The First Taint of Civilization: A History of the Caroline and Marshall Islands in Pre-Colonial Days, 1521-1885 058526712X, 9780585267128

Citation preview

cover

cover

next page >

  title: author: publisher: isbn10 | asin: print isbn13: ebook isbn13: language: subject  publication date: lcc: ddc: subject:

The First Taint of Civilization : A History of the Caroline and Marshall Islands in Pre-colonial Days, 1521-1885 Pacific Islands Monograph Series ; No. 1 Hezel, Francis X. University of Hawaii Press 0824808401 9780824808402 9780585267128 English Caroline Islands--History, Marshall Islands--History. 1983 DU565.H49 1983eb 996/.6 Caroline Islands--History, Marshall Islands--History.

cover

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/cover.html[3/30/2011 10:13:22 AM]

next page >

page_i

Page i

 

page_ii

Page ii

PACIFIC ISLANDS MONOGRAPH SERIES Robert C. Kiste General Editor Linley Chapman Manuscript Editor Everett A. Wingert Associate Editor for Cartography EDITORIAL BOARD Deborah Waite Donald Topping Peter Pirie Norman Meller Alan Howard Renée Heyum The Pacific Islands Monograph Series is a joint effort of the University of Hawaii Press and the Center for Pacific Islands Studies, School of Hawaiian, Asian & Pacific Studies, University of Hawaii. The series includes works in the humanities and social sciences that focus on the insular Pacific.  

page_iii

Page iii

Pacific Islands Monograph Series, No. 1

The First Taint of Civilization A History of the Caroline and Marshall Islands in Pre-Colonial Days, 1521 1885 Francis X. Hezel, S.J.

 

page_iv

Page iv

ã 1983 UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII PRESS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PAPERBACK EDITION 1994 00 02 03 04 05 6 5 4 3 2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hezel, Francis X. The first taint of civilization. (Pacific islands monograph series ; no. 1) Includes bibliographical reference and index. 1. Caroline IslandsHistory. 2. Marshall Islands History. I. Title. II. Series. DU565.H49    1983      996'.6            83-10411 ISBN 0-8248-0840-1 ISBN 0-8248-1643-9 (pbk) University of Hawai'i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources.  

page_v

Page v

To my family, friends, and students, most of whom have taught me more than they have learned from me  

page_vi

Page vi

Editor's Note We are quite fortunate to have Francis X. Hezel's The First Taint of Civilization as the first volume in the new Pacific Islands Monograph Series. Of all the world's culture areas, Micronesia has been one of the most extensively studied by anthropologists. At the same time and with the exception of Guam, these tiny islands have been almost entirely neglected by historians. Indeed, in an editorial in the second volume of The Journal of Pacific History, H. E. Maude was moved to write that Micronesia's "varied and often exciting history has been ignored as if by some tacit agreement . . . . One wonders that American historians have apparently no contribution to make to the historical study of an American Trust Territory." Hezel has ventured into the void, and his efforts have yielded what I am certain will be recognized as a major contribution to Pacific history. Focusing on the Caroline and Marshall islands, Hezel's work spans over three and one-half centuries. He begins with Magellan's discovery of Guam and details the history of the islands up to the establishment of the German Protectorate in the Marshalls. Hezel's history reads like the good tale that it is, and it should appeal to the general reader as well as the academician. Events in the Western world are skillfully intertwined with those in the islands. The quality of the historical scholarship in these pages is impressive, and with regard to understanding the actions of Micronesians, Hezel has the insights that anthropologists hope to achieve. This work will be the standard reference for this period of Carolinian and Marshallese history for years to come.  

ROBERT C. KISTE

page_vii

page_vii

Page vii

Contents Maps

ix

Preface

xi

Acknowledgments

xv

1 The End of a Long Seclusion

1

2 Mission to the Palaos

36

3 On the Road to China

60

4 Two Worlds Grown Closer

87

5 A Nest of Rogues and Runaways

109

6 The Powers of Darkness and Light

132

7 The Reopening of the West

171

8 Christianity and Copra in the Marshalls

197

9 The Emergence of a New Order

227

10 The Contest for Commercial Control

263

11 Colonial Rule

290

Abbreviations

319

Notes

321

References

337

Index

355

 

page_ix

page_ix

Page ix

Maps 1 Sixteenth-Century Voyages

5

2 The Moluccas or Spice Islands

7

3 The Philippines and the Moluccas

11

4 Herrera's "Descripción de las Indias del Poniente," 1601

21

5 Klein's Map of the Palaos, 1696

38

6 Cantova's Map of the Carolines, 1722

52

7 Western Caroline Islands

56

8 Palau

70

9 Early Nineteenth-Century Naval Expeditions

89

10 Eastern Caroline Islands

98

11 Ponape

123

12 Kosrae

160

13 Yap

183

14 The Marshall Islands

198

 

page_xi

Page xi

Preface Just north of the equator in the western Pacific, strung out over nearly three thousand miles, lie the islands of the Caroline and Marshall groups. The term Micronesia, which came to be used to designate these groups and their neighboring archipelagoes, suits them well, for the islands are no more than tiny specks in a two-million-squaremile expanse of ocean"like a handful of chickpeas flung over the sea" as one European put it (Hernandez 1955:37). Small as the islands are, they are today the home of more than a hundred thousand people. Their inhabitants, who are still known as Micronesians, stand at last at the threshold of political self-government, after almost a century of colonial rule by four world powers in turn: Spain, Germany, Japan, and the United States. As the wheel of history turns once again, bringing the age of decolonization to the Pacific, the Caroline and Marshall islanders will have moved full circle, back to the autonomy that they knew before the coming of the Westerner. But not quite so. For just as Europeans gave the archipelagoes their names (the islanders themselves almost never thought in terms of such groupings!) they also established their boundaries. These boundaries, which often owed less to geographical or cultural divisions than to historical accidents of European political and economic incursions into the area, have been one of the chief legacies of Westerners, from the age of early Spanish exploration through the political partitioning of the Pacific in the late nineteenth century and beyond. The names and boundaries often stuck, shaping the course of events in the islands and determining, at least in part, their destiny in today's geopolitical world. We have only to look at other parts of Micronesia to find illus 

page_xii

Page xii

trations of this. The Mariana Islands, lying to the north of the Carolines, shared a good number of cultural features with their southern neighbors, but their early colonization by the Spanish in the seventeenth century brought about a pervasive Hispanic influence throughout the next two hundred years and led to a radical break with other peoples in the area. Whaleships, trading brigs, and naval cruisers played a decisive role in the history of the Carolines and Marshalls, but were insignificant in the Marianas, where the impact of the Spanish colonial government was overwhelming. On the other hand, the Gilbert Islands and Nauru (both of which are also considered Micronesian) shared with the Carolines and Marshalls many of the Western influences that swept into the area during precolonial days; but both have had distinct colonial experiences during the last century and have become autonomous island states in recent years. For these reasons, they, like the Marianas, have been excluded from the scope of this book. Political divisions were not the only legacy of the Westerner. Every bit as important was the cultural imprint of foreign seamen, traders, missionaries, and roustabouts on the islands that they visited and sometimes resided on, long before the first colonial administrators came to rule in the name of their European sovereigns. The first taint of civilizationat least, what Westerners understood by ''civilization"was carried by such men decades, even centuries, before foreign flags were hoisted over the Carolines and Marshalls. Civilization, of course, meant a great deal more than the establishment of European governments. It embraced a wide range of Western productsnot only the obvious material artifacts that surprised and delighted the islanders, but the skills, customs, beliefs, and values of those strange beings who peddled them to the local people. In the long run, it implied not just adoption of the Westerners' technology or even their systems of religious belief; but a recognition of the supremacy of their law. Colonial rule was an outgrowth, almost the natural consequence, of years of extensive contact between Micronesians and Westerners. It was an imposition, to be sure, but it was not only that. In a very true sense, colonial rule was as much an acquired taste as the rice, pipe tobacco, and calico that became such a part of islanders' lives in the course of their dealings with the foreigners who visited their shores. The establishment of colonial rule was an event that can be seen quite legitimately as the culmination of the process of "civilization."  

page_xiii

Page xiii

Some would say that the story of civilizationin the truest sense of the wordshould begin thousands of years ago with the coming of the first islanders, the real discoverers of the Caroline and Marshall islands. Undoubtedly so, but this part of the tale is buried beneath the land and the seaand the elements do not easily yield their secrets. Let us begin, then, with the Europeanthat benefactor and despoiler, that cultural catalyst par excellencewho sailed halfway around the world to meet the island people in their own sheltered homelands.  

page_xv

Page xv

Acknowledgments Books such as this one are the product of many people's contributions. Authors need to be pointed to sources that would otherwise have gone undetected, but they require, even more, an intellectual ambience and occasional encouragement to sustain them in their long quest for what can often appear to be a will-o'-the-wisp. I have received all this and more from friends and colleagues throughout the world and I gratefully acknowledge their generous assistance. Harry Maude in Canberra and Saul Riesenberg in Washington, DC deserve special mention here. Both opened their files to me and graciously shared the wealth of a lifetime's research, always with a gentle humor and patience that sustained my own enthusiasm, naive as it often must have been. Other friends furnished information that I could not have done without. Lt Cdr C M Stuart in London, Theo Wettstein in Zurich, Frank Reiter in Berlin, Larry Lawcock in Guam, Renée Heyum and Len Mason in Honolulu, and Mary Browning, formerly on Kwajalein, were especially helpful in this respect. Robert Langdon, Norah Forster, Ilma O'Brien, and Robyn Walker in Australia came to my aid on more than one occasion, and the staff of the Micronesian Area Research Center on Guam, under the able directorship of Dirk Ballendorf, an old friend, provided a constant flow of information on new materials and suggestions for this book. Fr Tom McGrath, Dan Peacock, Alfred Capelle, and Kathy Kesolei made available Micronesian materials that they had located. Teresa del Valle and Felicia Plaza opened the doors to the treasures in Spanish archives; Ken Martin helped in the search through whaling records; Judy Casassa did translation of German works that  

page_xvi

Page xvi

my rudimentary knowledge of the language could not see me through; and Charles Reafsnyder and Mac Marshall shared precious bits of information on just about everything. Mark Berg, my colleague on another book, offered helpful advice on this one. So also did Ken Martin, Robyn Walker, Paul Ehrlich, and Fr Charles McCarthy, the others who read the manuscript and commented upon it. Don Topping and Bob Kiste, both of the University of Hawaii, offered their encouragement and practical assistance in seeing this through the press. Gigi Gallares and Elsa Veloso typed the manuscript and patiently bore the abuse that frustrated writers unloose on their secretaries. The entire community at Xavier High School deserves a word of thanks for their cheerful support during the years that this book was in the making. I also wish to express my appreciation to Dr David Stowe of the United Church Board for World Ministries and to Dr Rodney Dennis of the Houghton Library for permission to quote from the ABCFM Letters.  

page_1

Page 1

Chapter 1 The End of a Long Seclusion The Defenses Breached Shortly after daybreak on 6 March 1521, the lookout aboard the Trinidad sighted a lofty island ahead and then, soon afterward, another, and a third. The long, shrill cry announcing land, more a prayer of gratitude than a statement of fact, rang the length of the ship and brought the dazed crew to their feet. It had been ninetynine days since the three Spanish ships, the remainder of Magellan's fleet, had emerged from the strait that was later to bear his name and entered that vast sea that Magellan himself first named the Pacific. Only two islands, both deserted spits of land, had they sighted in this time. Now, as the ships coasted down the shore of the more southerly island in search of a safe port, the half-starved mariners gawked at the coconut palms, breadfruit trees, and plantains amid the tangle of rich green vegetation that promised them a hearty meal at last. During the trying three and a half months of their passage across the South Sea, they had been reduced to eating worm-ridden biscuit, and, when even this ran out, gulping down sawdust and gnawing on oxhide to assuage their hunger. Even the flesh of rats was a luxury they usually had to do without, for rodents were in great demand as a supplement to the sailors' frugal diet and began selling for half a ducat apiece as the days wore on and bellies became emptier. The Trinidad and its two companion vessels finally found a sheltered harbor on the southern coast of Guam and as they were turning in to anchor, a flotilla of swift native prao, dugout canoes equipped with single outriggers and triangular or lateen sails, put out from the shore and raced for the ships. Within a few minutes Europeans and Pacific islanders stood face to face with one anoth 

page_2

Page 2

er for the first timethe Spaniards in their dirty woolen pantaloons and tattered blouses, and the islanders in nothing but their swarthy skins. In a scene that was to be replayed hundreds of times throughout the Pacific for the next three hundred years, the islanders were in no time at all swarming all over Magellan's flagship helping themselves to whatever happened to catch their fancy: crockery, bits of rope, cloth, and, above all, iron. When Magellan found that he was unable to disperse the mob of light-fingered natives by more peaceful means, he ordered his men-atarms to take aim at a few of them with their crossbows. The troublesome guests left in haste, but not before they had succeeded in stealing the captain's skiff from under the stern of the ship. The following morning, after his small fleet had regrouped in the harbor, Magellan and a landing party went ashore to forage for provisions and seek satisfaction for the injustice they had suffered. With an armed force of forty men wielding torch and sword, they attacked the first village they came upon. The islanders were quickly driven off, leaving behind seven dead, and could only watch helplessly from the woods as forty or fifty nipa huts and a number of prao were reduced to ashes. When the Spaniards returned to the ships later in the day, they brought with them the stolen skiff and a good supply of rice, fruit, and fresh water. They also carried a few buckets filled with the intestines of the slain Guamanians to be distributed among the sick as a cure for scurvy. With his ships reprovisioned, Magellan had no reason to linger at Guam any longer. He was not the sort of person given to contemplating the strange flora and fauna that he must have found on Guam or to speculating on the remarkable customs of the Indios. He was a practical, hardheaded man with a clear mission bestowed on himat his own insistent urging, it is true!by the Spanish monarch Charles V. He had been charged to "discover islands and lands and rich spiceries and other things which may be to the benefit of the kingdom," and that he would do! (Cushner 1971:12). It was clear that these islands, which he contemptuously named Islas de Ladrones to commemorate the thieving ways of the inhabitants, were not the sort of lands his sovereign had in mind when he penned the royal capitulación 'contract' authorizing the voyage. It was with few regrets, then, that Magellan led his company out of Umatac Bay, just three days a after his arrival at Guam, to continue the voyage westward. While his ships hoisted anchor, the prao set out from shore once again, and as they darted around  

page_3

Page 3

and about the lumbering vessels, the islanders taunted the Spaniards and showered rocks on the decks of the ships, laughing convulsively all the while. For centuries, even for millennia, the inhabitants of those minute, scattered islands now known as Micronesia had lived in sheltered isolation from the outside world. Perhaps two or three thousand years before the birth of Christ, canoe voyagers from the Philippines or eastern Indonesia, bringing food crops and a few animals like the dog, first ventured into the unoccupied high island groups of western MicronesiaGuam, Yap, and Palau. A millennium or two later, probably about 1000 BC, later waves of travelers set out from the area around the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) to the south and moved up the Gilbert and Marshall chains, settling these groups and dispersing westward throughout the rest of the Caroline IslandsKosrae, Ponape, Truk, and the dozens of atolls still farther west. The cultural and linguistic boundaries were clearly drawn from the very beginning. The peoples of the high islands in western Micronesia retained languages and cultures that were ancient by oceanic standards; those of the island groups to the east and the low atolls in the west shared a more recent ancestral tongue and many cultural affinities. In time, the relative seclusion of the island populations resulted in diversification of language and culture among the peoples of the east, even though some interisland contact continued, as did periodic drift voyages from outside Micronesia. No fewer than ten distinct languages were spoken within Micronesia by the time of Magellan's arrival. The tininess and remoteness of these islands, the only visible remains of a range of submerged volcanic peaks, had, for centuries after their settlement, served effectively to insulate them from the mainland shores of Asia and America. Micronesians had always lived in peaceful ignorance of Europeans and their ways. Indeed, how could it have been otherwiseEurope was half the globe away! But the defenses that had assured the isolation of the islanders were breached on this day. European ships had for the first time penetrated the very heart of the Pacific and would do so in even greater numbers in the years to follow. If Magellan himself could not gauge the impact his voyage would have on the people he visited on this early March day, how much less could the natives who watched the wake of his ships from their outrigger canoes! Neither could the natives of Sonsorol, a tiny island southwest of Palau,  

page_4

Page 4

who looked out from the beach as a sail hove into view on 6 May 1522, have known that their island was the first in the Carolines or Marshalls to be discovered by Europeans (Stanley 1874:25 29). The ship that passed from a distance was the same Trinidad that had put in at Guam over a year before, now commanded by Gonzalo Gomez de Espinosa after Magellan's death at the hands of a band of warriors on Cebu (Map 1). No one at the time could have known the eventual impact that this remarkable voyage would have on the lives of those simple islanders. It would be centuries before much of its force would be felt at all, and even longer before it could be described. But the impact was real and its story forms the substance of this book. In Pursuit of the Fragrant Clove What was it that brought a band of plucky Spaniards halfway around the world into the uncharted waters of the Great South Sea? Perhaps the spirit of adventure that has seized countless individuals before and since and led them to test themselves against the elements of nature. Possibly the same kind of frontiersmanship that has always inspired certain souls to push back the limits of the unknown. The early sixteenth century, after all, was still very much a part of that optimistic age of discovery when it seemed that no corner of the globe would long remain inaccessible to European sailing ships. Undoubtedly, too, the desire to serve the majesty of both God and king and extend the domains of both helped to motivate a voyage such as Magellan's. All these forces played a role in the voyages of discovery, but when all is said and done, there was one simple object of their questthe clove tree. The great riches of the Orient, which lured European ships across uncharted seas, were epitomized in the rare spices that were to be bought there, and the rarest of all was the clove. To understand why the powers of Europe should have sent their merchant ships at great expense to the ends of the earth to put cloves on the table, we must consider the problems that Europeans had in storing and preserving food. The farming communities of the time were unable to supply fresh meat during the winter months when snow and frost covered most of the grazing lands. As a consequence of the chronic shortage of winter feed for cattle, large numbers of animals had to be slaughtered every autumn and their meat preserved for winter consumption by being dried or  

page_5

Page 5

 

page_6

Page 6

smoked. No more than a handful of the privileged who had the right to hunt deer could obtain fresh meat at this time of year; the vast majority of Europeans were compelled to eat tough and tasteless meat, much of it already spoiled. In the years following the return of the Crusaders from the East, Europeans had developed an insatiable craving for the spices that these knights of the Holy Rood carried back home with them. They found that the spices of the Orient not only made palatable the tainted meat they were accustomed to eat in winter, but also served as excellent preservatives, in addition to their recognized usefulness as important ingredients in medicines and perfumes. The traditional preservative had always been salt, cheap and readily obtained from Portugal. But the European palate had already been tickled by the tang of those zesty spices that could only be obtained from the East: pepper, grown in India and the East Indies; cinnamon from Ceylon (Sri Lanka); nutmeg and mace, found in the Celebes (Sulawesi) and a few other parts of the Indies; ginger from China; and, of course, cloves. The precious clove, the most sought-after of all the spices, was grown in the most limited area of allfive tiny islands off the west coast of Halmahera (now a part of Indonesia) that were, together with their tributaries, variously known as the Moluccas or Spice Islands (Map 2). Tidore and Ternate, the most important of these islands, are mere pinheads in the sea, no more than a few miles in length. It is difficult to believe that this cluster of seemingly insignificant islandsand the clove tree that grew so well thereshould have inspired countless sea voyages under the most arduous of conditions, sparked off controversies between the naval powers of Europe and Asia for two centuries, and caused the deaths of untold numbers of Europeans. But so it was. When Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese subject who had sailed with Almeida's fleet of India-bound vessels a decade earlier, presented himself to the Spanish monarch in 1518 with a plan for reaching the Indies by a westerly route, Charles V gave him an attentive hearing. The young Charles, who had only two years before ascended the throne, was most eager to find an alternative route to the Orient so that Spain could claim a share of the lucrative spice trade. For years now, the only sea route to the wealthy Spice Islands had been in the hands of the Portuguese, Spain's bitterest rival. Throughout the fifteenth century, Portuguese seafarers had gradually worked their way down the coast of Africa in their  

page_7

Page 7

 

Map 2. Early map of the Moluccas or Spice Islands, a group of clove-producing islands lying off the west coast of Halmahera (formerly known as Gilolo). (In map collection of Hamilton Library, University of Hawaii.)

page_8

Page 8

search for a sea-lane to the Orient. With Vasco da Gama's much heralded voyage to India in 1497, the Portuguese had acquired a virtual monopoly over the spice trade, and it was clear that they meant to keep it. In the two decades between da Gama's voyage and Magellan's audience with Charles V, the Portuguese had established a chain of ports along their route, wrested a good part of the Indies trade from the hands of the Moslem merchants who had long controlled it, and established an outpost in the Moluccas themselves. By 1518 the shipping route down the African coast and across the Indian Ocean to India and the strategic Malaccan Straits was the exclusive estate of John III of Portugal. The Portuguese had succeeded in creating a highly profitable commercial empire in the East, while the Spanish could do little but stand by and watch with covetous eyes. According to the famous Bull of Pope Alexander VI in 1493 and the Treaty of Tordesillas a year later, the Spanish were denied the right to explore and lay claim to any lands east of an imaginary line that lay well out in the Atlantic Ocean. Their zone of influence was to lie to the west of that line; the Portuguese were to have the exclusive right to colonize any areas to the east. In effect, this forbade the Spanish access to the sea route around Africa that within a few years would become the regular shipping lane for Portuguese vessels plying the waters between Europe and the Indies and peddling their precious wares in the markets of European cities. The Spanish were committed to search for a westward route to the Indies. Spain's early efforts to find an alternative trade route had led to Columbus' discovery of what he first took to be the Indies. ''Sail west and the East will be found" was that mariner's repeated contentionone that he thought he had proved by his landfalls in the "Indies" in 1492 and after. Only later was his discovery seen for what it wasa gigantic land mass that impeded the way to the East. In their own right, the newly discovered Americas would in time become a vast source of wealth to fill Spanish coffers, but just then they were little more than a formidable barrier to the riches that lay well beyondalthough how far beyond was anyone's guess! If the Spanish wanted to claim their fair share of the spice tradeand, for that matter, the trade in silks, Indian cotton cloth, and precious gems that also commanded very good prices in Europethey would first have to devise some way to sail around or through the Americas.  

page_9

Page 9

Magellan's plan, then, could not have failed to interest the Spanish authorities in 1518. They listened keenly as he told them of his surmise that the western and eastern coasts of South America met at the southern tip of that continent where the two oceans joined. It was around this point that he proposed to sail on into the South Sea. Within a year they had outfitted him with five ancient ships and a store of provisions that was expected to keep him in good supply until he reached the shores of the East. When the Victoria, the smallest and only surviving vessel of Magellan's fleet, limped into Seville harbor in early September 1522, three years after the expedition had set out, Spanish hopes were rekindled. The stout little ship may have appeared a spectre, its sails tattered and its keel encrusted with barnacles, but its hold carried a rich cargo: twenty-five tons of cloves (Morison 1974: 352 355). At the market value of the day, these spices would have more than repaid the initial outlay for the entire expedition, a fact that bore out how little exaggeration there was in the popular saying that a merchant could ship six cargoes from the Indies and lose five, but still make a profit when the sixth was sold (Parry 1961: 38). To be sure, the costs of the voyage in human terms were very high: all but a mere 18 survivors from the original 267 members of the expedition. Nonetheless, the expedition had accomplished its main purpose; it had found a western sea route to the Spice Islands at long last and had returned with a sample of these islands' fragrant wares to prove it. Spain would have its rightful slice of the profitable spice trade after all. The Simplicity of the First Age Oddly enough it was not the Spanish but the Portuguese who made the first real contact with the people of the Caroline Islands, a vast archipelago to the south of Magellan's discovery that spanned two thousand miles of ocean. Magellan's voyage across the Pacific had stirred Portugal out of its complacency. Troubled by the inroads that Spain had made and most likely would continue to make into what had once been an exclusively Portuguese preserve, Lisbon took immediate action. The captain of the Moluccas received instructions to explore the surrounding waters and lay claim to any lands he might find, especially those known to lie to the north. Stories of the colorful lands in the southern Philippines had probably reached the ears of the  

page_10

Page 10

Portuguese garrison in the Moluccas, for Moslem merchants were carrying on a brisk trade with Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago at the time (Map 3). Tales abounded of spice-bearing lands that were also rich in gold, silver, and other precious metalslands just waiting to be taken by the first European power to discover them. Portugal would do well to find these lands and secure its claim before the Spanish sea captains who were sure to follow in Magellan's track could establish title to these lucrative domains. After all, the Spanish were known to have taken certain liberties with the line of demarcation that divided Spanish territory from Portuguese and were not above moving it a few degrees to the east or west when it happened to suit their purposes. The captain of the Moluccas dispatched Dioga da Rocha in 1525 with a small galley under his command, with the intention of having him discover and lay claim to any lands he might find in those uncharted waters to the north. Rocha wandered from island to island in the Moluccas Passage for a while, until his ship was caught in a severe storm and driven a full two or three hundred leagues (between 800 and 1200 miles) to the northeast. On 1 October, as they drifted about at nine degrees north latitude with a broken rudder, the hard-pressed crew suddenly sighted land. They named the island group that lay before them Islas de Sequeira after their pilot, Gomez de Sequeira. Anxious to make repairs on their ship, which had been seriously damaged in the gale, they made for the islands, where they were graciously received by the natives. For the next four months Rocha and his crew remained on the island, most probably Ulithi, an atoll in the western Caroline Islands. While waiting for favorable winds, the Portuguese learned something of the life of the islanders, some of which was later preserved in the account written by the Portuguese historian João de Barros. In words that were to be echoed in later descriptions of the Carolinian atoll-dwellers, Barros gives this portrait of the people:

 

Both men and women were quite pleasant in appearance, with happy faces, quite friendly, neither thin nor fat, without a sign of physical ailments. The men had long beards like ours; and straight hair. Their dress consisted of woven mats, which were very soft and flexible, and which served them as our shirts do us. Above them they wore other mats more coarsely woven without any shape whatsoever, like merely a loose piece of cloth that covered them from the waist down. When the chief saw our men he expressed great happi-

page_11

Page 11

 

page_12

Page 12

ness, and because of the easiness and mildness [of the natives] everyone thought that the people of the island were of simple rationality, without any malice, fear, or cautiousness, such as our men had seen in the islands of the Orient; wherefore it seemed to them that they were amidst the simplicity of the First Age. (Cited in Lessa 1975b: 38 40) Here indeed was the very archetype of Rousseau's Noble Savagehumans in a primitive and uncorrupted original settinga full two hundred years before the French thinker penned his first line! The Portuguese admired the swift native prao, similar in design and construction to those that had come off Guam to greet Magellan. When they inquired how these were made without the benefit of iron tools, they were shown the shell adzes with which the islanders hollowed out the canoe hulls. They learned that the language of the Carolinians who inhabited this atoll was not intelligible to the black slaves from the Moluccas that they carried with them on their ship. But most important of all for the profit-minded Portuguese was the information that no valuable metals were to be found on these islands. When one of the Portuguese showed some of the natives samples of iron, copper, tin, and gold that he had brought with him, he found that gold was the only metal of which they gave any sign of recognition. Gold, the natives explained through their gestures, could be obtained from a high mountain somewhere to the west, presumably in the southern Philippines. No doubt the Portuguese took the opportunity during their protracted stay on the island to teach the inhabitants a few prayers and some of the simple doctrines of their religion, and they may even have baptized a number. At length, as the monsoon winds began to blow, the Portuguese took leave of their kindly hosts, promising to return sometime in the future. On 20 January 1526, Rocha's galley sailed out of "Ulithi" on a homeward course for Ternate, so ending the first encounter between Europeans and Carolinians. A Track to the West During the summer of 1525, at about the same time that Rocha was picking his way northward through the Moluccas Passage, a second major Spanish expedition was sailing out of Seville for the Pacific. At the head of the fleet of seven vessels was Juan Garcia Jofre de Loaysa, who had instructions to make for the Spice Is 

page_13

Page 13

lands and take possession of them by whatever means he might. He carried with him a royal cédula 'decree' appointing him as the first Spanish captain-general of those lands. The year before, representatives from Spain and Portugal had met to try to settle the troublesome question of the ownership of those five spice-growing islands of the Moluccas, but to no avail. The Portuguese government argued that it had not only de facto possession of the islandsa point that was incontrovertiblebut de jure title as well, since they lay well within the Portuguese side of that all too flexible meridian of demarcation. The Spanish envoys maintained that the line had been misplaced and if it were redrawn (according to Spanish charts, naturally!) the Moluccas would fall just within their zone. In despair of ever having Spanish claims recognized at the conference table, Charles V decided to move boldly and resolutely; he would seize the contested islands and resume the discussion of conflicting claims only after they were actually in the hands of the Spanish. The Spanish monarch could not have foreseen the catastrophes that would plague the expedition throughout, nor could he have known just how strong the Portuguese force in the Moluccas was. The enterprise was doomed from the very outset. It took almost a year before what remained of the fleet emerged from the Strait of Magellan, and within a week after entering the Pacific two more of Loaysa's vessels were lost in a storm, leaving only two ships of the original seven. Shortly afterward, when one of the two remaining ships was forced to put in at Mexico for repairs, the flagship Victoria was left to sail on alone. Misfortunes continued in rapid succession; soon Loaysa himself died, and within another four days his successor, Sebastian del Cano, was also dead. The command of this unlucky expedition next fell to Alonso de Salazar. As the Victoria struggled northward, an island was sighted that appeared green and inviting to the scurvy-plagued crew. The ship stood off for the night, intending to put ashore the following morning, but the Spaniards were unable to find bottom when they coasted the atoll looking for an anchorage the next day. Reluctantly they passed on, leaving the island with the name San Bartolomé in honor of the saint whose feast was celebrated that day, as was customary among Catholic mariners of the time. San Bartolomé, which would appear on European maps for generations afterward, was the first European landfall in the Marshalls. Next, the Victoria made Guam where it was hailed by a Euro 

page_14

Page 14

pean who came off the island in a native sailing canoe. The crew took the man, Gonzalo de Vigo, aboard and learned that he was the only survivor of the three seamen who had deserted from the Trinidad when it returned to the Ladrones after Magellan's violent death in the Philippines. For four years he had managed to keep himself alive on the islands, earning him the distinction of becoming the first European beachcomber in the Pacific. Salazar reprovisioned at Guam, as Magellan had done before him, and made ready to leave. He delayed just long enough to decoy eleven islanders who had come out to trade on board ship and impress them into service. His ship was short-handed and the crew was badly in need of a rest, so the Guamanians were forced to man the pumps on the passage to the Philippines, after which they were released. After a three-week layover in the Philippines, Salazar proceeded to the Moluccas, the real objective of his voyage. There he and his men found a strongly entrenched Portuguese force. After a valiant but doomed sea battle with them, the Spaniards burnt their own ship and took to the hills where they held out against the enemy for almost two years. In the end, however, they were captured and imprisoned. The Loaysa expedition had proved a dismal failure and the Moluccas remained as firmly in Portuguese possession as ever. Communications being what they were in those days, the fate of the handful of survivors from Loaysa's expedition did not reach Spain for years. Meanwhile, King Charles V, who probably labored under the illusion that the Spanish were actually on the verge of taking the Moluccas, ordered that another fleet be dispatched to come to their support. This time, however, the expedition was to be launched from the west coast of New Spain (what we now know as Mexico) to avoid the long and dangerous passage around the tip of South America. Accordingly, Hernan Cortes, the renowned conquistador and viceroy of New Spain, fitted out three vessels and selected his cousin, Alvaro de Saavedra Ceron, to command the company of 115 men. They set sail from Zihuatanejo on the final day of October 1527. In the end, Saavedra's expedition proved no more successful than Loaysa's, but it did discover several islands in the Carolines and Marshalls before it came to grief in the Moluccas two years later. On its track across the Pacific, the flagship Florida, which had lost sight of its two companion vessels some weeks before and was now sailing alone, came upon an island at which it could not  

page_15

Page 15

find a suitable anchorage. Two days later, on 1 January 1528, the Florida raised another island group that the Spaniards dubbed Islas de los Reyes in honor of the feast-day. Here they anchored and went ashore to take on water. While they were on the island, two canoes landed and the four bronze-colored people who disembarked from them cautiously approached a couple of Saavedra's men. Saavedra himself badly wanted to get a closer look at these islanders (the only ones he would meet on his long passage across the Pacific) but they slowly backed off when summoned and soon jumped into their canoes and departed. All that he could learn from his men afterwards was that the islanders were "long-faced, bearded, and clad in small grass skirts woven of fine palm leaves." They were natives of the western Carolines, we know from the sailing directions and distances recorded by the commander himself, probably from the island of Yap. The first island sighted by Saavedra answers to the description of Fais, an island about two days' sailing distance to the east of Yap. Before leaving this island group eight days later, Saavedra carved a memorial of his visit in a large tree and left a letter relating details of his voyage sealed in a jar at the foot of the tree. As far as we know, the letter was never recovered. When Saavedra arrived in the Philippines some three weeks later, he learned the distressing news that the survivors of Loaysa's expedition, eighty men in all, were holed up in a makeshift fort on Tidore, defending themselves against the Portuguese and their allies. The odds against this brave little band were overwhelming, as Saavedra well realized, and there was little he and his ragtag crew of thirty men (for that was all he had left by this time!) could do to assist them. Still, he turned south toward Tidore to lend the beleaguered Spaniards a little moral support, if nothing more. Once in the Moluccas, Saavedra lost no time in refitting the Florida for the return voyage to New Spain. He had picked up a few Spanish stragglers in the Philippines, men who had served under Loaysa, and took on a cargo of spices in the Moluccas as reparation for his owners' losses. Convinced that he could not salvage the Spanish cause there, he reasoned that he might at least be able to find a return route back east across the Pacific, something that no one had yet done. With this in mind, he pointed the Florida on an easterly course in the hope of making New Spain, but even in this he was to be frustrated. After running along the northern coast of New Guinea and putting in at one of the Admiralty Islands, he  

page_16

Page 16

bore north by east for some distance until reaching an island that he named Barbudos for the bearded natives who lived there. This island, which he records as lying at seven degrees north latitude some two hundred fifty Spanish leagues from New Guinea, must have been either Ponape or one of its outliers. The Florida struggled on in a northeasterly direction against the trade winds that blow steadily from that quarter during much of the year. Saavedra succeeded in climbing a few more degrees to the north before the winds proved too much to buck, and he was at last forced to head back to the Moluccas after six months at sea. Less than a year later, in May 1529, Saavedra left Tidore once again on his second and final attempt to recross the Pacific. Again he coasted New Guinea, touched at the Admiralties, and bore to the northeast; and again he sighted an island in or near seven degrees latitude, perhaps the same one that he had seen on his previous voyage. A week after this, in late September, while sailing in the vicinity of the northern Marshalls, he came upon the first of the two groups of islands that he would reach. As the Florida lay becalmed off an atoll that was probably Ujelang, several men came out in a canoe. Apparently irritated because Saavedra would not lower his sails in response to their signs, the islanders slung large stones at the ship, one of these missiles striking the hull of the Florida with such force that it cracked a plank. Completely unaware of the breach of etiquette that he had committed in failing to give the customary mark of deference to native royalty, Saavedra had a musket fired at the canoe, but without effect. The Spaniards, evidently more impressed by the tattooing that the natives wore than their unfriendly welcome, named the islands Los Pintados. Saavedra's next discovery occurred ten days later, on 1 October, when he anchored off another atoll about sixtyfive leagues, by his reckoning, to the northeast. This island group, which the Spaniards called Los Jardines on account of its lush vegetation, cannot be identified with certainty, but the likeliest candidates seem to be Enewetak and Bikini, both of which lost their vegetation and achieved a different sort of eminence centuries later when they became test sites for US nuclear weapons. Saavedra was taken sick and the ship was forced to remain here for eight days, but they were not altogether unpleasant ones if we may believe the account of Vincente de Napoles, the chief chronicler of the Florida's voyage (Wright 1951).  

page_17

Page 17

With the twenty or so Marshallese who came out to the Florida in their canoes was an old woman whom the Spaniards took to be a sorceress. She shuffled up to each of the crewmen and officers in turn and touched them lightly with her hands, apparently in an attempt to divine what sort of creatures these newcomers were. We are not told what conclusions she may have reached, but perhaps it really wouldn't have mattered anyway. The officers were already distributing presents to the islanders, and cordial relations were soon cemented between the ship's company and the natives. When the Spaniards eventually landed, they were welcomed at the beach by a retinue of natives who sang and danced to the beat of drums and accompanied them amidst great celebration to the house of the chief. There the guests were feted with a dinner that could not have consisted of much more than fish, coconuts, and fruit. In the conversation that followedif the communication between parties who did not understand a word of each other's language can be called that!the chief pointed to a musket that the captain was carrying and asked what it was for. To please his host, Saavedra had the weapon fired. Pandemonium followed immediately. At the loud report most of the Marshallese flew out of the house and dashed madly through the bush, many of them not stopping until they were in their canoes heading for safe refuge on another part of the atoll. The more courageous souls merely fell to the ground in a dead faint; but the chief, the most stout-hearted of the lot, remained exactly where he was, limbs trembling uncontrollably. The rest of the time on Los Jardines passed quietly, for the great number of Marshallese who had fled at the discharge of Saavedra's musket never returned. Those few who remained gladly helped the Spaniards fill their water casks and provided coconuts and whatever else the terrifying foreigners might desire. At length, Saavedra weighed anchor and resumed his voyage to the northeast, but his health soon worsened and within two weeks he was dead. His handpicked successor continued to climb to higher latitudes and reached the thirty-first parallel before he, too, died. This was a crushing blow for the dispirited crew of the Florida; they had endured enough on their slow climb northward and could take no more. Even though they, unknowingly, had already reached the latitudes that would carry future galleons eastward to New Spain, they brought the ship about and returned to Tidore where they, too, threw in their lot with the badly outnumbered  

page_18

Page 18

band of Spanish holdouts in their futile struggle against the Portuguese. At the very time that the Spaniards were getting ready to raise the white flag and put an end to their stubborn resistance in Tidore, the Portuguese and Spanish sovereigns had taken to the conference table once again and were just concluding an agreement that would finally put an end to the squabble over the Spice Islands. In return for three hundred fifty thousand ducats, Spain would cede its supposed rights to the Moluccas, according to the terms of the Treaty of Zaragoza that was signed in 1529 (Cushner 1971:29). Events had shown that Portugal's hold on the islands was tighter than the Spanish might at first have imagined. Spain's attempts to discover a western route to the Indies were hardly the spectacular success that was foreseen in the heady days following the return of Magellan's Victoria. Although the track west across the Pacific was well proven, the return voyage east had not been made successfully by a single Spanish vessel. Moreover, the expeditions had not proved commercially profitable; all that Spain had reaped for its efforts was the single cargo of spices carried by the Victoria. Of the fifteen ships in all that had put out on the first three expeditions, only the Victoria had returned, and its state of disrepair was such that it was soon after scrapped. None of the commanders of these three expeditions lived to see their homeland again, nor did any of the lieutenants who immediately succeeded them. As for the crews, of more than eight hundred men who sailed, only a mere handful (not more than thirty or forty, it would appear) ever made it back to Spain (Morison 1974:463 466, 478 479, 491 492). In all, there was good reason for Spain to surrender its interest in the Moluccas. A full twelve years passed after Saavedra's death before the next Spanish expedition into the Pacific was mounted. When Ruy Lopez de Villalobos set out from Mexico in November 1542 at the head of a fleet of six vessels, his destination was Islas del Poniente or ''the Isles of the West"the Philippines, as Villalobos himself was to name them. Spain may have abandoned her claim to the Moluccas, but she had not by any means given up the idea of establishing a toehold in the Orient. If the door to the coveted Spice Islands was shut, then she would have to search out and colonize her own Spice Islands in another part of the East. The Moluccas were surely not the only source of wealth in the vast new  

page_19

Page 19

world that had begun to open up to Europeans in the past three decades. Those "Isles of the West" that had been reached by the first three expeditions gave some promise of becoming what Spain had sought in the Moluccas. Reports had reached Spain that gold and cinnamon, if not cloves, were to be found there. It was to the Philippines, then, that Villalobos was sent with orders to explore, conquer, and colonize. Fifty-five days out of Mexico, on Christmas Day of 1542, Villalobos' fleet made its first real landfall, an island group somewhere in the Marshalls, to which Villalobos gave the name Los Corales. Here the Spanish took on wood and water, but met no people since they had all fled to another islet at the first approach of the ships. Less than two weeks later they reached another atoll, also in the Marshalls, which they thought to be Saavedra's Los Jardines. The fleet sailed on quickly, with fresh breezes from their rear quarter, to the western Carolines where they again sighted land. This time it was a small, pleasant-looking island that was said to lie at about ten degrees north latitude (the longitude could not be determined with any reasonable accuracy in those days long before the invention of a reliable chronometer). As Villalobos drew his ships close under the island, people came off in their canoes and, to the astonishment of the crew, greeted the Spaniards in their own language. "Buenos días, matelotes!" they called out, after which they made the sign of the cross over themselves. Leaving these islands with the name Matelotes, Villalobos passed on to another, much larger island, three days sail to the west, where the same salutation was repeated. The two islands at which Villalobos heard the Castillian greeting were very likely the same ones which Saavedra had visited on his voyage to the Philippines sixteen years beforeFais and Yap. Were the islanders, who must have been blessed with extraordinarily long memories, relating something that they had picked up from Saavedra's seamen? Or were these phrases the only evidence of a more recent unrecorded contact, perhaps with a vessel from the Philippines? We simply do not know, and if Villalobos ever found out he did not leave us this information. He did leave something of greater importance, however. In his company sailed one Antonio de Herrera, who was in due time to become the chief chronicler of the Indies for the king of Spain. Herrera published one of the earliest maps of the northern Pacific in his Historia General of 1601, showing all the islands discovered  

page_20

Page 20

by early Spanish captains. This work was one of the earliest and best-known maps of the Caroline and Marshall islands, and is reproduced here as Map 4. When Villalobos' fleet reached the Philippines in early February 1543, the Spaniards lost no time in mounting a campaign to subjugate the native peoples. It was not long, however, before Villalobos' company found themselves unable to get adequate food supplies from the villages, and were driven to tilling the soil themselves in what turned out to be an unsuccessful attempt to raise their own food. To make matters worse, a Portuguese crewman who came ashore off one of the three prao that one day appeared off Villalobos' campsite informed the Spaniards that Mindanao belonged to the king of Portugal by virtue of a Portuguese expedition that had reached there from the Moluccas five years previously. Villalobos was flabbergasted at this news. The Portuguese, it seemed, had once again beaten the Spanish in the race to extend their overseas empire. As the food shortage worsened week by week, Villalobos decided that he had no other recourse than to make for the Moluccasagainst the express orders Spanish authorities had given him. His effort to colonize the Philippines during the year that he remained there had failed miserably, and he could only do what the survivors of the last two Spanish expeditions had been forced to dodeliver himself into the hands of the enemy. And so Villalobos surrendered his ships and the survivors of his expedition to the Portuguese, who thereupon, with reluctant generosity, guaranteed the hapless Spaniards free passage home via India. Villalobos himself was taken down with a fever and died the year before his men returned to Spain, breathing his last, tradition has it, in the arms of that saintly apostle of the Indies, Francis Xavier. In a Wake of Foam and Blood It was late 1564 when the next Spanish fleet left port to begin its voyage across the Pacific. Nearly half a century had passed since Magellan had first crossed those waters, and Spain had yet to found its long-desired colony in the East. There was a good deal that might have discouraged Philip II, who had succeeded Charles V to the Spanish throne in 1556. Besides the disappointing results of previous voyages, a new quarrel had arisen with Portugal as to which of the European powers should have jurisdiction over the  

page_21

Page 21

Map 4. "Descripción de las Indias del Poniente," part of an early map of Spanish discoveries in the western Pacific, drawn by Juan Lopez de Velasco and published in Antonio de Herrera's Historia General (Madrid, 1601).  

page_22

Page 22

Philippines. Mounting evidence was beginning to persuade even the king's own cartographers that the Philippines lay outside the Spanish zone. Andrés de Urdaneta, the pilot who had sailed with Loaysa in 1525 and since then taken the habit of an Augustinian friar, wrote the Spanish king as much in a letter that must have caused a considerable stir in the court of Madrid. But the imperial designs were not to be lightly discarded. Pepper prices were soaring in Spain, and with them interest was renewed in finding a spice-producing colony in the Orient. Even if the archipelago that bore the name of Philip II should not quite live up to Spanish expectations as the new Spice Islands, it could become a depot for trade with other parts of the East: "The Silver Islands," as Japan was sometimes called, and Cathay or China, whose potential was still largely untapped. As the fleet of four ships watched the mountainous ridge of Mexico sink below the horizon, Miguel de Legazpi ripped open the sealed packet of instructions from the Spanish court and read his secret orders. He was to make for the Philippines and find out which of the islands grew spices; those lands he was to colonize, sending back to Mexico samples of the "spices and other riches" that might be found there. But it was not to be as easy as all that! Just ten days out of port, Legazpi was dismayed to find that one of his ships, the San Lucas under the command of Alonso de Arellano, had separated from the rest of the fleet and was nowhere to be seen. The San Lucas was easily the fastest sailer of the four ships and had pulled well ahead of the others on previous days, almost out of their sight. Legazpi had taken the pilot, Lope Martin, to task for this on more than one occasion, and could only conclude after he had lost the San Lucas that its maneuver had been intentional. It probably was! Martin, it seems, had concocted a sinister scheme with a few of his shipmates to gain control of the San Lucas after he had shaken off the other ships in the fleet. They planned to turn it into a pirate vessel, evidently hoping to steer for the waters around the southern Philippines where they could make raids on the richly laden merchant ships returning from the Moluccas. Until the opportunity came for the mutineers to make their move, however, they would have had to keep well out of the way of passing ships and, above all, prevent the San Lucas from accidentally being discovered by the rest of the fleet. With this in mind. Lope Martin brought the San Lucas down a few degrees from the usual track that Spanish ships followed to  

page_23

Page 23

bring them directly to the Ladrones. This new course brought the small ship to a number of hitherto undiscovered islands in the Caroline and Marshall groups, on a voyage that was the most eventful one yet made through these waters. A month after it had parted company with the rest of the fleet, the San Lucas was sailing before a stiff breeze one evening, when shoals showed up dead ahead. Martin dashed to the prow of the ship to size up the situation and was almost swept overboard by a breaker. Meanwhile, the ship was brought hard around by the helmsman and barely managed to clear some vicious-looking rocks. The San Lucas stood well off until morning when the Spaniards discovered that they had almost run aground on a group of low islands that were very likely those of Likiep Atoll in the Marshalls. On the next day, 7 January 1565, the San Lucas came upon another atoll where they found anchorageDos Vecinos or "Two Neighbors Island," possibly Kwajalein. A sail appeared in the distance; the Spaniards made for it and found a canoe manned by two husky men and a boy. When invited aboard ship, the Marshallese clambered up with no hesitation and received some small presents for their efforts. The Spaniards then followed them ashore to have a look around and, as it turned out, to meet their wives and children. On the following day the San Lucas came to still another island, this one smaller than the others and lying at about eight and a half degrees north latitude, perhaps Lib, an island twenty miles south of Kwajalein. As Arellano worked his ship in toward land, scores of islanders began swimming out. The Spanish captain might have taken this as a simple welcoming gesture on the part of a curious people, but a glance at the beach convinced him otherwise. Armed men swarmed all over the shore, brandishing spears tipped with the tail of the stingray, wooden clubs, and the slingshots that they used with deadly accuracy. With a force of only twenty men aboard the ship, Arellano thought it better to leave the disposition of the people untested and hoist sail immediately. Putting the Nadadores, as he called this last island, behind him, he left the Marshalls to continue his westward course through the Carolines. On 17 January, land again appeared off the port bowthis time a high island rather than the low coral atolls that the San Lucas had passed in the Marshalls. As the ship drew nearer, Lope Martin saw that it was in fact several high islands ringed by an enormous coral reef. The San Lucas had come upon the Truk lagoon. Soon  

page_24

Page 24

after the Spaniards had worked their way through the reef's northeast pass, a large canoe drew up to the ship and four of its occupants boarded the San Lucas to have a look around and present the Spaniards with food: fish and a "dough-like food so foul-smelling that not a man aboard the ship could stay downwind of it"very likely preserved breadfruit. The men made repeated signs to the Spaniards inviting them to put in alongside their island. When Arellano showed his willingness to comply with their requests, one of them remained aboard the ship to help pilot it through the shallows to the lee side of Toloas, one of the larger islands within the lagoon. The San Lucas had not quite made the anchorage when the Spaniards noticed with alarm hundreds of canoes full of men armed with lances, clubs, and slings, rapidly bearing down on them from the surrounding islands. The Europeans could only surmise that the host of shouting warriors making for them were angry that the Toloas people had beaten them to the punch and intended to take the ship as a prize. The San Lucas beat a hasty retreat through the shallow waters off Toloas, with one of the friendly natives who remained aboard taking the helm from time to time to help steer through the maze of reefs. When at last the ship had put a safe distance between itself and the pursuing canoes, the few Toloas natives who had stayed aboard helped themselves to spoons and whatever other pieces of iron they could find and leapt into the sea close by the barrier reef. But the worst was not over yet. Dusk was quickly falling and the San Lucas still had to pick its way through the reef-studded lagoon. With sail shortened now, the hostile canoes, which had by no means given up the chase, were closing in on the Spanish ship. The fastest of the canoes had already drawn up alongside the ship's boat and some of the warriors were busy trying to cut it loose, when Arellano ordered one of his men into the boat to drive them off. As the single seaman was trying to keep the Trukese from severing the tow-line, while warding off the blows of their clubs as best he could, the others in the canoes let loose with a volley of spears. Somehow they fell harmlessly to the deck without injuring any of the Spaniards but one of Arellano's men emptied his musket at the canoes just the same. In the turmoil and shouting that ensued, Arellano ordered the rest of the sail raised and the San Lucas slipped away into the gathering gloom. No one aboard ship slept that night. As the San Lucas crept  

page_25

Page 25

through the dangerous waters, always within earshot of the thundering surf on the reef, the sailors would peer uneasily from time to time at the ominous fires that blazed on the beaches of distant islands and listen for the sound of the strange native chants. The night passed without incident. At daybreak the ship hoisted sail and made for the pass on the western side of the lagoon. To the surprise and delight of the entire ship's company, there were no native canoes to be seenat least not until the San Lucas was passing Tol, the westernmost of the islands in the lagoon. The ship was pointing toward the pass, when about a dozen canoes came off the island, their occupants signalling the ship to turn about and put in for food and water. However, the weapons that the natives carried in their canoes were poorly concealed, and Arellano gave the order to load one of the ship's culverins with a stone charge and fire it at the lead canoe. The gunner scored a direct hit, at which the other canoes reversed direction immediately, leaving the San Lucas an unimpeded passage through the reef and away to the west. The Spanish ship was not long in making land again. The morning after it left Truk, it came upon three tiny islets arranged in a triangular shape around a lagoon: the atoll of Pulap. By this time the San Lucas was badly in need of wood and water, not to mention food; the ship hauled in under the lee of the island and prepared to send a boat ashore. Again the Spaniards saw what looked like the entire population throng to the shore with weapons in hand. Any fears that the Spaniards may have had, however, were dispelled when two of the native chiefs came aboard ship, offered the assistance of their people in helping them take on wood and water, and willingly remained on the ship as hostages while a young seaman went ashore with three canoes of islanders to fetch water. When the lad returned, he was so enthusiastic about the beauty of the island and the friendliness of the people that the ship's boat set out for shore with a party of ten men. The two chiefs in native canoes led the way, and when they had beached their canoes they made impatient signs to the Spaniards to land at the same spot. The officers hesitated when they came to a reef that they judged risky to cross with a fully loaded boat. A moment later their hesitation turned to apprehension when they watched the islanders split into small groups and take cover behind trees, with spears in hand. They could only suspect the worst and brought the boat about to return to the ship.  

page_26

Page 26

It was not long before a number of Pulap men came out to the ship to inquire why the Spaniards had not come ashore. They insisted that they carry the water jugs to the island in their canoes so that they could fill them for the sailorsbut they wanted a few of the Spaniards to come with them. When they agreed to leave a couple of their people aboard the ship as hostages, three of the Spaniards, confident now that there was no mischief afoot, jumped into the canoes and headed for shore with the islanders. Two of the Spaniards in the lead canoe had already reached the island and gone ashore when the canoe carrying the third sailor was just approaching the opening in the reef. The seamen in it suddenly saw his two crewmates dash out of the woods to the water's edge with a number of Pulap men in close pursuit. He watched in horror as they were clubbed to death in the shallow water and their bodies dragged back ashore. Panic-stricken, he seized a paddle and began swinging wildly at the natives in his canoe, yelling at them to turn the canoe around and make for the ship. When they came at him with clubs, he pulled a dagger from his belt and killed two of them; the others leapt out of the canoe in terror and swam for their lives. The sailor turned the canoe around and made for the ship amid a hail of stones hurled by the islanders in nearby canoes. Meanwhile, the two hostages on the San Lucas, who were only too well aware of what was happening, sprang overboard and swam desperately for shore. A few Spaniards bounded into the ship's boat in pursuit, but the agile swimmers had too much of a head start on them; only a lucky musket shot through the head stopped one of them. The men in the boat then picked up the injured sailor, still paddling for the ship, though by now more dead than alive. Feeling ran high among the Spaniards at the loss of their shipmates, and almost every man aboard the San Lucas volunteered for the landing party that was to go ashore with Arellano to avenge their deaths. Again the ship's boat put out, but after skirting almost the entire length of the reef, the Spanish officers concluded that the boat could not get through without running the risk of having its bottom ripped out on the rocks. Arellano had no recourse but to return to the ship, weigh anchor and sail on, leaving his two dead crewmen unavenged. Their spilt blood might be unpunished, but their memory would be honored in the name of the island as it appeared on future chartsLos Martires. Some small measure of vengeance was soon granted the Span 

page_27

Page 27

iards, as it happened. When they sighted the small island of Sorol three days later, they were greeted by the usual sight of armed men along the beach, but by this time they were wary enough of island people to avoid the main island, and instead made for a tiny uninhabited islet close by. Although they had understandably developed a distrust of crowded beaches, they still were sorely in need of water and wood to continue their voyage. As they anchored, two canoes approached the ship from a distance, the occupants armed in the usual way. Even when Arellano signalled them that he wanted to take on water, the natives continued to shout and brandish their weapons. By this time the patience of the Spaniards was wearing thin. But the resourceful Lope Martin, who was never without a ready stratagem for just such occasions, leapt to the poop deck, dropped a red jacket in the water, and bade the islanders to come pick it up. As one of the canoes pulled alongside the ship to do so, a crewman reached out and yanked up a young native boy by the hair. Almost simultaneously the muskets were fired at point-blank range at the canoe near the ship, while the culverin was emptied at the other canoe. The discharges did great damage, Arellano wrote, but "not as much as the natives deserved for their evil designs." In any case, the islanders, some of them seriously wounded, abandoned their canoes and swam for shore, while the Spaniards seized the canoes and the weapons in them for firewood, which was still in short supply aboard the San Lucas. As for the captured young man, his hair was cut, he was given the Christian name Vincent and a pair of pants to make him decent, and he was soon occupied in learning his prayersand a few other things besideson the remainder of the voyage to the Philippines. While the San Lucas was dodging shoals and hostile islanders in one harrowing escapade after another on its voyage through the heart of the Caroline and Marshall islands, Legazpi was leading the other three ships of the fleet on a less-troubled passage west. Just four days after Arellano's first landfall in the Marshalls, Legazpi's fleet came upon an island at which most of the Spaniards went ashoremuch to the terror of the native population, who fled in panic. In time, however, the natives returned to receive presents from the hand of the Spanish commander and to carry on trade with the ship. Entirely unknown to the islanders, Legazpi's grandson, Felipe de Salcedo, and the Augustinian Friar Urdaneta were ashore taking formal possession of the island in the name of the king of Spain (CDI 1887:76 79). When they returned to the  

page_28

Page 28

ship later in the day, they carried with them branches of trees and some vegetation that they had cut in token of the occupation of this ''Isla de los Barbudos." On successive days Legazpi discovered four more island groups in the Marshalls, all of them seemingly uninhabited, and passed on without incident. His ships then climbed to the latitude of the Ladrones, making Guam on 22 January 1565. There Legazpi himself went ashore to take formal possession of the island on behalf of the Spanish crown and to attend a Mass celebrated by Urdaneta to solemnize the event. Unfortunately, the inhabitants of Guam could not be persuaded to behave like loyal Spanish subjects. In the days that followed they persisted in filching nails and whatever else could be removed from the ship, thus confirming in Legazpi's mind the reputation they had earned as thieves during Magellan's stay on the island. Each day the uneasiness of the Spaniards grew, the more so as their landing parties returned with regular reports that they had been stoned while looking for water. Finally a young seaman who had been left ashore accidentally by a landing party was found murdered, his body pierced with spears and his tongue ripped out. Vengeance was swift and brutal. With a party of a hundred armed men, Legazpi put to the torch all the palm-thatched huts and outrigger canoes that he saw and summarily hanged the four Guamanians who were unlucky enough to be caught by his party. On this unhappy note, the Spanish commander ended his eleven-day visit at the islands that he had just claimed for his sovereign and departed for the Philippines. Arriving at Samar in the eastern Philippines on 13 February, Legazpi spent the next two months scurrying about searching for food, inquiring where valuable spices were produced, making diplomatic overtures to petty chiefs, and deciding where he should establish the command post for the new colony that he was to found. In late April his fleet reached the coast of Cebu, the island that he had chosen to be his capital, where he was met by two thousand armed warriors. A display of his artillery quickly dispersed the force that had gathered to oppose him, and Legazpi landed without opposition to take possession of the archipelago in the name of Philip II of Spain. Thus began a colonial rule that was to endure for more than three centuries (Cushner 1971:53 54). Arellano and the San Lucas never did fall in with the rest of the expedition. The San Lucas had arrived in the southern Philippines just two weeks before Legazpi's ships, but had run down the coast  

page_29

Page 29

of Mindanao to seek anchorage in the Davao Gulf, where they lay waiting for the fleet for over a month. In early March, Arellano brought the ship northward through the Philippines on a fruitless search for the rest of the fleet. Finally, on 21 April, the San Lucas cleared the Philippines altogether and steered to the northeast to find a sailing route back to New Spain. Within a short time, Arellano and his crew were driven by heavy winds as high as forty degrees north latitude, where the crude charts they carried showed them to be somewhere in the interior of China! There Arellano turned the ship eastward and sailed easily across the Pacific with the steady westerlies of those latitudes astern. Twelve weeks after it had departed the Philippines, the San Lucas reached the coast of North America, thus becoming the first European vessel to make the return crossing of the Pacific. It arrived two months ahead of Legazpi's flagship San Pedro, which the Augustinian friar-navigator Urdaneta had successfully guided along the same route. The San Lucas and the San Pedro had demonstrated the practicability of return voyages between the Philippines and America, and for two and a half centuries thereafter Spanish galleons would sail in the track laid down by these two ships. But the saga of the Legazpi expedition was not yet over. Soon after the return of the San Pedro, authorities in New Spain decided to dispatch another ship to bring Legazpi supplies, ammunition, and military reinforcements for his campaign in the Philippines. The San Jeronimo was taken out of dry dock, refitted for sea, and sent off on this mission under the command of Pero Sanchez Pericon. Captain Pericon was a forbidding soul"a miserable melancholic enemy of kindness who delighted in solitude," in the words of one Martinez who served under him (cited in Sharp 1961:114), but, what was worse, he was thoroughly lacking in good judgment and a poor leader of men. To serve under him as pilot, the wily Lope Martin was chosen, not so much for his proven ability as a navigator as to provide a convenient excuse to get him back to the Philippines where he would have to answer to Legazpi for the separation of the San Lucas the year before. The mismatch of the ship's officers was obvious, and it must have been with some foreboding of what was to come that the San Jeronimo's company of 170 left Acapulco on the first day of May 1566. Pericon's harsh treatment of all the ship's company, soldiers and common crewmen alike, was even-handed, for the dour captain knew no favorites; but this did little to win their respect for him  

page_30

Page 30

and his twenty-five-year-old son who sailed with him. The only apparent object of the captain's affection was a horse that he stabled in the bow of the ship and which, his men grumbled, received better treatment than any of them. None of the San Jeronimo's company grieved, then, when they were told on the morning of 4 June that the captain and his son had been killed in their sleep the night before. Behind the deed, of course, lay that master of intrigue, Lope Martin, and two fellow conspirators who supported his plan to seize control of the ship. At Martin's invitation, the soldiers chose their chief sergeant as the new captain of the ship, but his command was destined to be even briefer than Pericon's. Not three weeks after the mutiny, the newly appointed captain was clapped into chains while drinking in his quarters one evening, marched to the yardarm and hanged, and in a needless display of cruelty, cut down while still alive and thrown overboard. Lope Martin now became the self-appointed captain of the vessel and there was nothing to prevent him from carrying out his longcherished plan of bringing the ship down to the trade lanes near the Moluccas and preying off Portuguese shipping for a livelihood. Martin kept the San Jeronimo on a westward course and soon found himself in the Marshall Islands, as he had the year before with Arellano. First he sighted a small chain of uninhabited islands, then another group, off which a canoeful of natives came to gaze at the ship from a respectful distance. Two days later he found a third group, at which he anchored to get water and food and received the same kind of warm welcome, with singing and dancing, that Saavedra had been given at Los Jardines. That same evening the company returned to the ship and Martin pressed on toward Guam. It was near dusk on 6 July when the San Jeronimo lurched suddenly toward some barely visible reefs off its port bow. Martin seized the wheel from the helmsman and swung the vessel hard over, steering through a narrow passage into the Ujelang lagoon. The next morning the ship's company found themselves in calm waters surrounded by islands and reefs. The ship came to anchor off a particularly attractive little island where the men found deserted huts, a source of fresh water, and all the coconuts they could have wanted. Martin decided that this idyllic spot was a perfect place to refresh for a few days before resuming the voyage. All that the Spaniards needed to round out this pleasant existence were a few natives to do their fishing for them and a handful of  

page_31

Page 31

women to serve their pleasure in other ways, but whenever Martin or any of the men made for one of the canoes that they occasionally spotted, the frightened islanders would sail off in great haste. The company of the San Jeronimo passed several leisurely days on their island paradise, soon to become for many of them a prison. Quarrels arose among the mutineers, as might be expected under the circumstances, and mistrust grew daily. One day two of the company who were out of favor with the mutineers duped some of the crew into taking them back to the ship, and once aboard, they joined forces with two of their supporters to retake the San Jeronimo. Within a matter of minutes they subdued the seamen who had been left to guard the ship, had the mutineers in irons down in the ship's hold, and were opening up the arsenal to arm themselves. The ship was theirs, and they shouted out to shore their intention to leave the mutineers stranded on the island. During the next four days those who had taken the ship negotiated with those ashore as to who would be permitted to leave with the ship. Food supplies were left on the island, in exchange for which the marooned mutineers handed over the ship's instruments and charts. Martin was helpless; nothing he could do would persuade those aboard to change their minds. With sinking hearts he and twenty-six others watched from the shore as the San Jeronimo crawled out of the Ujelang lagoon on the morning of 21 July and slowly dropped over the western horizon. The Close of the Spanish Century With Legazpi's successful attempt to establish a colonial outpost in the Philippines, the early period of Spanish exploration in the Pacific came to an end. Spain now had its "Isles of the West," the foothold in the Orient and the entrée to its rich markets that it had so long struggled to gain. Even if the vision of the Philippines as Spain's own "Spice Islands" was proving chimerical and the early Spanish colonists in those islands were learning what a disappointingly small return they could expect from their new possession, those islands were a door that opened to the untold wealth of the Chinese empire. Chinese trade junks had brought their wares to the Philippines long before Legazpi ever set foot there, and with the beginning of Spanish rule the volume of trade increased dramatically. Silk, precious gems, porcelain, tea, and spices were carried to Manila by Chinese merchants, and from there shipped by  

page_32

Page 32

Spanish galleon back to New Spain. In exchange for these goods, the stout sailing ships brought to Manila silver that had been recently mined in Peru and Mexico. Almost immediately after the return of Legazpi's San Pedro in 1565, the lucrative galleon trade began and the heavily laden Spanish ships started their regular procession across the waters between Acapulco and Manila. Spain now had a settled trade route, and Manila was on its way to becoming a major entrepôt in European commerce with the Orient (Schurz 1939:26 34). Where there was freshly minted silver or gold, the English privateers who began to swarm to the Pacific in the late sixteenth century were also likely to be found. Francis Drake, the earliest of the English freebooters, called at Palau in 1579 after making several sorties into the Spanish Main. When he was repeatedly victimized by the lightfingered inhabitants there, he turned his muskets on them, leaving twenty dead, and called the place "Island of Theeves." Cavendish, Woodes Rogers, Anson, and Dampier followed after a lengthy interval, all of them spending some time in the Marianas close by the galleon routebut even the boldest and most successful of these did relatively little damage to the prosperous Spanish trade. The heavily armed galleons continued, almost without interruption, their annual run west to Manila, stopping at Guam long enough to take on water and provisions, and making their return crossing to Acapulco by way of the high latitudes. Even at the very time that the Spanish seaway to the East was settled, Spain's maritime explorers were dashing off over the seas againbut to a different part of the Pacific in search of other treasures. For years, even centuries, European geographers had speculated on the existence of Terra Australis incognitathat last great continent, still undiscovered, which lay somewhere in the southern ocean and balanced the land masses of the northern hemisphere. To these scholarly ruminations were added popular tales that the land of Ophir, from which came the gold of Solomon, was in reality islands in the Pacific. There were Incan legends that told of a chief who had long before sailed far out to mysterious islands from which he was said to have brought back gold, black slaves, and wonderful animals. All of this set afire the imagination of the prestigious Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, astronomer, mathematician, and student of Incan tradition, who at length prevailed on the  

page_33

Page 33

viceroy of Peru to equip a new expedition to find these wondrous islands (Beaglehole 1966:40 41). In November 1567, Alvaro de Mendaña left the port of Callao with Los Reyes and Todos Santos and steered for the southwest where the islands were reputed to lie. Mendaña and his company eventually came upon some islands, which they optimistically called the Islands of Solomon, but they soon began to wonder whether even Solomon in all his wisdom could have made a living there. Not only was there no gold to be found, but there was very little food as well. Gamely they sailed for six months, from one island in the group to another, always on the lookout for a more hospitable encampment, but the constant threat of starvation and repeated hostile attacks by the blackskinned natives finally settled the issue for them: they would return to Peru. Some days after crossing the equator on their voyage back, they came upon some small islands (San Mateo they called them) at about eight degrees latitude. When they landed to take on fresh water, they came upon some deserted huts and found a chisel fashioned out of nail and a piece of ropeall of which they thought to be the souvenirs of a Spanish ship's earlier visit to this lonely Marshallese atoll. Later chroniclers wondered whether they might not be all that remained of Lope Martin and the other mutineers marooned on Ujelang two years before. Spanish officials may have been disappointed with the little that Mendaña had to show for his two-year voyage, but Mendaña himself remained convinced that there were fabulously opulant lands to be won for Spainif only they could be found. He was not alone in this belief; the fabled riches of Ophir continued to be a popular conversation piece for seamen and innkeepers in the coastal towns of Peru. Nevertheless, it was 1595 before Mendaña could persuade Spanish authorities to let him make another attempt to find those elusive islands. In June of that year, with four ships and four hundred prospective settlers, he set out once again to discover the real Isles of Solomon and found a Spanish colony there. This second voyage was, if anything, even more disastrous than the first (Beaglehole 1966:56 80). Mendaña died of fever after completing a fruitless search from the Marquesas to Santa Cruz, and his command passed to the chief pilot, Pedro Ferdinand de Quiros. The Spaniards found the Melanesian islands to which they had come as inhospitable to whites as ever; illness and starva 

page_34

Page 34

tion, on top of the frequent native raids on their camp, decimated the band of settlers in just the few months that they remained at Santa Cruz. Quiros had no choice but to seek assistance in the Philippines. During his northward passage, on 23 December 1595, he came hard upon the reefs surrounding an island and was barely able to avoid going aground. Natives came out to beckon the ship in, but by then Quiros was only too anxious to be out of those dangerous waters. From the description that he left, this discovery (which appears on maps as "Quirosa") was almost certainly Ponape, an island that would not be seen again for some two hundred thirty years. Passing Guam, Quiros' ship at last made the Philippines and, after months of recuperation, the company returned to New Spain. It is hard to think of Mendaña and Quiros as other than romantic visionaries who had outlived Spain's heroic age of exploration in the Pacific. Their voyages were, more than anything else, a postscript to the discoveries of those early expeditions that charted the north Pacific on their quest for the spices of the East. The great Spanish sea-lane was tested and proved before the first of their voyages, and the resounding defeat of the Spanish Armada off the coast of England had already signalled the end of Spanish sea power well before they had completed their explorations. Spanish galleons might provide a steady source of wealth for years to come, but the golden age of Spain in the Pacific had ended. In the future this sea would belong to whatever powers had the resources and daring to master it. And what of those tiny islands that so often happened to lie in the path of the early Spanish captains? Barbudos, Arrecifes, San Bartolomé, Los Reyes, Matelotesall found their way onto Spanish sea charts and were promptly forgotten. They had no spices or gold to attract the interest of the Spanish, and the souls that there may have been to convert to the true faith were few indeed. The Spanish shipping lane lay at about thirteen degrees north latitude, too high for vessels to happen on any of the Carolines or Marshalls. These islands, with their treacherous shoals and reefs, came to be regarded as nothing more than navigational hazards that were best avoided. The people on the islands that had been visited, for their part, had little to show for their encounter with the Spanish: a few iron nails, a word or two of Spanish, perhaps a scar from a  

page_35

Page 35

musket ball, and invariably an interesting story to tell their grandchildren years later. Their lives were not changed by the occasional Spanish ship they had seen, and they could not have minded too much when they returned to the seclusion that they had known before Magellan's voyage.  

page_36

Page 36

Chapter 2 Mission to the Palaos Cast upon Distant Shores By the end of the seventeenth century, the Caroline and Marshall islands were still undiscovered as far as Europeans were concerned. The visits of Saavedra, Villalobos, Arellano, and the other Spanish sea captains of the century before were very brief, with contact usually consisting of little more than a friendly wave from a passing shipor a musket volley, as circumstances may have dictatedand a logbook entry. When some of the islands recorded in these logbooks found their way onto Spanish maps, they were strewn practically at random over the vast uncharted waters of the northern Pacific. Yet the crudity of the maps is understandable, given that Spanish navigators had no way of reckoning the precise location of the landfalls they made. Europeans knew that there were some islands scattered in these waters, though no one had the faintest idea how many or exactly where they might be. And no one really careduntil a group of Carolinian voyagers who had strayed far from their own shores were introduced to a Spanish priest who took a personal interest in their homeland. One day in late December 1696, two strange-looking canoes appeared off the eastern coast of Samar, an island in the eastern Philippines. A villager who happened to be on the beach at the time spotted them and signalled directions to bring them safely through the shoals, but the panic-stricken voyagers brought their canoes around and made for the open sea instead. They could make no headway against the strong easterly winds, however, and began to drift shoreward once again. Seeing that the frightened sailors continued to ignore his signals, the villager plunged into the  

page_37

Page 37

sea and swam to the canoes to guide them to the beach himself. Once safely on shore, the terrified band of natives huddled together, apparently resigned to becoming the prisoners of their deliverer. The villagers of Samar responded promptly and generously to the plight of the castaways. They brought coconuts, palm wine, and taro, all of which were greedily devoured by the strangers who, it was learned, had been adrift for over two months before reaching the coast of Samar. Only the boiled rice went untouched; the strangers, believing it to be worms, hurled it to the ground in disgust. The villagers hurriedly summoned two women, who had themselves drifted to Samar some time before, in the hope that they would be able to communicate with the strangers. At the sight of one of these women, several of the castaways, who recognized her as a relative, burst into tears. By the time the parish priest arrived at the spot, communication between the Filipinos and the band of Carolinians was well underway, with the two women serving as interpreters. Relaxed and talkative after their hearty meal, the strangers told the people that they had been blown off course as they were returning from Lamotrek to Fais (two small islands in the western Carolines separated by 500 miles of open sea) and had drifted for seventy days before reaching Samar. Originally they had numbered thirty-five, but five of their party had succumbed to starvation and exposure during the arduous voyage to the Philippines. They named thirty-two islands that made up their "nation," but when pressed again later made a rough map with pebbles on the beach showing eighty-seven islands, all of which they claimed to have visited. There were many others, they said, of which they had only meager knowledge. The information that they gave on these eighty-seven islandstheir names and the sailing time between themwas copied down and eventually circulated along with a report of the castaways' landing (Map 5). The Carolinians were placed in the homes of villagers, who were rewarded for their hospitality by the continual amusement that their guests afforded over the weeks that followed. The tattooed Carolinians, clad in loincloths, treated the local inhabitants to the spectacle of their native dances, performed in long double lines with rapid hand and body movements and lively chants. Before appearing in public on ceremonial occasions, they would daub their faces and bodies with a saffron paste made from the tur 

page_38

Page 38

Map 5. Father Paul Klein's map of the Palaos, 1696. This map was drawn from information provided by the Carolinian castaways from Fais who landed in Samar. The map is found in AGI, Leg 15, ''Cartas de las nuevas Philippinas (Palaos) descubiertas debajo del patrimonio de Philipe V." It was later published in Stöcklein (1726 no 127), and in Krämer (1917:17). meric plant; and to show their respect to the parish priest, whom they regarded as something of a potentate, they would take his hand or foot and touch it gently to their face. Their language, with its strange gutteral sounds, struck the missionaries as more akin to Arabic than to any of the local tongues. Grazing cows and barking dogs terrified the poor Carolinians, who had never before seen any quadruped other than the rat; almost any strange animal made them take to their heels, invariably provoking hearty laughter among the villagers. Samar was an entirely new world for the Carolinian castaways; here they were exposed to elements of Spanish culture that fasci 

page_39

Page 39

nated them no end. Majestic church ceremonies, songs and folk dances, firearms and gunpowder, and even the white skin of the Europeans whom they met were continual sources of amazement to them. However, nothing impressed them more than the iron tools they saw. When on one occasion they were brought by the parish priest to watch the construction of a trading vessel, their eyes bulged and they clucked in astonishment at the variety of iron tools that were being used. The Carolinians were already well aware of the superiority of iron to the shell and coral from which they fashioned their own tools. They had carried with them on their voyage to Samar a bar "of only a finger's length," a treasured keepsake perhaps from an earlier canoe voyage to the Philippines or the Marianas, and were most eager to obtain more. "Our yearning for iron," as an islander aptly expressed it to Father Victor Walter some years later, "is as strong as your longing for heaven." When each of them was presented with a piece of metal by the priest, their delight knew no bounds. So fearful were the Carolinians of having their precious gift stolen that they laid the metal under their heads whenever they slept. The castaways quickly won the hearts of their hosts. They were a light-hearted, cheerful sort of people; "neither heavy nor stupid, but with a great deal of fire and vivacity," as Klein typed them according to conventional psychological categories of the day. Their gentle and agreeable temperament (traits that were frequently singled out for comment by later visitors to the Carolines) must have made a favorable impression on the people of Samar and their Spanish pastor. Quarrels would sometimes break out among them, we are told, but these were quickly ended and order instantaneously restored by a definitive blow on the head. Caroline islanders, who lived out their lives in tiny communities where personal harmony was essential, were nothing if not tractable and eager to please. These qualities, along with a willingness to accept whatever quirks fate might have in store for them, must have stood them in good stead in Samar, for none of them, as far as we know, returned to their native island. Several of the men later married Visayan women and spent the rest of their lives amid the relatively comfortable surroundings of the island to which wind and sea had carried them (AGI, Leg 215, no 4:209 212). And there the whole matter might have endedwith the thirty Carolinians sinking into the same kind of oblivion that has swallowed up other hapless voyagers who have been cast upon those  

page_40

Page 40

shores before and sinceif an energetic and influential priest had not happened along at about this time. Father Paul Klein, the former Superior of the Jesuit Province of the Philippines who was accompanying his successor on a visitation to the mission houses, showed a lively interest in the castaways when he heard the story of their drift voyage. He summoned them for personal interviews, eliciting from them further information about their own islands, and wrote a lengthy letter reporting the whole episode to the Superior General of the Jesuits in Rome. In this well-publicized letter, Klein drew attention to the great number of undiscovered islands east of the Philippines, many more than the eighty-seven named on his chart, and suggested that this field might now be ripe for the harvest of souls. But before they could be evangelized, these islands would have to be found. The "Palaos," as the islands were commonly called by reason of the distinctive sailing craft that their inhabitants used (the name is probably a corruption of the Austronesian word for canoe, parau or prao), included all islands south of the Marianas and east of the Philippines. Their number and location were very much a mystery to both Europeans and Filipinos, and the several "Palaos" islanders who had been stranded on Philippine shores in recent years only served to intensify their curiosity about these islands. One of the islands had actually been sighted twice, when ships bound from Manila to Guam were blown off course. The discovery of "Isla de Carolina" by Lazcano in 1686 was confirmed by Rodriguez just a few months before the castaways landed at Samar. But where were the numerous other islands in that mysterious archipelago? Even "Panlog," depicted as the largest of the group and lying not far off the eastern shore of Samar, according to the map made by the castaways, was still unknown. Klein's letter sparked off an official inquiry about earlier groups of Carolinians who had suffered the same fate as the castaways on Samar. Interrogation of Spanish officials and missionaries turned up reports of similar mishaps on several previous occasions and some fragmentary information on the islands to the east that had been gleaned from the survivors. If the reports are to be believed, the traffic between the Palaos and the Philippines was heavy. In the year 1664 alone, as many as thirty canoes reportedly drifted to the Philippines; and Father Andrés Serrano claimed that he had personally seen boats drift in on eight different occasions. Klein's own houseboy was a Carolinian who had been carried to the Philip 

page_41

Page 41

pines with ten others some years before. This young man told the priest of six natives of Yap who had been blown to the Philippines, afterward returning to their home island with tales of the delicious new foods they had tasted and the kind treatment that they had received there. This may have been the same group of Yapese who were later reported to have brought back sweet potatoes and other crops to plant on their home island. Four other Carolinians drifted to Siau, one of the small islands between the Moluccas and the southern Philippines, where they were sold into slavery and chanced to meet a friendly Jesuit priest (Father Francisco Miedes) who took an interest in them and questioned them about their islands. Most of the earlier castaways took up permanent residence in the Philippines, either by choice or by constraintone was a servant in the Jesuit College in Manila, another was living in a village in Caraga, and three young Carolinian girls were boarding in a convent in the town of Janda. From these and other survivors of drift voyages, Spanish officials were able to get bits of information about their islands, some of it obviously distorted. There were lists of islands in the vicinity (variously numbering 32, 50, 83, or 87) that were said to be "as populated as an anthill." Spanish investigators learned the name of the chief god and some of the lesser deities in the Carolinian pantheon, together with some details on the political organization of the islands. One of the more exotic tales concerned an island in the Palaos said to be inhabited by a tribe of Amazons who forbade the presence of any male there, but would sail once a year to nearby islands to enjoy male companionship for a brief period. Confronted with this potpourri of fact and fantasy, Spanish authorities by the end of their inquiry knew little more about the islands to the east than they had before. The Enchanted Islands Where there were undiscovered islands, there were also souls in want of baptism; and Jesuit missionary interest in the Palaos was now fully awakened. The year after Klein's letter was written, the Jesuits in the Philippines found the funds to outfit a leaky old hulk, on which a priest and a brother, along with twenty of the Carolinian castaways, were sent to bring the gospel. Hardly had the ship left port, however, when it went to the bottom in what was to be the first in a long series of ill-starred attempts to reach the Palaos.  

page_42

Page 42

Lacking the resources to mount another effort at their own expense, the Jesuits decided to carry their cause to the courts of Europe. They found an avid and able promoter in the person of Father Andrés Serrano, an influential Jesuit missionary who shared with Klein a personal enthusiasm for the new venture. Serrano and a companion were sent to Europe to present a plan for founding a mission in the Palaos to the Roman Pontiff Clement XI, for it was through the pope's influence that they hoped to obtain authorization from the Bourbon kings to equip a missionary expedition to those islands. In hand Serrano carried his "Breve Noticia" on the Palaos: a synopsis of Klein's letter that Serrano had liberally embellished with flourishes of his own pen in a calculated attempt to gain a ready hearing at Rome, Madrid, and Paris. For the benefit of those whose primary motives were apostolic, Serrano made a case for the easy conversion of the Palaos islanders "because they are neither idolatrous nor contaminated by the Moslem sect." For others whose aims were not as selfless, he conjectured that the islands might contain spices and precious metals "inasmuch as they are thought to lie on the same latitude as the Moluccas, Borneo, Mindanao, New Guinea, Papua, and other islands that abound in these things." In still another diplomatic touch, intended as a compliment to the reigning king of Spain, Serrano labeled the chart of the eighty-seven islands that was appended to his document "Nuevas Filipinas." Serrano's mission was an unqualified success. Pope Clement, obviously quite impressed with the plan, wrote letters to Louis XIV of France and Philip V of Spain urging them to support the endeavor and to receive the two Jesuit emissaries in a personal audience. This the Bourbon kings readily did. After Serrano had regaled Louis XIV with stories of the newly discovered islands for a full two hours, he was sent on to the court at Madrid where he received an equally enthusiastic response. When Serrano and his companion returned to the Philippines in 1708, the Spanish monarch had already ordered authorities in Manila to provide the necessary financial backing for an expedition to the Palaos. All that remained now was to find the islands which so far had eluded all would-be discoverers. The next two attempts to reach the Palaos, in 1708 and 1709, proved as unsuccessful as ever. The first of these vessels, with three Jesuits aboard, ran aground off the port of Cavite; the second, carrying several Carolinians who had drifted to the Philippines  

page_43

Page 43

just the year before, spent four months searching the waters to the east without sighting a single island. At last, in 1710, the islands that had been the object of so much futile searching were found. On 30 November, Francisco Padilla, who had been given command of the patache Santissima Trinidad, sighted the tiny island of Sonsorol and managed, after a fierce four-day battle against wind and currents, to bring his ship close under. The islanders turned out in their canoes to offer the Spaniards coconuts and fish, embracing them and kissing their hands the moment they reached the deck. Whatever misgivings Padilla may have had about dispatching a landing party to explore the small island were immediately dispelled at this friendly reception, and he sent a party of troops ashore. When they returned to the ship some hours later, the soldiers gabbled excitedly about their royal receptionhow the people carried them from the boat to the very hut of the paramount chief where they were feasted, entertained with songs and dances, and presented with finely woven mats. Meanwhile, Padilla had been questioning a group of especially cooperative Sonsorolese about the location of other islands in the vicinity, and his pilot had sketched, with their assistance, a map of the Palaos showing forty islands (Krämer 1917:71). The next day the ship's boat put to shore again, this time with the Jesuit priests Cortyl and Duberron aboard. Before the boat could return to the ship, however, the Trinidad was driven out of sight of the island by the strong currents that are always so troublesome in those waters. For the next four days Padilla struggled desperately to regain Sonsorol, but to no avail. The two Jesuits had to be abandoned to their fate, and within a few days Padilla found himself some one hundred fifty miles north of Sonsorol, lying off the Palau group. Here at last was "Panlog," the largest and one of the most dominant groups in the Palaos by the account of the castaways. Visited only once in the late sixteenth centuryby the English freebooter Francis DrakePalau had remained virtually isolated from all European contact before 1710. Its people did not even have the acquaintance with the Philippines that other islanders had gained through drift voyages, for the inhabitants of this volcanic group had lost their navigational skills long before. Palau was the only island group in the expanse of ocean between the Philippines and Truk that was not tied into the vast trading network that linked the atolls of the western Carolines with one another.  

page_44

Page 44

The welcome that Padilla received at Palau was a good deal less friendly than at Sonsorol. No sooner had the occupants of the first canoes reached the deck of the Trinidad than they began to carry off anything that they could lay their hands on. Most were busily engaged in a furtive search for nails and bits of iron, but one daring fellow reached through a porthole and was tugging at the bed curtains inside when he was frightened off by an indignant Spanish marine. Another was found straining to break off a piece of an anchor chain, while some of his companions were at work on the iron fastenings attached to the helm. Enraged at the impudence of the natives, Padilla had his men drive them off the ship into their waiting canoes. As the evicted Palauans were making for shore, they suddenly brought their canoes around and let go with a volley of spears. The Spaniards responded with a round of musket fire, at which the natives leapt into the water and swam to shore behind their canoes. Under the circumstances, Padilla was unwilling to risk putting ashore and left Palau the next evening. His impression of the dark-skinned and entirely naked people he had just met was decidedly negativethey were a "coarse and savage lot," he thought, a poor contrast to the "kind, polite, and cheerful" Sonsorolese he had visited a few days before. His was a judgment that others would reverse in years to come. Now that the Spanish had finally succeeded in putting missionaries ashore in the Palaos, the problem was in getting them offor, at least, making sure that they were provided for. Padilla made for Sonsorol again after leaving Palau, and bringing the Trinidad as close by as possible, stood off the island for three full days. Without the ship's boat, however, he could not put ashore to attempt a rescue. Never did a canoe come out to the ship during that time, nor was there the usual commotion on shore that attended the approach of a sailing vessel to almost any island. The silence was ominous. Finally, after a consultation with his officers and the Jesuit brother, Etienne Baudin, sailing companion of the two stranded priests, Padilla decided to return to Manila without Duberron and Cortyl. The news that the Trinidad had been unable to rescue the two priests prompted Father Serrano to redouble his efforts to establish communication with the Palaos. His persuasive powers evidently did not fail him, for even after Spanish authorities had dispatched two ships early in 1711 in unsuccessful attempts to find the priests, the persistent Serrano was able to obtain permission to make a  

page_45

Page 45

third attempt in October of that same year. The bad luck that dogged the Jesuit enterprise from the very beginning continued, however, and just three days out of port the ship foundered off the coast of Mindoro in a storm. The indomitable Serrano, along with two other Jesuits and all but three of the ship's company, went to a watery grave. Patience and funds were running low in the royal treasurer's office in Manila. It was undoubtedly with a sense of relief that Spanish authorities there received the announcement of the Crown's decision that thereafter Guam would replace Manila as the base for all further efforts to find the Palaos. The burden of equipping exploratory voyages would become the administrative responsibility of the governor of the Marianas, who, although under the immediate authority of the governor-general of the Philippines, was far enough removed from Manila to keep his own tally sheets. In the years following Klein's first meeting with the Carolinian castaways at Samar, at least eight ships had been dispatched to find the Palaos. Of these only the Trinidad had been successful in making any contact whatsoever. The quest for those elusive islands was beginning to look like an exercise in futility; perhaps there was some truth after all to the Carolinians' story of islands that disappeared under the sea whenever a foreign vessel drew near. Small wonder that they soon came to be called Islas EncantadasThe Enchanted Islands! When Bernardo de Egui, the captain of the Santo Domingo, was sent from Guam in January 1712 in a last desperate attempt to find the two marooned Jesuits, very few must have held out any real hope that he would succeed in his mission. In those vast uncharted waters he was looking for a coral island barely two miles in length. His only hope, he decided, was to shanghai an unwary native or two whom he might use to guide him to Sonsorol. This was uppermost in his mind when, after a week at sea, he came upon a cluster of twenty-eight low-lying islets which he called Islas de Garbanzos (Chickpea Islands)a group that is today known as Ulithi. When the usual canoes came off to look over the ship, the Spaniards made frantic signs inviting the islanders to come aboard, but they must have suspected a trick, for none of the ordinary inducementscotton cloth, iron nails, nor food and winecould lure them onto the ship. Only when Egui agreed to put a Spanish hostage in one of their canoes would they finally climb on  

page_46

Page 46

deck, and even then they could not be persuaded to remain for very long. One of the islanders alone, a highspirited soul who had thrown caution to the wind years before, seemed willing to spend the night aboard the Santo Domingo, but Egui judged him too old and frivolous for his purposes. The next morning Egui tried again. More islanders came aboard, bringing with them wares to trade, and again the Spanish hostage took his place in the native canoe. As the morning wore on, Egui grew tired of waiting and resorted to the clumsy ploy of bringing the ship's boat around to cast off the empty canoes tied to the ship, thereby stranding the islanders aboard. The Ulithians, however, immediately sensed what was happening and rushed headlong over the side of the ship. Muskets were fired and three of the islanders were killed, while the Spanish seaman who had been serving as a hostage had his skull split by an oar. After this, there was little hope of persuading any of those people whom Egui had himself described as "cheerful and of a fine temperament" to approach the ship again; and so, with the one old man as a captive, the Santo Domingo moved on toward the south. Egui made Palau with little trouble a few days later. Here he found the natives even more suspicious than the Ulithians: they refused to board the ship at all and carried on their trade by throwing up taro, coconuts, and shell belts in exchange for the nails and hard tack that the crew tossed down into their canoes. At length Egui managed to lure aboard ship two young men, who were immediately rushed by the crew and subdued after a fierce struggle. The unlucky Palauans let out a loud, prolonged wail and made it known to the crew that they fully expected to be beheaded and eatenthe common fate, the Spaniards supposed, of prisoners taken by enemies on their island. Both were put in stocks for security until the ship was thought to be a safe enough distance from land, but the Spaniards had badly underestimated the swimming ability of their captives. No sooner was the first released from the stocks than he tore off the trousers that the Spaniards had given him, plunged into the sea and began to swim the thirty miles to shore. From Palau, the ship sailed on to the latitude of Sonsorol where the tiny island was actually seen two days later. As the ship passed in its lee, none of the crew could detect canoes, cooking fires, or any other sign of habitation. In a repetition of what had happened to Padilla's Trinidad two years before, the Santo Domingo was carried off the island by the strong currents and the Spaniards never  

page_47

Page 47

again caught sight of it. With the two remaining Carolinian captives aboard, the ship steered for Manila to report its failure to find the two priests. The two islanders presumably joined the growing number of Carolinians who were forced to make a permanent home in the Philippines. Of the fate of the two Jesuits stranded on Sonsorol nothing certain was ever learned. After Egui's return to Manila, the search for them was given up as hopeless; it was assumed that they and the detachment of Spanish soldiers who had landed with them all met violent deaths at the hands of the Sonsorol people. This suspicion was strengthened by later information received about the character of Moac, the Carolinian castaway who had been guide and informant for the Padilla expedition and had been ashore at Sonsorol with the Jesuits. Carried to the shores of Palapag in 1708, Moac had been baptized at his own request and had played the part of a model convert all the while he lived in the Philippines. However, a later group of Carolinian arrivals revealed to one of the missionaries a different side of his personality. Moac was a scoundrel, they said, who had been responsible for crimes too horrible to mention and who would almost certainly turn out to be the avowed enemy of the missionaries once back in his own land. On the strength of these reports, Moac soon afterward came to be regarded as the villain of the piece who had turned an entire island against the two proto-martyrs of the Palaos. The Apostle of the Garbanzos By the time the second missionary venture into the Palaos began in the early 1720s, those islands had both a new name and a new administrative center. Las Islas Carolinas, as they were by then commonly known after the island Lazcano discovered in 1686 and named in honor of Spain's Carlos II, had been placed under the charge of the governor of the Marianas. Their transfer from Manila to Guam made a good deal of sense. The Mariana Islands had been subject to Spanish rule and missionary influence for over fifty years and the local people had been completely subjugated and pacified for the last twenty-five. Guam may not have been the most bustling port in the Pacific, but it was an established Spanish outpost with a good harbor and a reasonably strong military garrison. When Father Diego Luis de Sanvitores reached Guam in 1668 at the head of a band of six Jesuits, one of his first achievements  

page_48

Page 48

was to bestow on Magellan's ''Ladrones" the less derogatory name of Marianas. Although Guam was situated squarely on Spanish shipping lanes and had been visited by the annual galleon for a century previous to this, the Spanish had never thought it worth their while to establish a colony there. The first troops assigned to the island were the thirty-one soldiers and their captain who accompanied the first missionaries. As Sanvitores and his fellow Jesuits began moving about the archipelago preaching, they encountered violent opposition from the Chamorro people. A succession of attacks and uprisings, prompted no doubt by affronts the Spaniards gave them and fed by local political machinations, left six Jesuits and a dozen catechists slain before reinforcements from the Philippines established a temporary and uneasy peace. As was so often the case in Spanish realms, the troops commissioned to provide for the safety of the missionaries were probably more a hindrance than a help in the long run. In 1684, in any case, another series of uprisings occurred and six more Jesuits lost their lives. After the Spaniards had crushed the last Chamorro resistance in 1695, they herded the survivors onto Guam, settled them in villages, organized them into work brigades, and watched them succumb in alarming numbers to disease, famine, and ennui. Civil authorities and Jesuit missionaries on Guam were languishing through the tedium that peace brought to their lonely little island when an event occurred that would refocus their attention elsewhere. Another drift voyage, very similar in many respects to the one that swept the thirty Carolinian natives into the arms of Father Paul Klein, catalyzed a second missionary venture to the Palaos, or Carolines. On 19 June 1721, a vessel was spotted off the eastern end of Guam, "little different from the Chamorro boat, but higher so that at full sail it was mistaken for a frigate" (Cantova in LECC 1728: 191). The twenty-four Carolinian men, women, and children who soon afterward waded ashore from the canoe were every bit as frightened as the group in Samar had been. They all but fainted from fear when they saw the sword dangling at the side of the village chief who was hurrying toward them with a priest to render assistance; their end had surely come, they thought. Immediately one of the bolder castaways dashed to the feet of the priest and suppliantly held out pieces of polished shell and other small gifts. The priest accepted the presents and embraced the native, at  

page_49

Page 49

which a perceptible sigh of relief swept over the castawaysthey were in the presence of friends. A few days later the twenty-four Carolinians, natives of Woleai who had been lost for twenty days following a fearful storm, were joined by another six people whose canoe had landed at the other side of the island. They were all clothed, fed, and transported to Agaña where they were presented to the governor of the Marianas. There they also met the Jesuit missionary, Father Juan Antonio Cantova, who was to become their constant companion and benefactor throughout the rest of their eight-month stay on Guam. Cantova was also to play the decisive role in initiating the second missionary enterprise in their islands. During the weeks that followed, Cantova struggled to learn the rudiments of his neophytes' language in order to be able to instruct them in the Faith. Within a short time he had translated several prayers into their tongue and was giving his small flock regular catechetical lessons. Several children were soon baptized on the guarantee of their parents that they would be allowed to remain on Guam in the care of the priests even after their parents returned to their island. However, the adults were a different matter altogether; Cantova refused to receive them into the Church, no matter how much they begged for baptism, on the grounds that it was "morally impossible for them, without pastors in the midst of a pagan people, not to revert to their original heathenism" (LECC 1728v 18:203, Ca-dA). He wanted no Moacs among his converts: natives quick to request baptism while living in a Christian land, and even quicker to return to their pagan superstitions once they got home. The only sure way of evangelizing this people was to provide a pastor to live among them permanently on their own island. He himself would accompany them back, in one of their canoes if necessary, and become that pastor. The Carolinians were becoming more restless with each passing day and were anxious to leave Guam for their home island as soon as possible, but the governor, whom they were required to see for permission to depart, had ideas of his own. He planned to detain some of them on Guam as a means of inducing their fellow islanders to make regular canoe voyages to the Marianas. This would insure some continued contact between the Spanish colonial government and those distant, little-known islands that were supposed to lie within its jurisdiction. However, as the castaways renewed  

page_50

Page 50

their appeals more frequently, often with tears in their eyes, he abandoned this plan and agreed to send them all back at the first opportunity. While he was having a vessel prepared for the voyage, Cantova went to his Jesuit Superior for permission to sail with the Carolinians and spread the gospel among their islands. They were not very far south of Guam, he argued, with more enthusiasm than respect for the facts, and it should not be difficult to get back and forth with relative ease. Cantova's request was denied at first. Authorities in Manila had had more than their fill of the expensive and frustrating chase after the Palaos a decade earlier, and Cantova's Jesuit Superior was unwilling to do anything that might give them the impression that he was supporting a renewal of this undertaking. In the end, however, he relented and Cantova was allowed to sail with the Carolinians when they left for their home islands in April 1722. Whatever misgivings officials in Manila had regarding Cantova's enterprise were only confirmed when high seas and gales drove the priest and the unfortunate islanders all the way back to the Philippines. The early pattern of costly misfortunes was being repeated once again, and it was not until 1731, ten years after he had first met the Carolinians on Guam, that Cantova was able to obtain permission from his superiors to make another attempt to reach their islands. Shortly before setting out from Guam in 1722, Cantova wrote a lengthy letter giving a detailed account of what he learned during the eight months he spent with the Carolinians (LECC 1728v18: 188 246). This letter, which was much published and widely read in Europe, was the most remarkable ethnographical record up to that time and remained the best account of the Micronesian people until well into the nineteenth century. According to his report, the islands of the archipelago were divided into five "provinces," each consisting of several islands united in a loose political system with its own common language. The westernmost of these five is the Palau Group, whose cultural distinctiveness from the atolls in the western Carolines was confirmed by Cantova's information. Next is Yap where the people were said to mine silver, undoubtedly a mistaken reference to their custom of quarrying large stone discs, which they used as money. The two "provinces" of Ulithi-Fais and Lamotrek-Woleai comprise the numerous small atolls extending between Yap and Truk, including the islands from which the castaways themselves came. Toward the eastern end of the archipelago lies "Cittac'' or Truk, whose principal island was said to be even  

page_51

Page 51

larger than Guam. These "provinces" of Cantova's correspond quite well to the political-economic empires that endured from precontact days until the present. Along with his letter Cantova published a map that he sketched from the information given him (Map 6). Although it shows very few islands that had not already appeared on the charts of Klein and Somera, it is far more accurate in the relative location it assigns to the islands. In all, it reveals a surprisingly complete knowledge of an island world that, stretching over fifteen hundred miles of ocean as it did, must be considered large even for a seafaring people. Cantova's map added appreciably to the meager fund of European cartographical knowledge of the area, and it was still the best one available to the Russian explorer Kotzebue in 1817. The atoll-dwellers of the west and central Carolines were among the world's most skilled and daring sea voyagers. Their ocean-going canoes continually coursed from island to island along sea-lanes that bore names and were marked out by detailed sailing instructions. It was only when a navigator strayed from such a lane, as when the canoe was driven by a violent storm, that he was likely to become lost. In this event, he could not do much more than consign himself to the mercy of the wind and waves until he should happen upon some island. Resources on these minuscule islands were severely limited, and the trading network that bound them together afforded a means of obtaining aid when a typhoon or other disaster struck. It also provided islanders with a means of acquiring what could be called "luxury items": in precontact days, shell belts and the precious yellow turmeric paste that was used throughout the area to adorn the body; and in later times, iron and metal tools, tobacco, and a variety of foreignmade goods. The Carolinians were a well-traveled people who knew a good deal about their island neighbors, but they were as prone to ethnocentric bias as any Europeans. The castaways from Woleai clearly demonstrated this in the description they furnished Cantova of the inhabitants of other island groups in the archipelago, particularly the peoples of those seldom visited islands at the very periphery of their world. Beyond Truk, the eastern limit of their terra cognita, lay a large island of "Falupet" or Ponape, "whose inhabitants worship the shark and are negroid, and whose customs are savage and barbarous." The Yapese were judged no less harshly, as an uncivilized people who worshipped the demon in the form of a crocodile  

page_52

Page 52

Map 6. Father Juan Antonio Cantova's map, drawn in 1722 from information supplied by the Carolinian castaways from Woleai who landed on Guam. (Source: Lettres édifiantes 1728v18:188 246, Paris.)  

page_53

Page 53

and in that way acquired the power to work sorcery on their enemies. As for the Palauans, they were the "enemy of the human race with whom it is dangerous to engage in even the smallest amount of commerce." Regarded as outright cannibals, they were shunned by Woleaians and other Carolinian atoll-dwellers. Perhaps the chief value of Cantova's letter lies in its broad, though often sketchy, description of the castaways' own culture. From the accounts of earlier travelers through the atolls of the western Carolines, a physical description of the islanders could easily be pieced together: a sturdy, well-built people of medium stature with skin color varying considerably; sometimes bearded; ears pierced, with lobes distended to hold ornaments; hair worn long and usually done up in a topknot; bodies and limbs tattooed in dark patterns; heads garlanded and faces smeared with turmeric on festive occasions; men clad in loincloths or short nipa skirts, sometimes with a cloak thrown over their shoulders, and women dressed in woven-skirts, occasionally with a short maro 'cape' on their shoulders. These same early accounts offer a glimpse of the weapons, canoe forms, houses, and kinds of food that were seen in the islands visited. But there was a good deal more that these visitors could not possibly have reported onthose less easily observed, but far more telling aspects of the islanders' culture. Here Cantova's account excels. He described some of the occupations of the island people. Men were engaged in farming, fishing, and canoe construction, while women did the cooking, helped the men plant root crops, and made sails of palm-leaf mats. Young men received lessons in practical astronomy and navigation, and were taught the twelve-point compass commonly used in those islands. For recreation the people pitted strength and skill against one another in spearhurling and rock-throwing contests. On occasion, the islanders gathered in the evening to perform dancesmen doing their standing dances in double lines, and women seated on the ground taking up a "sad and mournful chant, accompanied by the rhythmic movements of their heads and arms." When battles were fought, the combatants were arranged in three ranks, with men from the second and third ranks moving up to replace the wounded in the front line. The fighting was always done in single combat after warriors paired off against one another, and invariably ended with the winning side hurling jeers and insults at the losers. Cantova even noted the bathing habits of the islanders"three times a day; in the morn 

page_54

Page 54

ing, at midday, and in the evening"and gave a detailed account of how they went about whale fishing when one of the leviathans entered their lagoon. Several observations on the subject of chiefly authority were scattered throughout Cantova's letter. Clan chiefs, he related, were distinguished by the long beards that they wore and the wooden houses, often decorated with paintings, in which they dwelt. Their chiefly authority was unquestioned and virtually absolute, according to Cantova, and people showed their respect by prostrating themselves on the ground in their presence. Among the chiefs' prerogatives were the ownership of all iron found on the island and the right to a number of wivesthe paramount chief of Truk was said to have no fewer than nine. In this connection, the practice of prescribed levirate (the obligation to marry a deceased brother's wife) was mentioned in passing. Cantova's letter also delved into the religion and mythology of his Carolinian wards. He wrote of the dualistic animism that pervaded their outlook, the several different classes of spirits, and the honor paid to special ancestral spirits to obtain protection. The names of the principal deities, such as Lugeilang and Iolafath, were recorded, and a small sampling of creation legends and etiological myths were presented, among them the Promethean tale of the evil spirit who, after his expulsion from heaven, brought fire down to earth. Cantova noted the absence of "shrine, idols, sacrifices, or other external cultic forms" except in connection with burial practices. He then proceeded to outline the burial customs observed when a man of high rank died: the painting of the body with turmeric, the women's keening, the funeral eulogy delivered by a relative of the deceased, the kinsmen's watch over the corpse, the food offerings left for the spirit of the dead person, and the eventual interment in a marked grave-site that was often enclosed by a stone wall. Even after devoting page after page to the elaborate animistic beliefs that the Carolinians held, Cantova concluded that these people "have no notion of religion." In words that echo those of Serrano, he maintained that they would be the more receptive to Christianity because ''their minds are in no way prejudiced by the unbelievable systems of so many sects." Cantova finally found the opportunity to test this judgment of his. In late February 1731, he and another Jesuit, Father Victor Walter, left Guam in a small ship piloted by Cantova himself and  

page_55

Page 55

bound for the Carolines. After twenty days of sailing, the two Jesuits and the dozen Spanish soldiers who were to protect them landed successfully at Mogmog, one of the islets of Egui's "Chickpeas," otherwise known as the Ulithi Atoll (Map 7). Here the Spaniards remained for a day or two conferring with the chiefs before moving on to Falalap, a larger island in the same group, which they had chosen as the site of their first mission station. They were jubilantly received at Falalap; most of the island population turned out at the beach to cheer their arrival, and the two Jesuits were lifted out of the boat and carried on improvised palanquins to the nipa house that had already been prepared for them. After this auspicious beginning, the priests turned quickly to their evangelical work. The initial response of the people was heartening. A crowd would gather outside their house each morning to observe silently as the priests said Mass and would listen respectfully to the religious lessons that always followed. Constantly at Cantova's side was Digal, a native of Woleai who had served as an informant for the priest during his last few years on Guam and had accompanied him down to Ulithi. Digal had first come to Guam in 1725 when he and three companions were picked up by a Spanish vessel after their canoe lost its way on a return voyage from Yap to Woleai. The newly appointed governor of the Marianas, who happened to be on the same ship, took an interest in the bright young lad and kept him as a servant at his residence for the next four years. During his stay on Guam, Digal had acquired a fluency in Castillian as well as a reputation for being "very honest, polite, and a great worker." Impressed by the young man's fine character and solid piety, Cantova had baptized him just before their departure for Ulithi and given him the Christian name Gaspar de los Reyes. After two months on the island the priests could report that, with the invaluable help of Digal, they had made splendid progress. More than one hundred twenty children had already been baptized and about six hundred adult proselytes were receiving instruction in the Faith. There were problems, to be sure, the two most persistent being the rats that were devouring the corn planted by the padres and the opposition of the native priests to the new religion. Of the rats, Cantova wrote that they overran the island in such great numbers that the priests had easily caught fifty-five within three hours. There was some hope, however, that their traps  

page_56

Page 56

 

page_57

Page 57

might be able to keep the rodent population under control and perhaps even save their garden. As for the native priests who had opposed the work of the Jesuits from the very outset, they were beginning to lose some of their credibility among the people. First, the typhoon that they had conjured up to drown Cantova and Walter on a recent canoe trip failed to materialize. Then Cantova, while clearing his land, cut down trees that were supposedly sacred to the spirits, even after being warned that to touch them would mean death. The impunity with which he defied their taboos astonished the Ulithi people. But the greatest allies of the Jesuits in their struggle against the native priests were the small, newly-baptized children who would stand around and ridicule their incantations and rites, and then run off to report to the Spanish padres what was afoot. The letters written by Cantova and Walter in early May (the earliest surviving letters written from the Carolines) reflect a cautious optimism on the part of both Jesuit missionaries, but they also reveal a striking difference in personal attitudes toward the native people. Cantova, ever the buoyant enthusiast, portrayed the Ulithians as "peaceful, tame, docile, and very affectionate, speaking to the Fathers without reserve"; they were a cheerful people with a consuming passion for song that they constantly indulged "like a choir of Capuchins singing Matins" (Carrasco 1881:264, Ca-dlH). In Walter's eyes, the Ulithians were lazy and frivolous people who ''waste many hours in sleeping, dancing, jumping and spreading on oil which the silly people think makes them all the more handsome." He had little good to say about the leisurely meetings with which they would "squander the whole morning" and the daily afternoon baths that he saw as making them "weak, sluggish, and disinclined to everything that brings the least amount of inconvenience with it" (Stöcklein and Keller 1735:541, Wa-Sz). With food supplies running very low, Cantova had intended to take the ship back to Guam to secure badly needed provisions and, while there, to try to recruit two additional priests for work in the new mission. However, an unexpected and threatening development forced a sudden change of plans. In an ominous postscript to his letter, Cantova mentioned a dramatic change in the attitude of the chief toward the priests, purportedly since the recent arrival of a young man from Woleai who was spreading tales of the harsh  

page_58

Page 58

treatment he had received in Guam at the hands of the Spanish garrison. Fearing that an uprising might take place in his absence, Cantova decided to send Father Walter with the ship, while he himself remained behind on Ulithi. As usual, the return voyage was beset with difficulties. The shipin what must be a familiar story by this timewas caught in a terrible storm and swept back to the Philippines. When it finally succeeded in making the crossing from Manila to Guam, it ran aground at the very entrance to the harbor at Apra and had to be abandoned as a total loss. The Jesuits in Guam were obliged to have a new ship built and provisioned before Father Walter could finally come to the aid of Cantova, whom he had left behind a full two years before. At last Father Walter, accompanied by a Jesuit brother, departed from Guam in June 1733, and reached Ulithi after a voyage of nine days. As they drew nearer to the shore of Falalap, they saw that Cantova's house had been burnt down, the cross removed, and all vestiges of Christianity destroyed. A Ulithian was seized off one of the four canoes that cautiously ventured out to meet the ship, and from him the Spanish finally learned of Cantova's fate. Just ten days after Walter's departure for Guam, Cantova was called over to Mogmog to baptize a dying man. As he was going ashore, he was surrounded by a party of hostile men armed with spears and clubs. The priest asked what he had done to incur their anger. "You have come to change our customs," they shouted as they made ready to strike him down. Cantova had his own Moac, if there is any truth to the account that the kidnapped Ulithian gave Walter; Digal, the devoted catechist whom Cantova himself had baptized on Guam, was branded the principal traitor. Whether he too had become disaffected as a result of the stories that his fellow Woleaian had been telling and joined him in a conspiracy to kill the priest and wipe out the military garrison we shall never know. At the news of Cantova's death and the massacre of the Spanish troops, Father Walter could do little more than return to Guam to resume his work there. Two years before, when he had been driven back to the Philippines, he had witnessed in Manila the baptism of another young Ulithian, a man he had brought back with him. This was to be the last fruit of the Jesuits' apostolic work in the Carolines. With Walter's return the second missionary venture in  

page_59

Page 59

the Carolines came to an abrupt close; like the first, twenty years before, it concluded tragically and decisively with the spilling of Jesuit blood. It would be a century and a half before another missionary attemptthis one successfulwas made in the western Carolines. With the close of the mission, Spanish interest in the Carolines ceased altogether and the islands were again forgotten for the next fifty years.  

page_60

Page 60

Chapter 3 On the Road to China The Union Jack Unfurls over the Pacific When, in the last two decades of the eighteenth century, ships again began to appear off the shores of Micronesian islands, it was the Union Jack rather than the Spanish colors that flew at their mast. The Pacific, which had seen the rise and fall of Portugal, Spain, and Holland in succession, was then in the process of becoming a British legacy (Ruggles 1967)at least for a few decades, before American whaling fleets would come to dominate the ocean's commerce. By the 1780s a steady procession of British vessels, merchantmen of the Honorable East India Company, were making landfalls in the western Carolinesespecially among the minuscule atolls southwest of Palauon the final leg of their voyage to Canton. Once again, chance had placed the islands on the path of maritime fortune-seekers, this time the masters of British indiamen bound for China and cargoes of oriental teas and silks. Britain was no Johnny-come-lately in the Pacific. In the sixteenth century British privateersOxenham, Drake, Cavendish, and Hawkinshad intruded into what was then a Spanish sea to plunder their chief rival's ships and coastal settlements, thereby diverting some of Spain's new-found wealth into the national treasury of England. When Spain fortified its settlements, and increased its naval protection, leading to the capture of Hawkins in 1594, English privateering in the Pacific came to a swift halt and did not resume for almost a century. But if buccaneering failed, there was always the expedient of establishing direct trade with the Indies in order to augment the national income. It was with  

page_61

Page 61

that in mind that the East India Company was founded in 1600 to serve as the commercial organization that, with the support of the government, would conduct all trade with the Orient. Unfortunately for the British, however, the Dutch had very similar designs and set up their own East India Company just two years after the British company was begun. Dutch ships had first entered the Pacific less than a decade before, late arrivals in the struggle for control of the spice trade; but their resourceful captains lost no time in negotiating treaties with those petty rulers in the Moluccas who happened to be on bad terms with the Portugueseand their number was by this time legion. With a canny eye they sized up the precarious situation in which the Portuguese found themselves and reported, on their return to Amsterdam, that the time was right for the Dutch to make a bold commercial move into the Indies. Portugal, dragged at the heels of Spain into a major war in Europe, was in no position to defend the long string of forts that protected its trade route from the depredations of a sea power like Holland. Nor could it count on any military support from local sultans, many of whom had been disaffected by Portuguese religious intolerance and strong-arm proselytism. The Dutch, in a quick strike against the Portuguese, won their first naval battle in 1601 and were on their way to supplanting them as masters of the spice trade. For a while Dutch and British ships managed to carry on a peaceful, if cool, commercial rivalry for the trade that the faltering Portuguese had once monopolized. After 1609, however, with its war against Spain ended and its independence won, the Netherlands asserted its exclusive claim to the Moluccas and began an earnest campaign to squeeze out all competitors from the spice trade. By 1623, the Dutch had evicted both Portuguese and British from the Moluccas and made good their claim over the archipelago that would, three centuries later, become Indonesia. The British East India Company, lacking the capital and the government support that its Dutch counterpart enjoyed, was confined for the rest of the century to a part of India. While Dutch ships carried spices and, later, coffee back to Europe, British vessels returned with less excitingand less profitablecargoes of Indian calicoes and muslins. The eighteenth century, however, brought a reversal of fortune to the two rival powers. The old British company was reincorporated at the turn of the century and, with the backing of England's  

page_62

Page 62

growing naval power, burst out of its confinement in India to establish direct trade with China in 1715. Before long the ships of the Honourable Company, as it was called, were transporting teas and other luxury goods back to Englandmuch of it for reshipment to foreign ports. Meanwhile, a new generation of British privateersDampier, Woods-Rogers, Anson, Clipperton, and Shelvockecoursed the Pacific to prey off the shipping of other European powers. This time the Dutch were forced to withdraw. In the face of growing difficulties in India and the fact of superior British seapower, the Dutch pulled back into the archipelago where their political and commercial dominance remained undisputed, leaving the rest of Asia and all of the Pacific open for all comers. The British were intent upon filling that inviting void and, once their wars with France in Europe and America were won, took positive steps to do just that. By the mid-1700s, Britain was engaged in the same kind of quest that Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands had undertaken previouslythe search for new producing areas that might become sources of commercial wealth. There was no need to resurrect the old myths of two centuries before and sail off into the Pacific expecting to find mountains of gold or acres of clove trees. This was a more sophisticated age that had long since discredited such adventurers' tales. Suitable land for the cultivation of good cash crops would do just fine. But there were other reasons, hardly less compelling, for the awakening of British interest in the Pacific. If the long-sought Northwest Passage to the Pacific could finally be found, British merchantmen would be able to avoid the hazardous voyage through the Straits of Magellan, which were still at least nominally controlled by the Spanish. Then, too, in Europe the burgeoning scientific spirit of the day played upon restless minds, goading them to find out what lay beyond just for the satisfaction of knowing. Under the influence of such pragmatic and idealistic forces, the British voyages of exploration into the Pacific began with Byron's in 1764, followed by Wallis' three years later. The climax, of course, was reached in the three voyages of James Cook, who, before his untimely death at Kealakekua Bay under the clubs of disillusioned Hawaiians, finally laid to rest the venerable old theory of the existence of the Southern Continent and all but disproved that of the Northwest Passagean accomplishment that was left to Vancouver to complete.  

page_63

Page 63

Even if she had failed to find a shortcut into the Pacific, Britainwho, by the last quarter of the eighteenth century, had earned world-wide recognition as the Mistress of the Seasstood firmly committed to continuing the lucrative China trade and expanding British interests, both commercial and political, in the Pacific area. In regular convoys British indiamen sailed freely and without interference around the Cape of Good Hope, across the Indian Ocean, and up to Canton to take on wares. The masters of these vessels were supplied with sailing directions that advised them to avoid standing too close to the continent on their passage north because the strong monsoon winds made it difficult for them to beat around the northern tip of Luzon during the sailing season. Instead, from about 1760 on, the ships continued well to the east of Canton while still in the southern latitudes, passed through Dampier Strait off the northwest tip of New Guinea, and sailed northeast in a gentle arc that brought them close to Palau before curving back to the mainland well to the north of the Philippines (Map 7). Dozens of East India merchantmen, following the route that was known as the Inner Passage on the final part of their voyage to Canton, recorded sightings of the same remote islands off Palau that were seen by Carteret on the Swallow in 1767: Pulo Anna, Merir, Sonsorol, Tobi, and Helen's Reef. Hardly a year passed between 1780 and 1810 without at least one recorded discovery in the western Carolines, and some of the islandsnotably "Lord North's" (Tobi) and Helen's Reefbore the names of Company ships long afterward (J Stevens 1808:634ff). The invention of a reliable chronometer a few decades earlier now made it possible to record the longitude of these islands with a good measure of accuracy. While these logbook entries could scarcely have provoked jubilant celebration in the London office of the East India Company, the positions of the islands were duly noted on the company's charts and knowledge of the geography of the area was advanced that much more. Moreover, it was one of these shipsthe packet Antelope in 1783that touched off a chain of events destined to bring Palau into close contact with the British for years afterward. The arrival in 1788 of the First Fleeteleven ships from England carrying a human cargo of over seven hundred convicts destined for the new penal colony at Botany Baymarked the establishment of the first British settlement in the Pacific. Some eighteen  

page_64

Page 64

years earlier, Captain Cook had come upon land that he called New South Wales. His find proved to be the eastern coast of New Holland, now known as Australia, the land mass discovered by the Dutch a century earlier but quickly abandoned by them as unprofitable. Profit, however, was not the primary concern of the British authorities who sent out the First Fleet under Arthur Phillip; they simply wanted a convenient dumping groundpreferably as far from Britain as possiblefor criminals and other social undesirables. For this purpose New South Wales would serve as well as any other place. The fleet put in at Botany Bay and then ran up the coast fifteen miles to Port Jackson. There, after the last of the manacled prisoners had been discharged, the governor of the new colony established his headquarters. The unimpressive settlement that the masters of these ships saw as they brought their vessels into Sydney Harbor would soon become for the South Pacific what Honolulu was to be for the Norththe major port-of-call for ships entering and leaving the Pacific, an entrepôt for trade between East and West, and eventually a supply point for white settlers in the islands beyond. It was from this base that the British whaleships and merchantmen would sail forth into the Carolines and Marshalls for the next four decades, leaving their tobacco, ironware, calico, and now and then their seamen on the islands at which they called. With their prisoners discharged and their holds empty, the ships of the First Fleet disbanded and struck north for Canton to pick up cargoes of oriental goods for the return voyage to Englanda practice that came to be followed by most British convict vessels in succeeding years. Two of the more enterprising captains, Thomas Gilbert of the Charlotte and William Marshall of the Scarborough, brought their ships well around to the east on a course that took them through the archipelagoes that now bear their names. After making a number of discoveries in the Gilbert Islands, they crossed the equator at 175 degrees east and cruised up along the eastern chain of the Marshalls. At Mili, their first landfall in the group, they were met by a canoeful of natives who were persuaded to come on deck only after an elderly, grey-bearded man had chanted the prescribed formula to insure that no harm would befall them. The exchange between the British and the islanders was relaxed and cordial, and even after several of the Marshallese were accidentally knocked overboard by the spanker-guy, they promptly returned to the ship to resume their trading and sight 

page_65

Page 65

seeing. On successive days during the last week of June, Gilbert and Marshall sighted Arno, Majuro, Aur, Maloelap, Wotje, and Ailuk, but had no further dealings with the people. Their visit to the Marshalls was, with the exception of Samuel Wallis' sighting of a pair of islands in 1767, the first by a European in over two centuries. Not since Lope Martin and the mutineers of the San Jeronimo were left ashore at Ujelang had there been a meeting of Europeans and Marshallese. But there would be many in the years to come, now that the islands were rediscovered and their location marked. In coming around to China through the eastern part of Micronesia, the two captains followed a route that soon came to be preferred to the usual "Inner Passage" near Palau. Recommended as less hazardous than the other, the "Outer Passage" subsequently carried British shipping through a portion of Micronesia that, like the Marshalls, had been unvisited since the days of the sixteenth century Spanish sea captains. Two other ships from the First Fleet made contact with an island in Micronesia. The Alexander and the Friendship, which had been detained for some months in Australia, finally sailed for Batavia in the company of two other ships to deliver official dispatches there before returning to England. They soon lost their companion vessels but continued to pick their way through the Solomon Islands, making observations as they went, until scurvy broke out aboard. Desperately in need of fresh food for his ailing crews, Lieutenant Shortland made for the first island he happened to sight, and on 10 September 1788, the two ships came to anchor off Palau. Islanders swam out to the ships and soon swarmed all over the decks offering the British bamboo containers filled with waterthe sailors had difficulty making it understood that it was coconuts they wanted, not drinking water. Some of the crew were sent ashore to bring back victuals, but they returned with a paltry thirty coconuts and a "mixture of fish, yams, and many other things" that Shortland quickly pronounced inedible. Before their ships weighed anchor and limped off toward Manila, the British noted unmistakable signs of recent culture contact in the iron adzes "of European manufacture" carried by the men, and the occasional Spanish words that the people used (Phillip 1789:208 212). The iron tools, at least, could be explained by the visit of another British vessel just five months before. The Iphigenia, under Cap 

page_66

Page 66

tain William Douglas, en route to the northwest coast of America on a fur-trading venture, made a brief stop at Palau after laying off the island of Tobi for a day. Despite the gifts of ironware that Douglas made to the Palauans who boarded the ship, the return was disappointingly small: two or three pieces of taro and a few coconuts. The chagrined captain fired a musket into the air, thereby instantly clearing the decks of all visitors, and made his way out to sea. There is probably some truth to the slightly sardonic observation made by John Meares, in his published account of the voyage, when he suggests that if Douglas had been acquainted with the occurrences of Captain Wilson on the Antelope, he might have acted quite otherwise than he did (Meares 1790:291 299). The King's Musketeers The Antelope, a 300-ton packet flying the ensign of the Honorable East India Company, had made an uneventful passage to China in 1783 like so many British merchant ships of the day. It had taken on a cargo in Macao and was homeward bound when, on the night of 10 August, the lookout raised the shrill cry, "Breakers!" A moment later the ship shuddered as its keel struck the reef. Captain Henry Wilson, who had been fast asleep in his cabin, sprang to the deck and found the ship already listing badly. It was taking in water quickly through the gaping holes in the damaged hull and would soon have to be abandoned. Wilson ordered the ship's hands to haul on deck all the provisions that they could secure from below, while other sailors were cutting away the masts to prevent the vessel from turning on its side. The boats were put over the side, stocked with provisions, and made ready to take the crew off at a moment's notice if the ship should break up. Meanwhile, the downcast sailors huddled together on the quarterdeck, sheltering themselves as best they could from the lashing sea and rain and waiting for dawn to break. Early morning light brought a welcome sight to the stricken men: land lay just ten or twelve miles off to the east and south. The two boats put out for shore with most of the ship's company, while the few left on the stricken vessel set to work lashing the stores down on the deck and making a raft that could be used to haul them ashore. By nightfall, the Antelope's entire crew of thirty-four Europeans and sixteen Chinesewith the exception of one seaman who had been swept overboard to  

page_67

Page 67

his death the night beforewere safely ashore, drying out their clothes and their gunpowder, guarding the store of supplies that they had been able to take off the ship, and wondering what kind of treatment they could expect at the hands of the natives. They did not have to wait long to find out. Early the following morning, a sentry spotted two canoes approaching and spread the alarm through the camp. As the men quickly armed themselves to prepare for the worst, Captain Wilson and a polyglot Portuguese seaman by the name of Tom Rose walked to the beach to meet the naked islanders who had just beached their canoes and stood on the shore peering about cautiously. Rose greeted them in Malayan. After an uncertain moment or two, one of them came forward and responded in the same tongue. The spokesman was not, he told Rose, a native of this island group, but a Malayan from Ternate who had been lost while commanding a trading vessel and washed up on this island ten months before. It was from him that the British learned that they were in Palauor Pelew, as the place soon came to be known. Through his interpreter, Captain Wilson informed the Palauans of the wreck of his vessel and assured them of his peaceful intentions. By a stroke of fortune, the Antelope's company enjoyed an advantage that very few other foreigners in similar circumstances had: they could communicate verbally with the islanders and allay some of the mistrust and suspicion that was almost inevitable in such early encounters. Within a short time the natives and the Englishmen were breakfasting together on biscuits and tea. The Palauans, wearing nothing more than their tattooes, showed as much surprise and curiosity at the foreigners' clothes as at their white skin. As they lost some of their reserve, they started to stroke the seamen's arms as if they were trying to determine where the garments ended and the skin began. A few of the more obliging seamen opened their shirts and exposed white, hairy chests to the islanders, who squealed their delight at this unusual spectacle. The dogs that the Englishmen had taken off the shipthe likes of which the Palauans had never seen beforeprovided another source of amusement, and they did everything they could to get them to bark again and again. This first meeting between Wilson's men and the Palauans was amiable enough and the Englishmen were soon convinced that they had little to fear from the inhabitants. When the Palauans requested that one of the Englishmen be sent in a canoe to visit  

page_68

Page 68

the high chief at his residence in Koror, Wilson readily agreed and chose his own brother to beg the chief's assistance and to present him with gifts of tea, candy, and blue broadcloth. The diplomatic mission to Koror was a great success. When Wilson's brother returned to the camp two days later, he gave a glowing report of his reception at the ''court" of the high chief. The ibedul (or Abba Thule, as the chiefly title appears in the English accounts) was happy to grant the Englishmen permission to build a new vessel so that they might return to their own country. To demonstrate his good faith, the high chief had sent gifts of food to the Englishmen and dispatched several high-ranking men with orders to prevent anyone from plundering the wreck of the Antelope. This last injunction was as much in the interests of the Palauans themselves as of the English castaways, for three islanders had already died after ransacking and sampling the contents of the ship's medicine chest. In the meantime, Captain Wilson had taken measures of his own to ensure the continuation of friendly relations between his men and the Palauans. With the consent of his officers, he had prudently destroyed the barrels of liquor that had been carried off the wreck, for fear of an unpleasant incident, and had hidden the tools that would be so badly needed for the construction of a new vessel. Rum he could not risk dispensing and ironware he could not spare, but he saw to it that his Palauan friends were stylishly outfitted in trousers, scarlet coats, white shirts, or whatever else might catch their fancy. When the high chief himself soon afterward came to verify the marvelous stories that he must have heard of his visitors, the crew of the Antelope received him in the most elegant manner that their peculiar circumstances would allow. The "King" and his "Prime Minister," as the culture-bound Englishmen thought of them, were seated on a canvas sailcloth, served tea from the best chinaware, made gifts of scarlet cloth and multicolored ribbons, and introduced to each of the ship's company in turn. None of this, however, had quite the same effect on His Royal Personage as what followeda display of the use of firearms. The English seamen marched onto the beach, performed a few military maneuvers, and fired three rapid volleys to the hoots and hollers of the appreciative audience. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the musket, Wilson released a fowl, which one of his marksmen instantly brought down with a single shot. The reaction of the chief and his people was one of sheer amazement: they heard the loud report  

page_69

Page 69

and watched the bird fall, but saw nothing leave the musket and enter the bird. Before the high chief and his retinue of three hundred people returned to Koror, the ibedul approached Wilson somewhat hesitantly with a request for the assistance of five English musketmen in an impending battle against his enemies. The high chief was no fool; he had listened carefully to the explanation of the principles of firearms and easily comprehended the enormous advantage that they would give him in military conflict. The ibedul, one of the two rival paramount chiefs in Palau, was the ranking chief of Koror and the leader of a loose confederation of villages that included roughly half of the Palau archipelago (Map 8). He and his successors were almost continually at war, usually with the other confederation headed by a chief who bore the title reklai and whose seat was in the district of Melekeok (or Ngatelngal, as it was then called) on the eastern side of the large island of Babeldaob. But often enough the enemy was liable to be one of the larger villages in their own confederation, for the latter had a way of asserting their independence from time to time when conditions seemed favorable. The lines of alliance between the villages of Palau were loosely drawn and political cohesion was hard to maintain for long. The result was endemic warfare between and within confederations. The ibedul's request for military assistance from the Antelope's crew, inspired by the awesome exhibition of firepower that he had witnessed the day before, was the first such request made of foreigners by a Palauan chief. There would be many more throughout the next century. Wilson consented to the ibedul's request, assuring him that the enemies of the "King" were enemies of the Englishmen as well, and five armed seamen left with the high chief's party to begin their campaign. Meanwhile, the remaining members of the crew immediately set to work dismantling sections of the Antelope, which still lay exposed on the reef, for use in constructing a new schooner. Work on the vessel progressed rapidly, and by the time the war party returned nine days later, the ribs for the keel were already laid. The outcome of the military expedition, the five Englishmen reported, was a great victory for the chief of Koror and his allies. The musketmen had been deployed in five different canoes at the head of a war party that must have numbered fifteen hundred men. The first volley of musket fireand the single casualty that  

page_70

Page 70

 

page_71

Page 71

resultedhad completely routed the enemy. Apparently quite satisfied with this easy victory, the chief did nothing more than carry away a few coconuts and yams before ordering his men to turn their canoes around and sail home. Upon their return to Koror, the victorious army was greeted with a round of celebrationlargely composed of feasting, songs, and danceswhich the British mercenaries found far more arduous than the campaign itself. It was the Englishmen's first lesson in the strange conventions of native warfare: the elaborate preparations for battle followed by the briefest possible skirmish, with the winning side showing no inclination at all to press their advantage or occupy the territory of the defeated party. Elated at the success of his first campaign against Melekeok, the ibedul again asked Wilson for the loan of some men and muskets on another expedition against the same district. This battle, which lasted for a full three hours, resulted in far more bloodshed than the first. Again and again, the Englishmen emptied their muskets at the enemy canoes; as the wounded natives dropped into the sea, their companions simply gaped in disbelief at the absence of any spear shaft in their bodies. English musketry again proved decisive, and the enemy were finally put to flight. The nine prisoners taken, all of them injured, were summarily executeddespite strong protests from the Englishmen, who regarded this practice as barbaricand their heads were mounted atop poles outside the ibedul's house. By now the new vessel was nearing completion, and it would very likely be just a few weeks longer before the Englishmen left the island for good. The ibedul well knew that he had only a short time left in which to utilize the firepower of the English against his political rivals. He was anxious to establish his dominance over Melekeok conclusively and to reassert undisputed superiority over the other villages in his confederation. He therefore planned another attack on Melekeok, again with the assistance of his British mercenaries, but this time equipped with a small artillery piece from the Antelope. Although illness had left the crew shorthanded, Wilson thought it best to grant the chief his wishbut only on the condition that no more prisoners taken in battle would be put to death. Again the musketmen worked their wizardry, and again they returned safe and sound to report a resounding victory for the "King's troops." The "King," however, was not a man to sit on his haunches  

page_72

Page 72

while his authority remained challenged in any quarter of his realm, and he apparently had reason to think that it was being contested on the nearby island of Peleliu. And so, after bringing the usual heaping baskets of food to the crew of the Antelope and offering them red and yellow ochre paint for the new schooner in appreciation of their help, the ibedul asked for a detachment of Englishmen to join his new force against Peleliu. As fame of the Englishmen's exploits grew, so did the size of the imperial fleet; this time about three hundred canoes from several different villages amassed for the attack. When the war party reached Peleliu, after delaying briefly at an adjoining island to cut down trees and destroy houses, it found the people of that island only too eager to negotiate peace on the high chief's own terms. The Englishmen looked on with satisfaction as the Peleliu warriors laid down their spears before the ibedul and presented him with native bead money, afterward leading ten of their women off to the canoes of their conquerorsthe customary prize of war in Palau. As the day on which the Englishmen expected to take their leave drew near, a young seaman by the name of Madan Blanchard told Captain Wilson that he intended to remain behind and live the rest of his life in Palau. Blanchard, a veteran of all four campaigns in the service of the ibedul, had distinguished himself for bravery and resourcefulness and probably had developed something of a taste for battle as well. When Wilson, in a self-serving twist of the truth, informed the ibedul that he was leaving behind one of his men to aid them in future military ventures, the high chief was enormously pleased. He had already been promised a supply of muskets and two cannon from the ship; now he would have an Englishman to serve as master of ordnance and to instruct his people in the use of firearms. Blanchard would be well cared for, he assured the English; he would have two wives, a house and a plantation, and the rank of rubak in the communitysurely more than an illiterate twenty-year-old without a trade could expect in England, Blanchard might have thought! The ibedul, for his part, decided that he would send his own son, Lee Boo, to accompany the English, for it was a common Micronesian practice for parties to exchange individuals as well as material gifts upon leave-taking. But there was more to it than that. The high chief, who had been the principal beneficiary of the Englishmen's astonishing technology and skills, had every reason to want his son to learn their ways and to instruct his own people in them on his return.  

page_73

Page 73

On 9 November, just three months after the Antelope went aground, the schooner built from her timbers was launched. The Oroolong, as she was called, was stocked with provisions and made ready to sail as soon as the last round of farewells was over. The Englishmen turned over to the high chief several muskets and all except the most necessary tools; in return, they were given so much food that it could not possibly be stowed on the small vessel and much of it had to be taken ashore on the dinghy. In a solemn ceremony, Wilson was honored with the Palauan equivalent of knighthood: a dugong bone bracelet representing the highest distinction in Palau was slipped on his arm. In another expression of friendship and gratitude, Palauan leaders planted coconut seedlings whose fruits were intended for the Antelope's crew if they or any other Englishmen should return to those shores. After fastening to a tree a copper plate bearing an inscription to commemorate his visit to Palau, Wilson boarded the Oroolong and ordered the vessel underway. The Englishmen had left behind Madan Blanchard, the first of a longand inglorious, many would say!line of beachcombers in the Caroline and Marshall Islands, together with an assortment of guns, cartridges, tools, and other paraphernalia for the use of the islanders. But they left behind less tangible things as well, which would have an even more enduring effect on the Palauan people: a deep appreciation of the value of gunpowder in the struggle for political ascendancy among the local villages, and a strong desire to continue to use foreigners as powerful allies in this struggle. For years afterward Palauan chiefs, usually with white beachcombers acting as their spokesmen, would do everything in their power to enlist the support of visiting British ships for their military expeditions against political rivals (Hezel 1978:263 265). Koror, due to its fine natural harbor and relatively heavy ship traffic, had a great advantage over the other villages of Palau and its political influence grew throughout the nineteenth century. If no future ibedul ever succeeded in unifying all of Palau under the undisputed rule of Koror, such as Pomare had done in Tahiti and Kamehameha in Hawaii, this was owing not so much to the lack of the means to accomplish this feat as to the lack of interest in doing so. Palau's highly competitive society was structured, from top to bottom, in dual political units that were forever trying to outdo each other for pride of place. Guns and the like might be employed to give one side a decided advantage, but it was unthinkable that they should  

page_74

Page 74

be used to undermine the competitive system itself that lay at the core of Palauan life. An Epitaph for a Palauan Prince The adventures of the Antelope's crew created almost as much of a stir in England as they had in Palau. When Captain Henry Wilson returned with his dusky charge, Lee Boo, in tow, even those stolid clerks in the East India Office who had for years been dutifully recording the discoveries of the company's ships in the Pacific finally found cause for excitement. Here in the tawny flesh was the son of the ruler of an exotic and previously unvisited island group. Like Omai the Tahitian, whom Cook had introduced to London society a decade earlier, Lee Boo became the darling of the dinner circuit; he learned to eat his cherries with a spoon, and with good-natured resignation permitted curious matrons to examine his tatooed hands. At times he was even called upon to demonstrate his marksmanship with the spear before well-dressed admirers who responded to his skill much as his own people had to the sharp-shooting of the English musketmen. Everywhere he went, the "Black Prince" won friends with his poise, politeness, and lively intelligence. One person greatly charmed by the young man's "amiable manners and native polish" was the litterateur George Keate, a personal friend of Voltaire who was possessed of a romantic soul and an elegant pen. Keate's literary rendition of the Antelope shipwreck, An Account of the Pelew Islands, appeared in half a dozen editions in the six years after its publication in 1788 and became one of the most widely read South Sea narratives of the eighteenth century. Thanks to this work, which was later translated into German, French, Dutch, and Italian and gained an impressive readership on the Continent, a good part of Europe soon became acquainted with "Abba Thule's remote kingdom." The Palauans to whom readers are introduced in Keate's volumereflecting as it does the dominant beliefs of the French philosophes of his dayare ''benevolent children of nature" (Keate 1789:223), open-handed and open-hearted, without malice or cunning; quite a different sort altogether from the "degraded heathen" of whom the Calvinist missionaries, with their far less optimistic view of "unadorned nature," would write some sixty years later. Lee Boo died of smallpox not quite six months after reaching England, but his hold over the imagination of his adopted country 

page_75

Page 75

men survived for some time. An overflowing crowd attended his burial in the Rotherhithe churchyard, and the directors of the East India Company had a stone erected over his grave bearing the quaint epitaph: Stop, Reader, Stop!let Nature claim a Tear A Prince of Mine, Lee Boo, lies bury'd here.           (Keate 1789:361) Elegies were composed to his memory; persons of the stature of Coleridge wept over his tomb; and a fur-trading vessel was named for him. An abridged version of Keate's work, called "The History of Prince Lee Boo," was published for the moral guidance of English boys and read by generations of them in their early school days (Bridge 1918:300). One person who testifies to having studied it was Admiral Cyprian Bridge, who as commander of a British warship visited Palau in August 1883, exactly a century after Wilson's shipwreck, and was instrumental in effecting a peace treaty that ended years of warfare between the ibedul and the reklai. On his deathbed, Lee Boo had asked that the small gunnysack of his personal treasuresconsisting mainly of glass beads similar to those his people used as native money and the seeds of various fruits he had eaten, which he had saved to plant some day on his islandbe brought back to Palau and distributed among the chiefs. It was only fitting that the East India Company send a ship to Palau to inform the ibedul of his son's unfortunate death and to carry out the young man's last wish, as well as to repay the Palauan people for their kindness toward the distressed crew of one of its ships. When, in 1790, the company finally got around to equipping two of its ships for the voyage, it had found other reasons besides for visiting Palau. For some time now the directors of the Honorable Company had been trying to find a safe port of refuge where its merchant ships on their passage to and from China could find shelter and provisions while waiting out contrary winds. Palau's proximity to the most frequently used sailing track and the friendly reputation of its people recommended this island as an excellent location for the proposed settlement. Accordingly, the commanders of the two indiamen were instructed to survey the Palau group with an eye to determining whether the harbor there was suitable for such a purpose. While they were at it, they were also to conduct a survey of the waters off the northwest coast of New Guinea, since this island too was on the track of the com 

page_76

Page 76

pany's ships. John McCluer, an able young lieutenant who had already made a name for himself in surveying the Persian Gulf and the west coast of India, was put in command of the Panther and its consort, the Endeavour, and two men who had formerly served with Wilson on the Antelope were appointed officers. In August 1790 the ships made sail from Bombay and were soon working their way up through the Dutch East Indies, putting in at ports along the way to take on livestock, fowl, seeds, and plants for the people of Palau. The British received a royal welcome when the two ships finally arrived at Palau in January 1791. Twenty canoes, one of them carrying the ibedul, came out to meet the vessels, and there was great rejoicing among the islanders when they recognized their two old friends from years before. The ibedul did not seem very distressed at learning of his son's death. He showed McCluer a cord on which he had tied one hundred knotsthe number of months that had passed since his son's departureand confessed that he had long since despaired of ever seeing him again. A few days later the Englishmen landed at Koror with all the pomp and ceremony that they could muster for the occasion. Dressed in full uniform, with the English colors flying and the fife and drum corps playing the Grenadiers March, the ships' companies marched from the wharf to the largest meeting house in the village, where they distributed the ironware, cloth, grain, and livestock they had brought for the people. The following morning, before an enormous throng of Palauans, they staged a full-dress drill of maneuvers that included a bayonet charge and ended with a royal salute from the ships' cannons. So impressed with the martial display was the ibedul that he eagerly proposed to McCluer that they all start out, then and there, on a campaign against his perennial enemies in Melekeok. The old man's thoughts were, as always, on his struggle with his political rivals; in that respect, at least, little had changed since Wilson's visit eight years before. When the Englishmen showed him the impressive menagerie of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, geese, and ducks that they had brought for him in appreciation of his kindness to the Antelope's crew, the ibedul curtly acknowledged the gift, but pointedly remarked that what he really needed was muskets and powder, without which he could not possibly hope to defend these valuable possessions from the greedy clutches of his neighbors. When the English inquired about the fate of Madan Blanchard,  

page_77

Page 77

the young sailor who had chosen to remain on Palau after Wilson's departure, the high chief appeared uneasy and evasive. At first he led them to believe that Blanchard had died a natural death of a "country disorder, breaking out in sores owing to the poverty of the food" (McCluer 20 Jan 1791), but later the English were told that he had been killed in battle by the people of Peleliu just a few months before their arrival. It soon became all too obvious that the Palauan chiefs would prefer to drop the entire embarrassing subject altogether, and the English could only assume that Blanchard had been done in by the natives of Koror, perhaps even at the order of the ibedul himself. Clearly his death was not mourned by the Palauans, who reported that he had become a vain and arrogant idler, taking food and women from his neighbors as he pleased and threatening them, when they complained about his conduct, with reprisals from the next English ship that visited their island. Blanchard had apparently ignored Wilson's parting injunction that he "never go naked like the natives, as by preserving the form of dress his countrymen appeared in, he would always support a superiority of character" (Keate 1789:255). Soon after his shipmates left Palau, he had discarded his clothes, had himself tattooed, and gone entirely native. Blanchard, the English began to feel, had only himself to blame for his fatewhatever exactly that fate might have been! Any suspicions the English may have entertained about the cause of Blanchard's death did little to impair cordial relations between them and the Palauans. Each day the people of Koror delivered mountains of taro and boiled fish to the English camp, and even if the seamen never quite learned to relish the local foods, they did appreciate this gesture of friendship for what it was. The spirit of bonhomie did not put an end to that chronic annoyance suffered by visiting seamen, petty thievery by the islanders; but McCluer took strong measures of his own to deal with the problems. He had a Malayan who had been caught stealing brought up to the shrouds and given two dozen lashes with the cat-o'-nine-tails in the presence of the ibedul and about a hundred of his people. The next day he shot and wounded the ibedul's brother after the man had reached into his cabin to snatch a basket of glass bangles hanging on the wall. The old chief, however, did not seem bothered by McCluer's heavy-handed approach; his only response was to suggest to the captain that the next time he shoot his brother through the head instead of the arm. Thereafter the high chief  

page_78

Page 78

refused to go out to the ship for fear that the great number of people who always accompanied him would cause the English further trouble with their pilfering ways. Barely a month after arriving, McCluer decided to leave on the Panther for Macao in the hope of intercepting one of the East India Company's homebound merchant ships in the Chinese port to carry his reports back to England. The Endeavour, meanwhile, was to remain at Palau so that its crew could teach the people how to cultivate the seed, care for the animals, and use the tools that they had received from the English. McCluer apparently felt that it was high time his countrymen instructed the Palauans in the arts of peace, for a change, rather than the arts of war. After being invested with the "Order of the Bone"an honor that was fast becoming standard for visiting British ship captainsMcCluer took on a few Palauan passengers and weighed anchor on 16 February, bound for China. When the Panther returned four months later, her foredeck was a riot of color and excitement. The Palauan girls, who had boarded the vessel months before wearing only small g-strings, were now decked out in blue silk petticoats and yellow jackets, with green beads around their necks. The ibedul's son was running all about the ship, donning a new set of clothes every half hour so as to show off everything that he had bought, and bubbling with stories of the wonders of China. The young travelers chattered of their adventures: how they had eaten oranges by the dozen, seen buildings higher than the tallest tree in Palau, had their pockets picked by Chinese wharf rats, and slept through recitals in concert halls. The Panther's company had acquired some extra color, too, in the remarkable person of Amasa Delano, who had signed on as an officer in Macao and who would eventually publish his own lively narrative of his travels to Palau and elsewhere (1817). The arts of war had not been entirely neglected during his absence, McCluer soon learned. The crew of the Endeavour had been persuaded by the cagey old ibedul to accompany him on three expeditions against Melekeok, and just four days after the Panther made port the chief was back to make a personal plea to McCluer for assistance in one more campaign. Convinced that the quickest way to end all this bothersome warfare once and for all was to stage a show of force on behalf of the people of Koror, McCluer agreed to send thirty men and some artillery. The next day the war party arrived at the enemy village with great fanfare, and the  

page_79

Page 79

usual parley between opposing leaders was punctuated by the sound of British cannon fire just offshore. The message was not lost on the reklai, the leader of the Melekeok forces. He accepted the terms of peace and submitted to the indignity of watching the ibedul, seated on his own stone slab, receive the beads that were the customary price of defeat. A few days afterward, on 27 June, the Panther and the Endeavour left Palau for New Guinea to begin their surveying work there. McCluer left behind two English boys whom he entrusted to the ibedul' s care as a pledge that he would return, while taking aboard three young Palauan women who were distributed to the ships' officers, no doubt to help dispel the loneliness of life at sea. Just two weeks out of port, it became apparent that love had wrought what war could not on the Englishmen, for thirty-two of the men had come down with a sickness "occasioned entirely by their amours" in Palau (McCluer 15 July 1791). But this proved to be no more than a minor inconvenience compared to the other trials the men endured during their eighteen-month cruise: an attack by hostile Papuans, an outbreak of smallpox that took several lives, including those of two of the Palauans, and a storm that crippled and nearly sank the ships. Once more, in January 1793, the ships put in at Palau. The English were greeted with news that the ibedul had died just a few months before, and his older brother, a cunning and ruthless individualthe thief whom McCluer had shot in the armhad succeeded to the title. The change in the spirit of the people, if we may believe Delano (1817:68), was remarkable: formerly "just, humane, and happy, they were now gloomy and wretched." The English, however, had no intention of staying long enough to test the strength of their influence with the new political leaders. Just a few days after their arrival, the Endeavour was dispatched to carry the mail to China, while the Panther prepared to return to India as soon as it had landed the new cargo of livestock and other gifts that it had brought the Palauans. Then, in a shocking turn of events, McCluer resigned his command of the Panther and announced his decision to remain on Palau. In a formal letter declaring his intention, he stated that he was moved by an earnest desire to improve the way of life on Palau "by enlightening the minds of these noble islanders" (Hockin 1803:51). McCluer had long since shown great personal interest in the care of the livestock and crops on the island, and had recently procured cuttings of nutmeg and  

page_80

Page 80

clove that he hoped to plant there; it is more than likely that he had worked out a grand scheme for the development of Palau that he wished to implement. Whether his motive was "pure philanthropy," as one of the Panther's officers maintained (Wedgeborough 21 Apr 1794), or whether he had visions of ruling over the agricultural empire that he expected to carve out of the wilderness, as Delano suggested (1817:189), is difficult to say. Probably it was a little of both. At any rate, his mind was made up. Weapons and other supplies were turned over to him from the ship's store, and a motley group of Burmese, Indian, and Malayan servants were landed to become his retainers before the Panther sailed off on 19 February 1793. Island life must not have been everything that McCluer imagined when he had earlier written with rapture of having found a "perfect Paradise" where he could have spent the rest of his days (Hockin 1803:24); for after just fifteen months on Palau he and six of his men were in an open boat bound for Macao. The soil in Koror was remarkably fertile, he reported, and the livestock was thriving on the pasturage; moreover, the Palauans were delighted at the birth of his first son and the prospect of soon having an "English Abba Thule." Perhaps he simply grew tired of the isolation. At any rate, almost immediately after reaching Macao, he was writing to the East India Company begging their indulgence for the precipitous step he had taken in abandoning his command of the Panther and requesting reinstatement in the company's service. Soon afterward, he bought a vessel named the Venus and sailed back to Palau to pick up his family and attendants. En route to Palau in August 1794, he revisited the same coastal area of New Guinea that he had surveyed on the Panther two years before (Fry 1969:99 100), afterward writing again to the East India Company urging them to open a trading establishment in the vicinity. His dream of founding a grand commercial enterprise for the British on some island near the sailing route to China was still very much alive; he had merely abandoned Palau in favor of northern New Guinea as the site. After he had resettled his family in Bombay, the restless McCluer was off in his ship againthis time never to return. In August 1795, he sailed into the teeth of a gale, against the advice of port officials, and was presumed to have been lost at sea (Hockin 1803: 53 55). When Captain Henry Wilson, who by then had been pro 

page_81

Page 81

moted in the company and given a comfortable command, put into Bombay in 1797, he found three Palauan women living in a village just out of town, the only survivors of the group that McCluer had brought to Bombay. Wilson took them aboard his ship to Macao, where they were put aboard a small vessel purchased and outfitted by the company for the express purpose of returning them to their island. In July 1798, the women were landed at Palau by a former officer on the Panther, thus ending the McCluer saga. The English quickly lost interest in Palau. Nothing ever came of the British settlement that the East India Company had once contemplated establishing there as a base for its China trade. On his first visit to Palau, McCluer had laid the foundation stone for a British fort that was to be named Fort Abercrombie, but that was as far as the idea ever got. Within a few years of McCluer's death, his cherished livestock had just about died out and the plantations were overgrown. Not until the middle of the nineteenth century, long after the decline of the East India Company, did British traders again attempt to set up a permanent commercial base on Palau. What was true of trading interests also applied to religious missions. The London Missionary Society, which became acquainted with Palau through Keate's book, sent its missionary ship Duff on a cruise through the Pacific to weigh the relative advantages of Palau, Tonga, and the Marquesas as fields for future missionary activity. After laying off Palau for two days in November 1797, the Duff passed on to what were judged to be more fertile fields for the sowing of the Christian message (J Wilson 1799:305 308). Even if Palau did not become a trading center or a mission field, British influence continued intermittently throughout most of the nineteenth century. Warships and trading vessels would play an important role in the traditional rivalries there, as they had in the last two decades of the eighteenth century. Beachcombing, which began with Blanchard and McCluer, would continue on a limited scale, with the beachcombers acting as intercessors for foreign military aid on behalf of one local faction or another. Toward the end of the next century, a British naval commander would be able to remark with complete accuracy that "the Abba Thules have ever made use of English captains to further their attempts against Melekeok" (LeHunte 1883a:par41).  

page_82

Page 82

Initiating the Pacific Trade As the Palau episode was drawing to a close, British merchant ships were making numerous discoveries elsewhere in Micronesia. By the 1790s indiamen following the Outer Passage up to China through the eastern Carolines and Marshalls were sighting and charting islands that had not been seen since the sixteenth centuryand some not even then. Sailing in the track first taken by Gilbert and Marshall, Captain Henry Bond of the Royal Admiral in 1792 sighted the atolls of Namorik and Namu in the western chain of the Marshalls. The Britannia in 1797 also visited Namu and added Kili, Ailinglapalap, and Lib to the list of discoveries. Enewetak Atoll in the northern Marshalls was seen by the Walpole in 1794 and the Hunter in 1798, while Jaluit and other islands were sighted by the Rolla in 1803 and the Elizabeth in 1809. The Ocean in 1804 discovered Ujae and Kwajalein; and the Providence found Ujelang in 1811. As these distant islands in the Marshalls were being charted by British merchantmen, significant discoveries were also being made in the atolls of the eastern Carolines. In 1793, Captain Musgrave on the Sugar Cane and Captain Raven on the Britannia gave their names to small atolls near Ponape, respectively Pingelap and Ngatik. Raven afterward brought his ship still further to become the unheralded discoverer of the Mortlock Islands, lying to the southeast of Truk, although that honor is usually accorded to Captain Mortlock of the indiaman Young William in 1795, whose name the islands bear to this day and who was the real discoverer of Puluwat Island to the west of Truk. The Coromandel in 1802 sighted Nama, Losap, Murilo, and Nomwin in the Truk area, islands that were again seen by Huttrell on the Commerce six years later. MacAskill on the Lady Barlow in 1809 gave his name to Pingelap Atoll, and Betham on the Marquis of Wellington in 1815 gave that of his ship to Mokil; both islands retained these names for many years afterward. Meanwhile, British merchantmen bound for China late in the season, after the trade winds abated about April, continued to use the more direct Inner Passage when standing for Canton or Macao. East India vessels routinely reported sighting islands to the southwest of Palau, as they had for years before, but they also began discovering islands in the vicinity of Yap. Half a dozen ships from 1791 to 1793 made out the island of Yap, and two of them  

page_83

Page 83

sighted Sorol as well. The Abigail in 1796 discovered Eauripik, which was seen again by three indiamen in 1802; meanwhile the Warren Hastings in 1787, the Suffolk and the Gloucester in 1796, and the Duckingfield Hall in 1798 made landfalls at Ngulu. Not only British ships were making discoveries in the area. Spanish trading vessels from the Philippines were, from the late 1700s on, sailing into the Carolinessome of them en route to Lima and other ports on the coast of South America, others to search for cargoes of shell and bêche-de-mer for the Manila-based China trade. Tompson on the Consolacion in 1773 sighted Ngatik long before the British master Raven saw the island, and made other landfalls on the same voyage. Ibargoitia, commanding a Spanish frigate, sighted the islands of Puluwat, Pulusuk, and Pulap in 1799 and again in 1801, and spent four days at Palau on one of his voyages. Monteverde on the Pala in 1806 discovered Nukuoro, an outlier of Ponape; and Dublon of the San Antonio entered the Truk lagoon in 1814, becoming the first European to do so in two hundred fifty years. The crews of some of these ships put ashore at islands to collect bêche-de-mer, the sea slug found in warm tropical waters that is a gourmet dish to Chinese wealthy enough to afford such a delicacy. The master of a British merchantman lying off Palau in 1802 learned that four Europeans had been left ashore there by a trading vessel to gather bêche-de-mer, tortoise shell, and shark fins for sale to China (Hockin 1803:57 58). A few years later, the Spanish ship Modesto also spent time at Palau, after visiting Fais, in search of bêche-de-mer (Kotzebue 1821v3:117). The Spanish in the Philippines had learned the art of curing the sea slug and were marketing the product to the Chinese well before American and European traders discovered the secret in 1829. At first, Spanish trade vessels roamed rather freely throughout the Carolines in search of the precious holothurian, but in later yearsafter 1810 or sothey confined their activities largely to the vicinity of Palau and Yap. American ships, too, were beginning to make their way into the Pacific at about this time to claim their share of the China trade. The United States, recently successful in its struggle for political independence and now driven to establish its economic autonomy vis-à-vis the British Empire, had to seek out new lanes of commerce for itself. American trade with China got underway in 1783, when the sloop Harriet cleared Boston bound for Canton with a cargo of ginseng, an aromatic herb that was believed by the  

page_84

Page 84

Chinese to have magical healing properties (Rydell 1952:24). In the following years many more ships left American ports with various cargoes, some of them adding to the knowledge of Micronesia as they made the Pacific crossing. The Ann and Hope in 1799 discovered Ebon in the Marshalls; the Hope in 1801 and the Nancy in 1804 were the first ships known to have sighted the high island of Kosrae in the eastern Carolines, Captain Crocker of the Nancy naming it Strong's Island after the governor of Massachusetts; and the Tonquin in 1809 made the first recorded sighting of Kapingamarangi. In 1804 the Maria of Boston, with the vice-governor of the Marianas aboard, sighted three small islands in the central Carolines before putting in at Woleai. Other American ships like the Resource in 1799 and the Lydia in 1801 sighted or visited islands that had already been recorded by others. By the turn of the century, then, Micronesia was intersected by three different trade routes. British merchantmen, and occasionally the American ships that called at Port Jackson to bring supplies to the new settlement, made their way north through the islands on their passage to China. American ships, sometimes after spending time on the Northwest coast to pick up a cargo of furs, crossed the Pacific in the low northern latitudes to take advantage of the trade winds on their run to China. Finally, Spanish vessels from the Philippines put out to the islands to the east in search of produce that might be sold to Chinese merchants. The Chinese market, of course, was the focal point of all this commercial activity; the Micronesian islands just happened to be on the trading lanes, and so were accidentally discoveredby sea captains who had other things on their minds than exploration and discovery. It was not long, however, before the China trade evolved into a three-cornered pattern that gave the Pacific much more than just the incidental role of waterway in this commerce. From the very outset, Britain and America had difficulty in finding cargoes sufficiently appealing to the Chinese: bullion, which the British had long traded for oriental wares, was in scarce supply in both countries, and the ginseng that the first few American China traders had carried immediately glutted the limited market for this item. The search was on for articles of trade that had the same consumer appeal for the Chinese upper classes that their teas, silks, and spices held for Europeans and Americans. The first major venture was to the Northwest coast of America for furslargely the seaotter and seal skins that were so highly valued by the Chinese.  

page_85

Page 85

Captain Douglas, who visited Palau on the Iphigenia in 1788, was bound for America at the time on one of the earliest British sealing voyages; Edmund Fanning and Charles Bishop, both of whom sighted islands in eastern Micronesia some years after Douglas, were returning from the Northwest coast with cargoes of pelts when they made their landfalls. The British were the first to exploit the fur market in China, but before long American traders, who came out in ever greater numbers, began to dominate. The fur trade was lucrative while it lasted, but the trade was brought to an early end by the wholesale slaughter of seals and otters that resulted in their near extermination by 1820. Even before the decline of the fur trade, sea captains were combing the islands of the Pacific to find other cargoes that could be carried to China and sold for a handsome profit. Sandalwood, bêche-de-mer, mother-of-pearl, turtle shell, and edible bird nests were the most commonly sought articles, and the search for islands that might serve as abundant sources of supply occupied traders throughout much of the nineteenth century. Ships sailing from Liverpool or Boston would make for the Pacific islands with a cargo of cheap ironware, calico and gingham, brica-brac, muskets and powder, or whatever else they thought might interest the islanders. They would cruise the area until they had picked up a full cargo of bêche-de-mer, sandalwood, or shell, which was then carried to a Chinese port and traded for oriental commodities. With their return to Europe or America, where the cargoes were sold for a good profit, the triangular pattern was complete. By the early 1800s, then, the Pacific islands had become an essential link in the China trade. A few independent British traders had made some early ventures into the Pacific to seek new commodities for the China market, but they were hampered by the restrictions that the British Crown imposed in favor of the East India Company and the other major government-sponsored companies. Yet, the East India Company, with its long tradition of regular voyages and predictable cargoes, lacked the daring and initiative to strike out into the Pacific to establish new sources of supply for its China trade. This was to prove its undoing, for by 1813 the East India Company had lost its monopoly in the Pacific and its long-time hold over the China trade (Grattan 1963:62). Enterprising private traders, a great many of them Americans, moved in quickly to exploit the potential wealth of the Pacific islands.  

page_86

Page 86

The increase in shipping traffic through the Pacific had led to the discoveryor rediscoveryof numerous islands in the Carolines and Marshalls. By 1815 most of them had already been sighted, and their location plotted (although often enough incorrectly, as it turned out). Several bore an assortment of namesmostly the names of sea captains or their ships, but occasionally those of employers, friends, or sweetheartsas a result of the repeated landfalls that had been made there. Tobi, the island ahht the western-most extreme of the Carolines, was variously called Johnstone, Lord North's Island, Nevil's Island, Peaked Hill, and San Carlos; and Ngatik, an outlier of Ponape, was known as Los Valientes, Raven Island, Seven Islands, and Islas de la Pasion (Bryan 1971). Relatively few islands remained undiscovered: perhaps only a handful of small atolls in the central Carolines and a few of the islands in the northern Marshalls. Palau, easily the best-known of the islands, was the only one that had enjoyed intensive contact with Europeans, but at many others vessels had lain off long enough to carry on some trading with the islanders. The masters of these ships learned, as the Spanish had long before, that iron in all its shapes and forms held an irresistible attraction for the local peopleso much so that the latter were not above wrenching off pieces of the taffrail or picking up loose belaying pins to satisfy their craving for it. A sprinkling of whites were already settling in the islands. Two seamen from the missionary ship Duff in 1797 were put ashore on Satawal and another one on Lamotrek (J Wilson 1799:298 301); and the Maria landed an Englishman, along with an ample supply of provisions, on Woleai in 1804 (Kotzebue 1821v3:113 114). Palau, which had already received Blanchard and McCluer in the late 1700s, became the temporary residence of occasional parties of Europeans fishing for bêche-de-mer, and the permanent home of one Charles Washington, a deserter from a British man-of-war who figured prominently in local political intrigues for the next forty years. The Caroline and Marshall islands were on European maps once againbut this time to stay! And the impact of Western contact that European discovery inevitably brought, although limited at first, was also there to stay.  

page_87

Page 87

Chapter 4 Two Worlds Grown Closer Tidying Up the Map After the rediscovery of the islands by merchant ships around the turn of the nineteenth century, European hydrographers found themselves with a jumble of names and positions of islands that they were expected to put into some order. Were Hope's Island and Strong's Island one and the same discovery despite the fact that one was given as lying three degrees west of the other? Was the two degree difference in longitude given for Herald's Island and Baring's Island simply an error in calculation, or were they two different atolls? The merchant captains of the day scattered names upon the islands they sighted with great abandon, very few taking the trouble to verify what they reported as a new discovery. ''Their eagerness to immortalize themselves, their friends or even their ships"as a later critic put it"far surpassed their respect for historical integrity" (Lütke 1835v2:120). But they were merchant officers with business to attend to, and it was the responsibility of others to compile the information they recorded and to publish accurate charts. From their littered offices in Europe, dedicated hydrographers like Robertson, Stevens, and Krusenstern made valiant attempts to eliminate the more obvious errors, reconcile conflicting reports, and identify islands and their positions. But the task was beyond them or anyone else. Before reliable charts could be put in the hands of navigators, a great deal of careful surveying would have to be donenot from a desk in London, but from the deck of a ship whose officers had the instruments and time to do the job right. The French and Russian naval expeditions that scoured the  

page_88

Page 88

Pacific between 1815 and 1840 offered the perfect opportunity for doing just this. Although the primary object of these voyages was scientific experimentation, the commanding officers received instructions to explore certain island groups in the Pacific, among them Micronesia. The great explorers of the previous centuryCook, Vancouver, Bougainville, and La Pérousehad crisscrossed the Pacific, discovering new islands on their way and producing vivid descriptions of the island peoples and their cultures. Their contribution toward European understanding of the Pacific was enormous and they set high standards for explorers who would follow them, but they missed certain island groups altogether. It was unlikely that European nations, their appetite for scientific discovery whetted by the accomplishments of these giants, would leave the Pacific half-explored; the reverence for science that had swept Europe a generation or two before, leaving a permanent mark on the Old World, made this unthinkable. With the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars, France was settling down again to its usual national pursuits: advancing the level of learning in the world, promoting the French culture, and making money. France had a reputation for eminence in the field of exploration and scientific inquiry to uphold, and a costly war debt to recoup besides. Russia, which was still a cultural satellite of France, had conceived a passion for exploration late in the eighteenth century and had acquired a mercantile interest in the Pacific not long afterward when its fur traders became serious competitors with the Americans for a larger share of the China market. Motivated by profit and scientific zeal, these two powers sponsored a chain of naval voyages that left few islands in Micronesia unexplored and finally put the European maps of the area in good order (Map 9). When Otto von Kotzebue sailed from Russia in 1813 on the brig Rurick with instructions to search for the Northeast Passagethat hypothetical waterway from the Bering Sea into the Atlantiche was ordered to spend the winter months exploring the little-known Marshall Islands. For almost three months in early 1817 he did just this, visiting many of the islands in the Ratak or eastern chain. He returned late in the same year for a shorter visit to the islands before sailing westward on his homeward voyage to Kronstadt. Eight years later, Kotzebue was back in the Pacific on a second voyage of exploration with a higher rank and a larger ship, the Predpriatie. Between transporting cargo to Kamchatka and con 

page_89

Page 89

 

page_90

Page 90

ducting scientific experiments, he found time to spend a few weeks in the Marshalls on two separate occasions in 1824 and 1825, renewing old acquaintances and observing the progress of the people there. Fedor Lütke, the next Russian to lead an exploring expedition into the Pacific, took up where his predecessor had left off. Ignoring the Marshalls, he began a sweep westward from Kosrae through the Carolines in late 1827 that took four months and brought him to almost every inhabited atoll short of Yap and Palau. Toward the end of the following year, he made another two-week cruise through the islands to complete his survey of the archipelago. Lütke's most thorough work was done in the Mortlocks, a group of atolls to the southeast of Truk, where he spent three full weeks and was won over by the graciousness of the people. He also rediscovered Ponape, an imposing island that had been oddly missed by navigators in earlier years and had been sighted only once since Quiros' visit in 1595. Lütke corrected the erroneous assumption that Quiros' discovery and Truk were one and the same island, although his unfriendly encounter with rock-throwing islanders prevented him from surveying Ponape as he would have liked. He left hurriedly to avoid bloodshed, naming the high island and the atolls in the immediate vicinity after his ship, the Senyavin. The French, meanwhile, had begun outfitting expeditions of their own to survey certain parts of the Pacific and record scientific data on magnetism, meteorology, and what would be called, a century later, oceanography. Louis de Freycinet left Toulon in command of the naval frigate Uranie in 1817 on a three-year voyage around the world, and in 1819 spent a few days off three atolls to the west of Truk before making for Guam to reprovision. It was during his eleven-week stay at Guam rather than in his fleeting visit to the tiny atolls that he picked up the considerable amount of information on the Carolines that appears in his five-volume account of the expedition. Soon after Freycinet's return to France, his first lieutenant, Louis Duperrey, was sent out on an expedition of his own. Fitted out in the Coquille in 1822, Duperrey was, among other things, to investigate the feasibility of founding a French convict colony on the western coast of Australiaa new Botany Bay under the fleur de lis and perhaps a foot in the door of the Pacific. It was, after all, from such humble beginnings that British dominance in the Pacific had sprung! Like the other naval  

page_91

Page 91

commanders, however, Duperrey had many more things to attend to as well: the usual scientific experiments, and surveys to make in New Guinea, the Society Islands, and Micronesia. For the entire month of June 1824, he moved from island to island in the eastern Carolines taking sightings, sounding the shallows, and completing his experiments on shipboard and shore. He surveyed part of the Truk lagoon as he sailed around the reef, but his most important contribution was his extraordinary description of Kosrae where the Coquille lay at anchor for ten days. The last in the succession of French naval commanders in the Pacific was Jules Dumont d'Urville, who had served his apprenticeship under Duperrey, just as the latter had under Freycinet. Dumont d'Urville's first expedition in the Coquille, refitted and rechristened the Astrolabe, was little more than a continuation of Duperrey's unfinished work. After completing the survey of Truk late in April 1828, Dumont d'Urville brought his ship to Guam to reprovision and give his crew a much-needed rest. His plans to proceed from there to the western Carolines to carry out a lengthy survey of those islands were aborted because of the poor health of his crewhis ship was for all practical purposes a "floating hospital," he wroteand he had to be content with taking a few sightings of islands that he passed on his course to Manila. Ten years later Dumont d'Urville returned to the Pacific on a second voyage, with the principal aim of surveying as much as possible of the South Polar regions as to their potential for French whaling. However, his secondary objectives again included the exploration of island groups in the Pacific. In late December 1838 and early January 1839, he made quick stops at half a dozen islands, including Palau and Yap; but the principal focus of his work was Truk. His two ships, the Zélée and the Astrolabe, entered the Truk lagoon and anchored off the island of Fefan for almost a week while the French officers went ashore to study the natural life of the area and the mores of the inhabitants. His richly detailed account of Truk is the first we have by Westerners who actually set foot on land. Dumont d'Urville's second voyage concluded the era of great French voyages of exploration in the Pacific, and the age of European discovery in Micronesia as well. By 1840, the major surveying work had been completed and the map of Micronesia was more or less as we have it today. But the Russian and French naval commanders had done much more than pinpoint the location of the major islands in the archipelagoes and survey their waters.  

page_92

Page 92

Naturalists such as Kittlitz and Chamisso who accompanied them wrote detailed descriptions of the exotic natural life that they had found, while artists like Choris and Postels sketched, besides bugs and butterflies, the people and their habitat. In all, they produced dozens of volumes on every conceivable aspect of island life in those places they had visited. More than any before them, their writings brought Europe face-to-face with the traditional island cultures of Micronesia, while chronicling the changes that they themselves helped introduce to those islands. Improved charts and scholarly travel accounts were their bequest to Europe, but to the islands it was cats and goats, iron hatchets and knives, and blue serge trousers. The Seeds of Change Culturally speaking, the Marshall Islands were still virgin territory when Kotzebue first visited them in 1817. The people recalled a couple of old stories of ships passing the islands and showed the Russian commander a few scraps of iron that they had presumably salvaged from driftwood washing ashore, but otherwise they were altogether untouched by Western influence. Kotzebue very swiftly learned that he could quickly dispel the initial fear of the islanders with small presents of iron, and he was soon on friendly terms with the people wherever he went. The picture of Marshallese life that Kotzebue gave us is not much different from that of the central Carolinians drawn by Cantova a century earlieror from those we have of any other Micronesian people, for that matter. The Marshallese sailed from island to island in sturdy, double-prowed canoes, often forty feet or longer, built of planks from the breadfruit tree lashed together with ropes of coconut fiber. As elsewhere in Micronesia, these canoes were equipped with a single outrigger for balance and triangular sails plaited from pandanus leaves; they were the masterpiece of island technology and a marvel to European visitors. Marshallese did not have the large, ornate meetinghouses that were found throughout other parts of Micronesia, but their dwellings were not much different from those of other island groupshuts roofed with nipa thatch, so small that a man could not stand upright inside, with woven pandanus mats covering the bare ground. There was no furniture of any sort, although a few possessions might be stored in a corner; all food preparation was done in a  

page_93

Page 93

tiny cooking hut nearby. The few tools and utensils that Marshallese owned were made of the limited resources that the islands offered: wood, coral, shell, and a few fibers. To cultivate the pandanus, coconut, and breadfruit trees that provided their staple foods, the islanders used simple wooden digging sticks and shell axes; for fishing they employed shell hooks, sennit lines and nets, and wooden traps and spears. Practically the only other utensils were coral food pounders, shell breadfruit scrapers and coconut graters, carved wooden bowls, and plaited baskets. Marshallese were tattooed, although the form and extent varied with sex and social status, and their ears were pierced, with shell and flower ornaments hanging from the lobes. The men wore short nipa skirts, the women small woven mats hanging from their waist, and the children nothing at all. Like most other Micronesian peoplesbut decidedly unlike Tahitians and other Polynesians, Kotzebue observedthe Marshallese kept their women far removed from the roving eye of their foreign guests and well out of reach of temptation. No women ever came aboard the ship, Kotzebue remarked (1821v3:165); and those whom the Russians met ashore were either sent scurrying off by their menfolk or provided with an ample escort. The only unpleasant incident during Kotzebue's entire stay in the Marshalls took place when one of his seamen was discovered waiting for an assignation with a native girl one evening. The lovesick sailor was accosted by a group of young Marshallese men, stripped of his clothes, and would have been beaten or worse if a warning shot from the ship's cannon had not thrown his angry captors into panic and allowed him to escape. Although Kotzebue's overall judgment on the Marshallese was very favorable, he noted several improvements that could be made in the culture and assiduously set about making them. The knives and hatchets that he had liberally distributed among the people were inadequate to meet their needs, he decided, and so he set up a temporary forge on one of the islands to produce fishhooks and harpoons for them. When he discovered that the only animals to be found were some fowl, which the people cultivated for their feathers rather than their meat, and the ubiquitous rats, which they actually did eat at times, he presented the people with some goats and pigs and left instructions on how to care for them. He also put ashore a few dogs and cats, the latter as a means of controlling the rat population. Distressed at learning that the people practised infanticide after the birth of the third child, Kotzebue  

page_94

Page 94

determined to introduce new food crops to alleviate the periodic famines that occurred. He had one of his officers plant a garden and tend it throughout his stay, turning it over to the people, with a good supply of seed and cuttings, when he left. Despite some problems with the rats, the garden apparently did quite well. When he returned to the Marshalls eight years later, Kotzebue was served at a feast some of the yams that he himself had introducedand on a spoon carved from wood, no less. The goats and pigs that he had left at Wotje on his earlier visit were being raised as foodstuff, he learned, although they had been appropriated by the chief of Aur some time before. The Russian commander, obviously delighted at all of this, had strong reason to believe that the seeds of change he had sown had not been scattered before the wind. The gifts that he had given his friends did not usually remain in their hands for very long, Kotzebue soon realized. The iron that he left with the people of Wotje, like the animals that were put ashore there, soon found its way into the possession of powerful chiefs from other islands. The chiefs, known as iroij, enjoyed full title to all property and had considerable authority over the people, even though Kotzebue did not find in the Marshalls the "base servility" that was shown chiefs in parts of Polynesia. One of the most powerful of these chiefs, Lamari of Aur Atoll, had killed the chiefs of several nearby islands and succeeded in establishing his personal rule over all of the northern part of the Ratak chain. At the time of Kotzebue's visit, he was away calling at the islands under his rule to levy forces for a massive attack against Majuro and the southern islands. The Russians were asked to join the expedition, and Kotzebue, like Wilson and McCluer in Palau, would probably have consented to do so if he had not been pressed for time. As it was, he contributed grappling hooks and lances for use in the campaign, evidently with the idea that the battles were to take place at sea. On his return eight years later, he learned that what he had left with the people had played a decisive role in their successful struggle against Majuronot the grappling hooks or lances, but the ordinary hatchets, which were tied to poles and wielded in a fashion that thoroughly intimidated the enemy. Perhaps it was his rousing success in this campaign that encouraged Lamari to attempt further conquests, for at the time of Kotzebue's second visit he was planning an attack on islands in the Ralik, or western, chain. Kosrae, the mountainous island lying mid-way between the  

page_95

Page 95

southernmost Marshalls and Ponape, also appears to have been in a state of pristine innocence when first visited by European naval parties. The French captain Duperrey, who arrived there in June 1824 and spent several days ashore, encountered what were to him unmistakable signs that the inhabitants had never before seen Europeans (Lesson 1839:459 514). Gaping Kosraeans followed the Frenchmen wherever they went on the island. Some of them timidly approached the foreigners and rubbed their skin to find out if the white color was painted on; others shrieked with surprise while watching them remove their hats or coats, which they apparently thought were natural appendages of their oddly shaped bodies. The Kosraeans' experience with iron was even more limited than that of the Marshallese; they inserted the metal fishhooks that the French gave them into their earlobes as ornaments, while the iron hatchets they received baffled them entirely and Duperrey had to teach the people how to use them. Three years later, however, Lütke found that iron hatchets were in common use on the island and the people were as eager for iron as any other Micronesians(Nozikov 1946:130). In most respects, the picture of Kosraean culture that Duperrey gave is similar to what Kotzebue found in the Marshalls. Kosraean men were every bit as protective of women as were the Marshallese"They do not permit the least exchange between their women and our crew," Duperrey wrote (Lesson 1839:486). When, on one occasion, some of the French sailors made it understood through gestures just what they wanted of some girls they had met, their requests were greeted with good-natured laughter by the genial islanderswho nevertheless sent the girls scampering off to hide in the interior of the island! Chiefs in Kosrae, as in the Marshalls, exercised considerable authority over their subjects and could appropriate the property, and even the wives, of commoners as they pleased. Duperrey was surprised, no less than Kotzebue had been, to find the presents he had made to individuals turning up in the houses of chiefs he visited. Sometimes objects that had not been given away would be found there as wellsuch as the jar of plant specimens that one of the officers had "lost" along the waycausing Duperrey to regard the chiefs as little better than scalawags and thieves. Over the petty chiefs of the island stood a single paramount chief whose word was law. In his presence all others were required to get down on their hands and knees, avert their faces, and maintain a respectful distance of twenty or so paces, ris 

page_96

Page 96

ing only when he had gone. It was this "distasteful obeisance" to the paramount chief, as well as the complex social system in which Duperrey recognized five distinct classes, that led him to conclude that the Kosraean people must be the descendants of some high civilization, most likely the Japanese! Weapons were conspicuously absent on the islanda fact that was ascribed to the peace-loving nature of the people and the relative isolation of their island. However, Duperrey might also have observed that in a tightly organized society unified under one absolute ruler, a society that had lost its former navigational skills and could not send its warriors abroad, there was really no one to fight. In contrast to Kosrae and the Marshalls, the Mortlock Islands, three atolls southeast of Truk, were well acquainted with Western ways, as Lütke discovered during his three-week visit there in 1828 (Lütke 1835v2:1 91). A few whaleships, such as the Partridge, which Lütke himself met in those waters, had been stopping at the islands in previous years to trade iron and manufactured goods for coconuts and fruit. But the Mortlockese had other access to foreign-made items too, since they were part of a trading network that regularly sent canoes to Guam to obtain iron and other materials. Axes made of shell or rock were no longer in use on the islands and had been replaced some time earlier by iron implements. Lütke found the Mortlockese a good deal more sophisticated than the Kosraeans whom he had just visited. The very first native to board the Russian ship showed the captain a bonehandled metal knife and, in exchange for some coir rope that he was selling, asked for one to match it. The Mortlockese clearly knew what they wanted and drove a hard bargain to get it! They scorned glass beads and the usual trade trinkets, showed some interest in pieces of iron, and expressed a strong preference for knives and hatchets. Tinder boxes, stone lighters, and grindstones were also popular items with the people at this time. "This is a people that understands trade and knows how to use it to its own interests," Lütke wrote (1835v2:63), but he was quick to add that they never once resorted to fraud or theft during the whole of his time in the Mortlocks. There were additional signs of acculturation as well, the first being the presence of dogs, cats, and fowl on the island. Further, none of the Mortlockese who visited the ship gawked and gaped as people on the other islands sometimes did, although they expressed a strong interest in learning the purpose of every bit of rigging and  

page_97

Page 97

gear. Lütke also noticed that a chief who had been invited aboard to dine in his cabin seemed perfectly at home as he wolfed down a meal of biscuits, strawberry jam, and madeira. Some of the older men showed an extensive knowledge of distant islands, one of them sketching the entire archipelago as far as Palau to the west and the Marianas to the north. The Mortlockese, like most other atoll dwellers, lacked the complex social structure that existed in Kosrae, Palau, Ponape, Yap, and the Marshalls. Mortlockese chiefs usually exercised authority only over their own lineage or clan, and the chief of the highest-ranking clan had no more than very limited authority over the entire island. While the externals of life on the Mortlocks and Kosrae may have been very similar, their ruling systems were worlds apart. As the Russian exploring party sailed from island to island in the Mortlocks, Lütke received the same hospitable welcome everywhere. The men came off in their canoes and boarded his ship without the least sign of hesitation or fear, and when they stayed the nightas they often didthey were rewarded with meals in the officers' mess and entertained by impromptu violin and piano concerts. Ashore, the Mortlockese were unfailingly helpful to the Russians, Lütke noted: ''their young men, at the slightest sign, would climb coconut trees to bring us drinking nuts and would carry our burdens without asking for anything" (1835v2:63). All the while, heavy trading was carried on, with the Mortlockese bartering chickens and food for knives, scissors, and axes. Lütke, who was far more generous than the average ship captain, reckoned that by the end of his cruise through the islands he had supplied the people with enough iron for years to come. He also gave away dozens of white shirts, items that proved very popular among the Mortlockese, as the Russian commander discerned from the speed with which they changed hands. By the end of his visit, Lütke had formed a very favorable opinion of the Mortlockese, whom he found "hospitable, kind, reserved, and pleasing in their conduct" (1835v2:63). If they did not show the same "childlike confidence" in the Russians that the Kosraeans had, Lütke concluded that this was merely because of their greater experience in dealing with foreigners. The people of the high islands of Truk, the closest neighbors of the Mortlockese (Map 10), spoke a related dialect and shared most cultural features with them. Truk, like the Mortlocks, lacked a  

page_98

Page 98

 

page_99

Page 99

unified political system; authority was divided among clan and lineage chiefs, who were distinguished by the cloaks they wore over their shoulders. Breadfruit was the chief staple in both places, as in most other islands of eastern Micronesia; clothing, house and canoe design, and fishing practices were all but identical. Nevertheless, when Dumont d'Urville visited Truk in December 1838, a full ten years after Lütke's cruise through the Mortlocks, he found the people relatively unaffected by Western contact and rather suspicious of the French (Dumont d'Urville 1843:120 167, 309 328). Duperrey had put two seamen ashore at Truk in 1824, but they remained there less than a year and had little real impact on the islanders. The Trukese who came aboard the Astrolabe and Zélée to trade appreciated the value of iron and frequently asked for knives, but they bartered almost as eagerly for necklaces, bracelets, and other cheap trinkets that the Mortlockese would have disdained. Their reaction to firearms was one of pure terror. When one of the French officers brought down a bird with a shot from his musket, his native companions were frozen in fear at the discharge and then shocked to see the creature fall lifeless to the ground. Even the sight of pigs had terrified the people six years earlier, when the trading bark Peru, one of the very few ships to have put in at Truk, lay off an island in the lagoon. There was strong reason to believe this captain's assertion that the Trukese "have had little or no intercourse with other nations" (Eagleston in Ward 1967v2:496 498). The Trukese whom the Frenchmen met ashore were shy and diffident at first; one old man trembled with fear when he saw the strange visitors walk into the clearing in front of his house, while the children scurried away at the first sight of the white men. Here, as elsewhere, the Frenchmen found it all but impossible to approach the native women. They had only to take a step toward any of the females who watched from a discreet distance to send them fleeing into the brush with a scream. One of the Frenchmen was given to understand that any woman who was reckless enough to submit to a stranger without her husband's consent would be put to death immediately. In time, as the Trukese became more accustomed to their visitors, they grew more friendlyand more curious. One evening, a few days after the arrival of the ships, two French officers who had spent the day ashore collecting plants and insects came upon a group of people seated around a cooking fire. The Frenchmen,  

page_100

Page 100

tired and hungry, happily accepted an invitation to join the meal and opened up their own sack of provisions to share what they had with their hosts. The Trukese gobbled the biscuits greedily, but threw away the cheese and drank the wine with a wince, while the fastidious Frenchmen found it impossible to eat the half-cooked fish and crabs that they were given. Afterwards, the Frenchmen were led off to a canoe house where they were to spend the night. Apprehensively they settled down on the mats, with their bags under their heads and their rifles nestled in their arms, as the throng of Trukese who shared their shelter sat huddled around the fire in loud conversation. Suddenly, one of the men broke into a long, shrill wail that carried into a chant. No sooner was it over than the singer pointed to one of the Frenchmen, who instantly rose to his feet and thundered out the Marseillaiseto the great appreciation of his audience. Another Trukese stood and began to dance, with the reddish glow of the fire and the long shadows playing off his body in a macabre way. When he finished, it was the Frenchman's turn once again. He had hardly begun when the Trukese demanded that he undress, and within a few moments "he was in naturalibus doing the 'Cavalier seul' in front of the savages" (Dumont d'Urville 1843:145). Dumont d'Urville's first impression was that "the natives live together in harmony and are gentle and peaceful by temperament" (1843:124) even though his men had reported seeing war clubs, cudgels, and spears tipped with stingray tails hanging from the rafters of canoe houses. However, he was soon forced to revise that judgment. One day, as a party of Frenchmen were surveying the reef off Fefan, about twenty canoes suddenly came off the island and made straight for them, forcing the friendly Uman people who had been playfully following the ship's boat to fall back and flee to their own island. As the canoes drew close to the boat, the occupants let go with a volley of spears. When the French saw them preparing to press the attack, they opened fire, ripping the head canoe to pieces with a cannonball and riddling the others with grapeshot. While the chastened islanders picked up their dead and wounded and fled for safety, the boat turned about and made for the ship. At first the French had no intention of allowing this unpleasant incident to disrupt their work, but the harassment that some of their men received ashore the next day convinced them that it would be wiser to leave immediately. Quite unawares, the French had probably been caught in the middle of one of the  

page_101

Page 101

countless local wars between rival factions that continually bedevilled foreign visitors to Truk. Whatever the cause of the attack might have been, it led Dumont d'Urville to remark in disappointment: "The reputation of the Carolines has been tarnished, for we have found here treacherous and wicked people, however engaging their appearance" (1843:166). The general picture of eastern Micronesia that emerges from these accounts is one of "cultures in their pure state," as writers of the day might have put it. There is no mention made of whites living on any of the islands visited by the European exploring parties except for a British seaman found on Murilo, an atoll north of Truk, and his influence there seems to have been as limited as his intelligence. Some new animals and a handful of iron tools were found on some of the islands, but otherwise the life of the people remained much as it had always been. A few of the merchant ships that were now sighting the islands more frequently may have lain off for a few hours to trade, but their impact on island life was still negligible during the 1820s. Only the people of the Mortlocks showed signs of a slightly more advanced stage of acculturation, but even they had enjoyed far less exposure to Europeans than the people of Palau. Ponape received the least attention from the naval expeditions, but in 1828 when Lütke stopped there the island was almost as free from foreign influence as Kosrae had been four years earlier. The material cultures of the different islands revealed great similarities, although the European scientists carefully noted the distinctive features as well. Canoe designs, houses, weapons, and even bodily adornment did not vary a great deal from one island to the next. The same was true of certain kinds of behavior: the reticence of women, especially in the presence of their menfolk, is one example that the Europeans commented on over and over again, perhaps with just a touch of regret. In general, it can be said that the French and the Russians dealt with the people tactfully and wrote of their cultures with respect and sensitivity. The only violent eruption in all of their travels through Micronesia was the incident in Truk during Dumont d'Urville's visit. For all the Europeans' obvious regard for the traditional culture, what they were actually describing were cultures at the very threshold of change. In the iron tools and white shirts that they scattered throughout the places they visited, in their demonstrations of the effect of firearms and the guided tours they conducted  

page_102

Page 102

through their ships, in their very face-to-face encounters with the islanders, they, like a few others before them, sowed the seeds of change. It was only a matter of time before the seeds germinated. A Long Sea Voyage to the Colony While the peoples of eastern Micronesia were lining the beaches waiting to receive their naval guests and see what new marvels they had brought, the inhabitants of the tiny atolls strung out over a thousand miles of ocean between Truk and Yap were off on adventures of their own. Bold and resourceful sailors with a remarkable knowledge of celestial navigation, the atoll-dwellers had, over the centuries, acquired a large repertoire of memorized sailing directions to islands lying several hundred miles in any direction (Gladwin 1970; Lewis 1972). Long sea voyages were a normal part of life for the hardy people who eked a subsistence out of the sandy soil of the coral atoll. The islands were smalloften only a third of a square mile and never more than twoand unproductive at the best of times. During the storms and typhoons that swept the area, these low islands lay exposed to the full fury of the sea, which often carried off crops, houses, and belongings, leaving the islands awash for several days. At such times, the survivors could only take to their canoes and make for other islands to seek the food and other assistance upon which their lives depended. On their canoe voyages, these Carolinians ranged over the entire western part of Micronesia and sometimes, quite unintentionally, well beyond. Voyagers who had lost their way in sudden storms and drifted westward were continually hauling up on the shores of the Philippines, just as had the thirty Carolinians who landed at Samar in 1696. Others, like Father Cantova's protégées in 1721, eventually reached the Marianas. Among them were two Caroliniansone of them washed up in 1756 and the other the following year (Freycinet 1829:84)who settled on Guam and were employed by the Spanish authorities as interpreters, possibly to assist other victims like themselves. Occasionally, Carolinian canoes were carried as far east as the Marshalls. During his first visit there in 1817, Kotzebue found living on Aur two Carolinians who had drifted from Woleai, an atoll almost two thousand miles to the west. Five other Carolinians, natives of Lamotrek, had drifted to another island in the Marshalls some years before, he learned. One  

page_103

Page 103

of the Woleaians, an amiable young man by the name of Kadu, sailed with Kotzebue on an eight-month cruise through the Arctic; he sampled choice wines and brandies, tried his hand at writing and European navigation, and amused the crew with his antics before he grew tired of life at sea and asked to be put ashore at Aur once again. Not all of the Carolinian sea-voyagers who fetched up at these more distant shores were victims of blind fate. Carolinians had been making annual canoe voyages to Guam for years, Kotzebue learned from the kindly vicegovernor of the Marianas, Don Luis Torres, on his visit there in 1817. The islanders themselves had informed Torres that they had maintained regular trading contacts with the Marianas since before the arrival of Europeans, but had given up these voyages "on hearing of the settlement of the white men, and having been themselves witnesses of their cruelty" (Kotzebue 1821v2:240). These fears were no doubt fanned by the tales that returning castaways, such as the Woleaian who arrived at Ulithi shortly before Cantova's murder, spread among the people. In time their terror must have abated, for in 1787 trading voyages from the Carolines to Guam were resumednot to barter for turmeric and shell belts, as formerly, but to obtain iron and metal tools from the Spanish settlement. The prominent navigator Luito, following the route described in the ancient chants, led a small fleet of canoes from Lamotrek to the Marianas in that year, and again in the following year. Spanish authorities, who by this time may have known of the Carolinians' earlier misgivings, gave their visitors an especially kind reception and encouraged them to come again the next year. This invitation would certainly have been honored had Luito and his companions not been lost at sea on their return voyage home; but their fellow islanders, fearing that they had been either imprisoned or murdered by the Spanish when they failed to turn up, again terminated their voyages to Guam. It took a personal visit by Don Luis Torres fifteen years later to finally convince the outer-islanders that they had nothing to fear from the Spanish in the Marianas. This benevolent old man, who had become something of a patron of all Carolinians, chartered a barely seaworthy schooner, stocked it with oxen, hogs, and useful plants, and embarked in 1804 on a humanitarian cruise through several of the atolls of the western Carolines. At whatever island the ship stopped, Torres greeted the people in their own language  

page_104

Page 104

and invited them to resume once more their trading voyages with Guam, while correcting any misapprehensions they might have had about the fate of Luito and his fellow voyagers in 1788. At Woleai, one of the most prominent atolls, he put ashore most of the livestock and plants and left off an Englishman who had volunteered to live there and teach the people his blacksmith trade. The plants, as it turned out, did not thrive in the poor soil and the animals were soon killed off when they rooted the taro patches and bit off young coconut trees; even the Englishman died not long afterward. But Torres had at least achieved one thing: he had won the complete confidence of these simple people. Shortly after his visit, the trading voyages to Guam were again resumed, to continue without interruption through most of the century. Guam in the early 1800s was a sleepy little colony of about two or three thousand souls, a lonely outpost in the vestigial Spanish empire. Presiding over the colony was a Spanish governor, whose main responsibility seems to have been to entertain the officers of the foreign naval vessels that made rare visits to the island. This he did lavishly, to judge from the enthusiastic reports of the French and Russian commanders who dined sumptuously at his table. Beyond this, not much was expected of him other than to lead the religious processions on the numerous feast days and bother his immediate superior, the governor-general of the Philippines, as little as possible. The defenses of the island included two forts and a few old cannon which could not be fired since there was no powder or shot. A hundred or more Philippine-born troops were stationed on Guam, but they had little to keep them busy in their quiet post. Whatever small disturbances of the peace might have broken out were usually settled by village officials, who were appointed by the governor and granted imperious-sounding titles and a small monthly remittance. Two or three Augustinian Recollect priests ministered to the spiritual needs of the population, now entirely Catholic, while otherwise sharing with their flock the general tedium of life on the island. With the decline of the galleon trade to Manila, Guam no longer served as a reprovisioning stop for Spanish ships; vessels flying other flags had rarely called there. The major event of the year was the arrival of the annual storeship from Manila bringing goods to restock the government warehouse, but after the week-long bazaar that always followed this event, the island sank back into its usual torpor. The populace, largely mestizo by this time,  

page_105

Page 105

worked small farm plots to support themselves, for there was no business or industry on the island to speak of. On feast days, the entire population turned out at the village church for Mass and the religious procession that almost always accompanied it, the men appearing in shoes and socks, trousers, and straw hats, and the women neatly dressed in blouses and skirts, crosses hanging from their necks, hair worn in the latest European styles, and cigars between their lips. After religious services, the people filed down to the village plaza to enjoy their other main diversion: watching the cockfights. The "pax Hispanica" had tranquilized Guam's inhabitants, even as it had transformed them into Spaniards, Kotzebue observed (1821v3:83). It was to this island, with its "church steeples, crosses planted on cliffs, and houses that recalled the poorer quarters of Manila" (Dumont d'Urville 1835:477)a curious hybrid of Spanish and ancient Chamorro waysthat the Carolinians returned in the early nineteenth century. By the time the French and Russian naval ships began making their calls at Guam, a flotilla of Carolinian outriggers in the harbor had become a familiar sight there (Lesson 1839:448). Each year in April the canoes from distant atolls would rendezvous at Lamotrek and sail together the rest of the distance, arriving in Guam fifteen or twenty strong. There the islanders, clad only in loincloths, went about trading their seashells, turtle shell, coir hemp, and woven mats for "pieces of iron, copper, nails and bad knives" (Arago 1823v2:10 11), often picking up as well bead necklaces, colored cloth, and samples of the latest men's fashions on Guam. By May or June, just before the typhoon season, the islanders would make the return voyage home. Business was good in the Spanish colony. As the Carolinian canoe voyages became a more regular occurrence, many of these seafaring merchants found they had less need to resort to house-to-house peddling or even displaying their wares in the marketplace; some began to take orders to fill the following year in return for contracted amounts of iron tools and cloth. There were other sources of profit available to those who wished to remain longer on Guam. Spanish authorities, who were never very well provided with ships for inter-island runs, often hired Carolinians to carry messages in their canoes to Rota, Tinian, and the other islands to the north, where they would frequently pick up cargogenerally fresh produce and pigsfor transport back to Guam. From time to time, they were also employed as divers, either for collecting  

page_106

Page 106

bêche-de-mer from nearby islands or for salvaging the wrecks of ships that had gone aground off Guam. Lütke tells of one group of men who were put to work retrieving hundreds of loose coins that lay scattered over the deck of a ship that had gone down at the mouth of Apra harbor (1835v2:122 124). Their seamanship and aquatic abilityskills that had been long since lost by the general Chamorro populationmade these hardy islanders very useful to the governor of the Marianas. The Spanish colony held a strong fascination for these visitors from the barren coral islands to the south. Even if these simple people regarded the cosmopolitan life on Guam as slightly repugnant, they found there a limitless supply of iron and, even more important, fertile land. Some of their own sparsely vegetated islands had been recently devastated by very severe storms and were no longer able to support their populations. In 1816, Freycinet reports, one hundred twenty canoes set out from Lamotrek and nearby islands to resettle more than nine hundred people elsewhere. The great majority of the canoes, however, were lost in a strong gale and the occupants presumably perished. When word of this disaster reached Guam, the governor invited the chiefs to have their people make a new home for themselves in the Marianas. In 1818 a party of one hundred Lamotrek islanders sailed to Guam, where they met with the governor to discuss the conditions of their resettlement in the Marianas. At the time, a few Carolinians were already permanently established in the colony: a chief and his family who had been living on Tinian for a year or so, and one or two others located on Guam. By 1819, the year of Freycinet's visit to Guam, the governor had received authorization from Manila to found a settlement for Carolinians on Saipan, an island that had been uninhabited since the Spanish conquest of the Marianas. The only conditions imposed on the new arrivals were that they embrace Christianity and "promise to live with the Spanish and the inhabitants of their new homeland in perfect harmony" (Freycinet 1829:88). These were immediately accepted and a chief was sent to Saipan to begin laying out the first Carolinian settlement in the Marianas. The settlement grew rapidly in the following years. For the most part, the Carolinians who migrated to the Marianas retained their traditional clothing, skills, and customs. A visitor to Saipan in 1840 found them clad in loincloths and lavalavas, their bodies smeared with coconut oil, "living chiefly on turtle and fish, and  

page_107

Page 107

cultivating a little taro and yams in small patches'' (DP Wilson 30 Aug 1840). They continued to sail their canoes up and down the archipelago, carrying dispatches and performing other errands for the governor as need arose. European visitors to the Marianas generally found these sturdy souls"free, naked, agile and fearless"a refreshing contrast to the "timid children of Agana with their sombreros, blue cotton pants and pina dresses" (Jurien de la Gravière 1854vl:204 205). However, Lütke, who was fresh from his cruise through their home atolls when he stopped at Guam in 1828, sounded a more melancholy note; he thought that he detected the depressing effects of "civilization" upon the Carolinians he met on Guam. They wear red shirts and straw hats; they say "adios" and "si senor." But with this "civilization," they are to their free countrymen as a caged parrot is to the magnificent flocks that enchant the traveller in the forest. They are losing their culture completely. There is not even the shadow of that uninhibited cheerfulness that they had before. There is a certain trace of sadness in their forced smile . . . . (Lütke 1835v2:123 124) Whether for better or for worse, the Carolinians' frequent canoe contact with the Marianasand the "civilization" found therewas bound to have some effect on those small coral atolls and the people who continued to live there. And so it did, Lütke discovered! The first person to come aboard his ship at Woleai sported a shirt with cuffs, and others whom he met along his way wore shirts and other articles of clothing. At two islands, the people who came out to greet him asked for cigars, a request that he had heard nowhere else in his travels through Micronesia. Along with a craving for tobacco, the atoll-dwellers had also picked up a smattering of Spanish. Most of the people he met at Fais could count to four in Spanish, and some to ten, while at other islands he was asked for knives and food in that language. The chief of Faraulep, who claimed to have lived on Guam for two years, spoke such fluent Spanish to the Russian officers that Lütke wanted to take him aboard as interpreter for the rest of the cruise. At Woleai, one of the islands that had the heaviest traffic with the Marianas, Lütke observed the worst effects of European contact. Not all of it could be blamed on the Spanish, to be sure, for one of the people showed him two letters from whaling captains who had touched at the island the year before. The hospitality at  

page_108

Page 108

Woleai fell far short of the standard set at Lukunor; the Russians were given coconuts grudgingly and only after repeated requests. On the other hand, the islanders were quick to make demands of their own and became peevish when they were not met at once. Thefts were more frequent here than they had been in the less culturally contaminated parts of eastern Micronesia. "One could say," Lütke concluded, "that the more contact natives have with civilized men, the more corrupt they become" (1835v2:301). This was a judgment with which many after him would agree. It undoubtedly reflected his enchantment with the simple ways of the people he had met in eastern Micronesia on the earlier part of his voyage. But by this measure, the worst was still to come for those "children of nature" whom he had met in the east.  

page_109

Page 109

Chapter 5 A Nest of Rogues and Runaways A Foothold on Ponape The stubby brig Spy, more than a year out of Salem on a bêche-de-mer voyage, had the brisk trade wind full astern when a large, mountainous island rose into sight late in November 1833. Off its bow lay Ascension Island, later to be known as Ponape, with ridged peaks rising to a height of over twenty-five hundred feet and thick forests extending over a hundred square miles. Ponape's size was impressive, as islands in Micronesia go. Possessing several good harbors and an "unlimited quantity of firewood and most excellent water" (DP Wilson 17 Apr 1841), it was an ideal spot for ships to lay over and reprovision. Yams, taro, breadfruit, and other produce could be obtained there, and the inhabitants were reputed to be friendly. A notice in one of the most popular seaman's journals of the day proclaimed Ponape "an island very well worth the attention of whalers" (H James 1835). The Spy stood off the island for the next three days while Captain Knights looked for a passage in the reef. Finally a canoe came off, carrying an Irishman who offered to pilot the ship to a good harbor. The offer was accepted, but only after Knights warned the enterprising pilot, whom he mistrusted from the very start, that "his life would be immediately forfeit" if he led the ship into a trap. Hardly had the brig come to rest at its anchorage when it was visited by several white men with tortoise shell to sella rough-looking lot. Thinking that it would be in his best interests to keep "on the right side of these fellows," the timorous captain bought their shell and contracted with them to cut wood and fill  

page_110

Page 110

the water casks. Better to be safe than sorry when dealing with runaway convicts! In the five short years since Lütke had rediscovered the island, Ponape had already made something of a reputation for itself. British whaleships out of Sydney and merchant vessels on their run from Australia to China were beginning to make the island a regular port of call. With them came convicts from the penal colonies in Australia, either as stowaways or as seamen who were furtively signed on by short-handed ship masters. In either case, the captains were usually only too happy to be rid of these men by the time they reached the first stopover, and the most unruly of them were quietly slipped into native canoes and taken ashore to live out their lives in semivoluntary exile. These runaway convicts"the outcasts and refuse of their nations," as a later visitor to Ponape put it (Shineberg 1971:158)became the first white men to live for any length of time on the island, the earliest of the beachcombers. The Irishman who came out to meet the Spy was the redoubtable James O'Connell, probably the earliest and certainly the best-known beachcomber on Ponape by reason of the book that he later published on his travels and experiences. His book, A Residence of Eleven Years in New Holland and the Caroline Islands, is a curious mixture of solid factual information embroidered with utter fancywith some deliberate distortions thrown in for good measure, quite likely to conceal the truth about his early career. O'Connell and his companion, who went by the name of George Keenan, were almost certainly ex-convicts from Australia like most of the whites who followed them to Ponape. Whether they were shipwrecked, as O'Connell states in his account, or simply jumped ship, they must have reached the island about 1830. Shortly after their arrival, O'Connell relates, he danced a merry jig to amuse his native captors and was soon afterward adopted by a local chief. Subsequently, after first submitting to the painful ritual of native tattooing, he married the chief's daughter and fathered two children by her. O'Connell gives a detailed and reasonably accurate description of native life on Ponape (1972:121 180). The tattooing operation that he underwent was traditionally performed on young Ponapean men and women with thorns or sharpened bird bones. Males also had to submit to the puberty rite of semicastration in which  

page_111

Page 111

one of the testicles was crushed with a rock. The men, who wore a loincloth covered by a kilt of coconut leaves, occupied themselves in fishing, cultivating yams and taro, making coconut hemp rope and tools from shell and rock, and occasionally doing battle against other sections of the island with wooden clubs and spears. The women, clad in a wrap-around beaten from bark, plaited the pandanus sails for canoes and the sleeping mats, wove loincloths and sashes on the traditional belt-loom, and did the tattooing. Major projects such as the construction of a dwelling, a large community house, or a canoe usually called for a collective effort by a great many people, and their completion was attended by religious rites and incantations. These were also occasions for great feasts, celebrated with mounds of food, elaborate dances, and singing, often accompanied by the nose flute or drum. Roast dog, a delicacy among Ponapeans, was served with breadfruit, yams, and taroportions of which were distributed by the chief to all the titled men according to their rank. An integral part of any feast was kava-drinking, a ritual with great ceremonial significance to Ponapeans. The kava root was pounded in rhythm on large, flat stones, sprinkled with water, and squeezed through hibiscus fibers into a coconut-shell cup that was passed in turn to the men of high rank until the drug took its soporific effect on them. Ponapean society, like that of Kosrae, was highly stratified. There were five different "kingdoms" or tribes on the island, each with two separate lines of nobility and one of priests. Each line consisted of a series of ascending titles or chieftainships that were bestowed, with the rights to certain pieces of land, on the basis of blood descent. The principal ruler of each tribe was the nahnmwarki, who stood at the head of one of the two chiefly lines; the nahnken, whom Europeans liked to think of as the "Prime Minister," was at the head of the other. The tribe was subdivided into several sections, each having its own title system and plethora of petty chiefs. Social distinctions were pronounced in Ponape, and commoners were expected to observe religiously a strict code of respect behavior toward the higher chiefs, especially the nahnmwarki and the nahnken. Despite the ponderous authority system under which they lived, Ponapeans were "indeed a happy people," O'Connell assures us (1972:162). He found them "hospitable, sagacious, and benevolent" and no more vindictive than any other people he had met.  

page_112

Page 112

Except for the near brush that O'Connell had with the people after he inadvertently violated the taboo on eating freshwater eels, his dealings with Ponapeans were uniformly tranquil and warm. But a lifetime on a Pacific island was not for O'Connell, and he soon requested passage aboard the Spy for himself and Keenan. Captain Knights was eager to leave the island as soon as he could get away, for the events of the past few days had unsettled him, leaving him even more fearful than usual. A fight had broken out the first day in port after some Ponapeans aboard the brig tried to make off with guard irons, and several of the islanders had been shot. Soon after this, Knights himself killed a man who was trying to steal his clothes through an open porthole. Then the British bark Nimrod arrived from nearby Pingelap with the news that its captain and two of the passengers had been killed in an ambush that the islanders had executed in the hope of taking the ship. Worst of all, though, was the report Knights had just received from the chief officer aboard the Nimrod that the beachcombers on the island, almost all of them British subjects, had decided to seize the Spy"The damned Yankee should not remain king there much longer," they boasted (Knights 1925:204). Before they had a chance to put their resolve to the test, Captain Knights stole away from Ponape with O'Connell and Keenan aboard. Captain Knights' troubles were not over just yet, however. Shortly after the Spy had put to sea, the captain accused O'Connell of repeated insubordination and plotting to gain control of the vessel. If the authorities on Guam had permitted it, Knights would have dumped the pair there; as it was, he had to wait until the ship reached Manila before he could hand the two over to officials to have them thrown into jail. They were never brought to trial, however, and soon continued their wanderings. O'Connell eventually made his way to America where, for years afterwards, he displayed his tattoos, told of his adventures in the South Seas, and demonstrated the Irish jig that had supposedly saved his lifeall for the amusement of circus audiences throughout the country. When the Spy left Ponape, there were close to thirty whites living ashore. A ship from Botany Bay that had been there just a few weeks earlier left a few men on the island, and the Nimrod landed nine whites from Pingelap who had reason to fear for their lives after they refused to join the islanders in their plot to cut off the ship. Before its departure, the Spy itself added two sick seamen  

page_113

Page 113

from its own company to the collection of riffraff on the island. Salem trading vessels, which were now starting to call at Ponape as word of its high-quality bêche-de-mer and ample supply of tortoise shell circulated more widely, also made contributions to the white community there. Beachcombers found that they had little difficulty in establishing themselves on the island once they left their ships. Ponapean chiefs were eager to have them under their care, sometimes even competing with one another to claim whites for themselves, and they guaranteed everything that the deserters needed to survive. Even as the numbers of beachcombers grew by the year, the capacity of the island to absorb themand the patience of the Ponapeans who welcomed themappeared limitless. The Kanakas' Revenge Kosrae, a luxuriant high island lying 350 miles east of Ponape and commonly known to seamen as Strong's Island, was also fast gaining popularity among whalers and trading vessels as a layover spot. Like Ponape, Kosrae offered the advantages of good harbors, a seemingly inexhaustible supply of wood and fresh water, and a friendly population. Or, at least, the population appeared friendly to the men aboard the Sydney vessels that called there during the early 1830s! The British whaleship John Bull left ten of its men on the island in 1830, and another Sydney whaler, the Australian, reported just about as many desertions two years later. The growth of the white communityif the motley assortment of beachcombers could be called a communitywas just as rapid on Kosrae as on Ponape; by 1835, the Sydney Gazette (2 Aug 1836) noted with alarm, there were "not less than thirty runaways on the island  . . . and many of them convicts." Trouble was not long in coming. At just about the same time that the New England newspapers were first advertising the charms of Strong's Island and the kindliness of its people, the Kosraeans were busy overrunning the Hawaiian brig Waverly and bathing its decks in the blood of its crew. The Waverly, which had been searching for several seamen lost in the Marshalls the year before, made its fateful call at Kosrae early in 1835. Its crew members, probably emboldened by stories of the readiness of Kosraean women to entertain sailors, went ashore to find companions for  

page_114

Page 114

themselves and returned with their females, some of whom were not as willing to spend the night aboard the ship as the tales might have suggested. The rest of the story was told to a missionary on Kosrae years later by the high chief (King George), who witnessed the events as a mere boy. White man want to get gal go aboard ship. King no like. In night, white man take plenty gal go aboard ship. In morning, kanaka go board ship: every kanaka; big island, small island, all go and kill every man board ship. White man kill some kanakas. Then kanakas take chests, small things ashore, then set fire to ship; burn sails, rigging, spars, casks, everything belong to ship. Every white man killed. (F Nov 1854:82) There were no survivors of the massacre. A handful of the crew, who were somehow able to launch a longboat as the attack began, finally made Ngatik, but were killed to the last man as they were beaching their boat. Hardly six months passed before the Kosraeans fell on another ship. When the Honduras of Boston, a trading schooner on a cruise for turtle shell, slipped into port on a peaceful August day, none of its officers or hands had any premonition of trouble. No one could have known of the fate of the Waverly just a few months earlier. There seemed to be no reason to deny the islanders' request to board the ship, even after Captain Scott and eight of the men took the boat to shore to barter for shell. It was only when one of the men aboard the ship heard a scream from the beach and saw the captain dashing for the water that the crew of the Honduras sensed what was to come. Before they could act, the Kosraeans aswarm on the deck rushed at them with clubs and daggers flailing. The carnage was frightful; there were mangled bodies everywhere. Only the mate and a steward, of all the crew, made the safety of the cabin. Quickly they loaded whatever muskets they could find, rushed back on deck and fired into the mob of Kosraeans, killing some and driving the rest from the ship. Together the two survivors slipped the cable and managed to work the ship out of harbor under a light breeze, finally reaching Ponape eleven days later. Taking on a new crew there, they brought the ship back to Kosrae to see what could be done for their captain and the others who had been left on the island. Twice a large cannon fired at them from the shore as they beat their way around the island; finally they gave up the search and made for Hawaii.  

page_115

Page 115

These Kosraeans could not have been the same innocents who charmed Duperrey and won a reputation for friendliness among the first whalers in the early 1830s! "To what is the change in their disposition to be attributed? " asked a correspondent for the Sydney Gazette (2 Aug 1836). "It is much to be feared that the numerous bad characters of our color, introduced to the island, have caused the evil," was the author's surmise. Readers were quick to agree that the convicts and other reprobates who had been left at the island must have instigated the two vicious attacks, and the general public took up the cry for a warship to visit Kosrae and undo the damage that had been done by "degenerate whites." The warship never came. For the next several years, most vessels gave Kosrae a wide berth because of the unfavorable publicity that the island had received in the press, and called at Ponape instead. In September 1842, however, the British whaleship Harriet sailed boldly into port to take on provisions. The Kosraeans willingly assisted the crew in getting off wood and water, and despite some initial reluctance, even allowed their women to spend the night aboard the ship. On the morning of their fourth day in port, while most of the crew were ashore fetching supplies, the captain and some of his friends were shooting pigeons for sport. The Englishmen were relaxed and obviously enjoying their time at the island. Only five men remained on board the Harriet when one of the islanders suddenly gave the signal for the attack. Within minutes the five were killed and the ship was taken, while those on shore were quickly cut down by armed men. Fearing reprisals for their crime, the Kosraeans burned and scuttled the Harriet and destroyed any telltale equipment taken from the ship. Reprisals were indeed visited upon the guilty partiesnot by a British man-of-war, but at the hands of the paramount chief who had known nothing of his people's designs beforehand. Angered more by their failure to defer to his authority than by the deed itself, the chief had the native ringleaderstwenty men and five womenstrangled and beaten to death. Once again the principal motive for the attack on the ship was revenge for the wrongs done island women. Kosraeans may have been protective of their womenfolk, but they were by no stretch of the imagination puritans; as shipping contacts increased, the Kosraean people learned to accommodate the wishes of womenhungry seamenfor a reasonable price. But the normal conventions had to be followed; the islanders would not abide the seizure of their women without the  

page_116

Page 116

consent of their spouses or male relatives. This was the supreme insult to the proud men of the island and it demanded swift and brutal retribution. The paramount chief at the time, Awane Lapalik I, later known to whalers and missionaries as Good King George, had replaced the brutal usurper, Awane Su II, during whose short reign the Waverly and Honduras had been attacked. King George, the complete opposite of his predecessor, in time won a reputation for his benevolence to ship captains and his paternal interest in the early mission on Kosrae. Foreigners who later met the "King" found it hard to believe that such a kindly old man could have had anything to do with the bloody seizure of the Harriet and readily accepted his version of the grim story. It was far easier to believe what the press had been saying all alongthat the real guilt lay with those "unprincipled whites," the scheming runaways living ashore and the abusive sailors who cheated the people and raped their women. The shots fired at the Honduras by a large shore battery only confirmed the fact that the beachcombers were deeply implicated in these attacks. Who else could have handled the cannon so accurately? If the whites on the island were actually involved in these massacres, then they soon paid for their sins. Scarcely four months after the Harriet was taken, another British whaleship put in at Kosrae and found not a single foreigner on the island. While the ship was making its way out of port after a stay of three months, the crew discovered the charred remains of the Harriet and learned the horrible details of its fate from two of the islanders who had shipped aboard. The British whalemen could only presume that the Kosraeans had done away with all the whites to prevent them from disclosing their misdeeds. Within the next two years, things returned to normal on Kosrae; ships visited more frequently than they had before and the white community on the island was building up afresh. By early 1844, however, the new arrivals concluded that they had already overstayed their visit and were begging the captain of a ship then in harbor for passage to Ponape (Ward 1967v3:574 577). Their lives would be taken, they pleaded, if the islanders ever learned that they were familiar with the circumstances of the Harriet's loss. There were certain things that King George, for all his kindliness toward foreigners, thought would best be hidden from public notice. The attacks on the Waverly and Honduras during his arro 

page_117

Page 117

gant predecessor's rule and the taking of the Harriet early in his ownwhether with his approval or notrepresented a continual threat to the security of his island. Time and time again, the foreigners who lived on Kosrae had taunted the people and their chiefs with lurid descriptions of the punishment they could expect when a warship came and found out what they had done. The whites living there had a tight noose around the neck of the island leaders, as George and the other chiefs knew only too well. They had it within their power to summon a British man-of-war to investigate the disasters and could personally testify to just what had taken place. The only hope that the Kosraean chiefs had of avoiding the terrible retribution which was sure to come once foreign authorities learned about their attacks and murders was to rid themselves of the beachcombers altogether. On Ponape, with its five autonomous chiefdoms always at the verge of war with one another, any concerted action against foreigners would have been virtually impossible; the initiative of one chief would almost certainly be undermined by others. But Kosrae was ruled by a single paramount chief who held unlimited authority over the entire island and could easily decree the extermination of all foreigners, no matter how attached to them some of his subjects may have become. The Europeans, despite the wonderful new skills they possessed, had outlived their usefulness on the island. By the early 1840s, ship captains were able to report that the Kosraean people had a ''very extensive knowledge of the English language" (Ward 1967v3:575). Most of the population spoke a kind of pidgin that served adequately as a means of communicating with passing ships. Unlike Ponapeans, the Kosraeans had no need for whites to assist in their commercial dealings with foreign ships; the islanders themselves had always handled their own trade arrangements and there were any number of native pilots capable of guiding ships into anchorage. The people of Kosrae could do very nicely on their own. When the frightened whites left for Ponape on that British ship in 1844, beachcombing as an institution all but ended on Kosrae. Afterwards, King George made it known to ship captains that he did not want sailors to be put ashore on the island and made a standing offer to "deliver up all runaways, free of expense" (F Feb 1849:9 10). Desertions from the growing number of whaleships visiting Kosrae continued, but the seamen who came ashore re 

page_118

Page 118

mained there, with very few exceptions, only for an interval of a few weeks until they could be gotten a berth aboard the next ship that called. Although the island remained a popular port of call for the next twenty years, there were never again more than one or two permanent white residents there. Bloody Hart's Brief Reign of Terror Ill feeling against Europeans was brewing on Ponape, too. A boatload of shipwrecked seamen from the British merchantman Corsair, who washed up on the island in 1835, were nearly massacred when they refused to comply with island etiquette and surrender their whaleboat to the people who took them in. The island chiefs, whose patience was being taxed to its limits by the unruly whites under their charge, were ready to use this show of ingratitude as the occasion for a strike against all white men. They had all but decided to wipe out the castaways from the Corsair and every other European on the island; the plan was aborted only when one of the most influential chiefs of Madolenihmw refused to abide by their decision and declared that he would guarantee protection to any foreigners who chose to live in his district. Ponapeans were beginning to take a long, hard second look at the very mixed blessings that foreign ships were bringing to their shores. The beachcombers, it was true, played a valuable role as intermediaries in trade with visiting ships, and the foreign-made goods that they helped procure were fast becoming necessities of life for the islanders; but the price was higher than some of the island leaders were willing to pay. The thirty or so whites on the island were a contentious lot, forever quarreling among themselves and often abusive in their dealings with the local people. When drunk on cheap grog or the coconut-palm toddy that they themselves fermented, they frequently rampaged far and wide with musket in hand, shrieking and howling curses at all they met and threatening them with physical violence. Even by 1835, a small party of Ponapeans was demanding the extermination of the whites and the closing of all harbors to foreign ships. The uneasiness on the island soon came to a head. The London whaleship Falcon, which had been windbound for an uneventful three months in 1836, went aground as she tried to leave Madolenihmw harbor. Before the ship broke up, the whale oil and stores were taken off and guarded on a small island that was to serve as  

page_119

Page 119

the stranded seamen's camp for the next month or two. Tempers had worn thin with the long delay at Ponape, and a rash of thefts did not improve them at all. When Captain Hingston caught a group of Ponapeans trying to make off with the topsail one evening, he flew into a rage and struck their leader, the nahnawa of Madolenihmw. A few days later, the impetuous young chief, still smarting from the insult, returned at the head of an armed band to take his revenge. His men clubbed Hingston to death and killed four other members of the Falcon's crew, leaving their bodies savagely mutilated. The nahnawa spent the next few days rallying his followers and announcing to all his intention of doing away with every foreigner on the island and in the harbor. The remaining crew members, meanwhile, were busy fortifying their campsite and trying to get messages through to other ships in port to come to their aid. The war was on! Word came back from the schooner Avon, a heavily armed vessel commanded by the shrewd Jules Dudoit, that her men would fight on behalf of the hard-pressed Englishmen only on condition that they signed over the full title to all the whale oil and ship's stores they had saved. This the Falcon's desperate crew readily agreed to do. Two other ships that had just made port, the Lambton and the Unity, both commanded by men named Hart, promised further support. With a combined force of forty seamen, joined by the whites living ashore and about four hundred Ponapean allies, the foreign party made for the shore in whaleboats to press the attack on the nahnawa and his men. For the first two days, bitter skirmishes were fought near the shore of the mainland, while a twelve-pounder rigged on a raft steadily bombarded everything within range. Outgunned if not outmanned, the nahnawa's army suffered heavy casualties in the early fighting and soon dispersed to the hills to fight a cautious guerrilla war. The foreigners and their allies, elated by their first easy victory, pressed on through the woods in pursuit of the enemy. They burned houses, cut down trees and destroyed crops, shot the nahnmwarki in his bed, and terrorized the people of Madolenihmw, refusing to accept the propitiatory offerings of kava that were repeatedly made to them. Finally, after several days of marauding, they captured the nahnawa himself, now abandoned in defeat and resigned to his fate. "I know what you want," he said to his captors. "Shoot me where I stand; I am tired of life for I am hunted by everyone" (NM1847:129).  

page_120

Page 120

But the ships' crews had agreed beforehand that the nahnawa was to be taken alive, so the young chief was trussed up and brought aboard the Lambton, commanded by Charles "Bloody" Hart, the self-appointed leader of the whites. There, after a summary trial, he was sentenced to be hanged from the yardarm and given the rest of the evening to contemplate his misfortunes. Early the next morning, the seamen from the three ships gathered on board the Lambton to prepare for the spectacle. For the next few hours they amused themselves by throwing the rope around their necks and doing a grotesque pantomime, all in full sight of the condemned man. At 9 AM, the executioners boarded the vesseltwo negroes "dressed in long red gowns, with long wigs made of canvas, thrummed with Manila rope yarns, and their faces painted red, giving them a most hideous appearance" (Blake 1924:660). At the sight of them, the nahnawa shrank back in horror and all but fainted on the spot. His eyes blindfolded and his arms bound behind his back, the Ponapean chief was led to the yardarm and the noose slipped around his neck. At a signal from Captain Hart, a gun was fired and his body was run up in the smoke. There it hung until noon. But Bloody Hart's personal score was not yet entirely settled. Shortly before joining the fray on Ponape, his cutter had called at Ngatik where, report had it, much fine turtle shell was to be found. He and his crew had gone ashore and were beginning their trade negotiations with the seemingly friendly inhabitants when they were attacked by a large band of armed men and forced to run for the boats. The Lambton made good her escape with no loss of life among the crew, but her skipper was not one to let sleeping dogs lie. The Sydney-born Hart had spent most of his life at sea attempting to build for himself, by fair means or foul, a wealthy trading empire that would enable him to lead the aristocratic life-style to which he had always aspired. Passing himself off as the son of the Earl of Pomfret, he had for some years roamed the seas between Manila and Ponape, swindling whom he could and using more forceful means of getting what he wanted when necessaryand the latter seemed called for on Ngatik. Not quite a year after the Falcon incident, Hart returned to Ngatik with the Lambton. Stopping first at Ponape, he took aboard several Europeans and twenty Ponapeans, all armed with muskets, and brought two native canoes and an extra whaleboat in tow. When the Ngatikese saw the familiar cutter lying off their is 

page_121

Page 121

land, they guessed what was afoot. Their warriors waited half-concealed in the brush fingering their clubs and slings and defiantly motioned the crew to come ashore. The Lambton's men did come ashoreon the next morning and on the day after that. With muskets blazing and blood in their eyes, they stalked across the island routing the Ngatikese and killing whomever they found. By the end of the second day, Hart's expeditionary force had slaughtered every grown man on the island, about fifty or sixty in all. The only males to escape their vengeance were the few who hurriedly put to sea in their canoes on the first day of the attack and were never heard of again. The Englishmen spared the women, howeverat least those who had not already killed their infants and taken their own lives rather than put themselves at the mercy of their conquerors. Hart found only a pitifully small amount of tortoise shell, but he had his revenge and an island besides. He solemnly installed as the new chief of Ngatik Paddy Gorman, a wild-eyed Irishman, "tattooed from head to foot" (Blake 1924:666), who had taken to wearing the native Ponapean skirt, wreathing his head in beads, and greasing his body with coconut oil. Gorman was given full possession of the island, in return for which he was to supply shell for Hart. Leaving a few of the Europeans and the twenty Ponapeans he had brought to help collect shell and console the Ngatikese widows, Hart was off in the Lambton in search of a new adventure. Hart called at Ngatik once or twice afterward to pick up his shell; but by the time the British Navy got around to sending a warship to investigate his crimes, he had left the area for good and taken up a new career: running opium into China. The British man-of-war Larne, in its calls at Ponape and Ngatik in 1839, could accomplish little other than verify the gruesome details of the massacre that had taken place two years earlier. Both Ngatik and Ponape had tasted the foreigner's fury. Ponapeans had seen two of the highest ranking chiefs of Madolenihmw executed and a great amount of property destroyed; the Ngatikese had suffered the loss of half of their population and the island itself. The savage reprisals that Captain Hart had engineered might not quite have met the highest standards of British justice, but they certainly had the effect of forestalling any attacks on ships or violence against beachcombers to which the islanders may have been tempted. Some years later, the surgeon on a whaleship report 

page_122

Page 122

ed that Ponapeans still lived "in the greatest dread of the power and vengeance of Englishmen" (DP Wilson 17 Apr 1841). Resistance to the foreigner might have vanished, but not resentment. For many years after the Lambton affair, the nahnawa's brother and many of the dead chief's former adherents, together with other Ponapeans who still maintained a "lurking enmity to the white man" (NM 1870:248), took refuge on a small island off the northeast coast of Ponape where they nursed their hatred and swore vengeance someday. In time, they were joined by three black men, deserters from American whaleships, who had their own reasons for animosity toward whites. The sworn vengeance never came, but bad feelings continued for years afterward. The Scars of a Moral Pestilence Ponape in the early 1840s was experiencing all the growing pains of any Pacific port of call. The British whaleship Gypsy, lying at Madolenihmw harbor with three other ships in April 1841, found the islanders relentless in their quest for tobacco, among other things, and very eager to do business with any ship that put in. Fresh provisions, especially pigs and fowls, were already becoming scarce, but the traffic in women was booming. Young girls from nine to sixteen years of agemost not yet showing the "fully developed signs of womanhood"crowded aboard the ship, their brothers and uncles at their sides to advertise their charms and receive payment from their buyers. Ponapean men staggered and reeled along island paths, betraying a fondness for "the water that takes away a person's sense" that they acquired from the heavydrinking beachcombers. Stories of the dreadful violence that sometimes erupted among the whites living ashore only confirmed the worst fears that ship masters had of that gang of "runaway felons from Sydney." Not too long before the arrival of the Gypsy, one of them had shot another in the heat of an argument and savagely hacked his prostrate victim to pieces with a sword (DP Wilson 1719 Apr 1841). These were troubled times for the island and its people. Ship traffic at Ponape was growing with each passing year. Some fifty vessels had called there between 1834 and 1840, and the number rose dramatically during the early 1840s as American whaling activities in the Pacific expanded. There were several good harbors at Ponape, but the favorite ones were located in the  

page_123

Page 123

southern part of the island in the kingdoms of Kiti and Madolenihmw, the strongest among the five tribes on Ponape (Map 11). The three harbors in Kiti on the lee of the island and the windward harbor of Madolenihmwthe scene of the Falcon's wreckbecame the loci of all shipping activities; the northern port, which years later would become the site of the first Spanish colony, was entirely neglected at this time. Ponape's growing fame among ship masters reached the ears of the Catholic missionaries who had just been evicted from Hawaii and were looking for a new field for their labors. Late in 1837, the schooner Notre Dame de Paix, owned by the same Jules Dudoit who had captained the Avon the year before, carried two priests to Ponape to found the first mission there. The attempt, however, was  

page_124

Page 124

ill-starred from the beginningone of the priests died shortly before the schooner made Ponape, and the other, Father Desiré Maigret, remained for only about six months before he was taken off the island and brought back to Hawaii. As ship traffic at Ponape increased, so did the number of desertions and the size of the resident white population (Hezel 1978:267 268). Occasionally the greater part of a ship's crew remained behindthe Eliza in 1836 had sixteen desertions; the Offley in 1841 lost so many men that it could not make sail; the Sharon in 1842 left eleven ashore; and the Fortune in 1843 lost seven hands, finally making sail for Guam with only four men before the mast. Whites living ashore often encouraged disgruntled seamen to jump ship and assisted them in making good their escape, even if rather few were prepared to go quite as far as Thomas Boyd, who held two of the Magnet's boat crews captive at gunpoint until the deserters' clothes were sent ashore by the captain. Ship captains, especially the masters of whaling vessels that were visiting Ponape in great numbers now, soon resorted to countermeasures. They announced a bounty of ten or twenty dollars on deserters, to be paid when the islanders returned the men to the ship. Many of them cut short their time in port, and some even avoided entering the harbor altogether, preferring to lay off and on rather than risk losing their men through desertion. But these measures proved only partially effective. Enticed by the "temporary fascinations of women" and the promise of a life of leisure, seamen continued to leave their ships and take up living ashore (DP Wilson 18 Apr 1841); the white population grew to fifty or sixty in 1840, and to one hundred fifty a decade later. Beside the veteran Englishmen on the island, the foreign colony was composed of Americans and Portuguese, largely from New England whaleships, and natives of other Pacific islands: Rotumans, Gilbertese, Maoris, and Tahitians. Meanwhile, ship masters who found themselves short-handed due to desertions began to sign on Ponapeans as foremast hands. The Honduras, after most of its company was wiped out in the fight at Kosrae, took on practically an entire Ponapean crew before continuing its voyage to Honolulu. A sixteen-year-old native boy shipped aboard the Harmony in the same year, and others soon followed his example. As desertions continued, more and more of the islanders left Ponape for a few years to see the world from the fo'c'sle of a trading brig or whaling bark. The foreigners who settled on Ponape were dispersed through 

page_125

Page 125

out the island, each living under the protection of the chief who had adopted him. Whatever their personal quirks and the troubles they had caused in the past, beachcombers were still prized possessions and only Ponapeans with the highest titles got their pick of the lot. The widespread hostility toward foreigners that flared up in the mid1830s had generally abated by this time; only a fringe element of Ponapean leaders still demanded their bloodand they were no better than outcasts. Chiefs immediately took the new foreigners under their wing, provided them with land, food, and women, and introduced them into the social network of island life. Under the paternal care of their high-ranking sponsors, most foreigners soon found a comfortable niche for themselves in the community. With all of their meager material needs provided for them, they had the run of the island and the freedom to do just about as they pleased. Wants were few on an island like Ponape, but even so there were some things that soil and sea could not providemainly tobacco, cloth, iron tools, muskets, and powder. These and other items, even at this time, were an indispensable part of life for Ponapeans as well as whites. To furnish such minor luxuries for themselves and their patrons, most beachcombers were driven to some form of gainful employmenteven life on a Pacific island could not be one of complete indolence! When the young British trading captain, Andrew Cheyne, made the first of several visits to Ponape in 1842, he found that most of the whites made their living by collecting tortoise shell and selling it to passing ships, just as had the runaway convicts whom Captain Knights met ten years earlier. They jealously guarded a monopoly on the sale of shell, as Cheyne soon discovered when he tried to buy directly from the chiefs. They were also trying, with some success, to extend their monopoly over the sale of provisions to whaleships; "the scoundrels appear to have such power over the natives as to prevent them from selling even a coconut to the ships," Cheyne complained (Shineberg 1971:156). The white residents on the island were the trusted agents of the chiefs, empowered to do business on their behalf. As a work force they had at their disposal all the chief's subjects, who were prepared to paddle the whites' canoes, fish for turtle or bêche-de-mer for them, turn over their taro and yams, or do anything else that the chiefs might ask. In performing these services for the whites, they were only discharging their traditional obligations to their  

page_126

Page 126

Ponapean masters, and the only payment they received from the whites was an occasional plug of tobacco. The beachcomber himself then took over: he made contact with the ships in harbor, established the prices for the commodities being sold, and received the payment in the form of trade goods. As a return to his chief for his protection and the help of his people, he would present him with a share of the goods he received"one or two muskets, axes, adzes for making canoes, powder or a portion of tobacco" (Blake 1924:667). The rest of the goodsincluding, whenever possible, a good supply of grogwas retained by the white middleman as his fee. On commodities such as turtle shell and bêche-de-mer the traders realized an especially good profit, often as high as five hundred percent (Shineberg 1971:173). During the 1830s, Ponape was generally acclaimed by British captains to be the best island in the Pacific for turtle shell. English ships from Sydney were soon joined by trading vessels from Salem and Honolulu in their calls at Ponape for shell. At that time, Ponape was supplying about four or five hundred pounds of top-quality turtle shell each year at a price of five to six dollars a pound. By the early 1840s, however, turtles were becoming rarer off Ponape and traders on shelling voyages were forced to seek more plentiful sources elsewhere. Beachcombers were already turning to other kinds of business, especially the provisioning of whaleships, and for the next several years the sale of pigs and fowls to ships was almost exclusively in the hands of the whites on the island (SH 15 May 1844). For all practical purposes, the foreigners on Ponape and the surrounding atolls held a corner on all the most important market commodities. If anything could have been called a medium of exchange, it was tobacco. A few sticks of tobacco would buy a brigade of native mercenaries, supply a ship's mess with vegetables and fruit for several days, or procure "as many girls as would stock a three-tailed Bashaw's harem" (DP Wilson 18 Apr 1841). "Nothing is wanting if only you have tobacco and pipes," one visitor to the island noted. "The entire population might be bought for a hundredweight of tobacco!" (DP Wilson 18 Apr 1841). Almost every man, woman, and child had become an inveterate smoker by this time and tobacco passed as common currency. Prices for island produce were fixed in terms of heads of tobaccoone dozen fowl at "24 figs Negrohead Tobacco"; a hundred yams, breadfruit, or coconuts at ten figs; and a bunch of bananas at two figs (Shine 

page_127

Page 127

berg 1971:173). Money of any description was thoroughly useless to both whites and Ponapeans; when given a dollar, the local people could think of nothing better to do with it than drill a hole in it and fasten it around their neck as an ornament. Ponape was hardly a model of harmony and good fellowship, if we can believe the journal reports of Captain Cheyne, who lived there for five months in early 1843. Sailing out of Sydney on a sandalwood cruise to the Isle of Pines and New Caledonia, Cheyne put in at Rohnkiti harbor in December 1842 to collect a cargo of shell and bêche-de-mer. Almost from the moment he lowered anchor, the naive and inexperienced trading captain had trouble with the whites on the island. Several of them came aboard Cheyne's brig drunk and he was forced to have his men carry them off bodily while they cursed him and threatened to kill him if he ever came ashore. Their feelings only intensified when they learned that he intended to begin buying shell and curing bêche-de-mer at the island. His business venture was a direct challenge to their control of island trade and they did all they could in the following months to undermine his activities. So bitter did their opposition become that the nahnken of Kiti, whom Cheyne had befriended upon his arrival, had to have his men guard the captain's house several evenings against the rumored attack of a band of whites. Quarrels between resident whites over the rights to purchase shell from chiefs had already led to two recent murders. Vagabonds the beachcombers may have been, but they took their trading privileges very seriously indeed! Cheyne tells a sorry tale of endless murders and intrigues among the foreigners living on Ponape. On one occasion, fifteen of the whites held a council at which they unanimously decided to execute a man by the name of McFarlane for the wrongs that he had done them. They picked a Portuguese seaman to carry out the deed, plied him with liquor ''until he was stupid," and followed him over to the condemned man's house to witness the murder. When they found McFarlane sitting at his table with two kegs of gunpowder ready to be exploded, they persuaded him to leave his house and join them at dinner in a nearby home, where he was quickly brought down with a musket ball and finished off with a stroke of the cutlass that opened his skull. Not long after this, a handful of Maoris rose up against the whites and killed two of them for attempting to carry off their wives to Ngatik. The Maoris then fled to a tiny island where they lived for a while under the  

page_128

Page 128

protection of a local chief until they at last arranged a truce with the whites. While the whites and Maoris were making their peace at a banquet in the house of one of the whites, two of the latter went into the adjoining room, returned with loaded muskets and fired at the Maoris, killing two of them outright (Shineberg 1971:208 210, 286 287). There was more than just a grain of truth in the disparaging reports on the "lawlessness of the miscreants" residing on Ponape (Simpson 1844:103). Men like George May, John Brown, and Thomas Boydall living on Ponape at the timeembodied the worst features in the stereotype of the Pacific beachcomber. May, the Portuguese deserter who played a principal role in the ambush of the Maoris and McFarlane's murder, ran up a long list of atrocities before he himself was killed on Ngatik some years later. He drowned a carpenter whom Cheyne had discharged from his ship, and some years later reportedly flogged to death the supercargo of a ship that was taking him to Kosrae. John Brown, the "English desperado" whom Cheyne regarded as the most deadly enemy he had, was a participant in three killings, including one in which he bribed a Ponapean to shoot down a trading rival. It was Brown who gave the coup de grace to John McFarlane after he had been felled by May's bullet. Thomas Boyd had gained notoriety even before Cheyne's visit for arming a band of Ponapeans and forcibly demanding the release of seamen who wished to desert from whaleships. Boyd had long been rumored to be the ringleader of a group of whites who wanted to overthrow native rule and assume the government of the entire island. His thefts from native homes and raids upon canoes to seize pigs and yams had gone unpunished because of the dread that Ponapeans had of him. When, in a fit of rage, he attempted to shoot the nahnken, however, the people petitioned Cheyne to take him off the island and bring him to justice in China. Boyd was brought back to Ponape on Cheyne's vessel after authorities in Hong Kong denied him permission to land there, but a year later he was taken off Ponape for good. Not all beachcombers were cut from the same cloth, of course. James Hadley, formerly a crew member of the Falcon, impressed the naval commander of the British ship Larne as a "very respectable lad" and was one of the very few whites on the island whom Cheyne trusted. Hadley married a Ponapean woman soon after settling on the island; his daughter later became the wife of the nahnken of Kiti, the forceful leader who protected the first Protes 

page_129

Page 129

tant missionaries, and the mother of the famous Henry Nanpei. For years afterward Hadley lived a quiet life in Kiti, supporting himself by piloting ships into the port that in time became known as Hadley's Harbor. Another white of unimpeachable character was Louis Corgat, a creole from the Seychelle Islands who had been Dudoit's second mate aboard the Avon. He lived near Hadley and, like him, served as a harbor pilot in Rohnkiti. Before his death in 1853, he provided invaluable assistance to the American Board missionaries in their first year on the island. But men like Hadley and Corgat, many would argue, were merely the exceptions that proved the rule; the majority of whites on Ponape at this time were a rowdy, rum-swilling gang of ruffians who took what they could and did little to improve the society into which they had been adopted. Cheyne soon discovered that there was no fortune to be made on Ponape. He had visited the island four times between 1842 and 1844, spending a total of nearly twelve months there. He had purchased several tracts of land in Kiti and invested a considerable sum of money trying to establish a profitable trade in shell and bêche-de-mer, but with little success. All the commercial ventures that he had begun, along with the grand plans that he once had of setting up coffee and sugar plantations, were dashed by the vigorous opposition of the whites on the island. When local chiefs promised to sell him their shell and bêche-de-mer, they were intimidated by the beachcombers and forced to sell to them instead. He had come with the hope of somehow "ridding the island of this nest of runagates" (Shineberg 1971:157) and setting up a thriving industry there, but in the end he was compelled to surrender to them the commerce that they thought of as rightfully theirs and driven to seek his fortune elsewhere. And where was the man-of-war that was so often called for "to clear the land of its fatal vermin"? It finally arrived in December 1845, when the HMS Hazard sailed into port to investigate one of the many killings that had occurred on Ponape in recent years (Egerton 12 20 Dec 1845). After a week at the island, it left with George May aboard as a prisoner. Whatever relief the people of Ponape may have gotten from this display of British justice was shortlived, for within a year May was back terrorizing the island once again. Life was changing on Ponape under the powerful impact of heavy ship traffic and the growing beach community. The tradi 

page_130

Page 130

tional social system, it is true, was still intact and would remain so as long as the beachcombers continued to act as trading agents for their patron chiefs. The chiefs retained control over the distribution of goods to their people and continued to employ traditional norms in dispensing these prized items. But the goods themselves did make a considerable difference in the people's livesthe red serge that they passionately desired, the plane irons, the iron cooking pots, the cotton shirts, the small chests with locks and hinges, the fowling pieces, and above all, the Negrohead and Cavendish tobacco. Already in 1843 Cheyne could report: "there is scarcely a man of any note on the island, who has not a musket, and many of the chiefs have 3 or 4 each, together with plenty of ammunition" (Shineberg 1971:190). There were fifteen hundred muskets in the possession of Ponapeans, he estimated, and they were rapidly replacing spears and clubs as the ordinary weapon in combat. The result of the widespread use of firearms in local wars was to diminish rather than increase injury and death, he and other observers noted. Fearing the deadly effects of these new weapons, Ponapeans took good care to stay well out of musket range and were quick to seek peace at the first opportunity offered. Alcohol, too, was introduced to the island during this period. When beachcombers could not get rum and whiskey from ships, they resorted to fermenting their own coconut toddya skill that they very soon passed on to the islanders. In time, some of the more resourceful whites, following Paddy Gorman's example on Ngatik, rigged up their own stills to insure a steady supply of spirits regardless of the vicissitudes of shipping. Many of the changes in Ponapean life could hardly be regarded as improvements. "Since the native came in contact with the European," one observer on Ponape wrote, "he now adds to his primitive vices that of inebriety, indulgence in tobacco, and that other evil, more fatal perhaps than all the rest combined, the pox!" (DP Wilson 19 Apr 1841). "The pox"the venereal disease that inevitably resulted from the visits of island women to shipstook its toll of the island population, as did the influenza and smallpox epidemics that raged in the early 1840s and caused some loss of life. But many would say that even more destructive than "the pox" or the other diseases that ravaged the islands in these years was the moral pestilence carried by the beachcombers. Even if the popular depiction of these men as the minions of Satan himself, ''guilty of  

page_131

Page 131

every species of profanity and crime" (Shineberg 1971:158), was painted in darker colors than the facts would support, there was some truth to the charge that they infected the people with moral maladies. And the scars of the pestilence they carried were a long time in healing.  

page_132

Page 132

Chapter 6 The Powers of Darkness and Light Wood, Water, and Women The American whaling fleet, which "whitened the Pacific Ocean with its canvas" (Wilkes 1845v5:484), was just beginning to descend upon eastern Micronesia in force during the early 1840s. For the remainder of this decade and the next, Yankee whaleships appeared off the islands of Ponape and Kosrae in unprecedented numbers. Ponape, at which about fifty ships had called during the whole decade between 1830 and 1840, received thirty or forty ships each year during the early 1850s and more than fifty in its peak seasons of 1855 and 1856. Kosrae, which never became quite as popular as Ponape, was visited by twenty or thirty ships a season during the early 1850s; whaling traffic reached its height there one day in early October 1856 when the Kosraean people were treated to the startling spectacle of twenty-one vessels lying in port. The American whaling industry was the dominant influence on these islands throughout this period, a full century before the United States claimed them as its own. Keeping the lamps of North America and Europe lit was big business, and there were some five hundred American vessels cruising the Pacific in search of whales. Their quarry furnished a thick oil that served as the chief illuminant of the day, while its bone was used in the manufacture of stays and similar products. The sperm whale, whose habitat for at least part of the year was Micronesian waters, yielded an even more precious oil used in making candles and ambergris for perfumes. The stout, lumbering vessels that the Americans sailed not only pursued whales, but also processed them. Equipped with tryworks (large fireplaces over which the blubber was boiled down to oil), the Yankee whaleships were float 

page_133

Page 133

ing factories. Since the oil could be casked, stored in the hold, and off-loaded at Honolulu for transshipment to the East Coast, whaling voyages could be extended for considerable periods without risk of spoilages. By the 1850s, it was not unusual for a ship to be out four or five years before finally returning to its home portusually New Bedford, Nantucket, or one of the lesser whaling towns in southern New England. The whaling industry had first expanded from the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific a few years before the turn of the nineteenth century. As in the China trade, the British took an early lead in Pacific whaling; British whaleships were roaming the mid-Pacific during the first two decades of the 1800s while American vessels were still hugging the western coast of South America. It was not until 1820 that American ships ventured far enough out of these offshore waters to discover the "on-the-Line" fishing grounds near the equator and the Japan Ground in the middle latitudes. By this time, British whaling had begun to decline despite the brief impetus given it by a small Australiabased fleetthose British whaleships that visited Ponape and Kosrae in the late 1820s and early 1830s were mere vestiges of the former fleet. As the demand for whale oil continued to grow, so did the size of the American whaling fleet in the Pacific. During the 1830s, new whaling grounds were being discovered and the center of activities gradually shifted northward: from the equatorial waters to the Japan Ground, and finally to the Arctic waters. In time, whaleships developed definite fishing patterns that conformed with the migratory habits of the whales they were pursuing. In the late spring, ships would fish in the waters off Japan before turning north to spend the summer months in the Arctic; after calling at Hawaii to leave their oil and whalebone in storage, they passed the winter cruising the equator, occasionally calling at nearby islands for "refreshments." Whalers, the old saying goes, required three things of the islands at which they called: wood, water, and women. Ponape and Kosrae offered a liberal supply of all three, to say nothing of the fresh fruit, vegetables, poultry, and pork that could be bought at reasonable prices from dealers who were able to communicate with the Americans in their own language. Both islands lay just north of the equatorial cruising ground and were readily accessible to whaleships; moreover, they had well-established reputations as popular ports of call from the days of British whaling. Ponape and Kosrae,  

page_134

Page 134

then, soon became the favorite "refreshing stops" in the western Pacific. Excitement always ran high in the forecastle when word was passed that the ship would lay to at one of these islands. For the young and inexperienced hands who made up most of the crew, whatever glamor they might once have imagined in a life at sea had long since given way to harsh realities. Quarters were cramped, dirty, and vermin-ridden, and the meals of hardtack and salt beef or pork, served in slop pots, were at the very least tedious and sometimes downright revolting. Life on a whaleship could alternate long, monotonous days or weeks with exhausting periods of intense, numbing work when the crew was chasing or cutting in whales. Discipline was harsh, even brutal at times, while the rewards were niggardly. One of the few compensations for the long, lonely months at sea under such abominable conditions was the opportunity to sample the strange new worlds that lay half the globe away from home. To the eyes of the New England plough-boys and Portuguese bravos who worked the ship, islands like Ponape or Kosrae, with their rich foliage, creviced waterfalls, and inviting beaches, must have appeared like Eden itself. Normally a ship would remain in port for two or three weeks, although vessels that found themselves windbound could stay for up to four months. After the pilot had brought the vessel through the maze of coral reefs to its anchorage and was paid his twenty-dollar pilotage fee, harbor watches were set up and the usual round of minor duties commenced. Sails were mended, the keel caulked, and the deck polished, while boat crews were sent ashore to fill the water casks and cut firewood. By this time, the islanders or their white agents would begin coming aboard to offer a variety of island produce for sale. Yams could be bought for seven pounds of tobacco or $1.80 a barrel; taro, bananas, and other fresh foods could be had for comparable prices. Chickens and pigs were sometimes furnished, and on one occasion, at least, a fully grown bull was bought from the chief of Kosrae. On their liberty, whalemen usually spent the day ashore in search of whatever kinds of diversion they might find. Often they had to content themselves with a sightseeing walk around the island, shelling on the beach, or hunting pigeons; but now and then a fortunate crew, like the Emily Morgan's in 1851, had the thrill of joining a group of island men on a boar hunt. Sometimes the sailors would arrange contests among themselves, as when the  

page_135

Page 135

crews of three ships lying off Kosrae in 1851 matched their best oarsmen against one another in a whaleboat race. Bored whalers would frequently challenge their native friends to playful boxing and wrestling matches. The crew of the Cavalier had the immense satisfaction of watching their flinty captain, an incurable braggart, go down to inglorious defeat in several successive sparring matches. Ponape had a few seedy taverns, run by beachcombers, that served up coconut toddy and locally distilled rum; but on Kosrae, where alcoholic spirits were officially prohibited by order of King George (although still unofficially enjoyed by him!), seamen had to settle for the tamer pastime of lawn bowling on an alley that was set up by one of the island's very few white residents. At times the crew of a whaleship might be invited to attend a native feast and join in the entertainment that invariably followed. After curiously tasting the kava, the sailors dug in heartily to what they believed to be roast porkonly to find out later, to their disgust and the islanders' glee, that the main dish had actually been dog. Afterwards, they would settle back for a while to watch their hosts perform local dances before they made their own contribution to the festivities: usually a hornpipe or two with musical accompaniment by harmonica or accordion, although one ship's crew staged two full-dress theatrical productions on such an occasion. But the most popular diversion by far were the island women. They came off by the dozen to any ship that would have themand most did!for the seaman's lust was an important source of income at those busy ports. The young girls, nervous and shame-faced, were prodded on by their brothers and husbands with the threat of a sound beating if they did not go. The veterans, however, boarded the ship with a casual air, their eyes scanning the sailors on deck for an old acquaintance from a previous visit. For the remaining time in port, the women and their male relatives virtually lived on shipboard"the females as boarders and the men as bummers," as one seaman put it (Bourne 17 Jun 1872). However transitory their relationship with the whalemen who "bought" them, island women were not always ready to take their payment and run off; dislodging them after they had lived on the ship for a week or two could be a touchy matter and might easily cause hurt feelings. When the captain of one vessel wanted to get himself another woman, he was obliged to keep his former companion in the cabin to avoid a dreadful scene; he recalled that a Ponapean  

page_136

Page 136

woman who found herself supplanted by another some years before, had thrown herself off the ship's deck in a fit of jealousy and rage (WH Wilson 25 Feb 1850). The liaisons between the seamen and their island mistresses may not have been lasting, but they were not always without some deep feelings on both sides. One young whaleman celebrated in verse his fondness for a young Kosraean lady "founded on ten minutes acquaintance in the bush": Her hair in long ringlets her face half conceals While her bosom betrays the deep love that she feels As together we linger in yonder cool shade And enraptured I gaze on my fair Island maid. No necklace of rubies encircles her neck Nor jewels nor gold, nor in satin she's decked But sooner with her would I roam in the shade Than with many more gay than my fair Island maid.                                                                                           (Macy l841 1845) Another sailor, obviously smitten by the charms of a Ponapean woman whom he called Juboy, confessed his regrets at leaving an island that "is about the same as leaving home." The journal entry closes with his forlorn adieus: "So long to Ascension and if it comes right, Juboy, I hope to see you again" (Bourne 14 Jul 1873, 23 Jul 1876). Juboy's boyfriend spoke for many others when he wrote: "I am homesick, downhearted and everything else. I would sooner live on Ascension than be out here in those squalls and rain" (Bourne 12 Feb 1873). Desertions by those who shared his sentiments increased enormously during the peak whaling years, and the white population on Ponape grew to about one hundred fifty by mid-century. Even on Kosrae, where the high chief's injunction against whites taking up residence still stood, desertions continued as seamen exchanged a berth on one vessel for another. One determined sailor, whose escape was frustrated when he and his companion were caught by Ponapean bounty hunters and marched back to the ship, afterward tried to paddle ashore in the captain's bathtub. Another would-be deserter who had been captured by a Ponapean and presented to the captain in exchange for the customary reward was lucky enough to be brought back to shore and turned loose when his captor took offense at the paltry one pound of tobacco that was offered for his efforts. Seven men, four of them  

page_137

Page 137

Portuguese, made good their escape from that same ship before it sailed from Ponape in November 1851. At times desertions were so massive and carefully planned that they took on the appearance of conspiracies. On a single day in March 1856, two boat crews from different shipsboth equipped with tools, cooking utensils, food, and navigational instrumentsslipped away into the night toward Ponape. Just a few months earlier at Kosrae, about forty crew members from the three ships then in port had signed a formal pact to desert and had hidden away weapons to use in their attempt. Their plans were dashed, however, when the captain of one of the vessels discovered a copy of the pact and promptly clamped the ringleaders in irons. This latest generation of beachcombers was very different from the previous one. They were not hardened criminals condemned to long imprisonment in a penal colony, but lovesick farmboys and fishermen from the Azores or Cape Verde who found the islands irresistibly appealing after the drudgery and tyranny of life before the mast. Their number included a few American blacks who left one form of slavery, on the cotton plantations of the South, only to find another on shipboard. It also included, in a few cases, the masters of whaling vessels themselves. Isaac Hussey, the captain of the Planter, obtained permission from King George to live ashore on Kosrae in 1850 after he had shot and killed a man while putting down a mutiny. During the two years he lived on the island, Hussey built several attractive houses and made other improvements that drew admiring comments from visitors and made him a favorite of the chief. Hussey appears to have been much more successful as a beachcomber than as a ship captain, for shortly after he left Kosrae as the master of the William Penn, he was lying lifeless on the deck of his own ship, the victim of another mutiny. Two other whaling masters joined the ranks of the beachcombers on Ponape after their ships were lost to the Confederate raider Shenandoah in 1865. John Eldridge of the Hawaiian-registered Harvest, which was seized when it ran up the Union flag rather than the Hawaiian colors, spent years commanding a small trading brig and running a trade station on Ponape rather than face the Harvest's owners and admit his tragic mistake. George Baker, whose ship was also taken by the Shenandoah, tied a sword to his waist and for the six months that he was on the island led his men into battle against the rebel forces that were trying to unseat the nahnmwarki of Madolenihmw.  

page_138

Page 138

The bold contrast between the new class of beachcombers and the old was clear enough to one American seaman: "The green hands who left American ships  . . . are mild, pleasant and disposed to establish order and treat the natives wellbut the Englishmen who are old men  . . . and dead to every feeling but sensuality cannot induce the Americans to violence, consequently they hate them" (WH Wilson 21 Feb 1850). There was a grain of truth in his observation; the new beachcombers were generally a decent sort, particularly when compared with those who came before thembut there were a few outstanding exceptions. Two murders took place on Mokil within a few years, one of them committed by Lucien Huntington, who had been second mate on the Harvest before he deserted in 1851. The greatest villain of the day, however, was a towering Virginia black by the name of Edward Johnson, also a deserter from the Harvest, who lived on Ponape for seven years before he was stabbed to death by another deserter. During his time on the island, Johnson killed at least two men and so thoroughly frightened the populace during his violent drunken rampages that he earned the name "The Terror of the Pacific." But times were clearly changing and the old disorder was passing away. Even those aging English beachcombers, given to "sensuality" as they may have been, were quieting down now. And well they might, for many of them had squirreled away considerable sums of money from their ship trade; some of them, rumor had it, were worth "thousands." Others like "Scotty," the long-time beachcomber on Ponape who buckled on his belt and cutlass to pay a formal call to the officers of any ship entering port and always ended up sleeping off his liquor near the cabin gangway, were content to pass their lives in alcoholic somnolence. Beachcombers were not what they had been twenty years before. On the whole, the whalemen and the islanders got along splendidly. If whaling captains had any hesitation in putting in at Ponape and Kosrae, it was because the local people were almost a little too friendly for their liking; desertions were always a very real likelihood at such places. Unpleasant incidents, like the riot in early 1850 between some Ponapeans and the crew of the General Scott, were rare and had little lasting effect on attitudes of either side. Even on Kosrae, where dealings between foreigners and islanders had been uneven in earlier years, ship masters had little cause for concern. King George had always been friendly to whalers, often lolling on the deck of their ships and exchanging bits of  

page_139

Page 139

island gossip as the rum bottle was passed around. His openhanded welcome to whaleships established a precedent that his successors would continue. Kosraean chiefs repeatedly came to the rescue of hard-pressed whaling captains by having their people round up deserters, cut wood and fetch water with the crews, and even haul windbound ships out of harbor when the need arose. On one occasion, King George spoke to a crew that was on the verge of a strike over pay for repair work on the ship. The next day, the men returned to their duties without a murmur and the captain credited George with helping to avert a possible mutiny. Such trouble as did arise on Kosrae can be traced back to the long-standing island phobia of warships. Kanka, the intelligent eldest son of King George and a favorite of visiting seamen, attempted to poison the entire crew of the Emily Morgan, on its third visit to Kosrae in October 1851. He brought a large bowl of greens to the ship for the evening meal, leaving hastily for shore immediately afterward. Fortunately for the crew, his father came aboard soon after and happened to notice the dish. After examining the greens carefully, the chief flew into a towering rage and demanded that the whole dish be thrown overboard immediately. Kanka, it turned out, had heard from one of the crew that a man-of-war would be sent to punish him for poisoning the ship's third mate the year before and had planned to dispose of any and all witnesses in the same way (Jones 1861:192 194). The whaling industry left its mark on other islands in the area besides Ponape and Kosrae. Mokil and Ngatik in time became regular stopovers for whaleships that were unable to secure adequate "refreshments" from the two high islands; both places did a brisk trade in pigs, chickens, turtle, and fish. Ngatik was still run by the handful of whites who had moved there after the massacre in 1837, but Mokil was a tidy little community that never failed to impress visitors for its cleanliness and order. Mokil's trade was firmly in the hands of two American beachcombers, earning an income of forty dollars a month, who made significant improvements on the island when they were not busy fighting with one another. At one end of the island was a flagstaff on which a white ensign was hoisted at the first sight of a ship. There was a chapel, built by an earlier white resident so that he could instruct the islanders in his religion, and a bowling alley that was used by both Mokilese and seamen. All the men wore trousers, while the wives of the Americansand there were nine between them!were  

page_140

Page 140

''dressed in cotton blouses with a piece of red material thrown around their shoulders, smoking their small clay pipes" (Andersson 1854:53). Here was a "pattern colony of natives, probably not matched by any other in Micronesia" (S James 1864:433)proof positive, if any were needed, that foreigners could enrich the islanders and fill their own pockets at the same time. Even Pingelap, an island not known for its friendliness to foreigners, eventually became a layover spot for many ships. Pingelapese men were known to keep their spears handy and to have used them with deadly effect at timesthe English whaleship Nimrod was attacked there and some of its crew killed in 1833, and the American whaleship Boy in 1851 lost its captain and a boatcrew that had gone ashore. Several times in the early 1850s ships reported laying off the island, but not landing "because of the looks of the islanders." By the late fifties, however, all this had changed and Pingelap, along with Mokil and Ngatik, became a regular stop for whaleships. But the whaling boom could not last forever, and the 1860s saw a sharp drop in the number of whaleship visits; in 1869 only three whaleships touched at Kosrae during the entire season (Truxtun 1870). If any single event signalled the demise of whaling in Micronesia, it was the brilliant glow against the evening sky of four whaleships afire. On 1 April 1865, the Confederate cruiser Shenandoah steamed into Ponape's Ponatik Harbor and surprised the Yankee ships lying at anchor. Captain James Waddell, the commanding officer of the Shenandoah, sent a boatload of armed men to each of the ships in turn, arrested their officers, and took the ships as prizes of warjust one week before Grant would accept Lee's sword at Appomattox to end the American Civil War. The whale oil and any ship's gear that could be salvaged were removed from the vessels and the crews brought ashore to watch the sad spectacle of their ships aflame. The Shenandoah's mission was to devastate the Union's whaling fleet in the Pacific, and Waddell carried it out with startling success; before he rounded the Horn on his homeward voyage, he had captured and destroyed thirty-nine whaling vessels in all. The blow that the Confederate raider struck Yankee whaling was compounded by other disasters. At the beginning of the Civil War, forty old whaleships were purchased by the federal government and scuttled in the mouths of the Charleston and Savannah harbors in an attempt to blockade these ports. The whaling fleet  

page_141

Page 141

was shrinking rapidly, but with good reason: the price of whale oil was steadily dropping as kerosene replaced it as the more popular fuel. The first oil well had been dug in Pennsylvania in 1859, and petroleum products would light American cities by night in the future. Whaling as a vital industry was all but dead. Before its death, however, its ships had brought a good many things to the islands they visited. Kosraean men could show off the prized red calico shirts that they carefully put away for special occasions, while their wives could proudly display their gingham blouses. Ponapean women, too, had tight-waisted dresses and palm-leaf bonnets and printed kerchiefs that they wore around their necks. But the islanders had acquired something else as well: a growing sophistication and a better understanding of the great world that lay beyond their reef. The young Kosraean woman who chatted with a crew member of the Cavalier about ice and snow and professed a desire to see America was not unusual among the habituées of whaleships. Kanka, the precocious "crown prince" of Kosrae, astonished the crew of the Charles W. Morgan when he was able to recite the names of the past US presidents and describe in detail the battles fought by Washington, Napoleon, and Wellington; he explained that he had been begging books and newspapers from ships and asking crew members to read them to him. At the same time, a growing number of islanders were acquiring their knowledge of the outside world by seeing it firsthand. Whaling captains, hard pressed to replace deserters, were offering more and more berths to islanders and signing them on under names like John Bull, Joe Kanaka, and Jim Crow. Those who were fortunate enough to return after a couple of years at sea came back with stories enough for a lifetime, even if they may sometimes have lost the fluency to tell them in their own language. The whaleships also brought, on a catastrophic scale, disease and death. Smallpox broke out aboard the Delta not long before it made Ponape in early 1854. A seaman who had succumbed to the disease was buried ashore, and two other infected crew members were landed on the island. After some Ponapeans removed the clothing from the dying men, the disease rapidly spread throughout the island, killing more than two thousand peoplewell over a third of the entire populationbefore it ran its course. A year later, an influenza epidemic swept Kosrae and carried off two or three hundred souls. Under the force of this and other epidemics that Kosrae suffered, the population there decreased from over two  

page_142

Page 142

thousand in the 1830s to seven hundred at the end of the major whaling period in 1860. The decline continued for another twenty years until the island population reached a low of about three hundred in 1880. Venereal diseasethat "virus  . . . which seals up the fountains of life"was everywhere in evidence on Ponape and Kosrae; "hardly a native is free from it," wrote the captain of a British warship after visiting Kosrae in 1853 (Hammet 1854:64). One woman on Ponape who was supposedly stricken by "the pox" had lost her eyes and half her face''An awful sight! She was in a wretched little hut making mats by feeling, the only compensation a beautiful child who made the mother look ten times worse" (WH Wilson 6 Mar 1850). American sailors accused British vessels of introducing syphilis, but their own ships, too, were often filled with infected men, and not all captains were as scrupulous in preventing diseased sailors from going ashore as the master of the Cavalier. Whatever the source, this and the host of other diseases carried from abroad were working fearful destruction upon the island peoples. "In less than ten years the sod will cover the last of the Kusaien race!" was the gloomy prophecy of a missionary living on Kosrae, and his colleagues on Ponape were saying the same for that island. "Who cares?" he wondered. "Who weeps for a lost race?" (F Jul 1857:53). From the Shadows of Heathenism The evils visited upon Ponape and Kosrae by American whaleships could not help but stir the hearts of religious leaders in the United States. It was bad enough that the unfortunate natives of these remote islands lived in "ignorance and idolatry," but even worse that they had been exposed for some years to the corrupting influence of a "licentious commerce." Their plight was all the more unfortunate now, for "the shadows of heathenism had been deepened by the presence of men from lands of light  . . . whose lives cast only shadows" (Bliss 1906:5). It was high time that God-fearing Americans take positive action to undo the damage done by their "unprincipled countrymen." The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, an interdenominational mission agency based in Boston, took up the challenge enthusiastically. The mission in Hawaii, which it had founded thirty years before, had already proven a spectacular success, and the American Board was on the verge of withdrawing  

page_143

Page 143

from its former mission. In a few more years the strong and self-sufficient churches there would be formally transferred to the control of an autonomous church board, the Hawaiian Evangelical Association. The time had come for the New England churches and their Hawaiian offspring to cast their nets further out, and Micronesia seemed to offer great promise as the future field for their labors. If miracles could be worked in the heathen islands of Polynesia, why not also in the islands further west? In August 1852, after a short visit to Makin in the Gilberts, the first missionary band, composed of three American couples and two Hawaiian deacons with their wives, arrived at Kosrae. Unsure of the reception they would receive there, they immediately paid a call upon the high chief and read a formal letter of introduction from the king of Hawaii recounting the blessings his islands had reaped from missionaries and recommending that chiefs in other parts of the Pacific welcome them. After some hesitation, King George, the high chief at that time, told them that he would accept Benjamin Snow and his wife and one of the Hawaiian families and that the others were to assure the king of Hawaii that "I will be a father to Mr. and Mrs. Snow" (MH Mar 1853:84 87). A few days later, the rest of the party sailed for Ponape where they hoped to found a second mission. At Ponape the missionaries first called at Madolenihmw, one of the two strongest kingdoms on the island at the time, and informed the high chief of their intentions before proceeding on to the lee harbor in Kiti to weigh the advantages of setting up the mission there instead. It did not take them long to make a final decision. In Rohnkiti, the district of Kiti that lay near the mouth of the harbor, the small band was introduced to the nahnken of Kiti, probably the most influential man on Ponape. The young chief, only thirty years old at the time, had a commanding presence that made a favorable impression on the missionaries"his long aquiline nose, his piercing eye, his elevated narrow forehead, and his politely condescending manners were different from those of any islander we had seen (MH Mar 1853:88). The nahnken, even at his age, had already established an island-wide reputation by reason of his bravery in battle and forceful leadership. Tall and powerfully built, he was a man of extraordinary energy and talent. His personal authority over the people of Kiti was far greater than that of the aged nahnmwarki, his senior in rank. Without the slightest hesitation, the nahnken (who was known to be partial toward foreign 

page_144

Page 144

ers, perhaps because he had married the daughter of the Englishman James Hadley) offered the missionaries a piece of land for a house and promised his personal assistance in obtaining whatever else they might needall of this in open defiance of the nahnmwarki's wishes. The missionaries could hardly have hoped for anything more! In the nahnken they had found a powerful and assertive leader who guaranteed his protection and support for their enterprise. "God seems to have raised him up as a special instrument for our work," one of them wrote (ABCFM St-A 11 Oct 1852). In Madolenihmw, on the other hand, they learned that the three most influential chiefs were engaged in endless rivalry among themselves and there was no single chief with stature comparable to the nahnken of this tribe. The matter was decided, then, and the three missionary families (Albert Sturges and his wife Susan, Dr Luther Gulick and his wife Louisa, and the Hawaiian deacon Ka'aikaula and his family) moved into the house of one of the beachcombers until their own quarters were built. The nahnken was not one to dawdle on such occasions. Hardly had the missionaries unpacked when he invited them to hold a religious service for the people at their earliest convenience. A few days later, on their first Sabbath at Kiti, he led about a hundred of his people into the meeting-house that was to serve as their first chapel and listened attentively, with a translator at his side, as Sturges preached on the text "Fear not; for behold I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be for all people." For the most part, the nahnken nodded in approval at what he heard, but now and then he would interrupt the preacher and ask for further explanation on a point that was raised (MH Apr 1853:117 118). Sturges, who was to make his home in Rohnkiti for the next thirteen years, was amazed at the intellectual curiosity of the chief. If the missionaries thought that the nahnken's attendance at the service was merely a polite gesture of endorsement, they were soon forced to reconsider, for as the weeks rolled on, the nahnken attended church services regularly and never failed to discuss the content of the sermons afterward with the preacher. When Sturges presented him with a school book one day and offered him some elementary lessons in English pronunciation, the chief thanked him profusely and declared to a few bystanders that he was going to learn English. From that day on, he faithfully appeared at the missionary's house several times a week for lessons in English, arithmetic, and writing.  

page_145

Page 145

For several months all the missionaries lived together at Rohnkiti conversing with the island people when they could and working out strategies for the spiritual conquest of the island. Albert Sturges, who had left his family's farm in Ohio to enter the seminary and had married shortly before leaving for the mission, in compliance with American board policy, was a tall, sad-faced man with a kindly disposition but a fiercely independent mind. He was to be the mainstay of the Ponape mission, working for thirty-two years before his health broke under the rigors of island life. Luther Gulick, much younger and shorter than Sturges, was the intellectual of the group. A licensed physician, Gulick was a man of broad interests who wrote for various publications throughout his missionary career and was an avid promoter of the printing press. Ka'aikaula, the Hawaiian deacon sent to assist the American pastors in whatever way he might be of service, was an older man of fine character and enormous good will, but with serious intellectual limitations. He knew virtually no English and was unable, even after eight years on the island, to acquire any fluency in Ponapean. The missionaries, persons of widely differing temperament and background, were bound together by their Congregational religious teachings and their earnest desire to save the natives of Ponape from the perdition that they could escape only by embracing a belief in the true God. From the very start it was clear to the missionaries that they would do better to separate and establish different mission stations so that they could extend their influence more widely. Gulick, who had been regularly visiting Madolenihmw to ask the chiefs about living there, finally obtained the necessary permissions through the influence of the wasai of that tribe and moved there in April 1853. The wasai, one of the highest-ranking chiefs, was a friendly enough person who spent a great deal of his time in Gulick's new house at Shalong Point overlooking the main harbor. The books that Gulick displayed in his library and the stories he told of his Hawaiian homeland caught the imagination of the chief and some of his followers. Every time the wasai called upon him, he would ask to see pictures of Hawaii or hear the stories again. To him and many of his people, Gulick observed, the Hawaiian Islands were becoming the "beau ideal of excellence" (MH Jun 1854:163). That ideal was a long way off yet, in the judgment of the missionaries. The Ponape that they sawwith its kava drinking, polygamy, spirit worship, thievery, and all the lesser sinswas no  

page_146

Page 146

better than a "moral Sodom." Added to the usual "heathen vices" were a host of others that could only be traced to the influence of seamen and beachcombers. Everyone on the island, it seemed, owned a pipe and a musket, and even little children greeted the missionaries with a "Hello, Jack! Give us a chew of tobacco." Bottles of crude rum, distilled from molasses for sale to ships at two or three dollars a bottle, went from mouth to mouth at impromptu parties that were often extended for two or three days. Ponapean men innocently came up to the missionaries to show off the bundles of trade they had received for bringing their wives, sisters, or daughters to the ships. There were also the syphiliticsthe man who had lost his nose and the woman whose face was horribly disfiguredwho were, for the missionaries, living testimonies to the wages of sin. Even before they reached Micronesia, the missionaries had expected the worst from the foreigners they would find there, and their fears were not entirely baseless. Many of the whites living on Ponape were hardly shining examples of what those God-fearing churchmen thought of as Christian virtue: they smoked, drank, cursed, had several wives, and were generally indifferent to piety in all its forms. But, for all their failings, they showed almost no hostility toward the missionaries and much less opposition to the reforms they preached than the American pastors could ever have imagined. Even the notorious George May, who piloted their ship in at Madolenihmw, used his influence with the high chief to persuade him to allow the missionaries to stay among his people. When the missionary band decided to set up its first station in Kiti instead, two beachcombers offered their houses to the missionaries as a temporary residence. Twelve of the whites attended the first church services there, and a number continued to attend Sabbath meetings faithfully. The ship captains and sailors who visited the island were, if anything, even more helpful to the missionaries. A few months after they had settled on the island, Sturges and Gulick were approached by two captains who wanted to purchase land and erect a building that could be used as a seamen's chapel. Ship captains frequently paid social calls to the pastors, brought them their supplies and mail, and requested that services be held aboard their ships on Sundays. After several years on Ponape, Sturges had to admit that "in their intercourse with foreign residents missionaries have generally been well treated, and from the shipping they have  

page_147

Page 147

received much respect and many favors" (ABCFM "Facts"). Overall, the pastors received far more kindness than abuse from both beachcombers and seamen. Where the morals of the islanders were concerned, however, compromise was impossible for the missionaries. From the beginning they waged relentless war against the two heinous sins encouraged by seamen: prostitution and trading in alcohol. The nahnken of Kiti, always amenable to the suggestions of his new mentors, no matter how much controversy they might provoke, soon declared ships taboo for the women of his kingdom. This device worked for a while and the nahnken held firm to his decision, even when ships began to bypass Rohnkiti for more permissive ports and his trade dropped off sharply. In time, a few of the beachcombers, who saw an excellent opportunity to make some easy money, opened brothels next to their grogshops, but the nahnken promptly put a taboo on these too. When one of the owners complained to the chief that he had just invested a large sum of money in his enterprise, the nahnken paid him in full and told him to leave the island at once. Meanwhile, prostitution flourished in other parts of the island ruled by less assertive leaders. Dr Gulick, who had apparently been keeping a vigilant eye on the ships at Madolenihmw but was helpless to do anything about what he saw, finally decided to take his case to the public. In 1857 he wrote a scathing letter to the "Christian Owners of Whale Ships," denouncing the conduct of the crews of several ships by name. It was the strongest reproach yet delivered and it drew many angry replies from ship captains and maritime interests; the master of one whaleship told Sturges that he wished he had Gulick on his vessel so that he could have the personal satisfaction of throwing him overboard. Neither Gulick's letter nor the nahnken's measures eliminated vice on Ponape, but they did succeed in driving it further underground. Such strong measures were bound to arouse intense feelings among some of the whites living on the island. The missionaries, they felt, were not abiding by the same live-and-let-live philosophy that the beachcombers had adopted toward them; they were not only trying to turn the islanders into church-goers, but were interfering in business interests and the "affairs of state" as well. Yet it was plain that the missionaries had the protection of powerful island leaders, and so the reaction of disgruntled whites was to mount a whispering campaign against the missionaries. From  

page_148

Page 148

time to time, malicious stories about the churchmen spread through the island, eventually reaching the ears of the missionaries themselves. These bits of gossip only confirmed their suspicions that the resident foreigners, however helpful some of them were at times, were desperately trying to undo all of their work for the Lord. In what was taking shape in the minds of the missionaries as a cosmic struggle between Light and Darkness, the beachcombers as a group could only be relegated to the "camp of darkness." However, Sturges and his companions soon found themselves occupied with more immediate concerns, as the island suffered the most severe catastrophe ever recorded. Smallpox, carried to Ponape by the whaleship Delta in February 1854, infected a few Ponapeans, spread quickly, and finally swept the entire island during the summer months, bringing death and despair. Sturges painted a frightful picture of the scene: "The panic-struck natives fly to the mountains and to uninhabited islands; then they come back again, and seize some victim of the disease to carry to their homes; thus spreading the contagion to all parts, so that a spot cannot be found where it is not doing fearful execution" (ABCFM St-A 12 Jul 1854). The missionaries were nearly powerless; their supply of vaccine was low, and most of those whom they tried to assist refused to admit them into their homes for fear that any more contact with the new foreigners would bring additional curses upon their heads. To make matters worse, the rumor was circulating that the missionaries had deliberately caused the disease so as to kill off the population and claim the island for themselves. The nahnken, whose confidence in the missionaries was unabated in spite of these sinister rumors, presented himself for inoculation and, at Sturges' advice, ordered his people to confine themselves in their homes as the disease continued. Gulick, meanwhile, was able to inoculate a few hundred of the people in Madolenihmw after their initial resistance gave way to fear for their lives. In spite of these efforts, the epidemic raged on for three fearful months. Everywhere could be heard the wailing of mourners and the report of muskets, fired to drive away the spirits of the dead. The afflicted were hurriedly dumped into shallow graves, sometimes while still living, and some of the "dead" afterward appeared before their families in their burial clothes to add to the general terror. Chiefs were buried "amid the awful howlings and shriekings and contortions of body" of hundreds of their subjects, Sturges reported.  

page_149

Page 149

As soon as the breath appears to leave the body, the attendants wrap the corpse in mats, putting on such ornaments as were his in life, rubbing it well first with scented oil. While this is going on, others are digging the grave. The body is first put in, then tobacco, rum, muskets and such properties as he happened to have. The dirt is thrown in, and a few branches of kava over the grave, when the natives squat to begin their wailings . . . . The crying is continued for about two or three hours . . . . They intersperse their shouts with addresses to the departed spirit, such as "We loved you very much, why didn't you stop with us a little longer?" The principal mourning is at the grave, but the friends often keep it up for weeks and even months. (ABCFM St-A 12 Jul 1854) It was an apocalyptic scene that was repeated dozens of times over in those fateful summer months on Ponape. By October, the wails of grief had subsided and the "chime of kava stones" rang through the island almost continually (ABCFM St-A 17 Oct 1854). The disease had finally spent itself, leaving between two and three thousand Ponapeans dead. Scores of chiefs had fallen to the smallpox and there was intense excitement among the people as their successors were chosen; almost every day kava was pounded at another feast for the recipient of a new chieftainship. Often enough, when suitable men of high clan could not be found to fill the vacancies, the newly appointed title-holders were commonersand sometimes mere boys. To add to the social upheaval, there was an unusually heavy flow of people moving between the different kingdoms of the island. When candidates for chiefly honors were disappointed at receiving a lower title (and a smaller parcel of land) than they felt they deserved, they simply packed up their belongings and moved to another kingdom where they could entertain the hope of doing better for themselves. It was clearly a buyer's market on Ponape, as the high chiefs well understood, and they would either have to humor their subjects or lose them altogether. In these chaotic times, the rulers of the kingdoms stood "in perfect bondage to their subjects," Sturges observed (ABCFM St-A 17 Oct 1854). Between the celebrations for the bestowal of new titles and the commemorations for the dead, which often continued for weeks, the feasting on the island was almost incessant. As if this were not enough, the nahnmwarki and the nahnken of the tribes gave huge feasts of their own as they vied with one another to win the sup 

page_150

Page 150

port and loyalty of their uncertain followers. Sturges complained that he could walk for miles at a time without seeing a single soul; they were all away at one feast or another. The missionaries noticed a strange new carnival spirit, a sense of wild abandon, seizing the island just as it was recovering from the deadly scourge that had killed a good part of its population. It began to look as though the people, who were then busily exhausting their diminishing strength and resources in the endless round of preparations for feasts, were determined to destroy themselves outright. "The effort seems to be to live as fast as possible, no matter how soon the end comes," observed Sturges (ABCFM St-A 17 Oct 1854). When they were not working to prepare food, the Ponapeans were killing one another in drunken orgies or rallying forces for an attack on the next tribe. A few days before the end of the year, after an attack by a Kiti war party on Madolenihmw, the situation in Kiti was chaotic. This tribe is now in a perfect panic, expecting every night an attack in return. The gun smith is busy night and day repairing muskets . . . . The people seem infatuated; sickness has carried off more than one half of their numberwar is ragingsuicides are common! Our Nanakin and the king of the weather tribe (Madolenihmw) dislike the war, but they have neither the power nor moral courage to take a stand against it. Mere boys have the rule and their name is legion, while their spirit is of the devil. The people have no head! (ABCFM St-A 17 Oct 1854) Things could only improve on Ponape during the early months of 1855. Slowly the frenzy that had gripped the people relaxed, leaders recouped and began to take charge again, and life returned to near normal. The series of skirmishes between the people of Madolenihmw and Kiti came to a halt when, in April, the chiefs of the two tribes, at the urging of the missionaries, arranged a peace treaty and worked out a settlement among themselves. Sturges and Gulick, who by then had finally acquired enough fluency in Ponapean to begin preaching, were free to resume their active ministry around the island. They were soon joined by two more missionary families: Edward and Sarah Doane, and the Hawaiian preacher Kamakahiki and his wife. But for all of this, the missionaries were not sanguine about the future of the Ponape mission. Nearly half of the population had died in the smallpox epidemic and there  

page_151

Page 151

were ominous signs that the decline would not be reversed in the years ahead. "There have been only seven births for three years," Sturges remarked of Kiti, "and most of these have been among the older people" (ABCFM St-A 17 Oct 1854). The universal kava drinking, syphilis, and other diseases had been taking a steady toll on Ponape long before the recent epidemic, and it was probably only a matter of time, the missionaries believed, before the entire population died out. Already Sturges and Gulick were beginning to discuss the possibility of abandoning the mission altogether and seeking new fields of labor, either in the coral atolls of the Gilberts and Marshalls or in the still mysterious islands of Truk to the west. Meanwhile, the missionaries redoubled their efforts to win the "dying people" of Ponape to the service of Jehovah. With the blessings of their chiefly protectors, they visited more distant parts of the islands, establishing "preaching places" wherever they found willing listeners. Sabbath services were now held in several different villages for congregations that sometimes numbered one hundred or more. On their way to a general mission meeting on Kosrae in January 1856, Sturges and Doane stopped off at Pingelap for two days and found the people there anxious to have a missionary teacher of their own. From Ngatik and Mokil, too, requests were coming in for bibles and catechisms that the whites living there could use in teaching the people the Christian truths (MH 1856:193 195, 227). With the news that the American board had purchased the packet Morning Star to serve the Micronesian mission, the prospects seemed good that the pastors could extend their work to these atolls and perhaps even to other island groups. While their husbands were building new meetinghouses and making the rounds of their out-stations, the missionary wives took over the running of the missionary schools. The first schools, begun by Sturges and Gulick themselves soon after their arrival, were informal affairs that were conducted whenever the missionaries could gather a few islanders around them. After a while, groups of more or less steady pupilsoften including petty chiefs and other young adultswere formed and class was held on a regular basis. At an exhibition held at Gulick's school in Madolenihmw, the eleven pupils presented exercises in "singing, reading, writing, making figures, spelling, and in talking English" to an appreciative audience that included two ship captains (MH 1855:27). When the schools were reopened in 1855 by the missionary wives, their curriculum had altered considerably: the eight to ten pupils  

page_152

Page 152

in each school spent most of their time learning to read their own native language from primers written out in longhand. The missionaries were embarking on a new educational venture; they were preparing a handful of students for the day that a Ponapean translation of the Bible could be put into their hands. After all, how could any true moral progress be made by the people unless they had the Word of God available to them? But first they would have to be made literate! The attempt to introduce the printed word to the island was an ambitious project, even allowing for the small number of students enrolled in the schools, and it quickly became apparent that the missionaries would need a printing press. Although they did not have the time to begin translating the Bible, they urgently needed instructional materials to help their students learn to read Ponapean; this meant that they would have to produce primers and simple catechetical materials that could be used in their schools. The printing press arrived early in 1856''a miserable apology for a hand-press  . . . scarcely worth five dollars in New York"and was put to use immediately (Lingenfelter 1967:99). The first printed work in a Micronesian language was soon turned out: a single sheet containing the Lord's Prayer and a hymn in Ponapean. Gulick jubilantly hailed it as "the opening of a new era for the island, & for Micronesia" (ABCFM Gu-A 10 Nov 1856). Within another year, the missionaries printed a 12-page primer, a 17-page hymn book, and a 55-page collection of Old Testament stories, all in the Ponapean language. Altogether they could boast of a total output of 9700 pages by the end of 1857 (ABCFM, ARMM 1857). Portions of the gospels of Matthew and Mark were printed in the next few years before the battered old press, which had been moved to Ebon, was finally destroyed in a fire. Its loss was not mourned by the missionaries, who were by then so busy that they had little time for the tedious type-setting chores, and thereafter they sent their translations off to Honolulu to be printed. The early mission schools on Ponape ran an uneven course in later years. Whenever the wives were sick or the burden of other duties too heavy, the schools were closed; they were reopened from time to time, but none of them survived permanently. When, some years later, the missionaries made another serious attempt at formal education, it was not elementary schools for teaching "letters and figures" that they set up, but training schools, with a much more diversified curriculum, for educating mature men and wom 

page_153

Page 153

en to assume the positions of native preachers and teachers in the islands. It was from these later schools, begun in the 1870s on Ponape, that the first island pastors would come. All the while, the missionaries carried on a vigorous campaign against the "heathen customs" of the Ponapeans. They lamented the prodigal feasting that kept people from giving their time to the religious instruction that they were offering and criticized the failure of chiefs to provide strong leadership over their people, putting this down to the cultural inability of any individual, even a high chief, to take a strong stand on almost anything. "Humanity here is one viscous mass," Sturges complained, "and there is no such thing here as individual action or individual responsibility" (MH 1855:101). But the main object of their attacks was kava drinking. Kava had a central position in the culture and its drinking was "the first most important item in public doing" (ABCFM St-A 17 Oct 1854). Kava was used in communicating with native spirits, in the ceremonial bestowal of titles, in making peace between enemies, and in the presentation of the customary tribute to chiefs. To hold a feast of any sort without the ritual kava drinking was unthinkable. Any Ponapean man worthy of the name was expected to grow the plant; indeed, the cultivation of kava was an important avenue for achieving prestige in the society. When the missionaries singled out kava drinking as a special object of reproach, they did so not simply because of the drug's association with the evils of alcohol, but because it, more than anything else, symbolized an adherence to the old heathen ways. Kava was the false idol universally worshipped by Ponapeans, and the missionaries countered its influence by making the "giving up of this 'god' of the island the first thing to be done in turning to the true God" (ABCFM St-A 6 Sep 1860). Kava drinking, then, soon became something of a shibboleth among Ponapeans, its use distinguishing the heathen from the Christian. The rejection of kava that was expected of converts symbolized a radical break with all those elements in the culture that the American pastors looked upon as "degrading"and they were many indeed. Oddly enough, the native religion posed a much lesser problem for the missionaries. The belief in spirits, which was at the core of the traditional religion, had begun eroding long before the first missionary set foot on the island. The first serious challenge to the belief system of the islanders no doubt came, as it did in other islands of the Pacific, with the appearance of the first beach 

page_154

Page 154

combers and their casual disregard for native taboos. The achievements of Western technologythe muskets, ironware, clocks that the people admired so greatlymust only have fed their growing scepticism regarding the power of their gods. Whatever the case may have been, the missionaries' judgment from the very beginning was that "the natives have but little confidence in their own religion, but seem as much inclined to atheism as anything" (ABCFM St-A 17 Mar 1855). The native priests were already suffering a loss of prestige, while the rituals over which they presided were more and more ignored by the people. The missionaries saw in all of this an undeniable advantage for their own work, but they had cause for concern as well. As Ponapeans' belief in their spirits weakened, so did the restraints that the old religion provided, leaving the people "without the motive of fear and well nigh desperate" (ABCFM, AR AI 1856). If the ancient beliefs, and the sanctions that the beliefs furnished, should break down altogether, there was danger that anarchy and chaos would reign on the island. In some respects at least, paganism was much preferable to atheism. Nonetheless, there were occasional confrontations between the emissaries of Jehovah and the heathen gods. As Doane and Sturges were visiting a distant part of the island one day in May 1856, they came across a large crowd milling outside a native house. The spirit Isohpau, rumor had it, had returned from his realm beneath the sea to visit his people and for the past few days had been occupying a small, dark corner of this house; meanwhile, people had journeyed from all over the island to see the spirit and learn its bidding. Isohpau was not in at the time, some of the people told the missionaries, but he was expected to return shortly. Before very long the house trembled violently and the people inside prostrated themselves in fearthe spirit was back. Orders were passed from the sacred quarters for a pipe and a red shirt, and the missionaries were invited in to speak with the spirit. After affably conversing for a while in a corner of the house enclosed with mats, the missionaries hinted to "Isohpau" that he was an impostera female dressed as a man. When they repeated their charges still more firmly, the "spirit" angrily called out to the attendants for a gun. Again the order was given to pass in a gun, but no one obeyed! With that, Sturges and Doane left the dark corner, throwing aside the mats so that the rest of the people could see for themselves that they were being deceived, but the people inside the house had fled  

page_155

Page 155

and stood around outside with eyes averted in the traditional position of respect. The missionaries spent the night there and again, the following morning, went in to speak with the "spirit." Having discarded her disguise altogether, the woman sat in her little nook looking tired and beaten. Again Sturges and Doane opened the quarters to public view, but with no better success than on the day before; again the people had fled to a respectful distance outside. The attempt to expose the fraudulent spirit may have had little success with the devotees, but it did shake the "spirit"; two days after Sturges and Doane left the area, word was out that Isohpau had departed prematurely out of fear of the missionaries (ABCFM St-A 10 May 1855). By any measure, the missionaries' influence on the island was clearly growing in the late 1850s. More women were beginning to wear dresses in Madolenihmw, Gulick reported, and the men were now willing to accept cash payments for their work instead of tobacco or trade. Religious hymns were starting to catch on, even among people who did not attend church services regularly, and missionary teachings were being passed by word of mouth to persons who lived miles away. The nahnken of Kiti personally accompanied Sturges on his visits to out-stations over a three-month period, and crowds at these places had never been larger. At each place that he visited, the nahnken told the people that he wanted them to observe the Sabbath rest; from now on they were to prepare a twoday supply of food on Saturday. Even the wayward women who formerly spent much of their time aboard ships now often appeared at church services, for ship traffic was slackening rapidly. Prospects for the mission were never more promising! Even when the number of mission personnel was drastically reduced, leaving Sturges and his wife alone on Ponape in 1860, progress continued. The Doanes were transferred to the new mission in the Marshalls in 1857 after just two years on the island, and the Gulicks followed them to the Marshalls in 1859. Ka'aikaula, the Hawaiian helper who came with the original band, died and his family was sent back home. A new missionary family assigned to Ponape in 1858 remained only two years before returning to America. Unassisted as he was, Sturges nonetheless could relate in late 1860 that he had formally received into the church its first members: twelve persons in all, including a Filipino who had lived on Ponape for many years (ABCFM St-A Nov 1860).  

page_156

Page 156

As church membership grew during the next few years, the chiefs who opposed the new religion began for the first time to look upon it as a serious threat to their own interests. Their influence over their people and their accompanying chiefly prerogatives were in jeopardy if the church were to gain widespread adherence among their people. Although the missionaries had never come out and expressly attacked the customs of feasting and tribute to the chiefs, they clearly held that these and other traditional practices must be subordinate to higher laws and a greater authority. The power struggle was on in earnest and the chiefs' opposition to the new religion, which they had formerly manifested in ridicule, finally hardened into violence. The first outbreak occurred at Madolenihmw in 1862 when some chiefs drove a Christian family out of their house, tore down the building, and took back all their property rights. A month later, another Christian was attacked at night and had his house plundered; further damage was threatened if he did not renounce his membership in the church. Not long afterward, while the nahnken was seriously ill with a high fever, the hostilities spread to Kiti. Three chiefs in a remote part of the kingdom came upon some of their people at worship and stoned them, wounding one of them critically. A few months after this, the same chiefs and their followers, armed with muskets and stones, broke up a prayer meeting and ordered the people to disperse. As the frightened congregation fled, the attackers slew all their pigs and carried away most of their possessions. From all appearances, Sturges concluded, there was a general movement afoot "to crush out the hated missionary sect" (ABCFM St-A 25 Aug 1855). But the persecutions seemed only to give added impetus to the surge into the church. The nahnken of Kiti and the wasai of Madolenihmw, the two chiefs who had been staunch supporters of the missionaries from the very beginning, were finally admitted as full church members. The wasai first dug up all his kava plants with his own hands, as he told Sturges he was ordered to do by Jesus Christ one night in a dream, and when he and sixty of his people visited the church in Kiti shortly after his conversion, he was feasted by the nahnken, as custom dictated, but without kava. It was the first time that a feast had ever been given for a high chief without the drink, and Sturges saw in this a striking sign that "a new order of things has come" (ABCFM St-A 8 Feb 1864). The high chief of Sokehs brought his entire people to the new religion, while  

page_157

Page 157

lesser chiefs from Uh and Net also asked for instruction for themselves and their people. Each month a few more chiefs came to Sturges asking to be taught the new religion. Christian meetinghouses were springing up all over the island and Sturges could hear "Old Hundred" and "Artonville" sung almost everywhere. By 1864 six full-fledged churches, each built by the Ponapeans exclusively for Christian services, were in operation under native preachers. Then, in the midst of this wave of enthusiasm, the nahnken of Kiti suddenly died. The man picked to succeed himmuch to Sturges' disappointmentwas a thoroughly dissipated individual, notorious for his drunken cruelty, and bitter in his hatred of the new religion. Not long after his accession to the title, he and a howling mob of his drunken followers set fire to Sturges' church in Rohnkiti and watched with undisguised satisfaction as it burned to the ground. For weeks their wild spree continued; while Sturges and his band of Christians stood guard over the mission premises each night, the whooping and shrieking of the nahnken's band echoed and re-echoed through the nearby woods. The revels at last ended, but the "reign of terror" did not. Within the year, the nahnken, angry at the escape of two women from his harem, shot a man who helped them escape and butchered with his own knife one of the women who was unlucky enough to be caught. To add to this, the Confederate raider Shenandoah had just captured four whaleships in harbor, and these were turned over to the Kiti people to pillage before they were finally burned. Another inducement for the people to take up looting, especially on such a grand scale, was not exactly oil on troubled waters at this difficult time. Moreover, the 130 crew members of the four scuttled ships were stranded on the island for five months, and to provide for at least one of their wants, the new nahnken lifted the taboo on prostitution. "My heart is sad," Sturges wrote, "as I think of my poor people just now opening their eyes to a higher life to be dragged down by the beastly example of so many of my own countrymen" (ABCFM StA 3 Apr 1865). All of this proved too much for the veteran missionary and he soon abandoned the station at Kiti to take up residence in Madolenihmw and give his attention to more promising parts of the island. As the hostility between the two campsthe heathen and the Christianbecame more heated over the next two years, Sturges began to adopt a more militant posture. Circumstances were com 

page_158

Page 158

pelling him to organize the Christian sympathizers, who by 1866 numbered over three thousand, into a force that was capable of withstanding the last desperate assaults of the opposing chiefs. When he rebuilt the Kiti church two years after it had been destroyed, he boasted that there was little fear that it would be put to the torch again since the nahnken and his followers "know our party will hold them to a strict account  . . . and the missionary party is now the strongest party on the island" (ABCFM St-A 16 Aug 1866). Each major religious event was itself an impressive display of the size and strength of the Christians: seven hundred people from all over the island gathered to celebrate the dedication of a new church in Madolenihmw in 1865, and over six hundred assembled for a communion service in the northern part of the island two years later. When the nahnmwarki of Madolenihmw threatened to take away the titles of his Christian chiefs and confiscate their property, Christians from all parts of the island rallied to their defense, quite prepared to take up arms if necessary. However, it never came to that for the nahnmwarki soon relented. "The sight of 87 war canoes coming from the other tribes, of the Christian party, was quite enough to bring our enemies to their senses" (ABCFM St-Ck 15 Nov 1872). The battle for Ponape was all but over by the end of 1867. The Christians had won a clear victory over the opposing forces. "We have reached what may be called the second stage of our work," Sturges could report; "the great mass of the people have abandoned heathenism" (ABCFM St-Ck 26 Apr 1867). What remained now was to consolidate the gains and rebuild the society from the very groundwork up. The Struggle between God and Caesar When Benjamin and Lydia Snow approached the paramount chief of Kosrae in August 1852, just after their arrival, to ask if they and the Hawaiian missionary couple, Daniel Opunui and his wife, might remain there, the chief asked for time to think the matter over. King George, despite his unassuming appearance and easy cordiality, was a shrewd man. Past events had shown how easily chiefly authority might be undermined if foreigners were allowed to live on the island, and he had already taken steps to prevent this from happening again. He wanted assurance that the missionaries would not subvert his power in any way: they must not pit the  

page_159

Page 159

teachings of their god against his word. Snow told the king that he need have no fear on this score since the missionaries had only come to teach the Bible, not to rule the island. Did not the Bible bid all men to "fear God and honor the king"? There was no reason to fear a conflict between spiritual and temporal authorities, Snow reasoned; after all, the Epistle to the Romans clearly stated that "rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil." The king, greatly impressed with what he had heard, replied approvingly "First rate!" and went home to think the matter over some more. On the following morning, he informed Snow that his request was granted and began looking for a site for the missionaries' house (MH 1853:84 87). King George lent his whole-hearted support to the missionaries. After building them a roomy, well-ventilated house on the small island of Lelu overlooking the most important harbor (Map 12), he sent his ten-year-old son, George, to live with the Snows. Each Sunday he attended the services held in a large meeting house, bringing with him a hundred or more of his subjects. When interest waned after a few weeks and attendance began to lag, the king told the people that those who did not attend church were to spend their Sunday morning cleaning the land. A violation of the Sabbath this may have been, but it was a well-intentioned one and had the effect of increasing attendance almost immediately. Even when Snow decided to ask his congregation to stand for the final benedictionto their horror, in the presence of their paramount chief himselfthe king good-naturedly dismissed what was an appalling breach of traditional manners and asked the people to comply with the pastor's wishes. Advising his congregation to "forget the King, forget the Queen, and think only of God," Snow finally succeeded (with the king's help and after a great deal of embarrassment on everyone's part) in getting the people to stand at full height to receive his blessing, afterward calling it a "great religious victory" (MH 1854:51). The likable, earnest paramount chief was not always the man of principle Snow would have wished, however. The mere fact that he had made a law prohibiting his people from making coconut toddy or drinking other intoxicating beverages did not prevent him from indulging in these forbidden pleasures himself on occasion. One Sunday morning, a few hours after he had returned from a ship in harbor, he entered the church "emitting an odor like a brandy cask" (MH 1854:100), and interrupted Snow's sermon to  

page_160

Page 160

deliver a bibulous discourse on the evils of tobacco and alcohol. Water and coconut were made by God, he told the people, while rum and tobacco were the products of mere man. More disturbing to the missionaries than his tippling, however, was the king's willingness to furnish young ladies for any and all ships that might request them. When Snow confronted King George on this matter one day, the king told him that even though he would like to put a stop to this practice, he found it very difficult to refuse the requests of ship captains"kanakas are not like white men, they do not know how to say no," he admitted (MH 1854:101 102). Neither could the ruler, always anxious to please, say no to Snow when the missionary prevailed upon him to issue an edict prohibiting women from visiting ships. With King George's backing, missionary work prospered, at least to all outward appearances. Each Sunday, Snow preached to a large congregation of well-dressed people, their heads bowed respectfully, while the king wept at his fiery sermons on the love of Christ and the evil of his people's sinful ways. The congregations would have been even larger, Snow was told, but for the fact that women who did not own dresses were ashamed to attend the week 

page_161

Page 161

ly services. The school that Snow opened had "forty-five pupils, more or less," who spent four hours a day learning to read and write English. Attendance was irregular until Snow began dismissing students for their absences, but those who persevered were soon able to "say their letters." So zealous were they in practising their lessons that Snow found young boys tracing their letters on the beach with a stick and teaching them to others who did not attend the school. Even the sudden death of Opunui toward the end of their first year on the island had a bright side to it: the show of support and sympathy from the king and his people as they accompanied the body to the grave showed the high regard that they had for the missionary and augured well for the future. When the old king died of "chronic dysentery" in September 1854, the picture changed altogether. Attendance at church services fell off sharply and the school lost many of its pupils; King George's enormous influence would be sorely missed by the missionaries. Without the support of the kindly king, Snow's hold over the people was tenuous at best, and the one or two whites on the island predicted that he would soon find that he could accomplish nothing at all on Kosrae and would have to abandon the station after a few months. The missionary fully appreciated the importance of having the support of the kingor tokosa, as the Kosraeans called himbehind his work; his two years under the wing of King George had left him with few illusions about that. The selection of the new king would have enormous bearing on the success of his work and he could only hope that George's successor would carry out the final injunction of the dying ruler to his chiefs to "take good care of the missionary." One of the two leading contenders for the title, George's cousin Sesa, had no intention of doing any such thing; on the contrary, he boasted that if he became king one of his first acts would be to expel the missionary. Sesa apparently hoped to force his election, for he snatched two pieces of land belonging to the former king and was attempting to seize a third, much to the consternation of the island chiefs. All of this was too much for Snow. Against the counsel of his wife, the missionary decided to use his influence against Sesa in favor of the king's eldest son, Kanka. In a singular intervention in island politics, Snow addressed the assembled chiefs at George's funeral and told them outright that if they wanted him to leave the island they would only have to make Sesa king and he would do so by the first ship out of harbor. His frank speech had an electrifying effect upon  

page_162

Page 162

the assembly, but two months of bickering ensued before the chiefs finally named Kanka the successor (ABCFM Sn 19 Jan 1855). Kanka was neither saint nor statesman. The boyish charm that had endeared him to dozens of whalemen was gone now and he spent much of his time stumbling drunkenly from one ship to another begging for something to slake his insatiable thirst. Once, when begging failed, he sold a twelve-dollar opera glass for a bottle of cheap brandy that was worth no more than a quarter. ''Crazy as a coot" when drunk, he usually returned home to beat his wife and pound his subjects (ABCFM Sn May 1855). But, for all his dissolute ways, he was decent to Snow during his short reign. Although not by any means an enthusiastic supporter of the new religion, he never interfered with the missionary work or voiced the slightest public opposition to it; he had too good a political nose for that! Meanwhile, Snow divided his time between his light pastoral duties and a personal surveillance of the harbor. With a spyglass trained on the ships in port, he kept a sharp lookout for women smuggled onto whaleships, later confronting the unsuspecting captains who called on him with a recital of their sins, often in surprisingly accurate detail. If Snow could not put an end to shipboard debauchery, he would at least expose it for what it was. Again and again the missionary pleaded with the king and his chiefs to enforce the old strictures against women visiting ships; but when they reluctantly did so for a time, the whalers would simply come ashore to find the women. Once, when Snow learned that two seamen from the Sea Shell were spending the night with a couple of women in a house nearby, he summoned a chief to accompany him while he stalked into the house, rousing the men out of their beds and sending them on their way back to the ship. Many of the girls in his school dropped out during the whaling season to take advantage of the opportunity to pick up trade goods, especially cloth. Although Snow found this loathsome, he was forced to admit that at the end of the season they usually returned to school and church, nicely outfitted in the dresses that were the fruits of their labor. There was some merit in the girls' argument that they were only looking to their spiritual welfare by visiting ships, for they could not attend church services without proper dresses, and there were few other ways of obtaining cotton and calico than by prostituting themselves. As abhorrent as the traffic in women was to Snow on moral  

page_163

Page 163

grounds, he had other, less spiritual reasons to reprove the people for its practice. The scourge of venereal disease was all too evident on the island in the running sores and hideous disfigurement of many he met, as well as in the mortality and infertility of women. There were so few women on the island,Snow noted, that it had become fashionable for two men to take the same woman as wife. Each year the population decreased still further and Snow estimated that, at the present rate of decline, he would have buried the last of the Kosraeans within ten years. The missionary's crusade against prostitution was not just a battle against vice; it was a struggle for the life of a people. Meanwhile, Snow's work on Kosrae became a race against time"What we do for these people must be done quickly," he wrote for they are fast dropping away"(ABCFM Sn 18 Jan 1853). So convinced of this was Snow that he thought it a waste of time even to work out a phonetic system for the language so that translations of scriptural passages could be made. In 1856, when Snow began his first preaching tour of Ualang, he met his first real resistance. Ualang was the stronghold of the priests of the goddess Sinlaka, the deity who was believed to control the breadfruit harvest and exercise power over typhoons, famine, and sickness. Her priests, called Blueskins after the color of the conger eel (which was sacred to them), presided over the processions and religious rites in her honor, guarded the tabooed precincts consecrated to the goddess, and delivered her oracles to the general population. Offended at Snow's intrusion into their domain, the Blueskins told the people of Ualang that if they attended church services they could expect certain and swift punishment, perhaps in the form of a recurrence of the influenza epidemic that had taken over a hundred lives the year before. If anyone must listen to the preaching of the foreign missionary, they told their people, let him leave the main island and go to Lelu to live. When one of Snow's most ardent followers was wounded by a swordfish while out fishing one day, the priests claimed that his injury was a clear sign of Sinlaka's anger at him for allowing the missionary to preach at his house. Unless he stopped attending Christian services, he was warned, even worse things would befall him. Few of the terrified people dared risk incurring the wrath of Sinlaka and her priests by attending prayer meetings, and Sabbath congregations which were small enough right from the start, soon dropped to two or three persons. Snow had no choice but to abandon  

page_164

Page 164

Ualang and confine his work once again to the small island of Lelu. Prospects never looked worse for the mission than they did at the end of 1856. The scent of death was strong in the airinfluenza had carried away 125 in the previous year and a new outbreak was claiming more lives each month. Driven to desperation, the chiefs had rallied among themselves to restore some of the old religious ceremonies that King George had allowed to "fall into disuse and almost into forgetfulness" (ABCFM Sn 24 Dec 1854), resulting in a renascence of the heathen practices that the missionary found so offensive. Snow, now restricted to Lelu, discontinued his school due to the delinquency of the pupils and a lack of books; but he also wondered whether he might not spend his time more profitably attending to the immediate pastoral needs of adults rather than educating a generation of young people to provide leadership for a dying race. Finally, Sesathe "unprincipled scamp" against whom Snow had taken a decisive stand at King George's funeralbecame king in September, just a few days after Kanka's unexpected death. If Snow expected his old foe, Sesa, to join forces with the priests and chiefs to wage open persecution against the church, he was mistaken. The king had other, more serious threats to contend with than the preaching of a single unarmed missionary. In early July 1857, Sesa learned of a plot on the part of two white traders and their Rotuman workers to wipe out all the chiefs and seize the island. One of the whites, a man by the name of Covert who had been living on the island for four years, vowed a special fate for the king, whom he detested for his treachery and cruelty, swearing that he would personally slit his throat and tear out his heart. The king acted swiftly and decisively to forestall the insurrection. Early one morning, a few days before the coup was to take place, his followers ambushed the Rotumans as they left their quarters, killing four of them and seizing a large cache of arms and ammunition. Covert, the seven remaining Rotumans, and three other whites on the island fled to Covert's compound, which they barricaded with coral stone and oaken planks against the musket fire of the Kosraean attackers. For two months the siege continued, with the Kosraeans sniping at the house from behind makeshift breastworks, firing ineffectually from an old cannon in the harbor, and occasionally making futile attempts to set the house afire. Now and then, when the white flag appeared over the house. Snow and his  

page_165

Page 165

colleague Pierson, a missionary doctor awaiting passage to the Marshalls, would rush over to tend the sick and try to persuade the insurgents to come to terms with the king. With their food and ammunition running low, the foreigners knew they would soon have to capitulate. They could do so without fear for their lives, they were sure, since two of their number had already asked and been granted permission by the king to leave the compound unharmed and return to their homes. When the missionary vessel Morning Star sailed into port one afternoon in early September, the insurgents raised the white flag for the last time and asked for a ceasefire. At the peace negotiations aboard the Morning Star the following day. Covert and some of the others boldly asked to be allowed to remain on the island, but the king would hear nothing of it. He had spared their lives, he told them, even though they had intended to kill him and take over the island. The king insisted that they were all to leave Kosrae by one of the ships then in harbor and issued a written statement that thereafter no foreigner except the missionary would be permitted to live there. The edict was tested just a few days later when the first mate of the Morning Star, who asked to be put ashore to live, was refused permission to remain on the island and ordered back to his ship by Sesa. Within a month the Rotumans and whites had all sailed off and the king was once again undisputed master of his realm. With peace restored, the chiefs and their people settled down once again to the round of feasts and rituals that made up island life. As the revival of ancient customs grew in strength, Snow found reason to complain more frequently that his evenings were disturbed by the "screeching and yelling of men and women  . . . at the heathen haliballo" near his house (ABCFM Sn-A 29 Nov 1858). But the seed had been planted and the "tree of life was beginning to take root" (ABCFM Sn-A 17 Jul 1860). The first two Kosraeans were received into the church before a large congregation of attentive people in May 1858 and two more members were added the next year. One of the first converts, a strapping young man named Kedukka, proved his mettle when he swam with a line to a whaleship that had gone on the reef, and enabled the people on shore to tow the crew members in through the heavy surf. Not long after this, Kedukka again had his courage tested when he was sent to Ualang (still firmly in the grip of Sinlaka's priests) to preach and hold prayer meetings in the villages. His mission was surpris 

page_166

Page 166

ingly successful; several persons professed a strong desire to learn more about the new religion and Kedukka was asked to spend two or three extra weeks there. When Snow himself visited Ualang a few months later, he was astonished to find that his Sunday services were better attended there than on the small island where he lived. Despite the continuing opposition to Christianity by many of the chiefs, the missionary had reason to be optimistic about his small but growing church. Snow was now working against time to organize the tiny church and extend its influence as widely as possible before his departure from Kosrae. The mission board, which for some time had been considering transferring him to the new mission in the Marshalls, had all but formally approved the new assignment in 1860; but Snow, who had always written of his desire to broaden the range of his work to other island groups, now balked at leaving Kosrae just as his evangelical work was beginning to bear fruit. The first call for mission contributions the year before had been a success, considering the handful of Christians on the island; offerings amounted to $2.20 in cash, four chickens and a duck, four duck eggs, and four pounds of sweet potatoes. But there was the problem of how to handle those church members who had fallen from grace. Snow discovered that two of his most trusted Christians were carrying on an adulterous liaison with the connivance of the wife of one and that another young man who had been living in the missionary's home for several years had "gone the way of Sodom." Convinced that stronger disciplinary measures were called for on Kosrae than might be "justifiable in an enlightened community," Snow had the guilty parties write out a full confession, complete with all the particulars, and made them read it in church on the following Sunday (ABCFM Sn-A 2 May 1859). So began the practice of public confession that remains an important feature in the Kosraean church even today. Snow's final year on the island"a richer year in spiritual blessings to our people than all that have proceeded it," as he saw it (ABCFM Sn-A 15 Jul 1862)was one of rapid growth for his newly founded church. Fifteen new members were received into the church at a single ceremony in October 1861 and several of his former pupils were baptized. Snow was now preaching to congregations of one hundred every Sunday morning and another fifty in the afternoon. The year before, the kingthe successor of Sesa, who had died in 1858rebuilt the chapel on Lelu at Snow's  

page_167

Page 167

request, after the missionary threatened to abandon Kosrae unless the work was done. In a new assault on the bastion of the native religion, the recent converts began visiting Ualang in groups of twos and threes to hold prayer meetings, afterward reporting, to Snow's great amazement, that even some of the Blueskins were on the verge of joining the Christian party. Young George, the son of the former ruler, began an evangelical program of his own; twice a day he gathered a group of the older boys in a cookhouse where he read to them from the Bible, taught them hymns, and ran impromptu prayer services. By August 1862, when Snow left Kosrae to take up his new post on Ebon, the church had two dozen full members and a following of perhaps a hundred or two more. The tide had clearly turned; Snow was entrusting a vital church with a growing membership to the committee of Kosraean Christians who were to carry on his work. The king and his chiefs had by no means capitulated to the foreign religion that was making disciples of so many of their people. The declining population, which had fallen to about six hundred in 1862, meant a serious reduction in the tribute they were receiving from commoners and a consequent weakening of their own status. Entire subclans had died out and several of the old titles were already extinct. Even the ancient gods had seemingly abandoned them to the deadly pestilence that was decimating their people and turning the survivors into sceptics where the old religious beliefs were concerned. At a time when the position of the island leaders was far from secure, the foreign missionary had made a blatant attempt to undermine it still further by advising his converts to avoid attending native feasts in honor of the chiefs on the grounds that these were nothing more than "heathenish festivals." Their world was falling apart around them and the chiefs knew of no way to restore it other than to make an all-out attempt to revive the ancient forms, particularly the religious rituals, in all their pristine purity. If this was to precipitate a head-on clash with the missionary and his Christian followers, then so be it! After all, the Christians had directly challenged their own authority by repudiating feasting and the obligations to the chiefs that this implied. Snow's presence had been a restraining force on the hostility of the island leaders, but soon after he left Kosrae the king and the chiefs took an openly defiant stand against the Christians. They summoned their people, Christians as well as nonbelievers, to meetinghouses to practice the ancient songs and dances, refusing  

page_168

Page 168

even to allow them to observe the Sabbath rest. When Kedukka paid a call on the king to protest, he was treated with contempt and his petition ignored. Determined to destroy the Christian followers if they would not submit to his authority, the king began to take even stronger punitive measures: he seized a piece of land from some Christians and destroyed their crops. A week later, as he was surveying the land with some of his men and making plans to replant it, he dropped dead on the spot (ABCFM Sn-A 27 Jun 1863). His sudden death, with no apparent cause and no hint of previous sickness, was such a jolt to the chiefs that they postponed his death feast, which should have fallen on a Sunday, to the following day for fear of further retribution. It was clear that they had seriously underestimated the power of Jehovah and would have to tread much more cautiously in the future. When Snow returned in 1864 on his annual visit to oversee work in his old home, he found over a hundred people, including two young chiefs, seeking admission to the church. The clean, well-dressed crowd of believers that met him at the wharf stood in sharp contrast to the "almost naked, dirty and haggard-looking heathen" passing by in their canoes (MH 1865:138); this sight alone spoke eloquently of the progress that was being made on Kosrae. The following year. Snow was astonished to learn that many of his flock had memorized the entire Gospel of John that he had brought in translation on his previous visit. With each subsequent visit. Snow found the church larger and stronger than before; by 1867 there were two hundred church members in a population that had, by that time, dwindled to about five hundred. The first four deacons, one of them George, were ordained in that year and put in charge of the gothic stone churches that had lately been built in three of the villages. Two years later, George, who was acknowledged to have "inherited much of his father's good common sense, modesty and noble generosity" (MH 1868:155), was made pastor of Kosrae, becoming the first native to be raised to this office in Micronesia. By 1869 the tables had been turned on Kosrae. Sipe, the man named king six years before amid a great deal of controversy, clearly ruled the islandif he can be said to have actually ruled it!only by leave of the Christian community. Sipe's claim to his title was weak in the first place, since he was not of the highest ranking clan and was said to be related to the royal family only through his wife. Like the king before him, Sipe was strongly  

page_169

Page 169

opposed to the missionary's religion and at first dealt heavy-handedly with his Christian subjects, taking their land in a few instances and attempting to deprive them of their titles. These moves aroused such widespread discontent among the growing Christian population that Sipe was forced to back down. After Snow, on one of his visits, publicly reprimanded him at a Sabbath meeting for his seizure of the land, he restored it to the owners and never again attempted such a bold measure. Soon afterward he thought it expedient to announce to his people that he had "forsaken his old god of storms and seasons . . . and [was] now waiting for more light about the true God" (MH 1866:134), although he was not willing to go so far as to allow his wife to enter the church when she made known her desire to do so. Sipe's regular attendance at Sunday servicessomething that was expected of a man of his titledid as little to increase his people's trust in him as it did to further his own devotion to the Christian god. By 1869 he was forced to submit to what Snow called an "experiment in civil government" (MH 1870:151). Seven representatives were elected from different sections of the island to sit with the king and his seven chiefsall that survived of the original eighteen chiefly titlesin a council that would oversee the civil affairs of the island. Snow, who knew that Sipe was "jealous of any encroachments on his power," did not place too much hope in this democratic reform; but the missionary apparently failed to understand that even in an "absolute monarchy" like Kosrae's, rulers could not hope to govern without the broad support of their subjects. That support was now being withdrawn from the king by his people, the vast majority of whom were Christians, although the facade of authority was allowed to stand for a time before it too crumbled. Sipe's days as the de facto ruler of Kosrae had come to an end, as everyone but Snow must have known, and the Kosraean pastor could safely ignore the king's demands in the last few years of his reign. Finally, in 1874, in what Snow called a bloodless revolution, the council deposed the king outright and chose as his successor the first Christian king of Kosrae (MH 1875:136 137). It was significant that the meeting at which the king was stripped of office was held in the church. With virtually the entire population now Christian, the church was fast becoming the seat of government for all island affairs, secular as well as religious. The rapid depopulation of the island had left the traditional authority structures in disarray due to the disappearance of lin 

page_170

Page 170

eages and subclans, the forced alteration of the rules for succession, and the near collapse of the tribute system. Moreover, the king and the chiefs had suffered a considerable loss of prestige as a result of their unsuccessful struggle against Christianity; their reactionary attempt to restore the old order of things was generally recognized as a complete failure. At this critical juncture, as faith in the traditional ruling system was ebbing, the church offered an alternative form of government that was well organized and efficient. Fashioned after the model of New England Congregational churches, it had the added attraction of being democratic. Affairs of the church were run by a committee of elected members to whom the pastor was responsible; its offices, with the island-wide prestige they conferred, were open to nobles and commoners alike without distinction. With traditional lines between classes already blurred, the shift toward a totally democratic method of government was much easier now than it would have been twenty or thirty years earlier when the old class system was almost completely intact. Now that Kosrae had become Christian, it would take very little doing simply to broaden the church's powers to embrace civil as well as ecclesial concerns. It was just a matter of time before the traditional authority system was altogether supplanted by the church and its democratic apparatus. The election of the new king in 1874 was done by a show of hands after each man, chief and commoner, was allowed to have his say. Some years later, when Sigrah, the man who had the distinction of being the first elected king, insisted on his prerogatives as paramount chief, he too was removed from office and replaced by a commoner. The king's sovereignty over his people's land was formally abolished once and for all, and with it the vestiges of those ancient forms of respect that were formerly shown the king. By the end of the century the title of king was all but meaningless and it would have been dropped altogether if the German colonial government had not insisted that it be retained, at least nominally. The rule of the island, meanwhile, had passed into the hands of the church officials; the transformation of "heathen" Kosrae into the New Jerusalem was complete.  

page_171

Page 171

Chapter 7 The Reopening of the West The Dispute over the Seamen's Ransom Nearly fifty years after the famous shipwreck of the Antelope at Palau, another vessel met a similar and almost equally publicized fate there. The New Bedford whaleship Mentor, under the command of Captain Edward Barnard, was caught in a violent storm while running up the western Pacific in May 1832 and carried onto the reef off Kayangel at the northern tip of Palau. Half of the crew were swept away to their deaths; the eleven survivors clung desperately to the deck of the badly listing ship until daybreak, when they struck out in their one undamaged whaleboat for a barren islet on the reef. Canoes soon came off the shore to meet them, but the bedraggled seamen experienced treatment far different from what a reader of Keate's account of the Antelope disaster might have expected. They could only watch helplessly as the Palauans stripped the wreck of its muskets and other valuables; their own clothes and nautical instruments were taken and they were badly beaten before they were at last able to escape from the native canoes by rowing hard against the wind. But the hapless whalers eluded one enemy only to fall into the hands of another. After rowing some miles to the south, they were overtaken by more canoes and forced ashore in the district of Ngarchelong, in northern Babeldaob. The marooned seamen's spirits sagged as they watched a crowd of completely naked natives, their mouths stained red with betelnut, gather at the beach with spears in hand. The fearful-looking islanders stripped them of their few remaining possessions, leaving only a single garment apiece, and marched them off to a large  

page_172

Page 172

meetinghouse where, amid a throng of curious onlookers, they were to be questioned and their fate decided. When the seamen discovered that they were thought to be Englishmen, they explained as best they could through gestures that they were Americans, not Englishmen, and that the two countries were entirely distinct. This, together with the fact that they had clearly won the sympathy of the native women, may well have saved their lives. The Ngarchelong people, who were traditional rivals of Koror, bitterly resented the support that early British visitors like Wilson and McCluer had given time and again to the Koror chiefs, enabling them to achieve a prominent position over the island group. When the Palauans learned that their captives were Americans, they gave them breadfruit and coconut milk while consulting with their priestess as to whether the foreigners' lives might be spared. She quickly gave an affirmative reply and sent over the makings of what, for the half-starved whalemen, was a sumptuous feast: cooked yams, a pig's head boiled in seawater and seasoned with herbs, and a large container of fresh water sweetened with molasses. The Americans' lot quickly improved after that. Soon after their meal, they were approached by a gray-haired, toothless old man with tattoos all over his body who introduced himself as Charley Washington, a deserter from a British warship. He had been living on the island for the past thirty years. With an authoritative wave of his adze, he motioned the Palauan bystanders back and signalled that he would assume responsibility for the visitors. After arranging for Captain Barnard to be given his clothes back, he had the crew members assigned to various homes in the village, where they would be lodged and fed for the remainder of their stay. This welcome change in fortune puzzled the Americans; the ''rude and barbarous people" who had tormented them for the first two days at Palau now could not seem to do enough to assist them. The Ngarchelong chiefs even promised to build a boat for them so that they could leave the islandon the condition that the chiefs were eventually compensated for their efforts, as the Koror chiefs had been for helping Wilson and the Antelope's crew. Two hundred muskets and forty kegs of powder were the fee that the Ngarchelong leaders proposed. The Americans had no choice but to accept. Although work on the boat was constantly discussed, little was actually accomplished until a delegation from Koror arrived one  

page_173

Page 173

day to speak with the castaways. An old English beachcomber known only as George, a retainer and spokesman for the head chief of Koror, suggested to Captain Barnard that he bring his crew down to Koror and let the people there assist him in building his boat. Barnard, frustrated with the long delays by the Ngarchelong people, would have been only too happy to do so, but he feared that he and his men would be caught and punished if they tried to leave Ngarchelong. Reluctantly he declined. Determined to get whatever treasures they could from the wreck even if they couldn't have the Americans themselves, the Koror people continued their journey northward to Kayangel, where they seized the head chief and threatened to hang him unless he turned over the muskets his people had taken from the Mentor. The intimidation worked and the party returned to Koror with six muskets, the ship's compass, and a sextant after stopping at Ngarchelong to make one last vain attempt to convince Barnard to join them. As soon as the Ngarchelong chiefs learned of the designs of the Koror party, they promptly started work on the boat and a large seagoing canoe. The American castaways were a prize too precious to be lost to their rivals in Koror, as would almost certainly happen if the whalemen grew too frustrated with the long delays. Their value, of course, lay in the handsome reward that the village which assisted them could expect from the American navy after their rescue. Muskets and gunpowder were, as always in Palau, the most treasured foreign gifts, for these would determine the outcome of the local wars for prestige among the villages. At last, six months after the shipwreck, the boat and the large canoe were finished. There was little chance of obtaining the navigational instruments that had fallen into the hands of the Koror people, but the chief of Ngarchelong gave Barnard an old compass from a Spanish brig that had been cut off some years before. To insure the Americans' return and the payment of the pledged reward, the chiefs insisted that Barnard leave three of his men with them in exchange for three Palauans. The village priestess was asked to consult her gods to decide on an auspicious day to sail. Finally, in late November 1832, under cover of darkness to avoid a threatened attack by Koror warriors, the two vessels left Ngarchelong and made for the open sea, bound for Ternate. For fifteen days Barnard and his men battled storms and currents, losing the canoe and most of their provisions along the way. The eight Americans and three Palauans had nearly perished from  

page_174

Page 174

thirst and exposure when they unexpectedly raised landnot Ternate, as they hoped, but the island of Tobi, three hundred fifty miles southwest of Palau. As they were making for the distant island, several canoes met them and the natives took them ashore, leaving no doubt in their minds that they were no more than prisoners and slaves. By the end of their first day on Tobi, the Americans and Palauans had been parceled out to different high-ranking men, who dragged their prizes from house to house to show them off to their neighbors. Life was hard on the infertile little island: food was scarce, their work in the taro patches and on fishing canoes was arduous, and beatings at the hands of their masters were frequent. After Captain Barnard and one of his crew forced their way aboard a canoe to escape on a passing Spanish vessel in February 1833, the remaining men were treated even more severely by their captors. In the months that followed several of them perished: three died of starvation, another was clubbed to death after being caught stealing a coconut, and two more were put in canoes and pushed out to sea. The three survivors, too weakened by hunger and mistreatment to work any longer, were reduced to crawling around in search of leaves and scraps of food to eat. Then, in November 1834, two years after their ordeal on the island began, the British bark Britannia appeared off Tobi. Horace Holden and Benjamin Nute, the only Americans left on the island, threw themselves into native canoes putting out from the shore and were soon aboard the ship, although their Palauan companion was forced to remain on the island. Scarcely six months after his return to New York, Horace Holden completed a popular account of the Mentor's shipwreck which he soon afterward published in an effort to raise funds for the rescue of the three seamen who had remained on Palau as hostages. The book became something of a best-seller, but Holden's noble-minded gesture proved superfluous. Even before he had finished the manuscript of his Narrative of a Shipwreck, the US naval sloop Vincennes was on its way to Palau to pick up the American survivors. Arriving at Palau in late 1835, the Vincennes made straight for the harbor of Koror, where her naval officers were soon introduced to King George, as the ibedul of Koror preferred to be known. Representing himself as the "sovereign of nearly all the islands in this group" (RL Browning 1886:207), the friendly and hospitable  

page_175

Page 175

ruler appeared eager to do everything within his power to assist the officers in rescuing the American hostages. The ibedul told Commander John Aulick that about a year past he had made an attempt to ransom the two Americansone of the original three had escaped on a passing vessel some time beforebut the chiefs of Ngarchelong had refused his offer. He thereupon sent an expedition against the village, killing thirty of their best men and destroying much of their property, but did not succeed in recovering the Americans. The people of Koror had always offered their hospitality to distressed American seamen, the chief added. When the captain and some sailors from the American brig Dash (which had gone on the reef at Ngulu near Yap and lost some of its men in an attack by the people there) made Palau in their boats two years earlier, he protected and cared for them even though they had cheated his people on an earlier trading visit. All of the Dash's men except one had been rescued some time ago, but the ibedul and his people still had nothing to show for their past favors. Clearly won over by what they took to be pure altruism on the part of the ibedul, and impressed as well by the bountiful gifts of food that streamed onto their ship in a never-ending flow, Aulick and his officers decided to handle their negotiations with the Ngarchelong people through the high chief of Koror. The naval commander entrusted to the ibedul, whose integrity he had no reason to doubt, a message to be delivered to the chiefs of Ngarchelong asking for the return of the American hostages and promising them a generous reward if they complied. A delegation, which included a beachcomber who had been attached to the ibedul for several years, left Koror the same day, returning two days later with word that the Americans would not be surrendered until the three Palauan hostages were delivered over to the Ngarchelong people. Commander Aulick had no choice but to sail for Tobi and find the three Palauans who were still believed to be living there; a precipitous attack on Ngarchelong could only endanger the lives of the American captives. What Aulick did not know at the time, however, was that his trusted emissaries from Koror had deliberately withheld part of the information from the Ngarchelong chiefs. They had avoided all mention of the reward that was offered for the hostages, suggesting only that the people could expect the most severe punishment from the American man-of-war if they did not immediately comply with Aulick's demands. The Ngarchelong chiefs, as might  

page_176

Page 176

be expected, were reluctant to carry out what they felt were entirely unreasonable demands. The Koror delegation had only to report their refusal to Aulick to gain the upper hand over their traditional enemies. They were confident that the Americans would be forced to launch a military expedition against Ngarchelong to rescue the two seamen, thus delivering a serious blow to their old foes. For their assistance in recovering the prisoners, moreover, the Koror chiefs could expect to receive the muskets and gunpowder that would otherwise have gone to Ngarchelong. Aulick and his men, like so many other visitors to Palau, had walked completely unawares into a web of political intrigue that they could not hope to untangle. They had seriously misjudged the capacity for shrewdness of those "simple and hospitable" people with whom they believed they could deal so directly. A few days later the Vincennes was lying off Tobi preparing to pick up any stranded Palauans who might be found there. The tiny coral island, barely three-quarters of a mile long, presented a strange contrast to the mountainous expanses of Palau with its rich variety of foodstuffs. Compared with the more sophisticated, although less modestly clad Palauans, the inhabitants of Tobi appeared very primitive as they scurried around the Vincennes' deck, "stinking with rancid coconut oil and turmeric  . . . crying 'Knife! Knife!' with such rapidity as would put a New York auctioneer to blush" (RL Browning 1833 1836:246). Among the islanders who crowded around the ship in their canoes, the Americans spotted one with betelnut-stained teeth whom they immediately recognized as a Palauan. Taken aboard the ship at once, the Palauan told the officers that he was the last of the castaways from the Mentor's boat and pleaded with them to bring him back to his own island. A thorough search of the island by the ship's company confirmed his story and the Vincennes sailed for Palau soon afterward. When the Vincennes returned to Palau, Commander Aulick found Charley Washington waiting for him in Koror. Sensing that their foes in Koror would attempt to manipulate the Americans into attacking their village, the Ngarchelong chiefs had sent Charley to Koror to deal directly with the naval commander. He was to offer his services as an interpreter and to assure Aulick that the hostages would be returned unharmed as soon as the promised ransom of two hundred muskets and powder was delivered to Ngarchelong. But the Ngarchelong people had gotten their oar in  

page_177

Page 177

too late. Aulick, who remained very much under the ibedul's spell, regarded Charley with suspicion for not persuading his people to give up the hostages to the Koror delegation when it had attempted to secure their release. In the commander's eyes, Charley was deliberately holding out for the ransom, not so much to protect his people's interests as to enhance his own personal status among them. Declining Charley's offer to act as interpreter, Aulick instead chose "Dick," a retainer of the ibedul's whom one of his own officers thought to be "but few removes from an idiot" (RL Browning 1833 1836:210), and prepared his troops for an armed expedition to Ngarchelong. Delighted at the commander's decision, the ibedul quickly outfitted thirty war canoes and seven hundred of his best men to accompany the Americans. When the expeditionary force from Koror reached Ngarchelong, they found the chiefs and the people assembled on the beach, ready to fight or negotiate as circumstances might dictate. The Koror warriors were impatient to begin battle, but Lieutenant Carr, who was in command of the naval force, had orders to settle the matter peacefully if at all possible. A parley was begun and the Americans soon learned that the Ngarchelong chiefs were more than willing to surrender their hostages if the Americans would make good on the promised guns. The Koror chiefs were shocked to disbelief when they saw the naval troops preparing to bring the muskets off their boats. The ibedul's brother spoke out to protest this unwise move. The gift of muskets to Ngarchelong, he warned, would not only jeopardize peace on Palau, but also endanger the lives of all Americans who might be cast up on these shores in the future. To give the guns to this people would only encourage wanton acts of destruction and violence against Palauans and foreigners alike. If the muskets and powder were delivered over to the Ngarchelong people, he would be forced to "raise the war-cry and let loose the Koror people on them" (RL Browning 1886:274). If that should happen, their blood would be on the hands of the Americans! A deathly hush fell over the two armies. Finally Lieutenant Carr spoke. "We have crossed the wide waters to get these men alive and without violence, if possible; such are our instructions and we must obey them, though it should offend our friends and allies. We have ascertained that our object can be effected by giving the people of Ngarchelong a barrel of powder and some other presents, and we intend to do it" (RL Browning 1886:275).  

page_178

Page 178

The ibedul's brother made no reply. Turning at last toward the Ngarchelong men, he hissed: "For the last time I warn you that your acceptance of this powder shall be the signal for battle between us" (RL Browning 1886:275). A fight seemed inevitable now. Carr ordered his men to wheel around, stand to their arms and prepare to defend the Ngarchelong people in the event of an attack. The marines fixed their bayonets, primed their muskets and took up a firing position against their Koror allies. Then one of the Ngarchelong chiefs spoke. His people, he said, would be willing to accept other gifts in place of the muskets and powder, if this would avoid bloodshed. The two American captives would be returned as soon as the exchange of gifts was complete. The tension evaporated instantly and both ranks broke. Immediately the Americans began unloading from the boats axes, adzes, chisels, knives, and other tools to be presented to the Ngarchelong people, while the two stranded seamen, prisoners in the village for the last three years, were led out to the beach. Within an hour, the American marines and their Palauan allies were sailing back to Koror. Early Trading Outposts Koror was an attractive little town in the 1830s. A wide, stone pier extending a quarter of a mile out to sea was joined to a quay of the same length that ran along the beach. This artfully constructed dock, which "would have done credit to any commercial town" in the judgment of one admiring American (RL Browning 1833 1836:290), furnished an excellent landing for canoes and boats. On the other side of the harbor was a smaller jetty leading to a good-sized stream of fresh water. Close to the harbor stood a cavernous canoe house containing several great war canoes, their hulls painted red with a white, wavy streak along the side to distinguish them from the ordinary Palauan fishing canoes. A broad road, paved with stone, ran up from the harbor, while stone-lined paths crisscrossed the town in every direction leading to Palauan dwellings, spacious wooden houses with elevated floors and "venetian blinds"mats that could be raised or lowered over the windows. Here and there might be found a bai, a large, open men's house with a high, sloping roof, its eaves decorated with carvingsmany of them explicitly sexualwhere young men would pass  

page_179

Page 179

the time chatting while they awaited the arrival of the club's mistresses in the evening. In the wooded sections of the island, pigs, chickens, and even cowsperhaps the stock introduced by McCluerran wild; hunting and shooting their own game was a favorite sport for visiting crews who reprovisioned at Koror. Koror was an ideal port for foreign ships, even better in some respects than the much more visited harbors at Ponape and Kosrae. "Vessels could not find a more convenient place for watering ship, nor a place where provisions are more abundant," reported one of the Vincennes' officers, who had no doubt that Koror would become a busy harbor someday (RL Browning 1833 1836:299). But Palau lay too far off the major Pacific whaling grounds to attract the whaleship trade, and too close to Manila to serve as a major port of call for trading schooners bound for Asia. Except for an occasional stray whaleship or a rare Canton-bound merchant vessel, the only ships that called during the early 1800s were the few from Manila that fished for bêche-de-mer and gathered shell there. Changing trade patterns and shifts in shipping lanes had once again left Palau at the edge of the map. Palau's reputation among seamen had taken a turn for the worse since Wilson's glowing report of the generous treatment he and the crew of the Antelope had received there. The ibedul may have been able to boast of his own people's "uniform hospitality and kindness to all strangers" (Paullin 1910:733), but he could certainly not speak for all of Palau. While lying off one of the southern islands of Palau in 1823, the London whaleship Syren was overrun by angry natives who killed two officers and wounded nearly every hand before they were finally driven off by a quick-thinking cook who hurled scalding water at them from the galley. A year before the visit of the Vincennes, a Salem whaling brig was attacked at Palau, losing one boy in the skirmish; a few years later a Malayan schooner was taken, its English captain killed and its crew members forced into slavery. The captain of one vessel passing close off Palau at about this time was afraid to put in there because of the violent incidents reported. Keate's romantic characterization of the people as "the mildest and most benevolent specimens of unenlightened men" must have grossly misrepresented them, the same captain reflected, for recent events had certainly proved that they were quite capable of unprovoked violence (Abeel 1834:40). Despite its fine harbor and its early fame, Palau sank back into  

page_180

Page 180

relative obscurity during the first half of the nineteenth century. Its village chiefs, who continued their perpetual rivalry for prominence in the island group, could only wait for the occasional ship that called and, when it did, employ every device in their power to convince the captain and crew to assist them against their enemies. The handful of beachcombers in Palaunever more than four or five at any one timepermanently attached themselves to the chief of one village or another and loyally served as "interpreters" (or diplomatic envoys) in dealing with foreign ships (Hezel 1978:262 265). The Palauans themselves were able to handle ordinary trade for cloth and metal tools; the special function of the beachcomber, however, was to gain the sympathy of foreign visitors for his chief and thereby advance the interests of his village. If ship captains could not be persuaded to take up arms to redress the wrongs done the chief and his people, they might at least furnish guns and powder to be laid away for future battles against the chief's foes. The whites on Palau evidently adapted much more completely to island ways than did the beachcombers on Ponape and Kosrae at this time. An officer aboard the Vincennes was shocked to find John Davy, a survivor from the Dash, "running as naked as his countrymen" (who, by all accounts, were quite naked indeed!), while Charley Washington, whose thirty years on the island gave him seniority among the whites, was said to have become "as thoroughly savage as any of the savages" (RL Browning 1833 1836:224, 262 263). They and their companions clearly stood in the tradition established by Madan Blanchard a half century before. When the English trading captain Andrew Cheyne first visited Palau in 1843, he thought he had found the perfect place for a bêche-de-mer operation. The master of a Manila trading vessel, who was himself fishing for the sea slug there, told him that ships from the Philippines regularly visited Palau, usually returning with a full cargo of bêche-de-mer for the China market. Cheyne, who had been all but defeated in his bid to establish a trade station on Ponape, still clung to his dream of building a network of depots for tropical produce throughout the Pacific. Palau, with its abundant supply of good bêche-de-mer, would be the likeliest location for his headquarters in the western Carolines. The day after he brought the Naiad to anchor at Koror, Cheyne invited the chiefs aboard his brig for a hearty dinner, distributed presents among them, and was afterward granted permission to set up his first  

page_181

Page 181

curing shed ashore. He apparently thought it necessary to instruct the chiefs on the advantages that foreign trade would bring them, but he might just as well have saved his breath. They were very well aware of what his presence in Koror might mean for them. A week later, when a delegation from Melekeok, a rival village in Babeldaob, arrived to inspect the brig and covertly recommend to Cheyne that he bring the Naiad to their village to fish, the ibedul pointedly warned the captain of their reputation as a "predatory set" and promised that his own people would supply enough bêche-de-mer to fill the vessel. The ibedul was undoubtedly pleased, just the same, to have had the chance to impress the Melekeok leaders with the might of Koror's latest European allies. Cheyne left his second mate, Stanford, and thirteen hands to oversee operations on Palau while he took the brig to visit other islands in the area. On his return a year later, he was disappointed to learn what a miserably small amount of bêche-de-mer had been collected during his absence. Stanford had taken up with an island girl and was busier about his own affairs than in managing the trade station; the other men had been bickering so much about who would do what that they never did get around to collecting and curing sea slug. The station was a dismal failure, showing a net loss of almost five thousand dollars in its first year, but Cheyne still would not give it up. Instead, he decided that he would drive out his competitors by purchasing Malakal, the tiny island at the southern tip of Koror where Manila vessels usually fished. Cheyne was stymied when he tried to enforce his property rights, however, since the Koror chiefs, who were loath to see the Spanish forced out, agreed to the purchase only on the condition that the Manila vessels be allowed to stay and fish. Resigned to this arrangement, Cheyne set up a second curing station and left several men on the island to care for operations before he again sailed off for other parts. The results were no better this time than the first; again at his return, he found little bêche-de-mer collected and his stations in a hopeless state of disorganization. Yet Cheyne was nothing if not persistent in his business ventures. For two more years he tried to make a success out of the Palau operation until finally, in 1846, he was forced to admit defeat and abandon it altogether. On one of his early trading voyages through the Carolines, Cheyne made a visit to Yap, an island that was virtually unknown to Europeans at that time. Merchant ships, whaling vessels, and exploring expeditions had all ignored Yap despite its prominent  

page_182

Page 182

size and importance among islands of the area. Although Dumont d'Urville was the only European known to have visited the island in the early 1800s, the people he met during his two brief calls there spoke a little Spanish and asked for cigars and brandy. Evidently the Yapese had come to know more about Europeans than Europeans did about the Yapese. No doubt their ''subjects" from the neighboring atolls, who made yearly voyages to Yap to present their traditional tribute, brought the Yapese information and goods from the Spanish colony in the Marianas, which they also visited regularly. But Yap had more direct links with the outside world as well since, like Palau, it was a favorite fishing ground for bêche-de-mer vessels from Manila. Before leaving Palau, Cheyne had been cautioned by the ibedul to be on guard against the treachery of the Yapese, for two Manila vessels had been cut off there some years before. When, soon after his arrival in August 1843, Cheyne confronted one of the Yapese chiefs with this information, the chief confirmed the story and gave him full details of the massacre, proudly claiming that he had strangled the captain of one of the ships with his own hands. This unusual candor, Cheyne suspected, could only have been prompted by the notion that the English were mortal enemies of the Spanish and would give full approval to such an act. But the confession only made the captain more wary than ever. Summoning the chiefs aboard his vessel the next morning, Cheyne had one of the Palauans in his company inform them of his purpose in coming and pointedly warn them what they could expect if they caused any trouble. "The English are a most powerful nation, and no outrage or violence against this, or any other English vessel which may visit your island will pass unpunished," the chiefs were told (Shineberg 1971:248). To underscore the warning, Cheyne used the old tactic of treating his visitors to a display of the ship's firepowerfirst a discharge of the cannon and then several small arms exercises by the crew. Fully confident that all this had made a salutary impression on the people, Cheyne settled down to the business of collecting his cargo of bêche-de-mer. In choosing to anchor off the district of Yap known as Tomil, Cheyne had unwittingly put himself and his crew under its patronage, much as he had been under the patronage of Koror at Palau. But where Palau had two major confederations under which the villages variously grouped and regrouped, Yap had three, headed by Tomil, Rull, and Gagil districts (Map 13). As in Palau, these  

page_183

Page 183

 

page_184

Page 184

three districts were engaged in a perennial struggle for power over the entire group, with foreign visitors serving as pawns in the political game they played. Leok, the chief whom Cheyne thought of as the "Prime Minister" of Tomil, was a constant visitor aboard the Naiad for the two months it was in Yap. He served as spokesman for the chiefs of the district, supervised the recruitment of native labor, and was the intermediary between Cheyne and the Tomil chiefs. Cheyne soon had his men building their first curing shed on Tomil, but he learned from Leok that the people of that district could not begin fishing for bêche-de-mer for several days yet, until a taboo was removed from the ship following its ceremonial purification. In the meantime, Cheyne visited Rull to ask the chiefs there if he might set up a second station in their district. Fully aware of the early advantage their rivals had gained over them, the Rull chiefs eagerly agreed and offered Cheyne one of their council houses to use as a curing shed. They did their best to convince Cheyne to move his vessel from its present anchorage to their own harbor, but the Englishman felt that such a bold move was likely to alienate the Tomil people and cripple his operation there. When the taboo on his ship was at last lifted by the head chief of Tomil, Cheyne was told that it would be another ten days before the commoners would be permitted by local custom to fish for him. Growing increasingly impatient with the long delays, Cheyne established a third station at one of the northeastern villages. Over a month had already passed and he still had very little bêche-de-mer to show for his time and effort at Yap. The first hint of impending trouble came when a young Filipino, a survivor of one of the Spanish ships that the Yapese had attacked seven years before, presented himself to Cheyne and pleaded in tears to be taken away on his ship. Leok and the other Tomil chiefs had planned to storm the Naiad the day of her arrival, he told Cheyne, but were prevented from doing so by the vigilance of the crew; they were still waiting for an opportunity to cut off the brig, and the captain would do well to weigh anchor and get away as soon as possible. Some days later, the chiefs from Rull told Cheyne the same story, adding that Leok was trying to induce the shore parties to desert by promising them land and women. A quarrel ending in a flurry of spears had already broken out between some of the Palauans on board the Naiad and a canoeful of Yapese; only the intervention of the chief officer prevented the incident from  

page_185

Page 185

becoming a bloody battle. The mounting tension was increased when a serious influenza epidemic struck the island, taking the lives of fifty Tomil people within three days. The accusation by the native priests that the foreigners were responsible for the curse was not unfounded, for only two weeks earlier Cheyne had put ashore two of his hands who were sick with "fever and ague." At any rate, word soon reached Cheyne that the Tomil chiefs were busy organizing a force of six hundred men to attack his vessel and ambush his shore parties. Early the next morning a fleet of large canoes pulled alongside the Naiad and Leok asked if the men, all of them armed with clubs, spears, and "Spanish knives," could come aboard to look around the brig. Cheyne refused and posted additional sentinels to keep them off, but the canoes hovered close to the vessel until nearly sundown. When Cheyne went ashore the next day to visit his station at Rull, twelve armed menhired assassins in the pay of the Tomil chiefs, he afterward learnedstalked into the shed and slowly advanced toward him. At the first sight of them, Cheyne called out to his carpenter, a seasoned veteran in island trade, to come to his side and take up the loaded muskets that he kept ready for just such an emergency. The English captain, with pistol in hand and sword at his side, and his carpenter, holding a pair of muskets, sat motionless for half an hour facing the would-be assassins who squatted silently on the ground. Finally the Yapese stood, turned around and walked out of the shed without a word. There could be no doubt now that the disaffected Tomil chiefs meant to take the brig and wipe out the crew as soon as they caught the foreigners off guard. To remain at the island under these circumstances was sheer folly, and so Cheyne recalled his shore parties and prepared to weigh anchor. A few days later, with all his men safely aboard except for two whom Leok refused to surrender, Cheyne fired a few warning shots in the direction of Tomil and sailed out of the harbor to the cheers of the Rull chiefs who came out in their canoes to wave their farewells. The Would-be Emperor of Palau In 1859, after a thirteen-year absence from the Pacific islands, Andrew Cheyne returned to the area with his own vessel, ready to try once more to build his long-sought trading empire and make his fortune. In the interlude, Cheyne had returned to Britain mar 

page_186

Page 186

ried a young Scotch girl, and brought to press two books on the islands he had visited, both of them winning the respect of the British admiralty and commercial mariners of the day. But Cheyne had too much seawater in his blood to be content with a quiet life at home in the Shetland hills; in 1855 he put to sea once more, bound for the Pacific, never to see Britain again. At first he did some coastal trading off China and carried cargoes from one Asian port to another, but within a few years he was back at Palau purchasing large tracts of land with the intention of making that island his home base. At Palau Cheyne met Edward Woodin, a crusty old trading captain from Hobart Town who had been visiting the Carolines for bêche-de-mer since the mid-1840s. Once the prosperous owner of a fleet of trading vessels, Woodin had suffered heavy losses through shipwreck and bad investments in recent years and, like Cheyne, had seen that there were financial advantages to establishing his headquarters in Palau. To prevent open competition between them, Cheyne proposed that they enter into a trading partnership. According to the terms of the agreement, Woodin was to collect only turtle shell and coconut oil, while Cheyne was to have exclusive rights to all bêche-de-mer in Palau. Bad as this arrangement was for Woodin, he abided by it for a year, turning over all the bêche-de-mer he had collected to Cheyne for sale in Manila. Later, however, when Cheyne proposed that the agreement be altered so as to give him a monopoly on all commercial products in Palau, leaving Woodin to conduct his trade in Yap and other islands in the area, the old Hobart sea-captain realized that he was always going to be offered the short end of the stick and broke off the partnership. Since Cheyne had already taken up his old residence in Koror and aligned himself with the chiefs there, Woodin turned to the people of Ngabuked, a village in northeast Babeldaob, to trade. Relations between Koror and Ngabuked were none too good at the time and Woodin was soon called upon to help fortify and defend the town against attacks from Koror. With the assistance of Peter Johnson, a Swede who had lived in Babeldaob since his ship went aground in 1855, Woodin mounted an old swivel gun and supplied the chiefs with firearms. At first the Koror chiefs tried to persuade Woodin to bring his schooner, the Lady Leigh, down to Koror and set up his trade center there. When Woodin refused, they sent a fleet of war canoes to attack Ngabuked and strip the village of its  

page_187

Page 187

defenses. For a time the Koror canoes kept safely out of range of the fusillade that greeted them from the shore, but one of the Ngabuked warriors finally maneuvered his boat close enough to the Koror fleet to sink one of its canoes and send the enemy fleeing back to Koror. Several times in late 1860 and early 1861 Koror canoes descended upon Ngabuked, but more often than not they turned back without attacking, unable to stand up to the guns that defended the village. Woodin, who understood very little of the machinations behind the on-going power struggle in Palau, was sure that Cheyne had put the Koror people up to these attacks; even so, he felt confident enough in the strength of the Ngabuked forces to take the Lady Leigh to Manila in August 1861, leaving the villagers to fend for themselves in the event of further attacks. Cheyne, meanwhile, was far too occupied in laying the foundation for his grand trading empire to take any more than passing notice of the hostilities between Koror and Ngabuked. His ambitions had grown beyond exporting marine produce as he considered the possibilities for developing the land resources of Palau. On the large plots that he was beginning to acquire he planted tobacco, sugar, coffee, and food crops, and advertised for Chinese laborers to cultivate the vast plantations that he envisioned in the future. Before his empire could become a reality, however, he had to forge lasting commercial and political ties with the chiefs of Koror. Ever the firm believer in formal written agreements, Cheyne had the chiefs sign a "Treaty of Commerce" giving him exclusive trading rights with Koror "for five hundred moons." The agreement forbade the chiefs to trade with any ships other than Cheyne's or to sell or lease land to any other foreigners. Cheyne, for his part, agreed not to trade guns or ammunition to any village except Koror and to pay a tax on all produce purchased in Palau, whether in Koror or elsewhere. In addition, Cheyne drew up a simple constitution for the island group, according to which the ibedul was to be "absolute sovereign of the whole Pelew Islands." But even Cheyne, the incurable idealist in such matters as these, realized that such a document was not worth the paper it was written on without the backing of a European government. The best means of insuring the political stability of Palauand protecting his own interests therewas to place the entire island group under the protection of Her Majesty's government, and so Cheyne drafted on behalf of the Koror chiefs a petition to Great Britain to this effect. The petition suited their own interests just as much as  

page_188

Page 188

Cheyne's. Citing the "rebellion" of several villages, Woodin's defiance of the "law" in trading with the people of Babeldaob, and Koror's recent "humiliation" at their defeat by Ngabuked, the document begged "their ancient friend and benefactor England  . . . not to allow their feeble and tottering government to be utterly annihilated" (CE Stevens 1867). Although the petition was formally presented to the British consul in Manila, Cheyne found an excellent opportunity to reassert the desires of the chiefs when the British warship Sphinx called at Koror in January 1862 on a search for stranded seamen. Soon after the ship dropped anchor, the ibedul announced his intention of coming aboard. Officers were assembled on the quarterdeck with frockcoats and swords and the seamen were drawn up in ranks next to the gangway when the bosun piped the shrill call to signal the "king's" arrival. There was a clash of arms, a military salute, and a bugle blast to greet the ibedul, who appeared "blazing in blue and gold like a Kingfisher" in his blue military jacket trimmed with gilt tinsel, chevrons of gold on each sleeve, and brass epaulets on his shoulders (Coghlan 1863). He wore blue trousers with a broad gold stripe, boots and gloves, and a threecornered hat trimmed in gold and set off with three ostrich feathers. Following the short, barrel-chested chief in his regal finery came Captain Cheyne, dressed in a simple white suit, and the dozens of islanders who made up his royal retinue. After a formal tour of the ship, the ibedul and Cheyne retired to the captain's quarters to discuss business matters with Commander Brown. They informed the commander that the men he was looking for were not in Palau, but if they had by chance landed here, they would be in danger for their lives because of the state of rebellion and anarchy that currently existed there. The people of Babeldaob, the commander was told, would not accept the lawful authority of the ibedul nor would they allow Cheyne to trade with them. The Palauan chief begged the British commander to go north to "investigate the rebellion and make peace," cautioning him, however, to bring a good number of armed men with him. Commander Brown did as he was advised, arriving at Ngabuked with a company of marines in the ship's boats two days after the ibedul's call. There was not a soul in sight when the British landed, but as they marched toward the village, muskets opened fire on them from both sides of the path. The marines quickly dispersed the ambushers and continued on to the village,  

page_189

Page 189

now deserted, where they burned houses in reprisal. Later the same day, firing again broke out as they approached another settlement, and they destroyed more homes. The British retired to their boats for the evening, but next morning when they pulled for shore they found the dock fortified with stockades manned by the villagers. To avoid the heavy musketfire and cannon shot, the troops landed farther down the coast and came around the dock from shoreward, routing the Ngabuked defenders. Again the British burned houses and destroyed canoes until at last one of the chiefs hesitantly approached the marines to apologize for the unprovoked attacks and to request peace. Brown, whose men had suffered no casualties during the fighting, was content to warn the chief against a repetition of this sort of thing in the future and to instruct him to deliver the Filipino deserter whom the chief blamed for leading the attack into the hands of Cheyne or Woodin when he was found. When Woodin returned from Manila two months after the Sphinx's call, a large group of excited villagers greeted him at the dock with cries of "fire  . . . war  . . . Englishman" (Semper 1873: 23). With a mob of Ngabuked people trailing behind him, the Tasmanian hurried off to survey the damage done by the British troops; he saw deep craters hollowed out by the bombardment, shattered trees, and charred canoe houses and homes everywhere. His own house and curing sheds were in ruins and his trade destroyed; everything he owned except the Lady Leigh was gone. Woodin was sure that Cheyne had put the British up to the attack in an effort to drive his competitor out of Palau once and for all, and his suspicions were confirmed by the stories that the ibedul and other Koror chiefs whispered to him a few weeks later. Cheyne was still holding one of Woodin's men, a Filipino who had been lent to the British to serve as an interpreter, and would not release him despite Woodin's repeated requests to do so. When Woodin's mate went down to Koror to fetch the man, he received a beating from Cheyne's first mate for his troubletreatment that was "quite characteristic of the miscreant Cheyne," Woodin noted in his log (9 Apr 1862). Woodin's bitter resentment toward Cheyne was shared by Karl Semper, a German scientist who had been given passage from Manila to Palau on the Lady Leigh. Semper, a naturalist with a strong craving to see exotic places, planned to study animal life for a few months before returning to the Philippines on the Lady  

page_190

Page 190

Leigh's next trip. Semper did gather notes on the fauna of Palauand on many other things besides. The book that he published on his visit, Die Palau-Inseln im Stillen Ocean, is crammed with valuable information on the customs of the people with whom he lived for nine months and stands as the first book-length work on the western Carolines since Keate's volume. However, the naturalist could make no claim to scientific objectivity for the picture of Cheyne that emerges from his pages, for he had taken up Woodin's cause whole-heartedly and judged Cheyne to be no better than a thorough-going villain. Any doubts he may have had about his harsh judgment on the English trader were dispelled when he accidentally came across a copy of the "Treaty of Commerce" stuck in an heirloom volume of Keate's book that the ibedul kept among his treasured possessions. Shocked at what he took to be an underhanded power grab by the Englishman, Semper resolved then and there to bring Cheyne's unscrupulous ways to the public's attention as best he could. Woodin, now in desperate financial straits because of his losses and the major repairs that had been made on the Lady Leigh in Manila, made a final attempt to revive his failing trade operations in Ngabuked. He collected what little bêche-de-mer he could from the people, who were now occupied for the most part in rebuilding their village, and waited nervously for the attack by Koror that he felt was almost a certainty. The attack never came, but that did little to improve Woodin's fortunes. In January 1863, Woodin stored his meager cargo of bêche-de-mer aboard the Lady Leigh, made for Peleliu to take on Semper, who complained that he was "without shoes, socks and even soap" after three months on the island (Semper 1873:289), and made sail for Manila to sell his produce for whatever price he could get in order to pay off his debts. To return to Palau under present conditions was out of the question; at Semper's advice, therefore, he sailed on to Hong Kong and sold his leaky old schooner, investing immediately in a more seaworthy vessel. But fate did not smile on the old Hobart sea-bear. On his first voyage aboard his new ship, he was stabbed by a Malayan hand who had run amok and, after a lingering illness brought on by his wounds, died two years later (Crowther 1972:64 65). A few months before Woodin left Palau for good, Cheyne returned from a voyage to Manila with a new business associate, a pompous young German sea captain by the name of Alfred Tetens, whom Cheyne signed on to handle his brig on its trading voyages  

page_191

Page 191

to other islands while he personally managed his expanded business in Koror. Soon after his arrival in Palau, Tetens had a chance meeting with his countryman, Karl Semper, who revealed all his dark suspicions about Cheyne's integrity and showed him a copy of the now notorious "Treaty of Commerce." Swayed by Semper's case against Cheyne, Tetens hastily concluded that the friendship the English trader affected for him was only a ploy to hold him until he "might pull the chestnuts out of the fire" (Tetens 1958:xxx). Still, he had little choice but to serve out his one-year contract with Cheyne. Almost immediately Tetens was sent off on the Acis to Yap, accompanied by John Davy, the beachcomber who had gone with Cheyne on his first visit to that island twenty years earlier. There, if we may believe Tetens' not so self-effacing journal account, he gathered a full shipload of top-quality bêche-de-mer, while still finding time to charm the island women and acquire fluency in the local language. When Tetens brought the Acis back to Palau in the summer of 1863, he found his employer greatly unsettled by the recent turn that events had taken there. For a few months before the return of the Acis, Cheyne had been able to conduct very little business; his house was almost always being watched and there had been several threats against his life. The hostility toward the English captain in Koror was almost tangible. Cheyne's arrogant and insolent manners, especially his ceaseless reproaches and outbursts of anger, had always antagonized the Koror chiefs; once he even went so far as to assault the ibedul by yanking out his earring and tearing away part of the lobe. A notorious womanizer, Cheyne was also accused of shamelessly mistreating the bevy of native girls that he kept on his ship or near his home. But the most serious charge against him, repeated by the ibedul's wife to Semper less than a year earlier, was that Cheyne refused to support Koror in its wars against the villages in the north and even threatened to sell guns to Koror's enemies. With storm clouds gathering in Koror, Cheyne was more than happy to install Tetens as the temporary master of his estate and slip off in the Acis to the Philippines. When Cheyne had gone and the Koror chiefs learned that they could find in Tetens a sympathetic ear for their complaints against the Englishman, the atmosphere in the village changed practically overnight. The ibedul sent his sister, loaded with presents, over to live with Tetens and do his housekeepinga gift that was gratefully accepted by the Ger 

page_192

Page 192

man captain, whose tastes in women were no less universal than his employer's. Because the market price of bêche-de-mer was dropping and the Koror laborers who collected it were so undependable, Tetens spent most of his time in the fields planting the seedlings and cuttings that Cheyne had left. So promising were the plantations that he was tempted to abandon the bêche-de-mer altogether to concentrate exclusively on the crops. Noticing Tetens' new-found interest in horticulture, the ibedul promised him as much land as he needed to set up plantations of his own, on the condition that he supply enough tobacco to satisfy the growing demands of the pipe-smoking townspeople of Koror. On the side, Tetens began curing ox-hides and making from them leather loin-cloths, an item that attained instant popularity among the increasingly fashion-conscious villagers. Then, as quickly as before, the mood altered completely and Tetens could sense hostility everywhere. The people stopped bringing him food; again strange men began idling around the white man's house peering inside every so often and even threatening Tetens once or twice. While taking his canoe to an island not far from Koror to obtain food, Tetens was ambushed by several war canoes, which he dispersed with two salvos from his gun. When he returned to his house, he found that his housekeeper, who had lately become sullen and dissatisfied, was gone; soon afterward his Malayan servant also vanished. His food supply nearly depleted and his wardrobe reduced to ''a pair of striped swimming trunks, a flannel jacket, and a straw hat well supplied with holes," Tetens barricaded himself inside the house, barring the doors with thick poles and positioning two small ship's cannon in the lower rooms (Tetens 1958:42). Alone and confined to his citadel, Tetens could only wait for the long overdue arrival of the Acis. Finally, one day in September 1863, Tetens made out a sail against the horizon and watched jubilantly as the Acis slipped into port. Cheyne remained in harbor only long enough to load his cargo and take Tetens aboard before he weighed anchor and made full sail for Manila, where Tetens received his wages and went his own way without regrets. Three months later, Cheyne returned to Palau to find that his estate was in an advanced state of decay. His plantation had gone to ruin: the coffee plants were choked with weeds, the sugar cane had been uprooted and carried off, and the fences were all down. Many of his household furnishings had vanished, very likely in the hands of his servants, who had also dis 

page_193

Page 193

appeared. The chiefs and people studiously avoided Cheyne; as before, that same icy chill hung over the village. When the ibedul finally came to see Cheyne, the Englishman told him very pointedly that his people would have to begin fishing for bêche-de-mer immediately or else he would go to some other village to trade. This thinly veiled threat was not lost on the chief and the next morning the Koror villagers were hard at work rebuilding Cheyne's curing sheds and hauling in their first baskets of sea slug. The laborers accepted the usual cloth and metal trade goods as payment for the construction of the sheds, but for the bêche-de-mer the Koror chiefs demanded arms. At first they requested war rockets of the sort that the British marines from the Sphinx had used so effectively against Ngabuked, but they were finally forced to settle for rifle cartridges and musket caps. After replanting his land, Cheyne again put to sea, this time headed for Yap to top off his cargo of bêche-de-mer. Again he anchored his ship off Tomil, as he had years before, even though his previous dealings with the people there gave him little reason for confidence. Within a few weeks the same difficulties returned to haunt him: an influenza epidemic broke out and caused several deaths, the Tomil people stopped fishing, and canoes carrying armed men continually menaced the ship. Barely four weeks in port, Cheyne made up his mind to "get away from this nest of treacherous pirates as soon as possible" (Cheyne 22 Mar 1864). But the situation in Koror was little better than at Yap, Cheyne found at his return. The Koror chiefs reluctantly agreed to fish for him, but soon afterward stopped to prepare for war against Ngabuked; only the decision to give them gunpowder in exchange for their bêche-de-mer persuaded them to resume fishing. Even more disturbing, however, was the rumor that reached his ears on the cause of his recent troubles in Yap. Word had it that the chiefs of Tomil had received instructions from the Koror chiefs to take the Acis and kill the Englishman or else they would be denied the right to quarry the large limestone discs that were used as money on Yap and for which the Yapese regularly traveled the three hundred miles to Palau by canoe and raft. Perhaps that "nest of treacherous pirates" was situated not in Yap after all, but right in Koror! Cheyne was in a real dilemma. Despite his formal agreement with the Koror chiefs, the leaders were clearly doing everything possible to hamper his trade; in two months at Koror he had collected only two tons of bêche-de-mer. If, on the other hand, he  

page_194

Page 194

were to begin open trading with the villages of northern Babeldaob, he would almost certainly have to deal in firearms, violating his contract with Koror and putting his life in even greater jeopardy than it was at present. Cheyne had few illusions about the personal risks involved in such a course of action; he was fully aware that the long arm of the Koror leaders, which extended even as far as Yap, could easily reach him in Babeldaob. When he approached the ibedul and some of the other chiefs to request permission to go to one of the northern villages to trade, they refused him flatly, as he must have known they would. The "Treaty of Commerce" had proved a bad bargain for Cheyne, but it still had considerable value for the Koror chiefs in that it denied other villages access to his foreign weapons. Cheyne determined to go anyway and in June 1864 took the Acis around Babeldaob, allegedly to survey the harbors but in fact to look over trading prospects in the different villages. At one of them, Ngarchelong, Cheyne fished and traded for a while, noting the people's enormous desire to get muskets and powder. Upon his return to Koror, Cheyne was accosted by James Gibbons, an East Indian living in Koror since 1860 and the latest in the line of prominent beachcomber-advisors to the ibedul, and confronted with the charge that he had sold muskets to the Ngarchelong chiefs. Cheyne denied the accusation, but without effect. The ibedul would not consent to see him, and the bêche-de-mer gathering slowed down to such a trickle that Cheyne soon left for other parts to try to fill the brig's hold. Any scruples that Cheyne may ever have had about trading with other villages in Palau vanished soon after his return in March 1865. Dismissing his "Treaty of Commerce" as a dead letter and seeing no need even to pretend to adhere to its terms, he began openly trading at several of the villages in Babeldaob, many of them unfriendly to Koror. When the chief of Imeliik, one of the villages in the confederation headed by Koror, told Cheyne apologetically that the ibedul had ordered his people to stop collecting bêche-de-mer, the Englishman offered to pay them in muskets if they would continue fishing for him. "The only way to put a stop to this villainy," he had decided, "is to arm the other tribes so as to make them independent of Koror" (Cheyne 27 Sep 1865). Cheyne had thrown down the hatchet and there was nothing to do but plunge on boldly. By the summer he was trading regularly in muskets and gunpowder with three of the principal villages on Babeldaob, on occasion even turning over the weapons to the chiefs in  

page_195

Page 195

the presence of Koror people. A few months later, in a move that was calculated to affront the Koror chiefs even more, he gave guns and ammunition to the chiefs of Melekeok, the traditional archrival of Koror, in payment for tracts of land that he purchased there. By now Cheyne had been the target of threats and plots by the Koror chiefs for almost three years, but this course of action sealed his doom. On 6 February 1866, only five days after he brought the Acis into Koror, Cheyne was called out of his house soon after nightfall to look over some pigs that someone had brought in a canoe. A few moments after he left his house, he was set upon by a group of men, strangled, and clubbed to death with a heavy flagstone, his body then cast into the sea. Cheyne, the would-be ruler of a trading empire who spent a quarter of a century sailing the Pacific in pursuit of a fortune, died a failure. After the Acis was sold at public auction and his debts discharged, his estate amounted to only seventeen pounds and his dubious land titles. The unlikely heir to Cheyne's empiresuch as it wasturned out to be Alfred Tetens, who visited Palau shortly after the Englishman's death. Now master of the steamship Vesta and agent for the German firm of Godeffroy & Son, Tetens was back in the western Carolines to establish trade outposts on some of the larger islands. At Palau he found the people waiting fearfully for the British warship that they knew was bound to come sooner or later, but there was not much bêche-de-mer to be gotten there. For a year and a half he steamed from island to island, setting up temporary trade stations where he could, thwarting native attacks on his ship, impressing local peoples with his strength and sagacity, and occasionally parading his wide-eyed Yapese and Palauan crew members down the streets of Hong Kong and Manila. When he gradually discovered that he could barely make his expenses with the bêche-de-mer and shell that he carried away on the Vesta, he bought land in Palau, imported fifty Chinese coolies, and began building up the cotton plantation that Cheyne had always dreamed of starting. While in Palau at this time, he also assisted the ibedul in a campaign against Melekeok, intervening directly in local wars in a way that his much-maligned former employer would never have done. His cotton project showed as little financial promise as bêche-de-mer, and in 1867 he left the Pacific altogether to return to his native Hamburg (Tetens 1958:54 101). The inevitable British warship finally steamed into Palau in  

page_196

Page 196

April 1867 to investigate Cheyne's murder. For a week the British naval commander conducted hearings aboard the HMS Perseus while the terror-stricken Koror people hid out in the woods, dreading what was to come. The ibedul, one of the first persons summoned aboard, testified at first that the people of Melekeok were responsible for the deed, but later, in the face of overwhelming evidence indicting him, admitted that he had ordered the murder because Cheyne had betrayed Koror by selling arms to hostile villages in Babeldaob. Sentence was passed and at noon on 12 April 1867, the Palauan chiefno longer wearing the blue and gold military outfit in which he greeted the last British warshipwas marched by two marines to the spot that the people had pointed out as Cheyne's gravesite. There the ibedul waited, quiet and composed, as the British commander handed the second-ranking Koror chief a loaded pistol. A moment later there was a loud report and the ibedul collapsed, killed instantly by a single shot through the heart (CE Stevens 1867).  

page_197

Page 197

Chapter 8 Christianity and Copra in the Marshalls Preparing the Land for the Harvesters The Marshall Islands were still regarded as dangerous territory in the 1850s. When the mate of a German trading vessel came ashore at Ebon in 1858, conspicuously waving a big horse pistol to discourage any surprise attacks, he was astonished to learn that two missionaries had been living there in perfect safety for the past ten months (Bliss 1906:69). He had good reason to be surprised, for the Marshallese had a reputation for hostility toward visitors that was unequalled in the area"No people in Micronesia are so badly spoken of by foreigners, especially by commanders of vessels," one of the missionaries living there at the time had to admit (ABCFM Dn-A 6 Dec 1857). Even Truk, whose fierce and warlike inhabitants had earned for it the unflattering sobriquet "dreaded Hogoleu," was considered tame by comparison. The notorious reputation of the Marshallese was well founded. Since the 1830s they had tallied a long and impressive list of attacks on ships and shore parties that matched the combined total of hostile encounters in all of the numerous island groups in the Carolines. As early as 1824, while Kotzebue was renewing old friendships in the northern islands of the Ratak chain, the age of bonhomie was coming to a sudden end in the south (Map 14). In February of that year the Nantucket whaleship Globe found what seemed to be an ideal hideaway in Mili just a few weeks after all its officers had been killed in one of the bloodiest, most infamous mutinies of the whaling era. While Samuel Comstock and his fellow mutineers were lapping up the ship's grog on the beach, five crewmen who had had no hand in the crime made off with the  

page_198

Page 198

 

page_199

Page 199

ship, marooning the mutineers on the island much as Lope Martin and his companions had been abandoned on another island in the Marshalls two and a half centuries earlier. Before long the natives of Mili, provoked by the wanton cruelty of the Globe mutineers, murdered all of them except two boys who were adopted by the people and rescued two years later by the US naval cruiser Dolphin. During the three decades following the Globe incident, captains foolhardy enough to bring their ships into the Marshalls met with trouble more often than not. At Ebon in 1833 a dozen men from the British whaleship Elizabeth were seized when they went ashore and were never seen again. A trading schooner that put in at Bikini the next year lost its captain and two of its crew when a shore party was attacked. News of the captain's death, although clearly recorded in the ship's log, must never have been circulated, for three ships came subsequently to search for the captain, who was believed to be a prisoner on the island. The master of one of these vessels, the Waverly of Honolulu, reportedly killed thirty Marshallese hostages when he found conclusive evidence that the unfortunate captain had indeed been on the island at one time. Another whaleship, the Awashonks of Falmouth, was almost taken at Namorik in 1835 when the islanders who surged onto its deck lunged for whale-spades and made a sudden charge at the crew, leaving the captain and five others dead before their chief was killed by a lucky musket shot. A boat crew from still another whaleship was surprised while ashore at Mili in 1837, but the captain and his party, more fortunate than most, beat off the assault and escaped to their ship. The dozen or so men from the French whaler Angelina who went ashore at the same island seven years later were not so lucky; they disappeared and no trace of them was ever found, despite an intensive search by French naval cruisers over the next several years. Andrew Cheyne, who had trouble almost everywhere he went, reported that a fight broke out on the deck of the Naiad as the brig lay off Ebon in 1846; several Marshallese were killed and four of his crew seriously wounded in the fight. About the same time, the China-bound trading brig William Neilson was lost, together with the twenty-two thousand dollars in gold pieces that she carried, somewhere between Hawaii and the Asian coast. A story told by the natives of Ebon some years later about the slaughter of six white men who reached their island in an open boat and hauled ashore a chest of Spanish dollars suggests  

page_200

Page 200

that these may have been survivors of the Neilson. In 1850, two passengers from the William Melville who went ashore at Kwajalein were surprised and murdered, while four others barely escaped by swimming back to the ship. In 1851 and 1852, long after attacks on ships had been discontinued in other parts of Micronesia, three trading vessels were taken by the Marshallese and their crews massacred: the Glencoe at Ebon, the Sea Nymph at Jaluit, and an unnamed schooner at Namorik. To anyone keeping count of the attacks on ships and lives lost, it must have appeared that the Marshallese were carrying on a vendetta against any and all foreigners injudicious enough to visit their shores. Indeed, one of the high chiefs (Kaibuke, the paramount chief of the southern Ralik chain) did swear that he would kill all the whites he could in revenge for the death of an older brother and a wound he received years before in a fight that broke out when a Marshallese was caught stealing from a ship (MH 1858:91). But Kaibuke's influence, great as it was, could hardly have compelled Marshallese outside his sphere of power, especially those in the distant northern atolls, to risk life and limb in all-out war against the whites. Marshallese of other islands had their own reasons, no doubt varying with different times and different places, for attacking their visitors. Apart from the usual motive to plunder, some had very real grievances against the whites who called on them: the two ships taken and burnt in 1851 were, by some accounts, abducting island women for sale to plantation owners in other parts of the Pacific. A warship, always the prescription for trouble spots like these, would have brought the Marshallese to their senses, a later visitor thought; but "a man-of-war they have never seen" (Damon, cited in Ward 1967v4:433). In fact, they had seen severalthe American cruisers Dolphin in 1825, Vincennes in 1835, and Peacock and Flying Fish in 1841; the French corvettes Rhin and Heroine in 1845, and Ariane in 1848; and the British cruisers Rainbow in 1828 and Serpent in 1852but they had never tasted their guns. Most of these ships had come to look for missing seamen, more often than not the victims of Marshallese ambushes ashore, but failing to find them or any sign of their whereabouts, had left without exacting any punishment. The American Board missionaries, however, were not to be frightened off by seamen's scary tales, however much truth they might contain. Almost from the day they had established their first  

page_201

Page 201

beachheads in the assault against heathenism on Ponape and Kosrae, the missionaries had cast their eyes eastward to the Marshalls and Gilberts, where supposedly large and influential populations awaited them. These coral atolls, reaching south of the equator, would be the next fields to be tilled and sown with the gospel message. If the Marshallsand to a lesser extent the Gilbertswere dangerous enough to be shunned by whalers and traders, so much the better. For once, the missionaries would steal a march on the white riffraff that usually contaminated islands well before their arrival. Here, at last, they would be entering unspoiled territory. The missionaries quite unexpectedly received their safe-conduct pass into the Marshalls when Dr George Pierson, newly assigned to the Micronesian mission, visited some of these islands on his passage out in 1855 (MH 1858:81 91). Traveling aboard a whaleship under the command of Captain Ichabod Handy, a pious man eager to help the missionaries and knowledgeable about the Marshalls through occasional trading calls, Pierson had the good fortune to stop off at Ailinglapalap where he met none other than Kaibuke himself. Kaibuke, the sworn foe of whites and instigator of many of the past attacks on ships, was anything but what Pierson must have imagined from the stories he had heard. The Marshallese chief, the very soul of meekness, promised Pierson his personal protection if only he and other missionaries would make their home in those islands. He sealed his pledge by exchanging names with Pierson, afterward sending his sister to accompany the missionary to Ebon and arrange for a suitable reception for him there. Elated at this unanticipated turn of events, Pierson eventually made his way to Kosrae where he reported to mission authorities that the Marshalls, formerly the "dread of seamen," were now open and ready for the harvesters. Just two years later, Pierson and Edward Doane, another new arrival in Micronesia, were aboard the recently acquired mission packet Morning Star on their way to Ebon to found the first mission in the Marshalls. With them traveled Hiram Bingham and the Hawaiian teacher, Kanoa, who were to begin a mission on Abaiang in the Gilberts. When the Morning Star dropped anchor in the Ebon lagoon in early November 1857, missionary spirits must have soared as Pierson, who had spent part of his two-year stay on Kosrae with fifty Marshallese castaways and had learned some of the language, was given a rousing welcome by some of his old friends. Immediately they led him and Doane to Kaibuke, who  

page_202

Page 202

was to become the chiefly patron of the missionaries in much the same way that the nahnken of Kiti and King George had been for their co-workers on Ponape and Kosrae. Ebon was an ideal location for the mission. Its abundant rainfall and fertility made it the garden spot of the Marshalls, and chiefs from other islands in Ralik, the western chain, converged on the island frequently. Ebon people were noted for their remarkable industriousness, ''a Yankee driving and go-ahead spirit" (Ward 1967v4:423) that presented a heartening contrast with other, more indolent peoples the missionaries had seen. Moreover, Ebon was the home of Kaibuke, who held power over all the islands in the southern part of the Ralik chain. Kaibuke, the nephew of the paramount chief before him, married his predecessor's widow and assumed royal office ahead of his older brother as a result of this coup. In the fifteen years that he had been ruling, he had extended his authority even beyond these islands by virtue of his well-deserved reputation for bravery and his fierce attacks on foreign ships. In the Raliks at least, and perhaps in the entire Marshall archipelago, he had no peer in the personal influence he wielded. Ebon had other things, too, to recommend it to the missionaries. There were no intoxicating beverages on the island"no kava, toddy or distilled drink" (ABCFM Dn-A 23 Mar 1859)and not a gun to be found among all its thousand or so people. Tobacco was a vice that had as yet infected only a few individuals on the island, and there was "no rowdyism, no fighting, and no opposition from whites biased against the missionaries" (ABCFM Dn-A 23 Mar 1859). For all the reports of Marshallese savagery, the two Americans found the people gentle and well behaved, even more so than their Micronesian neighbors. Their feasts, Doane observed, were carried on quietly and with decorumnot at all the orgies of "gluttonous eating, drinking to intoxication and wild revelry" that passed for banquets on other islands (ABCFM Dn-A 23 Mar 1859). The Marshallese people, always polite and obliging, were more than willing to supply Doane with the kind of domestic help that he had found so difficult to get on Ponape. They also attended Sabbath services in great numbers from the very start, over a hundred people often crowding into the thatched meetinghouse that served as the first place of worship on Ebon. If anything disrupted the work of the missionaries, it was the sudden ebb and flow of the island populationand of their Sabbath congregations, which could fluctuate between fifty and two  

page_203

Page 203

hundred fiftyat the arrival or departure of a fleet. Every so often Kaibuke would sail off to one of the northern islands of the chain with virtually all the lesser chiefs and a party of three or four hundred retainers to reassert his claims and collect tribute. In the same way, chiefs from other atolls who had landholdings in Ebon would suddenly appear with a flotilla of twenty canoes to spend a few months on the island and receive the firstfruits due them for lands held by their lineage. As a result, the island population was always in flux. The departure of an Ebon fleet "robs the island of the most interesting class of natives," the missionaries complained, while the arrival of a party from another island, "like the flowing of a great tidal wave into some small river, inundates us with a new and somewhat strange population" (ABCFM Dn-A 16 Aug 1859). Yet, even these "migratory habits" had an important compensating feature: they circulated the gospel message among peoples of other atolls in a way that the missionaries could not possibly have done through their own efforts. "Word of the sermons goes out from the missionaries to their immediate neighbors, and via them to others of the north," Pierson wrote (ABCFM Pi-A 4 Oct 1858). Through force of circumstance rather than by design, Doane and Pierson were, in effect, using native Marshallese missionaries from the very beginning. Kaibuke, meanwhile, scrupulously kept his word to the missionaries: he not only protected them and their families from harm, but safeguarded their property as well. Having been warned by ship captains that they were throwing away their lives in settling on Ebon, Doane and Pierson were happy to be able to boast at the end of their first year on the island that they had lived in perfect safety and without real fear of theft. The few things that they had lost"a few garments, a knife or two, and some hoop from a water cask"were later returned; any inconvenience caused by their loss was, in the eyes of the missionaries, trivial by comparison with the "friendship being cemented with our highest and best chiefs" (ABCFM Dn-A 28 May 1859). But Kaibuke was not without a good measure of selfinterest. The crafty old chief had a sharp eye for a bargain, as he demonstrated once when he had coconuts brought for some thirsty passengers from the Morning Star, afterward charging them a fishhook apiece for the drink. At times he could be a persistent and annoying beggar, especially when the early construction work commissioned by the missionaries had been completed and the flow of trade goods to the native  

page_204

Page 204

workersand from them to their high chiefhad all but stopped. At first Kaibuke happily supplied the labor needs of the mission, but when he found that the commoners he sent to work for the Americans were better fed and clothed than himself, he covertly used his authority to force the workers to leave and repeatedly put off the missionaries with excuses when they asked him to find replacements. Although he never stole anything outright from the missionaries, he was not above making off with a twenty-pound box of tobacco from a trader's storeroom that he was hired to guard, or selling several casks of coconut oil that were left in his custody by an over-trusting foreign merchant. But these were mere peccadillos compared to what his wounded vanity led him to do one terrifying day in May 1861. Early in the morning Kaibuke and a band of armed followers rushed across the island to the house of a lesser chief who had offended him not long before by neglecting to call on him. Surprising him in his sleep, the high chief and his men killed the unsuspecting victim with their spears and wounded his brother before he stumbled off into the woods to hide. Determined to wipe out the slain man's lineage branch, probably to protect himself against future reprisals, Kaibuke then sought out the offender's sister and her daughter and ordered them to prepare for death. The women fought back their tears as they dressed themselves in ceremonial mats, but emerged from their house fully composed, ready to do the high chief's bidding. Calmly they walked into the still waters of the lagoon. At the word of the executioner, they sat down in the shallow water with arms locked around one another's waists and lowered their heads into the sea. A few hours later, the wounded brother emerged from his hiding place, declaring to all that he had no wish to live any longer. As his enemies gathered behind him, he walked proudly to the spot where his kinswomen had died, suddenly wheeling toward his armed assailants when he reached the place. For a time the condemned man dodged the spears that flew at him, picking up some of them and contemptuously hurling them back at his enemies. The deadly game soon ended, however, when the mortally wounded man, his body bristling with spear shafts, toppled into the water, discoloring it with his blood (ABCFM Dn-A 23 May 1861). Such murders, usually prompted by the political machinations of power-hungry, land-grabbing chiefs, were not uncommon in the Marshalls at the time. But these brutal slayings were the first out 

page_205

Page 205

break of violence that the missionaries had seen on Ebon in the four years they had been there, and the incident only confirmed what they had feared all alongthat, for all Kaibuke's show of fatherly concern for them and his protestations of support for the mission, the bloody deeds of his younger years were the true measure of the man. He would stop at nothing, not even murder, to assuage his injured pride or promote his own interests. Two days after the killings, Kaibuke called on the missionaries to beg forgiveness for his crimes and to assure them that he had rid his heart of all evil"set it adrift and buried it" were his own words (ABCFM Dn-A 23 May 1861). Never again would he do such a thing, he promised, and he pleaded with them to pray to Jehovah on his behalf. Doane was greatly relieved that the high chief had brought himself to admit his terrible sin, even if it was more than likely that he felt no real compunction; but he also knew that the level of trust that had formerly existed between Kaibuke and the missionaries was gone and would never again be restored. Even in the face of this shocking display of cruelty, the missionaries could take encouragement from the signs of progress that they had observed on the island. Pagan taboos were already crumbling and some of the old heathen rites were being ignored. Women had recently been admitted for the first time to certain religious feasts from which they had formerly been excluded; the pagan ceremonies usually performed at the burial of a royal personage were dropped at the death of Kaibuke's young daughter and the six-day taboo on all work following the burial was disregarded. The people may not have been able to abandon their cherished custom of tattooing, with the religious significance it carried, but they at least felt guilty about carrying it out openly on their island. Confessing their uneasiness in performing the rites associated with tattooing on Ebon, "an island under the special protection of Jehovah" (ABCFM Pi-A 7 Oct 1859), eight hundred people left for Jaluit to do it in safety there. On the other hand, Marshallese were finally beginning to observe some of the missionaries' own taboosespecially the injunction against work on the Sabbath. Even more important than all this, however, were tell-tale signs that the gospel message was beginning to take root in the hearts of its hearers. By 1860 some of the more faithful churchgoers were responding to Doane's sermons with loud and fervent proclamations: "We want to love Jehovah! We will transgress no more!" (ABCFM Dn&Pi-A 10 Oct 1859). A few even began to follow the  

page_206

Page 206

example of one young woman, an employee of the mission, who gathered her friends after every Sabbath service to pray with them and testify to her love for Jesus. The missionaries were working against time in their race for the souls of Ebon. They had lost their monopoly on the island barely a year after their arrival, when the first two traders were landed to oversee the pressing of coconut oil. Doane had to admit rather grudgingly that the two traders, whose morals were "much better than usual in this sort of men," were friendly and helpful to the missionaries (ABCFM Dn&Pi-A 10 Oct 1859); but their presence still signalled the unhappy fact that the floodgate of foreign influence was now opening in the Marshalls. Eight ships visited Ebon in 1860, and in the following year the first coconut oil factory was set up on the island. One of the trading vessels that were now beginning to appear more frequently, a Samoan-registered schooner, landed two foreigners on islands north of Ebon and was expected to bring more on its return. With the ships and traders, of course, came the usual scourges of prostitution and disease. Influenza broke out on the island in February 1859, taking several lives among the commoners. The bodies of the victims, wrapped in mats and fitted out with strange, fan-like sails, were cast into the sea to be carried wherever wind and tide might bear them. A measles epidemic struck two years later just as the influenza was recurring, and a particularly virulent attack of typhoid fever in 1863 claimed more lives, among them Kaibuke's. Venereal disease, which subsequently came to be known in the Marshalls as the "chiefs' disease," spread rapidly in the years following the early trading visits, infecting mainly that social class whose members were in a position to sell their wives' favors to seamen willing to pay in cloth, metal goods, or tobacco. As early as 1860, two of the leading chiefs on the island were suffering terribly from syphilis, one of them having lost his male organ to the disease. If the future of the mission in 1860 began to appear uncertain, this was not so much owing to any great obstacles in the field as to lack of personnel. Pierson and his wife had left Ebon for good the year before when both developed serious health problems. Doane was forced to send his family to Hawaii in 1861 when his wife became dangerously ill, and he himself finally followed them back two years later. With Bingham leaving Abaiang in broken health at about this time, the mission board was forced to consider seriously whether life on those coral atolls was too demanding for an  

page_207

Page 207

American missionary. Meanwhile, Benjamin Snow arrived from Kosrae in 1862 to fill in as the supervisor of the Marshalls mission, a post that he held for the rest of the decade. Yet most of the pastoral work during the critical first fifteen years of the mission's operations was borne by Hawaiians, not Americans. In this respect the Marshalls and Gilberts differed greatly from earlier missions in Micronesia. The use of Hawaiian missionaries on Ponape and Kosrae back in the early 1850s was hardly an unqualified success, and some of the mission contingent began to wonder whether Hawaiians could ever function effectively in Micronesia. Pierson and Doane at first recommended against bringing Hawaiian missionaries into the Marshalls on the grounds that they "could hardly sustain themselves without American missionaries' influence and presence" (ABCFM Dn&Pi-Pb 21 Sep 1859). A visit to the Gilberts where Kanoa was doing extremely effective work seems to have changed Doane's mind, however, and he soon afterward wrote that "the Hawaiian Society will do well to scatter over all the islands of this group as many of her native sons and daughters as she can afford" (ABCFM DnA 22 Nov 1858). The first of her "sons," Hezekiah Aea, arrived in Ebon in 1860. Within nine months, Aea was speaking fluent Marshallese and running the mission school, besides presiding at prayer meetings and setting type on an ancient hand-press. His capacity for hard work and aptitude for teaching so impressed Doane that he ecstatically proclaimed in a letter: "The problem is solved: Micronesia can be worked by Hawaiian missionaries" (ABCFM Dn-A 23 May 1861). In 1863 two more Hawaiian helpers and their families arrived at the mission, and another two came six years after that. So energetic and resourceful were these men and their wives that even Snow, who was far from being an ardent supporter of Hawaiians while on Kosrae, had to admit that the mission could not have been carried on successfully without them. Even more than on Ponape and Kosrae, mission progress in the Marshalls was linked to the success of its schools. Under Aea's capable hand, the enrollment of the main school at Ebon doubled and two more were opened on other islands of the atoll in 1861. Marshallese, fascinated by "their letters," eagerly took up the difficult work of learning to read and write their own language, sometimes even singing their lessons. To provide enough new materials to keep up with the students' interest, Doane and his associates had  

page_208

Page 208

to keep the little printing press in operation almost continually, turning out primers and sections of the gospel almost every month. Even so, eager young Marshallese milled around the press during a run, grabbing for the broadsheets as they were cranked out and reading them through before the ink was dry. By the end of that same year, there were no fewer than fifty people who could read portions of the Marshallese Bible and Doane thought that it would not be long "before we shall have all the youthful portion of our atoll readers of the blessed word" (ABCFM Dn-A 2 Oct 1861). Thereafter, the missionaries kept as careful a count of the number of readers as of church members. As the influence of the mission schools grew during the early 1860s, the Ebon chiefs became decidedly cooler toward the pastors and their enterprise. Perhaps, as one mission visitor during these years surmised, the chiefs looked with a "jealous eye" on their subjects' reading skills and fund of new information, fearing that they themselves would suffer a loss of influence in time (Damon, cited in Ward 1967v4:442). In any case, the chiefs took their first steps to discourage the people from attending church services and classes at the very time that mission schools were beginning to boom. Before the chiefs left Ebon en masse in June 1861 to make one of their regular visits to Jaluit, they left word among the people that church activities were not to interfere in any way with the breadfruit harvesting and other work that they had left in the hands of the people. If, on their return, they found that the people had not produced the assigned quota of preserved breadfruit, they warned, they would "make preserved breadfruit of the delinquents" (MH 1862:240). Although the chiefs outwardly maintained their polite and deferential posture toward the missionaries for a while, the chill deepened year by year. With the death of Kaibuke, who, for all his faults, had acted as a check on lesser chiefs to keep opposition within bounds, their hostility became more open. The chiefs soon dropped any pretense of attending religious services or classes and began to terrorize the Christian neophytes among their subjects. One old woman of royal blood"a real live Jezebel"burnt down the houses of some of the converts; other church members were forced to flee for their lives from the retaliation of their own chiefs. Even Kaibuke's nephew, who had shown unfeigned interest in the church and was looked upon as a likely convert of considerable influence, made a sudden break with the missionaries not long after his uncle's death. On a visit to  

page_209

Page 209

Namorik, he drowned his wife with his own hand and had one of his commoners killed; upon his return to Ebon, he gave up attending prayer meetings, declared his intention of having himself tattooed, took a "fallen church woman" as his second wife, and devoted his full energies to gaining all the former chief's power. Snow, who by then had become the overseer of the mission, was almost relieved at the declaration of enmity on the part of the chiefs. Never one to put up in silence with what he took to be sham, especially from the chiefly class, Snow rejoiced that at last "the mask is off and the chiefs can claim no special favors or special considerations on the score of their piety" (ABCFM Sn-Gu 23 May 1864). Despite the clear opposition of the chiefs, the new church grew rapidly during the 1860s. The first Marshalleseten in allwere received into the church in 1863, and by the end of the decade there were more than a hundred communicants. Within a year or two of the admission of the first members on Ebon, Hawaiian teachers were placed on Namorik and Jaluit to begin preaching and to open schools there. Mission work was first extended to the Ratak chain when Mili and Majuro received teachers in 1869; not long after this, new stations were opened on Arno and Maloelap. In all, seven islands had churches by 1875 and membership numbered some two hundred Marshallese. Only the continual warfare that was afflicting the more northerly islands during these years prevented the mission from expanding into those places as well. At every step along the way, native Marshallese teachers, the products of the early mission schools, went as emissaries of the new religion. By 1866, only three years after the first Ebon people had been received into the church, two of them were already working with Hawaiian missionaries on Namorik and Jaluit. One of these, a fearless young man with a strong sense of Christian morality, took it upon himself to deliver a stern reproach to the island chief for leading young girls astray. To avoid the indignity of a public rebuke, the chief actually hid from the teacher. So far had things changed, Snow observed, that a chief could now stand in dread of a mere commonersomething that "can be regarded as little less than a miracle of grace by those who know this people" (ABCFM Sn-Gu 21 Jan 1870). Although the "miracle of grace" did not result in the demise of the chiefly class altogether, as happened in Kosrae, Marshallese commoners who assumed leadership roles in the church at least won acceptance and respect from the  

page_210

Page 210

traditional leaders. The training school that was established on Ebon in 1869, with a curriculum resembling that of an American high school, provided a steady source of Marshallese teachers and pastors, even after it was moved to Kosrae ten years later. Marshallese mission workers came to be relied on more and more; after 1872, with the loss of three Hawaiian missionary families through death and departure, Marshallese staffed the churches on most of the islands. They had become the backbone of their own mission just fifteen years after it was founded. The mission in the Marshalls did not lack critics. Later German visitors especially, reflecting their Kulturkampf's dim view of religion, could carp at the uninformed piety, the incessant hymn-singing and the high church taxes, while ridiculing the mission's supposed achievements as illusory or transitory. But it would have been fairer of these scoffers to note that drowning wives and cutting off ships went out of fashion soon after the establishment of the mission. Ingenuously though it may have been put, there was some truth to one missionary's contention that "children taught to sing 'There is a Happy Land' we do not believe will grow up to become murderers and pirates" (Damon, cited in Ward 1967v4:435). The Regents of King Copra "The missionary is the merchant's pioneer," a Sydney editorial once observed (SG 24 Sep 1829). Nowhere was this more true than in the Marshalls, where, a little more than a year after Pierson and Doane took up residence and declared Ebon to be "safe," the first traders moved onto the island to begin collecting coconut oil. A few whaling captains had for some years past been calling at islands in the group to trade for coconut oil in order to supplement their income from whale oil. Ichabod Handy, the God-fearing whaling master who brought Pierson out to Micronesia in 1855, was the most experienced of these itinerant traders. But Handy and the few others who took up this sideline remained first and foremost whalers, and none of them would have ever dared to live ashore for any length of time. Early in 1859 the trading schooner Pfeil, flying Hawaiian colors but owned by the German firm of Hoffschlaeger and Stapenhorst, put ashore the first two traders ever to live on Ebon. One of them was Adolph Capelle, a twenty-one-year-old fortune-seeker from Hanover, who would become the  

page_211

Page 211

father of the copra industry in Micronesia. The Pfeil made regular visits to Ebon to service the firm's new station and in 1861 landed all the materials necessary to set up a small coconut oil extraction plant, the first in that part of the Pacific. These events, which probably passed unnoticed by everyone except the dismayed local missionaries, did more than mark the first settlement of white traders in the Marshalls: they launched Micronesia into the age of the copra trade, an age that has continued into our own day. For nearly a century, ever since the reawakening of Western interest in the Pacific in the late 1700s, foreign merchants had been continually on the lookout for new products that might have commercial value in the markets of Asia. Sandalwood, seal and otter skins, and turtle shell, early staples of the China trade, soon became so scarce as to be unprofitable. Pearl shell and bêche-de-mer, although still available in some quantity, were subject to sharp price fluctuations and demanded a good supply of native labor, a condition that was not always easy to meet, as the early bêche-de-mer traders were forever finding out. What merchants needed was a commodity that was plentiful and could be prepared for shipment with as little disruption as possible in the work habits of Pacific islanders. They found it in the common coconut, a product that grew in prodigious abundance everywhere in the South Seas. Although Pacific island peoples had for centuries extracted oil from coconut meat for use in cooking and as an unguent, Westerners first came to recognize its commercial value only around 1840 when new techniques were perfected for using it in the manufacture of soap and candles. From mid-century on, the demand for coconut oil increased, as did the prices that it fetched on the European and American markets. Soon, by the 1870s, it would become the mainstay of Pacific commerce and the backbone of the island economy. It was not simply coconut oil that brought the first of the great European firms into the Pacific, however. When J C Godeffroy & Son, the wealthy German trading house operating out of Hamburg, established in 1857 an agency in Samoa that was to be the center of its broad commercial operations in the Pacific, the lucrative copra trade was still more a promise than a fact. For a time Godeffroy's agents were advised to collect any and all of the more conventional tropical producebêche-de-mer, pearl shell, and turtle shellfor sale at Canton or Cochin. Meanwhile, the company's Samoa office, under the energetic and imaginative leadership of  

page_212

Page 212

Theodor Weber, who was to be the trading czar of the South Pacific for the following two decades, experimented in a wide variety of marketable products. On the twenty-five thousand acres of land that Godeffroy & Son had purchased in Samoa, Weber grew coffee, pineapples, and numerous other small cash crops, in addition to the large coconut and cotton plantations that the company had established. Under Weber's direction, Apia soon bloomed into a bustling company town. ''English and American flags fluttered from a few houses," a contemporary wrote, "but at the end of a long quay a string of buildings, dwellings, warehouses, shipyards, in fact, the entire west side of the town belonged to the house of Godeffroy" (cited in F Spoehr 1963:39). The company lost no time in striking out in new directionssouthward into Tonga, Niue, Wallis, and Futuna; westward into New Britain and other parts of Melanesia; and northward into the Gilberts and Marshalls, and finally the Carolines. A fleet of eight large ships serviced the firm's trading network, bringing foreign-made goods to its far-flung depots and carrying off island produce to Samoa and from there to Europe. Other large firms followed Godeffroy's lead into the PacificFred Hennings, who set up headquarters on Fiji; Hernsheim & Co, with several offices in Micronesia; Crawford & Co of Honolulu; and Henderson & MacFarlane of Auckland. By 1870 it was clear to Weber and his rivals that the real future of Pacific trade lay in the coconut palm rather than any of the array of exotic products that their firms were collecting or growing. Weber had revolutionized the young industry two years earlier by demonstrating that well-dried copra could be shipped to European ports without spoilage. This meant that native laborers would be spared the tiresome work of pressing the oil out of the copra with the crude devices they had used for this purpose; not only would the merchants have purer oil, but they had the caked meat as a bonus to sell for animal food or fertilizer. The House of Godeffroy, through the ambitious pioneering efforts of its field representative in Samoa, had installed copra as king throughout the Pacific. The China market, for so long the key to island trade, would hereafter be of only minor importance; large trading vessels steered no longer for Canton, but for Hamburg, London, and Marseilles. As Godeffroy & Son was building its first wharves and warehouses on its newly purchased landholdings in Samoa, Adolph Capelle was beginning pioneering work of his own in the Mar 

page_213

Page 213

shalls. Within a few months of his arrival at Ebon in 1859, the ambitious young German and his colleague were laying plans for the construction of a coconut oil processing plant that would serve the entire atoll and quite possibly some of the other islands to the north. As the first European trader to make his home in the Marshalls, Capelle knew that the untapped commercial value of the whole archipelago was his to develop if he only had the resources and foresight to do so. But first he must win the confidence of the local people and the missionaries. Taking a local girl as his wifenot as a temporary mistress, as traders customarily did, but as a permanent spouseCapelle settled into the island community, developed close friendships with the chiefs, joined the young church, and offered his assistance to the American missionaries, sometimes serving as a lay preacher in prayer meetings. His efforts were appreciated by the missionaries, who had nothing but kind words for him, and by the people of Ebon, who happily sold him their copra. Capelle's employers, Hoffschlaeger and Stapenhorst, suffered some serious financial setbacks during the early 1860s, not the least of which was the loss of the company's schooner Maria as she was attempting to leave Ebon in January 1863. The hundred barrels of coconut oil, representing a market value of about forty-five hundred dollars, that was the annual output of its Ebon station during those early years could not come close to offsetting the company's losses, and so the firm withdrew from the field, leaving Capelle to fend for himself. Capelle was by this time prepared to do just that. He had already found a kindred spirit in Anton DeBrum, a Portuguese from the Azores of about the same age as Capelle, who had left a whaleship and had been living ashore at Ebon since 1864. Like Capelle, DeBrum had married an island woman and was planning to spend the rest of his life in the Marshalls. A simple, trusting man with a generous heart and powerful hands but no claim to any real business skills, DeBrum immediately accepted Capelle's offer of a partnership in the independent trading firm that he was setting upA. Capelle & Company. While DeBrum instructed the Marshallese in new methods of planting coconut palms and began the construction of small sailing craft for interisland service, Capelle kept the company's accounts and managed the business. Their venture showed modest, but steadily increasing profits during the late sixties, even after a rival trading captain, Ben Pease, began to land his own agents  

page_214

Page 214

on a number of islands in the Marshalls from 1867 on. If anything, the growing competition for coconut oilfrom Pease and the other trading captains who were beginning to call as ship traffic increasedonly convinced Capelle of the need to expand his own operations. Up to this time he had been doing business on Ebon and a few nearby islands in the southern Ralik chain; but with sufficient capital, a fleet of seaworthy schooners to make the rounds to other islands, and a dependable buyer to whom he could sell his oil, he might soon have a corner on the trade in the rest of the Marshalls as well. Accordingly, he entered into an agreement with Godeffroy & Son, which was just then eyeing the Marshalls with great interest as the next possible field for its own expansion, to sell the firm whatever copra and oil he collected. The arrangement meant, of course, that Capelle would lose some of the independence that his business had formerly enjoyed, but he would acquire the resources that he needed to deal with the stiffer competition that he now faced in the Marshalls. Capelle was a businessman through and through. His wholehearted dedication to the enterprise he had founded offended many of the Europeans who dealt with him and led to heated disagreements between himself and DeBrum. The latter were more easily patched up in time as the children of the two families intermarried and a clan spirit grew up among them, but the prejudices of some of his peers against him were not as handily dealt with. In the eyes of one of them, an English trader working in the Marshalls, Capelle was "cunning rather than shrewd, and excessively narrow-minded, seeing everything from one point of viewdollars and cents" (Young 8 Jul 1876). His rivals charged Capelle with out-and-out hypocrisy: if he sat in the front pew during Sunday services and took the pulpit on occasion to preach to the Marshallese of the rewards of an industrious and pious life, it was only to keep a respectable image and help his business. "John Caesar Godeffroy & Son are his Deities; they can do no wrong," one of his severest critics charged (Young 8 Jul 1876). Yet his worst detractors had to admit that Capelle was a devoted father and husband who took good care of his familyeven if, as one of them put it, he had "some difficulty in distinguishing between his partner's wife and his own'' (Young 8 Jul 1876). For all the envious barbs he received, Capelle was never petty or vindictive in return; he could sit down with the bitterest of business rivals and personal enemies for a long  

page_215

Page 215

and animated conversation over beer or brandy, as they themselves often attested. In the early seventies, Capelle took on as a third partner Edward J Milne, a free-lance trader who had been skippering his own small schooner around the Marshalls for some years previously. Milne, the son of a Presbyterian minister, possessed a fine, inquisitive mind and had been trained in the Latin and Greek classics before he left his native Scotland as a young man. Smitten by an overpowering wanderlust, he roamed the South Pacific for ten years, living in New Caledonia for a time and barely escaping with his life after his partner was shot by French authorities for supplying guns to the natives, and later spending time at Erromanga, Samoa, and Queensland. In the course of his travels, Milne had picked up a fluency in several Polynesian languages, a thorough knowledge of navigation, and proficiency in bookkeeping and accounting. For a time after he was hired by Capelle in the late sixties, he served as supercargo, and then master of one of the company's ships. But a man of such rare talents was too valuable to be consigned for long to the bridge of a small trading vessel; his proper place was in the business office where company decisions were made and future transactions planned. Unfortunately for both Milne and the company, however, the Scotchman had developed an inordinate fondness for the bottle that seriously hurt his effectiveness. Milne drank almost continuously and when thoroughly intoxicated would lash out fiercely at his employees at the slightest provocation. He was quick tempered and sharp tongued even in his rare sober moments, but while under the influence of alcohol he was impossible to deal with. Capelle was spared the embarrassment of having to turn his partner out by Milne's sudden death in 1877, just four years after he had been taken into joint ownership. Just a year before Milne's death, Charles Ingalls, a young American physician, had been brought from Samoa to Majuro to work as an agent for the company. Ingalls would, in a few years time, become Milne's successor in the partnership of the firm. By 1873 the company had moved its headquarters to Jaluit, an island that was on its way to becoming the center of commerce in the Marshalls. Jaluit offered a better anchorage than Ebon and had become something of the political "capital" of the Raliks, since Kabua, the high chief who assumed power after Kaibuke's  

page_216

Page 216

death, made his home there. When Godeffroy & Son moved into the Marshalls in the same year and established trading stations of its own on five islands, it located its main office at Jaluit. Meanwhile, Capelle continued its program of expansion: by the mid-seventies seven or eight vessels were flying the company ensign, traders were installed on several islands in the southern parts of both chains, and new stations had been set up throughout the Carolines. Anywhere there was a missionary, white or brown, an agent for Capelle was almost invariably to be found. The company's agents bought their coprafor coconut oil was already a thing of the past!from the chiefs in return for foreign-made trade goods. The commoners who did the actual work of cutting and drying the copra before handing it over to their chiefs, in keeping with the traditional tribute system, were rewarded or not with a share of the trade goods as the chiefs saw fit. In this respect, the copra trade in the Marshalls functioned much the same as the whaleship provisioning trade had in Ponape and Kosrae twenty years before, with the chiefs serving as economic brokers. Every three or four months a Capelle vessel would visit the agents to pick up the copra and pay them off, according to either an agreed price per pound or a fixed monthly salary, depending on what arrangement had been made in their contract. The copra was then brought to Jaluit, sold to the Godeffroy representatives there, and stored until it could be shipped via one of the large Godeffroy cargo schooners or steamships to Europe. If, as one visitor to the Marshalls during these years thought, "trade systematically prosecuted  . . . would secure for the Marshall Islanders a prosperous future," then the islands were well on their way along the road to prosperity (Sterndale 1874:22). There could be no doubt that the reign of copra had begun in the Marshalls and, for the time being at least, Capelle & Co were its regents. An Empire Lost James Lyle Young was a young man of twenty-seven when he first arrived in the Marshalls to manage a trading station in 1876. Born in Ireland but brought by his family to Australia at a tender age, Young did what many a restless lad of those days dreamed of doinghe wandered about the Pacific trying his hand at a variety of things: droving sheep and cattle in Victoria, managing a cotton  

page_217

Page 217

plantation in Fiji, and skippering trading cutters around lesser-known islands in the South Pacific. In the course of his early travels Young found the excitement he craved: he lost an eye in an accident on a cattle ranch in Australia and twice came close to losing his life when attacked by hostile mobs in Fiji and Samoa. The harrowing escapades that he so carefully recorded in his diaries did nothing to abate his yearning for new adventures, however, and so he eagerly accepted an offer from Farrell to take over a new trading post in the Marshalls (Langdon 1969). Farrell, an Auckland merchant with three ships to his name and visions of a fortune to be made in the flourishing copra trade, sailed with Young and his other newly recruited agents to oversee the opening of a chain of trading stations in the Marshalls. This archipelago, already well publicized in New Zealand and Australia for its trade potential, was far too rich a field to be left to a Capelle monopoly. Farrell was apparently not the only one to take this view, for Eduard Hernsheim, a German trading captain who had been casting around the Pacific since he was sixteen and had bought his own schooner six years earlier, made his first voyage to the Marshalls at about the same time as Farrell. Putting his carpenter ashore on Jaluit to build his first trading post, Hernsheim immediately sailed north to recruit trading agents to man the network of stations that he planned to set up on the islands. When Young and his employer, Farrell, made a survey of the island group on the brig Vision in June and July 1876, they found their competition well established. Already, in the short time since his initial cruise through the group, Hernsheim had installed agents on Majuro and Mili, and others were expected by the next ship. Capelle & Co, of course, still dominated the field, with traders operating on six islands in the group and a staff of ten or eleven whites employed at its expansive headquarters on Jaluit. Capelle had purchased the entire island of Kili the year before for three hundred dollars and had planted it in coconuts, but the island was soon afterward abandoned for lack of a good anchorage. The company had suffered a serious blow the previous year when two of its vessels were grounded in a typhoon and damaged beyond repair, but Capelle quickly replaced them and his merchant fleet was soon back at full strength. Many of the firm's vessels were purchased from Godeffroy & Son in Samoa, already failing due to a crash in the European stock market in 1873 and now compelled to cut back sharply on its overseas operations. Capelle & Co, which  

page_218

Page 218

was neither troubled by investments in a shaky European market nor plagued by serious trading competition in the Marshalls up to that time, was still showing a handsome profit on its balance sheet. Captain Pease's trading venture in the Marshalls had come to a quick end in the early seventies and Bully Hayes' activities had terminated just as abruptly a few years later; until the arrival of Hernsheim and Farrell, it was beginning to appear as though Capelle would once again have the entire Marshalls trade to himself. Lesser infractions against Capelle's commercial rule were easily handled in other ways. When the captain of the missionary vessel Morning Star injudiciously engaged in some clandestine trading during a voyage to the Marshalls in 1873, Capelle responded by discontinuing his monthly donations to the mission and threatening to stop transporting missionaries and their goods free of charge on his vessels. After the offending skipper was fired, contributions were resumed and free passage was again guaranteed mission personnel (ABCFM Sn-Ck 24 Sep 1873). Of the twenty-five whites in the Marshalls at the time of Young's arrival, all were traders except for Snow and Whitney, the two American missionaries on Ebon. The traders were a mixed lot, polyglot and of widely differing backgrounds, who resisted any easy classification. If they shared any common trait besides their occupation, it was probably that, for one reason or another, they had, in Young's own words (11 Oct 1875), "become victims of the 'South Sea' or 'Pacific' feverthat peculiar fascination which island life has for so many men." They included George Hazard, a Nantucket-born former whaling captain, who had come to the Marshalls in the early sixties and had traded on several islands for a time before taking a post at Namorik for Farrell. Then there was Giles Williams, an Englishman serving as Capelle's agent on Mili, who had once worked for Bully Hayes and for Captain Daly of the Gilberts even before thata man dismissed by Young (13 Jun 1876) as having "more muscle than brains,  . . . the sort of man that one never knows whether he is a rogue or fool or both." On Arno lived Basilio Terranova, a shrewd Sicilian who went by the name of George Brown. For ten years he had remained on that island, trading for a succession of employers, some of them men of very dubious reputation, without ever allowing any of them to fleece him. Brown's competitor on Arno was Charles Douglas, an Englishman now trading for Capelle, who had long before deserted from a ship-of-war in Australia and spent some years with a  

page_219

Page 219

band of bushrangers before making his way up to Micronesia. Working for Capelle on Majuro was Henry Burlingham, a seasoned veteran of the copra trade in the Marshalls, who once intervened with the people of his island to save the life of the Hawaiian missionary stationed there. The only business acumen demanded of a prospective trading agent was the most elementary understanding of the basic principle: buy cheap and sell dear. No embarrassing questions were raised regarding the agent's background or his reasons for coming to the Pacific. Managers of the trading companies were hardheaded, pragmatic individuals who wanted to know only if their employees could go about their business without causing any serious trouble. Godeffroy's field representative in Samoa was said to have asked his prospective employees just three questions"Can you speak the language? Can you live among the natives without quarreling with them? Can you keep your mouth shut concerning the company's business?" (Sterndale 1874:2). He recommended to each new employee that he have a woman of his own to avoid the conflict that would surely ensue if a trader were found taking advantage of someone else's wife or daughter. Most other firms followed Godeffroy's lead in this respect. If a man wanted to spend a few years, or a lifetime for that matter, on some forsaken little speck of land"bury himself in a living tomb, as it were" (Young 11 Oct 1875)the fewer questions asked the better. As long as he could collect enough copra to show a decent return on the trade goods that the firm had left with him, his employers were satisfied. As the Vision made its tour of the Marshalls, Farrell landed his own agents at Majuro, Arno, Jaluit, and Namorik. Small plots of land were purchased and enough timber was put ashore for the construction of a small house for the trader and a store-shed for his copra. When the trade goods were finally landed, the new agent bade his farewells and went ashore to live as best he might in uncertain peace with the two or three rival agents already established on his island. His safety at the hands of the local people was no longer a real concern; it had been long years since the last attack on whites in the southern Marshalls and the native population of these islands showed obvious signs of mission influence. The women everywhere except Majuroan island that Young judged to be unusually backward in adopting changes of dress and customswore dresses and jumpers, generally "dull in color and serviceable rather than of gaudy hue" (Young 13 Jun 1876); a good  

page_220

Page 220

number of the men had shed their traditional grass kilts for trousers in imitation of their high chiefs. The mission property on these islands was tidy and clean, and the pastors cut an impressive figure in their black coats and hats. The Marshallese people, literate for the most part and extremely polite and deferential to foreigners, no longer posed nearly as great a threat to new traders as did their fellow whites living ashorethe only white man killed in recent years had been shot by a rival trader in an argument over a girl. Young's own final destination was Ebon, an island that remained a stronghold of Capelle interests even after the firm had moved its headquarters to Jaluit. Here Young and another Farrell agent, Frank Sherlock, disembarked in late July with four thousand dollars worth of goods to begin trade operations. Almost immediately they began to feel the strength of Capelle's influence on the islandKabua, the high chief who had promised to lease them the land for their station, told Young a few days later that he would have to withdraw his offer; he was already heavily in debt to Capelle and was worried that the company would press its claim if he leased his land to its rivals. Young found another piece of land for the station, but within a few weeks he was beginning to hear annoying and persistent rumors concerning Farrell's unfair business practices. To put a stop to these calumnious stories once and for all, he decided to confront Capelle himself, who had just arrived at Ebon on a company schooner and who, he felt, must have been personally responsible for them. Their meeting began in the chilliest fashion. Capelle refused to shake Young's hand and asked him to state his business so he could be on his way. When Young mentioned his complaint, Capelle grudgingly invited him into his house and the two traders sat down to a serious discussion on business differences. By the end of the afternoon, the relationship between the two rivals had warmed considerably as they sat sipping German beer and swapping stories; before they parted company, Capelle cordially asked whether he could do anything for Young on his next trip to Samoa. The malicious reports, Young learned, originated with Milne, who had written Capelle from Arno after Farrell's Vision had put in there for a few days. Capelle admitted that he did not believe everything Milne reported and apologized for his part in circulating the outrageous tales. Young had grown to like Capelle in the course of the afternoon and wanted to believe what the German told him, but he was convinced that Charles Ingalls, who had signed on as an agent for Farrell at  

page_221

Page 221

Jaluit, was a spy sent by Capelle to find out all he could of Farrell's commercial plans in the area. Was Capelle a hypocrite at bottom, as some people charged, or could he be trusted? Young left still unsure (Young 21 Aug 1876). But Young had little time to brood over these puzzling inconsistencies. One night, less than two weeks after his troubling conversation with Capelle, he was awakened by a fearful racket outside his house. A large mob of Marshallese were running around the beach whooping loudly and firing muskets, evidently in an effort to work themselves up to fighting pitch. For some time now the island had been tense in anticipation of a showdown between two high chiefs, Loiak and Kabua, both claimants to the paramount chieftainship in the southern Raliks, a title that had been in dispute since the death of Kaibuke twelve years earlier. Loiak, who had lived on Ebon for years and had come to think of the island as his own, returned from a trip north some weeks before to find that Kabua had come and settled on another islet in the lagoon during his absence and was now announcing his intention of remaining permanently on Ebon. To add insult to injury, he had cut down the largest breadfruit treestrees that Loiak regarded as his own!to enlarge his fleet of sailing canoes. This was more than Loiak could bear. Although never known for his bravery and now totally blind and enfeebled by age, Loiak was rallying his followers for an attack on his enemy. By sunrise, the hundreds of men, women, and children who made up his enormous party were on their way across the lagoon to meet Kabua and his men in battle. The two forces never met. At the sight of Loiak's approaching fleet, Kabua made a hurried visit to Snow telling him that he was "unwilling to cause the earth to be bloody through him" and left with his followers for Jaluit (Young 5 Sep 1876). Elated as much by not having to fight as by his hollow triumph, Loiak promptly occupied Kabua's house and ordered his followers to cut more spears in preparation for Kabua's anticipated return at the head of a war party. There had been no out-and-out warfare on Ebon since the arrival of the missionaries twenty years before, even though feelings over the disputed chieftainship ran high for much of this time. By Marshallese custom, Loiak, the elder of the two nephews of Kaibuke, should have succeeded his uncle, but he was adroitly outmaneuvered when Kabua, in a move similar to that of Kaibuke years before, married the chief's widow. This made Kabua the stepfa 

page_222

Page 222

ther and guardian of his older cousin, Loiak, and put him in an excellent position to solicit support for the chieftainship that he coveted. Kabua, like Kaibuke, had been a famous warrior in his early years: after drifting five hundred miles westward to Pingelap, he and his men defeated the natives who set on them with the intention of killing them, and he was said to have taken the Sea Nymph at Jaluit in 1852, killing the captain with his own hand. For all his exploits, however, his land-holdings were relatively meager and his hereditary claim to the title was weaker than Loiak's. To bolster his position, therefore, Kabua turned to foreigners for support. He became a close friend of Snow's, visiting him often whenever he was on Ebon, and so successfully ingratiated himself with Capelle through his assistance to the firm that the German businessman was prepared to go so far as to transport Kabua and his war party to Ebon in one of the company's ships for the final assault on Loiak. Loiak, meanwhile, had no alternative but to follow Kabua's lead and, very much against his own feelings, patronize the foreign community in the Marshalls, which was growing in size and influence with each passing year. If Loiak lacked much of the charm and polish of his rival, he at least bested Kabua in the outward show of progressiveness that he affected and soon won a reputation as something of a dandy. A German living on Ebon at the time wrote of Loiak: "He lives in a large spacious house surrounded by cannons. He dines on a set table, drinks coffee and tea, and dresses in coat, breeches and a hat" (Kubary 1873a:38). But, for all his display of liberalness, Loiak had to draw the line somewherehe adamantly refused to become a Christian. Over the next several months Ebon was alive with rumors of the imminent return of Kabua and his warriors. Loiak's party responded by staging animated war rallies, holding military drills, and continuing to lay in weapons for the expected invasion. Gradually, however, as such displays became a normal feature of life on the island and Marshallese interest in them waned considerably, Young and the other Europeans living on Ebon came to realize what the Marshallese in both camps had known all alongthat the issue would never be settled by a decisive battle, but would linger on unresolved until circumstances gradually decided in favor of one or the other of the contending parties. Young could now turn his full attention back to his business. Capelle, who was beginning to face serious competition on Ebon for the first time, was determined to retain his trading advantage  

page_223

Page 223

at all costs, even if this meant waging a price war with his competitors. At the time of Young's arrival, the islanders were paid 1 cent a pound for their copra, with a commission of two dollars per thousand pounds going to the chiefs. When Young set his own prices at the same rate, Capelle authorized raising the buying price to 1¼ cents a pound and the commission to three dollars. No sooner had Young followed suit than Capelle agents began paying 1¾ cents a pound. By December both firms were paying 2 cents a pound, and in March Capelle's price had been raised to 2½ cents, where it remained for the next few years. When agents' salaries were added on to the buying price, the firms were paying over 3 cents a pound for their copraand this at a time when the London market price, although still rising slightly, was on the verge of beginning its long, slow decline from its high of £22 (about $110) a ton (Firth 1977:8). The intense trading competition on Ebon, as everywhere else, had the added effect of putting pressure on companies to compromise the strict policies that most had at first adopted forbidding the sale of firearms and alcohol to islanders. As early as August 1876hardly a month after Young's arrivalSnow found reason to complain that the "supposed Christian traders" on Ebon were responding to the new business competition by selling liquor to the people (ABCFM Sn-Ck 18 Aug 1876). Young himself reported that as he was about to leave the island temporarily to serve as supercargo on one of Farrell's ships on its collection rounds, he was pressed by the chiefs with whom he traded to bring back seventy muskets for them. Implicitly, they would take their copra elsewhere if Young did not comply with their request. Ebon was fast becoming a seller's market. Despite the strong competition, Young did fairly well at the end of his first six months on Ebonwell enough to request and receive a raise in salary to ninety dollars a month. By January 1877 he had been able to collect 45,000 pounds of copra, no match for the 140,000 pounds collected by the Capelle agents during this period, but a good showing for someone just learning the business and trying to crack a trade monopoly besides. In all, Farrell's ship collected over 200,000 pounds from the five islands at which traders had been stationed a half year before. The following six monthsfrom January to July 1877were even more successful ones for Young. By the arrival of the next Farrell vessel, he had stored up 94,000 poundsthe agents for Capelle, meanwhile, had only col 

page_224

Page 224

lected 53,000 pounds and those of Hernsheim 15,000 pounds. Young had every reason to be pleased with his success; in less than a year he had succeeded in taking over the lion's share of the trade on an island that had, until then, been a Capelle preserve. The Ebon chiefs, too, had good reason to be pleased, for they had made out very well in their transactions with the trading companies. With the income from the copra that their commoners had obligingly made at their behest, and on top of this their commission from the traders, they dressed their wives in silk, bought them sewing machines, and outfitted themselves in waistcoats and vests (Firth 1977:6). Loiak even arranged to buy an old schooner (the Fortune of Auckland, which had served as one of Farrell's transports) for $1000 and 150,000 pounds of copra, although the vessel was later repossessed when the chief defaulted on his payments. One measure of the growing prosperity enjoyed by the Marshallese chiefs is that within ten years five or six of them owned their own small schooners or brigs, paid for with cash or copra in advance; some of these were sailed for them by foreign captains who were put on regular salaries. By the time Young had been on Ebon for more than a year, he was getting restless once again and wanted to leave soon for a ''more civilized community," as he put it (19 Dec 1877), but was compelled to wait until his employer returned and accounts were settled. He waited all summer. By the end of September, with the ship long overdue, Young had run out of provisions and was living on not much more than the bread he made out of his small supply of mouldy flour. Soon he became ill with dysentery and was confined to his bed. Finally, on 9 November the longawaited ship arrived. Farrell was not aboard, but a representative from the company's creditors came ashore and greeted Young with the news that Farrell had gone bankrupt and his business dealings in the islands were to be closed out, with all the company's holdings signed over to his creditors. Young, who had no intention of remaining on Ebon anyway, thought that he might just as well make the best of a bad situation and promptly left for Jaluit to see about future job prospects with his former rivals, Capelle and Hernsheim. Within two days of his arrival at Jaluit, Young had another job. Impressed by his business sense and honesty, Capelle had taken a liking to Young from the beginning and hired him on without hesitation as his business manager in the western Carolines. By Febru 

page_225

Page 225

ary 1878, Young was at sea in the Lotus, bound for Yap on the first assignment in his two-year contract with Capelle, happy in the anticipation of seeing new islands and finding new adventures. The commercial picture in the Marshalls had changed greatly in the twenty months since Young's arrival in mid1876. The power of the Capelle & Co trading empire over the area had been broken once and for all by the incursions of large, well-financed rival firms into the area. Farrell's enterprise had folded for lack of capital, but a newly formed company by the name of Henderson & MacFarlane was even now acquiring at a public auction in Auckland the land and buildings that once belonged to Farrell; within the year the company's representatives would be in the Marshalls to claim their property and resurrect a new and much more successful agency from the ashes of the old. Hernsheim's firm had taken solid root in the Marshalls in the two years that it had been there: the company already had stations on six islands in that group besides its extensive operations in the Carolines. Within a few months, Eduard Hernsheim's brother, Franz, would arrive in Jaluit to manage the company's growing interests in the area. Under his hand, Hernsheim & Co was destined to dominate the copra industry until the German annexation of the Marshalls in 1885. Godeffroy & Son, now in its fiscal death throes, would soon turn over its interests to another giant German firm that was to be a powerful commercial force in the Pacific for years afterward: Deutsche Handels- und Plantagen-Gesellschaft der Südsee Inseln zu Hamburg. DHPGor "the longhandled firm," as it was irreverently calledwould enter Micronesia in the early eighties and rule the copra market jointly with Hernsheim & Co thereafter. Capelle, surely nobody's fool when it came to business matters, saw the handwriting on the wall. Competition for copra in the open market was difficult enough now, but was bound to become even worse in the years ahead. He could diversify his business interests and go into shipbuilding and the import trade, as he had already done, but if he intended to remain in the copra trade as well, he would have to have his own plantation as a fallback. A company plantation would enable him to control the buying price of copra and ensure a steady supply, regardless of the competition elsewhere in the islands. In August 1877, then, his partner, Anton DeBrum, purchased the entire Likiep atoll, an island in the northern Rataks, from its high chief for "merchandise consisting of cloth, hardware, cannon, muskets, ammunition, tobacco, etc. etc.  

page_226

Page 226

to the value of twelve hundred and fifty dollars" (Mason 1946: 147). The following June, DeBrum transferred the deed to Capelle & Co in return for $886.73. Subsequently an agreement was signed with the residents of Likiep allowing them to remain on the island if they agreed to work for Capelle at the fixed rate of two dollars a month. Capelle had his copra plantation at last. But Capelle had more than a plantation in his new purchase. Likiep was to be the base from which Capelle & Co would conduct its future commercial ventures throughout the area. However strong trade competition might become, Capelle and his partners would be guaranteed a significant role in the economic future of the Marshalls. Hernsheim and other firms might have won the battle for the copra trade, but Capelle & Co would prove to be a far more durable commercial influence in the islands.  

page_227

Page 227

Chapter 9 The Emergence of a New Order A New Enemy at the Gate Ponape was just on the threshold of the new commercial era in 1868. "Traders are coming in upon us, flooding the island with foreign goods," Albert Sturges, the veteran missionary of sixteen years on the island, complained in a letter to the mission board (ABCFM St-Ck 6 May 1868). Ponape, like Kosrae, had survived the inundation of white beachcombers and the onslaught of the whaling boom; now it faced the menace of the trading companies. Sturges was worried. Over the years he and his fellow missionaries had built up a solid faction of church members and unbaptized but sympathetic followers that numbered over half the population of the island. After a long struggle, chiefly opposition to the new religion had at last, in the year or two before, been all but stamped out. Now, just as the missionaries were preparing to consolidate their forces, a new enemy was at the gate. "It is sad, though very natural, for our natives to rush into the hands of these traders for property," Sturges wrote. "They want trade and are so tempted to throw aside their books and even as much of their religion as they dare that they might get rich" (ABCFM St-Ck 6 May 1868). Even as Sturges was writing, Captain Benjamin Pease, already a shadowy figure in the Pacific, was setting up the headquarters of his newly formed Pacific Trading Company next door to the mission station in Rohnkiti. Pease, a deserter from a whaleship in the early fifties who sometimes passed himself off as a former naval lieutenant, had sailed about the Pacific for a time on one vessel after another before finally making his way up to the Bonin Islands where he married a European woman and decided to strike out on his own business venture. With the financial backing of a Honolulu  

page_228

Page 228

company, he acquired three trading vesselsthe schooner Malolo and the brigs Blossom and Water Lilyand made for eastern Micronesia to begin trading for whatever he could find. Like many another ambitious trading captain of the day, Pease was more than ready to make his fortune where and as he couldalthough he was prepared to push the limits further than most others dared. Three short visits to Ponape in 1866 and 1867 had convinced him that the island would serve as an excellent base for his trading operations. When he returned to Ponape on the Blossom in early 1868, he had already laid the groundwork for his company. Underwritten by Glover and Dow Co of Shanghai, Pease had purchased Cheyne's old land holdings in Kiti. There, with labor furnished by the Chinese coolies whom he was bringing from Shanghai, Pease would establish a cotton plantation and a lumbering business, while collecting bêche-de-mer and coconut oil as opportunity afforded. Registered land deeds counted for very little on Ponape in that day. Pease understood this quite clearly, but he also knew that the way to the present nahnken's heart was through the bottle, and he was only too happy to exploit this weakness to win the man's favor. The nahnken of Kiti, the same "dram drinking chief" (Truxtun 1870) who had burned down the Rohnkiti church in a drunken fit in 1865 and had caused so much trouble for Sturges and his converts, was easily persuaded to sell Pease the rights to a part of Cheyne's former landholdings (Restieaux nd). The fact that his predecessor, the patron of the early Kiti mission, had turned over a good part of this land to the missionaries long after Cheyne left Ponape did not at all trouble the nahnken; by local custom he was entirely free to redispose of lands that chiefs before him had given out, even though the previous nahnken's land gift had never been formally revoked. He saw no reason why at least a portion of that land couldn't be turned over to his obliging new friend for his business schemes. Soon Pease had a work gang of Ponapeans employed in felling trees on his property, and chartered vessels were making regular calls at the island to carry the timber to China for sale. The captain himself, meanwhile, put to sea in the Water Lily to look after the string of trading stations that he had opened on many of the islands to the east in the two years past. His other two vessels, now under the command of employees, were dispatched to pick up oil and reprovision traders, while the business establishment on Pona 

page_229

Page 229

pe was put in the hands of one Captain Coe. Coe was a gruff and inept man whose single incongruous ambition was to be appointed US Consul on Ponape, even though, as one of Pease's men plainly put it, he did "nothing but Drink and Whore" (Restieaux nd). He had given most of his time to these occupations, while his hired woodcutters slept, prior to the arrival of the first timber ship from China; as a result, the crew hastily cut down whatever they could to furnish a cargo while the ship lay in harbor. Coe and his men filled the ship at last, but the wood was so badly cut that it was rejected as lumber and had to be sold as firewood, the proceeds of the sale not even proving sufficient to cover freight costs. A few months after this, Coe drove out the one competent person in the entire motley group of employees on Ponape after he sexually assaulted the wife of the newly appointed manager of Pease's lumbering operation, forcing them both to leave the island. When, two years later, Coe died after accidentally shooting himself during a drinking spree, he was buried unmourned. As Pease's operations expanded, his company's construction continued apace. In early 1869, a building that was to be a residence for the Chinese laborers was put up just a few feet away from the mission school. Sturges was aghast. When he protested that his students would be distracted by the Chinese, Coe sharply replied that the matter was decided and he would brook no opposition; he was even ready to arm the coolies if it came to that. Pease, although more polite when Sturges saw him about the matter a few weeks later, was just as adamant. Seeing that he could achieve nothing by direct appeal to the traders, Sturges felt that he had no recourse but to close his school, move out of his Rohnkiti residence and leave his converts "very much in the power of enemies" (ABCFM St-Ck 8 Oct 1869). Pease, in the meantime, was busy making a bad name for himself throughout the area. A contemporary who knew him well admitted, in what was surely a gross understatement, that Pease "was not an honest man" (Restieaux nd)a fact that scores of people were fast learning from firsthand experience. A slightly built and wiry man, not at all prepossessing in appearance, Pease relied on cunning and inexhaustible energy rather than brawn to get what he wanted. Although he was by all accounts a physical coward, trembling and going pale one time when an employee leveled a pistol at him to counter a threat of his, he was harsh, even cruel, in his treatment of his crew. He used flogging as a routine punish 

page_230

Page 230

ment for breaches of discipline on his ships; when a seaman on his vessel once frightened off a group of islanders who had come aboard to trade by telling them that they were to be sold to cannibals, he had the man thrown into a turkey coop and fed on bread and water for several days before finally marooning him on a small atoll. He could be thoroughly unreasonable in his demands on employees, especially the captains of his vessels, and this probably accounts for his running through five different masters on the Malolo in a single year (Bridges 1868 1870). Yet Pease habitually neglected to fulfill his own obligations to the captains and crew of his vessels, often failing to meet them for a scheduled rendezvous and leaving them to reprovision with island produce as best they could. Wherever Pease went, he stirred up a blizzard of official complaints in US consular offices. Edward Milne, Capelle's agent and supercargo at the time, charged that Pease "has swindled almost every man in his employment" (DeBrum: Mi-HMC Dec 1869), besides robbing the trading stations of just about every firm operating in the area. George Hazard, Pease's mate on the Blossom a year or two before, accused his former employer of ransacking his station on Mili and carrying off fifteen hundred dollars worth of livestock and property. Another of Pease's officers, a former mate on the Water Lily, reported that after he had objected to the captain's "murdering and robbing," Pease left him ashore without food or wages to find his own way back to Shanghai. At Namorik, Pease took over one of Capelle's trade stations, taking aboard his brig anything that he could steal and leaving his own man in charge of the station; at Tarawa and Mili he made off with oil belonging to Captain Eury; and at Arno he robbed another of Capelle's stations of oil and trade goods. Dozens of his former employees filed claims, totalling thousands of dollars, for back wages of which they had been defrauded. But the most serious charge against Pease had to do with his savage retaliation against the people of Aur for mistreating two of his agents. Returning to that island on the Water Lily with her nine guns and a heavily armed crew of forty men, he ran down the native canoes that came out to meet him and shot at the men swimming frantically for shore, killing several and taking a half dozen more as prisoners. Upon landing, he and his men burned the village to the ground and cut down several trees. The entire incident, although not  

page_231

Page 231

entirely unprovoked, had the flavor of sixteenth-century Spanish retributive severity. Already by the summer of 1868, C A Williams, the Honolulu merchant who was underwriting Pease's first trading voyages, had heard enough about Pease's doings to make him decide to withdraw his support. In an apologetic letter to the mission board officials, he wrote that he was "convinced that the course of conduct pursued by the captain in the Group is immoral, improper, and injurious to the cause of the missions (ABCFM Wm-Gu 3 Jul 1868). Williams' convictions in this matter were supported by a good deal more than hearsay; Pease had already registered one of the vessels belonging to Williams in his own name and had drawn on the merchant's account for the purchase of another, while keeping the proceeds of his trading operations for himself. Before long, Williams entered a suit against Pease for $25,000 in damages. Glover and Dow Co, the Shanghai firm that furnished the backing for Pease's subsequent voyages and for the formation of the Pacific Trading Company, fared even worse than Williams. The firm's involvement with Pease eventually cost it $40,000 in irrecoverable losses and led to its bankruptcy a few years later. Virtually everyone in the northern Pacific, native or foreigner, had filed a complaint against Peaseor so it must have seemed to the harried US consuls and their clerks. Very few people indeed could be found to challenge one naval commander's assertion that "Pease without exception is the greatest rogue in Micronesia" (Truxtun 1870). In the face of the massive evidence against him and the mounting protests from mission authorities in Hawaii, American government officials finally dispatched the naval cruiser Jamestown to investigate the charges against Pease. In June 1870, after calling at several other islands to the east, Commander Truxtun brought the Jamestown into the seldom-used northern harbor of Ponape that was later given the name of his warship. Truxtun did not find Peasehe had left the island six months earlier and had not been seen sincebut he did find the shambles of the trader's commercial operations. The Malolo, un-provisioned and badly in need of repair, lay at anchor while its master awaited orders from Pease; sixteen unpaid Chinese laborers whose contracts had expired half a year before lingered on, squalid and destitute, hoping for repatriation; and large piles of timber, paid for in advance by Shanghai buyers, lay rotting on the shore.  

page_232

Page 232

With Pease's business affairs at Ponape in ruins, there was nothing to make Truxtun believe that the unscrupulous trader would ever return to the island. Seeing no point in waiting for the fugitive, therefore, the naval commander supplied Pease's station with sorely needed provisions, arranged for the transportation of the Chinese coolies back to their own country, and collected further testimony against Pease from some of his stranded employees while preparing the Jamestown for its return voyage. Before he left Ponape, however, there was one last matter that Truxtun had to settlethe dispute that had arisen over the nahnken's sale of land claimed by the mission to Pease. Truxtun, who was greatly impressed by the work that the missionaries were doing on Ponape, quickly concluded that they, like so many others, had been wronged by Pease. He ordered the buildings that Sturges had found so offensive torn down immediately and turned his attention to the complaints of the mission against the nahnken of Kiti. The nahnken, summoned along with the nahnmwarki to the ship, was called to account for all the damages that he had inflicted on the American missionaries. As restitution for burning down the church five years before, he was ordered to build another and was fined fifty dollars for the loss of the bell; he was also reprimanded for selling mission property to Pease and was forced to sign a statement acknowledging the rights of the mission to this land in perpetuity. To ensure the future protection of all American citizens, particularly the missionaries, on the island, Truxtun assembled all the head chiefs aboard the Jamestown and had them sign a treaty with the United States. The treaty guaranteed the safety of shipwrecked persons and other foreigners on the island, granted missionaries "perfect freedom in preaching and teaching their doctrines" without any interference, prohibited the chiefs from using coercion against Ponapean converts, and forbade assistance to deserters from ships. Finally, and most important of all, the agreement provided for the sale of land to foreignersnot until the grantor died or revoked the grant, as according to traditional Ponapean custom, but with a deed furnished so as to secure said purchaser and his heirs  . . . forever in the quiet and peaceable possession of the land" (F Nov 1870:102). This last clause, which made possible the permanent alienation of land, was a radical departure from tradition and a distasteful one for the chiefs gathered aboard the Jamestown; yet they had little choice but to sign the document. Sturges and his associates were overjoyed at the  

page_233

Page 233

effects of the cruiser's visit: the Ponapean chiefs had seen the mission work sanctioned and given the protection of US naval gun-power. Doane's next letter was a paean to his nation for its efforts to show the flag: "All hail to the power that can stretch its arm of iron yet of love and justice across these bays and seas to this lone isle!"(ABCFM Dn-Gu 27 Jun 1870). The Jamestown may not have apprehended Pease, but it apparently did frighten him out of Micronesian waters, for he was not seen in the area for the next several months. When, in February 1871, Pease finally turned up in Guam on a brig that he had stolen from a French trader in the Ellice Islands (Tuvalu) a few months before, he was promptly arrested by the Spanish authorities and sent on to prison in Manila. There he remained for several months until he was transferred by an American ship-of-war to Shanghai, where he was confined in the consular jail for another four months. Upon his release at the end of 1871, Pease made for the Bonin Islands and lived rather quietly, always on the lookout for a grand new business scheme. The opportunity never came, however. In 1874, Pease's bloody and mauled body was found in the bottom of a canoe, suggesting that one of the many enemies he had made during his years of trading in the Pacific had at last caught up with him and settled his score. Blackbirders and Buccaneers Even with Pease gone, the missionaries' troublesand those of their island wardswere far from over. Toward the end of 1871, Honolulu and Sydney newspapers were posting regular warnings about the "man-stealers of the Pacific" (F May 1872:33) cruising about the islands on their search for human cargo, while Pease's one-time partner, Bully Hayes, was claiming succession to Pease's trading stations and his reputation for villainy. The early seventies were troublesome, even desperate years in Micronesia, as in other parts of the Pacific, for they marked the passing of the free-wheeling privateerthe "wild knight errant of the Pacific" (Moss 1889:80)in the face of the rapid extension of European law over the South Seas. Bully Hayes, the Cleveland-born sea captain who took over Pease's trading network, wasted neither time nor money in setting up business in Micronesia. He put the first of his agents ashore, on Pingelap, in August 1871 with a paltry assortment of miserable  

page_234

Page 234

trade goods: ''1 Box Tobacco 20 lbs., 6 Pieces Cloth Rubbish & 6 little Boxes made by Chinese carpenters out of Packing Case with Ten hinges, Paltry locks & Painted Rd" (Restieaux nd). Alfred Restieaux, Hayes' new agent, managed to extract from his tight-fisted employer twenty pounds of rice as personal provisions for his nine-month contract on the islandto which was added the altogether unnecessary advice that he live for the most part on native food. Before making sail, Hayes took the unusual step of negotiating a treaty with the island chief to close Pingelap to missionaries for the next ten years. Restieaux, no friend of missionaries himself, pointed out to the puzzled chief the evils that would befall his people if missionaries were to comesmoking and dancing would be forbidden; no man would be allowed to keep more than a single wife; the people would have to make oil for the support of the mission; and the chief would lose much of his authority to the white men. The argument must have been suasive, for when the Morning Star put in a few days later and Sturges tried to land a Ponapean teacher, the chief informed him that he wanted no missionaries on Pingelap. Sturges left with the native teacher, convinced that "an evil influence was at work here" (Restieaux nd), but determined that he would have the island yet. Hayes' next stop was at Kosrae, where he duped a gullible Frenchman by the name of Lechat into entering into a partnership with him and hiring three men to collect coconut oil and bêche-de-mer for their agency on the island (Wawn 1870 1874:43 44). Their partnership was a brief one; it lasted only until Hayes could get away with Lechat's small schooner, which he soon rechristened the Neva, and the two thousand dollars he had been given to finance the establishment of six trading stations. The three agents were easily disposed of when Hayes, who had a way of getting what he wanted from island chiefs, wrote to the king two months later demanding that they be expelled from the island. Hayes had already taken possession of Pease's brig, known first as the Water Lily and then as the Pioneer before Hayes renamed it the Leonora, during the final cautious months of Pease's trading exploits in Micronesia when the two men worked together for a short time. After Pease's arrest in Guam, Hayes brought the vesselwith copper plates removed and sails deliberately shornto its owners in Shanghai, presenting this sad spectacle and a whole sheaf of unpaid bills to the nearly bankrupt company. Happy to have such an apparent liability off their hands, the owners sold Hayes the  

page_235

Page 235

brig for a nominal sum, a small part of which was paid in cash. The captain thereupon arranged with the company to represent them in closing out Pease's trading stations; this he dutifully did, but sold the oil he had collected at Samoa rather than Shanghai, pocketing the receipts himself and demanding an extra freight charge of twenty-five hundred dollars from Godeffroy & Son, his buyers. From Kosrae, Hayes sailed to Mili, remaining there just long enough to rob an agent for a rival company of all his oil. When Hayes caught the desperate trader hauling away what he could to the chief's house under cover of darkness, Hayes seized the chief and threatened to flog him if he did not hand over all of the trader's goods. When he had everything aboard the Leonora, he abducted the chief's nubile young daughter and was off to other islands in the Marshalls to set up more stations (Lowther in L Moore 1872). Within just three months of his arrival in the north Pacific, William Henry Hayes was close to eclipsing the notoriety of his infamous predecessor, Ben Pease. Bully Hayes was everything that Pease was not. Tall and powerfully built, with curly reddish hair and a full beard, Hayes looked the part of the swaggering buccaneer. His size and physical strength, which he was quick to take advantage of in his frequent fits of temper, intimidated those who knew him. But the man could be enormously charming and urbane, too; his gentlemanly, almost courtly, manners and his hearty laugh disarmed those who met him for the first time. "When he wished," one of his friends wrote, "he could be most agreeable, could sing a good song, tell a good story, and was a most amusing companion" (Dana 1935:111). Hayes, then in his mid-forties, first left home at the age of eighteen to go down to the sea, but several years passed before he began sailing the Pacific. For a time he worked out of Australia carrying assorted cargoes to different ports, always leaving a long trail of angry creditors behind him; then he moved into the South Pacific islands where he transported native laborers, swindling port officials and contractors whenever he possibly could. One night in 1870, after an arrest for illegal labor recruiting, he quietly slipped out of Samoa to head north with Pease to Micronesia, his home for most of the remainder of his life. By the early spring of 1872, barely half a year since his trading debut in the eastern Carolines and Marshalls, there were two war 

page_236

Page 236

ships searching for Hayes. The British man-of-war Barrosa narrowly missed him as it worked its way through the Marshalls; the ship left Mili just the day before the wary fugitive brought his Leonora into the lagoon. The American warship Narragansett, however, caught up with Hayes in Samoa. Commander Meade detained Hayes aboard the naval cruiser for three days while he questioned him and his crew, but finally had to release him for lack of evidence, despite his personal conviction that the captain was a "swindler and scoundrel and a dangerous man" (Meade 1872). Soon after his encounter with Hayes, Meade brought the Narragansett to the Marshalls to gather additional evidence against him. Meanwhile, Hayes suffered the indignation of having one of his own favorite tricks used against him. The Neva, placed under the command of E A Pittman and ordered to wait at Mili until Hayes' return, had been at anchor there for six months, with the crew languishing on a diet of breadfruit and fish, when Pittman, his patience at an end, decided to take matters into his own hands. In mid-August he weighed anchor and sailed for Honolulu where he sold the schooner for a thousand dollars, giving a small part of the sum to the Hawaiian mission and keeping the rest as wages due him, immediately afterward leaving for San Francisco to escape the wrath of his erstwhile employer. British and American warships, frequent visitors to even rather remote islands during the early seventies, had much more to do than follow Hayes on a merry chase through the Pacific. For one thing, they had to control abuses in the growing labor trade. For years labor recruitersblackbirders, as they were popularly calledhad been intermittently calling at Pacific islands to find natives to work in the copper mines of Peru, the coffee plantations in Central America, and the cotton and sugar fields of Queensland. However, the labor trade had grown greatly during the late sixties with the establishment of large plantations by Godeffroy & Son and other firms in Samoa and Fiji. The cotton fields of the Pacific, planted during the American Civil War when the Union blockade of the cotton-growing states in the South created a world-wide shortage, required more labor than Fiji and Samoa could supply. Even when the cotton boom was over at the end of the Civil War, much of the land was replanted in sugar and other crops, and the labor needs continued to increase. As long as there was good money to be made in securing and transporting human cargo, there was no dearth of ship captains willing to take up this seamy liveli 

page_237

Page 237

hood. As competition for island laborers became more keen, many recruiters put aside whatever scruples they might have had and began to use more dubious methods of filling their holds, especially when the promises of a princely salary and three adventuresome years were no longer sufficient to induce islanders to sign labor contracts. Before long, a loud public outcry was being raised in America and the British Empire against the whole loathsome trade"They are neither more nor less than slavers, and many of them cold-blooded murderers," a Sydney newspaper blared (SM 25 Nov 1871). Moral indignation ran high; laws such as the famous Kidnapping Act of 1872 were enacted to control labor practices, and the navies were charged with enforcing the new legislation and bringing offenders to justice. Eastern Micronesia had its share of calls from blackbirders during these years. Alfred Restieaux was still trading for Hayes on Pingelap in January 1872 when the brig Daphne hove to and several of her crew came ashore to request that food supplies be brought aboard the brig for purchase. The island chief, who had been cautioned by Restieaux against sending any of his people on board, insisted that all trading be carried on ashore. A few impatient young men, paying no attention to the chief's warning, paddled out to the brig and clambered aboard with their livestock, only to be attacked by the crew. One unfortunate boy was hacked to death with an axe as he tried to fight his way to safety, but the rest, though wounded, jumped overboard in time and swam to shore (Restieaux nd). A month or two earlier, the Auckland labor schooner Midge, after an unsuccessful search for recruits in the Marshalls, carried off four or five natives from Kosrae. Another labor vessel, the Eugene, took on several Marshallese at Ailinglapalap, three of whom managed to escape when the hatch was opened at the next landfall. The master of the Eugene more than compensated for this loss, however, when he persuaded several Gilbertese who had drifted to Jaluit to come aboard on the presumption that they would be taken to their home island (SM 25 Nov 1871). Several labor ships touched at islands in the northern Marshalls at about this time to obtain women who might be sold as mistresses for plantation overseers. The women from the northern islands, reputed to be among the most attractive in the Pacific, brought a handsome pricethey "fetch at the Fiji Islands twenty pounds a head, and are much more profitable to the slavers than the men" (L Moore 1872).  

page_238

Page 238

The most notorious labor ship and one of the most successful to visit Micronesia was the brig Carl of Melbourne, owned by Dr James Patrick Murray (Dunbabin 1935:209 222). Murray had established his reputation for cold and impassive cruelty when, on the previous voyage of the Carl, he spiritedly hummed "Marching Through Georgia" while shooting into the hold of the ship and killing seventy of his Melanesian "black cattle," afterward examining the wounded bodies with a surgeon's eye to decide which would heal quickly and which should be dumped into the sea. The Carl's first voyage through Micronesia brought it, in November 1871, to Pingelap where it achieved nothing other than infecting the island with influenza. Two months later, the ship made a longer and more successful cruise through the area, touching at several islands along the way. Although the Carl secured no one at Kosrae or at Pingelap, which it revisited, it took between ten and fifteen men at Mili in addition to the twenty-five Gilbertese who were already on board. During the brig's call at Ponape, its captain, while in his cups one night, revealed to his drinking companions some of the shabbier tricks of his trade. On approaching an island, the crew would do everything possible to lure men aboard the vessel and have them mingle among the hands. At a signal from an officer, the natives were shoved below and the hatch fastened over them, while a few of the crew fired at the fleeing canoes and others lowered the boats to chase and recover the wounded. Those seriously injured were left to perish, but every attempt was made to kill or capture all the fleeing natives before they reached shore. With no papers to sign and no payments to make to island chiefs, the margin of profit on each head was very good, the captain boasted. Needless to say, the Carl did poor business at Ponape once the word of the captain's tale got out; the dozen or so Ponapean women who were living aboard the brig jumped over the side and the vessel weighed anchor the following day to continue its cruise westward. In the Mortlocks, that relatively untouched island group to the southeast of Truk, the Carl made its largest haul. A trader who was landed there five months later reported that forty-seven men had been taken from the group, twenty of them from the island of Satawan alone. A year later, another labor vessel named the Susanne this one employing less harsh methods of recruitingcarried off another eighty Mortlockese to the plantations of Samoa. By the time of the Morning Star's first visit to the Mortlocks in early  

page_239

Page 239

1874, the memory of those blackbirding calls was still painfully vivid to the inhabitants. After the ominous silence that first greeted the missionaries was broken, one of the chiefs, who had been taken off by the Carl but later returned by the Fiji government, told of his treatment on the plantation"Flog! Flog! Me cry plenty." The island appeared to be virtually in mourning for those taken away and not yet returned: their houses were "enclosed by a rude poling or encircled with a cordto preserve the homes of the departed" (ABCFM Dn-Ck 29 Jan 1874). Everywhere people crowded around the missionaries asking "When come back?" For those fortunate enough to return at all, as many as eight or nine years passed before they saw their home island again. In 1881 several Mortlockese were repatriated on a trade vessel, to the immense joy of their relatives and friends, but the rejoicing was short-lived, for within four months of their return every one of them had died (Westwood 1905:126). Plantation life for the laborers in Fiji and Samoa was difficult, even after government regulation improved conditions to some extent. Godeffroy & Son, which alone employed five hundred native laborers, many of whom were Carolinians and Marshallese, paid a regular salary of two dollars a month to its plantation workers, provided "large, airy and clean" dormitories built of sawn wood, and fed them on wholesome and abundant food. But the plantation overseers were often quick-tempered men who believed in liberal use of the whip; punishment could be swift and harsh, even for slight misdemeanors. The mortality rate among the imported laborersespecially among the Caroline Islanders, James Young observedwas very high, perhaps because of changes in food and climate that taxed the adaptability of their physical system. Relatively few of the Micronesians who were whisked off on labor ships ever returned at the end of their three-year contract to squander their earnings among their friends and regale them with tales of their adventures. By 1873, the worst of the blackbirding scourge in the Carolines and Marshalls was over. The British and American naval squadrons, now casting a long shadow over the northern Pacific, had managed to frighten off the most flagrant law-breakers, even if they could not bring them to punishment. Moreover, the plantations in Samoa and Fiji, which had ceased expanding by this time, were beginning to turn to other islands in the Pacific for a steady supply of labor. Only in the Marshalls, where Jaluit was used as a  

page_240

Page 240

depot for native laborers recruited in the Gilberts to work on the sugar plantations of Hawaii, did the labor trade continue to any appreciable extent. In the late 1870s, some Marshallese were shipped to Hawaii along with the Gilbertese who made up the vast majority of the recruits, but this practice had been discontinued by 1882 when it became apparent that Pacific islanders could not cope with the difficult work of harvesting sugar (Bennett 1976). Soon afterward Hawaiian planters prevailed on their government to allow large-scale immigration of Japanese laborers to replace the less industrious islanders on their plantations. While men-of-war in large numbers patrolled the blackbirders' haunts in the western Pacific, Bully Hayes took discreet leave of the area to set up a legitimate trading run between San Francisco and islands elsewhere in the Pacific. When he returned to Micronesia early in 1874 after an absence of a year and a half, seemingly with the intention of reactivating his old trade stations, he was, to all appearances, a changed man. The ketch that had been entrusted to him by its owners in Samoa for delivery to a Marshallese chief was actually turned over to its purchaser on Arnoan astonishing fact in itself, considering Hayes' past practice. Shortly after this, the missionaries on Ponape, who, during Hayes' absence, had finally landed a native teacher on Pingelap, received a surprising letter from Hayes complimenting them on the marvelous changes that he had seen on the island. "The people have given up smoking and will not even accept tobacco as a present" was the approving comment of the very man who had forbidden the chief to accept missionaries two years earlier (ABCFM St-Ck 5 Jan 1874). Two weeks later, when Sturges met Hayes, the reputed arch-enemy of all that was holy and good, on Ponape, he found him polite, modest, and even rather pious"a far different man from what I expected," Sturges added (ABCFM St-Ck 5 Jan 1874). Before the missionaries had a chance to test the depth of Hayes' apparent conversion, however, the captain was off to Kosrae and the Marshalls to see to his other trading stations. At Kosrae, the first island at which Hayes called, the Leonora was resting at anchor one day in March when a quick gale blew up and threw her on the reef. The brig, pounded by the surf, was soon a total wreck and the Leonora's crew became involuntary exiles on the island. Kosrae had become something of a backwater in eastern Micronesia since the decline of whaling in the 1860s. Its native population had fallen to less than four hundred and there were  

page_241

Page 241

never more than one or two whites living there after the ban against foreigners had been promulgated following the insurrection in 1857. The American missionary Snow had left the island twelve years earlier, putting the church under the care of a native pastor. Traders had generally ignored the island, despite its lush productivity, because its small population, with an ample food supply, could not easily be persuaded to make copra, fish for bêche-de-mer, or cut timber. The king of Kosrae told one visiting European that he had plenty of coconuts, but no men to make oil (Brazier 15 Jun 1872). The trading stations that Capelle and Pease had opened on the island four or five years before came to nothing and were soon abandoned. Only a few months before the ship-wreck of the Leonora, Kosrae had finally been shaken out of its drowsy serenity by the arrival of over a hundred Europeans and Pacific islanders, almost all of them refugees from Ocean Island and Nauru. A serious drought and famine on Ocean Island had forced about fifty of its people to sail to Kosrae in search of food; at about the same time, five Europeans, among them Harry Terry and Harry Skillings, led a large party of Nauruans to Kosrae after they were banished for supporting the losing side of an uprising. These newcomers, augmented by the stranded crew of the Leonora, brought the number of foreigners on Kosrae up to about one-quarter of its total populationa threatening situation that the king would have been just as happy to avoid. Surprisingly enough, under the circumstances, the months passed peacefully as Hayes and his crew waited for a passing ship to take them off the island. To keep his men busy, Hayes had them make oil from coconuts that he contracted to buy from the king. There were none of the murderous orgies, treachery, savage quarrels, or robberies that Louis Becke (the eighteen-year-old supercargo with Hayes who later won celebrity as an author) would invent for the entertainment of his readers. Hayes' only crime during this whole period, if we are to judge from subsequent hearings, was the rape of a nine-year-old Ocean Island girl. The old scoundrel may have been abstemious in the use of alcohol, but he had an insatiable appetite for women; he normally kept a few in his cabin at sea, and there were five in all living at his campsite on Kosrae. Once, when a missionary sadly related to Hayes' wife the report that the captain had fallen into adultery, the shrewd woman, who knew her husband's ways well, corrected him: "He did not fall, he simply walked into sin" (ABCFM Sn-Ck 24 Nov 1875).  

page_242

Page 242

Finally, in the middle of August, five months after the ship-wreck, Hayes decided that the time had come to send for help. For a fee of fifty dollars, two men were recruited to set out in one of the Leonora's salvaged boats to seek assistance in Ponape. The response was greater, in a sense, than Hayes would have wished; hardly a month later three ships arrived at Kosrae within a few days of one anotherthe Capelle & Co schooner Matautu, the missionary packet Morning Star, and the British warship Rosario. Snow, who hurried to Kosrae aboard the Morning Star to look after his flock as soon as he heard the upsetting news that Hayes and his "mob" were on the loose, provided the unfortunate captain with such moral enlightenment as he could, counseling him to "abandon his wicked course of life" (ABCFM Sn-Ck 30 Sep 1874). Just to be on the safe side, however, should his advice go unheeded, he filed a lengthy complaint with the commander of the Rosario and made a formal request that Hayes be taken away to Sydney for trial. The king, whose views were usually at variance with Snow's, concurred with him on this matter at least, for he had always been afraid of the burly trading master. Hayes, suspecting what was afoot and fearing that he would be whisked off to stand before a British justice, conveniently disappeared in a boat one night and lay off the island until the Rosario left Kosrae with Becke and five of his crew aboard. Hayes could have spared himself the trouble, for the British commander had been unable to substantiate any of the charges made against him except for the accusation of rapeand that he had no authority to punish! With the warship gone, Hayes reappeared on Kosraenow "as a praying man!" (ABCFM Sn-Ck 30 Oct 1874). During the weeks that followed, his final weeks on Kosrae, he visited Snow frequently to speak with him for long hours on sin and salvation, always impressing him with his fervent prayers before and after meals. Hayes' departure from Kosrae, however, seems to have ended his religious conversion, for Snow soon received news that the captain "used profane language, scoffed at the idea of being a Christian and had two women procured for him in one night!" (ABCFM Sn-Ck 24 Nov 1875). In the face of this discouraging report, Snow turned to the immediate problems at hand on Kosraepersuading the king to allow the Ocean Islanders and Nauruans, many of whom still remained on the island, to settle down permanently; and convincing the recent immigrants that there were other ways to obtain clothing than by prostituting their women to ships.  

page_243

Page 243

The ubiquitous Bully Hayes next turned up on Guam in February 1875, with his remaining trading profits in hand, to buy the small schooner Arabia to replace the Leonora. The purchase of the schooner left him nearly penniless, but Hayes hoped to replenish his funds by smuggling political prisoners, Spanish and Filipino deportees, off the island for twenty-four dollars a head. Before Hayes could get away from Guam, however, he was arrested by the militia and transported in irons to the Philippines to serve a sentence in the Manila prison. There his gift for putting on a convincing display of piety did not fail him; he merely needed to alter his religious affiliation, which he readily did by receiving baptism into the Catholic Church. Soon he could be seen shuffling barefoot at the head of a procession holding a lit candle aloft, scarcely recognizable to any who knew him in his buccaneering days. Finally, after nine months of penitence, charges against him were dropped and he was granted a release (Clune 1970:138 143). After a brief visit to San Francisco, Hayes was once again at the bridge of his own vessel, this one the Lotus, bound for the Pacific islands. In late March 1877, Hayes and his two-man crew cleared Jaluit and steered west, undoubtedly with the purpose of looking over prospects of once again rebuilding his trade stations. Just two days out of port a violent argument broke out between Hayes and the cook, "Dutch Pete." As Hayes was coming through the companionway with a weapon in his hand, the cook brought a boom crutch down on his head, fracturing his skull and killing him immediately. The sordid career of the man who was sometimes known as a modern-day buccaneer was overand so, too, was the age that spawned him. Reaching across New Frontiers As conditions became more settled on Ponape in 1873, Sturges and Doane could proceed with their work of "reconstruction," as they liked to call it. For years the foreign missionaries had railed at what they felt to be the two radical failings in the traditional Ponapean social system: lack of private ownership and the absence of strong political authority. The Ponapean people in the early 1870s were, in Sturges' opinion, as much "one viscous mass" as they had been at the opening of the mission twenty years before: "Everybody owns and does everything in general, but nothing in particularwives, children, lands, property belong to everybody and  

page_244

Page 244

to nobody'' (ABCFM St-Ck 30 Sep 1873). Given this diffuse responsibility, which the missionaries took to be the equivalent of an absence of responsibility, "there is and can be but little desire to improve." If individual responsibility was ever to be instilled in Ponapeans, then the "socialism" that they practised would eventually have to give way to the notion of private ownership. What better place to begin, Sturges and Doane felt, than with a reform of the collective land tenure system! The recent large migrations of new converts, fleeing from pagan chiefs who threatened to harass them, presented the missionaries with the perfect opportunity to try out their plans. New villages of Christians sprang up on and around mission premises in Kiti and Madolenihmw. Sturges and Doane immediately went to work designing these new "Christian towns" to accommodate their reforms; cross streets were laid out and homesteads assigned so that each family had a separate housethe Christians were not to live, as they formerly did, "in herds, like sheep, all crowding in a single house" (ABCFM St-Ck 7 Oct 1872). Soon, under pressure from the missionaries, a law was made stipulating that each head of a family was to have a single homestead, and no more than one, on the condition that he build a house on it. This would put a piece of land in the hands of each adult male once and for allland that would be his individual responsibility and his alone. But it would also deny him a refuge elsewhere on the island if things went badly in the village; it would "fix the people as to place and property," making difficult, if not impossible, the sort of mass evacuation that Sturges and Doane had seen so frequently in their years on Ponape (ABCFM St-Ck 30 Sep 1873). Circumstances gave the missionaries the occasion to make what they felt were needed changes in the political system. When the wasai of Madolenihmw, a high-ranking chief of that district who had long been a pillar of the Christian community, was on his deathbed in November 1872, the nahnmwarki, a long-time opponent of the Christian party, named as his successor a man well known for his hostility to all converts. The news of his appointment shocked the Christians in Madolenihmw. Without the protection of the wasai, they would be vulnerable to the machinations of the nahnmwarki and their numerous other high-placed enemies; perhaps another serious attempt might even be made to strip them of their titles and land, as had happened five years before. At a  

page_245

Page 245

meeting called by Sturges of all the Christians of the area, they decided to respond to this threat by electing their own "civil head" and pledging their allegiance to him. For days the Christians remained in the vicinity, armed with knives and swords, waiting for the slightest show of violence from their enemies; but the nahnmwarki made no attempt to suppress what was, in effect, a rebellion. Outnumbered and outmaneuvered by the Christians, he was forced to back down and bestow on the man they had elected to be their "civil head" the title of wasai (ABCFM St-Ck 25 Oct 1872). Realizing the hopeless position he was in, the nahnmwarki made no further attempts to impose his authority upon the Christians of his district, preferring instead to let them live under virtual self-rule. This fortuitous turn of events gave Sturges a clear field to begin his political reforms. First he engineered an election of "sheriffs," officers who were to apprehend adulterers, thieves, and other wrongdoerspersons who had all too often gone unpunished beforeand bring them to the wasai for the administration of justice. The sheriffs, who were "as fine a set of men as the island affords" in Sturges' view (ABCFM St-Ck 30 Sep 1873), took their new office seriously and immediately went to see the wasai to find out exactly what their responsibilities were. Their question took the chief by surprise and he came to Sturges to ask just what was expected of them. Sturges himself was momentarily taken aback: "I saw the fix I had put myself in by proposing executioners of laws without laws to execute, or even law-makers" (ABCFM St-Ck 30 Sep 1873). The obvious solution was to create a new law-making body: Sturges had the people of Madolenihmw elect seven representatives, one from each subdistrict, who would henceforth meet regularly with the high chiefs to enact legislation. The Christians of Madolenihmw now had a quasi-republic of their own with an elected president, legislators, and law enforcement officersall of whom, nonetheless, remained bound to the traditional chiefly structure. The wasai, as "head of the republic," was charged with the additional responsibility of serving as presiding judge over the court sessions that were regularly held in each of the seven subdistricts of Madolenihmw. Land disputes, quarrels between families, and controversies of any sort were brought before the court for settlement. Criminal cases were also handled and guilty parties sentenced to various kinds of punishment, the most severe of which  

page_246

Page 246

was to be "tied up"bound with ropes to a tree for as long as several weeks at a time. Sturges gives us this view of the court in session: His "Honor," on taking his seat, invited all to make known any grievances they had. A high district chief complained that the people of one of his places refused to pay their taxesthat is, would not store food for him. The offenders were brought in, and after a little investigation, the chief's treatment of them was set right and they agreed to return to duty . . .. Another hard case was that of a young man for "selling girls" to ships. He was pretty thoroughly frightened as he expected to be "tied up"the penalty to our new law. As he seemed penitent and his was the first case  . . . he was let off with a severe reprimand. Quite a variety of cases came up, and all settled, quite to the satisfaction of the people, who promise to bring their grievances to this new method of dealing . . .. (ABCFM St-Ck 2 Feb 1874) The missionaries were not as successful in introducing their modified democracy into Kiti as they were in Madolenihmw. Since the death of their old friend and patron, the former nahnken of Kiti, in 1864, they had lacked the support from the highest chiefly circles needed to implement their reforms. Nonetheless, certain external changes were soon apparent in the regalia of the ruling chiefs. On a visit to Wene, the home of the nahnmwarki of Kiti, a few years later, Sturges was met at the landing by a troop of policemen, all in uniform, and escorted up the path to the high chief's residence. There he was received by the nahnmwarki's standard-bearers"a company of little boys dressed in beautiful uniform, bearing each a sort of flag, or rather a pole with various devices of beads and flower work" (ABCFM St-Ck 15 Nov 1876). Clearly, the Kiti chiefs had adopted at least some of the trappings of a Western-style militia. In time, however, the missionary experiment in political democracy, like Sturges' land reforms, died out. Ponape was no Kosrae: its system of chiefly authority, rooted in the rights to dispense land and titles and receive tribute, was still very much intact in the 1870s. This interlocking system, together with other traditional institutions, had weathered far more serious crises earlier in the century, particularly the rapid population decline and anarchy that followed the smallpox epidemic of 1854. The disruption that the new religion caused, especially during the final surge of opposition from its foes, was trivial by comparison. Christianity may  

page_247

Page 247

have won the day on Ponape, but it would be accepted by the people only within the framework of their own political institutions. Although Sturges' sociopolitical reforms ultimately came to nothing, he was on much surer ground in organizing his program for church expansion. Fully convinced of the value of using native missionaries to found new churches, Sturges had for some years worked intensively with his most promising Christians to prepare them to carry the gospel to other communities. Not all his colleagues felt that new Ponapean converts could be entrusted with such an important responsibility, but Sturges insisted otherwise. When I entered upon my work, I started with the sensible and Christian idea that the missionary everywhere is to get work done, rather than do work, holding, as did the man with the broken fiddle, "there is music in you, if only I can get it out." I have worked on with full faith in native goodness to be made something of in our great work. (ABCFM St-Ck 18 Nov 1878) But the value of using native missionaries, Sturges argued in an essay to the mission board, was not simply that a shortage of foreign personnel made them a practical necessity. Even if such were not the case, the laws of the dynamics of church growth would still require that some of its members be sent abroad to preach, for only then could the new converts achieve the "self-reliance and the ability to do" that were essential for the full development of a religious community. There was no place in Sturges' philosophy for "white generals" leading native recruits into new fields. If missionary expansion was to take place, it would have to be done by Micronesian preachers alone. The first Ponapean teachers were sent to Mokil in 1871, but the landing of a pair of native catechists on Pingelap two years later was an even greater triumph for the missionaries. Frustrated in his first attempt to put teachers on Pingelap by Bully Hayes' opposition, Sturges trained two Pingelapese who were stranded on Ponape after Pease's cotton plantation failed, and sent them back to work among their own people in 1873. The sudden death of the island chief who had forbidden missionaries brought to an end all resistance to Christianity, and within a few months the Pingelapese teachers opened a school, began regular church services, and were preaching to a congregation that included virtually everyone on the island. Seamen from a whaleship that put in at Pingelap at about that time to look for women returned to their ship sorely  

page_248

Page 248

disappointed"The missionarys has got glory pumped into the natives good and at both ends," one of them complained (Bourne 13 Mar 1873). A short time later, the people began construction of their new church, the largest and most imposing in Micronesia, with plastered walls of coral, a stone slab floor, and a seating capacity adequate for the island's entire population of a thousand (Crawford and Crawford 1967:182 183). At its completion, the Pingelapese rebuilt their village so that all the houses were arranged around their new church and the school building, much as a medieval town was laid out around the cathedral. A delegate from the Hawaiian board who visited Pingelap in 1875 commented approvingly on the church and the appearance of the village, but was even more impressed by the fact that every single person on the island was clothed. Even the babies had "swaddling clothes" and toddlers were dressed in "comical pants and miniature jackets of calico"a sight that he had not seen since leaving Hawaii (MH 1876:159). Encouraged by the remarkable success of his native teachers on Pingelap, Sturges soon broadened the scope of his church expansion program. For years he and his fellow missionaries had been casting a wistful eye on the islands immediately to the west, Truk and the Mortlocks, but they had always lacked the trained and dedicated volunteers for this new field. By late 1873, Sturges thought that he had suitable candidates to open the new mission: three well-educated Ponapean couples of outstanding devotion, among them the daughter of the late wasai of Madolenihmw and her husband. Shortly after Christmas, following a moving farewell service at which the newly appointed missionaries testified to their desire to "make the love of Jesus known to their heathen neighbors" (ABCFM St-Ck 30 Sep 1873), the three couples embarked on the Morning Star for the Mortlocks. Other couples followed in subsequent years, and by 1879 one of the Ponapeans had been brought to Truk to open a mission on Uman Island. Sturges proudly announced to the American board authorities that "the Board has a great grandchildHawaii the child, Micronesia the grandchild, and interior Micronesia the great grandchild" (ABCFM St-Ck 5 Jan 1874). Impatient to cast out to still farther places, the restless missionary would have liked to send native teachers all the way to Yap and Palau, but this would have meant a two-month extension of the Morning Star's already long voyage and the plan was turned down by mission board officials as  

page_249

Page 249

impractical and costly. As it was, Sturges had good reason to be content with what had been done. By the end of the decade there were fourteen vigorous churches on Ponape alone, with over five hundred full members and thousands of other followers; in addition, Pingelap, Mokil, the Mortlocks, and Truk were being evangelized by native teachers. The thrust of the American board mission in Micronesia had reached the limits of its expansion by 1880, its field then encompassing the entire eastern half of Micronesia. The Unholy Prophets of Progress If the "wild knight errant" typified by such colorful characters as Ben Pease and Bully Hayes was fast fading from the scene in eastern Micronesia, so too was the beachcomber of the old whaleship days. The beachcomber, tattooed and withered looking from dissipation and drink, surrounded by his bevy of native wives and untroubled by regular employment, had been a familiar figure on islands like Ponape for the past forty years and an easy target for satire. C F Wood, a yachtsman who spent two weeks at Ponape in 1873, offered a classic portrait of this vanishing species. He discloses not his surname, but is known, and prefers to be known only as Bill or Jack. Are you English? he claims to be American; are you American?he professes to be English. He has no property on the island, not even a pig or a fowl; he is too lazy to grow yams for his own use. Like the lilies of the field, he toils not, neither does he spin, but is contented to be the humble retainer of the king or chief, and gets his food in his master's house. It is well, however, to be on good terms with the beachcomber, for if you want supplies, he, like Caliban, will "show thee the best springs, pluck thee berries, fish for thee, and get thee wood enough," or rather will see that it is done, for he does not care about work. Such is the genuine beachcomber, a variety of the genus homo now fast disappearinga fact which is not to be regretted. (Wood 1875:160 161) Replacing the beachcomber in the 1870s was a "new style of white man," in Wood's wordsthe resident trader. Although the typical trading agent shared the old-time beachcomber's thirst for adventure, he came to the islands with no intention of living out his days in a leisurely life supported by tropical munificence. He was there to make a living and generally anticipated the day when he could "resume old ways and return to well-remembered scenes" (Moss 1889:81). His life was ruled by essentially the same motives,  

page_250

Page 250

profit and otherwise, as those embraced by his countrymen back home; he had come to the Pacific to succeed in the race for wealth and prestige, not to withdraw from it. As Wood described the trader, "he will generally have a good house, though built in native fashion, and is as a rule a pretty decent man, eschewing sack and living cleanly, and is the agent or buyer of native produce for some Sydney or German firm in Samoa" (1875:161). Traders usually enjoyed a privileged position in their island communities and lived in relative comfort. Alfred Restieaux, Hayes' agent on Pingelap for ten months in 1871, had his food provided for him by the island chief and lived in a dwelling furnished by the family of his native "wife." Restieaux was also presented with two comely adolescent girls by fathers who were evidently eager to gain the recognition that came from having their daughters known to be paramours of the local white trader, but he returned these unsolicited gifts to their parents as soon as it could be done without undue embarrassment. John Westwood, a trader in the Mortlocks for six years, was given a girl as his consort soon after his arrival on Lukunor. Within a short time he had learned the local language, made a good number of friends on the island, and presided over an attractive complex of five buildings on his wellshaded premises, which he called Cremorne Gardens. William Wawn, who traded on another island in the Mortlocks a few years before Westwood, lived in a house built for him by the island chief and, like Restieaux, was given food in almost wasteful abundance every day of his seven months on the island. His additional privileges included the services of eight families living nearby as his "special retainers" and the use of a paddling and a sailing canoe whenever he needed them. With the help of a Rotuman as his interpreter, Wawn claimed to have gained "no small amount of influence over my neighbors  . . . and other islands" (1870 1874:85). The social contributions of these men to the communities that supported them were as varied as the individuals. Restieaux was instrumental in warning the Pingelapese away from the three blackbirding ships that called during his stay on the island, and he dressed the wounds of the impetuous young men who were injured aboard one of these vessels. Wawn, on the other hand, traveled with the master of the Susanne throughout the Mortlocks trying to find men to fill the ship's quota of contract laborers for Samoa. Westwood (1905:120) introduced the people of Lukunor to a "reg 

page_251

Page 251

ular Londoner's celebration" of Christmas, complete with torches, bonfire, colored lights, and "tables spread with all sorts of good cheer." To mark New Year's Day, he organized a parade of over seven hundred islanders who carried banners, fired guns into the air, and sang a song composed by Westwood himself as they marched around the island. Henry Worth, a seaman-turned-trader who worked on Ponape, Nukuoro, and Satawan through the 1870s, was so profoundly influenced by the missionaries he met during his trading career that he was baptized in 1880, volunteered for church service, and spent the next ten years as a teacher in mission schools on Ponape and Truk. Restieaux's (nd) plain-spoken assessment of his experience, as he was about to leave the island, was that "altogether I did not have bad times at Pingelap." Most of the other traders, however ready they were to move on by the end of their contract, probably could have said much the same for themselves. During his ten months Restieaux had collected two hundred gallons of coconut oil for about twenty dollars worth of tobacco, but his work earned him little more than his passage to Hawaii and a few dollars change. Westwood had more to show for his labor, although he left distressed that the Lukunor people had forced his wife and children to remain on the island very much against his wishes. Westwood's personal profits for his initial two months on the island were a very respectable $140 on 15,000 pounds of copra collected. Business never again reached these heights, however, even though he could make a 400 percent profit on his fowling pieces, which were sold for over half a ton of copra each. Westwood's final shipment of copra totalled 76,000 pounds, but he had been well over a year, and perhaps closer to two, collecting this amount. His earnings after six years on Lukunor could not have come to much more than one or two thousand dollars. Most of the traders of the time shared the same fate: after years of feverish activity and restless movement from one place to another, they could barely make ends meet when all was over and done. As George Westbrook, an old trader in Micronesia who was himself a financial failure, wrote toward the end of his life: "Very few old-timers in the Pacific have made more than a bare living and most die penniless" (quoted in Munro 1980:40). Not all of the "new order" of traders were quite as honest and clean living as Westwood and Restieaux, however. The four agents recruited in 1877 for Hernsheim's new station on Ponape were  

page_252

Page 252

said to be "all degenerate and addicted to drink, always ready for a fight and carrying a revolver" (Firth 1978:119); their only recommendation was their apparent willingness to venture anywhere and do anything to earn their bread. The Hernsheim agent landed on Kosrae the following year soon proved himself, in the eyes of the missionaries, to be "a miserable wretch, a drunkard, a liar, a thief and Sodomitepractising all these vices as opportunity offered" (ABCFM Pe&Wh-Ck 26 Mar 1880). But what could his company recruiters do under the circumstances, Hernsheim pleaded; the selection of new agents was always "a choice between fools and cheats!" One could, of course, turn to the pool of old beachcombers from which to recruit trading agents, and many firms did draw heavily on this source. Overall, those beachcombers who turned trader were not bad men, merely "rough in manner and rude in speech" with a strong craving for grog in any and all of its various forms. The arrival of the company schooner was always a festive event since it offered them the occasion to indulge this addiction. For the next few days, while the traders drank themselves into a stupor, their native wives attended to the purchase of new merchandise and the sale of copra to the schoonera modus operandi hardly calculated to maximize their profits. By far the worst of the traders was a Welshman by the name of John Rees who was an agent for Capelle on Kapingamarangi in 1879. Rees looked every bit the villain he was"a middle-aged man, nostrils affected with syphilitic cancer, tattooed with an elephant and a dancing-girl, has the appearance of a heavy drinkerswaggering gaitwears ringsears believed to be pierced  . . . usually dressed in shirt, trousers & a monkey jacketslouched straw hat without ribbonshirt open at the breast" (Scarr 1967:118). Rees was well established as the self-proclaimed "king" of Kapingamarangi, which he told people Capelle had purchased, when George Barrows arrived to set up an independent trading station there. Barrows had brought with him a cash box containing two thousand dollars in gold sovereigns and a Samoan wife, both of which became the immediate objects of Rees' fancy. Quarrels broke out repeatedly between the two traders, especially after Rees shot two of Barrows' native boys. Barrows, who suspected an attempt on his life, always carried with him a loaded revolver until it was finally stolen by one of Rees' men. One night, not long after his weapon disappeared, Barrows was called down to the  

page_253

Page 253

beach on some pretext. As he reached the shoreline, two Gilbertese working for Rees jumped him, dragged him into the surf, and held his head under water until he was drowned. Rees left the island on the next schooner with the part of Barrows' hidden fortune that he was able to find; the master of the schooner was happy to accommodate Rees and conceal all knowledge of his crime in appreciation of the three cases of gin and two cases of tobacco that Rees turned over to him. Although an investigation into the murder was made by British naval officers, Rees spent the next several years as a mate on different trading vessels and finally "died in his bunk, undisturbed by the law." If the Rees murders illustrated the limitations of European naval justice, the Capelle-Hernsheim controversy on Kosrae demonstrated just how effective its impact could be on an island population. In August 1878, Captain Eduard Hernsheim called at Kosrae to land a trader and begin what would have been the first full-fledged trade agency on the island in several years. When the king protested that he had already invited Capelle to open a station, Hernsheim falsely reported that Capelle & Co had failed and could not possibly undertake such an operation. In the light of this misleading information, the king and chiefs granted Hernsheim permission to land his trader and gave him exclusive business rights on the island. When a Capelle schooner appeared in the harbor two weeks later, the Kosraeans realized that they had been duped. Angry at the deception, they revoked their agreement with Hernsheim, invited the Capelle agent to set up his station, and gave him all their trade as a boycott against Hernsheim. A year and a half later, in February 1880, Franz Hernsheim, manager of his brother's business interests in Micronesia and newly appointed German Consul at Jaluit, arrived on a large company ship flying the German colors. Gathering the king and chiefs aboard his vessel, Hernsheim informed them that as the official representative of the German government he was ordering them to sign a mortgage on most of their island as a guarantee for payment of damages due to Hernsheim & Co. According to the terms of the mortgage, the people of Kosrae were to pay an indemnity of 133,000 pounds of copra for revoking their contract with Hernsheim and to buy out the company's remaining stock at a price of $600all of which was to be paid in a year's time, otherwise their land would be forfeit. The king and chiefs, overawed by the display of consular pomp and frightened by Hernsheim's threat to  

page_254

Page 254

bring in a detachment of Solomon Islanders and appoint one of them as king, signed the document, which they only half understood anyway. By the arrival of the German warship Habicht a year later, the Kosraean people, with considerable assistance from Capelle & Co, had somehow managed to pay off the indemnity in fullan amount of copra that was nearly double the average yearly output of the island. The whole incident, like the shipwreck of the Leonora five years earlier, proved little more than a temporary disruption and was soon forgotten. The Capelle station on Kosrae continued its normal business activities, yielding about forty tons of copra a year, and the island remained largely neglected by other commercial interests. The transfer to Kosrae of the mission training school for the Marshalls in 1879, followed by the opening of another school in 1882 for the Gilberts, led to the arrival of two American missionaries as teachers. But even so, the island population, now at its ebb at two or three hundred, soon settled back into the somnolence it had enjoyed in the years since the whaling boom. On Ponape three major trading firms were in operation by 1880: Capelle, Hernsheim, and Henderson & MacFarlane, the agency that had taken over Farrell's holdings. The annual output of copra was 40 tonspaltry when compared with the Marshalls' 700 tons or Yap's 1500but it was supplemented by 350 tons of vegetable ivory nuts and another 3 tons of pearl shell. To Ponape's copra production, its outlying atolls, each of which now had its own resident trader, added a small but steady supply. With only half a dozen trading vessels calling at the island each year, Ponape was clearly no longer the commercial center it had been in the heyday of American whaling thirty years before. The handful of whaleshipsbetween eight and twelve a yearthat continued to visit Ponape during this period did little to arrest its decline in importance. Nonetheless, Ponape had a good deal to show for its years of foreign trade. As far back as 1857 the missionaries reported that they were trying to instruct the Ponapean people how to conduct trade for themselves so as to ''break the monopoly the white men have for long years enjoyed." The Ponapeans learned their lessons well, if slowly, for by the early 1870s they were proving themselves very capable in managing trade with visiting ships. The captain of one small vessel observed that "everything was valued by dollars and cents, although never at any time did money appear in the transac 

page_255

Page 255

tion" (Wood 1875:146). If someone wanted to sell a pig, he would price it at three dollars and then "ask to take his money out in a knife, or some calico or tobacco." The captain and the local people might adjust their prices until both were satisfied and a bargain was struck. Ponapeans had made great advances in worldly wisdom since the days in which tobacco was the only medium of exchange and coins were worn around the neck as ornaments. It was only a short step from the pricing of goods in dollars to the actual use of money, and Ponapeans were soon to make this step. Ten years later, in 1883, a naval commander reported that most of the people he met on Ponape "understand the value of English and American money and  . . . expect to be well paid in it" (Bridge 1883). Trading firms left other marksblights or blessings, depending on one's interpretationon the most remote islands of the area. George Westbrook, a trader on Pingelap during the late seventies, saw the garish touch of western influence everywherein the "dress suit" of one man decked out in a sou'wester hat, an old waistcoat, and a threeinch belt; in the salmon tin filled with tobacco, the "dirty clay pipe and a paper box of San Francisco matches" that hung in the stretched earlobes of another; and in the "faded, blue-lined umbrella and moth-eaten soldier's coat" that were the pride of a third (Dana 1935:67, 74). Westbrook thought that he saw in the cocky strut of the lower-class native with his parasol held high above him the decay of the "old highly-developed aristocratic social fabric.'' At best, the baubles and bangles supplied by the traderthe high-heeled boots, the artificial flowers, and the canned meats and biscuitswould destroy the attractive simplicity of the islanders' lifestyle by expanding their desires and increasing their wants. To most merchants and missionaries alike, however, each yard of calico sold was another step along the road toward civilization. Their motives for clothing the islanders may have differed, but the object was the same and it was soon recognized as such. One trading captain confessed to Doane that

 

Christianity, with its civilizing influence, made better business for him. Natives reached by missions wanted more clothing, and household utensils, and other articles of trade . . . . He would like to see missionaries planted on all the islands of the Caroline group; and he stands ready to do all he can in his wayoffering passages or taking messagesto help. (MH 1873:229)

page_256

Page 256

Although the missionaries for their part were grateful to traders for the services they often rendered, they were usually slower to recognize the more general contribution of foreign traders to their work. To the degree that the traders were successful in developing in island peoples a taste for western goods and western ways, they were laying the foundation for the religious edifice that the missionaries would erect. In their strange, almost unholy alliance, the servants of both God and Mammon were prophets of progress. The Assault on Truk For years the missionaries on Ponape had looked longingly toward the west where Truk and its outliers lay unevangelized and unexplored. These islands had long been shunned by seamen and traders because of the bad reputation their inhabitants bore for "treachery and ferocity." If virtually nothing was known about the group in the early 1870s, the reason, as one business representative put it, was the Trukese people's "notorious inhospitality to strangers" (R Robertson 1877:51). The record of previous ship contacts, although not nearly as bloody as the early history in the Marshalls, was hardly reassuring. The first known European to visit the group, the Spanish commander Arellano in 1565, had fled Truk under attack from native war canoes and lost two of his men in an ambush on nearby Pulap Island. The next visit of any consequence, that of the French explorer Dumont d'Urville nearly three centuries later, terminated abruptly when hostilities broke out and several islanders were killed. The three seamen who were put ashore on Truk and its neighboring islands during the 1820sone by a British whaleship and two by Duperreyall survived, but none of them remained in the group for more than a year or two. Two trading captains, Cheyne and Tetens, ran afoul of the people when they tried to collect bêche-de-mer in Truk. Cheyne lost six of his crew in a surprise attack which he later repaid by burning houses and destroying canoes; twenty years later Tetens fought off an assault on his ship and beat a hasty retreat out of the lagoon, only to become embroiled soon afterward in a war between two islands immediately south of Truk. A few years before Tetens' visit, an open boat carrying the twentytwo survivors of the Norna, a ship wrecked at Oroluk, was seized by some Trukese and the men kept as prisoners for  

page_257

Page 257

several months on Uman Island until their forcible rescue by the British warship Sphinx. Apart from the brief calls paid by a handful of early whaleships and trading vessels, Truk was regularly bypassed by ships of the day, especially by American whalers, who found all they needed on the more hospitable islands of Ponape and Kosrae. Benjamin Morrell, a sealing captain who visited Truk in 1830, had done all in his power to publicize the appeal of the island group through his own rapturous description of Truk, replete with brown beauties endowed with "eyes like the gazelle's and teeth like ivory" and young adonises who could easily lift his ship's sixhundred-pound bower anchor, among other attractions (Morrell 1832:390). But, despite his best efforts, Truk's bad name among seamen had been firmly established by mid-century, largely because of the bad publicity that Andrew Cheyne had given the island. In his influential hydrographic work on the western Pacific, Cheyne (1852:126) issued the stern warning that "no vessel should visit this group  . . . unless well-manned and armed, as the natives  . . . will be certain to attack any vessel which they may find in a defenseless state." This caveat, not entirely undeserved, was quoted in Findlay's Directory, the Nautical Magazine, and other leading maritime journals of the day, and became almost a universal maxim among ship captains and merchants for the next forty years. The American Board missionaries, however, were by profession believers in the miraculous. They had witnessed the almost instantaneous change of behavior in the Marshallese, a people even more feared than the Trukese, practically from the moment the first missionary stepped ashore. Why should they not expect as much from their neighbors to the west? The key to the penetration of Truk, they believed, lay in the Mortlock Group, some one hundred eighty miles to the southeast of the high islands of Truk (Map 10). As far back as the time of Lütke, the inhabitants of the Mortlocks had shown themselves more sophisticated, more familiar with western ways than their cultural kinfolk to the north. Moreover, European ship visits to these islands, more frequent than to Truk itself, had been uniformly friendly. Inasmuch as the Mortlocks had always maintained a firm trading relationship with Truk, supported by strong cultural and linguistic ties, these coral atolls were an ideal stepping-stone for entry into Truk. Any lingering doubts that the missionaries may have had about  

page_258

Page 258

the wisdom of their strategy were quickly dispelled when the first three Ponapean couples were put ashore on Satawan and Lukunor in January 1874. The islanders, who had been raided by blackbirders twice during the previous two years, were reluctant to come out to meet the visitors at first, but once they understood what the missionaries wanted, they promised eagerly to care for their new teachers. After several days at Satawan and a tour of the rest of the Mortlocks, Doane and Sturges were satisfied that the gentle inhabitants of this group had been badly misrepresented in the seamen's press. "From the first day of our anchoring to the last, here and at Lukunor," wrote Doane (1874:204), "not the least treacherous sign was seen; nor indeed is it known that a single article was stolen." At the visit of the Morning Star a year later, Sturges and Doane found the Ponapean teachers happy and well provided forone of the couples was living in a whitewashed cottage built with a veranda and stairs, with a gravel walk leading up from the beach. Children lined the beach to welcome their visitors with the "Morning Star Hymn" and greet them in double lines with a handshake. The Ponapean missionaries were making rapid progress in the conversion of the people as well: within three years there were churches on seven islands with a total membership of over three hundred. Trading firms, too, had established a foothold in the Mortlocks during the early 1870s. William Wawn was landed on Satawan to open a station for Godeffroy & Son two years before the missionaries arrived; as he was taken off the island seven months later, he could write: "I have never suffered nor even witnessed any violence here" (Wawn 1870 1874:84). Wawn was followed by several others as additional firms began operations in the group. By 1880 there were five traders working in the Mortlocks, including Henry Worth, who was soon to become a mission assistant, and George Barrows, later the victim of John Rees' avarice on Kapingamarangi. Not all the traders were doing too well in business, it seems, for Worth complained that he was "eating up the profits" in buying provisions and Joseph Kehoe had already been reduced to destitution when he was taken to Ponape by the Morning Star. But, business failures or not, none of the traders in the Mortlocks had to fear for his life at the hands of the islanderssomething that could not be said of traders living elsewhere in the Truk area. In the meantime, the missionaries, who once again found them 

page_259

Page 259

selves in a race against white traders, were moving up the Mortlock chain toward Truk with all due haste so as to open a mission there "before opposing influences have obtained a strong foothold" (ABCFM Lo-Ck 7 Jun 1879). At the Morning Star's visit in 1878, they "placed a battery under dark Ruk" in preparation for their final assaultto use the military metaphor of which they were so fondby moving a Ponapean couple to Nama, an island just thirty miles south of Truk. The stratagem succeeded admirably. When a Trukese chief from Uman who frequently visited the Mortlocks came to Nama a few months later, he was so impressed with the improvements that had been made on the island through the initiative of Moses, the Ponapean preacher, that he invited him to come up to start a church on Uman. The chief took the Christian name of Paul, calling his wife Paulina, and returned to Uman to prepare for the arrival of the first missionaries to his island. "Ruk has been captured," Doane triumphantly announced of the Morning Star's first visit to Truk in December 1879 (Doane 1881:208). The Uman people, led by their chief, waded out to meet the boat that was bringing the missionary party ashore, hauled it up on their shoulders, and carried both the boat and the people in it to dry land. The missionaries were then escorted to a large meetinghouse where they were feasted with "what looked like apple dumplings nicely milked over,"in reality pounded breadfruit topped with coconut sauce. At the formal ceremony that followed, Moses explained why he had come and asked whether the people of the island were prepared to accept him and his teachings. After an embarrassing hesitation while the people looked around for a spokesman, one of the Trukese assured Moses and his wife that they were wanted, that they would be given a choice piece of land and a home, and that their personal safety would be guaranteed. In a clumsy attempt to have the people ratify the decision, Sturges asked all who agreed with this response to raise their hands; somehow enough of the people understood what was being asked to make a respectable show of voting their approval. For Sturges, this "was the day of my dreams, the day to which my prayers for long years had been directed" (ABCFM St-Ck 1 Nov 1879). The mission on Truk was founded at last. In fact, the traders had won the race to Truk by five years, though their presence could hardly be said to constitute a "strong foothold" by the time of the missionaries' arrival. August Hart 

page_260

Page 260

mann, a German by birth who was married to a Fijian woman and had lived on Kosrae for eight years, came to Truk in 1874 to set up an independent trading agency on Fefan Island. Adolph Capelle himself visited Truk in 1879 to settle two of his agents on islands in the lagoon, but the attempt ended in failure and by the following year Hartmann again had the entire field to himself. The pressure of competition among the trading firms in the Pacific, now more numerous than ever, was forcing them to explore hitherto unopened fields in the search for new sources of copra. By all rights, Truk should have been an ideal location for a string of stations, with its fine harbor, its thickly wooded islands, and its dense population. In his survey of trading prospects offered by several islands in the Pacific, H B Sterndale enthusiastically predicted of Truk that The first Europeans who can succeed in establishing a permanent agency upon Hogoleu will make their fortune in a very short period . . . . This island presents to the commercial adventurer such an opportunity as is scarcely to be found elsewhere in the world, not alone from the valuable products of the land itself, but from the possession of so magnificent a harbour for shipping, whence could be extended the ramifications of a trade on a large scale throughout the whole great Caroline Archipelago. (Sterndale 1874:24) Sterndale admitted that there was "risk in the attempt," but he could not have known just how great that risk was. In 1882 Hartmann was stabbed to death in the village warfare that still prevailed in Truk, while two traders who had been placed on Puluwat and Ulul, islands to the west of Truk, were killed for their trade goods by a few of their covetous customers. The lot of the traders who followed them to Truk was not much happier: a young American trader on Udot was forced to flee for his life after a residence of only a few months, and a Tasmanian who ran a station on Moen died of consumption scarcely four months after his arrival. Only Frederick Narruhn, a Germanborn captain who visited Truk regularly on his trading schooner from 1884 on, remained untouched and continued his trading operations without serious interruption for years afterward. Truk had been isolated from western contact much longer than other parts of Micronesia, and it would be another ten or fifteen years before traders could be assured of their personal safety in Truk and its outliers to the west. Even the missionaries had their uneasy moments. Moses was  

page_261

Page 261

almost killed when an epidemic broke out about a year after his arrival, but he engaged the chief who came to kill him in a friendly conversation and finally persuaded him to receive a teacher on his island. Periodically an angry chief would threaten to wipe out the mission teachers and do away with Christianity once and for all, but none of the missionaries was ever harmed. The sporadic interisland warfare that racked Truk continued for some years, posing the greatest threat of all to the security of the mission and the lives of the teachers. But even here some gains were made. Five years after Moses began his work on Uman, an American missionary could report that "the people of Uman are living at peace with one another, and though strongly tempted to war with neighboring islands, they firmly refuse" (ABCFM Ra-Sm 20 Feb 1884). Moses and the mission teachers who came after him would devote much of their time and effort in the years ahead to peace-making missions between warring factions; the personal immunity that they were granted on such missions is itself a measure of the influence that they had already achieved among the Trukese people. When Robert Logan, the first American missionary to Truk, arrived in 1884, he found churches already established on four islands in the lagoon and chiefs from other islands clamoring for a mission teacher of their ownan item that had by then become as prestigious as bone-handled knives or long-sleeved white shirts had been at the time of Lütke's visit a half-century earlier. Whatever the real reason for their popularity, mission teachers were welcomed almost everywhere and the church had gained a permanent place in Truk. There were now fifteen churches throughout Truk lagoon and the Mortlocks, with a total membership of more than one thousand. The churches had their share of "calico Christians" and backsliders, of course. The relentless campaign that the Ponapean teachers, under the direction of their American supervisors, waged against long hair, the use of turmeric for bodily adornment, native dances, and nakedness was a long, uneven struggle. From time to time, whole congregations would "fall into the snares of Satan" and return to their pipes, and even a few of the Ponapean pastors had to be chastised for neglecting their work in order to give their attention to tradenot only in innocent items such as cloth and ironware, but "in the doubtful articles of guns, powder, knives and turmeric" (Bray 1881 1882). One teacher, whose trust in the power of God to defend him was apparently rather shaky, arrived at  

page_262

Page 262

his new station with a personal arsenal of two guns and a sword cane. But these setbacks must be put in proper perspective, Logan cautioned mission board officials. What folly to expect that these races can take on pure morals and Christian civilization in a few years! Souls can be saved, morals and manners improved, the seeds of all progress planted and nourished, but the century plant grows quickly in comparison with true civilization. (Logan 1888:18) Growth might indeed be slow, but the seed had at last been planted.  

page_263

Page 263

Chapter 10 The Contest for Commercial Control Waifs Upon the Water David Dean O'Keefe was washed ashore at Yap one day in December 1871, half-drowned and unconscious. His ship, the Belvidere, which had sailed out of Savannah four months earlier, had gone down in a typhoon the day before. Somehow O'Keefe, the only survivor, had managed to save himself by clinging to a spar and paddling ashore before he collapsed from exhaustion. Being exceptionally robust and well inured to the hazards of the sea after twenty years on shipboard, O'Keefe was soon nursed back to health by the compassionate Yapese who found him lying in the sand. Quite unknown to him at the time, they were to be his compatriots for the remaining thirty years of his life. Nothing at all in O'Keefe's background gave a hint of the dominant role he would play in the commercial development of Yap and the western Carolines. The tall, red-headed Irishman, then in his early forties, had emigrated to America in his youth at the height of Ireland's great potato famine. After a few tedious months laying railroad ties in Georgia, he turned to the sea for his livelihood, starting as an apprentice seaman aboard windjammers and working his way up to a captain's berth on one of Savannah's finest coastal steamers. His short but successful career as a blockade runner out of Savannah during the Civil War further enhanced his reputation as a skillful and daring mariner. O'Keefe liked the quick runs that he made up and down the Atlantic seacoast; they afforded him the social status and material comfort that his family had never been able to enjoy during his boyhood, and, even more important, they permitted him to spend time with  

page_264

Page 264

his pretty young wife, Katherine, and his infant daughter. For all his love of the sea, O'Keefe was at heart a homebodycertainly not an inveterate wanderer like Cheyne, Hayes, and many of the other sea captains who came to Micronesia. If he had been given a choice, he probably would have lived out his life happily in the lace curtain quarter of Savannah's Irish ghetto. David O'Keefe was, after all, an unusual man. He was as comfortable reading Thackeray or Dickens in a rocking chair in his own living room as he was trading yarns with old shipmates in a waterfront saloon or barking orders to junior officers on the bridge of his own ship. O'Keefe had every bit of the fiery temper that is legendarily attributed to the Irish and enormous physical strength to match. He had once killed an insubordinate sailor who attacked him, and spent eight months in prison before he was finally acquitted of murder charges. Again, only hours before he left Savannah for the last time, he found himself challenged by a drunken, angry seaman on his ship. Their short, fierce struggle ended when the captain battered the man into the gunwale, knocking him over the rail into the murky harbor waters below. Perhaps in panic, fearing that he had killed a second man and would have to face another prison sentence or worse, O'Keefe scampered off his steamer and raced down the waterfront in search of a ship putting to sea immediately. He found the Belvidere, bound for the Pacific on a pearling voyage, and passage to an island that would become his permanent home. Yap was an island that had long bewildered foreigners. Its inhabitants, an inoffensive-looking people who appeared content to sit for endless hours chewing betelnut, were held in dread by other Micronesians for the powerful sorcery that they reputedly possessed. Each year dozens of canoes streamed into Yap from other islands to present what looked like tributary gifts to certain chiefs, even though Yapese warriors never ventured out to these places to assert their overlordship. The Yapese, it seemed, were able to command respect from their neighbors without so much as lifting a finger. Although not entirely hostile to foreigners, the Yapese had always been unpredictable in their treatment of visitors. They had taken two Spanish vessels that had come to fish for bêche-de-mer in the 1830s, brutally murdering the crews, and had driven out Cheyne on his first trading visit to the island a few years later. During the 1860s Cheyne and Tetens established regular trading oper 

page_265

Page 265

ations there and made frequent calls in their vessels, but not without some justifiable apprehension on their part; Cheyne had his life threatened more than once and Tetens was forced to repulse a surreptitious attack on his ship as late as 1866. By the end of the decade, however, Godeffroy & Son representatives felt confident enough of the people's good will to land an English trader and open the first permanent trade station on the island. Their judgment was sound, for never afterward did Yapese show any overt hostility toward foreigners. Yap's cool and fitful relationship with the outside world had stabilized by 1870, and O'Keefe, who might well have been killed if he had been cast ashore five years earlier, was at least as safe there in 1871 as he would have been in down-town Savannah. O'Keefe left Yap for Hong Kong on a Godeffroy steamer in early 1872, returning several months later in a Chinese junk that he had bought and renamed the Katherine after the wife he had left in Georgia. The junk was well laden with trade goods purchased on the accounts of the Celebes Seas Trading Company, the Singapore firm that O'Keefe had contracted to represent in all his business dealings in the western Carolines. Although his early trading ventures showed a profit, they were not successful enough to save the Celebes Seas Company from failure after the death of one of the partners and a financially disastrous bêche-de-mer voyage to Melanesia. When the company finally folded in 1875, O'Keefe was left to continue his operations as an independent traderand to prosper as he never could have working for an overseas firm. Motivating the people of Yap to produce copra or collect bêche-de-mer was not an easy task, as O'Keefe's predecessors had discovered. It was not that the Yapese were lazy. Evidence of their industriousness was everywhere to be seenin the clean, well-kept villages; in the houses mounted on laboriously constructed stone platforms; and in the stone-paved paths and the large coral quays. But the Yapese were a people stubbornly proud of their ancient traditions, and they could not be beguiled as easily as other Micronesians by the splendors locked away in the trader's chest. The serge and calico that dazzled islanders elsewhere never sold well on Yap; the Yapese simply preferred their traditional hibiscus loincloths and grass skirts to western clothes. There were still no missionaries on the island to insist that their converts clothe themselvesalthough the traders who followed O'Keefe to Yap were soon petitioning the American board to open a mission there. Ironware and  

page_266

Page 266

tobacco were as much in demand on Yap as they were anywhere else, but a flourishing copra trade could not be built on these imports alone. To meet this difficulty, O'Keefe adopted the general strategy of exploiting traditional needs rather than creating new ones. From earliest times, work teams of Yapese men had periodically sailed off to Palau to quarry the huge limestone discs that were used as money on their island. The labor and risk involved were enormous, since the discs, often weighing a ton or two and measuring six feet in diameter, had to be cut with stone tools and hauled back to Yap by raft or canoe over three hundred miles of open ocean. Lives were lost and men were maimed, but the Yapese returned to Palau again and again for the aragonite wheels that served as the medium of exchange between individuals and villages on Yap. Early traders had on occasion transported pieces of this stone money to YapCheyne had brought a large piece as a present from the ibedul on his first visit, and about twenty years later Tetens carried ten Yapese laborers and the discs they had cutbut none of them exploited the obvious trade advantages in transporting Yapese money. It was left to O'Keefe to develop the shipping of stone money into a systematic kind of trade, a stratagem that in time made him wealthy and famous. O'Keefe made arrangements with the Yapese chiefs to put his vessels at their disposal to haul the precious discs from Palaufor a price, of course. On each piece of stone moneymeasured in handspansthe trader levied a charge according to its size, and he released the discs to their owners only after full payment had been made in copra. O'Keefe soon had a thriving business on Yap. His headquarters, situated on the little island of Tarang in the main harbor, was a showpiece of tropical elegance with a nicely furnished house, a spacious warehouse, and a long stone wharf. O'Keefe's own ensign now replaced the Union Jack that he had once flown from his flagstaff; it flew as well from the masts of the five vessels that he had accumulated in his first few years. On his frequent trips to Hong Kong and Singapore, he returned with men recruited in dockside taverns and seamen's hostelsnot the brightest or most dependable of men to be sure, but of sufficient ability to staff the new trading posts that he was opening each year on Yap and other islands in the area. The most precious jewel in O'Keefe's commercial diadem was the tiny island of Mapia, the southernmost of Palau's outliers,  

page_267

Page 267

lying a mere hundred miles or so off the northwestern coast of New Guinea. When O'Keefe first visited the atoll in 1878, he found only fifteen inhabitants; the rest of the population had been killed off in the periodic raids made by warriors from Ternate and New Guinea. The copra station that Capelle & Co had established there some time before and manned with Nauruans brought from Kosrae was languishing with neglect. Mapia was at the very end of the Micronesian trading world, and it had been well over a year since the station had seen a Capelle & Co ship. O'Keefe, whose business instincts were unerring, was quick to recognize the trading potential of his new find. He signed on Harry Terry, Capelle's overseer, to manage the trading operation that he intended to begin on Mapia and soon afterward paid a visit to the sultan of Ternate (who claimed sovereignty over the island) to obtain lease rights for a fee of fifty dollars a year. O'Keefe got something else in the bargain, tooHarry Terry's lovely half-caste daughter, Dalibu, whom he brought home to his comfortable Yap estate as his permanent island wife. To provide laborers for his Mapia plantation, O'Keefe contracted to bring people from the nearby islands of Sonsorol and Pulo Anna to make copra for him, the men receiving monthly salaries of six dollars and the women five. But the greater part of his work force consisted of Yapese. Again playing his trump card, O'Keefe bargained to increase his ferrying service to Palau and back if a regular supply of Yapese could be found to serve six-month terms of contract on Mapia. The chiefs happily agreed to this arrangement, the workers were procured, and within a short time Mapia was producing two hundred twenty tons of copra a yearmore than five times the annual output of Ponape. If O'Keefe was satisfied with the results of his Mapia venture, the Yapese chiefs had no less cause for contentment. With as many as four hundred men working in the Palau quarries at one time and O'Keefe's schooners scurrying back and forth between the islands, stone money was reaching Yap in unprecedented size and quantity. O'Keefe dominated early trade on Yap, but he did not monopolize it. The 1870s were the period of great trade expansion into the western Carolines, and Yap, now the recognized entrepôt of the area, was beginning to attract new trading firms. Godeffroy & Son, the first firm to set up an agency on Yap, held three thousand acres of land and maintained considerable facilities that included a cot 

page_268

Page 268

ton plantation and a slip for the repair of company vessels (Sterndale 1874:3, 24). From the time of Tetens, its first agent in the western Carolines, Godeffroy had envisioned creating on Yap a major depot for its Micronesian postsan intermediate link between the company's headquarters in Samoa and its agencies in China. The cotton plantation was no more successful than those on Ponape and Palau had been, but by this time it made little difference since the entire firm was well down the road to bankruptcy anyway. When Godeffroy & Son was finally dissolved in 1879, its holdings on Yap, as on other islands, were taken over by Deutsche Handels- und PlantagenGesellschaft and its business soared to new heights. Thomas Farrell also opened a station on Yap that was taken over by Capelle & Co after his firm's failure in 1877. James Young arrived the following year to manage Capelle's new enterprise, but his best efforts to duplicate the firm's success in the Marshalls produced only mediocre results; by 1880 most of the Capelle stations were closed down and Young had moved his office to Guam. O'Keefe's two most serious business rivalsEduard Hernsheim and Crayton Holcombarrived in 1874, just two years after the Irish captain had begun his own trading operations on the island. Hernsheim, on his maiden commercial voyage through the Pacific, first put in at Palau, where he bought land at Malakal, the site of Cheyne's old station, and landed two traders to open his first establishment, a bêche-de-mer fishery and drying shed. Finding several Yapese on Palau quarrying stone money, Hernsheim brought them back to Yap on his schooner Coeran and was repaid for his kindness by being permitted to take sixty Yapese on a bêche-de-mer fishing cruise to the Bismarck Archipelago. This was a far more generous concession than Hernsheim realized at the time, for the last party of Yapese that had been taken to Melanesia (on Captain Bird's schooner, Eagle, just two years earlier) had been wiped out to the last man when Hermit Islanders overran the vessel. Those who sailed with Hernsheim were returned safely to their home island, but the expedition proved far from the financial boon that Hernsheim had hoped. In the future he would abandon such long excursions and turn to copra productionat his main station on Yap and his subsidiary posts on Palau and Woleaias his principal source of profit. Hernsheim was soon off to other parts of the Pacific to found still more trading posts and eventually take up residence in the Bis 

page_269

Page 269

marck Islands, but the American trader who arrived in Yap just a few months before him had come to stay. Crayton Philo Holcomb, a middle-aged whaling captain turned trading master, had lived a vagabond existence ever since leaving his Connecticut farm for the sea at the age of twenty; the time had now come for him to sink roots. He was weary, he wrote to his sister in New England, of ''drifting around the world like a waift upon the water without any settled plans" (Holcomb 22 Aug 1871). For the last four years he had captained trading ships back and forth across the Pacific, visiting Tahiti, the Carolines, and other of the more exotic islands in Oceania (Hezel 1975). Holcomb's trading profits were nothing to boast of, but his travels had set dancing before his eyes idyllic visions of "orange groves and a life of pleasant indolence." When he returned to Yap on his own schooner Scotland in early 1874, he found there just the home for which he had been yearning. This is the land that suites me, where the natives go nearly naked and appear to enjoy life as well as the fashionables of New York, where the earth produces all that is required to sustain life without labor, and where although it is sometimes warm there is never any cold to freeze a person, where that fruit is always in season and is free to all. (Holcomb to sister 27 Jan 1874) Holcomb's romantic soul may indeed have been stirred by Yap's "green groves of fruits and flowers," but, in all likelihood, more mundane reasons ultimately persuaded him to make a home there. To return to the dreary existence that he had known in Connecticutwith its harsh winters, uneventful rural life, and family squabbleswas out of the question by this time. Yap, by contrast, loomed large as the land of opportunity for an energetic businessman, a commercially fallow field that need only be tilled and planted to sprout riches. Whatever the ethereal tone of some of his letters home, Holcomb's idealism took on a decided financial cast; the star that he followed was that of the Spanish conquistador rather than that of the French philosophe. He had taken leave of his family with the grand pronouncement that "there is a fortune or utter disappointment ahead" (Holcomb to m 15 May 1867)and the fortune he sought was of the most pecuniary sort. For a man of forty-four with a long string of commercial failures behind him and nothing to call his own other than the ship he sailed, Yap must have represented a new beginning and the promise of the fortune that had eluded Holcomb for so long.  

page_270

Page 270

With a single-minded determination to realize that promise, Holcomb set to work at once to build up his business on Yap. He might have done better to mind his island trading stations and keep a close eye on his trade inventory, but he could never resist any grand profit-making scheme that was presented, no matter how long the odds or how far afield it might take him. Just as he was reaping the first returns of his copra trade on Yap, he suddenly sailed off to Japan in a futile attempt to raise the treasure of a sunken steamer, and incurred losses of two thousand dollars. The year before, just prior to his arrival in Yap, he had brought the Scotland to Guam and, after selling two thousand pesos worth of merchandise, quietly slipped out of port one evening with two Filipino political prisoners aboard. The matter did not go unnoticed by the Spanish authorities and Holcomb was unwelcome on Guam thereafter. In August 1876, the same month in which he acquired his second vessel, Holcomb dispatched the Scotland on another wild venture to the Okhotsk Sea, where it was lost with all hands. This misfortune and his unsuccessful attempt to raise the sunken treasure cost him nine thousand dollars in all and absorbed most of the profits of his expanding copra trade for his first four years on Yap. Despite his hapless speculationsand his grumbling to his sister that his lot was "not to be envied by the ragpickers of New York" (Holcomb 27 Jan 1874)these early years were the most prosperous in Holcomb's career. By 1877 he was preparing to open a few more trade stations, and two years after that he was able to boast in his letters of his flourishing business and well-outfitted bailiwick, complete with "stores and wharfs and everything." To add to this, Holcomb, who had once written to his sister (10 May 1875) that he would have liked to start a family but could not do so "as the women all refused me,'' found a wife. The woman, Bartola Garrido, a Chamorro, was no great beauty, but she displayed a genuine loyalty and affection toward Holcomb that must have been gratifying to a man who had been spurned by every woman he had courted. Bartola was one of the passengers aboard Bully Hayes' schooner Arabia when Hayes was arrested on Guam in April 1875 for attempting to smuggle political prisoners off the island. When the crew and passengers of the Arabia learned that their captain had been seized by the Spanish authorities and that a company of soldiers was being dispatched to the schooner to take all those aboard into custody, they were forced to put to sea, even  

page_271

Page 271

though the small vessel had no navigator and carried a terribly inadequate supply of water. The schooner somehow reached the vicinity of Palau, where Holcomb found it and guided it safely to port. After this display of courage and resourcefulness, O'Keefe reported, Bartola "fell an easy victim" to the Yankee skipper and was easily persuaded to return with him to Yap, the island on which she would play a prominent political role in years to come. As for the Arabia, it was brought to Hong Kong a year later, registered under Holcomb's name and repainted the Rachel to serve as Holcomb's flagship after the loss of the Scotland. The Final Act in a Century-Old Drama With the eyes of the West turned to Yap, Palau sank back into another of its periods of relative obscurity. Although in Cheyne's day Palau had been the main commercial port in the western Carolines, it was now little more than a satellite of Yapand a rather unimportant one at that. Ship traffic, never very heavy even at the peak of the island's popularity, fell off to three or four vessels a year. Nothing much in Palau was of interest to foreigners; copra production was insignificant and the bêche-de-mer fisheries were by now a thing of the past. The islands had been over-fished, as Hernsheim was soon to find out, and the huge iron pots in which crews once boiled the sea animal were now being used by Palauans for collecting rainwater or brewing the molasses drink that was so popular among them (LeHunte 1883b:49). A general torpor had settled on the island, some of its white visitors thought. The population had been plummeting for some timefrom an estimated 10,000 in the early 1860s to 4000 by 1880. The usual host of diseasessmallpox, influenza, measles, and syphiliswere taking their toll. "Not two in five women bear children," Russell Robertson noted (1877:45), adding that "two or three children are considered a large family." Old house sites had been abandoned by the 1870s and entire villages were deserted and overgrown. A decade earlier, Tetens had made the dire prediction: "Koror is near its end. The weak deteriorating natives will not be able to resist the advances of civilization. Before long the last Micronesian will have disappeared" (Tetens 1958:4). Some Europeans even foresaw the eventual colonization of Palau by the people of Yap, whose birthrate remained steady and whose population was double that of Palau.  

page_272

Page 272

The political climate in Koror, too, had changed drastically since the late 1860s (F Spoehr 1963:72). The present ibedul, the successor of the chief who had been executed by the British for Cheyne's murder, was reputed to be a selfish, grasping individual who kept the profits of ship trade for himself. He had alienated many of his people through crass and shameless displays of greed and had offended his lesser chiefs with flagrant insults. His brief reign had already left Koror divided and disgruntled. Under normal circumstances he would have been stripped of his title and perhaps killed, but his two brothers, both every bit as bad as he, held important chiefly titles over two of the nearby villages, and one of them would have been likely to succeed the ibedul if he were ever deposed. Palau was depressed and unsettled when Jan Kubary, a talented young naturalist, arrived there in February 1871. Kubary was an involuntary emigré from his native Poland who had just been hired to collect natural-life specimens for the Godeffroy Museum in Hamburg. At one time he had been studying medicine, but his political activities aroused the displeasure of his country's Russian masters and led to his arrest. After his release from prison, he again ran afoul of the police for supporting the revolutionary cause, and fled to Germany, leaving his homeland forever. The turning-point in his life came when he was introduced to Johann Caesar Godeffroy, the founder of the vast trading empire in the Pacific. Godeffroy, whose passion for scientific collecting almost equalled his craving for wealth, was greatly impressed by the young man's ability and offered him a five-year contract to work for him in the Pacific. When Kubary arrived in Palau, he was still a newcomer to Oceania, with no more than a few months' experience in the Marshalls following a brief stay in Samoa. For most of the next fifteen years, however, he would roam through Micronesia, in the course of his travels visiting all the major islands and many lesser ones, faithfully collecting specimens of the exotica of the area. Like Karl Semper before him, his achievements were not limited to the field of natural science. Aided by his remarkable facility in learning languages, Kubary recorded such a vast amount of ethnographic material during this time that he would later win deserved acclaim as the father of Micronesian anthropology. From the very first, Kubary met with difficulties in Koror. The ibedul jealously regarded the Polish scientist as his personal possession and closely supervised his comings and goings, much to  

page_273

Page 273

Kubary's annoyance. Even for the shortest trip, Kubary had to obtain the chief's permissionalmost always given reluctantlyand was required to pay the ibedul and the numerous guides who were assigned to watch over him. On a trip to Kayangel off the northern tip of Babeldaob, Kubary was forced to take fifteen armed men and the ibedul's son in three hired canoes, and even then was prevented from making contact with the people of Melekeok on the way. When, in defiance of these restrictions, Kubary went off in his own boat to Peleliu with guides whom a few of the lesser chiefs had chosen for him, the ibedul was beside himself with anger. Summoning a council meeting, he vented his fury at the other Koror chiefs, telling them in no uncertain terms that Kubary was his exclusive property and was not to be assisted in his journeys by anyone else. The tension between Kubary and the ibedul only worsened with time. Despite the Palauan chief's earnest protestations of friendship for his European guest, Kubary learned that the ibedul was denouncing him behind his back. Soon Kubary turned for support to Ngiraikelau, the old and respected second-ranking chief of Koror who was a brother of the former ibedul and the leader of the opposition party. Ngiraikelau and his followers had witnessed the execution of their leader at the hands of the British just four years earlier and bore no great love for foreigners, but they willingly provided the food and assistance for Kubary that the ibedul had withheld. Kubary's dislike of the ibedul, which grew more intense by the day, made him an ally of theirsat least for the time being. Matters came to a head when the ibedul, who recognized the growing threat to his authority, sent a message to Kubary all but ordering him to pay him a visit so that his people would know the scientist was not "angry at the king." The ibedul's strong summons received a defiant reply from the European: "The same path leads from the king to me as from me to him. I do not care whether he is angry with me or not; white men are friendly for a long time  . . . but they do not know how to bow themselves" (F Spoehr 1963:74). If the ibedul thought that he could bring Kubary to his side to boost his sagging image among his people, he had badly misjudged the man. The chief's ploy backfired when Kubary refused to stir, and all of Koror was soon agog at the temerity of the white man. Ngiraikelau and the opposition party, who had long waited for their chance to move against the ibedul, were delighted and reassured by Kubary's adamant stand. The storm that had long been  

page_274

Page 274

gathering soon broke over the ibedul's head when the Koror chiefs publicly accused him of selling weapons to other districts for Palauan bead money which he pocketed for himself. The ibedul, cornered but surly to the end, contemptuously dismissed his accusers as "mud." This insult was the last straw for the chiefs, whose patience had long been tested to the breaking point, and they began making threats against his life quite openly. Within days the ibedul fled in terror to a distant part of the island and his short reign was officially declared to be terminated. However, the deposition of the ibedul did not bring an end to Kubary's troubles. The people of Koror still streamed in endless procession to Kubary's house, more often than not empty handed, to make their continual demands of him. The knowledge that their district had become the mightiest and wealthiest in Palau had made the Koror people impossibly arrogant and lazy, Kubary concludedvery much as Cheyne had a decade earlier. Moreover, Ngiraikelau's faction was beginning to show its true colors now that it had gained control of the Koror government. The council of chiefs was clearly taking a reactionary position toward foreigners, Kubary felt, although none of the chiefs had the slightest objection to receiving bolts of foreign-made cloth or axes from visitors. When the Godeffroy schooner Augustite sailed into harbor, neither the newly chosen ibedul nor any of the other chiefs went out to meet it. The captain of the schooner was obliged to seek out the ibedul in the meeting house; there, he was seated on the ground in front of the chiefs, who had already taken for themselves the places of honor, and given a little foodan embarrassment calculated to force him to recognize the superiority of the local chiefs. Kubary soon had his fill of the constant impositions made on him in Koror. In August, seven months after his arrival, he moved his belongings to Malakal, the tiny islet off Koror that had long been the customary residence of foreigners. Since Malakal was the spot where Cheyne had been killed and had been avoided by the people ever since out of fear of his ghost, Kubary could count on being undisturbed there. But before Kubary left Koror, he delivered a stinging rebuke to the chiefs at one of their council meetings.

 

You want my goods, but are too lazy or too poor to give me anything for them. I see through you. At first I did not understand, but now I know your language and will make an end to your doings. I shall be

page_275

Page 275

hard as stone. The time of gifts is over. I shall give nothing free. Those who try to force themselves on me I shall treat like enemies. Powder and shot I have in sufficient supply; war I do not fear. If you wish to treat me like Captain Cheyne whom you murdered, then come. I now forbid every inhabitant to land on Malakal unless he has something useful for me, and no canoe may approach safely at night. (F Spoehr 1963:75) With that Kubary bade them farewell, threw his remaining goods into his canoe, and paddled off for his new home. The next several months passed peacefully, with Kubary's relations with the Koror chiefs and people actually taking a turn for the better. Free now to come and go as he pleased, he visited Angaur, Peleliu, and other islands to collect botanical and zoological samples and to further his study of Palauan society. When the Koror chiefs protested that any dealings he wanted to have with their allies should be carried on through the proper authorities in Koror, Kubary brushed off their reproach with the reminder that he was not a Palauan and could do as he wished. Although the Koror chiefs could not have been very pleased at his stubborn independence in this matter, they continued their friendly overtures just the same. Even when Kubary told the ibedul of his intention to visit Melekeok, Koror's long-standing archenemy, the chief made no remonstrances. None were needed; there were other, more effective ways to deal with such a threat. A few weeks later, as Kubary was making the final preparations for his trip north, he learned that Koror had just made a raid on Melekeok and taken the head of a chief. His trip to Melekeok was now out of the question; Kubary had once again been stymied by the Koror chiefs. But unforeseen circumstances soon came to Kubary's aid. In February 1872, just a month or so after he was forced to call off his visit to Melekeok, a virulent influenza epidemic struck Palau and took nearly two hundred lives, fifty of them in Koror. Kubary went to the aid of the stricken people immediately and, with the aid of morphine and considerable good luck, cured all those he treated. As his fame spread, he was invited to neighboring districts to work his medical wonders for the sick there, always with the same happy results. Finally, at the ibedul's personal request he was sent to a district of northern Babeldaob close to Melekeok but allied with Koror. This was the opportunity for which Kubary had so long waited and he lost no time in making contact with the reklai, the head chief of Melekeok. Ignoring the warning from his  

page_276

Page 276

Koror guides that he would be poisoned if he accepted the hospitality of these people, Kubary proceeded on to Melekeok and there received a cordial receptionfar more so than any he had been given in Koror. Kubary returned to Melekeok not long afterward to carry on his scientific work at greater leisure. It was a prosperous land, rich and fertile, with large tobacco plantations and vast groves of fruit trees. The district was now sparsely settled and many of the large clubhouses stood desertedKubary estimated that barely fifty men in the entire area were capable of bearing arms. Even so, there were abundant traces of its former greatness. For all the pounding that it had taken from the guns of the English and American navies, magnificent men's houses and ornate stoneworks still speckled the landscape. For weeks Kubary roamed the woods, with the reklai constantly at his side, marveling at the splendid workmanship of houses and dams and collecting specimens by the score. With his photographic equipment, quite possibly the first used in those islands, he captured many of the people on film; he also made plaster life-masks of the reklai and a number of his subjects. Nowhere in Palau had Kubary received the complete cooperation in his work that he was given here, and he reveled in the opportunity to advance his scientific studies. When Kubary left Palau in May 1873 to continue his research on other islands, it was with the deep conviction that the people of Melekeok, whom he had found so helpful and energetic, had been seriously and repeatedly misjudged by Americans and Europeans. His own experience had taught him that Koror was not at all the "ornament of mankind" that Keate had so lavishly portrayed in his book. Melekeok, on the other hand, not only possessed all the virtues to be found in an unspoiled people, but produced far better artifacts than Koror and had the land and trees to supply much more produce. Kubary recognized that the real problem was Koror's control of the market and the press. Since its fine harbor gave Koror direct access to almost every foreign ship, nearly all trade passed through Koror's hands, just as virtually all reports on happenings in Palau were filtered through its eyes. Only when foreign ships began to break established patterns and trade directly with Melekeok would Koror's stranglehold be broken. The copra trade that was being extended from Yap to Palau in the 1870s did not change matters at all, for trading schooners continued to put in at Koror, and Malakal became an enclave for  

page_277

Page 277

white traders and their wares. O'Keefe, more than any other of the traders, was forced to resort to the ibedul and the Koror chiefs, since the stone quarries at which his Yapese mined their money all lay under Koror's jurisdiction. With very few exceptions, the foreigners who entered Palau during the 1870s lived under the watchful eye of the ibedul and paid their dues to Koror. Every now and then, the chiefs of Koror might have their wrists slapped by a foreign power, as when the German warship Herthe steamed into port in February 1876 to investigate the complaints of three white traders who claimed that they had been robbed by the Koror people. The commander of the Herthe gathered all of the local chiefs on the deck of his ship to reprimand them for their misdemeanors and to warn that any further crimes would be severely punished. The chiefs made a fitting show of contrition in front of the German commander and quietly left the ship to resume their usual activities. Their polite indifference to the whole affair could easily be excused, for they had complaints of their own to register against foreigners. A trading schooner that visited the island a few years before had cheated them out of their trade and made off with three Palauan women, they later told a British naval commander. As for the Herthe and its exalted European notions of justice, its crew had shot the last of the cattle in Palau, without permission or compensation, thus wiping out the stock left by McCluer almost a century earlier. Not all Palauan infractions of European law were dismissed that lightly, however. In the summer of 1880, one of O'Keefe's trading schooners, the Lilla, went aground on the reefs off northern Babeldaob and the wreck was looted by the people of Ngarchelong, the same district that had held the Mentor's crewmen for ransom fifty years earlier. The Ngarchelong chiefs, who were allies of Melekeok at this time, knew better than to seize the property of foreigners, especially such influential foreigners as O'Keefe, who would not hesitate to call in a warship to see that justice was done. But the Ngarchelong people and their confederates in Melekeok had a special grievance against O'Keefe: they had learned that one of the Lilla's passengers was a native of Koror whose mission was to seek help from other districts for a raid that the ibedul planned to make against Ngarchelong. O'Keefe's complicity in the whole affair was beyond question, as far as they were concerned. Although all his business dealings were with Koror, he had brought his vessel close off the shore of Ngarchelongtoo close, as it had  

page_278

Page 278

turned out!in what could only have been an attempt to survey the coast in preparation for the battle. The Ngarchelong chiefs, therefore, felt more than justified in pillaging the wreck and retaining two of the white traders from the Lilla, while O'Keefe and the rest of the crew were sent to Koror to demand a ransom for the prisoners. O'Keefe, who usually found it convenient to identify himself as a British subject rather than an American, filed a strong protest before the Queen's representatives in Hong Kong and demanded that restitution be made for his losses. His complaint brought quick action. Just five months later, in January 1881, the British man-of-war Lily steamed into Koror under orders to recover the stolen cargo or obtain an indemnity from those who were responsiblethereby "to impress upon the marauding natives how far-reaching is the arm of Great Britain" (Grove 1881). The British commander, knowing nothing of how island politics worked in Palau, went straight to the ibedul for information and advice. The ibedul, naturally, shook his head and clucked his dismay at the outrage done to a British subject and promised the commander whatever support he might need in seeing that the guilty parties were punished. He also confided his strong belief that the people of Melekeok, always so troublesome to the British and himself through the years, were the ones to blame for the pillaging. Of the role played by Ngarchelong in the affair the ibedul said nothing, for the Koror chiefs had persuaded Ngarchelong to throw off its allegiance to Melekeok and ally itself with Koror, promising in return that every effort would be made to ensure that the village received lenient treatment from the British. An old story was being enacted yet again! When the British commander, after considerable difficulty, finally made personal contact with the reklai, the Melekeok chief denied having anything to do with the stolen property. Convinced that the denial was an "evasion," even though a careful search of the villages turned up none of the missing goods, the commander forced the reklai and the other chiefs of Melekeok to sign an agreement to repay the value of O'Keefe's lost cargo. Within nine months time, the Melekeok people were to collect 600 pounds of tortoise shell, 15,000 pounds of bêche-de-mer, 26,000 pounds of pearl shell, and 127,000 pounds of coprathe total market value of which came to about five thousand dollars. After presenting  

page_279

Page 279

suitable gifts to the ibedul for his cooperation, the Lily was off to other watersbut with the assurance that a warship would be back within a year to collect the payment. The British were as good as their word. In April 1882, about a year later, the Lily returned in company with another warship, the Comus, to collect the indemnity that had been levied on Melekeok. Captain East, the commanding officer of the expedition, was greatly annoyed at the reklai's inactivity during the year"the savage had never collected a pound, or had even the slightest intention of doing so" (East 1882). The captain, an impetuous soul, was openly scornful of the laxity shown toward the reklai by the commander of the Lily the year before. His only chance of collecting the indemnity now, he judged, was to force the reklai to turn over to him some Palauan money, reputed to have "superstitious value" among the people, as a bond for the full payment of the fine. Bringing the two ships around to Melekeok, East apprehended the reklai and demanded the equivalent of the compensation in Palauan money. James Gibbons, the West Indian who served as advisor to the ibedul, would retain the money until enough produce had been collected to meet the terms of the fine. The reklai was understandably unhappy with this arrangement, which would have put his people's wealth in the hands of their bitter enemies, but he made a show of presenting a small piece or two to the British, along with a little shell and bêche-de-mer that he had hurriedly managed to scrape up from the nearby villages. East, who by this time had lost all patience with the chief, decided that the time had come for forceful action. In the words of the British official who later investigated the incident, A very dashing landing was made, and the villages most pluckily stormed and carried. Only there was no enemy! Finding no one to shoot at, the powder and gun-cotton had to be expended somehow; so the villages were destroyed, and no less than fourteen of the great "clubhouses," some of them mentioned as being the finest and largest in the group, were blown up; and then away sailed H. M. ships with a farewell threat of what would happen next time, if the fine was not paid. (LeHunte 1883b:48) The exquisitely built meeting houses that were so admired by Kubary lay in ruins; and Kubary himself, by chance, was back in Palau early in 1883 to survey the damage personally. Saddened by  

page_280

Page 280

the irreplaceable loss that his friends in Melekeok had suffered, Kubary at once began helping them organize the collection of the indemnity that still hung over their heads. Kubary was still in Melekeok at the arrival of the next British warship, the Espiegle, in August 1883, and visited the ship shortly after it anchored to represent the Melekeok people's interests. The Espiegle's commanding officer, Captain Cyprian Bridge, and the British judicial commissioner, who was also aboard, were both experienced in handling island disputes. Moreover, they had taken the trouble to familiarize themselves with the history of their government's dealings with Palau. Kubary had no difficulty in convincing them that the previous British commanders had incomplete information at best, thanks to the reliance that they put on the ibedul for that information. The size of the indemnity was absurd for a population as small as Melekeok's, he pointed out, for the total value of the annual exports of the entire group was barely $5000. To reach that sum, each able-bodied man in the district would have to produce $30 worth of goods within a year's timean impossibly large figure for that day. In any case, the value of the fourteen meeting houses that were already destroyed could be conservatively placed at more than $5000. The British authorities could only agree that the whole affair had been poorly handled from the start and ruled that upon payment of the $350 worth of goods already collected the debt would be cancelled. Before he left Palau, Captain Bridge felt obliged to try to put an end to the warfare that Melekeok and Koror had intermittently carried on between themselves since the first arrival of the British at Palau in 1783. Headhunting raids against Melekeok had become especially frequent during the past year while the men of that district were out collecting produce to pay the fine. The day before the Espiegle sailed, Bridge invited the principal chiefs of both districts to meet with him aboard his ship to work out a peace treaty. The next day, 11 August 1883, the parties met aboard the ship as planned. The ibedul appeared ''like a coppercoloured Silenusvery fat, flabby and waddly" (LeHunte 1883b:49), wearing few clothes but with his hair done up in the latest fashion, not at all the figure of a fearful island monarch. James Gibbons, the West Indian who served as his interpreter and factotum, accompanied him. Behind them came the other Koror chiefs, and then the Melekeok party led by the reklai, who walked side by side with Kubary, short  

page_281

Page 281

and dark with a thick black beard and wearing "enormous spectacles with great turtleshell rims." After a ceremonious greeting, Captain Bridge had the short treaty read out in Palauan and English. We the undersigned chiefs of the Pellew Islands  . . . do hereby solemnly agree to give up our old standing quarrelsto make peace with one another and to preserve it for the future. We also undertake to use every effort to prevent our people from committing murders or other acts of aggression either on each other or on foreigners. (LeHunte 1883b:61) One by one, the chiefs stepped forward to put their mark on the document while the British officers looked on approvingly. It was one hundred years to the day since Captain Henry Wilson, the first of many Englishmen, had landed at Palau, and the final act in the long drama between the British and Palau. The Battle for O'Keefe's Kingdom By 1880 Yap was well established as the commercial center of the Caroline Islands, east as well as west (Hezel 1975:9). The island was by then the single major source of copra in Micronesia. An average of fifteen hundred tons of copra yearlymore than double the amount produced in the Marshallswas exported by the four major concerns: Hernsheim, DHPG, O'Keefe, and Holcomb. Between twenty and thirty vessels visited Yap each year and a large steamer called there every two months to pick up copra and unload building materials and other imported goods. The island's importance was further enhanced when it became a coaling station for Spanish steamers on their run between Guam and Manila. Yap now had a colony of over a dozen whites, most of them traders, residing on the island, with many more moving in and out freely. Its foreign population included such prominent personalities as Robert Friedlander, the principal agent for Hernsheim & Co, and Evan Lewis, a Welshman who had traded for Capelle & Co on Palauboth of whom remained on Yap through the end of the century. All of this meant a certain measure of prosperity for the Yapese people as well. Although they still ignored the cloth and knick-knacks that usually made up a good part of the trader's stock, they readily bought tobacco and liquor in prodigious quantities. The  

page_282

Page 282

most popular trade item on the island, though, was firearmsnot the cheap Tower muskets that were usually passed off on islanders, nor even Enfield rifles that sold for six dollars, but "the best breech-loaders and seven or seventeen shooter rifles" (NZH 6 Jan 1877). One chief even paid four thousand German marks for a machine gun that had once been used by the Bavarian army (Firth 1977:6). Inferior rifles and cheap tobacco may have found a market during the early seventies, but Yapese buyers were beyond that now and wanted quality merchandise. Even in this period of expanded commercial activity, O'Keefe remained the dominant figure in Yap's copra trade. As often as not during the early 1880s he exported more copra than the other principal firms combined; in 1883, a poor year for Yap, he handled 300 tons out of a total of 550. For some reason O'Keefe had agreed to sell his copra to Hernsheim in 1881, but the contract was terminated when Hernsheim's vessels failed to collect the copra and O'Keefe was soon doing business for himself on a grander scale than evergrand enough to enable him to send bank drafts for one or two thousand dollars a year to his first wife in Savannah. O'Keefe's monopoly of the stone money trade gave him an enormous advantage over his competitors, but his business genius and his tact in dealing with the Yapese were, at bottom, responsible for his success. It was always within the power of the Yapese chiefs to withdraw their support for O'Keefe and favor one of his rivals. That they did not was owing to the respect and fair treatment that O'Keefe showed them, not the regal status that is often claimed for him in popular characterizations of his life. "His Majesty O'Keefe" held sway over trade on Yap, but his kingdom was limited to that alone. O'Keefe's supremacy over trade won for him a host of enemies among his business rivals. The gregarious Irishman, who in earlier years had brought in most of the liquor and supplies for his fellow traders, soon found himself shunned by his former drinking companions. "There is now not a white man on the island who speaks to O'Keefe," one of the traders testified (LeHunte 1883a:par 52). "He is at war with all the other whites on the Island, all of whom thoroughly detest him, charging him with diverse sins and shortcomings and abusing him soundly on all occasions" (Swanston 11 Mar 1883). Holcomb, whose business fortunes were now ebbing, could be counted among the most bitter of his enemies. Petulant and a chronic whiner, Holcomb was always ready to blame his  

page_283

Page 283

misfortunes on the collusion of his personal enemies, and he undoubtedly had O'Keefe very much in mind when he wrote to his sister of the "great rogues out here  . . . who will take advantage of my absence or any false move that I may make as soon or sooner than they would do an honest action" (11 Oct 1884). O'Keefe was easily the favorite target for the recriminations made by the white traders on Yap. He was the defendant in four out of the five cases investigated by the British warship Espiegle in 1883, and on more than one later occasion was obliged to stand trial in Hong Kong for charges brought to court by former employees. If British authorities judged O'Keefe on the basis of the number and gravity of complaints filed against him, they must have seen him as a latter-day Bully Hayes. Certainly Captain Bridge and Judicial Commissioner LeHunte were prepared to believe the worst about him when the Espiegle first reached Yap. Holcomb accused O'Keefe of defrauding one of his former employees (a man who had died three years before) of back pay and of failing to reimburse Holcomb himself for fifty thousand pounds of copra that had been turned over to him. A young British sailor charged O'Keefe with shooting at Yapese with the intent to kill when a white supercargo was attacked by the brother of a Yapese man whom he had beaten. But the most serious complaint against O'Keefe was introduced by one of his former employees, a seaman by the name of John McGuiness who had been a hand aboard the Lilla when it was wrecked in Palau. The long list of charges made by McGuiness against O'Keefe included flogging natives and throwing them overboard in shark-infested waters, forceful abduction and rape of native girls, abandoning his laborers on Mapia where they were shot or beaten to death by drunken agents, and shooting at defecting native workers as they tried to swim to shore. The charges were proved to be totally unfounded and O'Keefe's name was cleared. In the judgment of the British authorities, the Irish trader had been maliciously wronged by his rivals owing to their "jealousy at the success of his relations with the natives" (LeHunte 1883a:par 52). Even Kubary, who had no reason to come to O'Keefe's defense after the Lilla incident, testified that in the time he had been on Palau the trader's dealings with the people there had always been "creditable." This was corroborated by James Gibbons, another individual who was no great friend of the Irishman, and by several Palauans interviewed by the British, all of whom had high praise for O'Keefe. Bridge and LeHunte had  

page_284

Page 284

their reservations about O'Keefe's conduct in the Lilla case and warned him about assisting any faction against another in local wars and threatening islanders with the visit of a man-of-war to force them to comply with his wishes, but O'Keefe was by no means the first white trader in Micronesia guilty of such practices, and the rest of his business dealings were seemingly above reproach. Clearly impressed by the manner in which O'Keefe handled his trade on Yap, the commissioner and his fellows concluded their official report on their inquiries with the observation that "his industry and energy are doing good to the natives and their island as well as to himself" (LeHunte 1883a:par 53). The same could not be said of all foreigners living on Yap. John McGuiness, the principal complainant against O'Keefe, was himself charged with kicking and beating native crewmen and had reportedly emptied his revolver at O'Keefe in a furious outburst the year before. Another quick-tempered seaman, the supercargo of a German vessel, fired at the Yapese who had come to retaliate on him for flogging one of their number. Amos Holt, one of O'Keefe's agents, had to be transferred to another station after he shot and injured his trading partner in a quarrel. Beatings and bullets were all too casually used on recalcitrant islanders, and sometimes even on other traders, but the most common failings of white agents were their dishonesty and gross mismanagement. If O'Keefe's testimony before the British authorities is to be believed, he was particularly unfortunate in this respect. The German bookkeeper that he brought from Singapore in 1880 furtively left the islands a year later with a large sum of money that he had embezzled. One of O'Keefe's agents in Palau disappeared with the profits of his station, turning up in Manila sometime afterward, while another squandered all of his trade goods on whiskey and women before he suddenly departed, leaving an unpaid debt of four thousand dollars. Holt, who had been selling copra to other firms for a time in violation of his contract, returned to O'Keefe's service, but soon proved more of a liability than an asset. He spent most of his time in a drunken stupor, according to other traders on the island, and misappropriated about seven hundred dollars worth of trade goods. O'Keefe's choice of agents left a good deal to be desired, but his employees were probably not much worse than the general run of traders in the western Carolines at this time. "It is very hard to get decent characters for these trading voyages," O'Keefe acknowledged, explaining that even those who "appear decent at the  

page_285

Page 285

start soon get demoralized" (O'Keefe 18 Aug 1883 in LeHunte 1883a). The white traders' own "sins and shortcomings" were painfully evident throughout these years, but never more so than in their notorious expedition against a Yapese village in March 1883. The incident began when Walter Amery, a trader for one of the German firms, was attacked by several Yapese for failing to deliver a rifle he had promised them in payment for copra he had received. The angry Yapese dragged Amery into the lagoon and held his head under water until he was half-drowned before finally releasing him with a warning to make good on his promise. When Amery, shaken and infuriated at what had been done to him, reported this to the other traders, they immediately organized a punitive party. A few days later, the entire white communitywith the exception of O'Keefeset out on an armed expedition against the village of the offenders to demand their surrender. Upon their arrival at the village, the traders were greeted by a number of people bringing them peace offeringsgifts of pigs, turtle, yams, and baskets of coprabut the whites would not be put off and demanded to have the guilty parties handed over to them so that they could stand trial before the chiefs of Rul and Tomil. Frightened as they were, the Yapese could not be persuaded to turn over Amery's assailants, even though the traders assured them that their lives would be spared. They recalled all too well that in similar circumstances some years before a Yapese defendant had been hanged on the spot in the presence of his white accuser. Angered by the villagers' refusal, the small army of traders set a torch to three meetinghouses and later, when the rumor was spread that the Yapese were planning to launch a counter-attack, kept up a steady fire into the bush with their Gatling gun and rifles. The Yapese had fled long before, however, and the only casualty was Holcomb, who was accidentally shot in the back of the leg by his own houseboy. Amery and another Englishman who played a major role in the affair were brought to trial at the visit of the Espiegle in August. The British court found Amery and his colleague guilty of a felony, imposed fines of $100 and $50 respectively, and put them on probation for a year. Holcomb, whose age and experience gave him considerable influence over the traders, was singled out as another of the principal instigators of the attack, since it was at his advice that the whites organized the sortie in the first place. For his part  

page_286

Page 286

in the incident Holcomb received a blistering reprimand from the British, although his nationality exempted him from any stronger disciplinary measures. The court judgment, needless to say, caused deep resentment among the white traders on Yap, who felt that the British unfairly "took the natives' part" against them. "Now if this is English law," Holcomb groused to his sister (24 Aug 1883), "thank God I am not an Englishman." An agent for Capelle & Co soon afterward wrote a full account of the case to the German consul in Samoa with a plea for German naval protection from "interference by English ships of war" (Swanston 26 Nov 1883). Meanwhile, the trading community closed ranks even more tightly against O'Keefe, who alone had refused to participate in the raid and whose evidence in court had helped convict Amery and his fellow trader. For all the grumbling of Yap's foreign colony, the outside world was beginning to see that it was no longer the traders who needed to be defended from the Yapese, but that the reverse was more likely to be the case. Any doubts on this point were removed when, in 1885, Holcomb was charged by O'Keefe with the torture and murder of two Yapese boys who had allegedly robbed him of two hundred dollars worth of trade goods (Hezel 1975:12 13). According to O'Keefe's well-publicized version of the story, Holcomb clamped wires on the hands, feet, and noses of the boys until they were mangled beyond recognition, and then had them taken out and hanged. The accusation probably had no more truth in it than most of the far-fetched charges directed against O'Keefe himself, but it stirred up fresh public indignation at the outrages, real and imagined, that whites had been working on the natives of Yap all these years. The British governor of Hong Kong, upon hearing of O'Keefe's sworn testimony, made a formal request of the US commander in the Far East to dispatch an American warship to Yap to investigate these atrocities. The Hong Kong Telegraph, recalling O'Keefe's remark that Yap got along very well without lawyers (a jibe that he once made to a testy prosecutor while in the witness stand during one of his many court cases in Hong Kong) pointedly suggested that "the sooner lawyers, and a gallows, become a recognized institution in these islands, the better it will be for suffering humanity" (14 May 1885). The long vendetta between Holcomb and O'Keefe was growing more bitter with time. The two traders had come to blows on one occasion and O'Keefe told British authorities that Holcomb meant  

page_287

Page 287

to kill him someday. Perhaps this was what prompted O'Keefe to lay before a British court of justice his incredible tale of an incident that was supposed to have happened five years before, a tale that was based on little more than hearsay. But, even with the rest of the trading community to support him, Holcomb had never been a match for O'Keefein physical strength or in entrepreneurial skills. Hot-headed and impetuous, Holcomb possessed neither the restraint and tact necessary to win the confidence of the Yapese nor the business sense that might have made him successful in his bid for a major share of the Yap trade. He must have been painfully aware of these shortcomings, which were thrown into strong relief by contrast with the successful Irishman, and this could only have fed the already deep resentment he harbored against O'Keefe. The years between 1880 and 1885 had been trying ones for Holcomb (Hezel 1975:13 14). With the fall-off in his copra trade that resulted from stiffening business competition and the financial blow that he was dealt when the Scotland was lost at sea, he had no choice but to dispose of his own trade station for a time and take employment with one of his rivals, Eduard Hernsheim. After a year's exile working for Hernsheim's establishment on Jaluit and several months of piloting a German man-of-war through Melanesian waters, he returned to Yap in the middle of 1882 to find further troubles awaiting him in the form of two pressing lawsuits. The part-owners of the Scotland, C L Taylor and Co, were initiating a suit against Holcomb for back debts on the schooner which they maintained he had never paid. Holcomb, who had already lost seven thousand dollars on the Scotland, was convinced that the company had already recovered the full insurance and now were conniving to wring his last dollar from him. When, soon after this, he learned of claims for two thousand dollars filed against him in Connecticut for "board bill and horse hire," his fury against "the sharpers from San Francisco and the lawyers of Connecticut" knew no bounds (Holcomb to m 10 Jul 1881). The following year found him on his back recovering from the gunshot wound in his leg and smarting from the rebuke he had received from the British for his role in the shooting spree. On top of all else, Holcomb's relatives in New England were pleading with him to return to help out the family in the financial distress that had lately befallen them. To their request that he "come home soon for God's sake and let the islands go to thunder," Holcomb testily replied:  

page_288

Page 288

Now which do you think would be best for me to do, to throw up my vessel and let her lie and rot or be pillaged by the natives and let my other property go to thunder or for God's sake (a gentleman I am unacquainted with) to come home and be bullied by a parcel of lawyers and scolded by you, to save I don't know what; this is a pecuniary view of the matter. (Holcomb to s 11 Oct 1884) A "pecuniary view" was the one that Holcomb usually took, and from this vantage point his own position in late 1884 looked extremely precarious despite his strenuous efforts to reestablish his copra trade after his two-year absence from Yap. He listed the total value of his holdings in the Carolines as $14,500, but most of this was in the form of trade goods that had been bought on credit. Holcomb knew only too well that his shaky financial position would not improve as long as O'Keefe and the German firms maintained their present trade advantage in the western Carolines. If he could not break their commercial stranglehold on Yap through his own business initiatives, perhaps a foreign power could do so by imposing trade regulations. Accordingly, on 23 October 1884, Holcomb personally presented to the governor of the Philippines a formal petitionsigned by himself, Bartola, and a handful of Yapesethat Spanish rule be extended to Yap and Palau and that a governor be appointed to reside there (Hezel 1975:14 15). The petition recites a litany of blessings to be gained from Spanish cultural influence, religious faith, and education, but its true spirit is best captured in the line that deplores the "domination of Yap by foreign powers that are concerned only for their own business interests." Holcomb, no doubt, felt that he would fare better under Spanish ruleparticularly if he himself were instrumental in bringing it aboutthan in a free port where each man was on his own. As one of the underdogs in the commercial struggle of the day, he was counting on the trade restrictions that he was sure Spanish authorities would impose to offset some of the advantages enjoyed by his competitors, if not to break their power altogether, and to enable him to solidify his position in the western Carolines. Spanish rule in the Carolines, when finally inaugurated in June 1886, came too late to further Holcomb's personal ambitions. In April of the previous year, he set out aboard the Bartola, his new schooner, with sixty Yapese to obtain a cargo of mother-of-pearl from the St Matthias Islands, a group off the north coast of New Ireland. Holcomb had finally learned from O'Keefe's success and  

page_289

Page 289

decided to emulate his methods, it seems, for he intended to barter the shell, highly prized by Yapese as a traditional symbol of prestige, in exchange for copra. Moreover, he had just broken into the stone money trade, still monopolized by O'Keefe at this time, when he landed a group of Yapese at Palau to cut stones which he planned to carry back to Yap on the return voyage. When the Bartola anchored off the tiny island of Tench in the St Matthias Group on 6 May 1885, Holcomb immediately had the boat lowered and set out for shore to negotiate with the local chiefs for the right to collect the shell that lay at the bottom of the sandy bay. As he stood in the boat showing the islanders samples of the cloth that he would give them in payment, spears began to fly from the beach. Struck by one of them, Holcomb tumbled over the gunwale into the shallow water of the bay. The Yapese crewmen in the boat, all of them wounded in the melee, tried to drag Holcomb into the skiff, but with their attackers closing in on them, the best they could do was to bring the skiff around and paddle frantically for the Bartola. One of them turned around in time to see Holcomb's body hauled out of the water by his assailants, lifted on a spear, and carried away toward the interior of the island (Hezel 1975:16 17). The American warship that had been sent to investigate the murder charges sworn against Holcomb by O'Keefe arrived at Yap just in time to learn the details of the American trader's violent death. The Yapese mate aboard the Bartola, who, with the aid of only a compass, had managed to guide the schooner back to its home port, furnished an eye-witness account of the tragedy for the American commander. Subsequent inquiry into the trader's estate showed that Holcomb was as unlucky in death as he had been in life. The man who had so doggedly followed his star in pursuit of a fortune was able to leave his common-law wife only "a small island with a thatched hut and little more." When her late husband's accounts were finally settled, Bartola had to apologize in a letter to his mother that she had not even enough cash left to send her a small present, and for years afterward she lived as a ward of the Spanish colonial government. Holcomb may have helped guide the copra industry on Yap through its critical years, but O'Keefe, who left an estate of half a million dollars when he died at sea in 1903, unquestionably won the trade battle for the island.  

page_290

Page 290

Chapter 11 Colonial Rule The March of Civilization What Yap was to the Carolines in the early 1880s Jaluit was to the Marshallsthe major commercial depot and much more. Two of the three great trading firms had their headquarters on the island, their long wooden warehouses and office buildings towering imperially over the nipa huts that lined the lagoon shore. There were almost always six or seven ships at anchor in the harborsmall cutters fitting out for their next interisland cruises and large schooners loading copra for Hamburg. By 1880 about thirty different vessels, most of them German, were making over a hundred calls a year. Jaluit had become the busiest port in Micronesia, busier even than any of the Ponape harbors had been during the peak of the whaling years (Hager 1886:121). Jaluit's new port town consisted of not much more than the two trading establishments, a few frame houses occupied by the firms' foreign personnel, and a couple of saloons; but to visiting seamen, who were usually greeted by the sight of nothing but coconut palms and thatched houses on the islands at which they called, it was ''metropolitan indeed." The German wives of the company managers had planted hedgerows around their houses and tended neat little flower gardens; pigeons fluttered around freshly white-washed dovecotes and cows grazed on the grass behind the homes. Paintings hung from the walls and clavichords stood in the living rooms, just as they might have in the middle-class dwellings of Hanover and Holstein. The trading firms sold coal to steamships in need of refueling and just about everything else to anyone, native or foreign, who cared to shop in their wellstocked stores. It was said of Jaluit at this time that "One may buy there almost any  

page_291

Page 291

object of the civilized world  . . . from sail needles to sewing machines, from ship's biscuit to Strasbourg pâté de foie gras" (Hager 1886:110). Thirsty sailors with time to kill had their choice of two grogshops, both of which rented roomsand women to go with themto customers too tipsy to make it back to their ships. The older and better known establishment, the Union Hotel, was run by a tall, strapping negro by the name of Black Tom Tilton who had become a living legend in the Pacific. By all rights, Tilton should have perished many times overin Delaware when, as a young slave who had just tasted his first flogging, he beat his overseer to unconsciousness and fled north for his life; in Samoa in the late 1850s when he was hunted and driven off the island by a mob of angry whites whom he had cheated; and again in Arno twenty years later when the islanders, weary of his drunken bullying, planted five spears in his brawny body and left him for dead (Dana 1935:25 47). Tilton, the perpetual fugitive, finally settled on Jaluit in 1878 to make a living doing what he did best: cooking, tending bar, and regaling customers with lively accounts of his past escapades. Although seventy years old, Tilton was "as smart and energetic as everand just as unscrupulous," one of his clients, who had known him back in Samoa thirty years before, avowed (Swanston 2 Jun 1882). He was also as trouble prone, it seems, for two months after the opening of his new hotel Tilton was shot in the arm twice after taunting a German trader during a bitter argument that quickly developed into a free-for-all (Swanston 30 Oct 1882). Customers never knew quite what to expect from Tiltonhe might receive them with oily obsequiousness or he might rage furiously; he might give them a week's free lodging or he might swindle them out of whatever he thought he could get. Tilton was unpredictable but always interesting, and his business boomed. Tilton's bar was almost as well patronized by Marshallese as by foreign seamen, despite the earnest attempts of the missionaries to warn the people away from Demon Rum. Hard drinking and rowdy behavior were no less a way of life on Jaluit than in any other port town in the Pacific, and the place soon acquired notoriety for its excesses. "A seedbed of drunkenness and licentiousness" was the way one missionary described the island during these years (ABCFM Pe&Wh-Ck 26 Mar 1880). Others less easily disedified than he agreed. One seaman remembered Jaluit as "the place  

page_292

Page 292

where they say that they always know when Sunday comes around, from the people being worse drunk than in the rest of the week, and I think it is true; but I never saw them sober any day" (quoted in Marshall and Marshall 1976:144). Drunkenness may have been somewhat more manifest on Jaluit, but it was common enough on other islands as well. Every trading schooner that left Jaluit for other parts of the Marshalls carried liquor for the traders and some of the cheap gin was certain to make its way into the hands of local people. The captain of one small vessel preparing for a short trading cruise stocked up with "one case of Scotch whiskey, one of Bourbon; one of brandy, two of gin, two of beer; a basket of champagne; a few bottles of bitters" (Farrell 1928:332). This captain had second thoughts about the wisdom of carrying such a cargo after a native crewman who had broken into the ship's hold and drunk himself crazy attacked him with a broadaxe and came within a hair of killing him. The "cheap fire-water from Rotterdam and Hamburg," indignant foreigners charged (CEG 1886:393), was responsible for the "rampant debauchery" of the islanders and the rapid depopulation that followed. Their social analysis was naive and faulty, but their zealous concern about the growing alcohol problem in the islands was certainly legitimate. Drinking often led to bloodshed and other crimes, and it was not without reason that one of the Gilbertese chiefs punished drunkenness with the same severity as seditionby staking the guilty person spreadeagled on the beach for two days under the tropical sun. At Ebon, where missionary influence was strongest, the first legal steps were taken to deal with the alcohol problem. In 1878 Edmund Pease prevailed on Loiak and the other Ebon chiefs to enact a law forbidding the sale and consumption of liquor under penalty of severe fines. When a white trader violated the law by giving one of the chiefs a glass of rum and left him to finish the bottle while he attended a customer, the resident pastor ordered a general boycott of the offending trader's business for the next three months. Kabua followed Loiak's lead in 1880 when he made a law prohibiting the sale of liquor to islanders throughout the western chain. James Young, who was back in the Marshalls for a time, was distressed by the havoc that he saw drink playing among the people, and his was the guiding hand behind Kabua's legislation. He saw to it that the law was brought to the attention of British and German authorities and that due notice of the new ordinance  

page_293

Page 293

was served to Tilton and the other barkeeper on Jaluit. British officials endorsed the new law and followed it up with one of their own, making the sale of "spiritous liquors" punishable by British law, but the regulation was soon a dead letter. The coalition of business interests and island chiefsin many cases the very chiefs who signed the prohibition lawwas too strong to oppose and drinking continued as before. The only successful check on the sale of liquor proved to be the threat of a church boycott such as the one that had worked well on Ebon, but this, too, was withdrawn after 1885, when the German government fined the Protestant church $500 and ordered it to cease its "undue interference with the secular affairs of the island" (ABCFM, AR 1886:90). Drinking, with its attendant evils, remained a serious difficulty during these years, but warfare was an even more urgent problem. By 1880 wars had broken out on two islands of the eastern chain, Majuro and Arno, and the old quarrel between Kabua and Loiak had erupted into battle on Jaluit. Each of the wars was a struggle between two cousins for succession to the paramount chieftainship upon the death of the former chief, and each threatened, like the hostilities between Loiak and Kabua, to drag on for years. The war on Arno began in 1878 when Lijiwirak rallied enough support from his lineage mates and friends to challenge his older cousin, Lekman, who had recently assumed the chieftainship of the island. Lekman, who was also known by his Christian name, David, sought help from the British warship Emerald in 1881, giving the British to understand that the other faction was rebelling against his lawful rule. The British, however, were loath to take sides in local political matters. The Emerald's commander saw each of the parties separately, lecturing them on the folly of warfare, and left them to settle matters among themselves. Neither of the rival chiefs could have taken his counsel to heart, for at the arrival of the next warship two years later the two warring parties, encamped at opposite ends of the island, were still sniping away at one another. The three white traders on the island had tried at different times to reconcile the two cousins, since their copra trade was suffering badly in the long drawn-out hostilities. In warfare as practised in the Marshalls, each side destroyed as much of the enemy's property as it could, and the island had lost many of its coconut trees in raids. When the traders' attempts failed, they resorted to selling guns to the combatants in an effort to salvage something of their former trade. By 1883 the island had acquired  

page_294

Page 294

a respectable-sized arsenal; the British reported that between both parties there were "about 100 Sniders, 20 Winchester repeaters, 4 or 5 Martini-Henri breech-loaders, and several Remingtons" (Bridge 1883:par 53). At the going prices on Arno (£20 for a Winchester or a Martini-Henri, £15 for a Remington, and £4 for a Snider) the British naval commander wrily speculated that the trade in rifles might well have been more profitable than the agents' original copra business. Captain Bridge of the Espiegle, who negotiated peace treaties on four different islands during this cruise, summoned the two principal chiefs aboard the warship and concluded a hasty agreement between themwith little hope of its permanence. It turned out to be even less enduring than he had imagined. By the time a German consular official stopped at Arno six months later, full fighting had been resumed. The white traders, who had taken up residence in no-man's-land, were caught in the crossfire between enemy lines and had to build stone shelters to protect themselves from the stray bullets that whizzed through their houses as they sleptbullets fired "from the rifles they themselves had supplied," a British officer caustically noted (W Moore 1884). By the following summer the war was finally winding down. "King David," who had gotten the worse of it, had lost much of his land and so many of his trees that he hardly had enough coconuts for food and drink. The large fine that was imposed on him and his rival for damages done to the traders' property further depleted his scanty resources. The island was nearly razed and the people all but exhausted when, in late 1884, the war finally ended with the partitioning of the atoll and the creation of two separate chiefdoms. On Majuro, just twenty miles west of Arno, the old paramount chief, Lerok, had given instructions just before his death that the atoll be divided between his two nephews, Jebrik and Rimi. Neither of the two cousins was content with this arrangement: Rimi because, as the senior of the two, he was in line to inherit the entire chiefdom; and Jebrik because he saw himself as a far more effective leader than his weak older cousin. Jebrik, ambitious and assertive, was unhappy at being given the poorer half of the atoll and soon contrived an excuse for declaring war on his rival. At the out-break of the first real fighting, Rimi, who never felt comfortable at the head of an army, turned his title over to his two younger brothers and called on his nephew, Kaibuke, to command his warriors while he himself retired from the fray.  

page_295

Page 295

Jebrik assumed the offensive right from the start and soon had his enemies bottled up at one end of the island. While Kaibuke's men took shelter behind the five-foot-high stone fortifications that they had erected around their camp, Jebrik, wearing a distinctive red turban and a "brightly colored handkerchief" over his native grass skirt, darted back and forth rallying his three hundred fighting men to keep up their rifle fire. The energetic Jebrik was pressing his enemies hard to maintain his advantage when the Espiegle arrived in 1883, but the war had been almost as much of a hardship on him as on them. Ten lives had been lost since the fighting began, several canoes had been taken, and the usual destruction of crops and trees had brought about a serious food shortage. Copra production had fallen to about half of what it was before the warfrom 350 tons a year to less than 200and Jebrik desperately needed the copra to pay off a debt of £700 on a schooner he had recently bought. The schooner, the old blackbirding vessel Daphne, was already "rapidly going to ruin in his hands," according to one trader (Moss 1889:126), and his island was not faring much better under the devastation of the war. Jebrik at first showed some hesitation when Captain Bridge proposed a peace treaty, but he soon let himself be persuaded to try to come to terms with his enemy. One of the traders, a grizzled, rough-and-ready American who went by the name of Rocky Mountain Jack, was selected to brave the sentry fire from the opposing side and carry the message to Kaibuke's camp. Later that same day, the chiefs from both factions, unarmed and accompanied by British officers, cautiously left their defenses and proceeded to a point midway between the two enemy camps. As the hostile parties slowly approached one another, several persons broke into a run and rushed into one another's arms. Jebrik, trembling with emotion, embraced his daughter, married to a warrior on the enemy's side and whom he had not seen in three or four years. Families that had been divided by the struggle were reunited and there were tears in almost everyone's eyes. After the formal reconciliation, Jebrik gave a short speech acknowledging that wrong had been done on both sides and urging everyone to rid themselves of any bitterness that remained; the only thing of which they had to be ashamed, he said, was "that it required the intervention of a foreign people to bring them once again together" (LeHunte 1883b: 31 32). When Bridge and his officers left them to return to their ship, the people who had been shooting at one another the day  

page_296

Page 296

before were gathered in little groups absorbed in conversation as if there had never been a war at all. Touched at what he had just seen, the British judicial commissioner mused on how far more satisfying and "creditable to the Royal Navy" these peace-making missions were than inflicting heavy fines that the people cannot pay, burning down villages, cutting up canoes, chopping down trees, and "blazing away" at the natives ''because they have had a row with some loafer who settles himself on them as a trader" (LeHunte 1883b:33). The old wounds were slow in healing, however. Although fighting never resumed, the rival factions were again "on very distant terms" when the British warship Dart visited Majuro a year later. The chief of Aur, one of the atolls north of Majuro, had come to ask Kaibuke and Rimi for their help in putting down an insurrection on his island, and everyone suspected that in return he would be requested to aid in an attack on Jebrik. The British commander promptly met with Jebrik's enemies and advised them to remain where they were and "mind their own business." As Bridge had done the year before, he brought together the principal chiefs from both sides and had them ratify the peace they had agreed to earlier. On the advice of one of the chiefs, he had Rimi brought from his sickbed to shake hands with Jebrika memorable meeting since it was the first time in six or seven years that the two cousins had laid eyes on one another. After a short parley between the old rivals, Jebrik promised that never again would he take up arms against his cousin and Rimi declared that Jebrik spoke for his side as well. A year or two earlier Jebrik had forced his cousin to agree to an exchange of property and he now had the more productive half of the island in his hands. To continue to pursue the chieftainship of the entire atoll was futile, he realized; he and Rimi would have to share authority over Majuro in the future. The British, who had sent three warships to intervene in the conflicts on Arno and Majuro during the early 1880s, were alarmed at the rapid proliferation of firearms in the islands. Many of the fighting men in both places carried rifles, and one British officer estimated that traders on Arno were selling thirty new guns a year to the warring parties. The most effective means of curbing the irresponsible arms trade, the British believed, was by concerted action on the part of both the German and British governments, but this proved impossible. When the commander of the HMS Emerald approached the German consul from Samoa about  

page_297

Page 297

the matter, he was told flatly that any attempt to control the sales of firearms would only have the effect of hurting the lucrative trade that Germany and England had in the Marshalls and encourage other nations to come in and take over the firearms market (Maxwell 1881:par 66). Finally, in the summer of 1884, the British decided to act on their own. A regulation prohibiting all British subjects from "selling or giving any firearms, ammunition, powder, dynamite or explosive of any description to any native of any islands in the western Pacific" was promulgated in the Marshalls at the time of the Dart's visit (W Moore 1884:encl 1). The law stipulated a mere £10 fine for any violation, but the Dart's commander put real teeth into it by announcing that traders who failed to observe the new regulation could expect no protection "of person and property" from the British navy in the future. Some of the trading firms had already taken action to control the sales of rifles and guns. Hernsheim & Co had instructed its agents on Majuro, Arno, and Jaluit to cease trading in weapons as long as fighting was being carried on, and Henderson & MacFarlane was forced to discontinue its gun shipments because of customs restrictions in Auckland. There were ways around these measures, of course: company officials at Henderson & MacFarlane had their ships pick up arms in Sydney when they could, and a few Hernsheim agents, such as the trader on Arno with a stock of twenty unsold Winchesters, simply chose to ignore the company's directives. Adolph Capelle refused to support the prohibition on arms sales in any way whatsoever; when informed of the new British regulation, he simply stated that he "intended to continue trading weapons as long as he could under the American flag" (W Moore 1884). Despite their firm opposition to the sale of firearms, British naval officers recognized that guns had not made warfare more deadly. In fact, they had just the opposite effect, the commander of the Emerald observed. "Though the natives are plentifully supplied with rifles and ammunition by the traders, they are fond of fighting from cover and at long range, and few shots take effect" (Maxwell 1881). Modern warfare in the Marshalls was conducted from a safe distance by men who barely knew how to fire their weapons; rifles served more as a threatening display of force than an effective means of destroying the enemy. In a battle fought between Kabua and Loiak on Jaluit in 1880 there was not a single casualty on either side, although both were armed with rifles. The  

page_298

Page 298

fighting that broke out between Rongelap and Rongerik shortly afterward, however, was carried on with traditional weapons and took several lives (Krämer and Nevermann 1938:204). Still, the ineffectiveness of modern weapons, as used by the Marshallese, did not make the people any more willing to surrender them to government authorities. The people of Majuro refused to turn over their weapons to the commander of the Dart, even after the war there had ended, for fear that they would be vulnerable to the attacks of their armed neighbors from other atolls. Only after the establishment of German rule in the Marshalls were guns confiscated and a measure of peace restored to the islands. More than one European visitor to the Marshalls during these years lamented the corrupting influence of Western goods on the people. The rifles and liquor sold by traders were more obvious in the damage that they worked, but the clothing, ironware, and myriad other imports were having their own pernicious effects on the culture that Kotzebue had found so enchanting seventy years earlier. Traditional skills were disappearing faster than "snow melting in the sun," one German ethnographer noted; only the people of the northern islands remained free from the influence of merchant and missionary, he observed, and "even they will soon meet the fate of their neighbors" (Hager 1886:110). But amid these dirges for a moribund culture a few voices were beginning to sound a different, slightly ominous note. If the foreign trading companies had introduced guns and alcohol to the people, it was the navies of these foreign powers that had attempted to eliminate, or at least control, their harmful effects. The march of civilization was relentless and could not be halted. The remedy for the ills that Western civilization had already brought to the islands lay not in a return to an imaginary culture, pristine and pure, but in an advance toward full European rule. If the West had inflicted these evils on the islanders, only the West could offer release from them. A New Flag over Jaluit On 29 November 1878, a new flag flew for the first time over Jaluitthe five-striped, black, white, and red banner of the Ralik Islands. Its resemblance to the German colors was striking but not in the least surprising, for it was raised by a detachment of German marines and saluted by the guns of the German imperial naval cruiser Ariadne. Kabua, dressed in a new black suit and  

page_299

Page 299

wearing shoes and socks for the first time in his life, watched quietly with a handful of lesser chiefs as the colors were hauled up. The chiefs, as representatives of the Ralik Islands, had just signed a formal treaty with the German government, the first step in a process of German political intervention that was eventually to lead to the full annexation of the Marshall Islands. In part, the treaty was similar to that forced upon the Ponapean chiefs by the USS Jamestown eight years before: the rights of German citizens (but not necessarily other foreigners) living in the islands were to be guaranteed by the local chiefs. The rest of the provisions gave Germany a "most favored nation" status in the western Marshalls, including free access to Jaluit, the right to set up a coaling station there, and the offer of the use of any other ports in the archipelago (Firth 1977:7). A verbal nod was made in recognition of the authority of Kabua and the chiefs aligned with him, but the actual power to resolve disputes between German traders and the Marshallese was assigned to German authorities. In the treaty, chiefly privileges were plainly subordinate to German interests. Germany, riding the wave of strong nationalism that followed its unification in 1871, was flexing its muscles and beginning to look beyond Europe, where it had already established itself as a first-rate power, to an empire overseas. It had entered the race for colonial possessions latelong after France, England, Spain, and the older powers of the continentbut it had acquired a commercial hegemony over much of the Pacific by the 1870s. German businesses controlled over eighty percent of the trade in Samoa and Tonga, and probably nearly as great a share in the Carolines and Marshalls. Eduard Hernsheim and the heads of the other major German firms appealed to their government to take possession of those Pacific islands in which they held a strong trading advantage; this would serve to protect German commercial superiority while giving Germany the foundation of the empire that its dignity demanded. At first Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, always preoccupied with European affairs, turned a deaf ear to these pleas, but by the late 1870s he had adopted a more vigorous policy in the Pacific. The first positive assertion of German interests was the series of treaties that the Imperial Government signed providing trading privileges and coaling stations on several islands. Agreements were made in 1878 with chiefs in the Ellices, Gilberts, Duke of York Islands, and the northern coast of New Britain,  

page_300

Page 300

besides the Marshalls (RG Brown 1976:43 44); and in the following year the same kind of treaty was concluded with the chiefs in Samoa. Germany, however, was still neither strong nor daring enough to act without first securing approval from London. Britain, still very much the mistress of the seas, was the foremost power in Europe and the sovereign of a vast empire. For decades Britain's naval power had dominated the Pacific and in the late 1870s the English still reigned there. With an already huge empire to administer and finance, the British were not eager to add new colonies in the Pacific. They had resisted pressure by Australia to annex the Carolines some years earlier and had put off similar entreaties with respect to several other islands south of the equator. Nonetheless, Britain was drawn more and more into island affairs. The rise of the labor trade, with all its horrible injustices, was the beginning of British political involvement; it was this, W P Morrell wrote (1960:171), "that forced the British Government to take its place beside the Christian missions as a civilizing agency in the islands." The Kidnapping Acts were passed and violators, when they could be apprehended, were brought to Sydney for trial. But this was a terribly ineffective system. What was needed was a central administrative office with authority over all British subjects throughout the western Pacific so that justice could be dispensed on any island by a band of roving commissioners. Thus was born the idea of the Western Pacific High Commission, established in 1877 on Fiji, the first of Britain's Pacific colonies. The commission was plagued with difficulties, some administrative and others financial, and the deputy commissioner who was to live on Ponape and exercise jurisdiction over Micronesia and New Guinea was never appointed. Nonetheless, British authorities exercised what control they could in these islands through the arm of the Royal Navy; the bans on the sale of alcohol and firearms and the peacemaking missions of the Espiegle and the two other warships to the Marshalls were all authorized by the Western Pacific High Commission. Even before its birth, however, the commission was fated to play a very impermanent role in Micronesian affairs. Britain, fearful of growing American sea power and eager to block what were thought to be the expansionist tendencies of the United States, began a round of secret negotiations with Germany in 1875. A year later the two powers issued a joint declaration announcing  

page_301

Page 301

that they had divided the western Pacific into their respective spheres of influenceGermany's was to include the northern Pacific along with the Bismarck Archipelago and part of New Guinea, while Britain's would contain the rest of the south Pacific. Britain, the reluctant colonizer, hoped to keep out other world powers and insure free trade at the expense of increased governmental responsibility in the area. Germany, on the other hand, gained recognition as a political presence in the Pacific and drew the boundaries around those islands that would become its first colonies. With this agreement, official British authority in the Carolines and Marshalls all but endedalmost before it began. The German commander of the Ariadne, in a report to Berlin on the treaty that he had just signed with the Ralik chiefs, expressed the frank hope that this event would lead to the annexation of the islands one day in the future. In the meantime, he "felt constrained to take extensive measures to protect the islands from the greed of other nations" (Werner 1889:360). By "extensive measures" Commander Werner meant largely a side cruise to Ebon to promulgate the new treaty in the presence of the dissident elements on that island. Kabua had told the German commander that his old rival, Loiak, and the other Ebon chiefs who sided with him were spearheading a breakaway movement that posed just as great a threat to German interests as it did to the authority of Kabua himself. Since the Imperial Government and Kabua were to be partners, he insisted that his stepson and right-hand man, Letabalin, accompany the Germans on their visit to Ebon to help them win the submission of the rebel leaders. Werner had his own reasons for the special trip, however. Ebon was still the center of American missionary activity in the Marshalls and therefore, in his eyes, a dangerous seedbed of a violently anti-German political movement. Werner reflected the sentiments of many other Germans when he wrote that the missionaries "sow only discord here to increase their own power" (1889:375 376). They were working to ''shake the authority of the chieftains," he suspected, just as they had tried to subvert German commercial influenceall with the intention of turning the islands into a republic and delivering them over to the United States as a protectorate. The Ariadne spent only a few hours at Ebon, just long enough to assemble the chiefs and the people for a brief ceremony celebrating the new treaty. There was an unmistakably curt, martial flavor to the whole performancethe treaty was read aloud while Ger 

page_302

Page 302

man troops stood at attention with guns at their sides and bayonets fixed; notice was given that the murder of any German would "cost the perpetrator his head"; and a list of those who had debts with German firms was read and warning given that they were to pay soon. The single American missionary on the island, whom Werner had so much wanted to impress with the significance of the treaty, strolled over half-way through the ceremony and left immediately after it was finished without so much as a word to any of the German officers. The Ariadne steamed off leaving the islands to be governed, in effect, by the trading firms. Franz Hernsheim, a representative of the largest trading company in the Marshalls, was appointed German consul at Jaluit, and was succeeded in 1882 by the next general manager of Hernsheim & Co. Hernsheim's official intervention in the Kosrae trading controversy on behalf of his own company, an action that resulted in the imposition of a large indemnity on the people of that island, brought vigorous complaints from the American missionaries there. To protect the missionary interests in the islands, the United States soon established its own consular office at Jaluit, with Adolph Capelle serving as the first American consul. In the absence of governors, judges, or even military commanders to dispense "gunboat justice," the consul was the sole authority of the foreign government on an island; his was the power to enforce his nation's laws and to punish, within limits, their infractions. With the heads of two large trading firms serving as the German and American consuls, conflict of interest was almost inevitable. What chance does an employee with a complaint against a company official have of obtaining justice, one man wondered (Swanston 24 Nov 1882). But the workings of consular offices were of little interest to Kabua, who was still gloating over the official recognition that the Germans had paid him as "King of the Ralik Islands." The years he had spent on Jaluit patronizing the heads of the German firms, while Loiak sat quietly on Ebon, had paid glorious dividends. The location of Kabua's house, nestled as it was between the headquarters of the two leading trading companies in the Marshalls, was not without significance. With the backing of the German government and navy, he was in an excellent position to clinch his claim to the paramount chieftainship once and for all and establish his authority over the entire Ralik chain, just as the line of ibeduls had extended their power in Palau with the help of the British. Loiak,  

page_303

Page 303

of course, was well aware of what was happening. Angry at the way in which he had been upstaged by his rival, the old chief mustered his forces in May 1880 and set out for Jaluit to challenge Kabua in battle (Hager 1886:81 85). What ensued was more a charade than a fight, according to a German who witnessed it. Kabua, who had shed his pants and shirt for the old Marshallese skirt, led his troops to the battlefield with his Spencer rifle raised above his head. Behind him walked four of his wives carrying ammunition, food, coconuts, flasks of gin, and "that American medicant known as 'pain killer' which is cherished all over the South Seas" (Hager 1886:84). A motley array of about a hundred troopsranging from children to stooped old menfollowed, carrying rifles, spears, harpoons, and just about every other conceivable weapon. On reaching the battlefield, Kabua shook his rifle violently and let out with a fearful battle cry, but no opposing force met him. Instead, Loiak's troops simply wandered about freely behind the enemy lines buying powder or tobacco and returning to their own positions unmolested. For several days this pageant continued. Except for the construction of a coral rampart by Kabua's men, "the only activity of the warriors consisted in eating, adorning themselves, and shooting in the air" (Hager 1886:85). No attack had yet been made when Loiak's men took to their canoes and retired to Ebon, where the old chief remained for the next several years. Kabua retained his title as "king," at least in the eyes of Europeans, but his authority was hedged in by restrictions. By the terms of the treaty that he had signed with the Germans, he held virtually no power over the foreigners living in his domain. Any taxes that he imposed on them had to be approved first by the Imperial Government, and all disputes between chiefs and foreigners were to be decided by German military authorities. None of the chiefs in the Marshalls could impose a fine of even 500 coconuts on a white trader without authorization of the German government. In effect, the highest law of the land was that promulgated from the quarterdeck of a German man-ofwar. Meanwhile, the German trading companies were tightening their commercial grip on the islands. Hernsheim's company, now known as Robertson & Hernsheim since he had taken his cousin into partnership, had the lion's share of the copra trade in the early 1880s. Capelle & Co was a strong competitor for a time, but the drop in the world market price of copra in 1882 and the dif 

page_304

Page 304

ficulties Capelle had in finding ships to transport produce to Europe seriously hurt the company. In 1883 Capelle & Co, which for years had been registered as an American business, was forced to sell most of its holdings to Deutsche Handels- und Plantagen-Gesellschaft, the successor to Godeffroy & Son in the Pacific. Capelle & Co sold its stations on Kosrae, Ponape, and seven islands in the Marshalls for seven thousand dollars and retrenched to its plantation on Likiep and the few other small holdings that it retained. The following year, as DHPG began operations in the string of stations that it had just bought, Capelle & Co struck an agreement with Robertson & Hernsheim to sell the latter all the copra it produced or collected. In return, Robertson & Hernsheim was to furnish Capelle with twelve thousand dollars of badly needed capital and additional trading provisions. From this time on, Capelle & Co functioned as a subordinate of Robertson & Hernsheim, while the two large German firmsRobertson & Hernsheim and DHPGbecame virtual masters of the copra trade in the Marshalls and the eastern Carolines. Henderson & MacFarlane, the New Zealand-based company with regional headquarters on Majuro, never gained more than a small fraction of the trade in the area. As German commercial interests in the area grew stronger, Hernsheim and other merchants brought increasing pressure to bear on the German government for outright annexation of the islands. They were supported by the German public, which had long been clamoring for the government to begin founding its overdue empire. Again Bismarck turned to Great Britain for approval of its course of action in the Pacific, and again the two powers came to an agreement on their colonial policies. In April 1885, Britain formally approved the proposed German annexation of the Marshalls in return for recognition of its claims to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands and other groups in the South Pacific (RG Brown 1976:47 56). With British backing assured, Bismarck finally decided to act. The German flag had already been raised a few months earlier over New Guinea, several of the Solomons, New Britain, the Duke of York, and some of the islands of the Bismarck Archipelago. The Marshalls, along with the Carolines, would complete the chain of German possessions in the Pacific, as the consul-general at Samoa had pointed out to Bismarck (RG Brown 1976:57). When the Panama Canal, whose construction was already under way, was com 

page_305

Page 305

pleted, the Micronesian islands would serve as an "important exchange post for future world trade." The strategic value of these islands, economically and militarily, made them a valuable acquisition for Germany. When the German warship Nautilus steamed into Jaluit on 13 October 1885, it was greeted by Kabua, dressed in a naval officer's uniform in honor of the occasion. The chief had been informed by Hernsheim of the Germans' plans and heartily endorsed the annexation. After all, his earlier partnership with the Germans had solidified his own political position and brought increased prosperity to the Marshallese people; he had reason to hope for even more when his islands were brought "under the full protection of the German eagle." After two days of preparation, a company of marines landed and marched from the beach to the home of the German consul, where they distributed giftspocket knives, clocks, musical boxes, dress suits, and leather bootsto the assembled chiefs. The documents of annexation were produced and read out, and then signed by each of the chiefs "in English letters." As the flag was run up the staff, the band played the German national anthem, the ship's artillery fired a twenty-one-gun salute, and the crowd joined in three lusty cheers for Kaiser Wilhelm. Finally, a large sign reading "Imperial German Protectorate" was fixed on the beach close to the headquarters of the German firms. When the Nautilus left Jaluit to repeat the ceremony on seven other islands in the Marshalls, it was the German colors, no longer the Ralik Islands banner, that waved over the island. Englishmen reared on the nobler ideals of the White Man's Burden snickered at the thought of an empire founded "on its commerce alone." Mercantile supremacy was "surely no foundation for a great nation's claims," one British writer remarked with disdain of Germany's new acquisitions in the Pacific (Moss 1889:50). But Bismarck's cabinet had little patience with ennobling missions and lofty ideals; colonial empires were intended to yield concrete benefits to the colonizing power and this Germany's would do. Since the Marshall Islands had been annexed largely at the insistence of German firms, why shouldn't the government turn to these same firms to administer them? In an effort to spare Berlin the cost of governing those tiny and distant specks of land, Bismarck appealed to the companies to bear the administrative expenses of the islands, reimbursing themselves from the taxes that they collected and the profits derived from the trading privileges  

page_306

Page 306

they enjoyed (RG Brown 1976:164 168). Hernsheim refused the appeal on the grounds that administration of the territory would greatly interfere with business operations; the job of governments was to administer colonial possessions, he implied, while that of businesses was to make money. But Bismarck persisted in his attempts until, in 1887, he finally persuaded one of the firms to accept responsibility for ruling the Marshalls. The recently formed Jaluit Company, a joint-stock company controlled by Hernsheim and DHPG, thereafter ruled the islands in which it made its profit, much like the East India Company of the eighteenth century. The Carolines Controversy For over three hundred years the Caroline Islands were an acknowledged part of Spain's colonial empire. The islands had been discovered by Spaniards in the sixteenth century and designated as Spanish territory on all European maps since that time. A Spaniard, Francisco Lazcano, in 1686 gave the archipelago its name and not long after this Spanish officials initiated the first, short-lived missionary expeditions to these islands. Spain had not taken much notice of the islands since then except for a few bêche-de-mer voyages from the Philippines and an occasional exploratory foray from the Marianas, but she continued to regard the Carolines as her ancient patrimony. In the meantime, however, American missionaries, European naval parties, and traders from almost every nation came and went as they pleased without so much as a nod to the Spanish government. Other powers had come to look upon the Carolines as open territory, whatever nominal title Spain might have held to the islands, and by the 1870s Britain, Germany, and the United States all had interests there of one kind or another. Matters came to a head in 1874 when Spain tried to reassert its old claims. In May of that year, as Eduard Hernsheim was trying to clear port at Hong Kong aboard the Coeran to begin his first trading voyage in the western Carolines, he received a note from the Spanish consul instructing him to proceed to Manila to obtain authorization for his voyage from Spanish authorities there. If permission for the voyage were granted, he would be obliged to pay customs duties and licensing fees, he was told. The British and German governments would soon be informed of these new re 

page_307

Page 307

quirements by official notes, the consul added. At about the same time, several Carolinians were picked up in Formosa after drifting for weeks in their canoes; the commander of the British warship that brought them to Hong Kong was curtly instructed to turn them over to the Spanish government since they were Spanish subjects. The Caroline Islands were Spanish soil, the consul insisted, and hereafter other nations would be expected to respect Spain's privileges there. Germany and Britain vigorously protested this sudden interference by Madrid. For years English and German vessels had enjoyed free access to the islands and the two nations would continue to trade there as they had in the past without submitting to Spanish authorities. Britain spoke for both powers when it notified Madrid that "Her Majesty's Government do not admit the right claimed by Spain over the Caroline or Pelew Islands, over which she has never exercised, and does not now exercise, any dominion" (Layard quoted in RG Brown 1976:33). Age-old treaties, papal bulls, and the historic claims that they supported would not be recognized as establishing Spanish sovereignty over the Carolines; only proof of de facto control over the islands would guarantee Spain's claims. In the face of this strong challenge from the two strongest countries in Europe, Spain backed down. Prime Minister Cánovas de Castillo denied that his country was actually claiming sovereignty over the islands, and in March 1877 the Spanish government signed an agreement recognizing the rights of Germany and Britain to complete freedom of trade and traffic in the islands. If there was any nation that could make a strong case for annexing the western Carolines, it was Britain. Palau, for a long time the most important island in the archipelago, was discovered by the English sea rover Drake, and the British navy had played an intermittent but major role in island affairs throughout the century. Indeed, the Palauan chiefs, at the urging of Andrew Cheyne, had once petitioned the British to set up a protectorate in the islands, but the petition was studiously ignored by the British Crown, which wanted no dependencies in the Pacific. From the late eighteenth century, when McCluer had dreamed of transforming Palau into a mighty naval base and trade emporium, Britain had firmly and consistently refrained from making any colonies there. America, whose whaling industry and Christian missions had given it a large stake in the eastern Carolines, shared Britain's attitude  

page_308

Page 308

toward colonization. American foreign policy was strongly opposed to taking any possessions in the Pacific, although this position would soften in time. Germany, like Britain and the United States, had at first refused to entertain the idea of creating an empire for itself in the Pacific, but the course of world events reshaped Berlin's position by the early 1880s. Recent alliances that were the product of Bismarck's skillful diplomacy had greatly strengthened Germany's position in Europe and assured supremacy on the Continent. If they did not act immediately to stake out their claims, the Germans might never again have the chance to do so, for other European nations were busy carving up Africa and the Pacific at this very time. Britain, Germany's main ally but also its greatest potential rival, had swung over from its former anti-annexationist policy and was preparing to move into Egypt and some of the islands in the Pacific. Germany had trading interests in Micronesia to protect, and the same businessmen who advised Bismarck's government to take possession of the Marshalls were also urging that "the German flag should be hoisted on the East and West Carolines to protect the dominant German interests" (RG Brown 1977:138). Bismarck, who by this time had become a staunch proponent of German colonialism, was inclined to agree. Apart from the business interests in the Carolines, the islands would afford Germany the coaling stations and naval bases needed to establish a military perimeter in the Pacific. Bismarck had the satisfaction of seeing his key principles governing claims to colonial territories endorsed by an international congress held in Berlin toward the end of 1884 (RG Brown 1976:48 50). Actual possession and effective administration of a territorysuch as Spain did not have in the Carolines!was to be recognized as the only legitimate basis of a nation's claims in an area. In cases of conflicting claims between two nations, the matter was to be submitted for arbitration. Having obtained agreement from the leading world powers on the very principles that supported its case against Spanish title to the Carolines, Germany could prepare to move in and assert its own claims there. Meanwhile, however, the Spanish government was showing a new interest in the islands that it had so long neglected. Suspicious of Bismarck's recent expansionist leanings, Spain was pursuing plans for the occupation of the islands so as to put its own claims beyond dispute. In 1882 a Spanish cruiser visited the western  

page_309

Page 309

Carolines to sign treaties with several chiefs, and a year later the steamer Castellano carried to Yap the personnel and materials for a factory that was planned but never actually built. The petition that Holcomb carried to Manila requesting Spanish authorities to establish a government in the western Carolines provided some favorable publicity in Madrid and a measure of assurance that Spanish rule would be well received, but Spain had already decided on a course by then. In late February 1885 the Spanish steamer Velasco was sent from Manila to collect information on the islands prior to the establishment of Spanish rule. Hardly had the ship lowered anchor when Holcomb's wife, Bartola, hurried a party of chiefs aboard to declare their loyalty to King Alfonso XII and their recognition of the new Spanish government. This and a similar occurrence in Palau only confirmed Spanish hopes that the move to colonize the Carolines was timely and acceptable. By the time the Velasco returned to Manila, a royal decree had been received directing Manila to appoint a governor for the Carolines and establish a seat of government on Yap. Spanish title to the Carolines was fast becoming a point of national honor among Spaniards. As the Overseas Ministry in Madrid dug deep into its archives for historical information to support its age-old claims to the islands, dozens of publications on the Carolines controversy appeared defending Spain's rights to the islands. The Carolines had been discovered by Spaniards and the blood of Spanish missionaries had been spilled there in early attempts to Christianize the islands, they argued. Spanish administration had been established in the Marianas two centuries before with jurisdiction over the entire Caroline Archipelagothe jurisdiction had been rarely exercised, but it was true jurisdiction, nonetheless. Moreover, the islanders had several times in recent years expressed their desire to live under Spanish rule. Although these arguments appealed to the geographical unity of the Marianas and the Carolines, no mention at all, curiously enough, was made of the Marshalls as a part of the Spanish empire; Spanish interest was confined to the Carolines alone and the western Carolines in particular. Despite the strong public feeling in Spain, Bismarck announced, in early August, his intention of annexing the Carolines. Anticipating just such a move, the Spanish government had a day earlier dispatched two warships, the San Quentin and the Manila, with orders to take possession of the islands. As soon as this news  

page_310

Page 310

reached Germany, Bismarck cabled orders that a German warship be sent to Micronesia with all possible speed to raise the German flag over any islands that had not already been claimed by Spain. The San Quentin and the Manila reached Yap first, on 21 August. Aboard were the new Spanish governor and all the personnel and equipment necessary for founding a settlement. For the next few days the governor roamed the island in search of the best site for the capital while his men off-loaded building materials, animals, and provisions. When everything was ready, on the afternoon of 25 August, the governor finally sent out word that the formal flagraising ceremony to inaugurate Spanish rule in the Carolines would take place the following morning. Scarcely had this announcement been made when the German warship Iltis sped into harbor under full sail and steam, anchoring shortly after dusk. A half hour later the Spaniards were startled by the sound of drumbeats and loud shouts; when they investigated, they found to their chagrin that the Germans had already unfurled their flag and taken formal possession of the island in the name of the Kaiser. Stunned by the audacity of the German troops, the Spaniards shamefacedly packed up their belongings and returned to Manila to report the incident to authorities in Madrid. Even before news of the German coup at Yap reached Spain, passions were becoming enkindled. For several days following the announcement that German and Spanish warships were racing toward the islands, heated diplomatic messages passed back and forth between Madrid and Berlin, while the newspapers in each country printed inflammatory, sometimes insulting, articles about the other. In the Spanish capital, forty thousand people gathered at a massive rally to denounce Bismarck's aggression and support their nation's rights in the Pacific, then marched through the main streets of the city behind the Spanish flag. Feelings ran so high that the German ambassador in Madrid, who had been insulted and abused several times during daily walks through the park, was confined to his quarters out of fear for his personal safety. As August wore on and the Spanish mood became increasingly hostile, rumors of impending war with Germany circulated openly. Meanwhile, Spanish businesses began cancelling orders for German goods, even for the German lager that was so popular in Spain's taverns, and by the end of the month German manufacturers stood to lose millions of dollars from the boycott. When, on 4 September, word of the German seizure of Yap  

page_311

Page 311

finally reached Spain, the enraged Spanish populace took to the streets once again. Thousands of angry demonstrators in Madrid stormed the German embassy and tore down the coat of arms, which they dragged through the streets and burned in the Puerto del Sol. The mob returned to the embassy to hurl stones through the windows and scrawl anti-German slogans on the walls before Spanish troops finally restored order to the city. As similar demonstrations broke out in Valencia, Saragossa, Barcelona, and smaller towns in the provinces, German nationals fearfully appealed to foreign consulates for asylum if the hostility should continue. The French press soon joined the clamor of protest against Germany's peremptory action, labelling it ''an act of piracy," "usurpation," and "the triumph of brute force" and calling for outright reprisal by the joint forces of Spain and France (Gracia y Parejo 1973:46). The sudden German occupation of the Carolines was an affront to Spanish pride, and Spain demanded satisfaction. Several members of the ministry joined the opposition Liberal Party in calling for an immediate declaration of war on Germany, despite King Alfonso's refusal to take a step that he believed would be suicidal for Spain. "I prefer to leave voluntarily four weeks earlier instead of being driven out of Spain by force, burdened with the crushing feeling of having hurled my country into indescribable fortune," he told his generals when they urged military action against Germany (quoted in RG Brown 1976:129). Nonetheless, the Spanish government sent an ultimatum to Berlin calling for the immediate withdrawal of German forces and a withdrawal of its claims to the Carolines. While it waited for a reply, the Naval Ministry was authorized to purchase two fast cruisers from England to bolster Spain's sea power in the event of a conflict. As all of Europe nervously looked on, the two nations tottered on the brink of war. Bismarck, taken back by the intense furor that Germany's actions had stirred up, admitted in a memorandum to one of his subordinates that "we have made a bothersome mess with the coral reefs in the Pacific" (quoted in RG Brown 1976:129). France was prepared to side with Spain in any outbreak of hostilities, and the Spanish monarchy, which Bismarck and the kaiser regarded as essential for the political stability of Europe, was being seriously threatened as the pro-war factions gained strength in Spain. There was nothing to be gained by going to war with Spain over the insignificant islands that had been the cause of this whole crisis"They are not worth it. The islands would not repay one week of  

page_312

Page 312

preparation for war," Bismarck noted disparagingly (quoted in RG Brown 1976:139). Accordingly, he informed the Spanish government that Germany had no intention of infringing on any legitimate Spanish claims to the Carolines and that German forces would retire from the islands until the dispute over their title was resolved. Germany did not intend to use armed force to take the islands, Bismarck explained, but was only asserting what it believed to be valid rights to the territory. Even so, Germany would be happy to have the whole matter settled in a peaceful manner. Spain was reluctant to accede to Bismarck's insistence that the question be resolved by arbitration, preferring to work out a solution through direct negotiation between the two governments. When, however, Bismarck suddenly made the surprising proposal that Pope Leo XIII be chosen as the arbitrator, Catholic Spain could hardly refuse without appearing to impugn the impartiality of the papacy. The German chancellor knew very well that by submitting to papal arbitration he was virtually surrendering the Carolines to Spain, but he was determined to find an honorable way out of the impasse. The Carolines were expendable, providing that German trading interests there could be preserved and that Bismarck's principles on the recognition of colonial claims be respected. In late September the German kaiser and the Spanish king addressed a formal letter to the Pope requesting him to accept the responsibility of arbitrating the Carolines dispute. It had been centuries since the papacy had been called on to settle quarrels between nations and the Vatican was flattered by the offer. Pope Leo XIII, well aware of the historic role that Alexander VI had played when he settled a similar dispute between Spain and Portugal four centuries before, enthusiastically accepted the commission. Bismarck, who left nothing to chance or whim, had worked out a prior agreement with Britain and the United States spelling out the conditions under which Germany would accept Spain's sovereignty in the islands. As the Vatican went about its work, Bismarck arranged to have the terms that Germany would find acceptable relayed by notes to the Vatican Secretary of State. He had already determined the outcome of the controversy; it was now merely a matter of communicating this to the papacy. The final agreement signed at the Vatican on 17 December 1885, held no surprises for either Spain or Germany, since the two  

page_313

Page 313

nations had settled their remaining differences through under-the-table negotiations with the help of church statesmen. Spanish sovereignty over the Carolines was recognized, but Germany was to be granted freedom of trade and the right to establish coaling depots and naval stations in the islands. To satisfy American demands, missionaries were to be permitted to continue their work there and "freedom of conscience and freedom of religious worship" would be guaranteed to the inhabitants. The settlement represented one of Bismarck's finest diplomatic achievements. The crisis that had brought Europe to the edge of war was over and Spanish pride appeased. Germany had found the honorable retreat it had sought: while losing the islands, it acquired all the privileges that ownership would have bestowed without incurring any of the expenses of government. In addition, Bismarck's appeal to the papacy muffled criticism from within Germany of his government's anti-Catholic stand and cemented cordial relations between his country and the Vatican. Finally, the chancellor improved his own image among European statesmen by virtue of his role as the voice of reason and the force for peace throughout the whole ordeal. The Spanish public, on the other hand, welcomed the news of the papal decision as a national victory. Spain had faced down the greatest power on the Continent, even at the risk of war, and its ancient claims to the Carolines had been vindicated. Spanish sea power may no longer have been what it was in the great age of Spain's Pacific exploration, but its head remained unbowed and its nerve still strong. Reassured by the outcome of its test with Germany, the Spanish government began at once to make plans for the establishment of its first colonial headquarters on Yap. The End of an Era The colonial governments were not fully in place for some time. In late 1885 the Germans installed a commissioner on Jaluit to rule the Marshalls as best he could without staff or budget until the officials of the Jaluit Company took over in 1888. The Spanish, who were less concerned with cutting expenses than with seeing that their country's dignity was well served, landed their governor on Yapalong with several minor officials, half a dozen Capuchin missionaries, and a sizable garrison of Filipino troopsin June  

page_314

Page 314

1886. A year later another governor with an even larger entourage was brought to Ponape to assume authority over the eastern Carolines. The white man's law now ruled supreme in the islands. In the sixty years since Duperrey and Lütke had explored these "virgin lands," the influence of foreigners and the governments they represented had grown by progressive stages. The early beachcombers, who generally placed themselves under the authority of local chiefs, were followed by missionaries and traders who did not. As whites began to make their homes in the islands, the formidable man-of-war became a more frequent visitorat first to check the abuses of Europeans against local people as well as to protect their interests from damage by the islanders. In time, however, naval commanders freely employed "gunboat diplomacy" to mediate conflicts between rival chiefs, enforce antiliquor or antifirearms laws, and procure favorable treaties from island chiefs for their governments. The man-of-war, that fearful symbol of reprisal against those who dared to transgress foreign laws, had carried the white man's authority into Micronesian waters. It was only a matter of time before this authority was extended over the entire population and exercised ashore rather than from the quarterdeck. Naval commanders soon gave way to consuls, and finally to foreign governors with full powers over foreigners and islanders alike. German and Spanish administrators may have enjoyed political authority over the islands, but the Protestant mission had the greatest impact on the daily lives of the people in eastern Micronesia. By 1885 there were four thousand baptized Christians, fully clothed and largely literate, distributed throughout the forty churches that had been organized between the Marshalls and Truk. But the mission's influence was far greater than these figures would suggest, for those who had been received into full membership represented only a fraction of the number who actually attended church services and paid respect to the authority of the church pastor. On Mili, an island that counted only 128 baptized members, for instance, Sunday services were regularly attended by 700 persons, well over half the population of the island. Albert Sturges, the last of the pioneer missionaries, returned to the United States in 1885 after suffering a severe and disabling stroke. But his achievements remained. The Ponape church that he had helped to found already had more than a dozen native mis 

page_315

Page 315

sionaries working in Truk and was preparing to send its first Christian teachers to Yap and Palau when the Spanish takeover brought a sudden halt to its plans. Ponape had been the hub of mission activities for thirty years and Sturges saw no reason why it should not be the "missionary capital" in the future. To the very last he argued that Ponapean should be taught to Marshallese and Trukese converts with a view to making it the common language of eastern Micronesia, and perhaps eventually of the west as well. The American mission board could boast that its workers had brought undeniable blessings, of both this world and the next, to the people of Micronesia. Although the islanders for the most part agreed, many foreigners thought otherwise. One critic, a German, felt that what passed as Christian faith was only the veneer of a formalistic piety that lacked any real substance; the "civilization" that the missionaries prided themselves on bringing was just as much of a sham, something that could be put on and taken off like the Western clothes that people wore at church services. The only lasting change he could discern was the conversion of a simple, unpretentious people into grasping "dollar-worshippers" who would not work for less than two or three dollars a day (Hager 1886:104). But German traders were not the most impartial judges of the mission's accomplishments. In general, they badly overstated the case against the American missionaries, whom they suspected because of their nationality and resented for what they took to be a simple-minded piety and an imprudent readiness to interfere with business. The achievements of the mission were real. The vaccines and medicines that missionaries brought saved countless lives in the epidemics that ravaged the islands during these years. In their schools, the first in Micronesia, hundreds of people learned to read and write in their own languages. Finally, they eliminated warfare in those areas where their message of peace and brotherhood was embraced by a sufficiently large and influential segment of the people. All of this must be weighed in the balance against the shapeless mother hubbards and the starched collars for which they have been blamed with such tiresome repetition in popular literature. The social reforms that the mission tried to introduce were by and large failures. The attempts to bring about changes in land tenure and to democratize the political system in Ponape did not survive for long, and kava drinking, which they tried so hard to  

page_316

Page 316

eradicate, has continued to the present day. The thorough revolution of political and social institutions that took place on Kosrae could never have been brought about by missionary influence alone; it was more the product of rapid depopulation and internal social upheaval than the result of Pastor Snow's democratic leanings. In the Marshalls and Truk the only widespread reforms were such peripheral changes as the abolition of native dancing and the elimination of turmeric for bodily adornment. Kinship, land tenure, and political authoritythe bedrock of the cultureswere almost entirely unshaken by missionary conversions. The American missionaries never intended to do away with chiefly authority as such, although by discouraging feasting, kava drinking, and tribute as wasteful and distracting they were, in effect, chipping away at the bases on which this authority rested. They were quick to attack what they thought to be abuses of chiefly power, and Snow went so far as to spearhead the famous "bloodless revolution" on Kosrae that ended in the deposition of a paramount chief whom he considered a bad ruler. A later missionary there, as much a product of his American upbringing as the rest, reported with obvious satisfaction that since the abolition of the "abject bowing" that was formerly done in the presence of the king, "there has been a wonderful stiffening of spinal columns all over the island" (MH 1884:394). The missionaries were not above tinkering with the traditional authority systems, but the last thing they wanted to do was destroy them. More often than not, their complaints were directed at a lack of chiefly authority rather than its excess. Despite their own democratic preferences, they acknowledged over and over again in their letters the need that their people had for decisive leadership and firm direction from their chiefs if they were ever to improve their lives. The large trading firms, which represented the third major foreign influence in Micronesia, had a standing quarrel with the missionaries throughout the 1870s and 1880s over their meddling ways (Suchan-Galow 1940:99 100). The missionaries condemned the use of tobacco and liquor, two of the more profitable trade items of the day, and imposed strong sanctions on those who did not heed their injunctions. Moreover, the mission had put itself into direct competition with the firms by imposing church taxes, which were almost always collected in copra, and by doing some trading of its own on the Morning Star. But even under the restraints imposed by missionaries, the firms were doing very well  

page_317

Page 317

for themselves. By 1885 they were exporting a total of 4000 tons of copra a year, 2500 from the east through Jaluit and another 1500 from the west via Yap. The market value of copra exports alone was about $250,000 annually. Added to this were the steadily growing sales of imported merchandise, which brought in yearly gross receipts of between $100,000 and $150,000 in the east alone. In all, the firms were doing close to $500,000 worth of business annually in Micronesia (Hager 1886:121 123). There was a ready market for the merchandise that the companies peddled in their stores. The people of the southern Marshalls were already buying large quantities of imported rice that they cooked in iron pots purchased from the traders. Ship biscuits were another delicacy that was gaining popularity among hungry islanders. Pipes and tobacco were always in great demand, even in places where Protestant influence was strong, since virtually everyone above the age of six, except for the most scrupulous converts, smoked incessantly day and night. Clothing, iron tools, and firearms were the old staples of island trade, but by the mid-1880s merchants were catering to the people's new tastes for "hair oil, rings,  . . . bread, salted meat, conserves, and beer," among other things (Hager 1886:109). The merchants had their own critics, among them a few old seamen like John Cameron who remembered former days when people "got on well enough without trade articles." Life was simpler then and free from the encumbrances that modern society and foreign rule were now imposing on the people, yet the islanders' new and more sophisticated tastes would not be denied. Micronesians were not the first people to be seduced by merchants' wares, Cameron knew. "Such is the march of what is called civilization: first, arousing in the barbarian a desire for something useless; second, putting him to work to earn money with which to satisfy his craving; third, seizing his lands in order to make sure of his continued industry and its fruits" (Farrell 1928:334). Life had unquestionably changed for Micronesians since that fateful day on which Magellan had brought the Trinidad to anchor off one of the islands in the Marianas. The last sixty years, years during which misfits, missionaries, and merchants were unleashed on the islands, had been especially tempestuous ones. The strange and deadly diseases that Westerners carried had taken a large toll on those islands most frequently visited by shipsPonape's population dropped from over 10,000 in the 1820s to less than half that  

page_318

Page 318

number by 1885; Palau's was reduced by the same amount; the Marshalls' decreased from perhaps 15,000 to about 10,000; and Kosrae, the hardest hit of the islands, suffered a catastrophic plunge from 3000 to 300. Only the much more isolated islands of Truk and Yap were spared this decimation. There was some truth in George Westbrook's plaintive assertion that "the white man has brought his brown brother the gifts of disease, death and a dreary destiny" (Dana 1935:145). The Micronesians who had survived those fearful epidemics of earlier years now had their preserved foods, their black topcoats, and their cast-iron cooking utensils, but some Europeans prophesied that another form of destruction, even more devastating than physical illness, was slowly overtaking them even now. Micronesians were being enervated by the very changes that they welcomed with open arms, the prophets warned; they were on the way to becoming "a bastard people, forgetful of their past and uncomfortable in their strange new ways" (Hager 1886:111). In words that recalled Lütke's laments of a half century before, these Europeans elegized the passing of the free and hearty people who had been doomed by the blandishments of civilization. The Micronesians themselves would have smiled at all the fuss if they had known what was being written about them. They had just passed through troubled but exciting times and had emerged with their lives, their land (regardless of whose flag flew over their islands), and their social institutions rather well intact. Whatever the future might hold for them, they had demonstrated their ability to adapt to the unfamiliar and could do so again and again if need be. Foreign nations would come and go, but they would remain in the homeland that their ancestors had settled centuries before Magellan had first visited their shores. They would remain and survive, as they had so often before.  

page_319

Page 319

Abbreviations ABCFM

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions

ADM

Admiralty

AGI

Archivo General de Indias

AI

Ascension Island

AR

Annual Report

CDI

Colección de documentos inéditos . . .

CEG

The Colonial Expansion of Germany

FBGEB

Filipiniana Book Guild Editorial Board

HMC

His Majesty's Consul

LECC

Lettres édifiantes et curieuses concernant  . . .

MM

Micronesian Mission

MP

Miscellaneous Papers

Pb

Ponape brethren

PJ

Private Journal

SJ

Society of Jesus

USNA

United States National Archives

USRG

United States Record Group

WPHC

Western Pacific High Commission

Persons A

Anderson

Gu

Gulick

Sm

Smith

Bo

Bonani

Kn

Klein

Sn

Snow

Br

Bray

Lo

Logan

St

Sturges

Ca

Cantova

m

mother

Sz

Schmiz

Ck

Clark

Mi

Milne

Wa

Walter

dA

d'Aubenton

Pe

Pease

Wh

Whitney

DH

Du Halde

Pi

Pierson

Wm

Williams

dlH

de la Hera

Ra

Rand

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_319.html[3/30/2011 10:15:46 AM]

page_319

Dn

Doane

s

sister

 

 

 

 

 

page_320

Page 320

Newspapers and Periodicals F

The Friend

NZH

New Zealand Herald

HKT

Hong Kong Telegraph

OCM

Overland China Mail

MH

Missionary Herald

SG

Sydney Gazette

NM

Nautical Magazine

SM

Sydney Mail

 

page_321

Page 321

Notes Sources have been cited parenthetically in the text, using abbreviations wherever necessary to achieve minimal interruption of the narrative. However, the use of notes has been retained in cases where more than one reference is cited. Multivolume works published in the same year are cited as ''1972v2"; those published over several years, by year alone. Full details of sources are given in the References. Chapter 1 The End of a Long Seclusion The Defenses Breached pp. 1 4 Magellan's discovery of Guam: Of the several surviving accounts of Magellan's voyage, the classic is that of the Venetian chronicler, Antonio Pigafetta (1969). His report of the discovery of the "Ladrones" is found in Stanley (1874:68 71). Early settlement of Micronesia: Alkire (1977:7 14); Shutler and Marck (1975). In Pursuit of the Fragrant Clove pp. 4 9 European craving for spices: Parry (1961:36 38); Morison (1974:447 449). Background of Magellan's voyage: Morison (1974:313 350); Beaglehole (1966:15 22); Cushner (1971:10 13). The Simplicity of the First Age pp. 9 12 Rocha's discovery in 1525: The identity of Rocha's "Islas de Sequeira" has long been contested by commentators. In a recent thorough study of the matter, William Lessa (1975b:38 40) concluded after a careful examination of the several Portuguese sources that these islands were almost certainly Ulithi. Barros' portrait of the Ulithian people: The account by the sixteenth century historian João de Barros in his Terceira decada da Asia is the fullest and most valuable of the several early reports on Rocha's discovery. See Lessa (1975b:38 40). A Track to the West pp. 12 20 Loaysa's expedition: Cushner (1971:21 24); Morison (1974:474 495). Identity of San Bartolomé: According to Spate (1979:90) and Sharp (1960:12 13) this island most likely was Taongi.  

page_322

Page 322

Saavedra's expedition: The two early sources for this voyage are Saavedra himself and Vincente de Napoles, one of the few survivors of this expedition, who wrote his account upon his return to Manila. A translation of these two sources, as well as abundant background material on the voyage, is found in Wright (1951). Discovery of Los Reyes: The two original accounts are given in Wright (1951:101 103, 111). A condensed version can be found in Sharp (1960:17 18). Discovery of Barbudos: The details of Saavedra's short visit to "Islas de los Barbudos," as given by Napoles who wrote from memory at a much later date, are evidently confused with a later discovery that was made on his second attempt to recross the Pacific. Napoles' report on this discovery does not appear in Wright (1951), but is given in Sharp (1960:19). Discovery of Pintados and Jardines: Although the original sources are not quoted in Wright, his own reconstruction of these discoveries offers the best description of the events. See Wright (1951:58). Napoles' account of Saavedra's Jardines is quoted in Sharp (1960:21 22). Villalobos' expedition: Cushner (1971:30 40). Accounts of Villalobos' discoveries in the Marshalls and western Carolines are given in Sharp (1960:26 32). Herrera's map: Originally published in Herrera's Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas: Tierra Firme del Mar Oceáno (Madrid 1601), this map is reproduced in Quirino (1963:49); Friis (1967:plate 20); and Sharp (1960:30). In a Wake of Foam and Blood pp. 20 31 Preparations for Legazpi's voyage: Cushner (1971:39 41). Voyage of the San Lucas: The full account of this journey is given in a relación written by Arellano himself: CDI (1887:1 76). Drawing upon this and other Spanish documents, Sharp has produced Adventurous Armada (1961), a very readable book on the entire Legazpi expedition and its sequel. See pp. 23 38 for narrative of San Lucas' voyage through Micronesia. Legazpi's passage west: The three original sources for the voyage are Legazpi's own relación, a report by Captain Diego de Artieda in 1573, and the journal kept by the chief pilot of the expedition, Estebán Rodriguez. This last is the fullest account and the primary authority for the voyage. These documents are found in CDI (1886:217 231, 373 395). English translations are published in FBGEB (1965:46 49, 90 91, 239 240). The story of Legazpi's passage is also told in Sharp (1961:57 71). Return of the San Lucas and San Pedro: Cushner (1971:57); Sharp (1960:39). Voyage of the San Jeronimo: The original source is a lengthy relación by Juan Martinez, a soldier aboard the San Jeronimo, in CDI (1887:371 475). This relación forms the basis of the account of the mutinous voyage in Sharp (1961:125 141). The Close of the Spanish Century pp. 31 35 Drake's call at Island of Thieves: On the question of the identity of Drake's discovery, see Lessa (1975a; also 1974:7 11). Mendaña's discovery of San Mateo: Sharp identifies "San Mateo" as the islands of  

page_323

Page 323

Namu Atoll, but Ujelang, the island on which the mutineers from the San Jeronimo were stranded, is at least as likely a conjecture. For a brief account of the discovery see Sharp (1960:47). Quiros' discovery of Ponape: There are two first-hand accounts of this discovery, both written by Quiros himself. See Quiros (1904vl:113 114, 156). Chapter 2 Mission to the Palaos Cast upon Distant Shores pp. 36 41 Carolinian castaways on Samar: The account of the landing of the two canoes of Carolinians is found in the letter of Fr Paul Klein to Fr Thyrso Gonzales, General of the Society of Jesus, 10 June 1698. This important letter was published in various worksLECC (1706v6:3 30); SJ (1762v1:23 36; Le Gobien (1700:395 410); Stöcklein (1726, no37); Blair and Robertson (1906:39 56). An abridged translation of the letter appears in Burney (1967v5:5 9). It is closely paraphrased in Callander (1967v3:9 15). Map of the eighty-seven islands: The map is found in AGI (Leg 15, "Cartas de las nuevas Philippinas (Palaos) descubiertas debajo del patrimonio de Philipe V"). It was later published in Stöcklein (1726, no127), and in Krämer (1917, I:17). "Our yearning for iron  . . . ": Letter of Fr Victor Walter, 10 May 1731, in Stöcklein and Keller (1735, no608). Etymology of "Palaos": See Hezel and del Valle (1972:30, 40). Palau, the name of one of the principal island groups in the western Carolines, is not etymologically related to "Palaos" despite the apparent similarity. Isla de Carolina: Both sightings are mentioned in Klein (10 June 1968 in SJ 1762vl:30 31). Lazcano's and Rodriguez's landfalls were most likely two different islands, although they were thought to be the same at the time that Klein wrote. Rodriguez's discovery was certainly Faraulep. The identity of Lazcano's "Isla de Carolina" is unsure, but on the basis of the slender evidence available Sharp (1960:87) holds for Ulithi. Earlier Carolinian castaways: Several dispositions made to Spanish authorities containing information obtained from these Carolinians are to be found in AGI (Leg 215, no4). Klein's report on information that he obtained from his houseboy, Olit, is published in Krämer (1917:26 32). For the later report on the Yapese, see letter of Fr Juan Cantova, 20 March 1722, in LECC (1728v18:215 216). On the four castaways in Siau, see Jacobs (1980); Hezel and del Valle (1972:28 29). The Enchanted Islands pp. 41 47 Loss of the ship off Samar in 1698: Krämer (1917, I:32); and Murillo- Velarde (1749v2:377). Serrano's "Breve Noticia": The document is found in AGI (Leg 215, no4:416 432). It is also published as an appendix in Pastor y Santos (1950:127 133). Letters of Pope Clement XI to Kings of France and Spain: Published in LECC (1843v4:676 684; this volume edited by L Aimé-Martin). Also included in this collection are papal letters to the Archbishop of Mexico, the Archbishop of Manila, and Fr Serrano. Two unsuccessful attempts to reach the Palaos: On the attempts made by the  

page_324

Page 324

Jesuits in 1708, see Murillo- Velarde (1749v2:377). The second attempt, the six month journey of the Trinidad in 1709, is recounted in the diary of Juan Luis de Acosta (AGI, Leg 215, no4:76 147). Voyage of the Santissima Trinidad in 1710. The two principal sources for this voyage are the diary of the Trinidad's chief pilot, José Somera, and the report of the Philippine Jesuit Provincial, Fr Francisco Calderón, to Rome. Both are published, along with two maps that Somera drew, in Krämer (1917:36 67), while Eilers (1935:1 15) contains extracts from the documents. Calderón's report, which draws heavily on a letter from the Jesuit Brother Etienne Baudin who sailed on the Trinidad, is also found in Barras y de Aragon (1949:1081 1089). The name "Panlog": Panlog, Panloc, and Pelew are all variants of the name by which this group is known todayPalau. Krämer (1917:182 183). Serrano's attempts in 1711: On the first two attempts early in that year, see Barras y de Aragon (1949:1066, 1074 1076). The tragic outcome of the third voyage is told in a letter of Fr Du Halde to the Jesuits of France, Dec 1714 (LECC 1725v11). Voyage of the Santo Domingo in 1712: Both the main sourcesEgui's journal of the voyage and a report of the governor-general of the Philippines to Spainare published in full in Krämer (1917:74 100) and in part in Eilers (1935:15 18). Governor Lizarraga's report is also found in Barras y de Aragon (1949:1089 1093). Character of Moac: Letter of Fr Du Halde (LECC 1725v11). The details of Moac's arrival in the Philippines and his experiences there are found in AGI (Leg 215, no5:67 76). The Apostle of the Garbanzos pp. 47 59 Las Islas Carolinas: Burney (1967v5:4). The names "Palaos" and "Carolinas" were used interchangeably of these islands from the time of Serrano's "Noticia" in 1705 until the publication of Cantova's map in 1722. Thereafter only the name ''Carolinas" was used of the entire archipelago; "Palaos" came to be restricted to the Palau group alone. Spanish conquest of Guam: Carano and Sanchez (1964:61 87); Hezel (1970:213 215; 1982). Carolinian castaways on Guam: The original account of their landing and subsequent experiences on Guam is found in the letter of Fr Juan Antonio Cantova to Fr Guillaume d'Aubenton, 20 March 1722, in LECC (1728v18:188 246). An abridged version of this letter is also found in Burney (1967v5:18 25); in Callander (1967v3:23 37); and in Stöcklein (1727, no343). Cantova's voyage of 1722: Stöcklein (1727, no300); Murillo- Velarde (1749v2:380 381). Cantova's map of the Carolines: The map is reproduced with Cantova's letter in LECC (1728v18) and in Stöcklein (1727). Trading network in the Carolines: For a description of this politico-economic network, see Alkire (1965:124 169; 1977:48 53). Cantova's voyage to Ulithi in 1731: Letters of Frs Cantova and Walter written in May 1731 report on the voyage from Guam and their labors of two months in Ulithi. The letter of Fr Victor Walter to Fr Bernard Schmiz, 10 May 1731, is published in Stöcklein and Keller (1735, no608). Cantova's letter to Fr Pedro  

page_325

Page 325

de la Hera, 12 May 1731, is published, together with letters of testimony from the Spanish soldiers who accompanied the priests, in Carrasco (1881:263 279). To Cantova's letter was appended a well-drawn map of Ulithi that was also reproduced in Carrasco (1881). Digal, native of Woleai: Cantova writes glowingly of Digal in two letters: a letter of 10 January 1731, in MurilloVelarde (1749v2:381 382); and a letter of 12 May 1731, in Carrasco (1881:263 ff). Return voyage of Walter: The difficulties of Fr Walter's return voyage to Guam are described in the letter of Fr Joseph Bonani, 10 May 1733, in Stöcklein and Keller (1735, no541). See also Burney (1967v5:26). Cantova's death: A report by Don Fernando Valdez y Tamon, governor of the Philippines 1729 1739, includes an account of Cantova's death that is quoted in Burney (1967v5:26-28); and in Callander (1967v3:38 40). Digal's betrayal of Cantova: See Murillo-Velarde (1749v2:381). Baptism of Ulithian in Manila: The details of the solemn ceremony are given in a private document copied from church records destroyed in Manila during the Second World War. The copy was made by the late Msgr Oscar Calvo of Guam, but no source is given. Chapter 3 On The Road To China The Union Jack Unfurls over the Pacific pp. 60 66 British and Dutch East India Companies: Parry (1961:97 104, 152 169). Sailing directions to China via "Inner Passage": J Stevens (1808:600). The Inner Passage route was discovered in 1759 by Captain William Wilson of the indiaman Pitt and was thereafter regularly used by British merchant ships. Arrival of the First Fleet: Grattan (1963:33 39); Dodge (1971:106 112). Discoveries of Gilbert and Marshall: See Gilbert (1789:34 45); and Sharp (1960:152 155). The King's Musketeers pp. 66 74 Wreck of the Antelope: A full and detailed narrative of the shipwreck and its aftermath is found in Keate (1789). Two rival paramount chiefs in Palau: For an overview of the political structure and intervillage warfare in Palau, see Force (1960:32 34); Barnett (1949:188 190); and Vidich (1949:21 23,38 39). An Epitaph for a Palauan Prince pp. 74 81 Lee Boo's "amiable manners and native polish": Keate (1789:275). In his book Keate colorfully describes the short life of the Palauan prince in England and his sudden death. For a lucid analysis of the contribution of Keate's work to European thought, see Smith (1960:96 99). Visit of the Panther and Endeavour to Palau: The sources for the visits of these ships in 1791 and 1793 are Hockin (1803); Delano (1817:58 77, 186 195); and McCluer (1790 1792). Initiating the Pacific Trade pp. 82 86 Sightings in the Marshalls: Captain Henry Bond's discoveries and most of the subsequent sightings by British ships on the "Great Eastern Passage to China"  

page_326

Page 326

are recorded in Stevens (1808:685 702). See also Purdy (1816:153 154). For particulars on each of the sightings in the Marshalls and elsewhere in Micronesia, see Hezel (1979). Sightings in the eastern Carolines: Many of these are mentioned in Riesenberg (1974:249 257). See also Sharp (1960:173 191). Sightings in the vicinity of Yap: See Stevens (1808:574 575, 601); Purdy (1816:152 153). On the discovery of Eauripik, see Riesenberg (1974:250 252). Discoveries by Spanish trading vessels: See Sharp (1960:127 128, 153, 189). On Dublon's visit to Truk, see Kotzebue (1821 v3:116 117). Discoveries by American ships: On the Ann and Hope (1799) and Tonquin (1809), see Riesenberg (1974:254 257). On the Nancy (1804) at Kosrae, see Ward (1967v3:534 538). For the discoveries by the Maria (1804), see Kotzebue (1821 v3:112 114). Evolution of the China trade: Background on the China trade may be found in Rydell (1952:23 43). Chapter 4 Two Worlds Grown Closer Tidying Up the Map pp. 87 92 Early hydrographic works: The most important of these works are G Robertson (1971); J Stevens (1808); Krusenstern (1819); and Horsburgh (1817). These were in time superseded by Findlay (1870). Background of French exploratory voyages: See Dunmore (1969:43 62). Russian voyages of exploration: General background on these voyages as well as good summaries of each can be found in Nozikov (1946). Kotzebue's two voyages: The account of his first voyage, 1815 1818, is found in his three-volume work, A Voyage of Discovery (1821); the narrative of his second voyage, 1823 1826, appears in A New Voyage Round the World (1830). Choris and Chamisso, two of his officers on this early expedition, also published works on their travels. Lütke's expedition: The voyage is described in the historical section of Lütke's multivolume work (1835). Friedrich Kittlitz, a natural scientist who accompanied Lütke, also published a two-volume account of the voyage. Freycinet's voyage: Freycinet, who had served on Baudin's expedition earlier, left an account of his own explorations in Voyage autour du monde . . .  (1827, 1829). His draftsman, Jacques Arago, produced a more popular travel account of this voyage (1823). Duperrey's expedition: The best journal account of this expedition was put out by the naturalist René-Primevère Lesson (1838, 1839). Duperrey's own account, which was never finished, breaks off before the party reached Micronesia. René Lesson and Pierre-Adolphe Lesson published other scientific volumes on the expedition. Dumont d'Urville's two voyages (as commander): On his first voyage, 1826 1829, see Dumont d'Urville (1830 1833). His Voyage pittoresque autour du monde (1834 1835), published between his first and second expeditions, offers some additional observations from the early voyage along with a summary of European discoveries in the areas he visited. On his second voyage, 1837 1840, see Dumont d'Urville (1841 1846).  

page_327

Page 327

The Seeds of Change pp. 92 102 Kotzebue's first visit to Marshalls in 1817: For a description of his travels in the Marshalls,see Kotzebue (1821v2:1 155,1821v3:140 180). Picture of Marshallese life: Alkire (1977:14 16); Frazer (1968v3:66 80). Return of Kotzebue eight years later: On his experiences in the Marshalls, see Kotzebue (1830vl:291 334, 1830v2:269 287). Kosraean people perhaps descended from the Japanese: Besides the highly stratified class structure, Duperrey thought he had found other evidence of Kosraean affinity to Japan in their linguistic and physiological similarities. See Lesson (1839:475 476). Mortlockese knowledge of distant islands: The names of the islands given by the old Mortlockese chief who was Lütke's informant were said by the Russian explorer to agree with those on Cantova's chart. The islands named to the east of the Mortlocks included Ponape, Kosrae, and "Pyghirap," an atoll to the southeast whose inhabitants were reputed to be cannibals. Unfortunately, the map sketched from this information is not found in the French editions of Lütke's work. Two seamen put ashore at Truk in 1824: The Englishmen Scott and O'Brien, two hands whom Duperrey had taken aboard at New Zealand or Australia, were landed at Truk at their own request. In April 1825, both left Truk for Guam where one of them remained for some years afterward. Dumont d'Urville (1822 1825:306,1833:268). British seaman found on Murilo: The seaman, William Floyd, was reportedly put ashore by a British whaleship and had been on the island for some eighteen months when Lütke took him off in December 1828 (Lütke 1835v2:290 291). During the four weeks he spent aboard the Senyavin en route to Manila, Floyd was interviewed by the naturalist Mertens and furnished much of the information later published in Merten's monograph (1830). A Long Sea Voyage to the Colony pp. 102 108 Carolinian canoes carried to the Marshalls: Kotzebue (1821v2:122 124, 133 134). One of the Woleaians assisted Kotzebue in drawing a chart of the western Carolines, which appears in the end papers of Kotzebue's work. Early trading contacts with the Marianas: The only explicit mention of precontact voyages from the Carolines to the Marianas, which are presumed to have occurred from the existence of Carolinian sailing directions, is found in Kotzebue (1821v2:240). Resumption of voyages to Marianas in 1787: Kotzebue (1821v2:240 241, 1821v3:83); Freycinet (1829:84). The principal navigator on these voyages, Luito from Lamotrek, sketched a map of the western Carolines giving the estimated population of each of the islands in the area. The map is held in the British Museum, London, Ms 17625. Visit of Torres to Carolines in 1804: Kotzebue (1821v2:240 242, 1821v3:114); Arago (1823v2:12). Guam in the early 1800s: Nearly all the French and Russian naval commanders of this period visited Guam and described it at some length in their works. A lengthier treatment of life in the colony can be found in de la Corte (1875).  

page_328

Page 328

Carolinian settlement in Marianas: Freycinet (1829:88 89); Arago (1823v1:284,1823v2:12 13). Lütke's visit to atolls in Carolines: See Lütke (1835v2:127 145, 289 312). Chapter 5 A Nest of Rogues and Runaways A Foothold on Ponape pp. 109 113 Visit of the Spy: Knights (1925:199 206). O'Connell's beachcombing career on Ponape: O'Connell has been described as a pathological liar and his own account is rife with misinformation on his early life and career. For a well-researched reconstruction of his life, see Riesenberg's introduction to O'Connell's A Residence of Eleven Years (1972), and Riesenberg (1968b). Attack on the Nimrod at Pingelap: Knights (1925:204); Sydney Herald (8 May 1834). The Kanakas' Revenge pp. 113 118 Deserters from John Bull and Australian: O'Connell (1972:14); Cattlin (18 24 Apr 1832). Taking of the Waverly at Kosrae: A brief account of the attack is given in Ward (1967v3:558 589). Another version of the incident, handed down by Kosraeans and recorded by a German anthropologist seventy years later, is found in Sarfert (1919:4 5). Attack on the Honduras: Sydney Gazette (25 Aug 1836); Ward (1967v3:541 546). Taking of the Harriet: Ward (1967v3:565 572); Friend (Nov 1854:82 83). Disappearance of whites on Kosrae: A report on the Pacific's visit to Kosrae can be found in Ward (1967v3:558 560). The whaleship Potomac, which visited Kosrae later in the year, reported that two whites left by a British ship years before were killed by the people to prevent them from disclosing the Harriet massacre (Macy 16 Oct 1843). Bloody Hart's Brief Reign of Terror pp. 118 122 Shipwrecked seamen from Corsair: Ward (1967v6:135 136); Hambruch (1932:98). The Falcon incident: The entire affair, as well as the Ngatik massacre, is described in the official report on the British naval investigation into these events (Blake 1924). For other accounts, see Nautical Magazine (1847:127 131); Dunbabin (1926); and Hambruch (1932:104 108). The Scars of a Moral Pestilence pp. 122 131 Fifty vessels at Ponape between 1834 and 1840: The figures are given in a report by the French naval cruiser Danaide, which called at Ponape toward the end of 1840 (quoted in Hambruch 1932:117). Catholic missionary attempt on Ponape: Hezel (1970:220 221); Wiltgen (1979:161 163). Ponapean hands on whaleships: Ward (1967v3:542); Nautical Magazine (1838:138).  

page_329

Page 329

Adoption of whites and trading practices: An excellent first-hand description of the arrangements governing the adoption of whites and their trade for chiefs is given in Blake (1924:667 669). Ponape's trade in turtle shell: Hambruch (1932:117); Knights (to S C Phillips, 18 Jan 1834). Cheyne's visits to Ponape: Cheyne's own journal account, giving a vivid description of life on Ponape in the early 1840s, is found in Shineberg (1971:156 222, 284 293, 317 320). Chapter 6 The Powers of Darkness and Light Wood, Water, and Women pp. 132 142 Number of whaleship visits each year: Friend (Nov 1855:84; Jul 1857:53); Scherzer (1862:554). Expansion of Pacific whaling: Dodge (1965:27 56). See also Stackpole (1953), and Hohman (1928). Prices of provisions on Ponape: For price lists see "Log of Peruvian 1852 1856," Blunt White Library, Mystic, CT, entry for 11 Oct 1855; Friend (Mar 1858:18). Whalemen's diversions ashore: Two published journals give especially full and colorful details on the whalers' pastimes on Kosrae: Jones (1861:120 140, 146 153, 191 197); and Macy (1877:225 252). For further information about a side of whaling life that is not covered in most ship logs, see WH Wilson (Feb-Mar 1850). Massive and carefully planned desertions: "Log of George and Mary, 1850 1852," Blunt White Library, Mystic, CT, entries for 11 22 Dec 1851; "Log of Martha, 1852 1857," Old Dartmouth Historical Society, New Bedford, MA, entry for 14 Mar 1856; ''Log of Young Hector, 1853 1857," Kendall Whaling Museum, Sharon, MA, entries for 8 10 Mar 1856; "Log of Florida, 1854 1858," Old Dartmouth Historical Society, New Bedford, MA, entries for Feb 1856. "The Terror of the Pacific": Johnson's infamous career is sketched in reports from missionaries on Ponape (Friend Nov 1859:85); journal letter of Albert Sturges to R Anderson (ABCFM 1858). Conditions on Mokil in 1850s: S James (1864:433); Hammet (1854:66); Andersson (1854:53). Shenandoah's capture of whaleships at Ponape: See M Browning (1976); Hunt (1867:122 140). Smallpox epidemic on Ponape: Hambruch (1932:150, 172 173); Scherzer (1862:554 556). From the Shadows of Heathenism pp. 142 158 Establishment of Micronesian mission: For general background on the founding of the mission and its progress during its first few decades, see Bliss (1906), and Crawford and Crawford (1967). Published excerpts from missionary letters from this period can be found in The Friend and Missionary Herald. The collection of the original letters from the mission (ABCFM) is kept at the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Microfilm copies of the collection are held by  

page_330

Page 330

Australian National Library at Canberra, University of Hawaii Library at Honolulu, and Micronesian Seminar Library at Truk. Some additional missionary correspondence, letters, and papers addressed to the Hawaiian Evangelical Association are held by the Hawaiian Mission Children's Society of Honolulu. The nahnken of Kiti: Further information on the nahnken, whose name was Nanku, can be found in Bernat (1977:114 117), and Fischer et al (1977:101 106). Foreign influences on Ponape: Sturges, "Facts respecting the Island of Bonabe" (ABCFM). Nahnken's taboo on ships and brothels: ABCFM (Sturges to Anderson, 10 Jan 1854 and 9 Feb 1856; Sturges to Gulick, 25 June 1858). Gulick's letter to "Christian Owners of Whale Ships": The letter was widely published in New England whaling ports, and Gulick followed up with an even stronger letter to "My Personal Friends and to the Friends of Virtue," which he published on his own press in 1859 (Lingenfelter 1967:100 101; Alden 1944:278 279). Aftermath of epidemic on Ponape: The long and valuable letter from Sturges to Anderson (ABCFM 17 Oct 1854) describes the anomie that followed the epidemic on Ponape. The uses of kava in Ponape culture: See Riesenberg (1968a:109). A brief discussion of the missionary campaign against kava can be found in O'Brien (1971:55). The Struggle between God and Caesar pp. 158 170 Opposition to Snow on Ualang: Missionary Herald (1857:300 301); ABCFM, Snow to Anderson, 8 Oct 1856, 19 Mar 1857. Insurrection of whites and Rotumans: A full account of the two-month war is contained in a long letter (ABCFM, Snow to Anderson, 24 July 1857). Additional information can be found in SG Moore (1858:451 453). Weakening of the chiefs' status: The effect of depopulation and acculturation on the status of Kosraean traditional leaders is taken up in anthropological studies. See Schaefer (1976:34 55); WS Wilson (1968:24 31); and J Lewis (1967:23 45). Rule of the island gradually transferred to the church: J Lewis (1967:37 41); Schaefer (1976:50 53). Chapter 7 The Reopening of the West The Dispute over the Seamen's Ransom pp. 171 178 Shipwreck of the Mentor: The best-known source is the personal account by one of the Mentor's crew (Holden 1836). See also Lyman (1902). A recently discovered manuscript written by Edward Barnard, master of the Mentor, provides another valuable account of the incident from a different perspective; see Martin (1980). Visit of Vincennes to Palau: A lengthy and detailed report on the visit is given in RL Browning (1833 1836:209 306). Lt Browning's report was published in slightly revised form some years later as "Cruise of USS Vincennes, 1833 1836" in United Service (RL Browning 1885, 1886).  

page_331

Page 331

Wreck of the Dash and escape of its crew: Ward (1967v5:156 158); RL Browning (1833 1836:220 224). Early Trading Outposts pp. 178 185 Description of Koror in 1830s: RL Browning (1833 1836:289 299). Early hostilities at Palau: See Ward (1966:144 149; 1967v5:154); Dumont d'Urville (1843:208 209). Cheyne's early visits to Palau: Shineberg (1971:231 241, 321 324, 333 338). Cheyne's visit to Yap: Shineberg (1971:245 284). The Would-Be Emperor of Palau pp. 185 196 Cheyne's return to Micronesia: An excellent sketch of Cheyne's career and a profile of the man himself is contained in the introduction to Shineberg (1971). Cheyne's partnership with Woodin: An account, heavily biased against Cheyne, is found in Semper (1873:24 30, 230 247); and Krämer (1917:135 137). Attacks of Koror on Ngabuked: Semper (1873:27 29); Woodin (entries for Apr-May 1861). Cheyne's written agreements with Koror chiefs: The "Treaty of Commerce" and the constitution are quoted in full in Semper (1873:236 244). The petition for a protectorate is found as an enclosure in CE Stevens (1867). British expedition to Ngabuked: RA Brown (1862); Seymour (1911:103 105); Semper (1873:42 45). Tetens' first voyage to Yap and return to Koror: Tetens (1958:4 28). Tetens' travel accounts, spiced with romance and self-serving exaggerations, are less than totally reliable as historical records. Charges of the Koror chiefs against Cheyne: Semper (1873:270 272); Tetens (1958:28 29). Tetens' stay in Koror: Tetens (1958:27 46). Cheyne's return to Palau: Cheyne 1863 1866 entries for Dec 1863 and Jan 1864. Cheyne's murder: CE Stevens (1867); Tetens (1958:61 62). Chapter 8 Christianity and Copra in the Marshalls Preparing the Land for the Harvesters pp. 197 210 Globe massacre and its aftermath: For a popular account of the incident see Hoyt (1975:117 150). The two survivors also wrote an account, later published, of the mutiny and their stay on Mili (Lay and Hussey 1828). Shorter published reports can be found elsewhere, as in Ward (1967v4:570 578), and Stackpole (1953:413 433). Early hostilities in the Marshalls: The particulars of each of these incidents, along with bibliographic citations, are found in Hezel (1979:116 121). Marshallese traditional life: A general overview of Marshallese life may be found in Alkire (1977:68 77); Bryan (1972); A Spoehr (1949); Krämer and Nevermann (1938); Hager (1886); and Erdland (1914). The Regents of King Copra pp. 210 216 Growth of the early coconut oil trade: For an excellent and detailed study of the trade in the area, see Maude (1968:233 283).   file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_331.html[3/30/2011 10:15:52 AM]

page_331

page_332

Page 332

Godeffroy & Son in the Pacific: Firth (1977); F Spoehr (1963:3 49); Sterndale (1874). Early coconut oil trade in the Marshalls: M Browning (1972:34 35). Milne's career in the Pacific: A good thumbnail sketch of the man is given by one of his contemporaries in Young (1875 1877, entry for 8 July 1876). Capelle & Co's expansion: Hager (1886:115); M Browning (1972:35). An Empire Lost pp. 216 226 Trading firms in the Marshalls: An excellent survey of the activities of German firms in Micronesia and elsewhere is to be found in Firth (1977). See also Purcell (1967:35 68). An invaluable source on trade in the Marshalls is Hager (1886:112 133). For an overview of Hernsheim's dealings, see Firth (1978: 115 130). Young's arrival with Farrell in the Marshalls: This and other events in Young's life during his twenty-month stay in the Marshalls are described in Young (1875 1877). Dispute between Kabua and Loiak for chieftainship: Krämer and Nevermann (1938:197); Kubary (1873a:38); Mason (1946:96 97). Price war between copra firms: Young (1875 1877, entries for 3, 21 Aug and 12 Dec 1876, 14 Mar 1877). Figures on copra collected by Young: Young (1875 1877, entries for 19 Dec 1876, 20 July 1877). Chapter 9 The Emergence of a New Order A New Enemy at the Gate pp. 227 233 Trading activities of Ben Pease: Mahlmann (1918:46 98); Cholmondeley (1915: 121 153); DeBrum (nd); (Edward Milne to HM Consul in Shanghai, Dec 1869); Restieaux (nd). Charges against Pease: USNA, RG 59 (US Consul to Davis, 5 June 1871). Attack of the Water Lily on Aur: Restieaux (1869-). Losses of firms backing Pease: USNA, RG 59 (US Consul to Davis, 5 June 1871). Blackbirders and Buccaneers pp. 233 243 Activities of Bully Hayes: The fullest and most carefully done biography of Hayes is Clune (1970). Short sketches of his life can be found in Young (1875 1877, entry for 14 Apr 1877); and Young (1878 1929). Hayes' purchase of Leonora: Mahlmann (1918:98 100); Moss (1889:84 92). Pittman's sale of Neva in Honolulu: Wawn (1870 1874:47); Dana (1935: 193 195). Carl's cruise through Micronesia: ABCFM (Doane to Clark, 13 Jan 1872). On its call at the Mortlocks, see Wawn (1870 1874:84 85). Plantation life in Fiji and Samoa: For two very different views of the laborers' conditions, see Young (1875 1877, entry for 21 June 1875); and Sterndale (1874:11). Migration of Ocean Islanders and Nauruans: Wood (1875:188 189); Good-enough (1875). Hayes' death: Young (1875 1877, entry for 14 April 1877); Clune (1970: 144 149).   file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_332.html[3/30/2011 10:15:53 AM]

page_332

page_333

Page 333

Reaching Across New Frontiers pp. 243 249 Sturges' philosophy of missionary expansion: Sturges' views are most systematically articulated in an unpublished essay, "The Missionary Problem," included among his letters in ABCFM. See also an extract from a letter published in Missionary Herald (1876:309). The Unholy Prophets of Progress pp. 249 256 Beachcombers who turned trader: See Moss (1889:81 84); and Farrell (1928:334 336). Rees murders on Kapingamarangi: LeHunte (1883a), judicial proceedings on Rees murder case; Westwood (1905:135 139). Capelle-Hernsheim controversy on Kosrae: ABCFM (Pease and Whitney to Clark, 26 Mar 1880; Pease to Clark, 8 Sep 1881); Young (1880 1881, entry for 25 Nov 1881). Trade on Ponape by 1880: Bridge (1883), Westwood (1905:85 87); Wood (1875: 141 175). The Assault on Truk pp. 256 262 European visits to Truk: For a survey of ship contacts at Truk, see Hezel (1979: 27 36). An interpretative essay on Truk's early history is found in Hezel (1973). Financial problems of traders in Mortlocks: Letter of Henry Worth to his father, 10 Sep 1880, "Letters of Henry Fletcher Worth," Thomas Cooke House and Museum, Edgartown, MA. See also ABCFM (Sturges to Clark, 17 May 1880). Landing of the first missionaries in Truk: Doane (1881:208). Another account is given in ABCFM (Sturges to Clark, 1 Nov 1879). Chapter 10 The Contest for Commercial Control Waifs Upon the Water pp. 263 271 O'Keefe's background: The fullest, although partly fictionalized, account of O'Keefe's early background and life on Yap is in Klingman and Green (1950); see also May (1969). In the absence of any scholarly biographical study of O'Keefe, such sources are the only ones that can be recommended, but they must be read carefully against the bits of material on O'Keefe's background that survive in the Georgia Historical Society records in Savannah and in the personal collection on O'Keefe belonging to Theo Wettstein of Zurich, Switzerland. Earlier foreign dealings with Yap: See Shineberg (1971:244 284); Cheyne (1863 1866); and Tetens (1958:4 26, 64 71, 92 100). O'Keefe's early trade for Celebes Seas Trading Company: LeHunte (1883a: statement of O'Keefe in enclosures on judicial proceedings). Preference of Yapese for traditional dress: Letter of Rev George Brown (New Zealand Herald 6 Jan 1877). Yapese stone money: The most complete treatment of this subject is in Gillilland (1975). O'Keefe's copra station on Mapia: LeHunte (1883a:48 and statement of O'Keefe); Kubary (1889:83).  

page_334

Page 334

Capelle's business interests in Yap: Young (1880 1881; 1878 1929: JL Young to Alice Young, 13 Mar 1878). Hernsheim's operations in Yap: Firth (1978:116 117); Krämer (1917:151). Holcomb's speculations: Hezel (1975:6 7); Ibañez del Carmen et al (1976:34). Arabia's troubles at Guam: Ibañez del Carmen et al (1976:38 39). The Final Act in a Century-Old Drama pp. 271 281 Declining family size on Palau: R Robertson (1877); LeHunte (1883b:54). Background of Jan Kubary: Good summaries of Kubary's life and travels are found in F Spoehr (1963:69 98); Paszkowski (1971); and Mitchell (1971). Kubary's experiences in Palau: Kubary gives a full report of his two years on Palau in his "Die Palau-Inseln in der Südsee" (1873b). An English summary of the work is found in F Spoehr (1963:72 89). Visit of Herthe to Palau: R Robertson (1877:42 43, 49); LeHunte (1883b:45). Wreck and plunder of Lilla: LeHunte (1883a:pars 40 48; 1883b:47 48); McGuiness (1882). Visit of HMS Lily in 1881: Grove (1881). Visit of HMS Comus and Lily in 1882: East (1882). Espiegle's visit to Palau: LeHunte (1883a:pars 40 48; 1883b:43 61); Bridge to Erskine, 21 Aug 1883, ADM 1/6618, Public Record Office, London. Peace treaty with Palau: The original treaty is preserved at the British Museum in London. The Battle for O'Keefe's Kingdom pp. 281 289 O'Keefe's share of trade in 1880s: Costa y Martínez (1886:134). Charges against O'Keefe: LeHunte (1883a: Judicial Proceedings on Yap); Hezel (1975:11). Misdeeds of other foreigners on Yap: O'Keefe (statement of 19 Aug 1883 in LeHunte 1883a). Expedition against Yapese village: LeHunte (1883a: Judicial Proceedings); Swanston (entries for 4 11 Mar 1883). "domination of Yap by foreign powers that are concerned only for their own business interests": "Instancia que promueven los habitantes de Yap y Palao," no 785, ff 72 73, Museo Naval, Madrid. "a small island with a thatched hut and little more": Torres to Governor of Philippines, 19 Aug 1887, "Carolinas Islands: 1884 98," Leg 7, Philippine National Archives, Manila. Chapter 11 Colonial Rule The March of Civilization pp. 290 298 Description of Jaluit in 1880s: Moss (1889:38 39); Farrell (1928:205 206); Maxwell (1881). Legal steps for dealing with alcohol: The temperance laws made by Marshallese chiefs are printed in The Friend (1878:66; 1880:60). See also W Moore (1884) on measures taken by the British to support this legislation. War on Arno: Maxwell (1881); W Moore (1884); Bridge (1883); LeHunte (1883a); Rynkiewich (1972:88 92).

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_334.html[3/30/2011 10:15:54 AM]

page_334

 

page_335

Page 335

War on Majuro: Moss (1889:122 127); W Moore (1884); Bridge (1883); LeHunte (1883a:par 22; 1883b:23 34); A Spoehr (1949:84). A New Flag Over Jaluit pp. 298 306 German treaty of 1878: Werner (1889:360 378); Mason (1946:157). Birth of the Western Pacific High Commission: Scarr (1967:23 35); W Morrell (1960:171 186). Agreements between Germany and England: A preliminary agreement was issued in the form of a joint declaration on 6 April 1876; a final agreement demarcating territorial spheres of influence was signed in 1886. See RG Brown (1976:37 40; 1977:138). Growth of German trading companies in 1880s: Hager (1886:116 127); Suchan-Galow (1940:87 99); Capelle & Co agreements with DHPG, 1883, in DeBrum (1869 1934). Annexation of Jaluit by Nautilus: CEG (1886:394 397); Overland China Mail, 19 Jan 1886. The Carolines Controversy pp. 306 313 Diplomatic crisis of 1874: Krämer (1917:151 152); RG Brown (1976:30 31; 1977:138). British warship and Carolinian castaways: Pauwels (1936:16); Bax (1875: 252 255). New Spanish interest in the Carolines: Hezel (1975:15 16); Costa y Martínez (1886:88 89). Defense of Spanish rights in the Carolines: See, for example, Gracia y Parejo (1973:24 28, 40 46). Race of German and Spanish warships for Yap: Kubary's eye-witness account of events on Yap is quoted in Müller (1917:5 6). Spanish reaction to German claims: RG Brown (1976:75 79, 85 102). Papal arbitration of the dispute: RG Brown (1976:126 150); Herbst (1943:13 15); Pauwels (1936:17 20). The End of an Era pp. 313 318 Statistics on Protestant mission growth: ABCFM (AR 1885:86 91); Missionary Herald (1884:91). Population decline in Micronesia: A general survey of population decline during the nineteenth century is to be found in Freeman (1951:248). Supplementary and corrective data for Ponape is given in Riesenberg (1968a:6). Figures on the Marshalls are derived from estimates recorded in Maxwell (1881).  

page_337

Page 337

References Abeel, David. 1834. Journal of a Residence in China and the Neighboring Countries from 1829 to 1833. New York: Leavitt, Lord. Alden, John E. 1944. A Press in Paradise: The Beginnings of Printing in Micronesia. The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 38:269 283. Alkire, William H. 1965. Lamotrek Atoll and Inter-Island Socioeconomic Ties. Illinois Studies in Anthropology, no 5. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 1977. An Introduction to the Peoples and Cultures of Micronesia, 2nd ed. Menlo Park, CA: Cummings. [ABCFM] American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. [1852 1909]. Letters and Papers of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions: Mission to Micronesia, 1852 1909. 19 vols. 19.4 19.6. Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA. Andersson, U J. 1854. Eine Weltumseglung mit der Schwedischen Kriegs-fregatte "Eugenie," 1851 1853. Leipzig: Karl Forch. Arago, Jacques. 1823. Narrative of a Voyage Round the World, in the Uranie and Physicienne corvettes, commanded by Captain Freycinet, during the years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820. 2 vols. London: Treuttel and Wurtz. (Reprinted 1971 as single volume. Bibliotheca Australiana no 45. Amsterdam: Israel/New York: Da Capo.) [AGI] Archivo General de Indias, Seville. Ultramar: Filipinas. Legajos 215, 320, 561. Barnett, H G. 1949. Palauan Society: A Study of Contemporary Native Life in the Palau Islands. Eugene, OR: University of Oregon Publications. Barras y de Aragon, Francisco. 1949. Las Islas Palaos. Anuario de Estudios Americanos 3:1062 1095.  

page_338

Page 338

Bax, B W. 1875. The Eastern Seas: A Narrative of the Voyage of HMS "Dwarf" in China, Japan, and Formosa. London: John Murray. Beaglehole, J C. 1966. The Exploration of the Pacific. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Bennett, J A. 1976. Immigration, "Blackbirding," Labour Recruiting? Journal of Pacific History 11:3 27. Bernat, Luelen. 1977. The Book of Luelen. Translated and edited by John L Fischer, Saul H Riesenberg, and Marjorie G Whiting. Pacific History Series, no 8. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii. Blair, E H, and J A Robertson, eds. 1906. The Philippine Islands, 1493 1898. Vol 41. Cleveland, OH: Arthur H Clark. Blake P L. 1924. Report on the Cruise of HMS Larne in 1839. In Historical Records of Australia. Series 1, vol 20, pp 27 28, 655 672. Sydney: Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament. Bliss, Theodora Crosby. 1906. Micronesia: Fifty Years in the Island World. Boston: ABCFM. [Bourne, Zenas E]. [1870 1874]. Journal on board the BarkAvola, Captain Zenas E Bourne, 1870 1874. Kendall Whaling Museum, Sharon, MA. Bray, Isaiah. [1881 1882]. Report on 11th Voyage of Morning Star, 1881 1882. In ABCFM Letters and Papers. Brazier, John. [1872]. Notes: Cruise of HMS Blanche through the South Sea Islands, 12 May 15 November 1872. MS B512. Mitchell Library, Sydney. Bridge, Cyprian. [1883]. Cruise of HMS Espiegle, April 24 October 3, 1883: Report on the Islands of the Ellice, Gilbert, Marshall, Caroline and Pelew Groups. ADM 1/6676. Public Record Office, London. 1918. Some Recollections. London: John Murray. Bridges, G A. [1868 1870]. Log of the Schooner Malolo, 1868 1870. 1868M & 1871N. Peabody Museum, Salem, MA. Brown, Ralph A. [1862]. Report of the Proceedings of HMS Sphinx, 21 April 1862. ADM 1/5790. Public Record Office, London. Brown, Richard G. 1976. Germany, Spain, and the Caroline Islands, 1885 1899. PhD dissertation, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg.  

page_339

Page 339

1977. The German Acquisition of the Caroline Islands, 1898 99. In Germany in the Pacific and Far East, 1870 1914, edited by John A Moses and Paul M Kennedy, pp 137 155. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Browning, Mary A. 1972. Traders in the Marshalls. Micronesian Reporter 20:32 38. 1976. Blue and Gray on Ponape. Glimpses 16(1):24 31, 66. Browning, Robert L. [1833 1836]. Notes on the South Sea Islands on board the US Ship Vincennes,1833 1836, J H Aulick Commander. Browning Family Papers, Box 141, 405A 0124. Library of Congress, Washington, DC. 1885. The Cruise of the United States Sloop-of-War Vincennes, Circumnavigating, 1833 1836. United Service 13:576 585,717 728. 1886. Cruise of  . . . Vincennes, 1833 1836. United Service 14:81 88,194 210,265 278,400 408. Bryan, E H, Jr, comp. 1971. Guide to Place Names in the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (the Marshall, Caroline and Mariana Islands). Honolulu: Bishop Museum, Pacific Scientific Information Center. 1972. Life in the Marshall Islands. Honolulu: Bishop Museum, Pacific Scientific Information Center. Burney, James. 1967. A Chronological History of the Voyages and Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean. Vol 5. Bibliotheca Australiana no 7. Amsterdam: Israel/New York: Da Capo. Callander, John, ed. 1967. Terra Australis Cognita or Voyages to the Terra Australis. Vol 3. Biblioteca Australiana no 10. Amsterdam: Israel/New York: Da Capo. Carano, Paul, and Pedro Sanchez. 1964. A Complete History of Guam. Rutland VT and Tokyo: Charles E Tuttle. Carrasco, Francisco. 1881. Descubrimiento y Descripción de las Islas Garbanzos. Boletín de la Sociedad Geográfica de Madrid. 10:263 279. Cattlin, Edward. [1827 1836]. Journals 1827 1836. MS 1800. Mitchell Library, Sydney. Cheyne, Andrew. 1852. A Description of Some Islands in the Western Pacific Ocean, North and South of the Equator; with Sailing Directions. London: J D Potter. [1863 1866]. Journal aboard the Brigantine Acis, November 1863 February 1866. Private journal in the possession of Sir Joseph Cheyne, Rome. Cholmondeley, Lionel. 1915. The History of the Bonin Islands from the Year 1827 to the Year 1876. London: Constable.  

page_340

Page 340

Clune, Frank. 1970. Captain Bully Hayes: Blackbirder and Bigamist. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. Coghlan, T. [1863]. Journal aboard HMS Sphinx, January July 1863. ADM 101/175.Public Record Office, London. [CDI] Colección de documentos inéditos relatives al descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las antiguas posesiones españolas de Ultramar,. 1886 2nd series, vol 2: De las Islas Filipinas, pt 1. Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra. 1887. Second series, vol 3: De las Islas Filipinas, pt 2. [CEG] The Colonial Expansion of Germany. 1886. Nautical Magazine 55:389 397. Coote [Walter]. [1881]. [Report] to Admiralty, 12 Feb 1881. ADM 1/6575. Public Record Office, London. Corte y Ruano Calderón, Felipe de la. 1875. Memoria descriptiva é histórica de las islas Marianas. Madrid:Imprenta nacional. [Costa y Martínez, Joaquín]. 1886. El Conflicto Hispano-Alemán sobre la Micronesia. Biblioteca de la Sociedad Española de Africanistas y Colonistas, vol 3. Madrid: Fortanet. Crawford, David, and Leona Crawford. 1967. Missionary Adventures in the South Pacific. Rutland VT and Tokyo: Charles E Tuttle. Crowther, W E. 1972. A Survey of the Ships' Logs and Journals and Maritime Material in the State Library of TasmaniaPart II. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania 106:59 68. Cushner, Nicholas P. 1971. Spain in the Philippines. IPC Monographs, no 1. Manila: Ateneo de Manila & Tuttle Press. Dana, Julian. 1935. Gods Who Die: The Story of Samoa's Greatest Adventurer. New York: Macmillan. DeBrum, Joachim. [1869 1934]. The Joachim DeBrum Papers. University of Guam, Micronesian Area Research Center, Agana. Delano, Amasa. 1817. A Narrative of Voyages and Travels in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Boston: E G House. Doane, Edward T. 1874. The Caroline Islands. Geographical Magazine 1:203 205.  

1881. The Lagoon of Ruk. Missionary Herald 77:208 210.

page_341

Page 341

Dodge, Ernest S. 1965. New England and the South Seas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1971. Beyond the Capes: Pacific Exploration from Captain Cook to the Challenger (1776 1877). Boston: Little, Brown. Dumont d'Urville, Jules. [1822 1825]. Journal d'un voyage autour du monde, entrepris sur la corvette de S M la Coquille pendant les années 1822, 1823, 1824, et 1825 . . . sous les ordres de M Duperrey, Lieutenant de vaisseau. B 1300. Mitchell Library, Sydney. 1833. Voyage de la corvette l'Astrolabe, exécuté par ordre du roi, pendant les années 1826-1827-1828-1829. Part 1: Histoire du voyage, vol 5. Paris: Tastu. 1834. Voyage pittoresque autour du monde: résumé général des voyages de découvertes. Vol 1. Paris: Tenré and Dupuy. 1835. Voyage pittoresque . . . Vol 2. 1843. 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. Part 1: Histoire du voyage, vol 5. Paris: Gide. Dunbabin, Thomas. 1926. Shipwreck, Slaughter and Tortoise-shell: The Strange Doings of Captain Hart of the Sydney Cutter Lambton. The Navy League Journal (Sydney) 6(March): 1 5. 1935. Slavers of the South Seas. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. Dunmore, John. 1969. French Explorer in the Pacific. Vol 2: The Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press. East, James N. [1882]. Proceedings of HMS Comus and Lily at Palau, 23 April 1882. ADM 1/6618. Enclosure in China Letter no 241. Public Record Office, London. Egerton, F P. [1846]. Log of HMS Hazard. ADM 51/3613. Public Record Office, London. Eilers, Anneliese. 1935. Ergebnisse der Südsee Expedition 1908 1910, 2, B, 9, edited by G Thilenius. Westkarolinen, vol 1: Songosor, Pur, Merir. Hamburg: Friederichsen, De Gruyter. Erdland, August. 1914. Die Marshall-Insulaner: Leben und Sitte, Sinn und Religion eines Südsee- Volkes. Münster: Anthropos Bibliothek. Farrell, Andrew. 1928. John Cameron's Odyssey. New York: Macmillan. [FBGEB] Filipiniana Book Guild Editorial Board, comp. 1965. The Colonization and Conquest of the Philippines by Spain: Some Contemporary Source Documents 1559 1577. Manila: FBG.  

page_342

Page 342

Findlay, Alexander. 1870. A Directory for the Navigation of the North Pacific Ocean with Description of its Coast, Islands, etc, from Panama to Behring Strait and Japan. 2nd ed. London: R H Lawrie. Firth, Stewart. 1977. German firms in the Pacific Islands, 1857 1914. In Germany in the Pacific and Far East, 1870 1914, edited by John A Moses and Paul M Kennedy, pp 3 25. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. 1978. Captain Hernsheim: Pacific venturer, merchant prince. In More Pacific Islands Portraits, edited by Deryck Scarr, pp 115 130. Canberra: Australian National University Press. Fischer, John L, Saul H Riesenberg, and Marjorie G Whiting. 1977. Annotations to the Book of Luelen. Pacific History Series, no 9. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii. Force, Roland W. 1960. Leadership and Cultural Change in Palau. Fieldiana: Anthropology, vol 50. Chicago: Natural History Museum. Frazer, James G. 1968. The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead. 3 vols. London: Dawsons of Pall Mall. Freeman, Otis W, ed. 1951. Geography of the Pacific. New York: Wiley. Freycinet, Louis de. 1829. Voyage autour du monde . . . exécuté sur les corvettes de S M l'Uranie e la Physicienne, pendant les années 1817, 1818, 1819 et 1820. Part 2: Historique, vol 2. Paris: Pillet Aîné. Friis, Herman R, ed. 1967. The Pacific Basin: A History of Its Geographical Exploration. Special Publication no 38. New York: American Geographical Society. Fry, Howard T. 1969. Alexander Dalrymple and New Guinea. Journal of Pacific History 4:83 104. Galvão, Antonio. 1862. The Discoveries of the World, from their First Original, unto the Year of our Lord 1555. Hakluyt Society, Series 1, vol 30. London: Hakluyt Society. Gilbert, Thomas. 1789. A Voyage from New South Wales to Canton in the Year 1788. London: Debrett. Gillilland, Cora Lee. 1975. The Stone Money of Yap: A Numismatic Survey. Smithsonian Studies in History and Technology, no 23. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Gladwin, Thomas. 1970. East is a Big Bird: Navigation and Logic on Puluwat Atoll. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.  

page_343

Page 343

Goodenough, James G. 1875. Proceedings of HMS Rosario in the South Sea Islands: Criminal Acts of Mr W H Hayes, Master of the Brig Leonora. Queensland Government Gazette 17:1671 1678. Gracia y Parejo, Rafael. 1973. Considerations on the Rights of Spain over the Caroline Islands. Translated by Patricia Bieber. Miscellaneous Work Papers, 1973, no 1. University of Hawaii, Pacific Islands Program, Honolulu. Grattan, C Hartley. 1963. The Southwest Pacific to 1900: A Modern HistoryAustralia, New Zealand, The Islands, Antarctica. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Grove, Stanhope. [1881]. Report on Proceedings of HMS Lily, 10 Feb 1881. ADM 1/6575. Public Record Office, London. Hager, Carl. 1886. Die Marshall-Inseln in Erd- und Völkerkunde, Handel und Mission. Leipzig: G Lingke. Hambruch, Paul. 1932. Ergebnisse der Südsee Expedition 1908 1910, 2, B, 7, edited by G Thilenius. Ponape, vol 1: Allgemeiner Teil: Geschichte, Geographie, Sprache, Eingeborenen. Hamburg: Friederichsen, De Gruyter. Hammet, L V. 1854. Narrative of the Voyage of HMS Serpent. Nautical Magazine 23:57 67, 123 131, 188 195. Herbst, Clarence A. 1943. Caroline Islands Dispute: 1885. The Historical Bulletin 22:13 15. Hernandez, Faustino, SJ. 1955. Mision de las Islas Carolinas y Marshalls. Madrid: Martinez. Hezel, Francis X. 1970. Catholic Missions in the Caroline and Marshall Islands: A Survey of Historical Materials. Journal of Pacific History 5:213 227. 1973. The Beginnings of Foreign Contact with Truk. Journal of Pacific History 8:51 73. 1975. A Yankee Trader in Yap: Crayton Philo Holcomb. Journal of Pacific History 10:3 19. 1978. The Role of the Beachcomber in the Carolines. In The Changing Pacific, edited by Neil Gunson, pp 261 272. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. 1979. Foreign Ships in Micronesia. Saipan: Historic Preservation Office. In press From Conversion to Conquest: the Early Spanish Mission in the Marianas. Journal of Pacific History. Hezel, Francis X, and Maria Teresa del Valle. 1972. Early European Contact with the Western Carolines. Journal of Pacific History 7:26 44.  

page_344

Page 344

The History of Prince Lee Boo, Son of Abba Thule, King of the Pelew Islands. 1823. London: Thomas Hughes. Hockin, John P. 1803. A Supplement to the Account of the Pelew Islands; Compiled from the Journals of the 'Panther' and 'Endeavour,' Two Vessels sent by the Honourable East India Company to those Islands in the Year 1790. London: G & W Nicol. Hohman, Elmo P. 1928. The American Whaleman: A Study of Life and Labor in the Whaling Industry. New York: Longmans, Green. Holcomb, Crayton P. [1850 1887]. Holcomb Papers. Micronesian Seminar Library, Truk, Caroline Islands. Holden, Horace. 1836. A Narrative of the Shipwreck, Captivity and Sufferings of Horace Holden and Benjamin H. Nute; who were Cast away in the American Ship 'Mentor,' on the Pelew Islands, in the Year 1832. Boston: Russell, Shattuck. Horsburgh, James. 1817. India Directory, Directions for Sailing to and from the East Indies, China, New Holland, Cape of Good Hope, Brazil and the Interjacent Ports. 2 vols, 2nd ed. London: Black, Parbury and Allen. Hoyt, Edwin P. 1975. The Mutiny on the 'Globe.' New York: Random House. Hunt, Cornelius E. 1867. The Shenandoah; or the Last Confederate Cruiser. New York: G W Carleton. Ibáñez del Carmen, Aniceto, Francisco Resano et al. 1976. Chronicle of the Mariana Islands. Translated by Marjorie G Driver. University of Guam, Micronesian Area Research Center, Agana. Jacobs, Hubert. 1980. Father Francisco Miedes Discovers the Caroline Islands Before They Are Discovered. Archivum Historicum Societatis Jesu 49:393 416. James, Horton. 1835. Notes on the Island of Ascension, Pacific. Nautical Magazine 4:708. James, Samuel. 1864. Cruise of the Morning Star among the Pacific Islands. Nautical Magazine 33:432 435. Jones, John D. 1861. Life and Adventure in the South Pacific by a Roving Printer. New York: Harper. Jurien de la Gravière, J P E. 1854. Voyage en Chine et dans les mers et archipels de cet empire pendant les années 1847 1848 1849 1850. 2 vols. Paris: Charpentier. Keate, George. 1789. An Account of the Pelew Islands, situated in the Western Part of the  

page_345

Page 345

Pacific Ocean, Composed from the Journals and Communications of Captain Henry Wilson, and Some of His Officers, who, in August 1783, Were there Shipwrecked in the Antelope. . . . 3rd ed. London: G Nicol. Klingman, Lawrence, and Gerald Green. 1950. His Majesty O'Keefe. New York: Scribner. Knights, John B. 1925. A Journal of a Voyage in the Brig Spy of Salem (1832 1834). In The Sea, the Ship and the Sailor: Tales of Adventure from Log Books and Original Narratives, pp 168 207. Publication no 7. Salem, MA: Marine Research Society. [1827 1837]. Letters 1827 1837. Peabody Museum, Salem, MA. Kotzebue, Otto von. 1821. A Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea and Beering's Straits  . . . in the Years 1815 1818. 3 vols. London: Longman and Brown. 1830. A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25 and 26. 2 vols. London: Colburn and Bentley. Krämer, Augustin. 1917. Ergebnisse der Südsee Expedition 1908 1910, 2, B, 3, edited by G Thilenius. Palau, Vol 1: Pt 1 Entdeckungsgeschichte; Pt 2 Geographie. Hamburg: Friederichsen. Krämer, Augustin, and Hans Nevermann. 1938. Ergebnisse der Südsee Expedition 1908 1910, 2, B, 11, edited by G Thilenius. Ralik-Ratak (Marshall Inseln). Hamburg: Friederichsen, De Gruyter. Krusenstern, J. 1819. Beiträge zur Hydrographie der Grösseren Ozeane, als Erläuterungen zu einer Charte des ganzen Erdkreises nach Mercator's Projection. Leipzig: Kummer. Kubary, Jan. 1873a. Die Ebongruppe im Marshall's Archipel. Journal des Museum Godeffroy 1:33 47. 1873b. Die Palau-Inseln in der Südsee. Journal des Museum Godeffroy 1: 177 238. 1889. Notizen über einen Ausflug nach den westlichen Karolinen. In Ethnographische Beiträge zur Kenntnis des Karolinen Archipels, pp 79 114. Leiden: van der Hoek. Langdon, Robert. 1969. Vivid New Light on the Wild Pacific of Louis Becke's Day. Pacific Islands Monthly 40(3):81 89. Lay, William, and Cyrus M Hussey. 1828. A Narrative of the Mutiny, on board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan 1824, and the Journal of a Residence of Two Years on the Mulgrave Islands. New London, CT.  

page_346

Page 346

Le Gobien, Charles. 1700. Histoire des Isles Marianes, nouvellement converties à la Religion Chrestienne, et du martyre des premiers Apostres qui y ont presché la Foy. Paris: Pepie. LeHunte, G R. [1883a]. Report to G W Des Voeux of the Cruise of HMS Espiegle 10 October 1883. WPHC Secretariat 1875 1914, Series 3. Central Archives of Fiji, Suva. 1883b. Six Letters from the Western Pacific. Colombo: Government Printer. Lessa, William A. 1962. An Evaluation of Early Descriptions of Carolinian Culture. Ethno-history 9:313 403. 1974. Drake in the Marianas? Micronesica 10:7 11. 1975a. Drake's Island of Thieves: Ethnological Sleuthing. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii. 1975b. The Portuguese Discovery of the Isles of Sequeira. Micronesica 11:35 70. Lesson, René-Primevère. 1838. Voyage autour du monde entrepris par ordre du gouvernement sur la corvette la Coquille. Vol 1. Paris: Pourrat. 1839. Voyage  . . . Vol 2. [LECC] Lettres édifiantes et curieuses concernant l'Asie, l'Afrique, et l'Amerique, avec quelques relations nouvelles des missions et des notes géographiques et historiques. Paris. Various series during the 18th and 19th centuries, with apparent inconsistencies in volume numbers and years. Lewis, David. 1972. We, the Navigators. Wellington: Reed. Lewis, James L. 1967. Kusaien Acculturation 1824 1948. Division of Land Management, Resources and Development, Saipan. Lingenfelter, Richard E. 1967. Presses of the Pacific Islands, 1817 1867. Los Angeles: Plantin Press. Logan, Mary. 1888. Last Words and Work of Reverend Robert W. Logan. Boston: ABCFM. Lütke, Frédéric. 1835. Voyage autour du monde, exécuté par ordre de Sa Majesté l'empereur Nicolas Ier, sur la corvette le Séniavine, dans les années 1826, 1827, 1828 et 1829. Part 2: Partie Historique, 2 vols. Paris: Firmin Didot. (Reprinted 1971. Bibliotheca Australiana nos 58, 59. New York: Da Capo/Amsterdam: N. Israel.) Lyman, Horace S. 1902. Recollections of Horace Holden. Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society 3:164 217.  

page_347

Page 347

McCluer, John. [1790 1792]. Journal of a Voyage to the Pelew Islands in the H C Snow Panther. British Museum, London. McGuiness, John. [1882]. Testimony regarding charges against O'Keefe and others trading in the Caroline Islands, 5 August 1882. WPHC Secretariat 1875 1914, Series 4, 152/82. Central Archives of Fiji, Suva. Macy, Williams H. [1841 1845]. Journal aboard the Whaleship Potomac, 1841 1845. MR 87. G W Blunt White Library, Mystic, CT. 1877. There She Blows! or the Log of the 'Arethusa.' Boston: Lee and Shephard. Mahlmann, John. 1918. Reminiscences of an Ancient Mariner. Yokohama: ''Japan Gazette" Printing & Publishing Co. Marshall, Mac, and Leslie Marshall. 1976. Holy and Unholy Spirits. Journal of Pacific History 11:135 166. Martin, Kenneth R, ed. 1980. "Naked and a Prisoner": Captain Edward C Barnard's Narrative of Shipwreck in Palau, 1832 1833. Sharon, MA: Kendall Whaling Museum. Mason, Leonard. 1946. Economic Organization of the Marshall Islands. Vol 9 of US commercial company's economic survey of Micronesia. Unpublished report, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. Maude, H E. 1968. Of Islands and Men: Studies in Pacific History. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Maxwell, William H. [1881]. Report of HMS Emerald on the Ellice, Gilbert, Marshall and Caroline Islands, 24 July 1881. WPHC Secretariat 1875 1914, Series 4, 128/81. Central Archives of Fiji, Suva. May, Dean. 1969. Captain O'Keefethe King of Yap. Argosy (May) 36 39, 84 87. Meade, Richard W. [1872]. Report on the Cruise of the USS Narragansett, 24 Feb 1872. Letters received by secretary of Navy from commanders, 1804 1886, no 147. US National Archives, Washington, DC. Meares, John. 1790. Voyages Made in the Years 1788 and 1789 from China to the NorthWest Coast of America. London: Logògraphic. Mertens, M. 1830. Mémoire sur l'archipel des Carolines, particulièrement sur les îles basses. In Recueil des Actes de la Séance publique de l'Academie de St. Petersburg, pp 95 186. St Petersburg.  

page_348

Page 348

Mitchell, Roger E. 1971. Kubary: the First Micronesian Reporter. Micronesian Reporter 19(3):43 45. Moore, Lewis J. [1872] Report of Proceedings of HMS Barrosa, 25 July 1872. China Letter No 2216, enclosure no 1. Public Record Office, London. Moore, S G. 1858. Report of the First Voyage of the Missionary Packet Morning Star. Nautical Magazine 27:449 457, 529 536. Moore, William. 1884. Proceedings of the HMS Dart in the Marshall Group and Pleasant Island, 26 August 1884. WPHC Secretariat 1875 1914, Series 4, 227/84. Central Archives of Fiji, Suva. Morison, Samuel Eliot. 1974. The European Discovery of America. The Southern Voyages, 1492 1616. New York: Oxford University Press. Morrell, Benjamin. 1832. A Narrative of Four Voyages to the South Sea, North and South Pacific Ocean, Chinese Sea, Ethiopic and Southern Atlantic Ocean, Indian and Antarctic Ocean, from the Year 1822 to 1831. New York: Harper. Morrell, W P. 1960. Britain in the Pacific Islands. Oxford: Clarendon. Moss, Frederick J. 1889. Through Atolls and Islands in the Great South Sea. London: Sampson Low. Müller, Wilhelm. 1917. Ergebnisse der Südsee Expedition 1908 1910, 2, B, 2, edited by G Thilenius. Yap, Vol 1. Hamburg: Friederichsen. Munro, Doug. 1980. Tom De Wolf's Pacific Venture: The Life History of a Commercial Enterprise in Samoa. Pacific Studies 3:22 40. Murillo-Velarde, Pedro. 1749. Historia de la Provincia de la Compañia de Jesus. 2 vols. Manila. Nozikov, Nikolai N. 1946. Russian Voyages Round the World. London: Hutchinson. O'Brien, Ilma E. 1971. Missionaries on Ponape: Induced Social and Political Change. Australian National University Historical Journal 8:53 64. O'Connell, James F. 1972. A Residence of Eleven Years in New Holland and the Caroline Islands. Edited by Saul H Riesenberg. Pacific History Series no 4. Canberra: Australian National University Press/Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii.  

page_349

Page 349

Parry, J H. 1961. The Establishment of the European Hegemony: 1415 1715. New York: Harper & Row. Pastor y Santos, E. 1950. Territorios de Soberanía Española en Océania. Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Africanos. Paszkowski, Lech. 1971. John Stanislaw KubaryNaturalist and Ethnographer of the Pacific Islands. Australian Zoologist 16:43 70. Paullin, Charles O. 1910. Early Voyages of American Naval Vessels to the Orient. US Naval Institute Proceedings 36:725 734. (Reprinted 1971 as American Voyages to the Orient, 1690 1865: An account of merchant and naval activities in China, Japan and the various Pacific Islands. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute.) Pauwels, Peter C. 1936. The Japanese Mandate Islands. Bandoeng: Van Dorp (Printer). Phillip, Arthur. 1789. The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay  . . . to which are added the Journals of Lieuts. Shortland, Watts, Ball & Capt Marshall, with an Account of Their New Discoveries. London: John Stockdale. Pigafetta, Antonio. 1969. Magellan's Voyage: A Narrative Account of the First Circumnavigation. Translated and edited by R A Skelton. 2 vols. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Purcell, David. 1967. Japanese Expansion in the South Pacific, 1890 1935. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Purdy, John. 1816. Tables of Observed Positions. Supplement to 3rd ed, The Oriental Navigator, edited by John Stevens. London: Laurie and Whittle. Quirino, Carlos. 1963. Philippine Cartography (1320 1899). 2nd rev. ed. Amsterdam: Israel. Quiros, Pedro Fernandez de. 1904. The Voyages of Pedro Fernandez de Quiros 1595 1606. 2 vols. Translated and edited by Sir Clements Markham (Hakluyt Society series 2, vols 14, 15). London: Hakluyt Society. (Reprinted 1967. Nendeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus.) Restieaux, Alfred. [1869-]. Papers of Alfred Restieaux. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ. Riesenberg, Saul H. 1968a. The Native Polity of Ponape. Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, vol 10. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Press.  

page_350

Page 350

1968b. The Tattooed Irishman. The Smithsonian Journal of History 3:1 18. 1974. Six Pacific Island Discoveries. American Neptune 34:249 257. Robertson, George. 1971 Memoir of a Chart of the China Sea. London: J Murray. Robertson, Russell. 1877. The Caroline Islands. Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 5:41 63. Ruggles, Richard. 1967. Geographical Exploration by the British. In The Pacific Basin: A History of Its Geographical Exploration, edited by Herman R Friis, pp 221 255. Special Publication no 38. New York: American Geographical Society. Rydell, Raymond. 1952. Cape Horn to the Pacific: The Rise and Decline of An Ocean Highway. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Rynkiewich, Michael A. 1972. Land Tenure Among Arno Marshallese. PhD dissertation, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Sarfert, Ernst G. 1919. Ergebnisse der Südsee Expedition 1908 1910, 2, B, 4, edited by G Thilenius. Kusae, vol 1: Allgemeiner Teil und materielle Kultur. Hamburg: Friederichsen. Scarr, Deryck. 1967. Fragments of Empire: A History of the Western Pacific High Commission 1877 1914. Canberra: Australian National University Press. Schaefer, Paul D. 1976. Confess Therefore Your Sins: Status and Sin on Kusaie. PhD dissertation, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Scherzer, Karl ritter von. 1862. Narrative of the Circumnavigation of the Globe by the Austrian Frigate 'Novara' in the Years 1857, 1858, & 1859. Vol 2. London: Saunders, Otley. Schurz, William L. 1939. The Manila Galleon. New York: E P Dutton. Semper, Karl. 1873. Die Palau-Inseln im Stillen Ocean. Leipzig: F A Brockhaus. Seymour, Edward H. 1911. My Naval Career and Travels. 2nd ed. London: Smith, Elder. Sharp, Andrew. 1960. The Discovery of the Pacific Islands. Oxford: Clarendon. 1961. Adventurous Armada: The Story of Legazpi's Expedition. Christchurch, NZ: Whitcombe and Tombs. Shineberg, Dorothy, ed. 1971. The Trading Voyages of Andrew Cheyne 1841 1844. Pacific History Series, no 3. Canberra: Australian National University Press.  

page_351

Page 351

Shutler, Richard, and Jeffrey Marck. 1975. On the Dispersion of the Austronesian Horticulturalists. Archaeology and Physical Anthropology in Oceania 10:81 113. Simpson, T Beckford. 1844. Pacific Navigation and British Seamen. Nautical Magazine 13: 99 103. Smith, Bernard. 1960. European Vision and the South Pacific 1768 1850: A Study in the History of Art and Ideas. Oxford: Clarendon. [SJ] Society of Jesus. 1762. Travels of the Jesuits. Vol 1 of multivolume series of translated missionary letters. London. Spate, O H K. 1979. The Spanish Lake. The Pacific since Magellan, vol 1. Canberra: Australian National University Press. Spoehr, Alexander. 1949. Majuro: A Village in the Marshall Islands. Fieldiana: Anthropology, vol 39. Chicago: Natural History Museum. Spoehr, Florence M. 1963. White Falcon: The House of Godeffroy and Its Commercial and Scientific Role in the Pacific. Palo Alto, CA: Pacific Books. Stackpole, Edouard A. 1953. The Sea-Hunters: The New England Whalemen During Two Centuries 1635 1835. Philadelphia: Lippincott. Stanley, Henry E J S, baron, ed and tr. 1874. The First Voyage Round the World by Magellan: Translated from the Accounts of Pigafetta, and other Contemporary Writers. Hakluyt Society, Series 1, vol 52. London: Hakluyt Society. Sterndale, H B. 1874. Memoranda on Some of the South Sea Islands. In New Zealand Parliamentary Papers, A3B. Wellington: Government Printer. Stevens, Charles-E. [1867]. Report of Proceedings at Pelew Islands, in the Matter of the Murder of Andrew Cheyne, Master of the Schooner Acis, 16 April 1867. ADM 1/6006. Public Record Office, London. Stevens, John. 1808. The Oriental Navigator. London: Laurie and Whittle. Stöcklein, Joseph. 1726. Der Neue Weltboote mit allerhand Nachrichten der Missionariorum Societatis Jesu. Vol 1: Theilen 1 8. Augsburg. 1727. Der Neue Weltboote  . . . Vol 2: Theilen 9 16. Stöcklein, Joseph, and Keller. 1735. Der Neue Weltboote  . . . Vol 4: Theilen 25 32. Vienna. Suchan-Galow, Erika. 1940. Die deutsche Wirtschaftstätigkeit in der Südsee vor der ersten Besitzergreifung 1884. Hamburg: Hans Christian.  

page_352

Page 352

Swanston, R S. [1857 1885]. Journals of R S Swanston, 1857 66 and 1874 85. 6 vols. M121. Australian National University, Dept of Pacific History, Records Room, Canberra. Tetens, Alfred. 1958. Among the Savages of the South Seas: Memoirs of Micronesia, 1862 1868. Translated and edited by Florence M Spoehr. Stanford, CA: University Press. Truxtun, N J. 1870. Report of the Transactions of the USS Jamestown among the Caroline and Marshall Islands. US National Archives, Record Group 45. Washington, DC. US National Archives, Record Group 59. [1847 1906]. Dispatches from US Consuls on Shanghai, China 1847 1906. General Records of the Department of State, Washington, DC. Vidich, Arthur. 1949. Political Factionalism in Palau, Its Rise and Development. CIMA Report no 23. Washington, DC: National Research Council, Pacific Science Board. Ward, R Gerard, ed. 1966. American Activities in the Central Pacific 1790 1870: A history, geography and ethnography pertaining to American involvement and Americans in the Pacific, taken from contemporary newspapers, etc. Vol 1. Ridgewood, NJ: Gregg Press. 1967. American Activities  . . . vols 2 6. Wawn, W T. [1870 1874]. Amongst the Pacific Islands, 1870 1874. M1971/294. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ. Wedgeborough, John. [1792 1794]. Letters, 1792 1794. NK 2244. Australian National Library, Canberra. Werner, B von. 1889. Ein deutsches Kriegsschiff in der Südsee. Leipzig: Brockhaus. Westwood, John. 1905. Island Stories: Being Extracts from the Papers of Mr John Westwood, Mariner, of London and Shanghai. Shanghai: North China Herald. Wilkes, Charles. 1845. Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition During the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, and 1842. 5 vols. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard. Wilson, D Parker. [1839 1843]. Log of the Gypsy, kept by D Parker Wilson, ship's surgeon, 23 Oct 1839 19 Mar 1843. M 198. Australian National University, Dept of Pacific History, Records Room, Canberra. Wilson, James. 1799. A Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean Performed in  

page_353

Page 353

the Years 1796, 1797, 1798, in the Ship Duff. London: T Chapman for the Missionary Society. Wilson, Walter S. 1968. Land, Activity and Social Organization of Lelu, Kusaie. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Wilson, William H. [1848 1850]. Journal Kept aboard the Bark Cavalier of Stonington, 1848 1850. MR110. G W Blunt White Library, Mystic, CT. Wiltgen, Ralph M. 1979. The Founding of the Roman Catholic Church in Oceania 1825 to 1850. Canberra and Norwalk CT: Australian National University Press. Wood,C F. 1875. A Yachting Cruise in the South Seas. London: Henry King. Woodin, Edward. [1861 1863]. Log of the Schooner Lady Leigh, 1861 1863. C2409. State Library of Tasmania, Hobart. Wright, Ione S, ed. 1951. Voyages of Alvaro de Saavedra Cerón, 1527 1529. University of Miami HispanicAmerican Studies, no 11. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press. Young, James L. [1878 1929]. Miscellaneous Papers. Mitchell Library, Sydney. [1875 1877]. Private Journal, January 1875 December 1877. Mitchell Library, Sydney.  

[1880 1881]. Private Journal, January 1880 July 1881. Mitchell Library, Sydney.

page_355

Page 355

Index A Abba Thule, 68, 74, 80-81. See also Ibedul Abigail, (ship), 83 Acapulco, 29, 32 Account of the Pelew Islands, 74, 75 Acis (ship), 191, 192-95 Admiralty Islands, 15, 16 Aea, Hezekiah, 207 Africa, 6, 8, 308 Agaña, 49, 107 Ailinglapalap, 82, 201 Ailuk, 65 Alcohol, 97, 103, 118, 126, 135, 138, 157, 159-60, 162, 182, 202, 215, 228, 252, 282, 298, 303; introduction to Ponape, 130; widespread abuse of, 122, 145-46, 281, 291-93; government regulation of, 298, 300, 314; missionary condemnation of, 147, 223, 292-93, 316 Alexander VI (Pope), 8, 312 Alexander (ship), 65 Alfonso XII (King), 309, 311-12 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), 129, 142, 145, 151, 166, 200, 206, 227, 231, 247-49, 257, 262, 265, 315 Amery, Walter, 285-86 Amsterdam, 61 Angaur, 275 Angelina (ship), 199 Ann and Hope (ship), 84

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_355.html[3/30/2011 10:16:03 AM]

page_355

Anson, George, 32, 62 Antelope (ship), 63, 66-74, 76, 171-72, 179 Apia, 212 Apaiang, 201, 206 Apra, 58, 106 Arabia (ship), 243, 270, 271 Arellano, Alonso de, 22-27, 29, 30, 36, 256 Ariadne (ship), 298, 301, 302 Ariane (ship), 200 Arno, 65, 209, 218-19, 230, 291, 293-94, 296-97 Arrecifes, 34 Ascension Island (Ponape), 109, 136. See also Ponape Astrolabe (ship), 91, 99 Atlantic Ocean, 8, 88, 133 Auckland, 217, 225 Augustinians, 22, 27, 29, 103 Augustite (ship), 274 Aulick, John, 175-77 Aur, 65, 94, 102, 230 Australia, 63-64, 90, 110, 133, 300 Australian (ship), 113 Austronesian language, 40 Avon (ship), 119, 123, 129 Awane Lapalik I (King George of Kosrae), 116 Awane Su II, 116 Awashonks (ship), 199 Azores, 137, 213 B Babeldaob, 69-71, 171-78, 186-90, 194-96, 273, 275-81 Baker, George, 137 Bai (Palauan clubhouse), 178, 276, 279, 280

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_355.html[3/30/2011 10:16:03 AM]

page_355

Barbudos, 16, 28, 34 Barcelona, 311 Baring's Island (Namorik), 87 Barnard, Edward, 171-74 Barros, João de, 10 Barrosa (warship), 236 Barrows, George, 252-53, 258 Bartola (schooner), 288-89 Batavia, 65 Baudin, Etienne, 44 Beachcombers, 249, 252, 314; first European, 13-14; in Palau, 72-74, 76-77, 79-81, 172-73, 180, 191, 194, 279; in western atolls, 86, 103-4;  

in Truk, 99,

page_356

Page 356

101, 256 in Ponape, 109-11, 112-13, 118-19, 121-22, 124-31, 136-38, 146-48, 157, 228, 249; in Kosrae, 113, 115, 116-18, 164-65, 241; in Marshalls, 218-19, 291-92 Becke, Louis, 241-42 Bêche-de-mer, 83, 86, 105, 113, 125, 127, 179, 211-12, 228, 234, 241, 264, 265, 268, 278-79, 306; industry described, 83, 85; Cheyne's trade, 180-86, 189-94 Belvidere (ship), 263, 264 Bering Sea, 88 Berlin, 305, 308, 310-11 Betham, Capt G, 82 Bikini, 16-17, 199 Bingham, Hiram, 201, 206 Bird, Capt, 268 Bishop, Charles, 85 Bismarck Archipelago, 301, 304 Bismarck, Otto von, 299, 304-6, 308-13 Blackbirding, 200, 233, 235-40, 250, 258, 300 Blanchard, Madan, 72-73, 76-77, 81, 86, 180 Blossom (ship), 228, 230 Blueskins, 163, 167 Bombay, 76, 80, 81 Bond, Henry, 82 Bonin Islands, 227, 233 Borneo, 42 Boston, 84, 85 Botany Bay, 63, 90, 112 Bougainville, Louis Antoine de, 88 Bourbon kings, 42

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_356.html[3/30/2011 10:16:04 AM]

page_356

Boy (ship), 140 Boyd, Thomas, 124, 128 "Breve Noticia", 42 Bridge, Cyprian, 75, 280-82, 294-96 Britain, 60-66, 74, 84-85, 188, 236, 278, 296-97, 300-1, 304, 306-8, 312; role in Palau, 66-86, 172, 187-89, 195-6, 278-81 Britannia (ship), 82, 174 British Judicial Commissioner, 280, 283, 296. See also LeHunte Brown, George (Basilio Terranova), 218 Brown, John, 128 Brown, Ralph, 188-89 Burlingham, Henry, 219 Byron, John, 62 C Callao, 33 Cameron, John, 317 Cano, Sebastian del, 13 Canoes, 1-2, 12, 40, 48, 92, 178 Canovas de Castillo (Prime Minister), 307 Canton, 60, 63, 64, 211-12 Cantova, Juan Antonio, 49-59, 92, 102, 103 Capelle, Adolph, 210, 212-26, 230, 231, 241, 252-54, 260, 267-68, 297, 302-4 Capelle & Company, 213-19, 225, 226, 242, 252-54, 267-68, 281, 286, 303-4 Cape of Good Hope, 63 Cape Verde, 137 Capuchins, 57, 313 Caraga, 41 Carl (ship), 238-39 Carlos II (King), 47 Caroline Islands, 3-4, 36-37, 48, 51, 55, 90-91, 103, 190, 197, 212, 271, 281, 288, 299-301, 304, 313; early discoveries, 9, 14-15, 19-20, 23, 27-28, 30, 34;

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_356.html[3/30/2011 10:16:04 AM]

page_356

described, 10-12; later discoveries in, 82-84, 85-86; controversy over, 306-13 Carr, Lieut, 177-78 Cartaret, Philip, 63 Cartography, 19-20, 22, 29, 36, 51, 63, 82, 87, 91. See also Maps Castaways, native, 36-41, 47, 48-55, 102-3, 201, 306-7 Castellano (ship), 308 Cathay, 22 Cavalier (ship), 135, 141, 142 Cavendish, Thomas, 32, 60 Cebu, 4, 28 Celebes, 6 Celebes Seas Trading Company, 265 Central America, 236 Ceylon, 6 Chamisso, Adelbert von, 92 Charles V (King), 2, 6, 13-14, 20 Charleston, 140 Charles W. Morgan (ship), 141 Charlotte (ship), 64 Cheyne, Andrew, 125, 127-30, 180-96, 199, 228, 256-57, 264-65, 266, 268, 271-72, 274-75, 307 Chickpeas Islands, 45, 55. See also Ulithi Chieftains: Palau, 69, 79, 174-75, 272, 275; Yap, 182-83, 308; Truk, 54, 97-99; Ponape, 111, 117, 125-26, 130, 143-44, 149-50, 153, 234, 244-46; Kosrae, 95-96, 115, 117, 158, 168-70; Marshalls, 94, 203, 206, 209, 215-16, 221-22, 224, 293-94, 299, 301-3, 305;

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_356.html[3/30/2011 10:16:04 AM]

page_356

opposition to missionaries, 156, 161-62, 165, 167-68, 208-9, 233-34, 244-45, 247, 315-16 China, 6, 22, 29, 66, 75, 78, 80, 110, 128, 133, 180, 186, 199, 212; trade with, 31-32, 60, 63, 81-85, 88 Chinese coolies, 187, 195, 228, 229, 232 Choris, Louis, 92 Cittac, 50 Clement XI (Pope), 42 Cleveland, 233 Clipperton, Capt, 62 Clothing, 27, 67, 68, 78, 95, 99, 105, 106 

page_357

Page 357

7, 130, 139-41, 155, 162, 168, 188, 219-20, 222, 224, 242, 246, 248, 255, 261, 265, 298-99, 303, 315, 318 Cloves, 4, 6, 9. See also Spices Coaling stations, 281, 290, 299, 308 Cochin, 211 Coconut oil, 186, 206, 210-11, 212-14, 216, 228, 230, 234, 241, 251 Coe, Capt, 229 Coeran (ship), 268, 306 Coleridge, Samuel, 75 Colonization, 299-301, 313-14; of Philippines, 22, 28-29; of Marianas, 47-48; of Marshalls, 298-306; of Carolines, 306-13 Columbus, Christopher, 8 Commerce (ship), 82 Comstock, Samuel, 197 Comus (ship), 279 Consolacion (ship), 83 Consuls, 229, 230, 231, 253, 294, 296, 302, 306-7, 314 Convicts, 63-64, 110, 113, 115, 122, 125 Cook, James, 62-63, 74, 88 Copra, 210, 212-13, 216-17, 219, 223-25, 241, 251, 253-54, 266-68, 271, 278, 281-83, 285, 287, 293, 295, 303-4, 316-17 Coquille (ship), 90, 91 Coral atolls: early settlement, 3; inhabitants described, 10-12, 38-39, 46, 51-54, 57; landfalls, 60, 62-63, 82-84, 86; lifestyle, 92-93, 97, 174, 176, 206; physical features, 102 file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_357.html[3/30/2011 10:16:05 AM]

page_357

Corgat, Louis, 129 Coromandel (ship), 82 Corsair (ship), 118 Cortes, Hernan, 14 Cortyl, Joseph, 43-44 Covert, William, 164-65 Crawford & Company, 212 Cremorne Gardens, 250 Crocker, Capt J, 84 Crusaders, 6 D Dalibu, 267 Daly, Capt, 218 Dampier, William, 32, 62 Dampier Strait, 63 Dances, 17, 37, 43, 53, 100, 110, 135, 261, 316 Daphne (ship), 237, 295 Dart (ship), 296-98 Dash (ship), 175, 180 Davao Gulf, 29 Davy, John, 180, 191 DeBrum, Anton, 213-14, 225-26 Delano, Amasa, 78-80 Delaware, 291 Delta (ship), 141, 148 Deutsche Handels- und Plantagen-Gesells-chaft (DHPG), 225, 268, 281, 304, 306 Digal, 55, 58 Directory for the Navigation of the North Pacific Ocean, 257 Doane, Edward, 150-51, 154-55, 201-8, 210, 233, 243-44, 255, 258-59 Doane, Sarah, 150 Dolphin (naval cruiser), 199, 200 Dos Vecinos, 23

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_357.html[3/30/2011 10:16:05 AM]

page_357

Douglas, Charles, 218 Douglas, William, 66, 85 Drake, Francis, 32, 43, 60, 307 Dress, traditional: in Marianas, 2, 105, 106; in Caroline atolls, 10-12, 37-38, 53, 105, 107; in Marshalls, 15, 93, 219, 303; in Palau, 67, 77, 176, 180, 192; in Ponape, 111, 121; in Yap, 265. See also Clothing Duberron, Jacques, 43, 44 Dublon, Manuel, 83 Duckingfield Hall (ship), 83 Dudoit, Jules, 119, 123, 129 Duff (ship), 81, 86 Duke of York Islands, 299, 304 Dumont d'Urville, Jules, 91, 99-101, 182, 256 Duperrey, Louis, 90-91, 95-96, 99, 115, 256, 313 Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), 76 Dutch Pete, 243 E Eagle (ship), 268 East, James, 279 East India Company, 60-64, 66, 74-75, 80-82, 85, 306 Eauripik, 83 Ebon, 84, 167, 199-200, 292-93, 301, 302, 303; mission, 200-10; copra trade, 210-226 Egui, Bernardo de, 45-47, 55 Eldridge, John, 137 Eliza (ship), 124

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_357.html[3/30/2011 10:16:05 AM]

page_357

Elizabeth (merchant ship), 82 Elizabeth (whaleship), 199 Ellice Islands (Tuvalu), 233, 299, 304 Emerald (ship), 293, 296-97 Emily Morgan (ship), 134, 139 Endeavour (ship), 76, 78-79 England, 34, 63-64, 74-75, 78, 297, 299, 311 Eniwetok, 16-17, 82 Espiegle (ship), 280, 283, 285, 294-95, 300 Espinosa, Gonzalo Gomez de, 4 Eugene (ship), 237 Europe, 3, 4, 6, 8, 87, 88, 92, 132, 212, 213, 300, 307, 308, 311, 313 Eury, Capt, 230  

page_358

Page 358

F Fais, 15, 19, 37, 50, 83, 107 Falalap, 55, 58 Falcon (ship), 118-20, 123, 128 Falupet (Ponape), 51 Fanning, Edmund, 85 Faraulep, 107 Farrell, Thomas, 217-18, 219-21, 223-25, 254, 268 Feasting, 69, 71, 110-11, 135, 149-50, 153, 156, 165, 167, 202, 259, 316 Fefan, 91, 100, 260 Fiji, 212, 239, 300 Findlay, Alexander, 257 Firearms, 102, 125, 146, 150, 172, 173, 176-78, 180, 182, 188-89, 202, 261, 293-95, 303; reaction of islanders to, 17, 39, 68-69, 71, 76, 99, 125-26, 130, 187, 191; trade in, 193-95, 223, 251, 261, 282, 285, 293-94; government regulation of, 296-98, 300, 314; effect on warfare, 73-74, 130-31, 297-98 Firms, Business, 211-13, 216-21, 222-26, 253-54, 267-68, 288, 302-4, 316-17 First Fleet of 1788, 64-65 Florida (ship), 14-17 Flying Fish (naval cruiser), 200 Food crops, 24, 41, 77-78, 93-94, 106, 109, 111, 126, 134, 176, 208 Fort Abercrombie, 81 Fortune (ship), 124, 224 France, 62, 299, 311; naval exploration, 88, 90-92; Duperrey, 94-96; Dumont d'Urville, 99-102 Freycinet, Louis de, 90-91, 106 Friedlander, Robert, 281

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_358.html[3/30/2011 10:16:06 AM]

page_358

Friendship (ship), 65 Funeral rites, 54, 149, 205 Futuna, 212 G Gagil, 182 Galleons, 29, 31-32, 34, 48, 103 Gama, Vasco da, 8 Garrido, Bartola, 270-71, 288-89, 309 General Scott (ship), 138 George (beachcomber), 172 George (son of King George of Kosrae), 159, 167, 168 Georgia, 263, 265 Germany, 297, 299-300; annexation of Marshalls, 301-6; dispute over Carolines, 306-13 Gibbons, James, 194, 279, 280, 283 Gilbert Islands (Kiribati), 3, 64, 151, 155, 201, 207, 212, 218, 240, 254, 299, 304 Gilbert, Thomas, 64-65, 82 Glencoe (ship), 200 Globe (whaleship), 197, 199 Gloucester (ship), 83 Glover and Doe Co, 228, 231 Godeffroy & Son, 195, 211-16, 217, 219, 225, 235, 236, 239, 258, 265, 267, 274, 304 Godeffroy, Johann Caesar, 272 Godeffroy Museum, 272 Gorman, Paddy, 121, 130 Guam, 28, 30, 32, 34, 40, 45, 47-51, 54-55, 243, 270; discovery of, 1-4, 13-14; visits of Carolinians to, 42-50, 102-8; described, 104-6 Gulick, Louisa, 144 Gulick, Luther, 144-47, 148, 150-52, 155

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_358.html[3/30/2011 10:16:06 AM]

page_358

Gypsy  (ship), 122 H Habicht (ship), 254 Hadley, James, 128-29, 144 Hadley's Harbor, 129 Halmahera, 6 Hamburg, 195, 211, 212, 272, 290, 292 Handy, Ichabod, 201, 210 Hanover, 210, 290 Harmony (ship), 124 Harriet (ship), 83, 115-17 Hart, Charles, 118-22 Hartmann, August, 259-60 Harvest (ship), 137-38 Hayes, William Henry (Bully), 218, 233-37, 240-43, 247, 249-50, 264, 270, 283 Hawaii, 123, 124, 143, 231, 240, 248 Hawaiian Evangelical Association, 143, 248 Hawaiian missionaries, 143, 145, 155, 158, 161, 201, 207, 209-10, 219 Hawkins, John, 60 Hazard (ship), 129 Hazard, George, 218, 230 Headhunting, 71, 275, 280 Helen's Reef, 63 Henderson & MacFarlane, 212, 225, 254, 297, 304 Hennings, Fred, 212 Herald's Island, 87 Hermit Island, 268 Hernsheim & Company, 224, 226, 251-54, 281-82, 287, 302-4, 306 Hernsheim & Robertson, 303-4 Hernsheim, Eduard, 212, 217-18, 224-26, 251, 253, 268, 271, 287, 297, 299, 306 Hernsheim, Franz, 225, 253-54, 302, 305-6 Heroine (ship), 200

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_358.html[3/30/2011 10:16:06 AM]

page_358

Herrera, Antonio de, 19-20 Herthe (ship), 277 Hingston, Capt C, 119 Historia General, 19-20 History of Prince Lee Boo, 75 Hobart Town, 186, 190 Hoffschlaeger and Stapenhorst, 210, 213 Hogoleu, 197, 260.  

See also Truk

page_359

Page 359

Holcomb, Crayton, 268-71, 281-83, 285-89, 309 Holden, Horace, 174 Holt, Amos, 284 Honduras (ship), 114, 116, 124 Hong Kong, 128, 195, 266, 283, 307 Hongkong Telegraph, 286 Honolulu, 64, 227, 233 Hope (ship), 84 Hope's Island (Kosrae), 87 Hunter (ship), 82 Huntington, Lucien, 138 Hussey, Isaac, 137 Huttrell, Capt E, 82 I Ibargoitia, Juan, 83 Ibedul, 68, 74-81, 174-77, 179, 181-82, 187-93, 266, 274-75, 277-80, 302; authority described, 69-73; role in Cheyne's murder, 194-96; deposition in 1870, 272-75 Iltis (ship), 310 Imeliik, 70, 194 Inca, 32 India, 8, 20, 61 Indian Ocean, 8, 63 Indies, 6, 8, 9, 18, 19, 60 Indonesia, 3, 6, 61, 76 Infanticide, 93 Influenza, 130, 141, 163, 164, 185, 193, 206, 238, 271, 275 Ingalls, Charles, 215, 220 Inner Passage, 63, 65, 82

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_359.html[3/30/2011 10:16:07 AM]

page_359

Iphigenia (ship), 65, 85 Iolafath, 54 Ireland, 263 Iroij, 94 Iron, 65-66, 92, 94-99, 101, 105-6, 265; desire for iron, 2, 24, 39 ''Island of Theeves" (Palau), 32 Isla de Carolina, 40, 47 Islas de Garbanzos (Ulithi), 45, 55 Islas de los Reyes, 15,34 Islas de Poniente (Philippines), 18 Islas de Sequiera, 10 Islas Encantadas, 45 Isles of the West (Philippines), 18, 19, 31 Isohpau, 154-55 J Jaluit, 200, 239, 297-98, 303, 305-6, 313, 316; discovery, 82; missions, 209-10; copra trade, 215-17, 219-21, 224-25; conditions in 1880s, 290-93 Jaluit Company, 306, 313 Jamestown (naval cruiser), 231-33, 299 Janda, 41 Japan, 22, 239, 270 Jebrik, 294-96 Jesuits, 40-45, 47-50, 54-59 John Bull (ship), 113 John III (King), 8 Johnson, Edward, 138 Johnson, Peter, 186 Juboy, 136

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_359.html[3/30/2011 10:16:07 AM]

page_359

K Ka'aikaula, 144, 145, 155 Kabua, 215, 220-22, 292-93, 297, 298, 301-5 Kadu, 103 Kaibuke (of Ebon), 200-6, 208, 215-16, 221-22 Kaibuke (of Majuro), 294-96 Kamakahiki, 150 Kamchatka, 88 Kamehameha (of Hawaii), 73 Kanku, 139, 141, 161, 164 Kanoa, J W, 201, 207 Kapingamarangi, 84, 252, 258 Katherine (ship), 265 Kava, 111, 145-46, 151, 153, 156, 202, 315 Kayangel, 171, 173, 273 Kealakekua Bay, 62 Keate, George, 74-75, 81, 171, 179, 276 Kedukka,165, 168 Keenan, George, 110, 112 Kehoe, Joseph, 258 Kidnapping Act of 1872, 237, 300 Kili, 82, 217 King David (of Arno), 293-94. See also Lekman King George (of Koror), 174. See also Ibedul King George (of Kosrae), 116-18, 135, 137, 138, 139, 143, 158-61, 164, 202 Kiribati. See Gilberts Kiti, 123, 129, 143, 144, 146, 150, 151, 156-58, 244, 246 Kittlitz, Friedrich, 92 Klein, Paul, 40-42, 45, 48, 51 Knights, John, 109, 112, 125

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_359.html[3/30/2011 10:16:07 AM]

page_359

Koror, 68-71, 73, 76-77, 78, 80, 180-81, 182; described, 80, 178-79, 271; hostilities with other villages, 69-72, 172-78, 186-88, 191, 277-78, 280; Cheyne's trade with, 185-96; conditions in 1870s, 271-78, 280 Kosrae, 3, 67, 111, 124, 128, 180, 207, 210, 246, 252, 304, 315-16; discovery, 84, 90-91, 94-97; described, 94-97, 113, 240-41; early hostilities, 113-18; whaling, 132-42; missions, 142-43, 151, 158-70; Bully Hayes' visit, 234-35, 240-42; trade controversy, 252-54; depopulation, 141-42, 167, 169-70, 317 Kotzebue, Otto von, 51, 88, 92-94, 102-3, 105, 197, 298 Kronstadt, 88 Krusenstern, Ivan, 87  

page_360

Page 360

Kubary, Jan, 272-76, 279-81, 283 Kulturkampf, 210 Kwajalein, 23, 82, 200 L Ladrones, 2, 14, 23, 28, 48. See also Mariana Islands Lady Barlow (ship), 82 Lady Leigh (ship), 186-87, 189-90 Lamari, 94 Lambton (ship), 119-22 Lamotrek, 37, 50, 86, 102, 103, 105, 106 Languages: local languages, 3, 12, 38, 50, 97, 314; use of Spanish, 65, 107, 182; use of English, 117, 141 Larne (ship), 121, 128 Lazcano, Francisco, 40, 47, 306 Lechat, Capt, 234 Lee Boo, 72, 74-76 Legazpi, Miguel de, 22, 27-29, 31-32 LeHunte, J R, 283-84 Lekman (King David), 293-94 Lelu, 159, 163-64, 166 Leo XIII (Pope), 312 Leok, 184-85 Leonora (ship), 234-36, 240-43, 254 Le Perouse, Jean, 88 Lerok, 294 Letabalin, 301 Lewis, Evan, 281

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_360.html[3/30/2011 10:16:08 AM]

page_360

Lib, 23, 82 Lijiwirak, 293 Likiep, 23, 225-26 Lilla (ship), 277-78, 283-84 Lily (ship), 278-79 Lima, 83 Lisbon, 9 Liverpool, 85 Livestock, 75-76, 79-80, 93-94, 103-4, 134, 139, 179, 277 Loaysa, Garcia Jofre de, 12-15, 22 Logan, Robert, 261-62 Loiak, 221-22, 224, 292-93, 297, 301-3 London, 63, 74, 118, 212, 223 London Missionary Society, 81 Lord North's Island (Tobi), 63 Losap, 82 Los Corales, 19 Los Jardines, 16-17, 19, 30 Los Martires (Pulap), 26 Los Pintados (Ujelang), 16 Los Reyes (ship), 33 Lotus (ship), 225, 243 Louis XIV (King), 42 Lugeilang, 54 Luito, 103 Lukunor, 107, 250-52, 258 Lütke, Fedor, 90, 95-99, 101, 106, 107, 110, 257, 261, 313, 318 Luzon, 63 Lydia (ship), 84 M Macao, 66, 78, 80, 81 MacAskill, Capt, 82

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_360.html[3/30/2011 10:16:08 AM]

page_360

McCluer, John, 76-81, 86, 172, 178, 277, 307 McFarlane, John, 127-28 McGuiness, William, 283-84 Madolenihmw, 118-19, 122-23, 143-48, 150-51, 155-58, 244-46 Madrid, 22, 41-42, 307, 309, 310 Magellan, Ferdinand, 1-12, 14, 20, 28, 35, 48, 317-18 Magnet (ship), 124 Maigret, Desiré, 124 Majuro,65, 94, 209, 217, 219, 293-98, 304 Makin, 143 Malaccan Straits, 8 Malakal, 181, 268, 274-75, 276 Maloelap, 65, 209 Malolo (ship), 228, 230, 231 Manila, 31, 32, 40, 91, 106, 112, 195, 306, 309, 310 Manila (ship), 309-10 Mapia, 266-67 Maps, 19-20, 36, 37, 40, 42, 51, 91, 97 Maria (ship), 84, 86, 213 Mariana Islands, 32, 39, 40, 106-8, 317; discovery, 1-4; claimed by Spain, 28; colonization, 47-48 Marquesas, 33, 81 Marquis of Wellington (ship), 82 Marseilles, 212 Marshall Islands, 3, 36, 102, 151, 155, 197-200, 239, 254, 308, 313-14, 316, 317; discovery, 13-17, 19-20, 22-23, 27, 30-31, 34, 64-65, 82, 84-86, 88, 90; life in the Marshalls described, 92-94; missions, 200-210; copra trade, 210-26, 254, 303-4; warfare in 1880s, 293-98, 303;

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_360.html[3/30/2011 10:16:08 AM]

page_360

development of Jaluit, 290-93, 298; German annexation, 298-306 Marshall, William, 64-65, 82 Martin, Lope, 22-23, 27, 29-31, 33, 65, 199 Matautu (ship), 242 Matelotes, 19, 34 May, George, 128, 129, 146 Meade, Richard, 236 Meares, John, 66 Melanesia, 33, 212, 265, 268, 287 Melekeok, 69-71, 76, 78-79, 81, 181, 195-96, 273, 275-80 Mendaña, Alvaro de, 33-34 Mentor (whaleship), 171, 173, 174, 176, 277 Merir, 63 Mexico, 13-15, 17-18, 22, 29, 31-32, 34 Midge (ship), 237 Mili, 64, 197-99, 209, 217-18, 230, 235-36, 238, 314  

page_361

Page 361

Milne, Edward J, 215, 220, 230 Mindanao, 10, 29, 42 Mindoro, 45 Missions: Catholic, 39-40, 41-59, 104, 123, 309, 313; Protestant, 74, 81, 142, 255-56, 314-16; Ponape, 142-58, 227-29, 232-33, 233-34, 240, 243-49; Kosrae, 143, 158-70, 241-42; Marshalls, 155, 197-210, 213-14, 219-20, 292-93, 301; Truk, 248, 256-62 Moac, 47, 49, 58 Modesto (ship), 83 Moen, 260 Mogmog, 55, 58 Mokil, 82, 138, 139-40, 151, 247, 249 Moluccas, 6, 8, 10-16, 18-19, 20, 22, 30, 41, 42, 61 Moluccas Passage, 10, 12 Money, native, 72, 75, 127, 266, 267, 274, 279, 288-89 Monteverde, Juan Baptista, 83 Morning Star (ship), 151, 165, 201, 203, 218, 234, 238, 242, 248, 258-59, 316 Morrell, Benjamin, 257 Morrell, W P, 300 Mortlock Islands, 82, 90, 101; early acculturation, 96-99; labor trade, 238-39; missions, 248-49, 257-62 Mortlock, James, 82 Moses (missionary teacher), 259-61 Moslems, 8-10, 42, 61 Murilo, 82, 101

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_361.html[3/30/2011 10:16:10 AM]

page_361

Murray, Patrick, 238 Musgrave, Capt, 82 N Nadadores, 23 Nahnawa (of Madolenihmw), 119-20, 122 Nahnken, 111, 127-28, 202; of Kiti (1852-64), 143-44, 147-50, 155-57, 246; of Kiti (1864-70), 157-58, 228, 232 Nahnmwarki, 111, 149; of Kiti, 143-44, 232, 246; of Madolenihmw, 119, 137, 158, 244-45 Naiad (ship), 180, 184, 185, 199 Nama, 82, 259 Namorik, 82, 199-200, 209, 218-19, 230 Namu, 82 Nancy (ship), 84 Nanpei, Henry, 129 Nantucket, 133 Napoles, Vincente de, 16 Narragansett (naval ship), 236 Narrative of a Shipwreck, 174 Narruhn, Frederick, 260 Nauru, 241-42 Nautical Magazine, 257 Nautilus (warship), 305 Navigation, traditional, 51, 102, 103, 105-6 Net, 157 Netherlands, 60-64 Neva (ship), 234, 236 New Bedford, 133 New Britain, 212, 299, 304 New Caledonia, 127, 215

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_361.html[3/30/2011 10:16:10 AM]

page_361

New England, 113, 133, 134, 143 New Guinea, 15-16, 42, 63, 75, 79-80, 91, 301, 304 New Hebrides, 3 New Holland (Australia), 64 New Ireland, 288 New South Wales, 63-64 New Spain, 14-15, 17, 29, 31-32, 34. See also Mexico New York, 152, 174, 176 Ngabuked, 186-90, 193 Ngarchelong, 171-78, 194, 277-78 Ngatelngal, 69. See also Melekeok Ngatik, 82-83, 86, 114, 120-22, 139-40, 151 Ngiraikelau, 273-74 Ngulu, 83, 175 Nimrod (ship), 112, 140 Niue, 212 Nomwin, 82 Norna (ship), 256 North America, 29, 84-85, 132 Northwest Passage, 62 Notre Dame de Paix (ship), 123 Nuevas Filipinas (Caroline Islands), 42 Nukuoro, 83, 251 Nute, Benjamin, 174 O Ocean (ship), 82 Ocean Island, 241-42 O'Connell, James, 110-12 Offley (ship), 124 O'Keefe, David Dean, 263-68, 271, 277-78, 281-89

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_361.html[3/30/2011 10:16:10 AM]

page_361

O'Keefe, Katherine, 264 Okhotsk Sea, 270 Omai (the Tahitian), 74 Ophir, 32, 33 Opunui, Daniel, 158-161 Oroluk, 256 Oroolong, 73 Outer Passage, 65, 82 Oxenham, John, 60 P Pacific, 1-4, 18-20, 29, 31-32, 34, 132-33, 233, 237, 301, 305, 307, 308, 311, 313; trade, 61-66, 83-86, 211-12; scientific exploration, 87-92 Pacific Trading Company, 227, 231 Padilla, Francisco, 43-44, 46-47 Pala (ship), 83 Palapag, 47 Palaos, 40-45, 47-48 Palau, 3, 43-46, 50, 60, 65-74, 82-83, 86, 90-91, 94, 101, 179-80, 182, 248, 281,  

page_362

Page 362

283, 288-89, 307, 309, 314, 317; discovery, 32, 43-47; British East India Co, 66-81, Mentor incident, 171-78; Cheyne's trade, 180-81, 185-96; Kubary's visit, 271-76; Lilla incident, 276-81 Palau Constitution of 1861, 187 Palau-Inseln im Stillen Ocean, 190 Panama Canal, 304 Panlog (Palau), 40, 43 Panther (ship), 76, 78-81 Papal line of demarcation, 8, 10, 13 Paris, 42 Partridge (whaleship), 96 Peacock (naval ship), 200 Pease, Ben, 213-14, 218, 227-33, 233-35, 241, 247, 249 Pease, Edmund, 292 Peleliu, 72, 77, 190, 273, 275 Pelew Islands, 67, 187, 281, 307. See also Palau Pennsylvania, 141 Pericon, Pero Sanchez, 29-30 Perseus (naval ship), 196 Peru, 32, 33, 236 Peru (ship), 99 Pfeil (ship), 210-11 Phillip, Arthur, 64 Philip II (King), 20, 22, 28 Philip V (King), 42

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_362.html[3/30/2011 10:16:11 AM]

page_362

Philippines, 47, 83-84, 102; early exploration, 3, 9, 12, 15, 18-20, 20-22, 27-29, 31, 34; castaways at, 36-41, 47; exploratory voyages to Carolines, 41-45; bêchede-mer voyages, 83-84 Pierson, George, 164, 201-4, 206-7, 210 Pingelap, 82, 112, 140, 151, 222, 233, 237, 238, 240, 247-49, 251, 255 Pioneer (ship), 234 Pittman, E A, 236 Plantations: in Yap and Palau, 80-81, 187, 192, 195, 267-68, 276; on Ponape, 129, 228, 247; on Likiep, 225-26, 304; in Samoa and Fiji, 212, 236-37, 239 Planter (ship), 137 Poland, 272 Political reforms of missionaries, 169-71, 243-47, 315-16 Polynesia, 94, 143 Pomare (of Tahiti), 73 Ponape, 3, 51, 117, 142, 313-15, 317; discovery, 16, 34, 63, 82, 83, 90, 101; described, 109-12; early foreign influence, 112-13, 118-31; whaling, 132-42; missions, 142-58, 207, 243-49; later trading influence, 227-33, 242, 249-56, 258 Ponatik Harbor, 140 Population of islands, 41, 141-42, 150-51, 163, 167, 240-41, 246, 254, 271, 317 Port Jackson, 64, 84 Portugal, 6, 15, 20, 60-66, 312; trade, 6-8, 13-14; dispute with Spain, 8-10, 13, 18;

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_362.html[3/30/2011 10:16:11 AM]

page_362

early exploration voyages, 9-12; claim to Mindanao, 20 Postels, Alexander, 92 Praos. See canoes Precious metals, 10, 12, 19, 31-32, 41-42 Predpriatie (ship), 88 Priests, native, 55, 163, 166, 172, 173, 185 Printing press, 145, 152, 207-8 Privateers, 32, 60-62 Prostitution, 93, 95, 99, 113-16, 122, 135-36, 146-47, 155, 157, 160, 162-63, 206, 238, 242, 247 Protectorate: petition to Britain from Palau chiefs, 187, 307; petition to Spain from Yapese chiefs, 288, 308-9 Providence (ship), 82 Pulap, 25-26, 83, 256 Pulo Anna, 63, 267 Pulusuk, 83 Puluwat, 82, 83, 260 Q Queensland, 215, 236 Quiros, Pedro Ferdinand de, 33-34, 90 Quirosa (Ponape), 34 R Rachel (ship), 271 Rainbow (naval cruiser), 200 Ralik Islands, 200, 202, 298-99, 302; treaty with Germany, 298, 301, 305 Ratak Islands, 88, 94, 197 Raven, William, 82-83 Rees, John, 252-53, 258 Reklai, 69, 75, 79, 275-76, 278-80 Religion, traditional, 54-60, 145, 148-49, 153-54, 158, 163, 167, 172-73, 205

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_362.html[3/30/2011 10:16:11 AM]

page_362

Residence of Eleven Years, 110 Resource (ship), 84 Restieaux, Alfred, 234, 237, 250-51 Rhin (ship), 200 Rimi, 294-96 Robertson, George, 87 Rocha, Dioga da, 10, 12 Rocky Mountain Jack, 295 Rodriguez, Juan, 40 Rogers, Woodes, 32, 62 Rohnkiti, 127, 129, 143-45, 147, 227 Rolla (ship). 82 Rome, 40, 42 Rongelap, 298 Rongerik, 298 Rosario (naval cruiser), 242 Rose, Tom, 67 Rota, 105 Rotherhithe Churchyard, 75 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 12 Royal Admiral (ship), 82  

page_363

Page 363

Ruk, 259. See also Truk Rull, 182-85 Rurick (ship), 88 Russia, 107-8; naval exploration, 88-90; Kotzebue's voyage, 92-94; Lütke in Marshalls, 96-97 S Saavedra, Alvaro de, 14-18, 30, 36 St. Matthias Islands, 288-89 Saipan, 106-7 Sakau. See Kava Salazar, Alonso de, 13-14 Salcedo, Felipe de, 27 Salem, 109 Samar, 28, 36-40, 48, 102 Samoa, 211-12, 238-40, 300, 304 San Antonio (ship), 83 San Bartolomé, 13, 34 San Francisco, 240 San Jeronimo (ship), 29-31, 65 San Lucas (ship), 22-29 San Mateo, 33 San Pedro (ship), 29, 32 San Quentin (ship), 309-10 Santa Cruz, 33 Santissima Trinidad (ship), 43-46 Santo Domingo (ship), 45-46 Sanvitores, Diego Luis de, 47

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_363.html[3/30/2011 10:16:12 AM]

page_363

Saragossa, 311 Sarmiento de Gamboa, Pedro, 32 Satawal, 86 Satawan, 238, 251, 258 Savannah, 140, 263-64, 282 Scarborough (ship), 64 Schools, 141, 144, 151-53, 159, 160-61, 164, 208-10, 254, 315 Scotland, 186, 215 Scotland (ship), 269-71, 287 Scott, John, 114 Sea Nymph (ship), 200, 222 Sea routes: 16th century, 6-7; Spanish galleon, 29, 32, 34, 48, 104; China trade, 60, 62-63, 65, 75, 82-85; 19th century, 179, 212 Sea Shell (ship), 162 Semper, Karl, 189-91, 272 Senyavin (ship), 90 Sequeira, Gomez de, 10 Serpent (naval ship), 200 Serrano, Andrés, 42, 44-45, 54 Sesa, 161-62, 164-66 Settlement, original, 3 Seville, 9, 12 Seychelle Islands, 129 Shalong Point, 145 Shanghai, 231 Sharon (ship), 124 Shelvocke, Capt, 62 Shenandoah (naval cruiser), 137, 140, 157 Sherlock, Frank, 220

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_363.html[3/30/2011 10:16:12 AM]

page_363

Shortland, Lieut, 65 Siau, 41 Sigrah, 170 Silver Islands (Japan), 22 Singapore, 266 Sinlaka, 163, 165 Sipe, 168-69 Skillings, Harry, 241 Smallpox, 74, 79, 130, 141, 148-49, 150, 271 Snow, Benjamin, 143, 158-69, 207, 209, 218, 221-22, 223, 241, 242, 315-16 Snow, Lydia, 143, 158 Spain, 60-62, 299; early explorations, 1-9, 12-35; dispute with Portugal, 8-10, 13, 18; galleon trade, 31-32; bêche-de-mer voyages, 83, 179; dispute over Carolines, 306-13 Spanish voyages, 1-10, 12-35, 42-47, 306; motives for, 4-6, 32-33 Society Islands, 91 Sokehs, 156 Solomon Islands, 33, 65, 304 Somera, Jose de, 51 Sonsorol, 3, 43-47, 63, 267 Sorol, 26-27, 83 South America, 9, 14, 83, 133 South Pole, 91 Spanish Armada, 34 Spanish Main, 32 Sphinx (naval cruiser), 188-89, 193, 257 Spice Islands, 6, 9, 12-13, 18, 22, 31. See Moluccas

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_363.html[3/30/2011 10:16:12 AM]

page_363

Spices, 2, 4-9, 15, 18-22, 28, 31, 41-42, 61 Spy (ship), 109, 110, 112 Stanford, 181 Sterndale, H B, 260 Stevens, John, 87 Straits of Magellan, 13, 62 Strong's Island (Kosrae), 84, 87, 113 Sturges, Albert, 144-51, 153-58, 227-29, 232, 234, 240, 243-49, 258, 259, 314 Sturges, Susan, 144 Suffolk (ship), 83 Sugar Cane (ship), 82 Suicide, 150 Sulu Archipelago, 10 Susanne (ship), 238, 250 Swallow (ship), 63 Sydney, 64, 110, 122, 127, 233, 237, 300 Sydney Gazette, 113, 115 Syren (ship), 179 T Taboos, 112, 147, 154, 157, 184, 205 Tahiti, 93, 269 Tarang, 266 Tarawa, 230  

page_364

Page 364

Tattooing, 16, 37, 53, 67, 74, 77, 93, 112, 205, 209 Taxes, 244, 303, 305, 316 Taylor, C L & Company, 287 Tench Island, 289 Ternate, 6, 12, 67 Terra Australis incognita, 32 Terranova, Basilio (George Brown), 218 Terry, Harry, 241, 267 Tetens, Alfred, 190-92, 195, 256, 264-65, 266, 268, 271 Tidore, 6, 15-18 Tilton, "Black Tom", 291, 293 Tinian, 105-6 Tobacco, 105, 107, 122, 125, 126, 130, 140, 182, 192, 202, 266, 276, 281, 303 Tobi, 63, 66, 86, 174-76 Todos Santos (ship), 33 Tokosa, 161 Tol, 25 Toloas (Dublon), 24, 83 Tomil, 182-85, 193 Tompson, Felipe, 83 Tonga, 81, 212 Tonquin (ship), 84 Torres, Luis, 103-4 Toulon, 90 Trade: among islanders, 43, 51, 103, 105, 181-82; early Spanish and Portuguese, 4-10, 20-21, 31; China trade, 60-64, 75, 82-85, 88, 211; whaleship trade, 122, 125-26, 129-30, 139-40; shell and bêche-de-mer, 125-27, 129, 180-86, 190-96, 264-65;

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_364.html[3/30/2011 10:16:13 AM]

page_364

coconut oil and copra, 206, 210-26, 233-35, 240-41, 249-56, 258-61, 264-71, 276, 281-89; labor trade, 236-40, 300; trade and missions, 210-11, 217, 227-29, 232-33, 255-56, 315-17; trade and government, 288, 296-99, 302, 304-8. See also Firms Traders, 174-75, 201, 206-10, 212-13, 216-26, 258-61, 281, 284-86, 293-94, 297, 313, 315; described, 18-19, 249-53, 266. See also Trade Treaties, 313-14; Cheyne's treaty with Koror (1861), 187; US and Ponape (1870), 232; Germany and Marshalls (1878 & 1885), 299, 301, 305; Spain and Carolinian chiefs (1882), 308-9; Spain and Germany (1885), 312-13; peace treaty on Majuro (1883), 295-96; peace treaty in Palau (1883), 75, 280-81 Treaty of Commerce of 1860, 187, 190-91, 194 Treaty of Zaragoza, 18 Treaty of Tordesillas, 8 Trinidad (ship), 1, 4, 14, 317 Truk, 3, 50-51, 102, 151, 197, 314, 316, 317; discovery, 23-25, 82-83; French exploration of, 90-91, 97-102; described, 97-101; missions, 248-49, 256-62 Truxtun, N J, 231-32 Turmeric, 37-38, 51, 53-54, 103, 176, 261, 316 Tuvalu. See Ellice Islands U Ualang, 163-67 Udot, 260 Uh, 157

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_364.html[3/30/2011 10:16:13 AM]

page_364

Ujae, 82 Ujelang, 16, 30, 31, 33, 65, 82 Ulithi, 10, 12, 45-46, 50, 55, 57-58, 103 Ulul, 260 Uman, 100, 248, 257, 259, 261 Umatac Bay, 2 United States, 3, 8, 16, 29, 62, 66, 88, 112, 155, 232, 263, 300-2, 306-8, 312, 314; trade with China, 83-85; whaling, 312-42, Mentor's shipwreck, 171-78 United States Civil War, 140-41, 236, 263 Unity (ship), 119 Uranie (ship), 90 Urdaneta, Andrés de, 22, 27-29 V Valencia, 311 Vancouver, George, 62, 88 Vatican, 312-13 Velasco (ship), 309 Venereal disease, 79, 130, 141-42, 146, 150-51, 162-63, 206, 271 Venus (ship), 80 Vesta (ship), 195 Victoria (ship), 9, 13, 18 Vigo, Gonzalo de, 14 Villalobos, Ruy Lopez de, 18-20, 36 Vincennes (naval frigate), 174, 176, 179-80, 200 Vision (ship), 217, 219, 220 Voltaire, François, 74 W Waddell, James, 140 Wallis Island, 212 Wallis, Samuel, 62, 65

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_364.html[3/30/2011 10:16:13 AM]

page_364

Walpole (ship), 82 Warfare, native: Caroline atolls, 53; Palau, 69-73, 76, 78-79, 173-75, 177-78, 180, 186-87, 277-78, 280; Truk, 100, 260-61; Ponape, 150; Marshalls, 94, 221-22, 293-98, 303 Warren Hastings (ship), 83 Warships: in Palau, 81, 172, 174-78, 188-89, 195-96, 277-81; in Yap, 283-87, 289, 307-9; in Truk, 257; in Ponape, 121, 129, 139, 231-33; in Kosrae, 115, 117, 242, 254;  

in Marshalls, 199, 200,

page_365

Page 365

235-37,293-99, 301-3, 305; overall impact, 81, 239-40, 314 Wasai (of Madolenihmw), 145, 156, 244-46, 248 Washington, Charles, 86, 172, 176-77, 180 Water Lily (ship), 228, 230, 234 Waverly (ship), 113-14, 116, 199 Wawn, William, 250, 258 Weapons, traditional, 23, 94, 96, 100, 111, 185, 204, 297-98 Weber, Theodor, 212 Wene, 246 Werner, Cmdr B von, 301-2 Westbrook, George, 251, 255, 318 Western Pacific High Commission, 300 Westwood, John, 250-51 Whaling, 60, 96, 113, 118-19, 122-23, 132-42, 147, 157, 179, 254, 257 Whitney, Joel, 218 Wilhelm I (Kaiser), 305, 310, 311, 312 Williams, C A, 231 Williams, Giles, 218 William Melville (ship), 200 William Neilson (ship), 199-200 William Penn (ship), 137 Wilson, Henry, 66-76, 80-81, 172, 179, 281 Walter, Victor, 54, 57-59 Woleai, 49-51, 55, 57, 84, 86, 102, 104, 107, 268 Wood, C F, 249-50 Woodin, Edward, 186-191 Worth, Henry, 251, 258 Wotje, 65, 94 X

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX00.705/0824808401/files/page_365.html[3/30/2011 10:16:14 AM]

page_365

Xavier, Francis (Saint), 20 Y Yap, 3, 41, 50, 55, 91, 102, 186, 191, 193, 248, 263, 271, 276, 313-14, 317; discovery, 14-15, 19, 82-83, 90; described, 181-82, 264-65, 281-82; bêche-de-mer trade, 181-85, 193-94; copra trade, 254, 263-71, 281-89, 316; race for possession, 308-11 Young, James, 216-25, 239, 268, 292 Young William (ship), 82 Z Zaragoza. See Saragossa Zélée (ship), 91, 99 Zihuatanejo, 14  

page_367