Concepto y clases de intervención provocada

The Europeans* demands for immediate provisions often put a heavy strain on an island's resources. At this period of contact no changes had been made in local methods of production - the tabu was the most frequently used device to conserve food supplies for foreign vessels. Similarly the European goods acquired did not cause marked changes in island life but were assimilated into the existing cultures for traditional purposes of canoe and house building, display and

warfare.

The islanders had no opportunity to gain a rational insight into European culture; most aspects of which, 42

John Hawkesworth, An Account of the Voyages...

performed by Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret and Captain Cook (London, 1773), 1 , 224-33•

43

John Turnbull, A Voyage round the World in the years 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803 and 1804 (London, 1813), 133»

to them. Chances for the E u r o p e a n s to acquire some u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the island w o r l d were greater but

their comprehension was limited by the p r ejudices and beliefs they brought w i t h them from the West. Their

journals recorded the more obvious aspects of material culture, but kinship, p o l itical structure and religion could only be guessed at (during such short visits) if m e n t i o n e d at all. The superficial nature of this early

c o n t a c t , plus the inbuilt preco n c e p t i o n s many

E u r o p e a n s brought w i t h them of the noble savage and an age of innocence, coloured their v i s i o n to such an extent that they d e s c ribed isl a n d life in terms of ideal U t o p i a n societies. Such aspects of island culture as chiefly tyranny, infanticide and human

sacrifice failed to dispel their preconc e i v e d illusions Not until the death of Cook, the m a ssacre of L a Perouse crew and the rise of militant evangelism did the image fade .

The pattern of race rel a t i o n s e stablished during this pe r i o d cannot be set up as a norm which was later u n d e r m i n e d by treachery on either or both sides. The

generosity and h o s p i t a l i t y of the P o l y n e s i a n s were established cultural habits w h i c h p e r s i s t e d despite 44

B e r n a r d Smith, E u r o p e a n V i s i o n and the Sou t h Pacific 1768-1850? A Study in the H i s t o r y of A r t and Ideas ( O x f o r d , i 9 6 0 ) , p a s s i m ] Clara R. L e s h e r , 'The South Sea Is l a n d e r s in E n g l i s h L i t e r a t u r e 1519-1798'

(Ph.D. thesis, Chicago University, 1937); Henri Baudet, P a radise on Earth: Some thoughts on E u r o p e a n Images

of n o n - E u r o p e a n M a n , translated by E l i z a b e t h Wentholt (New Haven, 1 9 6 5 )•

their underlying fear and sometimes awe of the

explorers. Mutual understanding was at a minimum and later more intensive relations were to reveal, on both sides, attitudes, behaviour and systems of belief alien and often inexplicable in terms of the other culture. The novelty and often the festive atmosphere

surrounding the early European visits inevitably gave way to suspicion and disappointment on more frequent

and sustained contact. The explorers themselves found that the easy relations of the first few days

45

deteriorated if their sojourns were prolonged. Tension and total misunderstanding occurred from the beginning but on most occasions without fatal results. Only when Europeans had settled permanently on the islands could more stable and intelligible contact be established.

In view of the strictly limited nature of inter­ racial contacts during the discovery period its main significance to the social historian is to mark

chronologically when the islanders first became aware of the existence of an alien race utterly dissimilar to their own and were forced to make the first tentative accommodation to a society possessing other cultural values and procedures. Thus the arrival of the

explorers presaged change rather than commencing it to any degree.

45

Both on Tongatapu and Hawaii Island relations

deteriorated on Cook’s visits - the second time with fatal results.

Part Three. The Early Pacific Trades

AS has been argued above, the explorers’ vessels were

merely transient callers which, if one excludes the abortive expeditions of Mendana and Quiros, were not intended or equipped to exploit the commercial resources

of the islands. Further, far from encouraging

would-be settlers, they used every means possible to prevent members of their crew from escaping ashore.

The publication of the journals of Cook* s three voyages to the Pacific, together with those of his forerunners, nevertheless revealed trading and whaling resources

awaiting development. In C o o k ’s journals there was

evidence of seals on the north-west coast of America, timber in New Zealand, whales in many parts of the

ocean and abundant supplies at Tahiti. This knowledge

naturally led to the advent of commercial shipping, which brought not only trade goods but settlers to the istands.

One of the more immediate results of Cook's voyages was the establishment of a penal colony at

Port Jackson. His discovery of the east coast of

Australia, combined with the knowledge of available provisions at Tahiti, provided the British government with a suitable dumping ground for its rapidly

increasing surplus of convicts. When the New South

Wales settlement was first mooted the East India Company had insisted that its monopoly of trading rights in eastern waters should not be jeopardized by any shipping that might be built or acquired by

of Phillip’s and his successors’ commissions put the islands of the South Pacific, as far east as Tahiti, within the sphere of domestic trade for Port Jackson

46

vessels, which did in fact appear early in the colony's development.

Domestic shipping received its first major stimulus from the salt pork trade with Tahiti, which

47 was initiated by Governor King in the early 1800s. After two successful government-sponsored trips, the

trade was taken over by free enterprise in 1802. Between 1803 and I8O7 only one pork cargo was

collected but from I8O7 until 1826 the trade supported an average of three cargoes per annum.

Profits, estimated at about twenty per cent, were not great but there was a large degree of security and an

48

established market. Pearls in the Tuamotus and sandalwood in the Marquesas, were both discovered

49

during the pork trade days, and tempted Australian 46

Commissions to Phillip and later governors gave them jurisdiction over, ’all the islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean, within the latitudes aforesaid of 10° 37’

south and 43 39* south’. No eastern boundary was given but Tahiti and later the Marquesas were considered to be within the limits - H R A . Series 1, I, 1;>V I I , 794, Note 6 .

47 0 0

H.E. Maude, 'The Tahitian Pork Trade: I8OO-I83O ' , in Of Islands and Men (Melbourne, 1968), 178-232. The author points out that this was the only trade to carry over

from the explorer period. 48

Ibid. 49

John Turnbull, op. cit., 302. In I8O 3 the Margaret was trading for pearls in the Tuamotus. Sandalwood

was first exported from the Marquesas in 1810 - M. Camille de Roquefeuil, A Voyage Round the World between the years I8l6-l8l9 (London, 1823), 52.

traders in Tahiti, but the risks were high and cargoes could not be disposed of readily on the Sydney market.

The size and profitability of New South Wales trade with New Zealand in flax, timber and foodstuffs were on a similar scale to those of the pork trade.

Seal fishing was superseded early in the 1800s by the flax and timber trades, which flourished after I8l6. Later, food products, particularly potatoes, and whale oil and bone, were included in cargoes shipped from New Zealand in Australian vessels, which monopolized

50

the trans-Tasman trade. British and American ships

called at the Bay of Islands, New Zealand's commercial centre, before annexation in 1840, but refitting and replenishing supplies were their major activities. Attracted by the more lucrative trades in the Pacific

these vessels left the Australians to exploit the minor products of Tahiti and New Zealand.

News of sandalwood in Fiji reached Australian

and American traders in Port Jackson in 1804. National

rivalry in the trade was immediate and continued until 1810, but with Australia always at a disadvantage

51 owing to the East India Company's regulations.

50

Exports from New Zealand in 1835 included flax,

timber, whale products, potatoes and other items worth £113)000 - J.M.R. Young, 'Australia's Pacific Frontier',

Historical Studies Australia and New Z e a l a n d , XII

(Oct. 1966), 373-88. 51

Sir Everard Im Thurm and L.C. Wharton, The Journal of William Lockerby, Sandalwood Trader in the Fijian Islands during the Years I8O 8 -I8O 9 (London, 1 9 2 5 ) 9 passim.

B e t w e e n 1810 and l8l4 the A m e r i c a n s m o n o p o l i z e d the depleted resources and the risks from increasingly hostile Fijians. L a t e r Australia, f r eed from East India C o m p a n y r e strictions in 1834, dominated the

52