Fur traders looking for alternate goods for the Canton market started the sandalwood trade. Chinese used the fragrant heart wood for incense, medicinal purposes, for architectural details and carved objects. Hawaiians were long familiar with the wood they called 'iliahi; seven species grew in the Islands. While trade in Hawaiian sandalwood began as early as the 1790s, it didn't take off until fur prices began to drop around 1810.
In 1811, an agreement between Boston ship captains and Kamehameha established a monopoly on sandalwood exports with Kamehameha receiving 25% of the profits. This agreement stood for only one shipment, though, and shortly thereafter the War of 1812 resulted in a British blockade of Hawai'i for two years. When a vigorous trade resumed in 1814, Kamehameha controlled it as a near-monopoly through the use of his agents. While a few individual chiefs also dealt directly with traders, it was not until the death of Kamehameha I that a wholesale pillaging of sandalwood forests took place. While Kamehameha I still held the reigns, he placed a kapu on young trees and no transaction was ever done on credit.
As trade and shipping brought Hawai'i into contact with a wider world, it also enabled the acquisition of Western goods, including arms and ammunition. Kamehameha used Western cannon and guns to great advantage in his unification of the Islands and also acquired Western-style ships, buying the brig Columbia for a price of two ship loads of sandalwood in 1817.
After Kamehameha's death, his son Kamehameha II fell into debt with sandalwood traders. Having given away his own lands, he relied on the wood supplies of others, but he was unable to stop other chiefs from negotiating their own trade deals. By 1826, American traders were complaining about the debts owed by the king and chiefs and a general tax was imposed to pay off some of their collective debt. Traders played off the rivalry among chiefs to get the best price, ultimately accelerating the depletion of forests. The wood was sold by weight using a measure called a picul (133 1/3 pounds or about what a strong man could carry on his back). Traders made a profit of three to four dollars on each picul they bought in Hawai'i (at $7-$10) and then sold in Canton. As logging continued, wood quality degenerated and stands of sandalwood were harder to find. Natives set fire to areas to detect the trees by their sweet scent. While mature trees could withstand the fire, the flames wiped out new seedlings.
By 1830, the trade in sandalwood had completely collapsed. Hawaiian forests were exhausted and sandalwood from India and other areas in the Pacific drove down the price in Canton and made the Hawaiian trade unprofitable. Although forests were ravaged, sandalwood trees still survive today, tucked away on less accessible mountain slopes.
The Sandalwood Trade: 1829 to 1865
Introduction
Once the early European explorers made the Pacific islands known to the European world, more Europeans began to venture into the Pacific. For them, our islands presented an opportunity to get rich quickly. The nineteenth century (1800s) was a time of significant European economic interest in the Pacific in the form of trading and whaling.
Initially, the first traders were not very interested in coming to Melanesia. They had heard stories about fierce and cannibalistic Melanesians, who had many chiefs and many languages. Why do you think this knowledge would have been a deterrent for early traders? Also, in Melanesia diseases such as malaria were of concern to the Europeans. The islands in Polynesia do not have malaria. Therefore, unlike Polynesia, the early Europeans thought of Melanesia as a difficult place to trade.
Thinking further
Why did European trading in the Pacific islands begin in Polynesia and not Melanesia?
Discussion activity
On the map of the Pacific study the three cultural categories of: Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. The Europeans created these categories. How do you think they defined each category? Do you think these categories are accurate? Think about what we learned about Polynesian Outliers in ‘The Peopling of Our Islands’.
European Traders Arrive in Our Islands
In the early 1800s, bêche-de-mer (sea slug) fishing, pearl-shell, turtle-shell and the coconut oil trade attracted many European vessels to Fiji and the Eastern Pacific (Shineberg 1967: 27). Whaling vessels were known to have passed through Vanuatu’s waters in the late 1700s and into the 1800s, although Vanuatu was never a major centre for the whaling industry (Crowley 1990: 52). Shineberg (1967: 130) has recorded that in 1800 the whaler Walker was reported to have visited Espiritu Santo, where a *** fight between whalers and Islanders took place. In the 1820s and 1830s other whalers visited the area and records from Margaret Oakley, a merchant vessel, describe the trading that took place with the people of Big Bay, Santo, in 1834-5. Sometimes whaling ships were used interchangeably for sandalwood trading, which became popular around the 1830s.
The arrival of European sandalwood traders in the New Hebrides was due to interactions between Europe and Asia. The following extract is a review of what we learned in Cl*** 5’s The Story of Our Islands (2000: 61-62).
In the early years of the nineteenth century drinking tea became a new fashion in Europe and was very popular, especially in England. The plant whose leaves we use to make tea did not grow in Europe. For the first half of the nineteenth century, the only country from which traders could buy tea was China.
So, the English desire for tea sent traders around the world looking for sandalwood trees. At first, they traded Asian-grown sandalwood for Chinese tea. When they discovered that sandalwood could also be found in the Pacific they were pleased. It was less expensive to buy Pacific sandalwood than Asian sandalwood for trading.
Let’s take a closer look at the links of the sandalwood trade.
Traders sold tobacco for Pacific Islanders to smoke in order that the Chinese might burn sandalwood in order that the Australians1 might drink tea (Shineberg 1967: 151).
Thinking further
What does this quotation mean? In this arrangement, who received what?
Reverend William Gill, a missionary with the London Missionary Society (LMS), spent many years on various islands throughout the Pacific. Published in 1856, his book entitled Gems from the Coral Islands: Incidents of Contrast Between Savage and Christian Life, describes various aspects of life in the Pacific from the perspective of a missionary. In one particular section Gill writes about the sandalwood trade. The following excerpt describes the sandalwood tree and its uses.
The sandalwood yet discovered in those islands is that well-known in commerce, which is of a light yellow colour and of exceedingly fragrant odour. It is a tree of small size, having numerous branches of irregular form, which, with the trunk, are covered with a thick, red-brown bark. The leaves are of a very dark green colour, are set in pairs and disposed to turn inwards. The flowers grow in small clusters and are white, not infrequently having a red exterior.
This wood, although rarely found in large trees of mature growth, in the highlands of the Pacific, is yet comparatively abundant on the ‘Sandwich’, ‘Marquesa’, ‘Fejee’, and ‘New Hebrides’ groups. It has been long well known and highly valued by the Chinese, by whom it is variously and beautifully wrought, in the manufacture of fancy tables, boxes, fans and other articles; they also burn it as incense in their private homes and temples and use long thin slips of the wood, inserted in a mixture of rice paste and its sawdust, as candles, which emit a most pleasant fragrance and are considered a luxury (Gill 1856: 93 – 94).
Gems From the Coral Islands was written almost one hundred and fifty years ago. Therefore, some of the place names are not the same as we use today. The Sandwich Islands are now called Hawai’i. Marquesa refers to the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia. We already know Fejee and the New Hebrides.
Investigate
Draw a picture of a sandalwood tree in your exercise book. Find out about the types of environment in which sandalwood grows best.
We can trace the path of the Pacific sandalwood trade from its beginnings in Fiji and then on to the Polynesian islands, such as the Marquesas, Hawai’i and the Cook Islands. Referring back to an earlier paragraph, why do you think the Pacific sandalwood trade began in Polynesia?
Discovering Sandalwood on Erromango
Once all the Polynesian sandalwood had been cut, the traders looked to other places in the Pacific. Stories of the sandalwood-rich islands of the New Hebrides, such as Erromango, enticed these early European traders to our islands. One of the first traders to come to our islands was Peter Dillon.
In January 1825 a trader and explorer called Peter Dillon, who was well known on many islands in the Pacific, came to the New Hebrides looking for sandalwood. First he went to Tanna, where he found very little. Some people there told him to go instead to Erromango, where there was plenty.
He went there, landing in the bay [at Unpongkor, later named Dillon’s Bay] and found many sandalwood trees growing near the coast. He did not trade on that visit. He found the people of Erromango were not interested in what he wanted to give them in exchange for the sandalwood. He decided he would not get the wood unless the local people cut it and brought it to him to sell.
The sandalwood trade on Erromango started four years later, when Captain Samuel Henry took 19 Tongans there to cut the wood for him. During the next few years, when traders heard the news about all the sandalwood growing there, other trading ships carrying large numbers of Polynesian workers came to the island and took away loads of sandalwood.
Because there was often fighting between the Polynesian workers and the people of Erromango and other islands, there was not much trading done in the 1830s. Traders did not want to come to the New Hebrides, where the people were very fierce and wild. In the early days of the trade, local people did not like the traders coming either. The traders and their crew in those days were often very rough men. They got drunk and fought and treated the local people badly (from The Story of Our Islands 2000: 63-64).
Comprehension questions
1.What year did the sandalwood trade begin on Erromango?
2.Where did some of the Polynesian workers on Erromango come from?
3.The early traders are described as ‘rough’ in the extract. Think of other words that can be used instead of ‘rough’.
Knowledge of the sandalwood wealth of Erromango spread across the world. Other Pacific islands, namely those in Polynesia, were quickly running out of sandalwood. Those involved in the trade knew that they needed to find other sources of sandalwood. Did you know that in 1830 a ship full of Hawaiians visited our islands to seize Erromango in the name of the King of the Sandwich Islands (Hawai’i)?
From 1811 to 1828, Hawai’i experienced a sandalwood boom. The Hawaiian aristocracy lived in luxury from the profits of the sandalwood cut by the commoners for Chinese markets (Shineberg 1967: 9). But, to maintain this lifestyle, Hawaiian aristocracy needed to find more islands with sandalwood for their trade. The following excerpt describes Hawaiian intentions for our islands, once they had heard of the sandalwood riches to be found. Initially, Erromango’s sandalwood wealth was kept a secret by Captain Henry of the Sophia, the first ship that attempted to acquire sandalwood on the island, but others soon found out.
Blakesly [a passenger of the Sophia] sold the secret to the ‘king and chiefs’ and two vessels were fitted out to seize the island of Eromanga in the name of the ‘king of the Sandwich Islands’ and there to set up a commerce in sandalwood with the Europeans, as in the fat days of the trade at Honolulu. One vessel was put under the command of Governor Boki, the ruler-designate of Eromanga and navigated by Blakesly and the other under the orders of another chief, Manuia, navigated by a whaler’s mate. The two Hawaiian vessels, the Temeamea with 300 men [this ship reached Rotuma but was never seen again] and the Becket with 179 men, both with a plentiful supply of arms and munitions, left Honolulu for the New Hebrides on 3 and 5 December 1829. Evidently the Hawaiian chiefs were not the only ones in Honolulu to share the Sophia’s secret for they were beaten out of the harbour by another expedition, a private venture by British merchants: the Dhaule, under Captain Bancroft, sailed from Honolulu on 29 November, picked up a large party of Rotumans and landed them at Cook’s Bay, Eromanga, on 21 and 22 January 1830. Finally, the Sophia set out on her second expedition to Eromanga on 29 January 1830, this time calling at Rotuma for a labour gang. The commander was overwhelmed with volunteers as the Rotumans eagerly offered their services in order to see the world: offers of food and pigs were made as an inducement to be hired for the voyage.
Great must have been the astonishment of the people of the east coast of Eromanga when, within a few months, arrived the schooner Snapper from Dillon’s Bay and a party of 113 Tongans, the schooner Dhaule with about 130 Rotumans, the brig Becket with 179 Hawaiians and over 100 Rotumans and the ship Sophia with 200 Rotumans.
The [Tongans] claimed that the arrival of the Hawaiians at Cook’s Bay put an end to the friendly relations they had before enjoyed with the local inhabitants. To the intense annoyance of the Tongans, the Hawaiians, who had not come merely to trade but to colonise, immediately upon their arrival had a friendly chief bound hand and foot. According to Bennett:
The whole endeavours of the Sandwich Islanders seem to have been to carry on war against the aborigines – not to conciliate them: thus putting in practice their original intention of taking permanent possession of the island and exterminating the original possessors. On the least alarm of an approach of the aborigines they began discharging their artillery, whether the alarm was false or not.
The result was an outbreak of hostilities between the Hawaiians and the natives which put a stop to the trading of the other parties.
When the commander of the Sophia arrived… instead of finding neat piles of valuable wood stacked on the beach ready to be stowed on board, he was brought news of the final catastrophe of this ill-starred expedition: the entire complement of Polynesians was suffering from intermittent fever and dying daily … The Sophia did not land any of her two hundred Rotumans, but was totally employed during her brief stay of three days in receiving on board the sick Polynesians, the majority of whom died before they reached home. The losses among the Hawaiians proved to be even greater; of their company only twenty returned on the Becket to tell news of the disaster to their countrymen (Shineberg 1967: 20-2).
Hawaiian attempts to seize possession of Erromango failed miserably. While Hawaiians did not trade in New Hebridean sandalwood, many more traders arrived who were more successful in the business.
Comprehension questions
1.Find the islands of Rotuma, Tonga and Hawai’i on a map. In your book, write the total number of Rotumans, Tongans and Hawaiians to arrive at Erromango based on information from the above excerpt. How many more Hawaiians had set out on the voyage from Honolulu than arrived in our islands? How many Hawaiians did not return to Hawai’i?
2.How many boats arrived at Cook’s Bay around the same time? How do you think the Erromangans would have felt at the sudden influx of foreigners?
3.What reason did the Tongans give for failure to conduct a successful sandalwood trade? Do you think this was a reasonable conclusion about the situation?
Thinking further
In the early 1800s, the Hawaiian Kingdom was a sovereign nation, with a formal system of government. Why do you think the Hawaiian aristocracy thought they would be able to seize Erromango? What does this tell us about the general lack of knowledge about our islands at the time?
We read above that the early sandalwood traders sometimes brought Polynesians to our islands to cut down trees. Some traders, as in the case of the Hawaiians, were Polynesian themselves. The following ‘A Closer Look’ section examines three different sources of information regarding an incident between Tongan workers and Islanders on Efate. There are often many versions of a historical event that you, the student, must interpret to fully understand what really happened.
In the following excerpt from Gems of the Coral Islands (1856), Reverend William Gill describes an incident that occurred on Efate Island. He refers to Efate as Fate. At that time, Europeans also referred to Efate as ‘Lavelave’ and ‘Sandwich Island’. In October 1842, a group of Tongan workers on a sandalwood ship murdered a group of people from Efate.
Many a heathen young man, on the island of Fate, has this day fresh in his remembrance, a smart fleet of three English sandalwood vessels, which cast anchor in one of their finest bays, some little time before the first visit of the mission-ship. The crews of these vessels were landed and because the natives stood in the way of their gaining the sandalwood, without proper renumeration, a quarrel ensued, in which nearly one hundred of the defenceless, unsuspecting Islanders, were killed on the spot. Alarmed at this slaughter, about thirty others, of the aged and women and children, fled to a cave, there hoping to find refuge from the fiend-like fury of the white foreigners; but the white men pursued them, filled up the mouth of the cave with dry brushwood, a fire was kindled and kept burning until the groans and shrieks of the whole company of guiltless natives were silenced in death! This being done, the foreigners were left masters of the district; they cut down sufficient wood to fill their ships and stealing a good supply of pigs and yams, they sailed away glorying in their shame!
(Gill 1856: 80).
Thinking further
Gill writes, “…hoping to find refuge from the fiend-like fury of the white foreigners; but the white men pursued them….” We know that the men who fought with the Efatese were from Tonga. What does this excerpt tell us about Gill’s perspective on the incident? Why do you think that he was blaming the sandalwood vessels’ captains instead of their Tongan workmen?
This scenario is also recounted in Dorothy Shineberg’s They Came for Sandalwood: A Study of the Sandalwood Trade in the Southwest Pacific 1830-1865, published in 1967. She used the journals of ship captains, letters and shipping records as sources when writing her book.
It seemed to be accepted opinion among them [the sandalwood traders] that a single ship was ‘unable to do anything in the sandalwood trade among the New Hebrides, owing to the savage state of the inhabitants.’ This kind of reasoning possibly inspired the infamous three-ship expedition to the southern New Hebrides towards the end of 1842 which provided the missionaries with enough ammunition in their campaign against the traders to last as long as the sandalwood trade itself.
This voyage was justly notorious as a result of the great loss of life it caused. The first report of it seems to have reached the missionaries through a letter to the Rev. A.W. Murray written by a seaman, George McLean, mate on one of the ships involved, in which he complained of the ‘disgraceful transactions’ that took place on the voyage. His account was only partly first-hand as he remained on board while at the islands and relied largely on the reports of some of the Tahitian hands on the ship, the schooner Sophia. The incident was, however, afterwards investigated by the L.M.S. missionaries when they next visited the New Hebrides and also by Captain Erskine on the 1849 cruise of H.M.S. Havannah in these waters. As a result, the following story was substantiated beyond reasonable doubt.
The three vessels came from Tahiti and were under the direction, once more, of Captain Samuel Henry: the schooner Sophia, Captain Henry, the schooner Sultana, Captain Scott and an American vessel said to be flying the Tahitian flag, the O.C. Raymond, Captain Dennison. They were reported lying at Tongatapu on 23 July 1842 and ‘about to proceed to the New Hebrides for sandalwood.’ Here they recruited a cutting-party of sixty-seven Tongans and went on to Lakemba where they tried, without success, to hire more labourers. After calling at Tanna the expedition arrived at Dillon’s Bay, Erromango, on 4 September 1842. The white men did not land but sent their Tongan gang on shore to cut sandalwood. According to the Tongans, all went well for three days and sandalwood was cut and loaded. A quarrel broke out, however, on the fourth day over some stolen axes and a Tongan shot one of the alleged thieves. The Erromangans returned arrow for musket fire and evened the score when one Tongan fell mortally wounded by Erromangan arrows. Questioned by Lieutenant Pollard of H.M.S. Bramble, the Tongan chief Ma’afu who led the gang, said that their reason for leaving Erromango was that they were running short of provisions and were afraid to take any from the natives.
After leaving Erromango the three vessels sailed to the northwest coast of Efate, where, according to the Efatese account, permission was given to the masters of the ships for the Tongans to cut and carry off the wood for an agreed payment. Again, the white men stayed on board and, again, the Tongans quarrelled with the natives. All accounts agree that the Tongans shot a number of Efatese and when the remainder of their party fled for refuge in caves the Tongans suffocated them by burning a pile of materials at the mouth. The details of this atrocious affair differ from one account to another partly owing to the practice, widespread among the Pacific Islands and not unknown elsewhere, of exaggerating the losses of the enemy and minimizing one’s own. It is probable, however, that not less than sixty-eight Efatese—eight of them in the two caves—were killed in this affray (this being the Efatese estimate). Both sides claimed to have begun the action after provocation by the other: the Tongans alleged that they had been annoyed by the Efatese when returning from cutting wood one evening, while the Efatese claimed that the Tongans had stolen their coconuts and had sung songs insulting to them. The evidence as to the part played by the Europeans on board is conflicting. The young Tongan chief, Tae, who had been on the expedition, told Erskine that in spite of the remonstrances of their leader, the chief Ma’afu, Captain Henry kept them cutting wood for another three days after the fighting before letting them return to Tonga. On the other hand Ma’afu himself told Lieutenant Pollard ‘that the masters of the vessels had nothing whatever to say to it (the disturbance) and that they were much displeased when they heard of it. But for having arranged for a small army of Tongan musketeers to go at will among a foreign people, Captain Henry and his European colleagues, safe on their ship, were in any case chargeable for the loss of life
(Shineberg 1967: 62-3).
Yet another excerpt comes from John Spurway’s (2004) article in the Journal of Pacific History entitled ‘An Indigenous Perspective Revisited: Ma’afu and the 1842 sandalwood expedition to the New Hebrides.’ He emphasises the importance of giving first-person accounts and his research is part of his creation of a biography of the Tongan Ma’afu, who was part of the expedition to North Efate in 1842.
The most reliable account of the Tongans’ stay on Efate appears to be that of Methuselah Tae2 [a Tongan who was part of the expedition to the New Hebrides]. He told Erskine that the Tongan cutters were given arms before landing to commence work, while the white men remained on board the vessels. Before long, for reasons not stated by Tae, a battle ensued, in which 26 unarmed natives were killed, with no injury to the Tongans. Not satisfied with their *** victory, the intruders pursued the survivors to a fort, which was stormed and taken, involving further loss of life. Those still alive escaped to Moso, a small island off the northern coast of Efate, where they took refuge in a cave…
Fortunately, during the visit of H.M.S. Havannah to Efate in September 1851, Erskine was able to interview two local men who vividly remembered the affray. The account of those men, whose names were Talipoa-uia and Tongalulu, agreed in essentials with that of Tae. The men recalled that the ships’ captains had obtained permission for the Tongans to cut and remove sandalwood, in exchange for ‘a regular payment’. Peace was shattered by the ‘arrogance’ of the visitors, who forcibly removed coconuts, then under tabu and sang songs meant to insult their hosts. The two Efate men confirmed that the ensuing conflict resulted in the deaths of 40 people from one side of what is now known as Havannah Harbour and 20 on the other. The men also spoke of the suffocation of their fellows and agreed that eight bodies in all were found, six in one cave and two in another.
We should finally consider the only other eye-witness account of the events on Efate, before making some attempt to determine what Ma’afu’s role actually was and how much responsibility he should bear for what occurred… The dramatic event is best conveyed in McLean’s own words [McLean was a mate on board the Sophia]:
They killed the chief and his daughter on the beach and stript [stripped] them of their ornaments, drove the native aback into the interior and on top of the mountains, we held possession of the islands two months. I could hear the natives every night moaning over the dead bodies of their relations, our natives destroyed ship loads of yams that were strung up under their beautiful trees and killed hundreds of pigs took them on board and salted them down, the poor natives could see us plundering their property dare not come near us, they were afraid of firearms, we took some of them prisoners, two boys are at Tongatapu [Tonga] belonging to Sandwich Island.
—from Spurway (2004: 231-239).
Interpreting the Sources
Reverend Gill was a Christian missionary who worked throughout many islands in the Pacific. He held strong opinions concerning the Islanders and saw a need to Christianise the population of the Pacific. Missionaries were often in opposition to sandalwood traders and their influence in the islands. His book, written in 1856, is a general history of the missionization of various islands throughout the Pacific. Dorothy Shineberg was an historian who wrote an extensively researched book in 1967 about the history of the sandalwood trade in the Pacific. Spurway’s article emphasises the importance of using oral accounts of people who were present at an event as a method of ***ysing historical events. When we read excerpts from any source, we must consider many different aspects of the source itself.
Here are some things that we must consider:
1.What does the document tell us? What are the implications of what is written?
2.How well placed was the writer? Was he or she a participant or eyewitness of the situation? Is the document based on information from other people? What influence may the writer’s social and economic position have had on what is written?
3.When was the document written? To whom was it written? Why was it written?
4.Is there any bias in the document? Biased sources can be useful if they give an opposite view and suggest further questions to ask. However, if an historian used sources that give only one side of a story his or her work is likely to be condemned as unbalanced or biased.
5.What is your own bias? One person’s interpretation of sources may be different from another person. We all have different perceptions, ideas, values, at***udes and views. Can we question and interpret sources with an open mind?
6.Is any specialised knowledge needed to understand and interpret the document? (e.g. names, dates, places and special words).
7.Is there corroboration (supporting information)? Are there other witnesses or sources that would support or contradict this document? How does the document fit into the historical context?
Writing activity
Take one of the above questions and answer it for each of the three sources. Your answer should have three paragraphs: one each for Gill, Shineberg and Spurway.
Discussion activity
As a cl***, compare the Gill, Shineberg and Spurway accounts of the incidents on Moso and North Efate. Each source tells the same story, but in a different tone and in a different way. How are they similar? How are they different? How does each portray the event on North Efate/Moso?
We have read that traders, at times, employed violent measures to obtain sandalwood. However, not all trade was violent. As historian Dorothy Shineberg has written, the Islanders understood the position that they were in and they used it to their advantage. They knew that the sandalwood ships were in search of sandalwood and that they had some leverage in deciding the goods that they received in exchange for the sandalwood. As time progressed they became more specific in their trade demands. They understood that the sandalwood ships were in compe***ion with one another and that the ships would stock whatever goods were desired by the Islanders in order to trade for their wood.
In They Came For Sandalwood (1967), Shineberg discusses the methods of trade between the sandalwood ships and the Islanders. The following excerpt comes from the chapter entitled, ‘The Sandalwood Trade in Melanesian Economics’.
Although there were trade demands peculiar to certain communities at certain times, there is nevertheless a discernible trend in Melanesian imports. The goods required by a community varied perceptibly with the length and intensity of its contact with Europeans. Beginning with areas of least contact through to those of greatest contact, trade demands tended to run the gamut in the following order:
1.Hoop- or bar-iron, metal fish-hooks, beads, cheap ironmongery (tomahawks/hatchets, adzes, iron pots), gl*** bottles and calico.
2.A wider range of metal tools (scissors, knives, saws) as well as axes and adzes, cloth and drapery of all sorts.
3.Tobacco and pipes.
4.Muskets, powder, superior edge-tools and still more tobacco.
Finally, in some islands, the demand for expensive European articles was succeeded or accompanied by a demand for indigenous forms of wealth such as pigs or certain shells, which the traders were obliged to find and export from elsewhere.
In another excerpt, Shineberg discusses how the sandalwood traders found suppliers for goods that were demanded by the Islanders in exchange for sandalwood.
Several islands now began to ***ume a new importance in the sandalwood trade as suppliers of pigs for the Santo market. Traders went as far as Fiji to get pigs, but Lifu and above all, Tanna, seem to have been the chief exporters of pigs. A remarkable number of pigs was taken from Tanna. As Captain Hastings remarked to Robertson: ‘It was astonishing to see the number of pigs taken from Tanna alone. In 1865, an agent took from that island 1500 and another vessel took 1600. There were three vessels besides, which, I suppose, collected nearly the same number.’
In Erromanga, too, there was a demand for wealth of the old kind, not only in pigs but also in nunpuri shell, the traditional form of money. Nunpuri was ‘good trade’ at a time when only the more expensive European goods were of much account. The shells seem to have been obtained mainly from New Caledonia.
Trading for ‘trade’ therefore became an important part of the function of station-keepers and in this way they began to play the part of middle-men in the interchange of island products. Soon they had to trade at the Solomon Islands for tortoiseshell for pigs to trade at Santo for sandalwood; this became an off-season occupation of station-keepers during the hurricane months. In the same way, they had to trade at New Caledonia for the shells to trade at Erromango for sandalwood (Shineberg 1967: 155-6).
Thinking further
1.Elsewhere Shineberg states that, “the goods required by a community varied perceptibly with the length and intensity of its contact with Europeans.” What does this mean?
2.One sandalwood trader, commenting on the bargaining power of Melanesians, said, “they are, without exception, the greatest adepts in bargaining that I have ever met with” (Shineberg 1967: 145). What do you think that he meant when he said this?
3.Why do you think that the Islanders began to demand indigenous trading items in addition to those that were brought from overseas on the sandalwood ships?
4.Gl*** beads, another trade good used by the sandalwood traders, began to supplement and take the place of traditional forms of decoration created by the Islanders. Over time, how do you think that this changed the styles of decoration that were created by the Islanders?
5.Do you think that the sandalwood traders had the best interests of the Islanders at mind? Why or why not?
Writing activity
If you were trading the sandalwood on your island, what do you think that you would have asked for in exchange? Why?
Discussion activities
1.How do you think that European trade goods such as bar iron changed the lives of the people living on the islands? Think back to ‘An Agricultural History of Our Islands’. Was the decrease in agricultural labour equal between men and women? Who benefited from the introduction of these “European” tools?
2.Shineberg (1967: 162) states that, “it was not long before the new things became necessities instead of luxuries.” What do you think that she means by this? Can you think of examples of this in our lives today?
With people from all over the world coming to our islands for sandalwood, how did they communicate with our ancestors? How did they convey how much sandalwood they wanted to cut or what and how much they would trade for it? What about other traders in our islands? How did they communicate? The next ‘A Closer Look’ section examines the early trading language between European traders and Islanders.
This excerpt is taken from Terry Crowley’s history of Bislama entitled Beach-la-Mar to Bislama (1990). Crowley was a linguist who researched many languages throughout Vanuatu, as well as the origins of Bislama and other languages throughout the Pacific. He uses Dorothy Shineberg’s They Came For Sandalwood (1967) as his primary reference concerning the sandalwood trade.
In the following excerpt Crowley discusses how the Islanders communicated with passing trading ships before Beach-la-Mar (Bislama) developed.
There are repeated references in the accounts of many trading voyages to ni-Vanuatu making requests and expressing gra***ude (or hostility) to the European interlopers and to the local people bargaining with the traders. Europeans’ accounts of trading voyages also make reference to enlisting local labour and making arrangements with the Melanesians for the cutting of sandalwood. Sandalwood was sometimes cut by the local people themselves and brought down to the beach for the Europeans to buy, which involved the traders in explaining what they wanted, how they wanted the wood cut and what they were prepared to give in return. If the ship’s own labourers were to cut the sandalwood, the local chief had to guarantee that the labourers would be protected. As Shineberg (1967: 23) notes, all of this ‘involved a more than fleeting contact with the people’ and the Europeans and the Melanesians clearly had to communicate.
In these early years of the sandalwood trade, a variety of means were used to communicate. In some cases, gesture was used. Shineberg (1967: 57) quotes Andrew Cheyne of the Bull (a trading ship) in 1842 as saying:
During the time they remained near us, they kept shouting, making many gestures and waving pieces of tappa; We exhibited many articles of Trade and waved white handkerchiefs in return, but this had no effect—as the moment the schooner’s head was put towards the Canoes, they made sail and stood for the shore.
Shineberg (1967: 83) also reports that early traders would sometimes give people a piece of sandalwood to smell and indicate by gesture that they were prepared to exchange trade goods for it.
As the quotation above indicates, gesture had its limits as a means of communication and other solutions were preferable. Occasionally, European castaways and dropouts—known as beachcombers—were encountered. Many of these people had learned one of the local languages and would, for a fee, interpret for the sandalwooders. Shineberg (1967: 83) also reports that sometimes, ships would carry a local from their last port of call in the expectation, or at least hope—often justifiable, so it turned out—that he would be able either to speak the language of the next port of call, or at least to make himself understood in his own language. And finally, when the Europeans were anchored in one place long enough, they endeavoured to learn a smattering of the local language in order to communicate with the people
(Crowley 1990: 54-55).
Comprehension questions
1.What are some methods that people used to communicate during the beginning years of the sandalwood trade?
2.What is the meaning of “gesture”?
3.How would sandalwood ships sometimes use Islanders to ***ist with communication?
Discussion activity
Imagine that you are in a room with five other people and you all speak different languages but no common language. As a group you are attempting to put together a puzzle. What are some ways that you could communicate with one another instead of speaking?
Establishing Trading Posts and Stations
Trading vessels faced many risks. In addition to possible trader-islander confrontations, their food and water supplies were sometimes in danger of running out. As a result, the establishment of stations helped limit the number of *** confrontations as they could develop more long-term relationships with Islanders. Stations also provided a place for trade vessels to re-stock their supplies and replenish their water supply.
The Beginnings
Captain James Paddon was the first trader to establish a business in our archipelago. He arrived from New Zealand in January 1844 and proceeded to set up the first sandalwood station in the southwest Pacific. He settled on the small island of Inyeug, off the coast of Aneityum, which he bought for an axe, a rug and a string of beads. The people of Aneityum agreed to sell Inyeug to him, as they believed that it was a haunted island.
Paddon had the following adverti***t placed in colonial newspapers after he established his station in Aneityum:
Captain James Paddon begs to inform masters of whalers and traders that he has an establishment at the island of Anatam, in long. 170°15’ and south la***ude 20°20’, where water and fresh provisions can be had at any time. Anatam, New Hebrides, April 1844
(Shineberg 1967: 100).
Paddon’s trade grew quickly, although Robert Towns, a Queensland-based trader, was one of his main rivals in the sandalwood trade.
The following excerpt comes from Erromanga: The Martyr Isle (1902), by Reverend H.A. Robertson. This is from the journal of Dr. Turner, a missionary who was originally on Tanna but fled to Erromango in 1843.
Aneityum, 17 April 1845
Hearing that some white men had taken up their abode on a small sand-bank on the other side of the island and also that a chief there has long been wishing a teacher, we determined to visit both parties. Taking Simeoni with us as our pilot and interpreter, we left the ship this morning at daylight. For a time we kept inside the reef and then had to strike out to sea and along the bold shore. It is a lovely island—fertile, cultivated towards the sea and well-watered. Here and there we saw in the distance a silvery waterfall among the mountain gorges. By nine, we were at the little island, quite a sand-bank and, with another one, forming a pretty good harbour between them and the mainland. Here we found a jetty, flag-staff, weather-boarded houses, piles of sandalwood, a rusty swivel mounted here and there and every appearance of a foreign settlement. A Mr. Murphy came down as we landed and conducted us to the store, where we sat for a little. He said that Captain Paddon, who was at the head of the concern, was absent; that they came here in January; that they have two vessels collecting sandalwood; and that they have advertised the place in the colonial papers as a convenient harbour for whaling and other vessels. He says they have bought the island from the natives. Our teachers confirm this and add that they paid for it an axe, a rug and a string of beads. It is little more than a mile in cir***ference, without a cocoanut and hardly a blade of gr***. It was considered by the natives a haunted spot and hence they never planted anything on it. They had no objection, however, to sell it to the white man (Robertson 1902: 1).
Living with the Neighbours
In 1850, Paddon became very ill and was not expected to live. He recovered from the illness but remained weak for the rest of his stay on Aneityum. As Shineberg writes, he was no longer content at the station because he was continually arguing with his new missionary neighbours, John and Charlotte Geddie of the Presbyterian Mission.
The following excerpt describes the difficulties of their relationship.
The Geddies were landed on Aneityum, at Anelgauhat harbour, on 29 July 1848. First relations with the traders were good. Paddon donated the frame for the mission building which served as chapel and school-house. By means of Paddon’s vessels, Geddie was able to communicate with the teachers on Tanna once a fortnight. The missionary appreciated the advantage of living in a place from which trading vessels ran regularly to the Isle of Pines and touched frequently at the Loyalties on the way. ‘I may add, moreover,’ Geddie wrote, ‘that Captain Paddon has kindly offered us free passages in his vessels, to any of the islands mentioned, whenever we choose to go.’
It was not long, however, before Geddie’s stocks fell when he began to include attacks on the white men’s morals in his sermons to the native congregation… by 1850 it had become clear that the island was too small to hold both Paddon and the Geddies. Their quarrels came to a head towards the end of 1851 when, according to Geddie, Paddon told the people the he would leave the island because Geddie was on it and that then they would have no more tobacco. Geddie believed that this was why some Aneityumese burnt down his house in November. To Underwood, [William Underwood was an employee of Paddon] Geddie accused Paddon and another man of inciting the natives against him…
Geddie was convinced that the real basis of the sandalwooders’ hostility to him was his ‘efforts to save the poor females from shame and ruin’ (Shineberg 1967: 104-105).
In his journal, Geddie wrote about the final days of Paddon’s station.
The sandalwood station is fast breaking up. There has been a great destruction of property. Those things that cannot be conveniently removed are committed to the flames. In a few months, it will be impossible to tell from external indications, that a foreign establishment existed on Aneityum. I wish that other memorials of their residence on this island could be as easily obliterated (from the Missionary Register of the Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia, 1853).
Paddon finally left Aneityum in 1852 and moved to Tanna where he opened another shore station. He stayed with a Tannese woman named Naitani and they had four daughters. He also established stations on the Isle of Pines and eventually moved his headquarters to Erromango. He made various business deals before he died in 1861.
Thinking further
1.Why do you think that Paddon decided to open a shore station in Aneityum? Besides becoming involved in the sandalwood trade, what was the purpose of the shore station?
2.As Shineberg states in They Came For Sandalwood (1967: 88), “the re***tion of the seamen in the trade was scarcely better that that of their ships. We have the word from Towns himself [another trader who opened a shore station on Aneityum after Paddon left] that ‘the generality of our Sandalwooders’ were not very ‘respectable.’ Similar remarks were made by the missionaries and also by those traders who considered themselves a cut above the rest. The nature of the occupation, indeed, tended to attract men who were more distinguished by their reckless courage or their love of adventure than by their respectability.”
Island women were often found on ships when they were in port, even though many captains claimed that this type of behaviour was not allowed on their ships. Why do you think that this caused difficulties between the missionaries and the sandalwood traders? Where can you find evidence of this in the above excerpt about the Geddies and their relationship with Paddon?
3.What do you think that Geddie meant when he wrote, “I wish that other memorials of their residence on this island could be as easily obliterated.” Who is he referring to when he writes ‘their’?
Discussion activities
1.Why do you think that the people of Aneityum sold Inyeug for “an axe, a rug and string of beads”?
2.How do you think that Paddon’s shore station affected the lives of the people of Anetiyum? What do you think changed in their lives? What stayed the same?
The establishment of trading stations presented an opportunity for prolonged interaction between traders and Islanders. Communication was therefore able to develop from simple gestures into a way of speaking that mixed English with local languages. The origins of the Bislama we speak today can be found in this period of our history.
In this excerpt Terry Crowley explains how the interactions between different groups who took part in the sandalwood and sea slug trades resulted in the beginnings of our modern-day Bislama. This excerpt can be found in From Beach-la-mar to Bislama (1990).
After the initial phase in the sandalwood trade from 1829 to the early 1840s in which contacts between traders and Melanesians were rather sporadic, the trade moved into its established phase. This was distinguished from the earlier period by two main facts. Firstly, from 1843, large and permanent shore stations were established on a number of the islands of southern Vanuatu, in the Loyalties, on the Isle of Pines and on the Grande-Terre of New Caledonia. Secondly, Melanesians from a variety of these islands began to work on the sandalwood ships as crew alongside the previously exclusively European and Polynesian crews on these ships. It was during this time that ni-Vanuatu first started to work outside their own communities and that Beach-la-Mar [Bislama] became established in some parts of southern Melanesia.
The first permanent shore station was established as a commercial ‘colony’ by James Paddon at Anelgauhat, on a small island just off Aneityum, in 1843.
The sandalwood and sea-slug trades operated through shore stations for over twenty years. It was not until 1865 that sandalwood ceased to be big business (though some shore stations were kept on beyond this date) …[The table below] indicates the dates for the operation of sandalwood stations on these islands, many of which also doubled as sea-slug processing stations. There were perhaps also stations operating at different times on Lifu and on Aniwa. The island of Espiritu Santo in the northern part of Vanuatu also became involved in the sandalwood trade later and there were always several shore stations operating simultaneously between 1860 and 1868.
Operation of sandalwood stations in southern Melanesia 1840s-1850s
Island Years of Operation
Erromango1854-64
Tanna1847-63
Aneityum1844-72 (always with at least two stations operating at once)
Uvea1856-61
Isle of Pines1848-57 (with up to four stations operating simultaneously)
Grande-Terre1855-61 (with stations at canala, Paita, near Noumea and other locations)
In addition to the number of Europeans based at these stations (which was always quite small), there were Polynesian labourers, as well as substantial numbers of Melanesians. The European station owners preferred to employ labourers from other islands other than the one on which the stations were located.
We know that as early as 1842, a number of Tannese labourers were taken to the Isle of Pines to work on shore for three months and twenty Tannese went to Efate in 1847 to cut sandalwood (Shineberg 1967: 190). By 1860 there were apparently about 150 non-local labourers from a variety of different islands working on Espiritu Santo, while in the same year, there were three gangs of Efate labourers working on Erromango, along with one gang of labourers from Lifu. Gangs often consisted of up to 100 men (Howe 1977: 87). Shineberg (1967: 192) estimates that there must have been at least 340 non-Erromangans working on Erromango at this time, against a total Erromangan population of probably around 4500 (MacClancy 1980: 79). Thus, almost one in ten people on the island spoke a language other than an Erromangan language. There were possibly as many as five mutually unintelligible local languages indigenous to Erromango, though only one is spoken today (Lynch 1983: 4). The situation on all of the shore stations was apparently much the same, with significant numbers of labourers, often from a variety of different islands, working together on multilingual islands on contracts of up to six months, cutting sandalwood, processing sea slugs and performing other tasks.
Contacts between Melanesians and traders during the period of the sandalwood trade were not restricted to the immediate vicinity of the shore stations. The period 1841-65 also saw a great rush of sandalwood trading ships to all parts of southern Melanesia from Sydney, ports in China, or elsewhere. Shineberg (1967: 220-49) records well over two hundred separate trading voyages to the islands of southern Melanesia between 1841-1855 alone. With at least one new visiting ship per month for this period, there must have been considerable contact between Melanesians and traders throughout the region, even in those places that had no permanent shore stations. Moreover, these ships usually spent several months in the area ac***ulating a full load of sandalwood and often called at more than one collection point, thereby spreading their contacts even more widely. From 1855 until the demise of the sandalwood trade in 1865, there were forty-seven separate ships regularly plying the waters of southern Melanesia in search of this profitable cargo.
The conditions that I have described for the period 1843-65 were obviously ripe for the development of a contact language. For a quarter of a century, there was continual contact of a commercial kind, both on shore and on board ship, between Melanesians and Europeans, Melanesians and Polynesians and among Melanesians who did not share common languages. Paddon’s shore station at least also included a small number of Chinese, with whom the Melanesians presumably had some dealings. It is likely that these Chinese spoke China Coast Pidgin and that the Polynesians spoke the South Seas Jargon that was current among Polynesian sailors in the early 1800s. Those hundreds of ni-Vanuatu who worked as crew on ships at the time must have come into contact with the South Seas Jargon that was in wide use on ships at the time all around the Pacific.
From very early on in the period of 1843-1865, there is evidence that Melanesians were using some kind of ‘English’ in their communication with Europeans. No longer did the Europeans have to make some attempt at learning the Melanesian languages as they did in the initial phases of the trade…
By about 1865 this kind of English was recognised as being clearly different from standard English and was probably being referred to at the time alternatively as ‘Sandalwood English’ or just ‘Sandalwood’ or as ‘Beach-la-mar English’ or just ‘Beach-la-mar’ (Crowley 1990: 60-65).
Comprehension questions
1.Where and when was the first shore station established?
2.In addition to sandalwood, what other kind of stations operated in the islands?
3.Other than Melanesians, who worked on the shore stations?
4.As well as working on shore stations in the sandalwood and sea slug trades, what other type of work did Melanesians begin taking part in?
5.According to the table, on what island did sandalwood shore stations operate for the largest number of years?
Thinking further
Consider the positive and negative effects the establishment of shore stations had on the lives of Islanders.
Discussion activity
Imagine that you are a Tannese man in the mid 1800s. Would you agree to go and work on a shore station in the Isle of Pines? Why or why not? What do you think would have been challenging about travelling to a new island during that time period?
In the early 1850s, the price of sandalwood dropped. The Chinese market had been flooded with Pacific sandalwood. Traders no longer made a profit from sandalwood and supplies of sandalwood growing near the coast were running out. By 1865, the sandalwood trade had finished in our islands.
Traders such as Paddon and Towns began to look for other ways to make money. Some turned to whaling and others to copra production. The end of the sandalwood era marks the beginning of the plantation period as well as a time of increased missionary presence in our islands.
Impacts of the Sandalwood Trade
The sandalwood trade marks the first regular contact between Islanders and Europeans. The trading of sandalwood for European items as well as traditional items had several impacts on traditional lives:
•The introduction of European goods such as axes, nails, fish hooks, gl*** bottles and calico radically changed peoples’ lives, particularly with regard to time and labour. For example, it took less time to cut down a tree with an axe and less time to make clothing because people could wear calico rather than gr***-skirts (However, it is important to remember that the process of washing clothes made from calico was more labour-intensive).
•Bargaining with European traders was a honed skill.
•When tobacco was introduced as a trading item in the late 1840s, the practice of smoking spread quickly. Alcohol was also introduced but did not become popular until the sandalwood trade had ended. Why do you think alcohol was not initially a popular trading item?
•Islanders who went to work for trading stations depended on their employers for food and shelter and had to follow a different way of life.
Contemporary Sandalwood Trade
Sandalwood is still logged in Vanuatu today, although on a smaller scale than in the 1800s. The Department of Forestry regulates sandalwood logging in all the islands. Some islands have temporary restrictions on logging sandalwood. Those who are permitted to log sandalwood have a restriction on the annual total weight of sandalwood. People who buy sandalwood are required to obtain a permit from the Department of Forestry before they can trade. Today, in addition to sandalwood, many hardwoods are logged in Vanuatu. Black palm is also logged to carve tamtams for sale in urban areas and abroad.
Thinking further
What are the issues that surround logging throughout our islands? On which islands is logging still utilised as a source of income? Do portable sawmills operate on your island? If you live near the provincial headquarters in your province, visit your local Forestry Officer to find out.