1809– William Ship Campbell Hibernia of Jan. 1810 Sydney with Schooner Venus

William Campbell and Garnham Blaxcell

4 or 10 tons, 4 hogsheads bêche-demer

Ship Hope of Nov. 1809– Chase Jan. 1810 New York

Edmund Fanning

little to no sandalwood

Brig Active of Salem

(Mar.)–July William P. James Cook 1811 Richardson & Co.

Brig Brutus of Boston

(May–Aug William 1811) Dorr, Jr.

Ship Hunter (?)–May of Calcutta 1811

Ship Bordeaux of New York

James Robson

(May–Aug Rosseter 1811)

cargo to Canton

Samuel Fales little to no sandalwood

full cargo to Canton

Sources Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales, 7: 478 “Post[s]cript,” SG, 17 Feb. 1810, and “Sydney,” SG, 24 Feb. 1810; Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales, 7: 325; WL, 119–60 “Sydney,” SG, 24 Feb 1810; WL, 138–48 William P. Richardson, “Fegee Vocabulary,” PEM, PMB reel 225; “Arrived at the Vineyard,” Salem Gazette, 24 Mar. 1812 “Extract of a Letter from Capt. Wm. Dorr,” New Bedford Mercury, 17 Apr. 1812 John Richards Child, Journal, Ship Hunter, Child Papers, Ms. N-2055, MHS John Richards Child, Journal, Ship Hunter, Child Papers, Ms. N-2055, MHS (Continued)

(Continued) Vessel

In Fiji

Captain

Owners/ Investors

Ship Hunter May–Sept 1811 of Boston

William M. Rogers

Ship Milwood of New York

E. Smith

B. Minturn

Ship Sally of Nov. 1811 Boston

R. M. Field

Philip Amidon & Co.

Ship Hunter Feb.–Sept. of Calcutta 1813

James Robson

Aug.–(?) 1811

Sept. 1814– Richard Brig (Feb.) 1815 Siddins Campbell Macquarie of Sydney

Ship Indus of Salem

(1819)

Fate

Sources

40 tons at Fiji, 200 tons at Marquesas

John Richards Child, Journal, Ship Hunter, Child Papers, Ms. N-2055, MHS Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales, 7: 593 “Map of the Fiji Islands" (1811), JCB; Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales, 7: 645 SG, 24 Oct. 1812; “Massacre at the Fejee Islands,” SG, 23 Oct. 1813; Dillon, Narrative, 1: 1–33, 2: 430–34; Davidson, Peter Dillon of Vanikoro, 28–41, 312–15 “Sydney,” Sydney Gazette, 4 Mar. and 11 Mar. 1815; “History of Some Curious Customs” “Arrived Since Our Last,” NewYork Spectator, 14 Sept. 1819

150 tons to Canton; crew involved in battle at Dillon’s Rock

Joseph Underwood

Benjamin William P. Vanderford Richardson et al.

70 tons to Sydney

cargo to Canton

Owners/ Investors

Vessel

In Fiji

Captain

Brig Roscoe of Salem

April–July 1822

Benjamin William P. Vanderford Richardson et al.

Brig Calder of Calcutta

(Dec. 1824– Peter Dillon Peter Dillon Jan. 1825)

Fate cargo to Manila

Sources

Logbook, Brig Roscoe, 1821–23, Log 1922, PEM, PMB reel 220 Dillon, 500 lbs. sandalwood; Narrative, 1: 270; Davidson, brought Peter Dillon of David Vanikoro, 88–89; Whippy Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 35.

Appendix B

Bêche-de-Mer Voyages

Vessel

In Fiji

Captain

Owners

Fate

Main Sources

Brig Laurice (Nov. 1824– Josef (Concepción?) Jan. 1825) Belistrana of Manila

mutiny, brig Clunie, “Manila destroyed Brig”; D’Urville, Voyage de la Corvette L’Astrolabe, 4: 400–413 N. L. Rogers & two cargos William Driver, Ship Clay of Sept. 1827– Benjamin to Manila Journal, Clay, Feb. 1828; Vanderford Brothers Salem 1827–1829, Log Aug.–Dec. 1402, PEM, 1828 PMB reel 216; Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 55–75 Joshua N. L. Rogers & cargo to Brig Quill of ( July Oliver, Wreck 1829?)–Dec. Kinsman Brothers Manila Salem of the Glide, 1829 28–38; Endicott, Wrecked Among Cannibals, 22–26; Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 74–80 (Continued)

(Continued) Vessel

In Fiji

Captain

Owners

Fate

Main Sources

Ship Glide of Oct. 1829– Henry Apr. 1830 & Archer Salem Nov. 1830– Mar. 1831

Joseph Peabody

one cargo to Manila, back to Fiji, wrecked northern Vanua Levu

Ship Clay of Apr. 1830–? Charles Millet Salem

N. L. Rogers & Brothers

Oliver, Wreck of the Glide; Endicott, Wrecked Among Cannibals; Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 79–94 Oliver, Wreck of the Glide, 44; Endicott, Wrecked Among Cannibals, 27 Endicott, Wrecked Among Cannibals, 33; “Ship News,” Salem Gazette, 19 Apr. 1831 Oliver, Wreck of the Glide, 121, 127; Endicott, Wrecked Among Cannibals, 49–50 John H. Eagleston, Autobiography: “Book No. 1,” PEM, PMB reel 207, and Journal, Peru, 1830–33, Log 283, PEM, PMB reel 205 William Driver, Journal, Charles Doggett, 1831–32, Tennessee State Library and Archives, PMB reel 39 John B. Knights, Journal, Spy, 1832–33, Log 1983, PEM, PMB reel 220

Brig Fawn of ?–Aug. 1830 James Briant Robert Brookhouse Salem et al.

wrecked off Vanua Levu in Cakaudrove

Brig Niagara ?–Mar. 1831 Nathaniel Brown; of Salem Benjamin Vanderford, supercargo Bark Peru of May–Nov. John H. 1831; June Eagleston Salem 1832–Feb. 1833

Putnam I. Farnham, Jed Fry, & Peter S. Webster

wrecked in same gale as Glide, near Ba

Stephen C. Phillips

two cargos to Manila; vessel sold at Manila

Brig Charles Oct. 1831– William Doggett of Mar. 1832 Driver Salem

N. L. Rogers & cargo to Brothers Manila

Brig Spy of Salem

May–June 1833

John B. Knights

Stephen C. Phillips

little to no cargo, vessel sold at Manila

Vessel

In Fiji

Captain

Owners

Bark Pallas of Salem

1833

Henry Archer

Joseph “excellent Peabody et al. voyage”

Brig Charles (Sept. 1833) George Batchelder Doggett of Salem

(mid–1833) Bureau Brig & (Apr.)– L’Aimable Joséphine of July 1834 Bordeaux, France

Ship Eliza of Jan.–Oct. Salem, with 1834 schooner Coral

Joseph Winn, Jr.; John D. Winn, captain of Coral

Fate

Main Sources

P. J. Farnham & Co. to Capt. I. N. Chapman or Capt. Benj. Vanderford, Consul, 15 July 1834, Isaac Needham Chapman Papers, MSS 184, PEM N. L. Rogers & Veidovi-led “Horrid Brothers assault at Massacre,” Saturday Morning Kadavu killed ten of Transcript (Boston), 27 crew Sept. 1834; “Deposition of James Magoun,” Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 412–14 brig taken Joseph Warren Osborn, by Viwa, captain & Journal, Emerald, 1833– officers 36, May–Aug. killed 1834, Log 332, PEM, PMB reel 223; Jacquinot, Voyage au Pole Sud, 4: 160–261 Stephen C. Phillips

cargo to Manila

John D. Winn, Logbook, Eliza, 1833–35, July– Aug. 1834, Log 330, PEM, PMB reel 206; Eliza and Coral ships’ papers in Joseph Winn Jr. Papers, MH-329, PEM (Continued)

(Continued) Vessel

In Fiji

Captain

Owners

Fate cargo to Manila

Ship Emerald of Salem, with schooner Coral

May–June, John H. Eagleston & Aug. 1834–Mar. 1835

Stephen C. Phillips

Bark Pallas of Salem

Mar.–Oct. 1835

Joseph cargo to Peabody et al. Manila, vessel sold at Manila

Brig Edwin of Salem

(fifteen Joseph H. months, Millet 1835–1836)

Main Sources

Joseph Warren Osborn, George N. Cheever, and John H. Eagleston, Journals, Emerald, 1833– 36, Logs 332–34, PEM, PMB reel 223; Eagleston, Autobiography: “Voyage of the ship Emerald 1833 to 1836,” PEM, PMB reel 205; Eagleston, Letterbook, PEM, PMB reel 223 P. J. Farnham two cargos Isaac Needham Brig Consul July 1834– Isaac to Manila; Chapman of New York Jan. 1835; Needham & Co. vessel sold Papers, MSS (1835)–June Chapman; at Manila 184, PEM; I. Benjamin 1836 N. Chapman, Vanderford, Journal, Consul, supercargo 1834–35, Log 351, PEM, PMB reel 206 John B. Williams (Nov. 1834– George W. N. L. Rogers & Tender Ship to U.S. Secretary Brothers Albion Augustus of Jan. 1835) Lamson; cut off at of State, 1 Jan. Nathaniel W. Salem, with 1850, Despatch Yasawas, Lakeman, Brig Albion captain & 25, Despatches captain, crew killed Fiji, reel 2 Albion Henry Archer

Henry Archer, Logbook, Pallas, 1834–35, Log 363, PEM, PMB reel 206 Wallis, Life in Feejee, 117–24, 178–80

Vessel

In Fiji

Ship Eliza of (1836) Salem

Captain

Owners

Fate

John D. Winn

Stephen C. Phillips

cargo to Manila

Brig (May 1837) John H. Eagleston Mermaid of & Nov. 1837–May Salem 1838

Apr–May Brig Sir David Ogilby 1838 of Sydney

Ship Leonidas of Salem Brig Gambia of Salem

Henry Hutchins

(Feb.–July) John H. 1840 Eagleston Apr.–Nov. 1841

Brig Gambia (1843) of Salem

Benjamin Wallis, Jr.

Benjamin Wallis, Jr.

Main Sources

Shipping News, Salem Gazette, 24 July 1835, and New York Spectator, 24 Aug. 1837 George N. John H. cargo to Cheever, Eagleston et al. Manila, brig sold at Logbook, Brig Mermaid of Manila Salem, 1836–37, Log 390, PMB reel 207 “Murder of the William Verata Captain of the Sir McNiece assault David Ogilby,” killed several on SG, 14 June both sides, 1838; Charles including R. Drinkwater Bethune to F. vessel’s L. Maitland, 16 captain Sept. 1838, to George Gipps, 4 Oct. 1838, and Depositions of John Marshall et al., 8 & 9 June 1838, FO 58/1, UK John H. Wilkes, Eagleston & J. Narrative, 3: Porter Felt, Jr. 208–27 Logbook, S. Chamberlain cargo to Gambia, 1840–42, & Co., George Manila Log 459, PEM, West, Benjamin PMB reels 210– Cox 11; Benjamin Cox Papers, MSS 168, PEM S. Chamberlain cargo to & Co., George Manila West, Benjamin Cox

Benjamin Cox Papers, MSS 168, PEM (Continued)

(Continued) Vessel

In Fiji

Schooner Warwick of Boston

Nov. 1843– George N. Dec. 1844 Cheever

Brig Charles (Aug. 1844) Wirgman of Baltimore Brig Gambia Nov. 1844– Dec. 1845 of Salem

Captain

Joseph Warren Osborn Joseph Hartwell

Bark Zotoff of Salem

Dec. 1844– Benjamin Jan. 1846 & Wallis, Jr. Sept. 1846– Nov. 1847

Schooner Warwick of Boston

Aug. 1845– Aug. 1848 (trip to Singapore in 1846?)

(1) George N. Cheever; (2) Henry T. Saunders

Owners

Fate

James H. Andrews

cargo to Manila

(1) James H. Andrews et al; (2) Henry T. Saunders

vessel sold in Fiji to Saunders, condemned in Fiji

Main Sources

George N. Cheever, Journal, Warwick, 1842–45, Log 534, PEM, PMB reel 210 Stephen C. Charles Phillips et al. Thompson, “Bowe” Logbook, Brig S. Chamberlain cargo to Gambia of Salem, & Co., George Manila 1844–46, Log West, Benjamin 3136, PEM, PMB Cox reel 218; Eustis Bacon Diary, 1844–48, Baker Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Benjamin Cox Papers, MSS 168, PEM S. Chamberlain two cargos Wallis, Life in & Co., George to Manila Feejee; Benjamin West, Benjamin Cox Papers, Cox MSS 168, PEM George N. Cheever, Logbook (17 June 1846) and Henry T. Saunders, Journal (18 June 1846), Schooner Warwick of Salem, 1845–49, Log 580, PEM, PMB reel 211; John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 22 June 1846, Despatch 5, and 14 Aug. 1848, Despatch 19, Despatches Fiji, reel 1

Vessel

In Fiji

Captain

Owners

Brig Aug 1845– Edward A. Elizabeth of ( Jan.–Apr. King Salem 1846)

Bark Samos Mar. 1846– Henry Mar. 1847 Archer of Salem

Bark Apr. 1846– Cotton L. Catharine of Jan. 1847; Pratt Boston July–(Oct.) 1847

Dec. 1846– Daniel Charles Wirgman of ( June 1847) Walden Salem Bark Pilot of Mar. 1847– Joseph (Nov. 1847) Hartwell Salem May, 1847– (1) Joseph Brig Tim Pickering of Apr 1848 Warren Osborn, Salem (2) Daniel Walden

Bark (Sept.–Oct. Cotton L. Catharine of 1848) Pratt Boston

Charles Hoffman

Fate

Main Sources Logbook, Brig Gambia, 1844– 46, Log 3136, PEM, PMB reel 218; Wallis, Life in Feejee, 177 Logbook, Samos, 1845–47, Log 575, PEM

cargo to Manila, vessel condemned in Manila Robert two cargos, C. E. Cloutman, Brookhouse sold one in Logbook, et al. Canton Catharine, 1845–47, Log 561, PEM, PMB reel 211 Stephen C. Wallis, Life Phillips, John in Feejee, 243, H. Eagleston, 269–72 et al. Wests and Wallis, Life in Chamberlain Feejee, 254, 269– 70, 288–89 wrecked John B. Williams Stephen C. to Secretary Phillips, John in gale at of State, July H. Eagleston, Levuka 1848, Despatch et al. 16, Despatches Fiji, reel 1; “The schooner, SIR JOHN FRANKLIN,” New Zealander (Auckland), 20 Sept. 1848 Robert first Salem- John B. Williams to Secretary of Brookhouse backed et al. bêche-de- State, shipping mer voyage returns, 1 Jan. 1849, Despatch to New Caledonia 21, Despatches Fiji, reel 1.

(Continued)

(Continued) Vessel

In Fiji

Captain

Owners

Fate

Main Sources

Bark Zotoff of Salem Bark Maid of Orleans of Salem with Schooner Thakombau

Mar. 1849– Dec. 1849 Sept. 1851– June 1852; Nov. 1852

Benjamin Wallis, Jr. Benjamin Wallis, Jr.; John W. Goodridge, captain, Thakombau

Wests and Chamberlain Wests and Chamberlain

cargo to Manila cargo to Manila, Thakombau transferred to Cakobau at Levuka, 1852, also fished at New Caledonia

Wallis, Life in Feejee Mary D. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 1851– 53, Log 1740, PEM

Eureka of San Francisco

Aug. 1851–? Cotton L. Pratt

Brig Packet (Sept.–Nov. William Owen of Adelaide, 1851) with schooner Olus

Bark Pilot of Nov. 1850– Aug. 1851 Salem & (Oct. 1852)–Feb. 1853 Aug. Ship John H. Millay of 1852–(1853) Boston

Page & Webster

Owen & Co.

Thomas C. Wests and Dunn Chamberlain

William H. Williams and Crandall Daland

John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 23 Aug. addendum to 10 Aug. 1851 letter and 29 Oct. 1851, Box 3, Folder 5, WP Olus sold to Routledge, Fiji and New Cakobau Caledonia Journals, 187; Mary D. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 1851–53, 28 Sept. 1851, Log 1740, PEM one cargo Papers of to Manila, Benjamin, George, and second John West, cargo to MH-235, PEM Canton Charles F. Fished Williams’ at New Caledonia correspondence, with Fijian Box 2, Folder 7, and John B. laborers, sold cargo Williams’ in Manila correspondence, Box 3, Folder 2, WP

Vessel

In Fiji

Captain

Owners

Bark Dragon May 1854– Thomas C. Wests & Aug. 1855 Dunn Chamberlain of Salem

Brig Mary A. Aug. 1855– Alexander Jones of San May 1857 Green Francisco

Fate

Main Sources

Cargo to Sydney

Harold W. Thompson, Last of the “Logan,” 89–119; Papers of Benjamin, George, and John West, PEM Papers of Benjamin, George, and John West, MH-235, PEM Papers of Benjamin, George, and John West, MH-235, PEM

Cargo to Thomas C. Dunn; Wests & Sydney, Chamberlain failed venture

Bark Dragon (Mar. 1857) Thomas C. Wests & Dunn Chamberlain of Salem

Appendix C

Foreign Naval Vessels in Fiji to 1860

Vessel

In Fiji

Commander Country Main Activities Sources

Corvette L’Astrolabe

May–June Jules S-C 1827 Dumont D’Urville Sloop Victor Dec. 1836 Richard Crozier

Corvette Conway

Aug.–Sept. Charles 1838 Ramsay Drinkwater Bethune

FR

GB

GB

surveyed eastern and southern Fiji investigated Active wreck at Lakeba and L’Aimable Joséphine assault at Viwa investigated attack on Sir David Ogilby at Verata

D’Urville, Voyage de la Corvette L’Astrolabe, 4: 397–458, 696–728 Richard Crozier to William Hobson, 27 Dec. 1836, 319–29, ADM 1/217, UK

Charles R. Drinkwater Bethune to F. L. Maitland, 16 Sept. 1838, to George Gipps, 4 Oct. 1838, and Report, Ship Conway, 5 Oct. 1838, FO 58/1, UK (Continued)

(Continued) Vessel

In Fiji

Commander Country Main Activities Sources

Corvettes L’Astrolabe & Zélée

Oct. 1838 Jules S-C Dumont D’Urville

FR

U.S. Exploring Expedition (Vincennes, Peacock, Flying Fish, Porpoise) Ship Sulphur with Schooner Starling Ship Calypso

May–Aug. Charles 1840 Wilkes

US

May–June Edward 1840 Belcher

GB

June 1848 Henry Worth

GB

Ship Havannah

Aug. 1849 John GB Elphinstone Erskine

Sloop Daphne

Oct. 1849 E. G. Fanshaw

GB

routine visit

Schooner Bramble

June–July Walter J. 1850 Pollard

GB

Sloop Falmouth

Feb.–Mar. Thomas 1851 Petigru

US

returned eight Fijian laborers employed by John B. Williams at New Caledonia hanged a Vutia man on Nukulau for murder of Williams’ employee, John Foster

burned Viwa to Jacquinot, Voyage au avenge attack Pole Sud, 4: 160–261 on L’Aimable Joséphine surveyed; Wilkes, Narrative, vol. 3 destroyed two towns at Solevu Bay and killed about 100 people at Malolo surveyed Nukulau anchorage

Belcher, Narrative of a Voyage, 2: 36–56; Schütz, Diaries and Correspondence of David Cargill, 184–92 destroyed a Shipley, Sketches in the town on Viti Pacific; Worth, “Voyage Levu for murder of H.M.S. Calypso” of an American and Englishman routine visit John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise Wallis, Life in Feejee, 402, 407–8; Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 298–300. John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 281–98.

John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 6 Mar. 1851 & 14 Mar. 1851, Despatches 41–42, Fiji Despatches, reel 2; “Cruise of Sloop of War Falmouth,” Alexandria Gazette, 28 July 1851; Logbook, Falmouth, Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel (RG 24), U.S. National Archives, Washington, DC

Vessel

In Fiji

Commander Country Main Activities Sources

Sloop St. Mary’s

July–Aug. George A. 1851 Magruder

US

Ship Calliope

Sept.–Nov. J. Everard 1852 Home

GB

Ship Herald Sept.–Nov. Henry 1854, June Mangles 1855–Feb. Denham 1856, June–Oct. 1856; Jan.– Feb. 1857

Ship John Adams

Sept.–Nov. Edward B. 1855 Boutwell

GB

US

John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 31 July 1851, Despatch 47, and 1 Jan. 1853, Despatch 58, Despatches Fiji, reel 2; George A. Magruder to Charles S. McCauley 23 Sept. 1851 in National Archives, Pacific Squadron Letters, 1841–1886, Microcopy Collection M89, reel 35; Logbook, St. Mary’s, Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel (RG 24), U.S. National Archives, Washington, DC J. Everard Home to brought Fitz Augustus Stafford, Roy’s slavery proclamation; 20 Dec. 1852, ADM removed several 1/5617, UK beachcombers surveyed David, Voyage of numerous HMS Herald; John islands and Denis Macdonald, Rewa River; “Proceedings of the considered Expedition” Tui Levuka’s offer of Ovalau as British protectorate burned Vutia U.S. Congress, “Sloop of War ‘John Adams’”; on Laucala and four towns John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 16 on Viti Levu; Oct. 1855, Despatch demanded 75, Despatches Fiji, reel payment of 2; Logbook, Sloop John $45,000 in Adams, Records of American claims in three the Bureau of Naval Personnel (RG 24), installments U.S. National Archives, Washington, DC assigned arbitration of Williams’s claim to Whippy and Calvert

(Continued)

(Continued) Vessel

In Fiji

Commander Country Main Activities Sources

Sloop St. Mary’s

Oct. 1855 Theodorus Bailey

US

Brig Juno

Nov.–Dec. Stephen 1855 Fremantle

GB

Steamer Styx

Apr. 1857 Grimault

FR

Corvette La June–July Eugène Mathurin Bayonnaise 1858 Marie Le BrisDurumain

FR

Sloop Vandalia

US

Oct. 1858 Arthur Sinclair

left quickly since John Adams already in group; cautioned Boutwell to show restraint criticized John Adams for “arbitrary severity”; discussed British protectorate with Tui Levuka On passage from Tahiti to New Caledonia

John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 16 Oct. 1855, Despatch 75, Despatches Fiji, reel 2.

Stephen Fremantle to Ralph Osborne, 12 Dec. 1855, ADM 1/5672, UK

John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 27 Apr. 1857, Despatch 92, Despatches Fiji, reel 3 John B. Williams to Signed treaty with Cakobau Secretary of State, 30 June and 13 July 1858, to protect French priests; Despatches 13–14, Despatches Fiji, reel 3 threatened Vutia people for Williams Attacked town John B. Williams to in Yasawas for Secretary of State, 4 murder of two Oct., 13 Oct. and 15 Nov. 1858, Despatches Americans; 18–20, Despatches pushed back Fiji, reel 3; “Arrival deadlines for of the ‘Vandalia’— American Marine Disasters,” claims San Francisco Bulletin, 4 Dec. 1858; Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, 211–16; Holbrook, “Come, Papillangi”

Vessel

In Fiji

Commander Country Main Activities Sources

Screw Corvette Cordelia

Nov. 1859

GB

Brig Elk

Nov. 1859 Hubert Campion

GB

brought W. T. Pritchard back to Fiji after his proposal of cession to Britain Cakobau et al. signed a deed of cession

Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, 225

John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 18 Nov. and 14 Dec. 1859, Despatches 23 and 25, Despatches Fiji, reel 3, and 2 Jan. 1860, Despatch 1, Despatches Fiji, reel 4; De Ricci, Fiji, 83–84.

Note on Sources: See Miller, Treaties and Other International Acts, 283–324, for overview of all U.S. ships of war in Fiji before 1870.

Abbreviations

Despatches Fiji

U.S. National Archives, Despatches from United States Consuls in Lauthala, Fiji Islands, 1844–1890, T25

Despatches New Zealand U.S. National Archives, Despatches from United States Consuls in Bay of Islands and Auckland, New Zealand, 1839–1906, T49 JCB

John Carter Brown Library, Providence, RI

LCC

Land Claims Commission Records, National Archives of Fiji

MHS

Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, MA

PMB

Pacific Manuscripts Bureau Microfilm Collection

PEM

Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA

SB

Records of the U.S. Customs Service District of Salem and Beverly, Massachusetts, National Archives at Boston, Waltham, MA

SG

Sydney Gazette

244

Abbreviations

SVR

Essex Institute, Vital Records of Salem, Massachusetts

UK

UK National Archives, Kew, England

WL

Im Thurn and Wharton, Journal of William Lockerby

WMSL

Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society RecordsLondon, on microfiche, Yale Divinity School Library, New Haven, CT

WP

Henry L. and John B. Williams Papers, MH-238, Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA

Glossary

bati bete bokola bure ni vulagi bure kalou dri kai papalagi kai toga kai viti kaisi kava liku lotu marama maro

allies in a confederacy that are duty bound to fight in its battles priest, shaman human corpse to be eaten at a cannibal feast house used for hosting strangers spirit house, temple bêche-de-mer, sea cucumber foreign people (not Fijian and not Tongan) people of Tonga or of Tongan heritage and living in Fiji Fijian people commoner, person of low status and few rights ceremonial drink in Polynesia, called yaqona in Fiji, made from the root of the piper methysticum plant women’s clothing, a skirt of woven fibers Christianity (the lotu), to become Christian (to lotu) a woman of high rank men’s clothing, a swath of cloth worn around the waist and loins

246

Glossary

masi bark cloth (tapa in Polynesia) mata, matanivanua spokesperson, ambassador, herald, eyes or face of the land matanitu a confederated polity meke a public dance accompanied by songs or chants papalagi foreigner qali dependent, subject peoples obligated to pay tribute solevu a celebration and feast; also the name of a town on Vanua Levu soro beg forgiveness of a superior tabua whale’s tooth: a high-status object exchanged at marriages and in diplomacy tama shout of respect, how commoners greeted passing elites tapa Polynesian bark cloth taqa public spectacle in which men demonstrated readiness for battle tui ruler over a territory turaga an elite man or elite men, translated into “chief ” or “chiefs” in historic documents turaga levu a great man (or great men), a high “chief ” vakaviti according to Fijian ways, like a Fijian vasu a highly ranked woman’s son endowed with rights to property and protection in her place of origins vunivalu “the root of war,” a political title designating the highest authority at Bau yalewa woman, women yasi sandalwood

Notes

Note that, at the request of the Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum, I have identified box and folder numbers, but since collections might later be reorganized, I recommend that those tracking down citations refer to the collection inventories.

Introduction 1. Kaplan, “Fijian Water”; Carmen M. White, “More Authentic Than Thou”; Kanemasu, “Social Construction.” 2. John B. Knights, Journal, Brig Spy of Salem, 1832–1834, [p. 51], Log 1983, PEM, PMB reel 220. 3. See chap. 1. 4. General histories of Fiji discuss the American impact: Derrick, History of Fiji; Scarr, Fiji; Gravelle, Fiji’s Times; Routledge, Matanitū and “American Influence.” For beachcombers, see Maude, Of Islands and Men, chap. 4; I. C. Campbell, “Gone Native"; Ralston, Grass Huts. For Williams’s posthumous role in Fiji’s annexation, see McIntyre, “Anglo-American Rivalry”; J. D. Legge, Britain in Fiji, 28. 5. For empire as expansionist power, see Hämäläinen, Comanche Empire; Hyde, Empires, Nations, and Families; Grandin, Empire of Necessity; Beckert, Empire of Cotton; Walter Johnson, River of Dark Dreams. For a critique of empire as applied to the nineteenth-century Pacific, see Igler, “Exploring the Concept of Empire.”

248

Notes to Pages 3–5

6. Hämäläinen and Truett, “On Borderlands”; Adelman and Aron, “Borderlands to Borders.” For native sovereignty, see DuVal, Native Ground; Barr, “Geographies of Power”; Reid, Sea Is My Country. 7. For settler colonial theory, see Wolfe, “Settler Colonialism” and “Settler Complex”; Veracini, Settler Colonialism; for Fiji as colonialism without settler colonialism, see Veracini, “‘Emphatically Not a White Man’s Colony.’” The Native Land Trust Board (now the Itaukei Land Trust Board or TLTB), “The Custodial Administrator,” www.nltb.com, when accessed on 22 Dec. 2017, gave 87 percent as Native Land. Other government websites give the proportion as 83 percent, for example, Department of Town and Country Planning, “Land Tenure,” www. townplanning.gov.fj, accessed 22 Dec. 2017. The 2007 census reported 475,739 Itaukei out of a total population of 837,271; see Fiji Bureau of Statistics, “Population and Demography,” http:// www.statsfiji.gov.fj, accessed 22 Dec. 2017. 8. See appendixes A and B. 9. See chap. 3; Thornley, Shaking of the Land; Schütz, Diaries and Correspondence of David Cargill. 10. Spurway, Ma‘afu; Campbell, “Alleged Imperialism.” 11. John Young, Adventurous Spirits; Stokes, “Early Plantation Experiments”; Horne, White Pacific. 12. Bruce Knapman, Fiji’s Economic History; Moynagh, Brown or White?; Lal, Broken Waves. 13. Langdon, American Whalers and Traders, 22–23; Seemann, “Remarks on a Government Mission,” 58; Lever, “Whales and Whaling”; Steel, Oceania Under Steam and “‘Fiji.’” For steamships to air traffic, see Stephen G. Britton, Tourism and Underdevelopment, 26–28. Fiji as a “highway” stopover was an incentive behind annexation; see Arthur, What is Fiji, 6–8. 14. Kelly and Kaplan, Represented Communities; Kaplan, “Promised Lands”; Howard, Fiji. 15. Kanemasu, “Fiji Tourism”; Stephen G. Britton, Tourism and Underdevelopment in Fiji. 16. Shoemaker, “Extraterritorial United States,” 38. For recent case studies of overseas Americans before the Civil War, see Conroy-Krutz, Christian Imperialism; Grandin, Empire of Necessity; Haddad, America’s First Adventure in China; Kilbride, Being American in Europe; Morrison, True Yankees; Rouleau, With Sails Whitening Every Sea; Verney, “Eye for Prices”; Zagarri, “Significance of the ‘Global Turn’”; Ziesche, Cosmopolitan Patriots. For legal extraterritoriality, see Scully, Bargaining with the State and “United States and International Affairs, 1789–1919”; Ruskola, Legal Orientalism; Margolies, Spaces of Law. 17. For nineteenth-century expansion as territorial consolidation, see Hahn, Nation without Borders (chap. 4 on the Pacific is even called “Continentalism”; his “Pacific” is the west coast of North America); Hunt, American Ascendancy; Ninkovich, Global Republic; Nugent, Habits of Empire; Bright and Geyer, “Where in the World Is America?” (they start U.S. globalism with the Civil War); Graebner, Empire on the Pacific. Thomas Bender’s synthesis, Nation among Nations, and edited collection, Rethinking American History, are in my view more successful at showing American globalism over several centuries. The few works cited for early U.S. history in Paul Kramer’s comprehensive survey of foreign relations historiography, “Power and Connection,” reflect the field’s emphasis on the late nineteenth century to the present. For insight into the relationship between territory and nation, see Immerwahr, “Greater United States,” and Agnew, “Sovereignty Regimes.” 18. Hoig, Sand Creek Massacre; Kelman, Misplaced Massacre; Greene and Scott, Finding Sand Creek; Roberts, Massacre at Sand Creek; Heather Cox Richardson, Wounded Knee; Coleman, Voices of Wounded Knee; Gitlin, Wounded Knee Massacre. For Malolo, see chap. 3 in this book; the official account of the “atrocious massacre” is in Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 265–86 (quoted 285). It is unknown how many Fijians died at Malolo. Stanton, Great United States Exploring Expedition, 210, has

Notes to Pages 6–8

249

eighty-seven killed. The largest number I’ve seen is two hundred “Indians” killed in an epic poem composed by one of the Ex Ex’s men, in Charles Erskine, Twenty Years Before the Mast, 267. For a map of fifty-five massacres of Native Americans from 1539 to 1890, which uses 48 U.S. states as its frame, see Madley, “Reexamining the American Genocide Debate,” 112–13. 19. DeLay, “Indian Polities, Empire”; Blower, “Nation of Outposts”; Weeks, “American Expansion”; Greenberg, Manifest Manhood; Rouleau, With Sails Whitening Every Sea; Shoemaker, Native American Whalemen and the World. For early U.S. globalism, see the 2018 “Forum” edited by Dierks in Diplomatic History; The Journal of American History’s 2016 “Interchange: Globalization and Its Limits”; Pompeian, “Mind the Global U-Turn.” For works reflecting new interest in the Pacific, see Igler, Great Ocean; Yokota, Unbecoming British, chap. 3, and “Transatlantic and Transpacific Connections”; Armitage and Bashford, Pacific Histories; Matsuda, Pacific Worlds; Banner, Possessing the Pacific. There were earlier waves of historiography on nineteenth-century U.S.-Pacific relations that include Pletcher, Diplomacy of Involvement; Gibson, Yankees in Paradise; Strauss, Americans in Polynesia; and Bradley, American Frontier in Hawaii. 20. Shoemaker, “Extraterritorial United States,” 44–45, compares the army and navy in size and function. For federal protection of American Indians at sea and in foreign places, see Shoemaker, Native American Whalemen and the World, chaps. 2 and 7. For the Bureau of Indian Affairs, see Prucha, Documents of United States Indian Policy, 37–38, 80. 21. For trends in foreign relations history, such as non-state actors, see Kramer, “Power and Connection,” 1383–84. 22. Pitkin, Statistical View, 308, 321; Rao, National Duties; Irwin, Clashing Over Commerce, part 1. For commerce’s importance in early American history, see Gilje, “Commerce and Conquest”; Weeks, “American Nationalism, American Imperialism”; Brauer, “Economics and the Diplomacy of American Expansionism.” 23. “Death of Mr. Peabody,” Salem Register, 8 Jan. 1844; see also Whitehill, Captain Joseph Peabody. 24. Arthur M. Johnson and Supple, Boston Capitalists and Western Railroads; John Lauritz Larson, Bonds of Enterprise; Henrietta M. Larson, “A China Trader Turns Investor”; Farrell, Elite Families, chap. 3; Thornton, Nathaniel Bowditch; Fichter, So Great a Proffit; American financiers in London provided crucial capital for domestic improvements; see Sexton, Debtor Diplomacy; Hidy, “Anglo-American Merchant Bankers”; Ziegler, Sixth Great Power. 25. Frank, Objectifying China; Anderson, Mahogany; Cushman, Guano; Hancock, Oceans of Wine; Eacott, Selling Empire. 26. Kendall A. Johnson, New Middle Kingdom; Morrison, True Yankees. 27. For protection, see Shoemaker, “Extraterritorial United States” and chap. 7. For the Pacific Squadron, see Schroeder, Shaping a Maritime Empire; Albion, “Distant Stations”; Robert Erwin Johnson, Thence Round Cape Horn. For the Ex Ex, see Wilkes, Narrative; Philbrick, Sea of Glory; Stanton, Great United States Exploring Expedition; Jason W. Smith, To Master the Boundless Sea, chap. 2. 28. Brewster, King of the Cannibal Isles, 38. 29. Costigliola, Roosevelt’s Lost Alliances, “‘I React Intensely to Everything,’” and “Reading for Emotion.” 30. Lamb, Preserving the Self; for French colonization of the Pacific as sentimental romance, see Matsuda, Empire of Love. 31. Bushman, Refinement of America; Langford, Polite and Commercial People, especially chap. 3; Higginbotham coined the “politics of respectability” in Righteous Discontent, her 1993 history of black churchwomen at the turn of the twentieth century; for gender and respectability in colonial contexts, see Findlay, Imposing Decency, and Stoler, “Making Empire Respectable.” Another

250

Notes to Pages 9–13

related historiography is on self-fashioning, a term originating with Greenblatt, Renaissance SelfFashioning. For histories of the self and self-fashioning in early America, see Hoffman, Sobel, and Teute, Through a Glass Darkly; Breen, Marketplace of Revolution. 32. For cannibalism as colonial discourse, see Barker, Hulme, and Iversen, eds. Cannibalism and the Colonial World. For “cannibal talk” particular to Fiji, see Obeyesekere, Cannibal Talk, chaps. 6 and 7. Sympathetic to this view are Banivanua-Mar, “Cannibalism and Colonialism” and “Cannibalism in Fiji.” Clunie argued for its normalcy in Fijian Weapons & Warfare, 35 (quoted); see also Clunie, Yalo i Viti, 186–91. The main spokesperson for the cultural relativists is Marshall Sahlins. For the debate between Sahlins and Gananath Obeyesekere, see Sahlins, “Raw Women, Cooked Men,” “Artificially Maintained Controversies,” and “Artificially Maintained Controversies (Part 2)”; Obeyesekere and Arens, “Cannibalism Reconsidered”; Spenneman, “Bones of Contention.” Other works discussing Fijian cannibalism are Bercaw Edwards, Cannibal Old Me, chap. 3, and Brantlinger, Taming Cannibals, chap. 1. For a review essay of cannibalism scholarship, see Lindenbaum, “Thinking About Cannibalism.” 33. The seminal and standard source for Fijian ethnography is Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians (1858), which covers all these customs. 34. William Reynolds, Private Journal, 206; see also Lyons, “Lines of Fright.” 35. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 43–44 (population estimates); 31, 223 (“Napoleon”). 36. Varied factors—traditions related to divine rule or social caste, missionary or beachcomber influence, new wealth from foreign trade, British imperial policy, or, prejudicially, deficiencies in Melanesian versus Polynesian state-building capacity—have explained why some archipelagos unified and others did not. See Routledge, “Failure of Cakobau”; I. C. Campbell, History of the Pacific Islands, 47, 75–76, 80–82; Howe, Where the Waves Fall, 155–62, 256–77; Ralston, Grass Huts, 29; Denoon, Cambridge History of the Pacific Islanders, chap. 6; Hooper, Pacific Encounters, 35–36; Samson, Imperial Benevolence, chap. 4; Kabutaulaka, “Re-Presenting Melanesia,” 117; Hommon, Ancient Hawaiian State. 37. For profiles of Cakobau, see Joseph Waterhouse, King and People; Scarr, “Cakobau and Ma‘afu.” 38. For the orthography’s development, see Schütz, Diaries and Correspondence of David Cargill, 1–2, 86–87, and Fijian Language, chap. 2. The Wesleyans later published a grammar and dictionary: Hazlewood, Compendious Grammar and Feejeean and English Dictionary. 39. For matanitu, see Thomas, Planets Around the Sun; Routledge, Matanitu¯; Sayes, “Changing Paths”; for British incorporation, approximately, of matanitu in its colonial administration, see Basil Thomson, Fijians, 65. For an alternative approach to pre-cession Fijian politics, see Parke, Degei’s Descendants. 40. For the Fijian political system and social structure, see Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, chap. 2; Hale, United States Exploring Expedition, 58; Hocart, “On the Meaning of the Fijian Word Turanga”; Walter, “Examination of Hierarchical Notions.” For contemporaneous glossaries, see William P. Richardson, “Fegee Vocabulary,” PEM, PMB reel 225; Wallis, Life in Feejee, frontispiece; Endicott, Wrecked among Cannibals, 71–74. In Hazlewood, Feejeean and English Dictionary, kaisi is “a common person, not a chief,” 52; tui is “a king, or principal chief of a place,” 152. For “dash of contempt,” see Robert Young, Southern World, 289, also Wallis, Life in Feejee, 149; Keesing-Styles and Keesing-Styles, Unto the Perfect Day, 21. 41. Tent and Geraghty, “Exploding Sky or Exploded Myth?”; Tcherkézoff, “First Contacts,” 187–201; Schütz, Fijian Language, 9–10. See Lawry, Friendly and Feejee Islands, 270, for a folkloric account distinguishing between kai viti, kai toga, and kai papalagi. For “white” or “European” as generic labels for beachcombers, see Lawry, Friendly and Feejee Islands, 87; John Hunt, Journal, 5 Feb. 1844, Microfiche 1623, South Seas Papers: Biographical, WMSL; Jacquinot, Voyage au Pole Sud, 4: 398.

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42. Shoemaker, Native American Whalemen and the World, chap. 7. 43. John H. Eagleston, Autobiography: “Book No 1,” p. 305, PEM, PMB reel 207. Racial ideas were fundamental to how Europeans and Americans tried to make sense of Oceania; see, for example, Charles Pickering on race and Fijians in Races of Man, 146–47; Douglas and Ballard, Foreign Bodies; Douglas, “Slippery Word” and “Terra Australis to Oceania”; Geoffrey Clark, “Dumont D’Urville’s Divisions of Oceania”; Horne, White Pacific; Burley, “Fijian Polygenesis”; Kabutaulaka, “Re-Presenting Melanesia.”

1. Butenam 1. John Crowninshield to William Crowninshield,—May 1821, Endicott Family Papers, MHS; Richard D. Brown, Knowledge is Power, chap. 5. For examples of correspondent networks and concerns, see Kenneth Porter, Jacksons and the Lees, and Corning, “Letters of Sullivan Dorr”; for scholarly studies, see Hancock, Citizens of the World and Oceans of Wine; Haggerty, “Merely for Money”?; Lamikiz, Trade and Trust. 2. For culture and differential value, see Appadurai, Social Life of Things; Thomas, Entangled Objects and “Exchange Systems”; Melillo, “Making Sea Cucumbers”; Zilberstein, “Objects of Distant Exchange.” Carrying and re-export trade scholarship says little about cultural difference, emphasizing instead quantifiably measurable sources of profitability: speed, labor, tonnage, organizational efficiency, competition, and geopolitics; see Fichter, So Great a Proffit; Keene, “American Shipping and Trade”; North, “Sources of Productivity”; Shapiro, Culture and Commerce, 99–113. 3. Martin, Account of the Natives, 1: 420. For the enlightenment and Pacific ethnography, see Gascoigne, Encountering the Pacific; Douglas, “Seaborne Ethnography”; Ryan, “‘Le Président des Terres Australes’”; Buschmann, Iberian Visions. 4. Charles Pickering, Journal, U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838–1842, 14 May 1840, MHS; see also Joseph Warren Osborn, Journal, Ship Emerald of Salem, 1833–1836, 28 July 1834, PEM, PMB reel 223. For Richardson’s and Vanderford’s voyages, see appendixes A and B. 5. East India Marine Society of Salem, East-India Marine Society of Salem (1821), (1831), and Supplement to the Catalogue; Whitehill, East India Marine Society; Jenkins and Whitehill, “Restoration of East India Marine Hall”; Lindgren, “‘That Every Mariner’”; Thornton, Nathaniel Bowditch, 82–94; Johnston, “Global Knowledge”; Zilberstein, “Objects of Distant Exchange”; Boswell, “Re-Enactment and the Museum Case.” For Salem, see Morrison and Schultz, Salem; James Duncan Phillips, Pepper and Pirates and Salem and the Indies; Putnam, Salem Vessels and Their Voyages; Morison, Maritime History of Massachusetts; Bean, Yankee India; Booth, Death of an Empire. 6. “Introduction,” WL; Henderson, Discoverers of the Fiji Islands. 7. Cook, Voyages, 1: 495–96; 2: 143. For Cook’s fascination with cannibalism, see Salmond, Trial of the Cannibal Dog; Thomas, Cook, 105–8, 332–33; Obeyesekere, Cannibal Talk, chap. 2. 8. Wilson, Missionary Voyage, 284. 9. Arrowsmith, New and Elegant General Atlas. 10. Bligh, Voyage to the South Sea, 183. 11. Lee, Captain Bligh’s Second Voyage, chaps. 11–12. 12. Ward, “First Chart of Southwest Fiji.” 13. Frank, Objectifying China. 14. LaTourette, History of Early Relations; Dolin, When America First Met China; Richards, “United States Trade with China” and “Re-viewing Early American Trade with China”; Fichter, So Great a Proffit; Philip Chadwick Smith, Empress of China; Downs, Golden Ghetto; Lampe, Work,

252

Notes to Pages 18–21

Class, and Power; Yokota, Unbecoming British, chap. 3; Johnston and Frank, Global Trade and Visual Arts; Haddad, America’s First Adventure in China. 15. James R. Gibson, Otter Skins; Kirker, Adventures to China; Fontenoy, “Ginseng, Otter Skins.” 16. On Fijians scenting coconut oil, see Cargill, Memoirs of Mrs. Margaret Cargill, 271. For Tongan trade, see Martin, Account of the Natives, 1: 66, 309, 312, 321–22; Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 361–62; Seemann, Viti, 343–46. For Chinese uses, see Quincy, Journals of Major Samuel Shaw, 196–97; Fanning, Voyages, 310–11, 457–58. For Pacific sandalwood’s larger context, see Morse, Chronicles of the East India Company, 3: 4; McKinnell, Sandalwood in the Pacific Region. For Pacific sandalwood history, see Kirker, Adventures to China, chap. 9; WL; Dening, Islands and Beaches, 115–22; Bradley, American Frontier in Hawaii, 26–31, chap. 2; Hammatt, Ships, Furs, and Sandalwood; Shineberg, They Came for Sandalwood; Ward, “Intelligence Report on Sandalwood.” 17. For Slater and Fair American, see “Interesting Particulars Relative to Captain Mellon, of the Ship Portland,” SG, 4 Nov. 1804. For Marcia, see Governor King to Earl Camden, 30 Apr.1805, and James Aickin to Governor King, 13 May 1805, in Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales, 5: 602–3, 620–22. For Sydney, see Hainsworth, Sydney Traders; Cumpston, Shipping Arrivals and Departures. The captain and probable owner of the Fair American, John O’Farrell, identified himself as an Irish-born U.S. citizen residing in Manila; see Legarda, After the Galleons, 240. 18. “Depositions Respecting the Ship Union, of America,” SG, 28 Oct. 1804; Martin, Account of the Natives, 1: 343; Hughes, “Elizabeth Morey.” 19. Fanning, Voyages, 314–29. 20. Aickin to Governor King, 13 May 1805; “Proclamation,” SG, 13 July 1806; “Ship News,” SG, 28 Apr, 1805. 21. For Hope and Tonquin, see appendix A; Fanning’s Voyages does not mention the 1809 Hope voyage, but he was apparently still its owner. 22. WL, 82. Two men named William Dorr Jr. worked the China trade. The Jenny captain, John Dorr’s cousin, died in Canton in 1813; see the genealogy in Dorr Family Papers, MHS. 23. “Sailing Orders of John Dorr for Lewis Francoeur Supercargo of The Jenny,” 6 June 1807 (typescript), Box 1, Folder 4, Dorr Family Papers, MH-21, PEM. 24. “Instructions to Capt Ebenezer H. Corey,” 14 Jan. 1807, and other correspondence in Brig Eliza papers, 1807–1810, Records of Brown & Ives, JCB; Hedges and Black, “Disaster in the South Seas.” 25. $38,000 in Bela Elderkin to Brown & Ives, 12 Jan. 1809; $26,700 in Ebenezer H. Corey to Brown & Ives, 22 Sept. 1809, Brig Eliza papers, Records of Brown & Ives, JCB; $30,000 in WL, 15. 26. Samuel Patterson, Narrative (1817); Dillon, Narrative, 1: 1–31; I. C. Campbell, “Historiography of Charles Savage.” 27. Appendix A. 28. William Lockerby, “Directions for the Fegee or Sandle Wood Islands,” PEM, PMB reel 225; WL. Editors Im Thurn and Wharton must have silently fixed the spelling peculiarities evident in the “Directions”; still, their edition is considered authoritative. I used the manuscript version of the “Directions” because the published version (Dodge, “Unpublished Manuscripts VII: A William Lockerby Manuscript”) has many errors, as discussed in Schütz, “From the Archives.” 29. Ebenezer H. Corey to Brown & Ives, 22 Sept. 1809, and to Edward Carrington (copy), 22 Sept. 1809, Records of Brown & Ives, JCB. 30. Corey to Brown & Ives, 22 Sept. 1809; WL, 19, 78. 31. WL, 79, 82–83. 32. WL, 83; “To Merchants and Ship Owners, in Boston,” Columbian Centinel (Boston), 12 Dec. 1810, and New-England Palladium (Boston), 14 Dec. 1810; “To Merchants, Ship Owners, &c.,” New York Gazette, 7 Dec. 1811; Lockerby, “Directions.”

Notes to Pages 21–28

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33. Hitchings and Phillips, Ship Registers, 3–4; Active crew lists for 1807, 1809, and 1810 (note that in 1810 he refitted the Bark Active as a brig), SB. For Active departure date, see “Arrived at the Vineyard,” Salem Gazette, 24 Mar. 1812. For a Richardson biography, see Vinton, Richardson Memorial, 2: 629–31. For Cook’s prior ventures to Europe, the Caribbean, and Sumatra, see Ship Eliza, 5 Oct. 1807; Brig Republican, 1 Mar. to 8 Apr. 1807; Ship Rebecca, 10 Oct. 1809; Bark Active, 26 Dec. 1809–1 Jan. 1810; Schooner Harmony, 18 Apr. 1810; Brig Louisa, 20 Aug. 1810; in Impost Book, 1807–1810, SB. 34. “Extract from a Letter, dated Canton, January 9, 1806,” New-York Commercial Advertiser, 23 June 1806, and Independent Chronicle (Boston), 3 July 1806. See Readex, “Early American Newspapers” database for reprintings of this article. 35. WL, 78, 82, 202–5; “Selections,” SG, 27 Aug. 1809; “Arrived Since Our Last,” New York Commercial Advertiser, 8 June 1809; Lewis Francoeur to John Dorr, 9 Jan. and 6 Aug. 1809 (typescripts), Box 1, Folder 4, Dorr Family Papers, PEM. 36. “John Macarthur to His Wife,” 3 May 1810, in Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales, 7: 368. 37. Brig Brutus, 19 July 1810, Policy 4101, Policy Records, vol. 40; Active application, 6 June 1810, and Sally application, 16 Jan. 1811, in Proposals for Insurance on Cargos, vol. 16; Boston Marine Insurance Company Records, MHS; for comparative 1810 insurance premiums and the Active’s policy (#18) see vol. 14, Salem Insurance Companies Records, MSS 139, PEM. 38. Crew list, Brig Active of Salem, 1810–1812, SB; “Shipping Return,” in Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales, 7: 518. Saul wrote the itinerary on William P. Richardson, “Fegee Vocabulary,” PEM, PMB reel 225. For Saul’s superintendency, see Caroline Howard King, When I Lived in Salem, 29, 34; Peabody Academy of Science, Visitor’s Catalogue, 65. 39. John Richards Child, Journal, Ship Hunter of Boston, 1810–1814, 24 May 1811, in John Richards Child Papers, MHS. 40. WL, 9, 14, 21; Lockerby, “Directions.” Lockerby calls Cakaudrove “Somosomo” after its principal town; for Tua Bua’s powerful position, see also Vanderford’s remarks in Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 215. 41. Francoeur to Dorr, 6 Aug. 1809. 42. “Journal of the Missionaries,” WL, 119–60. 43. Francoeur to Dorr, 6 Aug. 1809. 44. Lockerby, “Directions”; see also WL, 25. For whales’ teeth, see Thomas, Entangled Objects, 66–74, 110–14, and “Exchange Systems”; Arno, “Cobo and Tabua”; Hooper, “‘Supreme Among Our Valuables’”; Melillo, “Making Sea Cucumbers”; Van der Grijp, “Tabua Business”; Tomlinson, “Passports to Eternity.” 45. Lockerby, “Directions”; for sandalwood processing, see also Fanning, Voyages, 455–59. 46. Lockerby, “Directions.” 47. WL, 13; on weaponry, 53. I count ten violent incidents in Lockerby’s memoir, beginning with the Jenny firing its guns at Tongatapu, 11, to the General Wellesley’s 2 June 1809 departure, 74. For another incident at Tonga, see “Ship News,” SG, 6 Aug. 1809. 48. WL, 27. 49. WL, 39–74; “Ship News,” SG, 27 Nov. 1808. 50. WL, 39–74; “Ship News,” SG, 27 Nov. 1808; Henderson, Journal of Thomas Williams, 2: 486. 51. Child, Journal, Hunter, 23–24 May 1811. 52. Child, Journal, Hunter, 3 July–12 Sept. (quotes from 3 and 8 July) 1811, 2 Mar. 1812. 53. Dillon, Narrative, 1: 1–33, 2: 430–34; Davidson, Peter Dillon of Vanikoro, 15–45, 312–15. 54. Foreign Manifest Outwards, 31 May 1810, and item 21 for 1812 in Impost Book, 1811– 1818, Brig Active of Salem, 1810–1812, SB.

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Notes to Pages 28–32

55. George Nichols, captain and part owner of the Active prior to Richardson, transitioned from captain to merchant; see Nichols, Salem Shipmaster and Merchant; see also Whitehill, Captain Joseph Peabody, 14–16; Corning, “Autobiography of a Salem Merchant.” 56. Charles Forbes, Journal, Ship Indus of Salem, 1815–1817, Log 111, PEM. Ward, “Intelligence Report on Sandalwood,” reprints a loose sheet in this volume describing sandalwood prospects at the Marquesas, Hawai‘i, Fiji, and elsewhere. For Indus ownership, see Hitchings and Phillips, Ship Registers, 91; for ranks and destinations, see crew lists, SB. Dodge, “Captain Benjamin Vanderford,” reprints correspondence between Vanderford and Richardson showing that the Marquesas was the Indus’s objective (p. 321) in 1817–1819, as confirmed by the crew list, SB. However, newspapers reported Fiji as the Indus’s last destination when it arrived in Canton: “Arrived Since Our Last,” New-York Spectator, 14 Sept. 1819. 57. Logbook, Brig Roscoe of Salem, 1821–1823, 1 Apr. 1822–24 July 1822, Log 1911, PEM, PMB reel 220; Hitchings and Phillips, Ship Registers, 160. 58. Logbook, Roscoe, 9 Apr., 21 & 28 May, 11–24 June 1822. 59. Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 56; William Driver, Journal, Ship Clay of Salem, 1827–1829, Log 1402, PEM, PMB reel 216. 60. Fanning, Voyages, chap. 22. 61. Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 250; Pickering, Journal, Ex Ex, 10 May 1840; Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, 95. 62. For histories of Fiji’s bêche-de-mer trade, see Ward, “Pacific Bêche-de-Mer Trade”; Clunie, “Manila Brig”; Dodge, “Fiji Trader”; Melillo, “Making Sea Cucumbers.” 63. Fanning, Voyages, 456–57, 461–63. See also Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 250–58; John H. Eagleston, Journal, Ship Emerald of Salem, 1833–1836, “Account of Beach D Mar,” Jan. 1835, Log 334, PEM, PMB reel 223; Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 64–65; William L. Hudson, Journal, U.S. Exploring Expedition, 16 June 1840, American Museum of Natural History, PMB reel 146. 64. Matthew Flinders to Sir Joseph Banks, 28 Mar. 1803, and Robert Brown to Joseph Banks,—Mar. 1803, in Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales, 5: 78, 83–84; for an overview, see Macknight, “Studying Trepangers.” For similar observations at New Guinea, Borneo, and Palau, see Delano, Narrative, 100, 164–65. 65. WL, 205; “Shipping Return,” Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales, 7: 325. See also Ward, “Pacific Bêche-de-Mer Trade,” 100. 66. Lockerby, “Directions”; “To Merchants and Ship Owners, in Boston”; “To Merchants, Ship Owners, &c.” 67. Kienast and Felt, Lewis Coolidge, 48. 68. Logbook, Roscoe, 21 May 1822. Thompson’s age and birthplace from crew list of Roscoe, 1821–1823, SB; he was not the Charles Thompson who wrote “Bowe.” 69. Charles Thompson, “Bowe” (spring 1913), 30. 70. Driver, Journal, Clay, 16 Sept, 1 & 6 Oct. 1827; 1883 addendum to 7 Nov. 1827 entry. Fergus Clunie, “Manila Brig,” 60, masterfully deciphers Driver’s handwriting and argues for the Manila mutiny as critical to the development of Fiji’s bêche-de-mer trade. Driver’s comment is about Vanderford relying on brief mentions of bêche-de-mer from a published account of the 1815–18 Russian voyage of discovery in the Pacific: Kotzebue, Voyage of Discovery, 3: 59–60, 70, 78. For Driver’s rank, see Clay crew list, SB; Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 61. For more Driver boasting, see “A Commercial Reminiscence,” Salem Register, 25 June 1883; “To the Editors of the Salem Register” by “FEJEE,” Salem Register, 12 July 1883. For Concepción, see D’Urville, Voyage de la Corvette L’Astrolabe, 4: 412. 71. See appendix B.

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72. John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 1 Oct. 1847, Despatch 12, Despatches Fiji, reel 1. I use the nineteenth-century spelling of dispatch for consistency’s sake; it is how the National Archives labeled its microfilm collection of consular reports. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 222, gives Eagleston’s costs and profits on five Fiji cargos. 73. For more on Ex Ex, see chap. 3. For Leonidas, see Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 208–27; for Eagleston, see Dodge, “Fiji Trader”; for Vanderford as master’s mate, see Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 228. 74. John H. Eagleston, Autobiography: “Voyage of the ship Emerald 1833 to 1836,” 56, PEM, PMB reel 205. Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 28 July 1834. The unnamed supercargo on the Consul blamed for poor decision making in Wallis, Life in Feejee, 117–24, was Vanderford. 75. For “smattering,” see Wilkes, Autobiography, 459; Pickering, Journal, Ex Ex, 14 May 1840. For Vanderford’s bêche-de-mer voyages, see appendix B; that his later voyages were as supercargo under someone else’s captaincy suggests that Salem employers did not trust his seafaring or command abilities. 76. Wilkes, Narrative, 5: 53–54. 77. Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 248–49; Pickering, Journal, Ex Ex, 8 May 1840, MHS. 78. “Mix’s Museum,” Connecticut Journal (New Haven), 3 Sept. 1812. 79. “American Museum,” Statesman (New York), 2 Dec. 1812. 80. “The Fejee Islands,” SG, 11 Dec. 1808; “An Island of Savage Cannibals,” Newburyport Herald, 18 Sept. 1810. 81. “History of Some Curious Customs.” 82. East India Marine Society, East-India Marine Society of Salem (1821), (1831) and Supplement (1837). Membership and quotations come from the 1831 version, 22–23, 32, 63; George Nichols (67), donated “Two entire Dresses of Pelew Women,” and an unnamed donor, probably Vanderford, gave an “entire dress of a female of the Fegee Islands,” 126. Richardson’s “Buembewallah” must be the same as Lockerby’s “Beumbowala” and thus Tui Bua. For more on these donations, see Leclerc-Caffarel, “Exchange Relations,” 89–94; for liku, 196–99; Dodge and Copeland, Handbook to the Collections, 6. 83. Caroline Howard King, When I Lived in Salem, chap. 2; Derby, Few Reminiscences of Salem, 13; “The Salem East-India Marine Society,” Salem Gazette, 9 Jan. 1801; “On Wednesday last . . . ,” Columbian Centinel (Boston), 9 Nov. 1805. 84. Murray, “Vocabularies of Native American Languages”; Gray, New World Babel, chaps. 5–6; Andresen, Linguistics in America, 23–25; and in the context of other early Fiji vocabularies, Schütz, Fijian Language, chap. 1 and “Appendix: The Early Word Lists.” 85. Richardson, “Fegee Vocabulary”; Lockerby, “Directions.” 86. Richardson, “Fegee Vocabulary.” For Society members as gentlemen, see “White’s Voyage to the China Sea,” Essex Register (Salem, MA), 30 June 1823; “Salem’s E.I. Marine Society’s Museum,” Salem Register, 2 Aug. 1841. 87. Quoted in Mary Orne Pickering, Life of John Pickering, 321; for his universalist approach, see 259, 291–92; and John Pickering, Essay on a Uniform Orthography. For the Pickering-Webster dispute and Webster’s personality, see Lepore, A is for American, 70–79. For the American Board, see chap. 4 and Conroy-Krutz, Christian Imperialism. 88. Mary Orne Pickering, Life of John Pickering, 356. 89. Ellis, Journal of a Tour around Hawaii, 254–58 (quoted on 254); Ellis, Polynesian Researches. For the importance of Polynesian Researches in Pacific ethnography, see Edmond, Representing the South Pacific, 103–30. Modern language studies categorize Fijian as related to Polynesian languages within a larger subgroup called Oceanic; see Lynch, Ross, and Crowley, Oceanic Languages, 6; for dialect diversity in Fiji, see Geraghty, History of the Fijian Languages. 90. Geoffrey Clark, “Dumont D’Urville’s Divisions of Oceania.”

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Notes to Pages 37–42

91. Mary Orne Pickering, Life of John Pickering, 356; Andresen, Linguistics in America, 107–9, 265. For Richardson’s death, see SVR, 6: 186. 92. Hale, United States Exploring Expedition; Mackert, “Horatio Hale.” For the Ex Ex’s scientific mission, see Viola and Margolis, Magnificent Voyagers; Joyce, Shaping of American Ethnography; Igler, Great Ocean, chap. 6. 93. Samuel Patterson, Narrative (1817), iii. Lockerby began his memoir by referring to “sufferings and adventures” (WL, 3), suggesting that he used Jewitt as a model, too, or knew of Patterson’s narrative. 94. Samuel Patterson, Narrative (1817), 86–87, 100; the ethnography appears mainly in chap. 17. 95. Samuel Patterson, Narrative (1817), iiii, 88, 91. 96. Joseph Winn Jr., who joined in 1833, contributed many Fiji materials; others include Eagleston, Charles Millet, and Henry Archer; see East India Marine Society, Supplement, 3, 11, 12, 18, 21, 22, 24; Leclerc-Caffarel, “Exchange Relations,” 94–104. 97. “The ship Eliza . . . ,” Salem Gazette, 8 May 1835; John D. Winn, Logbook, Ship Eliza of Salem, 1833–1835, 3 Oct. 1834, Log 330, PEM, PMB reel 206 (Winn jokingly called him “a Feejee Giant”); Pickering, Journal, Ex Ex, 4 Aug. 1840, MHS. 98. George N. Cheever, Journal, Ship Emerald of Salem, 1833–1836, 25 Mar. 1835, Log 333, PEM, PMB reel 223; Eagleston, Autobiography: “Voyage of Ship Emerald 1833 to 1836,” 102; Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 24 Mar. and 5 Aug. 1835. 99. Advertisement, “Baltimore Museum and Gallery of the Fine Arts,” Baltimore Gazette and Daily Advertiser, 19 Apr. 1836; “Birilip . . . ,” Lynn Record, 5 May 1836. For Baltimore connections, see Eagleston, Autobiography: “Book No 1,” 1: 32, 288, PEM, PMB reel 207, and Autobiography: “Voyage of Ship Emerald 1833 to 1836,” 2. 100. George N. Cheever, Logbook, Brig Mermaid of Salem, 1836–1837, 21 Jan. 1837, Log 390, PEM, PMB reel 207. 101. Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 21–23 Mar. 1835; “New Zealand Cannibals,” National Gazette (Philadelphia), 26 Aug. 1824; “Anaconda: Great and Unprecedented Attraction,” American Mercury (Hartford, CT), 10 Oct. 1831; “The Martyred Missionary; And His Widowed Mother,” Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, MA), 15 Nov. 1837; Benjamin Morrell, Jr., Narrative, chaps. 5–9; Pickering, Journal, Ex Ex, 4 Aug. 1840; Bercaw Edwards, Cannibal Old Me. 102. Simeon A. Stearns, Journal, U.S. Exploring Expedition, 4 Aug. 1840, New York Public Library, http://archives.nypl.org/2866, accessed 20 Nov. 2016. 103. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 46; Stewart, “Skull of Vendovi”; Fabian, Skull Collectors, chap. 4; Adler, “Capture and Curation.” 104. Barnum, Life of P.T. Barnum, 240. 105. Levi, “P.T. Barnum and the Feejee Mermaid”; Harris, Humbug, 62–67; Bondeson, Feejee Mermaid, 36–63. In the early 1870s, Barnum promoted an exhibit of alleged Fijian cannibals; see Berglund, Cannibal Fictions, chap. 1. 106. “A man calling himself M. Blondin . . . ,” New London Daily Chronicle, 30 June 1859; Robert Patterson, Fables of Infidelity, 9; Bowen, Principles of Political Economy, 492. 107. Mann, Slavery, 479; Rodney O. Davis and Wilson, Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 96. See also Fitzhugh, Cannibals All!, 27; “The Bogus Census,” New York Tribune, 28 Apr. 1857; “Foundation of Our Polity,” New Bedford Mercury, 19 June 1857; Gates and Robbins, Annotated Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 53; Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 39, offered one of the few flattering attributions, as a slave character stood with “a blazing air of freedom and defiance, quite equal to that of any Fejee chief.”

Notes to Pages 47–51

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2. Mata ki Bau 1. Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 33–35. In Fiji, the family’s surname is spelled Whippy; on Nantucket, it is spelled Whippey. 2. Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, 32. 3. WL, 20, 25. Samuel Patterson, Narrative (1817), also lived abysmally with commoners. At Tonga, captain’s clerk William Mariner gained entrée into the household and political networks of the powerful Finow while other survivors from the assault on the Port au Prince lived with commoners, in Martin, Account of the Natives, 1: viii, lii. British beachcomber William Diaper, also spelled Diapea, claimed Fijians addressed all white men as turaga (“Jackson’s Narrative,” in John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 465), but elite treatment was not guaranteed. For Diaper’s various names and memoirs, see Christopher Legge, “William Diaper.” 4. Maude, Of Islands and Men, chap. 4; Campbell, “Gone Native”; Milcairns, Native Strangers. 5. Joseph Warren Osborn, Journal, Ship Emerald of Salem, 1833–1836, 6 June 1834, Log 332, PEM, PMB reel 223; Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 47; Wallis, Life in Feejee, 229. 6. George Foster Emmons, Journal, U.S. Exploring Expedition, vol. 2, 10 Aug. 1840, Beinecke Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT. 7. For beachcombers’ marginal impact in early-nineteenth-century Fiji, see Derrick, History of Fiji, 52; Routledge, Matanitu, 36–38, 43–47. 8. For biographies of Whippy, see Stanley Brown, Men from Under the Sky, chap. 4, which is the most informative; I. C. Campbell, “Gone Native,” 62–68; Stackpole, “Story of David Whippey”; Melillo, “Cucumber Archipelago.” For Whippy and Levuka, see People of Levuka, Levuka, 22, 96, 109, 114; Sera Whippy, “David Whippy’s Long Journey Home,” Fiji Times, 19 Sept. 2010. For descendants, see Riles, “Division within the Boundaries” (a version of which appears as a chapter in her book Network Inside Out), “Law as Object,” and “Part-Europeans and Fijians,” 105–29; correspondence in Whippy Family Papers, Folder 757, Edouard A. Stackpole Collection, MS 335, Nantucket Historical Association Research Library, Nantucket, MA. 9. Under “Whippey” in Nantucket Historical Association Research Library, Eliza Starbuck Barney Genealogical Record, www.nantuckethistoricalassociation.net/bgr/BGR-o/index.htm, accessed 24 Oct. 2013; quote from Folger, “Topographical Description of Nantucket,” 154. For whaling’s importance to Nantucket, see Philbrick, Away Off Shore; Macy, History of Nantucket. 10. Nantucket Historical Association Research Library, Barney Genealogical Record. For “Whippey” captaincies, see American Offshore Whaling Voyages: A Database, www.nmdl.org/aowv/ whindex.cfm, accessed 24 Feb. 2018. 11. Departure crew list, Sloop Elizabeth of New Bedford, 1817-, New Bedford Port Records, National Archives at Boston, Waltham, MA. 12. Stanley Brown, Men from Under the Sky, 91–92. For FitzGerald, see American Offshore Whaling Voyages and Nantucket Historical Association Research Library, Barney Genealogical Record. The “unbrotherly treatment” is in John H. Eagleston’s retelling of Whippy’s story in his Autobiography: “Book No 1,” 326, PEM, PMB reel 207. The “Dearest Parents” letter cited by Brown would have been addressed to David and Kezia Cushman since his mother remarried after his father’s death in 1804: New England Historic Genealogical Society, Vital Records of Nantucket, 3: 373, 5: 602. The Nantucket Inquirer editor had access to this letter since he used information from it when printing Cary’s letter to Oeno owner Aaron Mitchell: “Loss of Ship OENO, and Massacre of Officers and Crew,” Nantucket Inquirer, 27 Sept. 1828. 13. “Loss of Ship OENO.”

258

Notes to Pages 52–58

14. Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 35; Dillon, Narrative, 1: 270; Davidson, Peter Dillon of Vanikoro, 88–89. 15. Joseph Waterhouse, King and People, 13–18. Whippy’s history of Naulivou’s ascendancy appears in Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 62. See also Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 226–27. 16. Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 6 June 1834; Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 49; William Reynolds, Private Journal, 144–46. 17. Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 70; Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 178; Joseph Perry Sanford, Journal, 8 May 1840, in U.S. National Archives, Records of the United States Exploring Expedition under the Command of Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, 1838–1842, Microcopy Collection 75, reel 19. 18. Hale, United States Exploring Expedition, 60. For more on bati, see Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 59–60; Cargill, Memoirs of Mrs. Margaret Cargill, 288–29; Basil Thomson, Fijians, 88–89, which translates the term as “borderers” and explains their importance as crucial allies on the edges of a matanitu. John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 215, believed that William Diaper, whose account appears in Erskine’s appendix as “Jackson’s Narrative,” may have incorrectly positioned Levuka as qali to Bau in 1841: “I think, Tui Levuka [successor as tui to Whippy’s patron] considered himself in a higher position at the time of our visit.” Otherwise, Diaper gives insight into these political categories on 431–32, 456–57. 19. Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 35, 67. 20. Charles Thompson, “Bowe,” (winter 1912), 5. For clerk’s job, see John H. Eagleston to Warren Osborn, 4 June 1834 (copy), in Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 327–28. 21. George N. Cheever, Journal, Ship Emerald of Salem, 1833–1836, 10 May 1834, Log 333, PEM, PMB reel 223. Cheever was also a clerk on this voyage; Eagleston left him at Tahiti to trade in coconut oil while Osborn stayed at Bau. 22. Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 4 July 1834; Thompson, “Bowe,” (winter 1912), 3, 13; (spring 1913), 29. An American beachcomber named William Valentine, from New York, lived in Fiji also, which means that either the Manila brig mutineer coincidentally had the same name or Thompson mixed up his beachcombers or changed the name; for the American Valentine, see William L. Hudson, Journal, U.S. Exploring Expedition, 8 May 1840, American Museum of Natural History, PMB reel 146; Silas Holmes, Journal, U.S. Exploring Expedition, 4 Aug. 1840, 2: 77, Beinecke Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT. For Melville’s Typee fictions, see Bercaw Edwards, Cannibal Old Me. 23. For the rebellion against Tanoa Visawaqa and his restoration, see William Cross to General Secretaries of Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, 27 Sept. [1838], entry numbered #25, Fiches 242–43, WMSL; Joseph Waterhouse, King and People, 36–49. 24. Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 18 July 1834, mentions a “Tuckembow,” possibly the same as Ratu Seru, or as Routledge suggests in Matanitu¯, 56, there could have been another, earlier Cakobau at Bau. The missionaries believed that Ratu Seru took the name Cakobau after gaining control of Bau for his father: Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 21; Joseph Waterhouse, King and People, 20 (Cakobau’s birth year as 1817), 42. 25. For example, Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 17 May, 26 May, 18 July, and 2–3 Aug. 1834. 26. For the Bau-Rewa war, see Sahlins, Apologies to Thucydides. Charles Thompson joined war parties in two engagements at the start of the war, in “Bowe” (spring 1913), 20–27; (summer 1913), 28–33. 27. Charles Thompson, “Bowe” (winter 1912), 8–10. For present-day traditions related to rank and food presentations, see Jones, Food and Gender, 78–82, 139–40. 28. Charles Thompson, “Bowe,” (spring 1913), 18–19. 29. For the tama and other turaga privileges, see Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, 37–42; Hazlewood, Feejeean and English Dictionary, 135, defines tama as “a shout or expression of

Notes to Pages 58–64

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reverence, or respect to a god, or chief; a shout of respect, or submission made by inferiors when approaching a chief, or the town of a chief.” 30. Charles Thompson, “Bowe” (winter 1912), 7, 19. Cary described similar promises to protect him from molestation as he moved up the hierarchy to successively more important patrons: Wrecked on the Feejees, 26, 38. 31. Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 9 May, 16 May, 20 May, 5 June, 12 June, and 18 June 1834. 32. Charles Thompson stayed in one while away from Bau, in “Bowe” (autumn/winter 1913), 42. For other descriptions, see Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, 83; Poesch, Titian Ramsay Peale, 171; Seemann, Viti, 146, 151. 33. Thompson, “Bowe” (spring 1913), 18–19, 28. 34. Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 35. 35. Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, 3–4; “mischief making” from Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 22 Nov. 1834. For other Paddy Connel stories, see Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 68–70; William Reynolds, Private Journal, 154, 161–63. Connel is probably the beachcomber Cary heard of at Kadavu but did not meet, in Wrecked on the Feejees, 47. For Devereaux, see William Driver, Journal, Ship Clay of Salem, 1827–1829, 6 Oct. 1827, Log 1402, PEM, PMB reel 216. 36. Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 35, 38. 37. Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 29–30, 45 (“Caloo”), 54 (“excellent shots”), 67. For similar accounts involving other beachcombers, see Turpin, Fiji Diary and Narratives, 1870–1892 (Transcript), 21–22, PMB 1209. “Jackson’s Narrative,” in John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 440–43; Litton Forbes, Two Years in Fiji, 132–35. For more on musket use and impact, see Clunie, Fijian Weapons & Warfare. 38. Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 39–40, 67–69. This last battle, solicited by the town of “Navarto” (Cary) or “Nabubbe” (Osborn) appears to be the same one in Osborn, Journal, Emerald entitled “David Whippey’s a/c of a Fegee fight he was at,” 82–83, 177–78. 39. Driver, Journal, Clay, 3 Oct. 1827. Modern dictionaries spell “the dead body of an enemy, etc., to be eaten” as “bokola,” in Capell, Fijian Dictionary, 12; Gatty, Fijian-English Dictionary, 25. 40. Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, heard that Savage had been made “a head chief ” at Bau, 39. Basil Thomson, South Sea Yarns, 306–7, gives Savage’s title as “Koroi-na-Vunivalu.” For the “koroi” war honorific, see Clunie, Fijian Weapons & Warfare, 33–34; Henderson, Journal of Thomas Williams, 2: 374–76. For Charles Savage stories, see I. C. Campbell, “Historiography of Charles Savage.” 41. Eagleston, Autobiography: “Book No 1,” 326. 42. Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 13 June 1834, and copy of letter from Eagleston (“ J.H.E.”), 328. 43. Turpin, Fiji Diary and Narratives, 22. 44. Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, 26–27, 32. Wilkes, Narrative, 3:77, gave a similar ranking but of five classes: kings, chiefs, warriors, matanivanua/landholders, and slaves/kaisi. For matanivanua as messenger, see also Wallis, Life in Feejee, 71. 45. William T. Pritchard to Foreign Office, 14 July 1859, CO 83/1, UK. This is how Stanley Brown, Men from Under the Sky, 95, explains Whippy’s title. A descendant described Whippy as “Tui Levuka’s official messenger,” in Mitchell Whippy to Charles Granville Whippy, 1 Dec. 1986, in Whippy Family Papers. 46. Sahlins explains Whippy’s title this way in Apologies to Thucydides, 35. 47. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 56. Whippy similarly mediated at a meeting between a British sea captain and Cakobau in John Hunt, Journal, 31 Dec. 1843, South Seas Papers: Biographical, Fiche 1623, WMSL. 48. Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 17–18, 37.

260

Notes to Pages 64–71

49. Eagleton to Osborn, 4 June 1834 (copy), in Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 327. 50. Charles Thompson, “Bowe” (winter 1912), 12; (spring 1913), 19. 51. Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 29. For more on kava/yaqona, see Lebot, Merlin, and Lindstrom, Kava. 52. Charles Thompson, “Bowe” (winter 1912), 11. 53. Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 28. 54. Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 11 July 1834. 55. Oliver, Wreck of the Glide, 74. 56. Charles Thompson, “Bowe” (winter 1912), 20–21. 57. Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, 172; Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 91–92; Wallis, Life in Feejee, 241; Joseph Waterhouse, King and People, 12. 58. Charles Thompson, “Bowe” (summer 1913), 23–24. 59. Charles Thompson, “Bowe” (summer 1913), 24–27. 60. Charles Thompson, “Bowe” (summer 1913), 27. 61. “Jackson’s Narrative,” in John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 452. See also Jacquinot, Voyage au Pole Sud, 4: 407. 62. Emmons, Journal, 10 Aug. 1840 (“indulgence”); other quotes from Charles Pickering, Journal, U.S. Exploring Expedition, 10 May 1840, MHS. For more on the practice of postpartum abstinence, see Basil Thomson, Fijians, 176–78; Brewster, King of the Cannibal Isles, 129, which gives four years as the requisite period of postpartum abstinence. 63. Turpin, Fiji Diary and Narrative, 20–21. 64. Holmes, Journal, Ex Ex, vol. 2, 77; Colvocoresses, Four Years in a Government Exploring Expedition, 188. See also Mary D. Wallis, Journal, Bark Maid of Orleans of Salem, 25 Oct. 1851, Log 1740, PEM. 65. Sanford, Journal, Ex Ex, 8 May 1840; Simeon A. Stearns, Journal, U.S. Exploring Expedition, 4 Aug. 1840, New York Public Library, http://archives.nypl.org/2866, accessed 20 Nov. 2016. 66. Even descendants have had trouble identifying Whippy’s wives and children; see the wellresearched genealogy compiled by Whippy descendant Carole Riley, “Carole’s Family,” http:// caroleriley.id.au/familyTree/p105.htm, accessed 20 Jan. 2016, and descendants’ correspondence in Whippy Family Papers. 67. Harold W. Thompson, Last of the “Logan,” 80–81. Stanley Brown, Men from Under the Sky, 95, gives her village of origins as Namara in Tailevu Province on Viti Levu. 68. Harold W. Thompson, Last of the “Logan,” 81; for Tui Levuka’s death, see Wallis, Life in Feejee, 235; Naisogobuli, Ovalau, Report 989, LCC; Stanley Brown, Men from Under the Sky, 96. Brown wrote that Peter was the son of the woman from Tokelau, but both Coffin and Samuel Whippy stated that Peter was the son of Dorcas/Delewa. For Whippy’s mother’s name, see Nantucket Historical Association Research Library, Barney Genealogical Record. 69. “Jackson’s Narrative,” in John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 441; Wallis, Life in Feejee, 53. 70. Henderson, Journal of Thomas Williams, 2: 392, 399; Lawry, Friendly and Feejee Islands, 143. 71. William Reynolds, Private Journal, 163; I. C. Campbell, “Historiography of Charles Savage,” 153–58; WL, 45. 72. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 18; John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 229; Henderson, Journal of Thomas Williams, 2: 326; “Deposition of James Magoun,” in Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 414. 73. Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 43, 50. 74. Charles Thompson, “Bowe,” (autumn/winter 1913), 43–46.

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75. Charles Thompson, “Bowe” (summer 1913), 31–36. Other reputed eyewitness descriptions of Fijian postwar celebrations give similar accounts: WL, 44–45; Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 34; Schütz, Diaries and Correspondence of David Cargill, 158; “Jackson’s Narrative,” in John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 426–28. The “Description of a Cannibal Feast at the Fejee Islands, by an Eyewitness,” reprinted at the end of Endicott, Wrecked among Cannibals, 55–70, from the Danvers Courier, 16 Aug. 1845, and sometimes attributed to Henry Fowler because a copy is in Fowler’s papers at PEM, PMB reel 225, does not accord with other accounts in its details; for how this account features in the cannibalism debate, see Obeyesekere, Cannibal Talk, 167–70; Obeyesekere and Arens, “Cannibalism Reconsidered,” 18; Sahlins, “Artificially Maintained Controversies (Part 2),” 22; Obeyesekere also questions the veracity of William Diaper by contrasting his two accounts, “Jackson’s Narrative” and Diapea, Cannibal Jack, in Cannibal Talk, chap. 6. 76. Charles Thompson, “Bowe” (summer 1913), 35–36. 77. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 76. 78. “Description of a Cannibal Feast,” Danvers Courier, 16 Aug. 1845. 79. Eagleston, Autobiography: “Book No 1,” 342–43. 80. Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 229. For more of Whippy’s “cannibal talk,” see Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 101. 81. Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 177. 82. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 96. 83. WL, 24, 63–64. See also Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, 193–97; Henderson, Journal of Thomas Williams, 2: 280–82; Thomas Jaggar, Journal, 8 Mar. 1841, Fiche 213, WMSL; John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 192. 84. Ralston, Grass Huts, 75, makes a similar observation about Whippy. 85. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 47. 86. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 229, 364.

3. Chief of All the White Men 1. Joseph Warren Osborn, Journal, Ship Emerald of Salem, 1833–1836, 6 June 1834, Log 332, PEM, PMB reel 223; for Levuka as a beachcombing community, see Ralston, Grass Huts. 2. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 47. For accolades of Whippy besides those discussed later in this chapter, see John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 173; J. Everard Home to Augustus Stafford, 20 Dec. 1852, ADM 1/5617, UK; J. Everard Home to John B. Williams, 29 Oct. 1852, in John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 15 Mar. 1853, Despatch 59, Despatches Fiji, reel 2. 3. For attributes of a good character in the nineteenth-century United States, see Delano, Narrative, 593; Quincy, Journals of Major Samuel Shaw, 126–27; Ditz, “Shipwrecked”; Luskey, On the Make, chap. 1; Beckert, Monied Metropolis, 41–42; Casper, Constructing American Lives. 4. Robbins, Gam, 57. 5. In his classic article on beachcombers, H. E. Maude recognized this equivalence: Of Islands and Men, 161; see also Wanhalla, “Rethinking ‘Squaw Men’ and ‘Pakeha-Maori.’” For more on Pacific beachcombers, see I. C. Campbell, “Gone Native”; Dening, Islands and Beaches, 129–56; Vanessa Smith, Literary Culture and the Pacific, chap. 1; Malcolm Campbell, “‘Base and Wicked Characters’”; Milcairns, Native Strangers; and for indigenous beachcombers, see Chappell, “Secret Sharers” and Double Ghosts, chap. 5; Shoemaker, Native American Whalemen and the World, chaps. 7–9. For squaw men, see Hagan, “Squaw Men”; Smits, “‘Squaw Men’”; Dippie, Vanishing American, 257–62.

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Notes to Pages 77–83

6. The quoted phrase comes from the subtitle of Hagan, “Squaw Men.” 7. Basil Thomson, Fijians, 384. 8. I. C. Campbell makes this point about a “white tribe” led by Whippy in “Gone Native,” 65. 9. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 106; Colvocoresses, Four Years in a Government Exploring Expedition, 181–82; Clark, Lights and Shadows, 135–36. 10. Whippy’s account of the mutiny is retold in William Driver, Journal, Ship Clay of Salem, 1827–1829, 6 Oct 1827, Log 1402, PEM, PMB reel 216. 11. Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 36–37, 58. 12. Cary, Wrecked on the Feejees, 58–67 (quoted 59); Driver, Journal, Clay, 1 Oct. 1827–29 Feb. 1828. 13. Appendix B. 14. Schütz, Diaries and Correspondence of David Cargill, 98–102. 15. Jacquinot, Voyage au Pole Sud, 4: 220–21, 226. 16. Oliver, Wreck of the Glide, 78–79; Mataivonu, Ovalau, Report 985, LCC. 17. John B. Knights, Memoir, Brig Spy of Salem, 1832–1833, 38, 41–42, 51, Log 1983, PEM, PMB reel 220. See also John H. Eagleston, Autobiography: “Voyage of Ship Emerald 1833 to 1836,” 17, PEM, PMB reel 205. For Whippy warning of other plots against ships, see Eagleston, Autobiography: “Book No 1,” 340, PEM, PMB 207; John H. Eagleston, Journal, Bark Peru of Salem, 1830–1833, 31 July 1831, Log 283, PEM, PMB reel 205. 18. “Horrid Massacre,” Saturday Morning Transcript (Boston), 27 Sept. 1834; “Deposition of James Magoun,” in Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 412–14; see also 3: 103–5, 137–38. Wilkes mistakenly gave the year of the incident as 1834. Batchelder’s letter from Manila, the source of the above newspaper article, stated nine men killed, four wounded; Magoun said ten men died. Whippy told Eagleston of ten deaths, three wounded, in John H. Eagleston, Journal, Ship Emerald of Salem, 10 May 1834, Log 334, PEM, PMB reel 223. For Veidovi, see Fabian, Skull Collectors, chap. 4; Adler, “Capture and Curation.” 19. Eagleston, Journal, Emerald, 7 & 10 May 1834. 20. Jacquinot, Voyage au Pole Sud, 4: 182. 21. Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 17 May 1834. 22. John H. Eagleston to “Capt. Johny Orabo,” 12 June 1834, John H. Eagleston, Letterbook, PEM, PMB reel 223. That this was at Whippy’s request appears in Jacquinot, Voyage au Pole Sud, 4: 184. 23. Osborn, Journal, Emerald. 17 & 19 May 1834. Several months of Osborn’s journal entries report on events surrounding the brig; see especially the 20 July 1834 entry. A full account, including a deposition from one of its crew, is in Jacquinot, Voyage au Pole Sud, 4: 160–261. Namosimalua had his own subject peoples, mainly on northern Viti Levu, in Wallis, Life in Feejee, 385. 24. Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 27 & 31 July, 1 Aug. 1834; $5000 in Eagleston, Autobiography: “Voyage of Ship Emerald,” 49; six thousand to eight thousand dollars in Eagleston, Journal, Emerald, 7 Sept. 1834. 25. Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 22–24 Aug. 1834. 26. Eagleston, Journal, Emerald, 7 Sept. 1834; 24 & 31 Jan. 1835. 27. Jacquinot, Voyage au Pole Sud, 4: 192–201. 28. Joseph Winn Jr. to “Mr. David Whippy & his comrades,”—Aug 1834, Joseph Winn Jr. Papers, Folder: Schooner Coral, MH-329, PEM. 29. Twelve after the Charles Doggett affair in Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 6 June 1834; fifteen in Deposition of Lawrence Christian Caulston, 9 June 1838, FO 58/1, UK; twelve or forty (perhaps twelve on Ovalau and forty in all of Fiji?) in Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 50; two hundred altogether in William L. Hudson, Journal, U.S. Exploring Expedition, 8 May 1840, American Museum of

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Natural History, PMB 146. Colvocoresses, Four Years in a Government Exploring Expedition, 186, wrote that Whippy told him there were “five white men residing in Levuka Town,” so the twelve or so in residence may have lived on Ovalau but not all in Levuka proper. 30. Jacquinot, Voyage au Pole Sud, 4: 398. 31. Hudson, Journal, Ex Ex, 8 May 1840. 32. “Jackson’s Narrative,” in John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 453. 33. On Connel’s banishment from Levuka, see Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 69–70, 292; for “shunned,” see John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 196. 34. Eagleston, Journal, Emerald, 10 May 1834. 35. Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 12 Aug. 1834. 36. “Thomas Grandy” in Jacquinot, Voyage au Pole Sud, 4: 222; Cunningham, American, is also mentioned for offering piloting services in this account. Granby piloted for the Ex Ex as well, in Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 40–41. 37. Turpin, Fiji Diary and Narratives, 23–24. Turpin’s account has factual errors, including a massacre of Magoun’s Fawn shipmates that never happened: the Clay took the crew to Manila: “Ship News,” Salem Gazette, 19 Apr. 1831; Eagleston, Autobiography: “Book No 1,” 326. 38. Jacquinot, Voyage au Pole Sud, 4: 218–21. 39. John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 173. In 1852, for example, they engineered the removal of Thomas Brown, “a man of bad character” and a British subject, taken from Fiji by the British warship Calliope, in J. Everard Home to Augustus Stafford, 27 Dec. 1852 (copy), FO 58/78, UK. 40. Henderson, Journal of Thomas Williams, 1: 77. 41. John H. Eagleston to D. Whippy, 20 Mar. 1835, John H. Eagleston, Letterbook, PEM, PMB reel 223. 42. Mary D. Wallis, Journal, Bark Maid of Orleans of Salem, 25 Oct. and 8 Dec. 1851, 5 Jan. 1852; see also 5 May 1852, Log 1740, PEM. 43. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 307. Osborn, Journal, Emerald, 6 June 1834; Eagleston, Autobiography: “Voyage of ship Emerald,” 28, 63. For Simpson, see John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 173, 298. On the Whippy-Simpson marriages, see Riles, “Division within the Boundaries.” 44. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians; Thornley’s trilogy: Shaking of the Land, Inheritance of Hope, and Exodus of the I Taukei. For the Wesleyans in a larger Pacific context, see Darch, Missionary Imperialists?; Garrett, To Live Among the Stars. 45. As a mark of distinction: David Cargill to J. Beecham, 1 May 1840, Fiche 212, WMSL; trade goods: Henderson, Journal of Thomas Williams, 2: 320–21, 356; Keesing-Styles and KeesingStyles, Unto the Perfect Day, 27 46. William Cross to the Secretaries of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, 9 Jan. 1838, Fiche 241, WMSL. 47. Cargill, Memoirs of Mrs. Margaret Cargill, 268–69. 48. William Cross, Journal Extracts, 10 & 19 Dec. 1838, Fiche 243, WMSL; John Waterhouse, Journal of a Second Voyage, 53; Wallis, Life in Feejee, 29; John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 5 Jan. 1859, Despatch 3, Despatches Fiji, reel 3. 49. William Cross to the Secretaries of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, 3 May 1838, Fiche 241, WMSL; Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 22. 50. Newcomers’ arrival in Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 27; Levuka beachcombers’ services in Keesing-Styles and Keesing-Styles, Unto the Perfect Day, 16; Schütz, Diaries and Correspondence of David Cargill, 126–37; J. Hunt to “Dear Fathers and Bretheren,” 19 Dec. 1843, Fiche 262, WMSL.

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Notes to Pages 88–94

51. Schütz, Diaries and Correspondence of David Cargill, 137–38; Charles Pickering, Journal, U.S. Exploring Expedition, 10 May 1840, MHS. 52. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 307; Whippy expressed interest in having a missionary teacher in a letter to Wilkes published in Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 362–63. 53. Henderson, Journal of Thomas Williams, 2: 437. 54. John Hunt, Journal, 29 June 1844, South Seas Papers: Biographical, Fiche 1623, WMSL. 55. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 76. 56. I. M. Brower said Calvert performed the ceremony, Naisogobuli, Ovalau, Report 989, LCC, but George H. Scidmore heard from Whippy family members that John Hunt performed the wedding at Viwa, probably in the mid-1840s; see George H. Scidmore to Governor [John B. Thurston], 17 Aug. 1892, in “Further Correspondence on the Subject of the Claims of Citizens of the United States to Land in Fiji,” Australian #156, May 1894, CO 881/10/6, UK. 57. For Coffin’s account, see chap. 2; “Extract of a Letter from Mrs. Binner to a Friend, dated Ovalau, July 28th, 1852,” in “Feejee,” Wesleyan Missionary Notices (Feb. 1853), 22. See also Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 307. 58. John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 218. Christian Fijians were called (in Fijian) “‘dresses’, as the religious were reproachfully termed,” in Joseph Waterhouse, King and People, 128. See also Harold W. Thompson, Last of the “Logan,” 82. 59. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 332. 60. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 39. 61. Harold W. Thompson, Last of the “Logan,” 86–87. 62. John Hunt, Journal, 22 May 1845, South Seas Papers: Biographical, Fiche 1624, WMSL. 63. Surrendered crew list, Brig Gambia of Salem, 1840–1842, and departure crew list, Brig Gambia of Salem, 1842–1844, SB; Stanley Brown, Men from Under the Sky, 100. Samuel Whippy attended school, in Sydney, according to John Young, Adventurous Spirits, 61. 64. John Hunt, “Latest Intelligence from Fejee isles, Written about Feb/43” Fiche 262, WMSL; Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 242–44, 310. On David Jr. at Viwa, see Wallis, Life in Feejee, 48. 65. For the survey, see Jason W. Smith, To Master the Boundless Sea, chap. 2. The more than twelve hundred artifacts from Fiji constitute the “largest and most important part” of the Ex Ex collections, in Jane Walsh, “From the Ends of the Earth: The United States Exploring Expedition Collections,” Smithsonian Institution, www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollections/usexex/learn/Walsh01.htm, accessed 4 Mar. 2018. For an Ex Ex overview, see Philbrick, Sea of Glory. 66. J. N. Reynolds, Address, 46–53, 66, 167–70 (quoted on 169); Stanton, Great United States Exploring Expedition, chap.2. For the Awashonks, see Shoemaker, Native American Whalemen and the World, 105. 67. Charles Erskine, Twenty Years before the Mast, 149. The expedition started with six main vessels, but only four were in Fiji along with the smaller vessels named by Erskine. 68. Wilkes, Autobiography, 458. 69. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 191. 70. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 49–50, 193 (quoted); see also Schütz, Diary and Correspondence of David Cargill, 196. 71. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 184–86. 72. Charles Erskine, Twenty Years before the Mast, 163–68; Hudson, Journal, Ex Ex, 12 July 1840; Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 242–45 73. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 279–82; see also his explanation of these customs on 3: 81. For Whippy on the Vincennes, see Hudson, Journal, Ex Ex, 22 July 1840. 74. Simeon A. Stearns, Journal, U.S. Exploring Expedition, 9 Aug. 1840, New York Public Library, http://archives.nypl.org/2866, accessed 20 Nov. 2016.

Notes to Pages 94–100

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75. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 284. 76. Holmes, Journal, 2: 80. See also J. Rees to George Pritchard (copy), attachment to William Miller to Earl of Aberdeen, 4 Oct. 1844, FO 58/26, UK; “Scenes in the Feejee Islands,” Sydney Chronicle, 16 June 1847. 77. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 362. 78. Guernsey, “Cruise After and Among the Cannibals,” 462. 79. Wilkes, Autobiography, 458. 80. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 315. 81. Wilkes, Autobiography, 472; the appointment occurred before the incident at Solevu Bay according to George Foster Emmons, Journal, United States Exploring Expedition, Vol. 2, 13 July 1840, Beinecke Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT. 82. Charles Wilkes to John C. Calhoun, 29 July 1844, and John B. Williams to John C. Calhoun, 31 Oct 1844, Despatches New Zealand, reel 1. 83. Shipley, Sketches in the Pacific, 1, 27; John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 14, 239. 84. Keesing-Styles and Keesing-Styles, Unto the Perfect Day, 40. 85. Colvocoresses, Four Years in a Government Exploring Expedition, 145. 86. Pickering, Journal, Ex Ex, 10 May 1840. 87. Hale, United States Exploring Expedition, 59. 88. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 110. 89. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 360. For another account of the same events, see Thomas Jaggar, Journal Extracts, 14 Dec. 1840, Fiche 212, WMSL. 90. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 362; Keesing-Styles and Keesing-Styles, Unto the Perfect Day, 40. 91. Hunt, Journal, 22 Jan. 1844, South Seas Papers: Biographical, Fiche 1623, WMSL. 92. Hunt, Journal, 29 July 1844, South Seas Papers: Biographical, Fiche 1624, WMSL. For soro custom, see Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, 31–32. For their evacuation of Levuka, see “Scenes in the Feejee Islands,” Sydney Chronicle, 16 June 1847; J. Rees to George Pritchard (copy), attachment to William Miller to Earl of Aberdeen, 4 Oct. 1844, FO 58/26, UK. For Solevu Bay as Bua territory, see Basil Thomson, Fijians, 40. 93. Hunt, Journal, 21 May 1845, South Seas Papers: Biographical, Fiche 1624, WMSL. 94. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 310; for Whippy’s illness, Logbook, Brig Gambia of Salem, 1844–1846, 19–20 Oct. 1845, Log 3136, PEM, PMB reel 218. 95. See chap. 7 for the Wesleyans’ support for Cakobau and their political rift with the beachcombers. 96. Bulu, Joel Bulu, 38–41 (quoted 40–41). 97. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 310. 98. “Jackson’s Narrative” in John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 455–56. For another account of Cakobau’s arsenal, see J. Everard Home to Augustus Stafford, 19 July 1852, ADM 1/5617, UK. 99. For control of trade, see Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 333; Joseph Waterhouse, King and People, 146; for fifty beachcombers, see Home to Stafford, 20 Dec. 1852. For Tanoa’s death and Cakobau’s installation, see Joseph Waterhouse, King and People, 137, 142. 100. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 330; Joseph Waterhouse, King and People, 144–46; Robert Young, Southern World, 319–22; John B. Williams, “Feejee Islands,” Empire (Sydney), 30 Dec. 1853. See also Calvert’s and Whippy’s contradictory accounts in U.S. Congress, “Sloop of War ‘John Adams,’” 27–32. 101. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 331, 333. 102. Naisogobuli, Ovalau, Report 989, LCC. For the 1858 fire, see John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 2 Aug. 1858, Despatch 15, Despatches Fiji, reel 3.

266

Notes to Pages 100–107

103. For Levuka and Totoga, see Burley, “Toward the Historical Archaeology of Levuka”; for the architectural transition, see Purser, “View from the Verandah.” For Levuka as hub for newly arrived planters, see the above as well as John Young, Adventurous Spirits, chap. 6; John Young, “Sailing to Levuka”; Ralston, Grass Huts, 164–69. For the native village today, see “Fiji: Levuka’s First Family to Welcome Foreigners as Friendly as Ever,” NZ Herald, 30 Apr. 2011, http://www. nzherald.co.nz/, accessed 8 Mar. 2018. 104. Samuel Whippy and the Levuka house, in Naisogobuli, Ovalau, Report 989, LCC; for the move to Wakaya, see John Young, Adventurous Spirits, 64–67; for sugar, see Seemann, Viti, 425; Stokes, “Early Plantation Experiments,” 380, 389. 105. Yadali, Report 588, LCC. The Whippy family land at Kasavu on Vanua Levu featured in Riles, “Division within the Boundaries,” was purchased by Whippy’s sons Samuel and Peter; see Lovonisikece, Report 875, LCC. 106. I. M. Brower to David Whippy, 24 Oct. 1869; W. T. Truxton to George E. Robeson, 24 Oct. 1869; W. T. Truxton to “Thakebou,” 22 Oct. 1869; Court of Arbitration, U.S.S. Jamestown, 28 Oct. 1869, Despatches Fiji, reel 4. 107. “The oldest settler . . . ,” Fiji Times, 8 Nov. 1871; Nasik Swami, “Times Turns 148 Years Old,” Fiji Times, 4 Sept. 2017.

4. By a Lady 1. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 124–25. Equally rare were British captain’s wives, though a Mrs. Stratton from Sydney was in Fiji in 1845 simultaneous with Wallis in Life in Feejee, 62–63. 2. Joseph Waterhouse to Mary Ann Padman, entry dated 14 Nov. 1850 in letter begun 4 Nov. 1850, Joseph Waterhouse Papers, 1826–1874, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. 3. Seventeen voyages are listed for Benjamin Wallis (aka Benjamin Wallis Jr.) in the “Salem, Mass. Crew Lists Index: 1799–1879,” Mystic Seaport Museum, library.mysticseaport.org/initiative/ SalemSelect.cfm, accessed 22 Dec. 2013. 4. In the 1850 census, they appear as occupants of a household headed by Benjamin’s brother John “Wallace,” household 826, Beverly, MA, 1850 U.S. manuscript census, www.ancestry. com, accessed 15 Dec. 2016. 5. Scholars have barely noticed Life in Feejee. For a close reading, with an interpretation much like my own, see Duneer, “Voyaging Captains’ Wives.” Claudia Knapman, mentions Wallis briefly in “Western Women’s Travel Writing,” 35, and occasionally, mainly as a source, in White Women in Fiji, which deals more with missionary and planter wives. Hellmich, “Wallis Collection,” gives an overview of artifacts in the Wallis collection of the Peabody Essex Museum. 6. On “female moral authority” in social reform organizations, see Pascoe, Relations of Rescue; for women-centered reform in the antebellum period, see Ginzberg, Women and the Work of Benevolence. 7. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 24–26 (quoted 25); Darch, Missionary Imperialists, 79–80; Thornley, Shaking of the Land, 253. 8. For the importance of Wallis’s writings to historians of Fiji, see Routledge, Fiji and New Caledonia Journals, xiii. 9. For their ages and marriage, see Beverly, MA, Vital Records, 1: 87, 351; 2: 323. Her father, a mariner, died with a small estate (consisting mostly of a house and house lot in Beverly Village) valued at $557; her brother entered the navy and died on the USS Guerriere in 1832; see William Cook Probate Record, #6278, 16 July 1810, and William W. Cook Probate Record, #6283,

Notes to Pages 107–110

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3 July 1832, Essex County, Mass. Probate File Papers, 1638–1881 database, New England Historic Genealogical Society, www.americanancestors.org, accessed 15 Dec. 2016. Benjamin Wallis Jr.’s father estate amounted to $300 according to his record in the same database: Benjamin Wallis Probate Record, #56207, 18 Nov. 1856. 10. William W. Cook Probate Record. On mantuamakers, see Marla R. Miller, Needle’s Eye, 60–67, 204–5, and “Last Mantuamaker.” 11. See crew lists for Quill, 1828; Edwin, 1834; Gambia, 1840; Gambia, 1842; Zotoff, 1844, Zotoff, 1848; Maid of Orleans, 1851, SB; appendix B. 12. In 1851, Benjamin Wallis Jr. paid the town of Beverly $15.20 in tax for his personal estate when the vast majority of payments by townspeople in that category were under $10, in Beverly, Massachusetts Tax List for 1851, MSS 0.390, PEM. 13. Ezra A. Stone et al., Grantors, to Benjamin Wallis, Jr., Grantee, 31 Oct. 1853, registered 17 Nov. 1853, Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds, http://salemdeeds.com/salemdeeds/ DefaultSearch.aspx, accessed 20 Mar. 2016. Two other families are listed with the Wallises in Household 824, Massachusetts, State Census, 1855, for Beverly, and in Benjamin Wallis’s will, dated 15 Aug. 1874 and appearing in probate records bearing date 4 Sept. 1876, in Essex County Probate Records, Vols. 430–433 (1875–1878), 350–51, which also indicates the house’s large size, in www. ancestry.com, accessed 20 Mar. 2016. 14. Household 877, Beverly, MA, 1860 U.S. manuscript census, www.ancestry.com, accessed 20 Mar. 2016. 15. Hitchings and Phillips, Ship Registers, 67, 203. In his correspondence (WP) and consular despatches (Despatches Fiji), John B. Williams referred to this Salem firm as Wests and Chamberlain. Accounts for many S. Chamberlain and Company voyages, including Fiji voyages of the Gambia and Zotoff, can be found in partner Benjamin Cox’s Papers, MSS 168, PEM. 16. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 24. Unless otherwise stated, all information about Wallis’s experiences on the Zotoff comes from Life in Feejee. 17. For Macuata as an important and sizable matanitu, see John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 236. An anonymous French missionary’s Historie de Macuata/History of Macuata, edited by Françoise Gardère and David Routledge, 51–63, recounts the political turmoil in Macuata during the bêche-de-mer boom; although the author took much of his material from Life in Feejee, he also reports on local people’s memories of these events. 18. On the Ba, Viwa, and Bau relationship, see Wallis, Life in Feejee, 256. 19. Salem’s bêche-de-mer traders used Manila as their port-of-sale and usually Peele, Hubbell, and Company as their broker; see for example, “Instructions to Captain I. Needham Chapman,” 31(?) Jan. 1834, in Isaac Needham Chapman Papers, Folder 1, Box 2, Mss. 184, PEM; Charles F. Williams to W. H. Crandall, 8 Nov. 1853, Henry L. Williams Papers, Folder 2, Family Mss. 1099, PEM. Salem merchant Stephen C. Phillips promoted the firm, run at Manila by his brother-in-law J. Willard Peele in the 1830s and early 1840s; considerable correspondence from Peele at Manila to Phillips is in the Phillips Family Papers, MH-4, PEM. For American merchants in Manila, see Legarda, After the Galleons; Owen, “Americans in the Abaca Trade”; Florina H. Capistrano-Baker, “Beyond Hemp: The Manila-Salem Trade, 1796–1858,” in Johnston and Frank, Global Trade and Visual Arts, 251–64. For Zotoff cargo, see its Inward Foreign Manifest (1848), SB. 20. Williams estimated the cargo’s value at five thousand to six thousand pounds, taken in only nine months, in Henderson, Journals of Thomas Williams, 2: 507. 21. Thomas C. Dunn to George West, 29 July 1850, Papers of Benjamin, George, and John West, Folder 4, Box 14, MH-235, PEM. 22. Routledge, Fiji and New Caledonia Journals of Mary Wallis. To enhance its modern accessibility, editor David Routledge altered the text considerably. Most changes are useful as he

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Notes to Pages 110–116

standardized her orthography to identify people and places as they are known today. But other changes slipped in as well. When quoting, I use the original, Mary D. Wallis, Journal, Bark Maid of Orleans of Salem, 1851–1853, Log 1740, PEM. 23. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 1 June 1853. 24. The preface of Life in Feejee, p. v, gives November 1850 as the date next to Wallis’s initialed signature. 25. Robert, New Year in Cuba, 111. 26. For Low and “circumspect,” see Hillard, My Mother’s Journal, 41. Many letters in the Nathaniel Kinsman Papers, PEM, deal with his niece Southwick’s courtship dilemmas; see for example, J. A. Cunningham to Rebecca Kinsman, 5 May 1846 and 9 Oct. 1847, and Nathaniel L. Kinsman to Rebecca Kinsman, 9 June 1845. I accessed the Kinsman Papers through the Adam Matthew digital collection, China, America and the Pacific. For more on American women in Macao and Canton, see Van, “‘Woman Pigeon.’” For more on Low, see Morrison, True Yankees, chap. 4. 27. Sampson, Three Times around the World, 79. For crew animosity toward wives, see Creighton, Rites and Passages, 163–68. For wives at sea in general, see Druett, Hen Frigates and Petticoat Whalers; Norling, Captain Ahab Had a Wife; Springer, “Captain’s Wife at Sea.” 28. Melville, Typee, 222–23. 29. Abby Jane Morrell, Narrative of a Voyage; for where the Antarctic went and the overlap with Abby Jane’s account, see the fourth voyage in Morrell Jr., Narrative of Four Voyages, 342–452. Duneer compares Morrell’s and Wallis’s books in “Voyaging Captains’ Wives.” 30. Fairhead, Captain and “the Cannibal,” 42–44, 109–22 (ghostwriters); Exman, Brothers Harper, 29–30. 31. Abby Jane Morrell, Narrative of a Voyage, vii–viii, 13. 32. She was secretary of the society in 1856–58 and 1865, if not also in other years, too; see “Home Seamen’s Aid Society of Beverly,” Salem Register, 11 Dec. 1856; “Report of the Home Seamen’s Friend Society,” Beverly Citizen, 24 Nov. 1858; “Notice,” Beverly Citizen, 7 Jan. 1865. On the society’s origins, see Stone, History of Beverly, 183. For the Zotoff’s crew, see Wallis, Life in Feejee, 195, 263. 33. Wallis, Life in Feejee, v. 34. For a useful, recent overview of early ABCFM history, see Conroy-Krutz, Christian Imperialism (for Salem in particular, 32, 59–60). See also Putney and Burlin, Role of the American Board; Clifton Jackson Phillips, Protestant America and the Pagan World; Strong, Story of the American Board. 35. An Annual Catalogue of the Members of the First Baptist Church in Beverly Mass, 16, and Meeting Minutes, 20 May 1842, Records of the First Baptist Church in Beverly, 1831–1861, First Baptist Church of Beverly archives, Beverly, MA. 36. Gammell, History of American Baptist Missions. 37. Judson, Account of the American Baptist Mission; Knowles, Memoir of Mrs. Ann H. Judson; Forester, Memoir of Sarah B. Judson (for her age and hometown, see xi); Jeter, Memoir of Mrs. Henrietta Shuck. For more on Chubbuck, see Kendrick, Life and Letters of Mrs. Emily C. Judson. 38. Forester, Memoir of Sarah B. Judson, 122. 39. Cargill, Memoirs of Mrs. Margaret Cargill, 4–5; see also 309–11. 40. Worldcat, www.worldcat.org, accessed 23 June 2014, turns up eight books besides Life in Feejee that have William Heath as publisher, sometimes with a credit line to the New England Sabbath School Union. 41. Wallis, Life in Feejee, iv, vii–viii, ix–x. By the time of the book’s publication, Flanders had moved to New Hampshire, but he had served as pastor of Beverly’s First Baptist Church since 1840; see Stone, History of Beverly, 287. 42. Henderson, Journal of Thomas Williams, 2: 510–11.

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43. Child, Letters from New-York, 232–34; Karcher, First Woman in the Republic; for the popularity of Letters from New-York, 309. 44. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 27 Jan. and 11 June 1852. She probably read the newest (1844) edition of Froissart’s Chronicles; Colton, Deck and Port; Lawry, A Second Missionary Visit. 45. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 180–82, 331–43 (Dillon); 208 (Ellis); Dillon, Narrative and Successful Result of a Voyage; Ellis, Polynesian Researches. 46. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 363–64. 47. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 44, 123–25, 259–61; on “the introduction of Popery,” see Wallis, Life in Feejee, 394. 48. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 34. For more on Hunt and his family, see Rowe, Missionary Among Cannibals. 49. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 36–38, 44, 247. 50. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 38–42. 51. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 36, 44, 49, 63, 247. 52. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 24–25. For Hartwell’s employment of Pickering, see 6 and 26 Nov. and 15 Dec. 1844, Logbook, Brig Gambia of Salem, 1844–1846, PEM, PMB reel 218. 53. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 77–78, 155. 54. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 78; for the conflict between Ritova and his uncle, see 111–13. 55. Seemann, Viti, 262. 56. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 140–41. 57. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 144–47. 58. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 97–98. 59. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 29 Jan. 1852. For the taqa, see Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, 46–47. 60. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 101–2. 61. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 63, 173, 359. 62. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 191. 63. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 24, 38, 48, 63; on his lotu’ing, marriage, and baptism, 71–72, 124. See also Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 263–67. 64. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 330. 65. Wellman, Road to Seneca Falls; Isenberg, Sex and Citizenship; Chused, “Married Women’s Property Law”; Shammas, “Re-Assessing the Married Women’s Property Acts.” 66. “New Books!!” New Hampshire Patriot (Concord), 19 June 1851; advertisement placed by Gray & Ballantyne, Daily National Intelligencer (Washington, DC), 10 June 1853; “News Items,” California Gazette (Benicia), 2 Aug. 1851; “New Publications,” Daily Atlas (Boston), 22 Sept. 1853; advertisement placed by Redding & Co., Daily Atlas (Boston), 4 Oct. 1853. 67. “Life in Fejee” [sic], Boston Recorder, 10 April 1851. 68. “A FRESH supply . . . ,” Salem Register, 1 May 1851. 69. “Life in Feejee,” Sabbath School Treasury 15 (1 July 1851), 165. 70. “Life in Feejee,” Baptist Record, Issue 17 (1 Nov. 1851), 67. 71. Lawry, Second Missionary Visit, v. 72. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 10 Sept. 1851. 73. Mrs. J. H. Hanaford, “The Missionary Judson,” Young Reaper (Boston), 1 Feb. 1851, 8. 74. John G. Adams and Olympia Brown, Services at the Ordination and Installation of Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford. 75. Hanaford, Women of the Century, title page, table of contents, and 633. For Wallis’s death, see Massachusetts, Death Records, 1841–1915, www.ancestry.com, accessed 20 Mar. 2016.

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Notes to Pages 129–136

76. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 211, 326, 409. For the spatial geography of rank in close quarters, see also Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, 37. 77. For other Merewalesis, see a daughter of Cakobau’s and the widow of Nalela, a Lasakau turaga in exile at Viwa (she took the name Merewalesi when she lotu’d) in Wallis, Life in Feejee, 82, 124; the Merewalesi, or “queen,” Wallis met at Nadi I am assuming is this woman others identified as ruling the native town of Nasavu, in Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 23 Apr. 1852. For another name exchange, see James S. H. Royce, Diary, 7 Nov. 1856, Mitchell Library, Sydney, Australia. For the Christian woman ruler at Nasavu, see Samuel Waterhouse, Journal Extracts, 31 July 1853, Australasia—Fiji, Correspondence Fiche 291, WMSL; David, Voyage of HMS Herald, 237; Thornley, Exodus of the I Taukei, 196, 217–18.

5. Marama 1. Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, 168. Such a purchase was not unusual. For kaisi girls belonging to the village turaga and available for purchase for one musket, see Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 92. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, 214, cited one to five muskets as the price in 1860 for each fifteen- to twenty-year old girl purchased by papalagi to become servants and wives. Tui Cakau gave a servant girl as a “present” to Edwin Turpin, Fiji Diaries and Narratives, diary entry for 17 and 21 Dec. 1870. 2. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 289. 3. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 290, 309. Scholars referring to Phebe have relied only on Wallis’s version of events and either accept Wallis’s benevolence (Christopher Legge, “In Search of Phebe”; Hellmich, “Wallis Collection,” 160) or question what the situation meant for Phebe (Chappell, Double Ghosts, 140; Duneer, “Voyaging Captains’ Wives,” 218). The young man who spent a year at Bau was probably Charles Thompson, author of “Bowe,” since he appears in Manila attachments to the return crew list of the Zotoff, 12 Oct. 1848, SB. 4. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 17 (glossary); 75, 81, 157 (examples of Wallis addressed as marama); 413 (birthplace). 5. Blumin, Emergence of the Middle Class, emphasizes manual labor as the perceived fault line between classes (for “middling class” as a precursor to “middle class,” see 1). For similar developments in England, see Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, especially 30; Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women, especially 95–96. For the Wallises as a lady and gentleman, see chap. 4. 6. Charles Pickering, Journal, U.S. Exploring Expedition, 10 May 1840, MHS. See also “Jackson’s Narrative,” in John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 462–67. 7. For the labor process, see Oliver, Wreck of the Glide, 34–37; Joseph Warren Osborn, Journal, Ship Emerald of Salem, 1833–1836, 250–58, PEM, PMB reel 223; Ward, “Pacific Bêche-deMer Trade.” 8. John H. Eagleston, Autobiography: “Book No 1,” 1: 334–35, PEM, PMB reel 207. 9. I. N. Chapman, Journal, Brig Consul of New York, 1834–1835, 16 Aug. and 6 Nov. 1834, Log 351, PEM, PMB reel 206. 10. Endicott, Wrecked Among Cannibals, 17 (“purchased”), 24–25 (800 workers); Oliver also has information on the Maori workers and estimated two thousand Fijians working for the Glide and Quill in Wreck of the Glide, 22, 38, 81. Wallis noticed the differences at Ba from other regions: at Ba “petty chiefs” joined kaisi to fish for bêche-de-mer whereas women did not, in Wallis, Life in Feejee, 260, 262.

Notes to Pages 136–138

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11. Charles Thompson, “Bowe” (spring 1913), 29. 12. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 135. 13. Seemann, Viti, 261–62; see also 257. 14. Eagleston, Autobiography: “Book No 1,” 1: 335. Also see Endicott, Wrecked Among Cannibals, 36, and numerous remarks about hostages in George N. Cheever, Logbook, Schooner Warwick of Boston, 1842–1845, Log 534, PEM, PMB reel 210. For Wallis’s views about and experiences with hostages, see Life in Feejee, 136–39, 153. 15. Keesing-Styles and Keesing-Styles, Unto the Perfect Day, 77, 110. For political marriages and Thompson’s experience, see chap. 2. 16. Schütz, Diaries and Correspondence of David Cargill, 171–72. The aged, half-caste “Jane Vanderfilt” whom Edwin Turpin met on the Macuata Coast in 1869, was probably Benjamin Vanderford’s child, though Turpin said her father was a whaler, in Fiji Diary and Narratives, 1870–1892 (Transcript), 118, PMB 1209. Henry T. Saunders, the only Salem trader I know of who brought a daughter by a Fijian woman back to Salem with him, received women from Cokanauto of Rewa, who to punish Saunders at one point told the women to leave but later returned them to Saunders: Henry T. Saunders, Journal, Schooner Warwick of Salem, 1845–1849, 11 and 26 June, 8 July 1848, Log 580, PEM, PMB reel 211 (this volume is sometimes identified as George N. Cheever’s logbook, which takes up the volume’s first half ); for these women, see also Cokanauto to John B. Williams, 20 June 1848, in Despatch 16, Fiji Despatches, reel 1. Saunders’s half-Fijian daughter, Mary T. Saunders, lived out her life in Salem; see 62 Lafayette St., Salem, MA, 1880 U.S. census manuscript, and 158 Spring St., Salem, MA, 1920 U.S. census manuscript, www.ancestry. com, accessed 18 Dec. 2016. Another American bêche-de-mer trader with a Fijian family was William Driver; his descendants are the American half-caste claimants in Report 262, Naiverevere, Savu Savu, LCC. 17. Mary D. Wallis, Journal, Bark Maid of Orleans of Salem, 30 Dec. 1851, Log 1740, PEM. 18. An Ex Ex member remarked on the rarity of prostitution in the Fiji group except for “the unchastity of the women” at Levuka, in Silas Holmes, Journal, Vol. 2, 4 Aug. 1840, Beinecke Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT. Late-nineteenth-century British colonial administrator Basil Thomson in Fijians, 234, also contrasted prostitution in Polynesia with the rarity of “professional prostitution among Fijian women.” Scholarship explains the rise of prostitution in Polynesia in complex ways. In “Reconsideration of the Role of Polynesian Women,” Tahiti—1768, and “First Contacts” in Polynesia, Serge Tcherkézoff highlights the rare circumstances in which elite virgins in Polynesia did not exercise control over their own sexuality. Other scholars remark on distinctions in rank having a role but document a women-led invention of commercial prostitution in response to foreign ship traffic; see Kashay, “Competing Imperialisms”; Greer, “Trouble on the Waterfront”; Ralston, “Changes in the Lives of Ordinary Women”; Chappell, “Shipboard Relations.” 19. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 14 Feb. 1852. 20. Saunders, Journal, Warwick, 7 May 1847; Wallis, Life in Feejee, 39, 232; Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 14 Nov. 1851; Henderson, Journal of Thomas Williams, 2: 303, 337–38, 548; Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, 238, 260, 269–70; James S. H. Royce, Diary, 21 Aug. 1856, microfilm reel CY159, Mitchell Library, Sydney, Australia. 21. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 17 (“bright” and “clumsiness”); Keesing-Styles and KeesingStyles, Unto the Perfect Day, 38. See also Cargill, Memoirs of Mrs. Margaret Cargill, 128. Knapman, White Women in Fiji, has some material on servants in missionary households but mainly deals with Fiji’s planter families from the 1860s to the 1920s. 22. Taber, Narrative of a Shipwreck, 42. The exchange is probably that referred to in Cargill’s journal entry of 11 July 1840, “Verelevu threatened to kill and eat Thakau and her father,—if she

272

Notes to Pages 139–145

would not go & obtain from her father a knife & a few small articles which I had given him on account of the services of his daughter,” in Schütz, Diaries and Correspondence of David Cargill, 198. 23. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 12 April 1852. 24. For a list of mission trade goods, see Henderson, Journal of Thomas Williams, 2: 310. 25. Smythe, Ten Months, 56; see also 151–57. 26. John Hunt, for example, grew up poor and lived as a servant and farm laborer until he found his calling as a Methodist preacher; see Rowe, Missionary among Cannibals, 1–39; Thornley, Inheritance of Hope, 1–7. 27. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 14 Nov. 1851, 12 April 1852. 28. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 81. 29. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 100. 30. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 309, 313. 31. No women are listed on crew lists and shipping articles for the Zotoff’, 2 Oct. 1848, or Maid of Orleans, 20 May 1851, SB; Inward Foreign Manifest for the Zotoff, 19 July 1850, SB. For the rationale of U.S. Customs Office forms, see Stein, American Maritime Documents. 32. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 25 Oct. 1851, 18 Mar. 1852, 22 Aug. 1852. 33. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 2 Sept. 1852. 34. “Pheba Nandey,” Household 826, Beverly, MA, 1850 U.S. census manuscript, www. ancestry.com, accessed 20 Dec. 2016. 35. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 391, 417. 36. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 313, 331. 37. Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, 121. For the two Rewa men who went to the United States, see chap. 1. 38. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 413. 39. Household 826, Beverly, MA, 1850 U.S. census manuscript, www. ancestry.com, accessed 20 Mar. 2016. For John and Benjamin as sons of Benjamin and Nabby Wallis, see Beverly, MA, Vital Records, 1: 351, 353. 40. For Whippy Jr. in Beverly, see chap. 3; for Eagleston, see chap. 1. 41. On abolition through “publick opinion,” see Minardi, Making Slavery History, chap. 1. 42. “Charge of the Chief Justice,” 294; Higginbotham, In the Matter of Color, 91–99; McManus, Black Bondage in the North, 163–67; Melish, Disowning Slavery, 64–65, 76. 43. Hill, “Slavery and Its Aftermath”; McFadden, “Set at Liberty”; Adams and Pleck, Love of Freedom, 138–39. 44. Rantoul, “Negro Slavery in Massachusetts,” 95–96. 45. Stone, History of Beverly, 184–85. 46. Record Book, 1847–1862, Box 1, Vol. 2, Salem Female Anti-Slavery Society Records, Mss. 34, PEM. 47. An Annual Catalogue of the Members of the First Baptist Church in Beverly Mass, 16, and Records of the First Baptist Church in Beverly, 1831–1861, 25 Feb. 1842 (antislavery resolution), 20 May 1842 (Wallis appointed to a committee to raise funds for a new building), First Baptist Church of Beverly Archives, Beverly, MA. 48. Rantoul Jr. and Loring, Trial of Thomas Sims; for more on Rantoul Jr., see Hamilton, Memoirs, Speeches, and Writings of Robert Rantoul Jr. On the eve of the Wallises’ departure for Fiji, long articles on the Sims case appeared in local newspapers, including the Whig (procompromise) Salem Register: “Another Fugitive Slave Arrest and Excitement in Boston,” 7 Apr. 1851; “The Fugitive Slave Case,” 10 Apr. 1851; “The Fugitive Case Concluded—Sims Returned to Georgia,” 14 Apri.1851; “The Plan Avowed,” 1 May 1851. 49. For slave prices by age and sex, see Berry, Price for Their Pound of Flesh, 46–51, 83–86.

Notes to Pages 146–153

273

50. Dudden, Serving Women; Lasser, “Domestic Balance of Power.” For paternalism and mutual obligation, see “Indentures, 1805–1838,” Folder 4, Box 2, Salem Female Charitable Society Records, MSS 359, PEM; and Lasser, “‘Pleasingly Oppressive’ Burden,” which uses these records. 51. Larcom, New England Girlhood, 182–83, 199; also Larcom, Idyl of Work, 136. 52. Beecher, Treatise of Domestic Economy, 208 (quote), chap. 18. 53. Caroline Howard King, When I Lived in Salem, 115–16. 54. Beverly, MA, 1850 U.S. manuscript census, www.ancestry.com, accessed 20 Dec. 2016. 55. Dudden, Serving Women. 56. Larcom, New England Girlhood, 96. 57. Caroline Howard King, When I Lived in Salem, 36–37. 58. Percentage of foreign born calculated from 1850 U.S. manuscript census, Beverly, MA, www.ancestry.com, accessed 20 Mar. 2016. For Motealler, see household 283; for Fugot, see household 435. 59. Cleveland, Narrative, 1: 115. For early American involvement in Indian cotton labor, see Florio, “From Poverty to Slavery.” 60. Nathaniel Kinsman to My Dear Sister & Mary Ann, 24 Jan. 1829, Nathaniel Kinsman Papers, PEM, in Adam Matthew digital collection, China, America and the Pacific. 61. Household 230, Salem, MA, 1880 U.S. census manuscript, and John Alley, 9 Feb. 1895 death, Salem, Massachusetts Death Records, 1841–1891, www.ancestry.com, accessed 18 Dec. 2016. 62. Santayana, Persons and Places, 52. Legarda, After the Galleons, 314, states that the Sturgises bought the six-year-old girl from a Manila sea captain in 1851. 63. Eliza Ann Richardson Chever, Diary, 4 Aug. 1859, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA; Vinton, Richardson Memorial, 2: 632. 64. “African Princess in Topsfield,” Topsfield Historical Society, http://topsfieldhistory.org/ stories/index.shtml, accessed 19 Dec. 2014. I thank Lise Breen for directing me to the website. 65. Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, describes women as tribute, war booty, gifts sealing political alignments, one-time offerings to visitors by Fijian hosts, captives abducted for sale as wives and servants: 40, 48, 54, 167–74. See also Keesing-Styles and Keesing-Styles, Unto the Perfect Day, 110; Henderson, Journal of Thomas Williams, 1: 209; Royce, Diary, 4 June 1857. 66. Rowe, James Calvert of Fiji, 99. 67. John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 199. For Calvert’s and Erskine’s antislavery campaign, see Samson, “Rescuing Fijian Women?” 68. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 14 Nov. 1852; see also John B. Williams to U.S. Secretary of State, Despatch 59, 15 March 1853, Despatches Fiji, reel 2. 69. J. Everard Home to Augustus Stafford, 20 Dec. 1852, ADM 1/5617, and J. Everard Home to Colonial Secretary, 19 Dec. 1852, CO 201/463, UK. The latter includes a copy of William Nimmo to E. Deas Thomson, 1 Oct. 1852. 70. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, 214; Seemann, Viti, 42–43. 71. Nimmo to Thomson, 1 Oct. 1852. 72. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 155, 233. 73. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 155, 233 (“monitor”); 325. 74. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 21 Nov. 1852. 75. Inward Foreign Manifest, Maid of Orleans, 17 July 1853, SB. The Benjamin and Mary Wallis household (#824), Beverly, 1855 Massachusetts State census form, www.ancestry.com, accessed 23 Dec. 2016, does not include Phebe nor Mary Daughnought. 76. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 25–26, 384. 77. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 343–45; “bloodshed and murder” in Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 7 Jan. 1852.

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Notes to Pages 153–163

78. Arson destroyed many bêche-de-mer houses, at least seven on Wallis’s first voyage on the Zotoff; see Wallis, Life in Feejee, 107–8, 129. For accounts of fires on other voyages, see Endicott, Wrecked among Cannibals, 26, 35; Chapman, Journal, Consul, 5 and 7 Oct. 1834. Some fires may have been caused by rival traders, as in Logbook, Bark Samos of Salem, 1845–1847, Log 575, 15 July, 10 Sept. 1 Nov., 19 Nov. 1846, PEM. 79. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 28 Sept. and 8 Dec. 1851; Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 324– 26; Joseph Waterhouse, King and People, 134–35. John B. Williams also tried to satisfy Cakobau’s desire for a “flashy but not costly” schooner like the Flying Fish; see John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 24 Mar. 1849, WP; John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 1 Jan. 1853, Despatch 58, Despatches Fiji, reel 2. For Hawaiian royal fleets, see Mills, “Neo in Oceania.” 80. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 16 and 31 Oct. 1851; 21 Jan. 1852. 81. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 25 Jan. 1852. 82. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 26 Jan., 2 Feb., and 24 Feb. 1852. 83. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 29 Feb., 15–19 June, 10 Aug 1852 (quoted). 84. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 27–28 Nov. 1852. 85. Basil Thomson, Fijians, 44, probably paraphrasing Jospeh Waterhouse, King and People, 135. 86. Fitzhugh, Cannibals All!, 27.

6. This Hell upon Earth 1. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, “May 29th 1850” [1851]–18 July 1851, Box 3, Folder 5, WP. 2. I. M. Brower to Henry L. Williams, 10 June 1860, Box 4, Folder 2, WP; “white man’s disease” in Seemann, Viti, 24. 3. For example, see John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 15 Apr. 1848, Box 3, Folder 4, WP. 4. For early millionaires, see Fichter, So Great a Proffit, chap. 5; “Memoir of Elias Hasket Derby”; Whitehill, Captain Joseph Peabody. For mercantile culture as angst inducing, see Ditz, “Shipwrecked”; Luskey, On the Make; Kamensky, Exchange Artist. 5. Corning, “Letters of Sullivan Dorr,” 280, 299, 308, 310. 6. Francis Coffin to “Dear Bro,” 5 and 24 Jan. 1810, and Francis Coffin to John Derby, 23 Oct. 1820, Appleton Family Papers, MHS. 7. Cleveland, Narrative, 1: iii. 8. Salem’s premier gossip, William Bentley, chronicled financial failures in Diary of William Bentley, mentioning so many that all cannot be cited here; see, for example, 4: 1–3, 7, 11–12, 17. For the failure of Williams’s uncle, see “N. L. Rogers in a/c with Augustus D. Rogers,” 1 Nov. 1842, Box 2, Folder 2, and Nathaniel L. Rogers to Augustus D. Rogers, 20 Dec. 1841, Box 2, Folder 9, Rogers Family Papers, MSS 87, PEM. For the failure of Williams’s grandfather’s partner, Jerathmael Peirce, and others, see Nichols, Salem Shipmaster and Merchant, 94–103. For other Salem failures, see Caroline Howard King, When I Lived in Salem, 44, 126–29; Cleveland, Narrative, 2: 236–39. For failure’s frequency in early America, see Balleisen, Navigating Failure; Mann, Republic of Debtors; Kamensky, Exchange Artist; Ditz, “Shipwrecked.” 9. For character, see chap. 3; for role models, see Hunt, Lives of American Merchants; for the value of trust and integrity among merchants, see Haggerty, Merely for Money? 10. SVR 2: 432. For a biographical overview, see Kenny, New Zealand Journal, 1–28. For Salem’s golden age, see Thornton, Nathaniel Bowditch; Bean, Yankee India; James Duncan Phillips, Salem and the Indies and Pepper and Pirates; Booth, Death of an Empire.

Notes to Pages 163–166

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11. Derby, Few Reminiscences of Salem, 13. 12. For Wait’s business activities, see Waite Family Papers, MSS 88, PEM. He signed his name Wait, but others often spelled it Waite, sometimes Waitt. 13. Samuel Williams, Probate Record #30051 (1814), Essex County, “Massachusetts, Wills and Probate Records, 1635–1991” database, www.ancestry.com, accessed 25 Nov. 2015. Israel Williams owned or was part owner of the schooner Chance, schooner Experiment, brig Liberty, brig Rajah, bark Two Brothers, and ship Volusia; owned shares in some vessels on which he served as master (schooner Favorite, brig Independence, brig Levant); and held a share with thirty-four others in a privateer, brig Montgomery, from 1812 until its capture nine months later; see Hitchings and Phillips, Ship Registers, 30, 56, 60, 91, 106–7, 125–26, 152, 188, 195. And he sold goods from a store on Salem’s waterfront: “Israel Williams,” Salem Register, 26 July 1802; “Hides,” Salem Register, 23 Feb. 1804. 14. SVR, 2: 432; “Shipping,” Baltimore Patriot, 3 Sept. 1834; Essex Institute, Old-Time Ships of Salem, 12–13; the National Park Service maintains a replica of the Friendship in Salem Harbor; see National Park Service, “Friendship of Salem,” www.nps.gov/sama/learn/historyculture/ friendshiphistory.htm, accessed 8 May 2018. 15. Charles Cleveland, grantor, to Israel Williams, grantee, 30 Sept. 1805, vol. 177, p. 51, Essex County, MA, Registry of Deeds, www.salemdeeds.com/newwebsitev4/DefaultSearch. aspx, accessed 25 Nov. 2015. Also see Israel Williams Papers, Fam. Mss. 1100, PEM, for many house-related documents. 16. Chamberlain, Stroll through Historic Salem, 103; see also Wiswall, Notes on the Building of Chestnut Street; Tolles, Architecture in Salem, 185; Morison, Maritime History of Massachusetts, 121. 17. “Real Estate for Sale,” Salem Gazette, 3 Aug. 1813; Aaron Wait, Probate Record #28696 (1830), Essex County, “Massachusetts, Wills and Probate Records, 1635–1991” database, ancestry. com, accessed 25 Nov. 2015; Israel Williams to Nathaniel Rogers, 24 Dec. 1819, Rogers Family Papers, MSS 87, Box 2, Folder 6, PEM. 18. EIMS, East-India Marine Society of Salem (1831), 19, 31, 35, 37, 45, 55, 75, 121, 144; Malloy, Souvenirs of the Fur Trade, 44, 67, 70, 107. For the twenty-sixth annual procession and dinner, see “East India Marine Society,” Essex Register, 17 Oct. 1825. For remembrances of Israel Williams, see Benjamin F. Browne, “Memorials of the Salem Independent Cadets from 1786 to 1861,” in Jenkins, “Essex Guards,” 57: 260; “Deaths,” Salem Gazette, 13 Dec. 1831. 19. A. Forbes and J. W. Greene, Rich Men of Massachusetts, 88. 20. Aaron Waite Trustees’ Papers, 1830–1883, Rogers Family Papers, MSS 87, Box 8, Folder 8, PEM. 21. SVR, 2: 430–35; for brother Aaron’s death, see John B. Williams to “Dear Parents,” 16 Sept. 1830; for brother George’s death, see W. F. Megee to Israel Williams, 17 May 1825, Henry L. Williams Papers, Fam. Mss. 1099, Box 1, Folder 2, PEM. For Henry’s career, see “Obituary,” Boston Evening Journal, 29 Sept. 1879; more obituaries are pasted into volume labeled “Diary 1864,” 103–5, Henry L. Williams Papers. For Peabody, see Whitehill, Captain Joseph Peabody. 22. Upham, “Memoir of George Atkinson Ward,” a Salem-born, New York–based merchant who also started out in Joseph Peabody’s counting house, “as auspicious a commencement of his career, as could have been found anywhere” (51); Nichols, Salem Shipmaster and Merchant; Cleveland, Narrative, 1: xviii–xix; Thornton, Nathaniel Bowditch; Doig, “To Have and to Hold?” 23. Charles F. Williams to Henry L. Williams, – May 1853 (see also 16 Apr., 31 May, & 17 Oct. 1853 in same folder), Box 2, Folder 7, WP. 24. Samuel Williams to Henry L. Williams, 13 Nov. 1851, Box 2, Folder 6, and 7 July 1853, Box 2, Folder 7, WP. 25. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 10 Mar. 1858, Box 3, Folder 8, WP.

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Notes to Pages 167–170

26. For John B. Williams’s voyages, only the Baltimore (Oct. 1831 departure) and Tybee (1832) came up in Salem, Mass. Crew Lists Index, 1799–1879, Mystic Seaport Museum, library. mysticseaport.org/initiative/SalemSelect.cfm, accessed 22 Dec. 2013; John B. Williams, Journal, Ship Black Warrior of Salem, 1828 (includes his journal for 1831 voyage on Baltimore). Log 225, PEM; for vessel ownership, see Hitchings and Phillips, Ship Registers, 22, 189–90; for Tybee ports of call, see William K. Driver, Journal, Ship Tybee of Salem, 1832–1833, Log 321, PEM, PMB reel 206; for more on Salem’s New Zealand trade, see Druett, “Salem Connection.” 27. Stephen C. Phillips lived in a house built by his father at 17 Chestnut before 1837 and at 29 Chestnut from 1837 to 1855 according to Wiswall, Notes on the Building of Chestnut Street, 9, 18. For Fiji voyages and investors, see appendix B. 28. M. Assano to John B. Williams, 27 Dec. 1846, Box 3, Folder 4, WP; “Capt. John B. Williams,” Salem Register, 22 Apr. 1841. 29. John B. Williams to Daniel Webster, 4 Nov. 1841; S. C. Phillips to Daniel Webster, 14 Oct. 1841; L. Saltonstall to Daniel Webster, 5 Oct. 1841, 15 Dec. 1841, 28 Feb. 1842; Benjamin Merrill to Daniel Webster, 16 Nov. 1841; in National Historical Publications Commission, Microfilm Edition of the Papers of Daniel Webster, reel 16. See also John B. Williams to Leverett Saltonstall, 7 Aug. 1841, and Joshua H. Ward, “To all whom it may concern,” 12 Oct. 1841, in U.S. National Archives, Letters of Application and Recommendation During the Administrations of Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, and John Tyler, 1837–1845, Microcopy Collection 687, reel 34. Saltonstall lived at 41 Chestnut in Wiswall, Notes on the Building of Chestnut Street, 14–15. For Webster as secretary of state, see Clyde Augustus Duniway, “Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, March 5, 1841, to May 8, 1843, (First Term),” in Bemis, American Secretaries of State, 5: 1–64. Williams associated with the Whig Party; see “Whig Nominations (Election Nov. 8, 1841),” Salem Register, 8 Nov. 1841. 30. John B. Williams to Daniel Webster, 4 Apr. 1842, Despatches New Zealand, reel 1. 31. “Richard Palmer Waters”; Bennett, “Americans in Zanzibar”; for Waters’s May 1840 arrival in Salem, see Richard P. Waters to John Forsyth, 28 June 1840, Richard P. Waters Papers, MH-14, Box 3, Folder 7, PEM. 32. For histories of the U.S. consular system, see Walter B. Smith II, America’s Diplomats and Consuls; Kennedy, American Consul; Raffety, Republic Afloat, chap. 7; De Goey, Consuls and the Institutions of Global Capitalism. 33. Thomas Jefferson to Sylvanus Bourne, 14 Aug. 1791, Founders Online, www.founders. archives.gov, accessed 18 May 2018. 34. Thomas Jefferson, “Circular to American Consuls, 26 August 1790,” Founders Online, www.founders.archives.gov, accessed 28 May 2016. Salemite Nathaniel Hawthorne, consul in Liverpool, England, wished he had a “consular dress” to wear on special occasions in Nathaniel Hawthorne to William D. Ticknor, 17 Feb. 1854, in Woodson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 178. Diplomats were more likely than consuls to adopt special attire though even that was controversial; see Robert Ralph Davis Jr., “Diplomatic Plumage” and “Republican Simplicity.” 35. Charles F. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 16 July 1844, Box 1, Folder 2, WP. 36. “Invoices and Memos, 1842–1845 and n.d.” folder, Box 3, Folder 3, WP; John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 3 Jan. 1843, Despatch 1, Despatches New Zealand, reel 1. 37. Police Office, Kororarika to John B. Williams, n.d., attached to John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 28 Feb. 1843, Despatch 3, Despatches New Zealand, reel 1, gives Williams’s address. For Mayhew, see James R. Clendon to Secretary of State, 20 Apr. 1841, on same reel. 38. John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 1 Mar. 1843, Despatch 5, and n.d. [received 6 June 1844], Despatch 11, Despatches New Zealand, reel 1; Polack, New Zealand (1838) recounts his travels as a flax trader and describes timber and gum trades; Polack, Manners and Customs (1840) revisits

Notes to Pages 170–174

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the ethnographic descriptions from the 1838 book. For more on Polack, see Goldman, History of the Jews in New Zealand, 33–68. 39. N. L. Rogers and Brothers to Leverett Saltonstall, 25 June 1842, Despatches New Zealand, reel 1; Wilkes, Narrative, 1: 164. 40. John White, History of a Voyage to the China Sea; Cleveland, Narrative. 41. Kenny, New Zealand Journal, 37, 43, 66–67, 69, 71–72, 88–89. 42. E. W. W., “Greedy Critic,” Alexander Turnbull Library, http://teaohou.natlib.govt.nz/ teaohou/issue/Mao20TeA/c28.html, accessed 22 June 2007. Few histories of New Zealand draw on Williams’s account since it did not add much substance; its hyperbole, however, meshed with Richard Wolfe’s depiction of 1840s Russell in a book titled Hell-hole of the Pacific, which quotes extensively from Williams. 43. Kenny, New Zealand Journal, 83–84; Ramsden, Busby of Waitangi; O’Malley, Beyond the Imperial Frontier, 36–43. 44. William Mayhew to Secretary of State, 1 Apr. 1844, Despatches New Zealand, reel 1. 45. Henry L. Williams to Charles Scholfield, 13 Dec. 1843, and Charles Scholfield to Henry L. Williams, 14 Dec. 1843, Box 1, Folder 1, WP. 46. Busby, First Settlers, 13–14; Ramsden, Busby of Waitangi, 281–89. Busby later mentioned having visited the Williams family in Salem in James Busby to John B. Williams, 13 Sept. 1854, Box 3, Folder 5, WP. 47. Joel S. Polack to Henry L. Williams, 29 Sept. 1845, Box 3, Folder 1, WP. For Williams’s correspondence about kauri gum, see John B. Williams to Lydia Williams and Henry L. Williams, 14 Sept. 1845, and John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 27 Sept. 1845, Box 3, Folder 4, WP. 48. Contract between Breed & Huse and John B. Williams, 16 Nov. 1844, Box 3, Folder 1, WP. For Breed, see Susan L. Johnson, “Life of Hon. Andrews Breed”; Kurtz, Bluejackets in the Blubber Room, 24–56, 145–46. 49. Maude, Of Islands and Men, 243; Barrie Macdonald, Cinderellas of the Empire, 25–26. The Belle arrived at Laucala, Fiji, a few months after Williams; John B. Williams to Secretary of State, Shipping Returns, 22 June 1846, Despatch 5, Despatches Fiji, reel 1. 50. John B. Williams to Secretary of State, n.d. [received 6 July 1844] and, re Auckland, 22 July 1844, Despatches New Zealand, reel 1. 51. “Death of a U.S. Consul.—Anecdote of Mr. Clay,” Baltimore Sun, 11 Oct. 1860. 52. John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 18 Nov. 1844, Despatches Fiji, reel 1. 53. Walter B. Smith II, America’s Diplomats and Consuls, 35–36. 54. John B. Williams to Lydia Williams and Henry L. Williams, 8 Mar. and 16 Apr. 1845 (quoted), Box 3, Folder 4, WP. 55. John G. Williams, Adventures of a Seventeen-Year-Old Lad, 80, 97–99, 123–24. 56. For Port Nicholson, see “Wednesday, June 11, 1845,” Wellington Independent, 11 June 1845; “Extensive Sale by Auction on Tuesday, 17th June, James Smith & Co.,” Wellington Independent, 14 June 1845; “Arms and Ammunition,” New Zealander, 5 July 1845; John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 9 June 1845, Box 3, Folder 4, WP. For the wreck, see “Deposition of Capt. Mosel[e]y of Falco, taken by John B. Williams,” n.d., Despatches New Zealand, reel 1; “Wreck of the American Brig Falco,” New Zealand Spectator and Cook’s Strait Guardian, 6 Sept. 1845; Frances Porter, Turanga Journals, 341–43 (missionary William Williams quoted on 343); John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 27 Sept. 1845, Box 3, Folder 4, WP. 57. William Mayhew to Secretary of State, 1 Apr. 1844; Henry G. Smith to Secretary of State, 15 May 1844; J. S. Polack to Secretary of State, 17 and 23 June 1846 in Despatches New Zealand, reel 1; Joel S. Polack to Secretary of State, 20 Jan. 1847, Despatches New Zealand, reel 2;

278

Notes to Pages 174–178

James Buchanan to John B. Williams, 12 Dec. 1845 and 21 Apr. 1847, in John Bassett Moore, Works of James Buchanan, 6: 340, 7: 283. See also Moon, Hone Heke, 41–44, 59. 58. Joel S. Polack to Secretary of State, 23 June 1846, Despatches New Zealand, reel 1; John B. Williams to Lydia Williams and Henry L. Williams, 14 Sept. 1845, Box 3, Folder 4, WP. 59. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 30 Jan. 1846, Box 3, Folder 4, WP; John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 20 June 1846, Despatch 4, Despatches Fiji, reel 1. 60. John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 20 June 1846, Despatch 3, Fiji Despatches, reel 1. On Rewa harbor’s qualities, see Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 183; I. M. Brower to Henry L. Williams, 20 June 1870, Box 4, Folder 2, WP. 61. John Humphrey Danford testimony at LCC, in Lansing, American and British Claims Arbitration, 395. 62. Quote from Seemann, Viti, 160; see also 99–102. For his prospecting trek into the Viti Levu interior, see John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 15 July 1846, Box 3, Folder 4, WP; John B. Williams to Secretary of State 1 Oct. 1856, Despatch 84, Despatches Fiji, reel 2. For land purchases, see U.S. Department of State, Memorandum on Fiji Land Claims, 55–72; Lansing, American and British Claims Arbitration, 52–64, 328–419; Island of Naqara (Serua), Reports 580 and 580A, LCC. 63. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 228. 64. Seemann, Viti, 412. 65. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 15 July and 7 Aug. 1846, Box 3, Folder 4, WP. 66. Henry T. Saunders, Journal, Schooner Warwick of Boston, 1845–1849, Log 580, PEM, PMB reel 211, reports on Williams’s activities from 1846 to 1848; see also Wallis, Life in Feejee, 208, 253–54. On sailing durations, see Seemann, Viti, 5, 218, and for Rotumah as thirty-two hours away, see John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 30 June 1847, Despatch 9, Fiji Despatches, reel 1. For the vessels, see John B. Williams to Secretary of State, Shipping Returns, 22 June 1846, Despatch 5, Fiji Despatches, reel 1. 67. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 14 Oct. 1850, Box 3, Folder 5, WP. 68. John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 290. 69. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 10 Nov. 1846, Box 3, Folder 4, WP. 70. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 15 July 1846, Box 3, Folder 4, WP. 71. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 225–26. 72. John Hunt, Journal, 31 Dec. 1843, South Seas Papers: Biographical, Fiche 1623, WMSL. For Tongans, see Spurway, Ma‘afu, 69–78. For Pritchard, see his autobiography, Polynesian Reminiscences; Robson, Prelude to Empire. 73. John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 20 June 1846, Despatch 3, and 1 Jan. “1846” [1847], Despatch 6, Despatches Fiji, reel 1; for examples of Whippy acting as vice consul by providing Williams with information, see David Whippy to John B. Williams, 13 Dec. 1846, in John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 30 June 1847, Despatch 9, Despatches Fiji, reel 1; David Whippy to John B. Williams, n.d. [after the 1855 Battle of Kaba], Box 3, Folder 10, and 21 June 1855, Box 3, Folder 7, WP. 74. John B. Williams to [Henry L. Williams?], n.d., Box 3, Folder 4, WP; Wallis, Life in Feejee, 409; John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 195. 75. Seemann, Viti, 64–65. 76. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 250. 77. Seemann, Viti, 102. 78. Joseph Waterhouse to “My dear Mother,” 25 Sept. 1860, Joseph Waterhouse Papers, Mitchell Library, Sydney, Australia. 79. Williams had at least two uniforms made. A receipt for “Gilt Epauletts” from Harris, Stanwood, & Co., Boston, 4 Nov. 1844, Box 4, Folder 4, WP, was for the first uniform. In John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 21 Dec. 1856, Box 3, Folder 7, WP, John asked Henry to have a new uniform made of lightweight fabric, with gold trim, epaulettes, and naval-style buttons. This

Notes to Pages 178–181

279

is probably the uniform that survives in the Peabody Essex Museum collections, ID M2435, which is made of lightweight wool. 80. Quote from Joseph Warren Osborn, Journal, Ship Emerald of Salem, 31 Jan–25 Feb. 1835, Log 332, PEM, PMB reel 223. For a family history told by Cokanauto himself, see Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 131–36; for eight brothers, see Joseph Waterhouse, King and People, 27– 28. For Veidovi, see Fabian, Skull Collectors, chap. 4; Adler, “Capture and Curation"; Stewart, “Skull of Veidovi.” For Bau’s attack on Rewa and Kania’s death, see Wallis, Life in Feejee, 150–52. 81. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 326, 387–88; Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 172–78. On Cokanauto as vasu to Bau and vasu privileges, see Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 63, 77; Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, 34–35. See Routledge, Matanitu¯, for the vasu tradition and its destabilizing political effects. For the Bau-Rewa war, see Sahlins, Apologies to Thucydides. 82. On 3 July 1831, on the Peru, Eagleston named a young Cokanauto “Phillips”; see John H. Eagleston, Autobiography: Book No 1, 336, PEM, PMB reel 207. For the Tahiti trip, see John H. Eagleston, Journal, Ship Emerald of Salem, 1833–1836, May–Aug. 1834, Log 334, PEM, PMB reel 223; John H. Eagleston, Autobiography: “Voyage of the Ship Emerald 1833 to 1836,” 15–38, PEM, PMB reel 205; for Eagleston’s recommendation, see “To all masters of vessels who may visit this place,” 31 Aug. 1834, Phillips Family Papers, MH-4, Box 4, Folder 1, PEM. 83. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 121. 84. Charles Pickering, Journal, U.S. Exploring Expedition, 18 May 1841, MHS; Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 122; see also “Jackson’s Narrative,” in John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 460–62. 85. Belcher, Narrative of a Voyage, 2: 50. 86. “Jackson’s Narrative,” in John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 460–62; Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 111; William L. Hudson, Journal, U.S. Exploring Expedition, 15 May 1840, American Museum of Natural History, PMB reel 146; Guernsey, “Cruise After and Among the Cannibals,” 472; Thomas Jaggar, Journal Extracts, 1 Oct. 1841, Fiche 257, WMSL. 87. Danford testimony in Lansing, American and British Claims Arbitration, 336. 88. Lansing, American and British Claims Arbitration, 347. 89. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 230–31. 90. John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 1 Jan. “1846” [1847], Despatch 6, Despatches Fiji, reel 1. 91. Lansing, American and British Claims Arbitration, 331–38. 92. Agreement between John B. Williams and George N. Cheever, 6 June 1846; George N. Cheever to John B. Williams, 17 and 20 June 1846, Box 3, Folder 2, WP. The Warwick was registered out of Boston but Salem-owned and -staffed. 93. George N. Cheever, Logbook (-17 June 1846) and Henry T. Saunders, Journal (18 June 1846-), Schooner Warwick of Boston, 1845–1849, quote from 22 June 1846, PEM, PMB reel 211 (note that “the Boy” in Saunders’s account is Cokanauto); John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 14 Aug. 1848, Despatch 19, Fiji Despatches, reel 1. The 20 June 1848 statement by Cokanauto castigating Saunders for insulting him and mistreating women was probably instigated by Williams’s animosity toward Saunders, in John B. Williams to Secretary of State, n.d. [July 1848], Despatch 16, Fiji Despatches, reel 1. 94. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 25 Mar. 1848, Box 3, Folder 4, WP. 95. John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 13 Apr. 1848, Despatch 64, and Joel Samuel Polack to John B. Williams, 17 Apr. 1848, in Despatches New Zealand, reel 2. 96. John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 11 June 1849, Despatch 23, Despatches Fiji, reel 1. See also John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 15 Apr. 1848, Box 3, Folder 4, and Robert A. FitzGerald to Capt. Caldwell, 4 Nov. 1848, Box 3, Folder 2, WP.

280

Notes to Pages 181–186

97. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 30 May and 18 Aug. 1849, Box 3, Folder 4, WP; Agreement between Williams and Cheever, 6 June 1846, Box 3, Folder 2, WP. 98. Danford testimony in Lansing, American and British Claims Arbitration, 395. 99. John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 25 July 1849, Despatch 24, Despatches Fiji, reel 1; John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 31 Aug. 1849, Box 3, Folder 4, WP. In the 1840s, seven to eight towns on Beqa were subject to Cokanauto according to “Jackson’s Narrative” in John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 460–62. 100. Williams to Secretary of State, 25 July 1849; see also John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 31 Aug. 1849, Box 3, Folder 4, WP; John B. Williams to James Gordon Bennett, editor of New York Herald, 4 Apr. 1857, Box 3, Folder 7, WP. 101. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 10 Nov. 1847, Box 3, Folder 4, WP. 102. Moturike in Wallis, Life in Feejee, 406; Viwa in John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 4 Mar. 1850, Despatch 28, Fiji Despatches, reel 2; Mary D. Wallis, Journal, Bark Maid of Orleans of Salem, 11 May 1852, Log 1740, PEM. 103. For Catharine, see Shipping Returns, 1 Jan. 1849, Despatch 21, Despatches Fiji, reel 1. For vessels involved, see “Miscellaneous,” Launceston Examiner (Tasmania, Australia), 12 Sept. 1849. See also Douglas, “Export Trade.” 104. “Massacres at the Sandal-Wood Islands,” Sydney Morning Herald, 24 Jan. 1850; John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 4 Mar. 1850, Box 3, Folder 9, WP; he wrote little about this incident, telling the State Department in a Despatch only of the Bramble’s return of eight Fijians, with no hint of his own involvement: John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 1 July 1850, Despatch 33, Despatches Fiji, reel 2. 105. “Domestic Intelligence: Insolvent Court,” Sydney Morning Herald, 22 July 1850. 106. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 14 Oct. (quoted) and 14 Nov. 1850 (appointment of Thomas Lewis as new vice consul and business agent), Box 3, Folder 5, WP; “To All Whom It May Concern,” New Zealander, 5 July 1851. 107. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 14 Oct. 1850, Box 3, Folder 5, WP. 108. Charles F. Williams to Henry L. Williams,—May 1853, Box 2, Folder 7; John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 11 Aug., 12 Nov., and 25 Dec. 1852; 24 Jan. 1853, Box 3, Folder 2, WP. 109. Wallis, Journal, Maid of Orleans, 23 June–7 Nov. 1852. 110. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 11 Aug. and 12 Nov. 1852, 24 Jan. and 23 Aug. (quoted) 1853, Box 3, Folder 2, WP. For the seventy-two men, see Shipping Returns, John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 1 July 1853, Despatch 63, Despatches Fiji, reel 2. 111. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 24 Apr. 1854, Box 3, Folder 2, WP; David Whippy to Secretary of State, 1 Aug. 1854, Despatches Fiji, reel 2. 112. Harold W. Thompson, Last of the Logan, 121. 113. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 18 June 1849, Box 3, Folder 4, WP. 114. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 31 Mar. 1857 (quoted) and 10 Oct. 1857, Box 3, Folder 7, WP. He officially chose Fiji in John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 12 Mar. 1857, Despatch 88, Despatches Fiji, reel 3. 115. John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 14 Nov. 1850, Despatch 38, Despatches Fiji, reel 2.

7. Tui America 1. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 24 Jan. 1853, Box 3, Folder 2, WP. 2. John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 16 April 1846, Despatch 2, Despatches Fiji, reel 1. 3. Appendix C.

Notes to Pages 186–190

281

4. “The Chastisement of the Fejees,” Daily National Intelligencer (Washington, DC), 20 Feb. 1856. See also Vago, “Additional from the Feejee Islands,” New York Herald, 15 Feb. 1856; John B. Williams, “The Feejee Islands,” Daily Southern Cross, 8 Oct. 1850; John B. Williams, “Feejee Islands,” Sydney Empire, 30 Dec. 1853; John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 30 Dec. 1847, Box 3, Folder 4, WP. 5. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 10 Nov. 1846, Box 3, Folder 4, WP. For Whippy, see chap. 2. 6. Long, Gold Braid and Foreign Relations, 300–307. 7. Moulton, “Gunboat Diplomacy”; Leiner, End of Barbary Terror, 129–30. 8. For more discussion of these issues, see Shoemaker, “Extraterritorial United States”; for state support of private expansionist schemes, see Janice E. Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns on early modern Europe; for comparative Pacific imperialism, see Brookes, International Rivalry. 9. Vattel, Law of Nations, 3: 136; Frederick Sherwood Dunn, Protection of Nationals; John Bassett Moore, Digest of International Law; Borchard, Diplomatic Protection; as a feature of British expansion, Benton and Ford, Rage for Order, chap. 4. For the navy’s protection mandate, see U.S. Congress, “Act to Provide a Naval Armament.” 10. U.S. Congress, Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, “Address by Franklin Pierce, 1853,” http://www.inaugural.senate.gov/swearing-in/address/address-byfranklin-pierce-1853, accessed 15 May 2016; regarding Pierce, see John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 16 Oct. 1855, Despatch 75, Despatches Fiji, reel 2. 11. U.S. Congress, “Act for the Relief and Protection of American Seamen”; Perl-Rosenthal, Citizen Sailors. 12. For Polack, see chap. 6. See, for example, seaman Peter Dowling’s stolen coat in John B. Williams to Secretary of State, July 1848, Despatch 16, and theft of the Pilot’s boat, 13 Oct 1848, Despatch 20, Despatches Fiji, reel 1. 13. William Miller to Earl of Aberdeen, 11 July 1844, and William Miller to Chief Seru [Cakobau] et al., 4 Oct. 1844, FO 58/26, UK. 14. William L. Hudson, Journal, U.S. Exploring Expedition, p. 324, American Museum of Natural History, PMB reel 146. 15. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 22 Feb. 1851, Box 3, Folder 5, WP; John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 1 Jan. 1853, Despatch 58; 30 May 1853, Despatch 61; 1 Jan. 1854, Despatch 67; 31 Dec. 1856, Despatch 85, Despatches Fiji, reel 2. For the two Friendships, see Hitchings and Phillips, Ship Registers, 66–67. For the Friendship retribution and a later incident involving the Salem pepper trader Eclipse, see J. N. Reynolds, Voyage of the United States Frigate Potomac; Long, “‘Martial Thunder’”; James Duncan Phillips, Pepper and Pirates, chaps. 11–16. 16. John Bassett Moore, History and Digest of the International Arbitrations. For a British example of claims leading to gunboat diplomacy, see Taylor, Don Pacifico. 17. VanDereedt, “Do We Have any Records Relating to French Spoliation Claims?”; U.S. Congress, “French Spoliation Claims”; for Salem, see French Spoliation Claims Records, MSS 160, PEM. 18. Feller, Mexican Claims Commissions, 1–7; Jonas, “United States Citizens vs. Mexico.” 19. Remini, Daniel Webster, 188–89, 228, 433, 661. 20. John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 25 July 1849, Despatch 24, Despatches Fiji, reel 1. For a similar “protest” precipitating a claim in 1850s Japan, see Train, American Merchant, 124–25. 21. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 14 Sept. 1845 (quoted) and 1 Oct. 1845, Box 3, Folder 4; and 18 July 1851, Box 3, Folder 5, WP. For Falco, see chap. 6. 22. Leverett Saltonstall to [Daniel Webster, Secretary of State], 29 June 1842 and N. L. Rogers and Brothers to Leverett Saltonstall, 25 June 1842, Despatches New Zealand, reel 1; James Buchanan

282

Notes to Pages 190–193

to Louis McLane, 18 Nov. 1845 (quoted), in John Bassett Moore, Works of James Buchanan, 6: 309; United States, Message of the President, 49. 23. U.S. Congress, List of Private Claims; Wiecek, “Origin of the United States Court of Claims”; Skogen, Indian Depredation Claims. 24. Albion, “Distant Stations”; Robert Erwin Johnson, Thence Round Cape Horn; Schroeder, Shaping a Maritime Empire; “Naval Powers of England and France,” Boston Daily Journal Evening Edition, 17 Mar. 1852. 25. Hunter Miller, Treaties and Other International Acts, 7: 283–324; appendix C. 26. I. N. Chapman, Journal, Brig Consul of New York, 1834–1835, 15–16 July 1834, Log 351, PEM, PMB reel 206; George N. Cheever, Journal, Ship Emerald of Salem, 1833–1836, 21–30 Jan. 1834, Log 333, PEM, PMB reel 223. 27. John H. Eagleston, Journal, Bark Peru of Salem, 1830–1833, 2 June 1831, PEM, Log 283, PMB reel 205. 28. Joseph Warren Osborn, Journal, Ship Emerald of Salem, 1833–1836, 4 July 1834, Log 332, PEM, PMB reel 223. 29. George A. Magruder to Charles S. McCauley 23 Sept. 1851, U.S. National Archives, Pacific Squadron Letters, 1841–1886, Microcopy Collection M89, reel 35. Hunter Miller printed this letter in Treaties and Other International Acts, 293–95. The Havannah had 250 men; see John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 31. 30. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 156; Hudson, Journal, U.S. Exploring Expedition, 12, 15, and 18 May 1840; Logbook, U.S. Sloop-of-War Falmouth, 12 Mar. 1851, Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel (RG 24), U.S. National Archives, Washington, DC; Shipley, Sketches in the Pacific, 28; Charles R. Drinkwater Bethune to George Gipps, 4 Oct. 1838, FO 58/1, UK. 31. Appendix C; chap. 3. 32. Charles R. Drinkwater Bethune Report, Ship Conway, 5 Oct. 1838, FO 58/1 (“Bad characters”); J. Everard Home to Augustus Stafford, 20 Dec. 1852, ADM 1/5617 (“suspicious characters”); Charles R. Drinkwater Bethune to F. S. Maitland, 9 Feb. 1838, ADM 1/218 (“suspicious characters” and “employed . . .”), UK; Samson, Imperial Benevolence; Bach, Australian Station, chap. 4; Brookes, International Rivalry, 43–45. 33. John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 3–4, 80, 224. 34. Shipley, Sketches in the Pacific, 28, 33–34. See also Worth, “Voyage of H.M.S. ‘Calypso’” ( July 1853), 364–65. For Malolo, see chap. 3. 35. R. Hornby to H. G. Ward, 20 Oct. 1849, FO 58/72, UK. 36. Joseph Waterhouse to G. M. Waterhouse and T. Padman, 12 Dec. 1851, Joseph Waterhouse Papers, Mitchell Library, Sydney, Australia. 37. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 389. 38. Stephen Fremantle to Ralph Osborne, 12 Dec. 1855, ADM 1/5672, UK. 39. Smythe, Ten Months, 157. 40. Hazlewood, Feejeean and English Dictionary, 155. 41. John Elphinstone Erskine, Journal of a Cruise, 204–5 (quoted 204). 42. John H. Eagleston, Autobiography: “Book No 1,” 328, 333, PEM, PMB reel 207; see also Eagleston, Journal, Peru, 9 June and 17/18 June 1831; Wallis, Life in Feejee, 24, 223; Logbook, Sloopof-War St. Mary’s, 25 July 1851, Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel (RG 24), U.S. National Archives, Washington, DC. 43. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 48–49. 44. J. Hunt to “Fathers & Bretheren,” 29 June 1839, Fiche 245, WMSL. 45. Wilkes, Narrative, 3: 141–42, 156; Fabian, Skull Collectors, chap. 4. For removal as a residual fear, see J. Everard Home to “Chief of Rawa Rata Gaggara” [Qaraniqio], 18 Oct. 1852, Fiche 289, WMSL.

Notes to Pages 193–197

283

46. William A. Graham to Daniel Webster, 12 Feb. 1851, Despatches Fiji, reel 2; C. S. McCauley to Thomas Petigru, 3 Oct. 1850, U.S. National Archives, Pacific Squadron Letters, reel 35; appendix C. In response to Williams’s despatches, the secretary of the navy ordered a Pacific Squadron vessel to Fiji in 1848, but no vessel arrived, in J. Y. Mason to Thomas ap Catesby Jones, 27 Mar. 1847, in Bauer, American State Papers: Naval Affairs, 3: 43. 47. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 15 Mar. 1851, Box 3, Folder 5, WP. 48. John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 6 Mar. 1851, Despatch 41, Despatches Fiji, reel 2; for more on the Namuka incident, see John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 4 Mar. 1850, Despatch 28, Despatches Fiji, reel 2. 49. On the origins and misapplication of the Tui Viti title, see Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, 33–34. 50. “Cruise of Sloop of War Falmouth,” Alexandria Gazette, 28 July 1851; 23 Feb.-17 Mar. 1851, Logbook, Sloop-of-War Falmouth, Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel (RG 24), U.S. National Archives, Washington, DC; John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 14 Mar. 1851, Despatch 42, Despatches Fiji, reel 2. 51. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 15 Mar. 1851, Box 3, Folder 5, WP. 52. U.S. Department of State, Memorandum on Fiji Land Claims, 55–66; Lansing, American and British Claims Arbitration, 328–61; John B. Williams to Commodore Mervine, 28 June 1856 (copy), in John B Williams to Secretary of State, 30 June 1856, Despatch 81, Despatches Fiji, reel 2; James S. H. Royce, Diary, 16 Sept. 1856, microfilm CY159, Mitchell Library, Sydney, Australia. 53. “Protest,” attached to John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 15 Apr. 1851, Despatch 44, Despatches Fiji, reel 2. 54. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 15 Mar. 1851, Box 3, Folder 5, WP. 55. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 29 May “1850” [1851], Box 3, Folder 5, WP. 56. John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 31 July 1851, Despatch 47, and 1 Jan. 1853, Despatch 58; David Whippy to John B. Williams, 1 Oct. 1855, in John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 16 Oct. 1855, Despatch 75; and James Calvert to Secretary of State, 1 Jan. 1856, Despatches Fiji, reel 2. 57. Magruder to McCauley. See also John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, letter fragment, n.d. [July 1851], 29 July 1851, 4 Feb. 1853, Box 3, Folder 5, WP; “Feejee,” Missionary Notices, no. 161 (May 1852), 67; Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 318–19. 58. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 181–82 (Cokanauto’s death), 331–33 (Ilaitia’s death); for Macuata, see chap. 5; for Levuka, see chap. 3; Joseph Waterhouse, King and People, chap. 8–10, and Vah-ta-ah, 75–89. 59. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 182. For the Wesleyan-Cakobau collaboration, see Samson, Imperial Benevolence, chap. 4; Darch, Missionary Imperialists?, chap. 3. For Calvert as Cakobau’s adviser, see Wallis, Life in Feejee, 409. 60. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 4 Nov. 1855, Box 3, Folder 1, WP. 61. “Interesting from the Fejee Islands,” Salem Register, 17 Jan. 1850. See also John B. Williams to Secretary of State,—July 1848, Despatch 16, Despatches Fiji, reel 1. 62. “Strong competition” in 23 Aug. addendum in John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 10 Aug. 1851, Box 3, Folder 5, WP. “A more Godlike . . .” in John B. Williams, “Feejee Islands,” Empire (Sydney, Australia), 30 Dec. 1853. For the failed Viwa landing, see John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 26 Nov. 1851, Despatch 50, Despatches Fiji, reel 2; Mary D. Wallis, Journal, Bark Maid of Orleans of Salem, 1851–1853, 11 May 1852, Log 1740, PEM. For the Marist mission in Fiji, see Blanc, Histoire Religieuse de l’Archipel Fidjien, 1: 136–61. 63. “Doings in the South Sea Islands,” Empire (Sydney, Australia), 5 May 1853. “Long Fellow” in this article is Qaraniqio.

284

Notes to Pages 198–202

64. John B. Williams, “Feejee Islands.” “Frani” in this article is Varani/Ilaitia. 65. Joseph Waterhouse, King and People, 168–81 (quoted 168, 171, 174); Robert Young, Southern World, 305–6. 66. Wallis, Life in Feejee, 174. 67. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 318. 68. Home to Stafford; Joseph Waterhouse, King and People, 137. 69. David Whippy to John B. Williams, n.d. [1855], Box 3, Folder 10, WP. See also Harold W. Thompson, Last of the Logan, 97–99; Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 190–91; Joseph Waterhouse, King and People, 204–5. Williams was away from Fiji from mid-1854 to mid-1855; see David Whippy to Secretary of State, 1 Aug. 1854, and John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 10 Aug. 1855, Despatch 69, Despatches Fiji, reel 2. 70. I. C. Campbell, “Alleged Imperialism”; Spurway, Ma‘afu, 140–49. 71. J. C. Dobbin to W. L. Marcy, 16 Oct. 1854, and John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 16 Oct. 1855, Despatch 75, Despatches Fiji, reel 2; T. Bailey to E. B. Boutwell, 10 Oct. 1855, in U.S. Congress, “Sloop of War ‘John Adams,’” 54 (see also subsequent letter from Bailey to Boutwell, 55–56). 72. U.S. Congress, “Sloop of War ‘John Adams’”; John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 16 Oct. 1855 (note that the attachments date to after 16 October because Williams kept a running commentary of events as they happened); for the hostage, see Joseph Waterhouse, Vah-ta-ah, 131–32; for Sparr, see Shoemaker, Native American Whalemen and the World, chap. 7. 73. E. B. Boutwell, “I, Tui Viti . . . ,” 23 Oct. 1855, in John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 16 Oct. 1855, and U.S. Congress, “Sloop of War ‘John Adams,’” 68–69; for Williams’s activities, see Logbook, Sloop of War John Adams, 1854–1855, 20 Oct.–8 Nov. 1855 (“permitted to leave” in 25 Oct. entry), Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel (RG 24), U.S. National Archives, Washington, DC. 74. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 26 Oct. 1855 (“warm one”), Box 3, Folder 1; 26 Nov. 1855 (all other quotes), Box 3, Folder 2, WP. See also John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 16 Oct. 1855; Logbook, John Adams, 28–31 Oct. 1856; “Important from the Fejee Islands,” New York Herald, 15 Feb. 1856; U.S. Congress, “Sloop of War ‘John Adams,’” 2–9 (Boutwell’s report on towns destroyed), 71–73. 75. U.S. Congress, “Sloop of War ‘John Adams,’” 3. U.S. Department of State, Memorandum on Fiji Land Claims, 55–66; Lansing, American and British Claims Arbitration, 347. 76. James Calvert, “The Feejee Islands,” Sydney Morning Herald, 12 Jan. 1856; “American Doings in the Fiji Islands,” Sydney Morning Herald, 9 Jan. 1856. For other Calvert communiqués, see James Calvert to Secretary of State, 1 Jan. 1856; Affidavit of James Calvert before John H. Williams in Sydney, 31 Dec. 1855; attachments in John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 31 Mar. 1856, Despatch 79; James Bishop to Secretary of State, 2 May 1856; William Arthur to Secretary of State, 11 April 1856 in Despatches Fiji, reel 2. Hunter Miller printed Cakobau’s protest in Treaties and Other International Acts, 7: 302. Cakobau gave another account of how Boutwell and Williams threatened him at a Court of Arbitration, U.S.S. Jamestown, 28 October 1869, Despatches Fiji, reel 4. 77. “American Doings”; “fornicating” in Royce, Diary, 3 Oct. 1856. 78. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, 334–35; Calvert to Secretary of State, 1 Jan. 1856. 79. David Stuart, “Additional from the Feejee Islands,” and Vago, “Our Ovalau Correspondence,” New York Herald, 16 Feb. 1856; Thomas C. Dunn, “The Charges Against the Wesleyan Missionaries at the Feejee Islands,” New York Herald, 9 Nov. 1856. The Wesleyans reprinted Dunn’s letter as a pamphlet titled A Refutation of the Charges Against the Wesleyan Missionaries in the Feejee Islands. Dunn refuted the existence of David Stuart, saying he knew

Notes to Pages 202–206

285

who was behind this letter; however, there was a David Stuart at Levuka involved in the Malaki incident in 1853 and still in Fiji in 1855; see U.S. Congress, “Sloop of War ‘John Adams,’” 27–28, 45, 47, 49. 80. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 3 Nov. 1855, Box 3, Folder 1, WP. 81. “From the Boston-Post: The English Among the Fejees,” Richmond Whig, 15 June 1858. 82. “Important from the Fejee Islands . . . Insults of the Natives Punished,” Weekly Herald (New York), 23 Feb. 1856; “The Fejee Islands Chastised,” Farmer’s Cabinet (Amherst, NH), 21 Feb. 1856. 83. “The Crime Against Kansas,” The Liberator (Boston), 30 May 1856. 84. U.S. Congress, “Sloop of War ‘John Adams’”; U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Naval Affairs, Report No. 340, 1, 3; see also “One by One They Find Their Level,” San Francisco Bulletin, 17 Aug. 1858. 85. David Whippy to John B. Williams (copy), 11 Mar. 1856, Box 3, Folder 7, WP. 86. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 10 Mar. and 24 July 1859, Box 3, Folder 8, WP. 87. David Whippy to John B. Williams, 22 Aug. 1856, attachment in John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 30 Sept. 1856, Despatch 83, Despatches Fiji, reel 2. 88. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 23 Nov. 1858, 12 Mar. and 25 Nov. 1859, Box 3, Folder 8, WP; John B. Williams’s estate inventory, 12 June 1860, attachment in I. M. Brower to Secretary of State, 30 June 1860, Despatches Fiji, reel 4. 89. Appendix C. 90. John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 13 July 1858, Despatch 14, Despatches Fiji, reel 3. 91. “Arrival of the ‘Vandalia’—Marine Disasters,” San Francisco Bulletin, 4 Dec. 1858; John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 24 Oct. 1858, Box 3, Folder 8, WP; John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 4 Oct., 13 Oct., and 15 Nov. 1858, Despatches 18–20, Despatches Fiji, reel 3; Logbook, U.S.S. Vandalia, 11 Nov. 1857 to 6 Mar. 1859, in Fiji from 2 Oct. to 18 Oct. 1858, Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel, RG 24, National Archives, Washington, DC. 92. Stephen Fremantle to Ralph Osborne, 12 Dec. 1855, ADM 1/5672, UK; David, Voyage of HMS Herald, 173–78; John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 17 Aug. 1855, Despatch 73, Despatches Fiji, reel 2. 93. Smythe, Ten Months, 40–41; Seemann, Viti, 68–69; attachments in John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 31 Mar. 1857, Despatch 89, Despatches Fiji, reel 3; Royce, Diary, 26 Feb. 1860; Shoemaker, Native American Whalemen and the World, 138–39. 94. Attachments in John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 31 Dec. 1856, Despatch 85, Despatches Fiji, reel 2; Seemann, Viti, 64–65. 95. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 12 Oct. (quoted) and 17 Oct. 1859, Box 3, Folder 8, WP, and John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 9 Oct. and 1 Nov. 1859, Despatches 20 and 22, Despatches Fiji, reel 3. 96. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 23 May 1858 (about land), Box 3, Folder 8; 21 Dec. 1856 (about Brower), Box 3, Folder 7, WP. For Brower, see also I. M. Brower to Secretary of State, 12 June 1860, Despatches Fiji, reel 4; Seemann, Viti, 54–55, 59, 281, 382. For Williams as deed registrar, see attachments in John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 31 Dec. 1857, Despatch 104, Despatches Fiji, reel 3. For planter in-migration, including Brower, see John Young, Adventurous Spirits. 97. For the Yasawas incident, see “Arrival of the ‘Vandalia’—Marine Disasters,” San Francisco Bulletin, 4 Dec. 1858; for the Vandalia, see John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 24 Oct. 1858; Logbook, U.S.S. Vandalia, 2 Oct. to 18 Oct. 1858, Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel, RG 24, National Archives, Washington, DC. For Pritchard and why his pitch failed, see his Polynesian Reminiscences, 209, 215–16; Robson, Prelude to Empire; Eldredge, “Imperialism of the ‘Little England Era.’”

286

Notes to Pages 206–210

98. Smythe, Ten Months; Seemann, Viti; “Fiji Islands: Mission of Colonel Smythe 1860, 1861, & 1862/3,” CO 83/1, UK. A subsequent investigation led to Pritchard’s removal as consul; see “Pacific Islands: Conduct of Consul Pritchard, 1862–1865,” FO 58/108, UK. 99. Royce, Diary, 19 June 1860. 100. I. M. Brower to Henry L. Williams, 10 June 1860, Box 4, Folder 2, WP. 101. Isaac M. Brower to Secretary of State, 12 June 1860. 102. Patrick Riley to Secretary of State, 2 May 1862, 29 Aug. 1863, and 25 May 1864; for the Tuscarora, see I. M. Brower to Secretary of State, 25 June and 30 July 1867; F. W. Seward to I. M. Brower, 21 Dec. 1867; for the Jamestown, see W. T. Truxton to George M. Robeson, 30 Oct. and 4 Nov. 1869, including attachments; Despatches Fiji, reel 4. For both vessels’ visits and the intricacies of the claims’ resolution, see Hunter Miller, Treaties and Other International Acts, 304–23. 103. For the Polynesian Land Company, see U.S. Department of State, Memorandum on Fiji Land Claims, 32–34; I. M. Brower to Secretary of State, 16 Oct. 1868, Despatches Fiji, reel 4. For the installments’ distribution, see George E. Baker to Henry L. Williams, 19 June 1871, Box 4, Folder 2, WP. Whippy’s claims made him party to this distribution, which occurred the year before his death. 104. Edward March, “Memorandum by Consul March Respecting the Claim of the United States on King Thakombau for 45,000 dollars,” 16 May 1873, FO 881/2249, UK. 105. “Schedule of Lands”; I. M. Brower to Henry L. Williams, 10 June 1860, 5 Mar. 1862 (“worthless”), 30 June 1866 (“trouble”), 12 Feb. 1867, Box 4, Folder 2, WP. On possible U.S. purchase, Henry L. Williams to R. S. S. Andros, 20 Dec. 1867, Box 4, Folder 3, WP. 106. Henry L. Williams to Ichabod Handy, 1 Nov. 1867; for oil fields, Ichabod Handy to Henry L. Williams, 11 Nov. 1867, Box 4, Folder 3, WP. 107. For Henry’s death, see “Obituary,” Boston Evening Journal, 29 Sept. 1879. Williams’s heirs had at least four cases disallowed: Nukulau Island, Rewa, LCC 399, and Laucala Island, Rewa, LCC 413, in 1878 and Naqara, Navua, LCC 580 and 580A, and Nukubalavu, Navua, LCC 581, in 1879. For British land policies in colonial Fiji, see France, Charter of the Land; and Ward, “Land Use and Land Alienation.” For Gordon’s aboriginal protectionism, see Kelly, “Gordon Was No Amateur”; Heartfield, Aborigines’ Protection Society, chap. 10. 108. U.S. Congress, “Petition of G. Rodney Burt”; U.S. Congress, “In Response to the Senate Resolution of January 7, 1896” (includes Scidmore’s report); U.S. Department of State, Memorandum on Fiji Land Claims; Lansing, American and British Claims Arbitration; United Nations, Reports of International Arbitral Awards: Burt, 93–99; Henry 100–104; Williams, 104–9; Brower, 109–12. 109. Diapea, Cannibal Jack, 62–64; see also Litton Forbes, Two Years in Fiji, 157. 110. H. Britton, Fiji in 1870, 19, 66, 72; I. M. Brower to Secretary of State, 20 Aug. 1867, Despatches Fiji, reel 4. 111. Seemann, Viti, 73, 130; Spurway, Ma‘afu, 591–92. 112. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, 225. 113. Fabius Stanly to George Tubou, 15 July 1867, Despatches Fiji, reel 4; Hunter Miller, Treaties and Other International Acts, 6: 310–11; Byron S. Adams, See!See!See! Guide, 28. 114. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, 232, 282–83; John B. Williams to R. D. Merrill, 11 Jan. 1859 (copy), attachment in John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 15 Mar. 1859, Despatch 6, Despatches Fiji, reel 3; Spurway, Ma‘afu, 178, 194–98. For the gift of the Thakombau, see Seemann, Viti, 245. 115. John B. Williams to Secretary of State, 15 Aug. 1855, Despatch 72, Despatches Fiji, reel 2. 116. Diapea, Cannibal Jack, 63. 117. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 4 Feb. 1853, Box 3, Folder 5, WP.

Notes to Pages 213–217

287

Epilogue 1. Population estimate from “Sketches in Polynesia—The Fijis,” 50; for the decline in American trade and influx of cotton planters, see I. M. Brower to Secretary of State, 30 June and 30 Sept. 1866, Despatches Fiji, reel 4; for journalists, see H. Britton, Fiji in 1870; Litton Forbes, Two Years in Fiji. For the planter influx, see Brewster, King of the Cannibal Isles; John Young, Adventurous Spirits; Horne, White Pacific. 2. “Samuel A. St. John . . . ,” Columbian Register (New Haven, CT), 12 Aug. 1871; H. Britton, Fiji in 1870, 57. 3. H. Britton, Fiji in 1870, 32–34; Brewster, King of the Cannibal Isles, 26; John Young, Adventurous Spirits, 123–24; Derrick, History of Fiji, 163–64. For the Cakobau government in an imperial context, see Samson, Imperial Benevolence, chap. 9; and Thomas, Islanders, chap. 9; for American involvement, see Christopher Legge and Terrell, “John Toutant Proctor”; Horne, White Pacific. 4. John B. Williams to Henry L. Williams, 5 Sept. 1859, Box 3, Folder 8, WP; U.S. Department of State, Memorandum on Fiji Land Claims, 16–31; Lansing, ed., American and British Claims Arbitration, 179–224; United Nations, Reports of International Arbitral Awards, 93–99. 5. I. M. Brower to [Fabius Stanly] (copy), 19 June 1867; F. Stanly, “Geo. R. Burt, of Penn . . . ,” 18 June 1867 (the $750 fine); F. Stanley to J. A. Dahlgren, 10 Aug. 1867; George F. Seward to William T. Truxton, 7 July 1869; Thomas Turner to William T. Truxton, 16 July 1869; Despatches Fiji, reel 4. For Burt’s cruelty, see also “The Late Outrage at Viti Levu, Fiji,” Argus (Melbourne), 25 Feb. 1869; James S. H. Royce, Diary, 23 Aug. 1859, Mitchell Library, Sydney, Australia. For blackbirding, see Munro, “Pacific Islands Labour Trade”; Clive Moore, Leckie, and Munro, Labour in the South Pacific. 6. “Late Outrage at Viti Levu, Fiji,”; “Outrages by the Navosa Tribes upon the Settlers in Feejee,” New York Herald, 3 May 1869; “The Murder of Mr. Underwood at Fiji,” Sydney Morning Herald, 5 May 1871; I. M. Brower to Secretary of State, 25 Jan. 1869, Despatches Fiji, reel 4; John Young, Adventurous Spirits, 141–47. 7. U.S. Department of State, Memorandum on Fiji Land Claims, 31. 8. W. T. Truxton to George M. Robeson, 5 Nov. 1869, Despatches Fiji, reel 4. 9. F. Stanly to Cakobau, 1 June 1867, and S. A. St. John to F. Stanly, 1 June 1867, Despatches Fiji, reel 4. 10. F. W. Seward to I. M. Brower, 21 Dec. 1867, Despatches Fiji, reel 4. 11. W. T. Truxton to George M. Robeson, 4 Nov. 1869; I. M. Brower to Secretary of State, 25 Jan. 1869; W. T. Truxton to Francis Tait, 2 Nov. 1869; Cakobau to Captain Truxton, 3 Nov. 1869; W. T. Truxton to George M. Robeson, 5 Nov. 1869; Despatches Fiji, reel 4. 12. “The Deed of Cession of Fiji to Great Britain,” 10 Oct. 1874, University of the South Pacific, https://www.usp.ac.fj/index.php?id=13527, accessed 26 Mar. 2017; “The Late Ex-King Cakobau,” Sydney Morning Herald, 16 Feb. 1883. 13. Brewster, King of the Cannibal Isles, 134. 14. Snow, Years of Hope, 174–75, 192, 201; Quentin Pope, “Fiji Isles Get Major Roles in Pacific Defense,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 22 Mar. 1952; Crocombe, Pacific Islands and the USA, 24, 148. 15. Henry Adams, Letters to a Niece, 39, 41, 54–55. See also La Farge, Reminiscences, 395–477; Hodermarsky, John La Farge’s Second Paradise. 16. Verdone and Seidl, Fishing and Tourism in the Fijian Economy, 10–11; Fiji Bureau of Statistics, “Fiji’s Earnings from Tourism—Annual 2017,” http://www.statsfiji.gov.fj/latestreleases/tourism-and-migration/earnings-from-tourism, accessed 21 June 2018. 17. Harrison, “Levuka, Fiji”; from the Fiji Times: Margaret Wise, “Spellbound in Levuka,” 12 Apr. 2014; Ana Madigibuli, “World Recognition,” 14 Dec. 2014, and “New Beginning for Old

288

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Index

Page numbers in italics refer to figures Active, 15, 21–23, 27–28, 33–34, 223 Adams, Henry, 216, 217 L’Aimable Joséphine, 80–83, 125, 191, 229, 237–38 Alley, John, 148 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), 36, 113–14, 197 Amethyst, 31 Ann & Hope, 17 Antarctic, 39, 112 Archer, Henry, 228–30, 233, 256n96 Argo, 18 L’Astrolabe, 82, 85, 191, 237–38 Augustus, 81, 230 Australia, 167, 172–73, 204, 213, 216. See also Sydney Awashonks, 92 Ba, 12, 109, 120, 126, 153, 155, 228, 270n10 Bailey, Theodorus, 199, 240 Baltimore, MD, 39 Banuve, 52 Baptists, 113–15, 127–28, 145 Barnum, P.T., 40–42 Bau, 10, 12, 51; and bêche-de-mer trade, 29, 32, 55; and Levuka, 53–54, 100, 196;

military campaigns of, 60–61, 71–73, 81, 96–97, 117, 119, 192; rulers of, 52, 55, 99; and sandalwood trade, 10, 20, 26, 51–52; tributaries and allies of, 47, 93, 109, 155, 196. See also Bau-Rewa war; beachcombers; Cakobau; Mata ki Bau Bau-Rewa war, 55, 71, 97, 118, 153, 178, 196, 199 Bayonnaise, 204 beachcombers: definition of, 2, 77; motivations of, 48–49, 59–60, 67. See also Levuka; names of individual beachcombers bêche-de-mer trade: impact on Fiji, 99, 136, 152, 156; labor of, 134–37, 153–55, 183; operations of, 28–32, 78–80; profitability of, 6–7, 32, 107, 109, 167 Beecher, Catharine, 146 Belle, 172, 175 Beqa, 12, 182 Bete, 136 Beverly, MA, 91, 107, 113–15, 127–28, 140–50 blackbirding, 214 Bligh, William, 17 Boate, 67, 84 Bordeaux, 27, 223

328

Index

Boutwell, Edward B., 199–203, 239–40 Bramble, 183, 238 Brazil, 166 Breed, Andrews, 172, 174–75, 181, 184 Brower, Isaac M., 101, 205–8, 215 Brown & Ives, 19, 221 Brutus, 22, 27, 223 Bua, 12; as mission site, 109, 138; and sandalwood trade, 18–20, 23–28, 38, 51, 79 Bulu, Joel, 98–99 Burma, 114–15 Burt, George Rodney, 207, 213–15 Busby, James, 171 Butenam, 15 Cakaudrove, 12, 23, 55, 81–82, 87, 96–98, 118; beachcombers at, 62, 67, 70, 84 Cakobau, 10, 12, 56; and American claims, 185, 194–96, 200–201, 203–6, 208, 210; and bêche-de-mer trade, 55, 66, 99, 109, 120–21, 126, 136, 152–56, 194, 234; and “civilization,” 10, 129, 177, 208, 213; and John B. Williams, 176, 180, 196–98, 202–3; and Levuka beachcombers, 96–100, 188; and Mary D. Wallis, 120–21, 124, 270n77; and missionaries, 87, 98, 100, 196–97, 240; relatives of, 55–56, 66; and religion, 65–66, 198–99; and respect, 10, 199; as ruler of Bau, 10, 55, 57–58, 99; as Tui Viti (“king” of Fiji), 194, 205, 209, 213–15; and warships, 192, 195, 200–204, 208. See also Bau Calder, 51, 225 Calliope, 150, 199, 239, 263n39 Calvert, James, 87–88, 99, 115–16, 150–51; and Cakobau, 195–97, 201–2 Calypso, 191–92, 238 cannibalism: and anti-cannibalism (“cannibal talk”), 9, 16–17, 38–40, 72–73, 133, 157, 198–99; as a Fijian practice, 9–10, 34–35, 61, 70–73; scholarly debates about, 9 Cargill, David, 12, 86–88, 115, 137–38 Cargill, Margaret, 115 Caroline Islanders, 79, 84 Carter, James, 85 Cary, William, 47–48, 54, 59–61, 64–65, 69, 71, 79 Catharine, 183, 233 Chapman, I. N., 135, 230 character, 76–77, 162–63, 167, 176 Charles Doggett, 40, 80, 92, 167, 228–29 Charles Wirgman, 54, 66, 232–33 Chase, Peter, 19, 220 Cheever, George, 180–81, 232, 258n21 Chestnut Street, Salem, MA, 164–65, 167, 204, 276n27, 276n29 Chever, Eliza Ann Richardson, 148–49

chiefs. See turaga Child, Lydia Maria, 116–17, 123, 126 China trade, 15, 17–18, 111, 162. See also bêche-de-mer trade; sandalwood trade Chubbuck, Emily C. (Fanny Forester), 114–16 civilization ideology, 9–10, 13, 15, 42, 91, 149, 151 Clay, 28, 31–33, 54, 61, 79, 227–28, 263n37 Clay, Henry, 172 Cleveland, Richard, 147–48, 162 Coffin, Francis, 162 Coffin, Robert, 69, 90, 184 Cokanauto, 137, 174, 176, 178–83, 185, 196, 271n16 Colcher, Sara Baro, 149 Coles, Willet, 19, 219 colonization, 1–4, 10, 172, 200, 204–7, 215–16, 239–41 Concepción. See mutiny on the Manila brig Connel, Paddy, 59–61, 70, 84 Consul, 33, 81–82, 135, 230, 255n74 consuls, 5, 7, 167–68, 185, 188, 205, 209. See also Williams, John B. Cook, James (British explorer), 8, 16–17 Cook, James (Salem merchant), 21–22, 223 Coral, 81–82, 229–30 Corey, Ebenezer H., 19–20, 221 Costigliola, Frank, 8 Criterion, 19, 21–22, 220 Cross, William, 12, 86–88, 91, 119 Cuba, 111, 147, 167 Cunningham, Jacob, 83, 263n36 Cusick, William, 86 Daland, Tucker, 165 Danford, John Humphrey, 174–75 Daphne, 57, 238 Delphos, 181 Diaper, William, 84, 99, 208, 210, 257n3, 258n18, 261n75 Dillon, Peter, 27, 51–52, 61, 79, 87, 117, 224–25 diseases: cholera, 52; dysentery, 98–99, 161, 199; smallpox, 141 Dodge, Austin, 149 Dodge, John, 21 domestic servants: 132, 138–40, 145–49, 156. See also Phebe Dorr, John, 19–21, 24, 31, 162, 221 Dorr, Joseph, 162 Dorr, Sullivan, 162 Dorr, William Jr., 19–22, 27, 221, 223 Douglas, Stephen, 40 Dreketi, 23, 27 Driver, William, 31–32, 61, 79, 167, 228, 271n16 Druadrua, 27 Duff, 17

Index Dunn, Thomas C., 110, 155, 197, 202, 234–35 D’Urville, Jules-Sebastién-César Dumont, 37, 79, 85, 237–38 Eagleston, John H., 231, 233, 256n96; as captain of Emerald, 33, 54, 58, 62, 64, 79–86, 178, 230; as captain of Leonidas, 32; as captain of Mermaid, 231; as captain of Peru, 135, 191, 193, 228; relations with Fijians, 13, 39, 72, 136–37, 178 East India Marine Society: 21, 34, 39, 92, 163, 165, 170; museum of, 15–16, 22, 35, 43 Edwin, 107, 120, 230 Eliza (bêche-de-mer trader), 39, 81, 83, 229, 231 Eliza (sandalwood trader), 19–20, 37–38, 52, 61, 221 Elizabeth (of Freetown), 174, 195, 200 Elizabeth (of New Bedford), 50 Elizabeth (of Sydney), 25, 221 Ellis, William, 36, 117 El Plumier, 18 Emerald, 39, 54, 79–83, 85, 178, 191, 230 Empress of China, 17 Enderby, Samuel, 127 Erskine, John Elphinstone, 85, 150, 238 ethnography, 33–38, 42, 54, 92, 109, 120, 209. See also East India Marine Society Fair American, 18–19, 220 Fairhead, James, 39–40 Falco, 172–73, 189 Falmouth, 193–95, 208–9, 238 Fanning, Edmund, 19, 30, 219–23 Favourite, 20, 23, 26, 34, 221–22 Fawn, 62, 84, 92, 228 Feejee Mermaid, 40–41 Fijian language, 12, 24, 34–37 Fijians in the U.S., 39, 91, 142–43. See also Phebe Fiji Times, 101 FitzGerald, Robert A., 181, 183–84 Fitzhugh, George, 156–57 Fitz Roy, Charles, 150 Fitz Roy, Robert, 174 Flagstaff War, 172–74 Flanders, Charles W., 115 Flying Fish, 92, 154, 238 Foster, John, 194, 238 Fowler, Henry, 261n75 Francis, 50 Francoeur, Lewis, 19, 24 Fremantle, Stephen, 204, 240 French Spoliation Claims, 189 Friendship, 163–65, 189 Fugitive Slave Act, 145 Fugot, Enos, 147 Futuna, 180

329

Galoa Bay (Kadavu), 204 Galoa Bay (Vanua Levu), 23–25 Gambia, 91, 107, 120, 137, 153, 168, 231–32 Gavidi, 12, 58, 66, 129 General Wellesley, 20, 22–23, 26, 59, 221 Gilbert Islands, 172 Glide, 65, 80, 92, 135, 228 Goodridge, John, 155, 234 Gordon, Arthur, 207 Granby, Tom, 54, 84, 93 Grand Turk, 17 Guam, 20, 22 Gulf of Carpentaria, 31 gunboat diplomacy. See warships Hale, Horatio, 37, 54 Hanaford, Phebe A., 127–28 Handy, Ichabod, 172, 174–75, 207 Hartwell, Joseph, 120–21, 153, 232–33 Havannah, 150, 191–92, 238 Hawai‘i, 10, 18, 111–12, 138, 154, 213 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 276n34 Heath, William, 115 Henry, B. R., 207 Henry, Wilkes, 92, 94 Herald, 204, 239 Hibernia, 24, 31, 223 Home, J. Everard, 150–51, 199 Hope, 19, 24, 33, 220 Hudson, William L., 93, 189 Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 37 Hunt, John, 87–91, 98, 109, 118–20, 124–25, 176, 272n26 Hunter (of Boston), 23, 27, 224 Hunter (of Calcutta), 27, 222–24 Huse, Samuel T., 171–72, 174–75, 181–84 Ilaitia. See Varani India, 22, 24, 51, 147, 163, 165, 220–25 Indus, 28, 33–34, 224 Jaggar, Thomas, 87, 118, 137; wife of, 120 Jamestown, 101, 206, 214–15 Jefferson, Thomas, 35, 168 Jenny, 19–20, 22–25, 27, 31, 221 Jess, 79, 87 Jewitt, John R., 38 John Adams, 199–203, 209, 239–40 John H. Millay, 183–84, 234 Johnston, John, 182 Judson, Adoniram, 114, 127 Judson, Ann Haseltine, 114 Judson, Sarah Boardman, 114–16 Juno, 204, 240

330

Index

Kaba, 54, 66, 196, 199, 209 Kadavu, 12, 80, 204, 207, 214, 229, 259n35 kaisi: definition of, 12, 133; status of, 135–36 Karcher, Carolyn L., 117 Kasavu, 266n105 kauri gum, 168, 171, 175, 184 kava. See yaqona Kinsman, Nathaniel, 148 Knapp, Samuel L., 112–13 Knights, John B., 1, 80, 228 Koro, 19, 23, 60, 219 Koroiravula, 196, 200 Korovatu, 26 Kotzebue, Otto von, 32 La Farge, John, 216–17 Lakeba, 12, 52, 65, 86–87, 98, 118, 197, 237 Lamb, Jonathan, 8 Land Claims Commission, 207, 209, 214 Larcom, Juno, 144 Larcom, Lucy, 146–47 Lasakau clan, 12, 58, 78 Laucala, 174, 179–80, 194–95, 201, 204, 207, 239 Laurice. See mutiny on the Manila brig Lawry, Walter, 117, 127 Leonidas, 32, 79, 137, 231 Levuka: as beachcomber enclave, 59, 67–68, 76–80, 83–91, 96–101; destroyed by fire, 97, 100–101, 198, 200; native village of, 52–53, 100; post-1874, 49, 101, 204, 213, 216–17; as shipping port, 92–93, 96, 109–10, 155, 174, 233–34, 271n18. See also Tui Levuka; Whippy, David Lockerby, William, 20–27, 31, 34–35, 37, 48, 73, 256n93 Logan, 69 Lord, Kable, and Underwood, 18, 219–22 Loring, Charles G., 145 lotu, 86, 88–91, 125–26, 129, 198–99 Lovoni, 69, 97 Low, Harriet, 111 Lowell, Mary Gardner, 111 Lynn, MA, 171–72 Lyth, Richard, 98, 118 Ma‘afu, 10, 199, 208–9, 215 Macao, 111 Macomber, John, 194, 200 Macuata, 12, 33, 136, 138, 183; as Bau dependency, 98, 109, 117, 121, 136, 153–55, 196, 271n16 Magoun, James, 62, 67, 80, 84 Magruder, George A., 195–96, 198, 239 Maid of Orleans, 107, 110–11, 136–38, 150, 152, 154–55, 234 Malaki, 99, 285n79

Malays, 31–32, 42, 148 Malolo, 5, 9, 92, 94, 191–92, 217–18, 238 Mamanucas, 217 Manila, Philippines: Americans in, 111, 125, 140–41, 148, 166; as China trade port, 18–19, 28–29, 32, 109–10, 112, 183–84, 220, 225, 227–34 Mann, Horace, 40 Maori, 39, 135–36, 170–74 marama, definition of, 12, 133 Marcia, 18, 219 Mariner, William, 257n3 Marists, 118, 197, 200, 204, 240 Marquesas, 3, 18, 27–28, 117, 138 Mary, 183 Mata ki Bau, 48–49, 61–63, 74–75, 93 matanitu: definition of, 12; map of, xi matanivanua, 62–63 Mayhew, William, 168, 171, 174 Melville, Herman: as author of Typee, 40, 54–55; 111–12, 128; of Typee and Omoo, 117–18 mercantile culture, 14–15, 188, 210. See also merchants; Williams, John B. merchants: in Sydney, 18, 22; in U.S., 6–7, 17–22, 28, 32, 162–67, 181, 184–85, 189. See also mercantile culture; Williams, John B. Merewalesi, 129–30 Mermaid, 39, 79, 231 Mexico, 189 Miller, William (British consul general), 188 Miller, William (Whippy partner), 86 Millet, Charles, 228, 256n96, Minerva, 183 Morrell, Abby Jane, 112–13, 130 Morrell, John, 39–40, 112–13 Motealler, Cloe, 147 Moturike, 182 muskets, 25–27, 60–62, 99, 132–33, 135, 138, 140, 152–53, 173 mutiny on the Manila brig, 32, 54, 78 Nadi, 12, 118, 129, 132–33, 142, 216 Nairai, 19, 37, 93, 221 Namena, 119 Namosi, 175 Namosimalua, 80–81, 87, 118, 125, 128, 153, 182 Namuka, 194, 197, 201 Nantucket, MA, 47, 49–51 Naqara, 175 Nasavu, 129 Native Americans, 3, 5–6; 13, 36, 77 Nauvilou, 52, 55, 58, 60 New Caledonia, 18, 110, 141, 155, 183–84, 233–34, 238 New Hebrides, 18, 51

Index New Zealand, 51, 183–86, 189–90, 216; Auckland, 172–75, 181; Bay of Islands, 109, 127, 135, 167–74, 181. See also Maori Niagara, 33, 92, 228 Nimmo, William, 151 Nukubalavu, 174–75, 207 Nukui, 178 Nukulau, 174–76, 180, 182, 194–95, 200, 207–8, 238 Oeno, 47, 64 O’Farrell, John, 252n17 Olus, 154–55, 234 Ono, 64 Osborn, Warren, 33, 39, 54–55, 62–65, 73, 81–82, 232–33 Ovalau, 92–93, 95, 100, 192, 204, 239. See also Levuka Owen, William, 154–55, 234 Pacific Squadron, 7, 190, 193 Palau, 31 papalagi, definition of, 12–13, 35 Papua New Guinea, 40, 112 Patterson, Samuel, 37–38, 257n3 Peabody Essex Museum, 43, 128, 169, 170 Peabody, Joseph, 6–7, 32, 165, 167, 228–30 Peele, Hubbell, and Company, 109 Peirce, Jerathmael, 163–64, 274n8 Peru, 13, 62, 79, 191, 193, 228 Petigru, Thomas, 193–95, 238 Phebe, 132–34, 139–43, 145, 147, 149–52 Phillips, Stephen C., 32, 83, 167, 178, 228–33, 267n19 Phillips (Fijian). See Cokanauto Pickering, Charles (beachcomber), 84, 97, 121, 180 Pickering, Charles (Ex Ex naturalist), 33, 40, 88 Pickering, John, 36–37 Pierce, Franklin, 188, 203 Pilot, 110, 155, 233–34 Polack, Joel S., 170–71, 174–75, 181, 184, 188 polygamy, 38, 66–69, 121, 125, 129 Polynesian Land Company, 206–7 Port-au-Prince, 25, 257 (fn3) Port Jackson. See Sydney, Australia Portland, 25 Potomac, 189 Pritchard, George, 188, 205 Pritchard, William T., 63, 177, 205–6, 209, 241 Probst, Jeff, 218 protection principle, 187–90, 208, 210, 212, 214–5 Qaraniqio, 12, 59, 180, 196–97, 199 Quallah Battoo, 189 Quill, 107, 227

331

Ra Bici, 84 race, 13, 42, 121, 140–41, 147, 149 Raduvi, Solomoni, 88 Rakiraki, 124, 126, 213 Ra Marama, 198, 209 Rantoul, Robert, 144 Rantoul, Robert Jr., 145 Ratu Mara, 55, 58, 196, 208 Ratu Seru. See Cakobau Raviravi, 121, 154 Rebecca Sims, 111 religion. See Baptists; lotu; Marists; Wallis, Mary D.; Wesleyans; women missionaries respect: definition of, 2, 8–11, 218; in Fijian culture, 10, 48, 57–58, 62, 74, 199, 209; as shown with gun salutes, 193. See also Wallis, Mary D.; Whippy, David; Williams, John B. respectability, 8, 106, 111–12, 115, 130–31 Revelete, 66 Reynolds, Jeremiah, 92 Reynolds, William, 9 Rewa, 12, 52, 59, 178, 194–95, 200; and beachcombers, 64, 87, 97; as mission site, 87, 115, 118, 197; and traders, 29, 39, 120–21, 137, 176, 178, 197, 200–201. See also Bau-Rewa war Richardson, William P.: 15–16, 21–22, 24, 28, 31, 34–37, 42–43, 148, 223–25 Riley, Patrick, 206 Ritova, 121–22, 136, 138, 154–55, 196, 215 Rogers, Harriet Wait, 165 Rogers, Nathaniel L., 32, 165, 167–68, 172, 190, 227–30, 274n8 Roscoe, 28, 31, 33, 225 Rotumah, 175 Salem, MA: antislavery views of, 144–45; and global trade, 147–48, 161–68, 185, 189. See also Active; bêche-de-mer trade; East India Marine Society Sally, 22, 224 Saltonstall, Leverett, 167 Samanunu, 129, 198 Samoa, 188–89, 205, 216 sandalwood trade: 10, 18–35, 42, 51, 59, 219–25 Santayana, George, 148 Saul, Thomas, 22 Saunders, Charles, 21 Saunders, Henry T., 141, 180–81, 232, 271n16 Saunders, Mary, 141, 271n16 Savage, Charles, 19, 27, 52, 59–61, 70 Sawa Kasa, 193, 196 S. Chamberlain and Company (Wests and Chamberlain), 107, 110, 153–54, 156, 197, 231–35, 267n15 Scidmore, George H., 207

332

Index

Seamen’s Friend Society, 113 Seemann, Berthold, 205–6 Seru Tanoa, 55, 58, 63 Shattuck, America, 194, 197, 200–201 Shuck, Henrietta, 114 Siddins, Richard, 34, 221–22, 224 Silsbee, Pickman, and Stone, 189 Simpson, William, 86, 101 Sims, Thomas, 145 Sinclair, Arthur, 204–5, 240 Sir David Ogilby, 231, 237 Sir John Franklin, 175, 183 Slater, Oliver, 18–19 slavery, 132–34, 143–52, 156–57 Smith, Seth, 31 Smyrna, Turkey, 162 Smythe, William, 177, 206 Solevu Bay, 93, 98–99, 191, 238 Somosomo. See Cakaudrove Southwick, Mary Ann, 111 Sparr, John, 13, 200, 204 Spy, 80, 84, 228 Stanly, Fabius, 208, 214 St. John, Samuel Avery, 213–15 St. Mary’s, 191, 193, 195, 199, 239–40 Stone, Edwin Martin, 144 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 256n107 Stranger, 175, 193 Stuart, David, 284–85n80 Sturgis, George, 148 Sumatra, 148, 189 Sumner, Charles, 202–3 Survivor, 218 Suva, 215–16 Sydney, Australia, 18–19, 51, 175, 184, 196, 219–24, 231, 235, 264n63 Tacilevu, 26 Tahiti, 10, 17, 81–82, 117, 137–38, 167, 178, 188, 205, 216 Tangiers, 167 Tanna, 214 Tanoa Visiwaqa, 55–56, 63, 72, 81–82, 87, 95, 99, 129, 193, 199 Tavea, 25–26, 153–54 Thakombau, 154–55, 196, 209, 234 Thompson, Charles, 54–55, 57–59, 64–67, 70–72, 136, 270n3 Thurston, John Bates, 216 Tim Pickering, 233 Tonga: and Fiji, 3–4, 17–18, 84, 139, 200; as mission site, 86; ships and foreigners at, 17, 19, 23, 25, 34, 257n3. See also Ma‘afu; Tupou, George I. Tonquin, 19, 23, 26, 33, 222 Topsfield, MA, 149

Totoga, 100, 196, 204, 206–7 Treaty of Waitangi, 168, 170–71 Truxton, William T., 214–15 Tui Bua, 20, 23, 25–27, 34, 48, 126, 215 Tui Cakau, 84, 215, 270n1 Tui Dreketi, 12, 59, 71, 135, 137, 178, 193, 215 Tui Kaba, 121 Tui Korovatu, 25 Tui Levuka, 12, 53–54, 63, 68–69, 73, 80, 93, 97, 99–100, 196, 200, 204–5, 239–40 Tui Macuata, 121 Tui Nairai, 19, 38, 47 Tui Nayau, 12, 64–65, 87, 150 Tui Wainunu, 101 Tupou, George I, 10, 154, 198–99, 203–4, 208–9 turaga: authority and privileges belonging to, 35–36, 48–49, 57–58, 70, 96, 134–37, 187, 193, 209; definition of, 12 Turpin, Edwin, 67, 84, 270n1, 271n16 Tuscarora, 206, 208, 214 Tybee, 167 Underwood, Achilles, 214–15 Underwood, Henry, 92–94 Union, 19, 25, 219 Unon, 66–67 United States, global expansion of, 2–9, 15, 92, 211–12 U.S. Exploring Expedition, 7, 9, 32–33, 37, 67–68, 91–96, 238. See also Malolo; Veidovi; Wilkes, Charles U.S. State Department, 6–7, 95, 167, 172, 174, 189–90, 202, 205–7, 209, 214. See also consuls; Williams, John B. Valentine, 54–55, 66, 72, 258n22 Valentine, William, 84, 258n22 Vandalia, 204–5, 240 Vanderford, Benjamin: 11, 15–16, 28, 31–35, 42–43, 61, 82, 224–25, 227–28, 230, 271n16 Vanua Levu, 23, 25–27, 29, 61, 94, 153, 228 Varani (Ilaitia), 81, 118–19, 124–26, 153–55, 196–98 Vatea, 128 Vatoa, 16, 23, 47, 64 Veidovi, 40, 80, 178, 193, 229 Verata, 52, 96, 231, 237 Vesoga, 122, 140 Vincennes, 33, 40, 76, 92–94, 238 violence: 25–27, 30, 80–81, 152–5, 190–92, 201–3, 227, 229–31, 237–40. See also muskets Viti Levu, 12, 23, 27, 201, 207, 214, 238 Viwa: and American claims, 200; as Bau ally, 99–100, 109, 152–53; as mission site, 87–88, 91, 109, 118–20, 197. See also Namosimalua; Varani

Index vunivalu: definition of, 52. See also Bau, rulers of Vutia, 194–96, 201, 204, 207–9, 238–40 Wailea, 23, 25, 27, 61 Wait, Aaron, 163–65, 189 Wakaya, 85, 101, 205 Waldron, Richard, 93 Walker, Quock, 143 Wallis, Benjamin, 29, 91, 154–56, 168, 176, 183, 197, 231–34; as husband of Mary D. Wallis, 105, 107–10, 115–15, 120–26, 131–38, 142 Wallis, Mary D.: antislavery views of, 145, 150–52; attitudes towards beachcombers and sailors, 75, 86, 113; attitudes towards Fijians, 119–29, 192; as author of Life in Feejee: 105–7, 109–13, 115–31; death of, 128; family and marriage of: 107–8, 110, 121–24, 142; influence of: 2, 10, 106–7, 128–31, 153; and missionaries, 106, 113–20, 124–27, 130, 197; motivations of, 105–7; and respect, 8, 11, 105, 130–31, 212; voyages to Fiji of, 107–8; and women’s rights, 111, 113–16, 123–26. See also Phebe warships, 186–206, 209, 214–15, 237–41 Warwick, 180–81, 232 Waterhouse, Joseph, 52, 128, 198 Waters, Richard P., 167–68 Watkin, James, 106 Watsford, John, 118, 124; wife of, 120, 124 Wave, 99 Webster, Daniel, 167, 189, 193 Webster, Noah, 36 Wesleyans: and beachcombers, 87–91, 93, 98, 100; and Cakobau, 98, 100, 196–98; influence of, 4, 10, 12, 86–87, 118–19, 196– 98; servants of, 138–39; wives of, 120, 139. See also names of individual missionaries Whale’s Tooth Treaty, 208–9 whaling, 47, 49–51, 172, 181, 190 Whig Party, 167, 172 Whippy, David, 50; and American claims, 200, 286n103; animosity toward Cakobau, 96–100; and bêche-de-mer trade, 78–86; and boatbuilding, 86, 98, 101, 154; as consular agent, 95, 177, 199, 204; death of, 101; early life in Fiji, 47–48, 55, 59–75, 225; on Fijian culture, 72–74, 151; Fijian family, 69–70, 88–91, 101; as founder of Levuka, 49, 100– 102; influence of, 2, 10, 49, 85, 151, 163; and missionaries, 86–91, 98–99, 102; Nantucket origins of, 47, 49–51, 69–70; and respect, 8, 11, 47–48, 60–62, 74–77, 86, 95, 100–102, 151, 163, 177, 212; at Solevu, 98, 188, 200;

333

and U.S. Exploring Expedition, 91–96. See also Levuka; Mata ki Bau; Tui Levuka Whippy, David, Jr., 91, 94, 101 Whippy, Samuel, 69, 90, 100–101, 264n63, 266n105 widow strangling, 9, 34, 38, 70, 73–74, 130, 198–99 Wilkes, Charles, 33, 63, 92–96, 177, 193. See also U.S. Exploring Expedition Williams, Charles F., 166, 168, 183 Williams, Elizabeth (Lydia) Wait, 165 Williams, Henry L. 161, 165–66, 168, 171–73, 183–84, 201–2, 206–7, 234 Williams, Israel, 163–65 Williams, John B.: arrival in Fiji of, 174; business activities of, 167–85, 194, 210, 212, 238; claims of, 182–83, 185–86, 189, 194–97, 200, 204–5, 209; as consular agent, 7, 13, 95, 167–77, 181–82, 184–86, 188–89, 204–6; death of, 161, 206; family of, 163–67, 209; and Fijians, 161, 176–77, 180–84, 186–87, 195, 197–98, 201–3, 209, 274n79; on Fiji trade, 32; influence of, 2, 10, 163, 203, 207–9; land purchases and claims of, 174–75, 183, 201, 204–7, 209, 239–40; and missionaries, 197–98, 200–203, 206; motivations of, 161, 166; in New Zealand, 168–74, 181; and respect, 8, 11, 161–63, 167, 173, 177, 180–81, 185–87, 209, 213; uniform of, 168, 169, 184, 171, 173–74; 177–78; and warships, 186, 193–96, 199–204 Williams, Samuel, 166 Williams, Thomas, 109, 116, 118–19, 132, 134 Winn, John, 82–83, 229, 231 Winn, Joseph, 83, 229 Wise, Richard, 84 women: clothing of, 34–35, 38, 88–89; and gender in antebellum America, 111–17, 123–26, 128; running away, 69, 90, 97, 138, 140, 152; traffic in, 60–61, 84, 91, 100, 133, 137, 150–52, 179–80, 202. See also polygamy; Wallis, Mary D.; women missionaries women missionaries, 111–15, 120, 137 Woodworth, Samuel, 112–13 Worth, Henry, 191–92, 238 Yadali, 101 Yaqaqa, 153 yaqona, 38, 62, 65 Yasawas, 17, 217, 230, 240 Zanzibar, 168 Zélée, 82, 85, 191, 238 Zotoff, 107, 109, 116, 121–22, 125–26, 129, 133, 136, 139–41, 149, 152–53, 232, 234