The History of the Tahitian Mission, 1799-1830, Written by John Davies, Missionary to the South Sea Islands

The History of the Tahitian Mission, 1799-1830, Written by John Davies, Missionary to the South Sea Islands

Author: C.W. Newbury

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2017-05-15

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 1317028716

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In the wake of the navigators who finally opened up the Pacific came missionaries, traders and finally administrators. In the early decades of the 19th century Polynesia was a rich field for the curious and the calculating, for writers and adventurers. The pioneer European settlers in Eastern Polynesia were ministers and mechanics sent out on the crest of an Evangelical wave the merged with the currents and eddies of trade and whaling to break down the isolation of the islands and their inhabitants. Among the pioneers was Welshman John Davies (1772-1855) who spent just over 50 years of his life on Tahiti and neighbouring islands. He witnessed the rise of the Pomare dynasty, conversion to Christianity, reaction to attempts at theocratic government, and the gradual encroachment of alien commerce and European rule. His colleagues have made their contribution to the history and anthropology of Polynesia. Davies himself, teacher, linguist and careful observer, wrote his own story of the Mission, its personalities and their contact with the Polynesians, from the early phase of disillusionment through three decades of political and economic change, destruction and reconstruction. From this contact there emerged the uneasy compromise of missionary and indigenous beliefs and institutions that characterized Tahiti and its neighbours before and after the advent of French administration. Davies's manuscript History is here edited and annotated, supplemented by the writings of other missionaries and presented as a contribution to the literature of the Pacific. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1961.


Trading Nature

Trading Nature

Author: Jennifer Newell

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2010-06-30

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 0824837673

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When Captain Samuel Wallis became the first European to land at Tahiti in June 1767, he left not only a British flag on shore but also three guinea hens, a pair of turkeys, a pregnant cat, and a garden planted with peas for the chiefess Purea. Thereafter, a succession of European captains, missionaries, and others planted seeds and introduced livestock from around the world. In turn, the islanders traded away great quantities of important island resources, including valuable and spiritually significant plants and animals. What did these exchanges mean? What was their impact? The answers are often unexpected. They also reveal the ways islanders retained control over their societies and landscapes in an era of increasing European intervention. Trading Nature explores—from both the European and Tahitian perspective—the effects of "ecological exchange" on one island from the mid-eighteenth century to the present day. Through a series of dramatic episodes, Trading Nature uncovers the potency of trading in nature. In the interweavings of chiefly power, ordinary islanders, the ambitions of outsiders, transplanted species, and existing ecologies, the book uncovers the cultural and ecological impacts of cross-cultural exchange. Evidence of these transactions has been found in a rich variety of voyage journals, missionary diaries, Tahitian accounts, colonial records, travelers’ tales, and a range of visual and material sources. The story progresses from the first trades on Tahiti’s shores for provisions for British and French ships to the contrasting histories of cattle in Tahiti and Hawai‘i. Two key exportations of species are analyzed: the great breadfruit transplantation project that linked Britain to Tahiti and the Caribbean and the politically volatile trade in salt-pork that ran between Tahiti and the Australian colonies in the nineteenth century. In each case, the author explores the long-term impacts of the exchanges on modern Tahiti. Trading Nature is a finely researched and entertaining work that will find a ready audience among those with an interest in the Pacific, ecological history, and the startling consequences of entangling people, plants, and animals on island shores.


Compassing the Vaste Globe of the Earth

Compassing the Vaste Globe of the Earth

Author: R.C. Bridges

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-01-15

Total Pages: 530

ISBN-13: 131716296X

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A special volume of essays to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Society, with a full listing and index of Hakluyt Society publications 1847-1995. Containing: P.E.H. Hair, ’The Hakluyt Society: from Past to Future’; R.C. Bridges, ’William Desborough Cooley and the Foundation of the Hakluyt Society’; Tony Campbell, ’R.H. Major and the British Museum’; R.J. Bingle, ’Henry Yule: India and Cathay’; Ann Savours, ’Clements Markham: longest serving Officer, most prolific Editor’; C.F. Beckingham, ’William Foster and the Records of the India Office’; D.B. Quinn, ’R.A. Skelton of the Map Room’; Michael Strachan, ’Esmond S. de Beer: Scholar and Benefactor’; and R.C. Bridges and P.E.H. Hair, ’The Hakluyt Society and World History’.


The Growth and Collapse of Pacific Island Societies

The Growth and Collapse of Pacific Island Societies

Author: Patrick Vinton Kirch

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2007-04-30

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 0824831489

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Were there major population collapses on Pacific Islands following first contact with the West? If so, what were the actual population numbers for islands such as Hawai‘i, Tahiti, or New Caledonia? Is it possible to develop new methods for tracking the long-term histories of island populations? These and related questions are at the heart of this new book, which draws together cutting-edge research by archaeologists, ethnographers, and demographers. In their accounts of exploration, early European voyagers in the Pacific frequently described the teeming populations they encountered on island after island. Yet missionary censuses and later nineteenth-century records often indicate much smaller populations on Pacific Islands, leading many scholars to debunk the explorers’ figures as romantic exaggerations. Recently, the debate over the indigenous populations of the Pacific has intensified, and this book addresses the problem from new perspectives. Rather than rehash old data and arguments about the validity of explorers’ or missionaries’ accounts, the contributors to this volume offer a series of case studies grounded in new empirical data derived from original archaeological fieldwork and from archival historical research. Case studies are presented for the Hawaiian Islands, Mo‘orea, the Marquesas, Tonga, Samoa, the Tokelau Islands, New Caledonia, Aneityum (Vanuatu), and Kosrae.


The Routledge History of Western Empires

The Routledge History of Western Empires

Author: Robert Aldrich

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-12-04

Total Pages: 542

ISBN-13: 1317999878

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The Routledge History of Western Empires is an all new volume focusing on the history of Western Empires in a comparative and thematic perspective. Comprising of thirty-three original chapters arranged in eight thematic sections, the book explores European overseas expansion from the Age of Discovery to the Age of Decolonisation. Studies by both well-known historians and new scholars offer fresh, accessible perspectives on a multitude of themes ranging from colonialism in the Arctic to the scramble for the coral sea, from attitudes to the environment in the East Indies to plans for colonial settlement in Australasia. Chapters examine colonial attitudes towards poisonous animals and the history of colonial medicine, evangelisaton in Africa and Oceania, colonial recreation in the tropics and the tragedy of the slave trade. The Routledge History of Western Empires ranges over five centuries and crosses continents and oceans highlighting transnational and cross-cultural links in the imperial world and underscoring connections between colonial history and world history. Through lively and engaging case studies, contributors not only weigh in on historiographical debates on themes such as human rights, religion and empire, and the ‘taproots’ of imperialism, but also illustrate the various approaches to the writing of colonial history. A vital contribution to the field.


The Indigénat and France’s Empire in New Caledonia

The Indigénat and France’s Empire in New Caledonia

Author: Isabelle Merle

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-10-19

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 3030990338

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This book provides a long history of France’s infamous indigénat regime, from its origins in Algeria to its contested practices and legacies in France’s South Pacific territory of New Caledonia. The term indigénat is synonymous throughout the francophone world with the rigours and injustices of the colonial era under French rule. The indigénat regime or 'Native Code' governed the lives of peoples classified as French 'native' subjects in colonies as diverse as Algeria, West Africa, Madagascar, Indochina and New Caledonia. In New Caledonia it was introduced by decree in 1887 and remained in force until Kanak — New Caledonia’s indigenous people — obtained citizenship in 1946. Among the colonial tools and legal mechanisms associated with France’s colonial empire it is the one that has had the greatest impact on the memory of the colonized. Focussing on New Caledonia, the last remaining part of overseas France to have experienced the full force of the indigénat, this book illustrates the way that certain measures were translated into colonial practices, and sheds light on the tensions involved in the making of France as both a nation and a colonial empire. The first book to provide a comprehensive history of the indigénat regime, explaining how it first came into being and survived up until 1946 despite its constant denunciation, this is an important contribution to French Imperial History and Pacific History.


The Island Churches of the South Pacific

The Island Churches of the South Pacific

Author: Charles W. Forman

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2022-10-14

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1666752126

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"Out of deep and wider personal experience of the Pacific Island churches, as well as a mastery of the documentary sources, Charles Forman has produced a very valuable and interesting book. The Pacific Basin assumes an increasingly central place in world history. The scattered Christian communities of that ocean are entering vigorously into worldwide ecumenical relationships. It is increasingly important to understand these churches and their potential contribution. Much of the popular mythology, not to say demonology, of missionary Christianity is linked with these Pacific Islands. This book puts the whole story in perspective as it brings us up to date and suggests the issues of today and tomorrow."David M. Stowe, Executive Vice President, United Church Board of World Ministries"This book covers the whole are of the Pacific Churches, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, and the English and French. It states the historical facts and has a prophetic outlook to the changing Pacific Christianity of tomorrow."S. 'Amanaki Havea, Principal, The Pacific Theological College, Suva, Fiji Islands"The nineteenth century story of Christianity in the Pacific is well known especially through the biographies of its heroes. Charles Forman has written the twentieth century story, with careful attention to the sources, and with great clarity. We see the steps from mission to church, and from village congregation to ecumenical involvement. Particularly helpful are the thematic treatments of cargo cults, modern sects, the effects of World War II, independence, and nation building. Can these traditionally minded Christian communities respond effectively to modern secularism and the mixture of cultures? The author shows that they can, and so enables the small Pacific Island Churches to contribute further to the world church. The bibliography is an excellent tool, and the footnotes repeatedly reveal how well the author knows the churches and the people who have led them."Bernard Thorogood, General Secretary and Clerk of the Assembly, The United Reformed Church, London


For Better or for Worse

For Better or for Worse

Author: Sabine Fenton

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-07-16

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 131764056X

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The essays in this book explore the vital role translation has played in defining, changing and redefining linguistic, cultural, ethnic and political identities in several nations of the South Pacific. While in other parts of the world postcolonial scholars have scrutinized the role and history of translation and exposed its close relationship with the colonizers, this has not yet happened in the specific region covered in this collection. In translation studies the Pacific region is terra incognita. The writers of this volume of essays reveal that in the Pacific, as in all other once colonized parts of the world, colonialism and translation went hand in hand. The unsettling power of translation is described as it effected change for better or for worse. While the Pacific Islanders' encounter with the Europeans has previously been described as having a 'Fatal Impact', the authors of these essays are further able to demonstrate that the Pacific Islanders were not only victims but also played an active role in the cross-cultural events they were party to and in shaping their own destinies. Examples of the role of translation in effecting change - for better or for worse - abound in the history of the nations of the Pacific. These stories are told here in order to bring this region into the mainstream scholarly attention of postcolonial and translation studies.


Voyages and Beaches

Voyages and Beaches

Author: Alex Calder

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 1999-04-01

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 9780824820398

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What actually happened as Europeans and peoples of the Pacific discovered each other? How have their respective senses of the past influenced their understanding of the present? And what are the consequences of their meeting? In this collection of essays, scholars from European, Polynesian, and Settler backgrounds provide answers to these questions. Writing from, and between, a variety of disciplines (history, anthropology, Maori Studies, literary criticism, law, cultural studies, art history, Pacific Studies), they show how the Pacific reveals a more various and contradictory history than that supposed by such homogenizing metropolitan myths as the introduction of civilization to savage peoples, the general ruin of indigenous cultures by an imperial juggernaut, or the mimicry of European models by an abject population. They examine contact from both sides of beaches throughout Polynesia, exposing the many inconsistencies from which Pacific history is made. Some of the essays consider the extent to which traditional European ideas about organizing and legitimizing claims to territory and power were invoked and problematized in the South Pacific; some consider the violence endemic in such scenes; others examine the aesthetic discourses with which early travelers and settlers attempted to make sense of the Pacific in the aftermath of "discovery." But rather than reiterate the myths and anti-myths of conquest, these essays show how local differences have made and do make a difference. They emphasize the Pacific's capacity to absorb and transform the impact of Europe, an impact that has been as notable for its ambivalence and confusion as for its single-minded pursuit of hegemony. The editors develop these themes in a wide-ranging introduction that relates Pacific concerns to a more global set of theoretical and methodological problems, including current work in post-colonial and subaltern studies.