Supuestos en los que hubo litisdenunciación

r\ /T

the hair scorched off.,J> In such communities, whites were frequently denied wives. Diaper was thought most presumptious for aspiring to a chief’s daughter, who was considered far beyond his station. But the Fijians

conceded to his wishes when he refused to mend their 37

guns.

While most chiefs recognized the value of European skills and were prepared to foster them,

commoners frequently resented their rapid and

unorthodox assumption of power. Kamehameha I, anxious to attract resident Europeans to Hawaii, gave land and wives to those he felt would be of use to him, soon

3 8

after their arrival. The crippled Archibald Campbell, however, who had been encouraged to settle in Honolulu by one of Kamehameha’s wives in 1809, found the

Hawaiians very lax in feeding and tending him during 39

Kamehameha’s absences. In New Zealand the Maori chiefs were more cautious in granting favours. John Rutherford gave two years valuable service before he

40 was rewarded with two daughters of a chief.

36

John Jackson, pseud. William Diaper, op. cit., 429* 37

Ibid., 441-2. 38

Such gifts of land were not freehold but only for life tenure; land given to whites in other islands was usually similarly restricted.

39

Archibald Campbell, A Voyage Round the World from 1806 to 1812 (Edinburgh, I8l6), 134.

40

James Drummond, John Rutherford, The White Chief (Christchurch, 1908), 129-30•

Throughout Polynesia and Micronesia commoners were likely to tease and harrass new arrivals, who found it in their interests to remain close to a chief.

The priests composed another class of islanders instinctively hostile to the new arrivals, whose immunity to the tapu bred scepticism and indifference in the inhabitants, consequently undermining their power. On Tubuai, the religious men confronted by the Bounty mutineers:

became jealous of us with respect to their religious authority to which they saw that we not only refused to take notice of but even ridiculed, for this reason they used all the Means in their power to keep the Chiefs from making Friends, thinking perhaps if we staid in

the Island, their Consequence would be lessen'd.

In Fiji the fate of the Glide crew was debated between the chief and the priest of the tribe in whose hands they had fallen. The chief's argument, that they could mend and use the new equipment acquired, prevailed over

the priests' implausible argument that they would eat

42

too much.

In most cases differences of rank and ability

among the foreigners were recognized by the Polynesians, who treated them accordingly. Among the Tongans

ex-missionary Vason was granted chiefly status, while Morgan and Ambler, two beachcombers who had boasted

41

James Morrison, The Journal of James Morrison, Boatswain's Mate of the Bounty (London, 1935)» 71* 42

superior ancestory and power to the missionaries, were discredited and later killed because of their continual

43

interference and rudeness. Similarly on Vatoa the survivors of the wreck Oeno in 1825 found two houses prepared for them: one for the crew and the other for

44 the officers.

Brought to the islands by different trade and whaling vessels, the beachcombers tended to settle with separate chiefs until political or economic

pressures drew them into European aggregates. Together, beachcombers were prone to rivalry and fighting among themselves which made them open to stealing and

45

trickery from their hosts. However, such was the desire to have a resident foreigner, that the chiefs rarely allowed them to live together, but shared them out among themselves. News of the six survivors of the John Bull on Ponape in I83O spread rapidly among

46

the chiefs, who hastened to claim one. Four deserters who landed on Abemama were distributed among the

subsidiary chiefs by the High Chief, who kept only one

43

[George VasonJ, An Authentic Narrative of Four Years Residence At Tongataboo (London, I8l0), 101-18.

44

[William Cary], Wrecked On the Feejees (Nantucket, 1 9 2 8), 1 2.

45

John P . Twyning, Shipwreck and Adventures of John P. Twyning among the South Sea I s l a n d e r s (London,1849)>

72-3. 46

for himself. Strain on a single village's resources would also lead to a dispersion of sailors over an

48

island, while convicts and deserters, afraid of detection, sought inaccessible retreats.

In Hawaii beachco m b e r s at first conformed to this pattern, living w i t h chiefs throughout the group, but once K a m e h a m e h a began his conquest of the islands they were rapidly drawn into his sphere of patronage. Aft e r the defeat of Oahu in 1795? Oliver Holmes, M r Mi l l e r and several other foreigners, who h a d b e e n previously a l l i e d w i t h the chief K a l a n i k u p u l e , found that security

49