Early Days

The Month's New Reading

What The Americans Did In Polynesia In The Early Days

With Judy Tudor

In 1783, a couple of years after the conclusion of Captain Cook’s third and last voyage to the Pacific, John Ledyard, an American marine who had accompanied Cook, got an American publisher to publish a journal he had kept on the voyage in which he spoke of the possibility of developing a profitable trade in sea-otter furs between the north-west coast of America and China.

EDYARD followed up his book I by interesting some influential n in his China trade scheme, and, hough this scheme fell through, ier merchants in Boston and Salem )k it up and subscribed $50,000 to out an expedition for the proposed de.

Ehe expedition comprised two ps, the Columbia under Captain bert Gray, and the Lady Washing i under Captain John Kendrick, ich sailed into the Pacific in 1789 d got the sea-otter trade under y- Phe opening up of the sea-otter de has provided W. Patrick auss, an American university pro sor, with the starting point for his ok Americans in Polynesia: S 3-1842 because it was this trade it brought the first Americans to lynesia.

In Ship's Track Polynesia, in this context, com sed only the Marquesas and waiian Islands—the two groups it were directly in the track of the i-otter ships after they picked up ; south-east trades on rounding the irn.

But during the next few years, as ; whaling, sealing and sandalwood des developed, American ships md their way to other parts of lynesia, and by 1835, there were tually no islands in the area that d not had an American visitor.

Meanwhile, in 1819, American otestant missionaries had reached iwaii, where, favoured by the lent overthrow of the ancient igious system, they quickly

imposed Western standards of morals and worship on the natives.

Except for an abortive attempt to Christianise the Marquesas in the 1830’s, American missionaries made no efforts to extend their influence in Polynesia beyond Hawaii during the first half of the 19th century.

But in Hawaii, despite opposition by French Catholics, they went from strength to strength—until by 1842, they had transformed the govern ment of those islands from a loose federation of chiefs to a well-oiled constitutional monarchy.

Meanwhile, the American Govern ment had showed little interest in Polynesia apart from the dispatch of an occasional warship to the area to enforce law and order, and the appointment of a commercial agent or consul here and there.

However, the visits of the warships were too infrequent to have any permanent influence except in Hawaii; and the American Govern ment representatives were of such mediocre calibre that they did more harm than good.

It was not until 1838, when the six ships of the United States Exploring Expedition were dispatched to explore and survey the South Pacific Ocean in the interests of American commerce and whaling, and to “extend the bounds of science and promote the acquisition of

knowledge” that the American Gov ernment tried to do anything really notable in Polynesia.

But although the expedition amassed a vast collection of useful information in the fields of meteorology, hydrography, zoology, etc., during the next four years, it was—in Professor Strauss’ view— virtually a failure.

The reasons for this, he says, were the poor relations between Charles Wilkes, the expedition’s commander, and the other officers; a change in the national government during the expedition’s absence which seriously delayed the printing of its material on its return; the dismissal of the expedition’s scientists before they had tendered their reports; and, finally, the indifference of the American people to what the expedition did.

All in all, therefore, American achievement in Polynesia during the 60 years from 1783 to 1842 was not particularly impressive, except in Hawaii.

But anyone seeking information on any aspect of it, such as it was, will find it set out, with bibliographical notes, in Professor Strauss’ book.

Tacked on the end of the book is a chapter called “The Literature of Paradise” in which Professor Strauss details American publications on Polynesia during the period

covered by his study.

Langdon.

Robert

(Americans In Polynesia, 1783-

1842. Published by The Michigan State University Press. $5.)