The Papalagi

CHAPTER THREE

The Papalagi

Contributors:

Malama Meleisea Penelope Schoeffel Meleisea Isalei Va 'ai Gatoloai Peseta S. Sio Sofara Aveau Salale Salale I'iga Suafole Tanuvasa Tavale

Explorers from Europe in the Eighteenth Century

There are hundreds of legends and genealogies which record contact and intermarriage between Samoans, Tongans and Fijians. These are supported by historical records from the eighteenth century, before Samoans had established regular contacts with Europeans. For example, Sanalala, an ancestor of Salamasina, was a son of the then Tui Tonga's daughter. There were many other important, chiefly descend-ants of Tui Tonga; the mother of Salamasina was Vaetoifaga, who married the Tui Tonga. This Tui Tonga also married Taupoimasina, the daughter of Muli'agatele Lefono of Amoa. Another legend tells of Leutogitupa'itea, the daughter of Lafailapaitagato from Pouliafata in the village of Vaisala, who married Tui Tonga Niutamatou. Their son, known as To'osega or Fa'asega, brought the ao title, Tonumaipe'a, to Samoa. To this day there is a place called Neiafu in Western Savai'i and a place of the same name on the island ofVava'u in Tonga. Another descendant of Tui Tonga in Samoa was Le'aumoana, whose mother Maupenei was the daughter of La'ulunofovaleane. She married Tui Tonga Puipuifatu, the son of Tui Tonga Vakafuhu, whose wives, Popoai and Taufaito'o, were from the family of Leali'ifanovalevale of Samoa. Malietoa

Taufapapa was another Samoan chief descended from Tui Tonga. His mother, Silepea, was descended from Mata'afa of Faleata and Malietoa Sagagaimuli. She married Tui Tonga Takalaua. There are also titles and place names in Samoa which originate from Fiji. The first Tuisamoa, an ancestor of Salamasina, came to Falealili from Fiji. The village of Poutasi is named after Tuisamoa's house which was said to have been built in a Fijian style, with one post. The village of Fagamalo is also said to have been found by Fijians, and the famous aitu of Fagamalo is 'Tui Fti'. Another story explains how Matautu, Sataua, Salega and Safotu in Savai'i were founded by the children of Laufafaitoga. She was the daughter of Tui Tonga, and her husbands were Tupa'imataua of Samoa and Lautala of Fiji. The ancestors of chiefs in the village of Vailele in the Vaimauga district were descended from Tinu'ula and Timu'ula, who went to Fiji and married Tui Fiti. Their children brought the kava plant to Samoa. Another well-known story is 'The Fala of Futa' This tells of a beautiful fine mat woven in Tutuila by a lady called Maofa. This mat was carried to Tonga as a gift for Tui Tonga in return for the lives of some Samoans there. According to legend, the mat was brought back to Samoa by the daughter of Tui Tonga Takalaua, who gave it to Lesapioamoa of Pu'apu'a village in the Amoa district. From that event Samoan fine mats were called "ie toga'. (There are other versions of the name "ie toga'.)

These legends show that Samoa was not totally isolated in the past, and that Samoans traded, visited, and intermarried with some neighbouring societies. Nevertheless, Samoans had no knowledge of countries beyond the Pacific Ocean, or the more distant ones within it, and when the first European explorers arrived off the shores of Samoa in the eighteenth century, it must have been as strange an event as the arrival of men from outer space would be today. The term papalagi for European originates from that time. It means sky-breakers or to have burst through heaven. Samoans envisaged the universe as a dome, ending at the horizon. The dome had many layers above, where the gods lived. When the Europeans arrived, it was thought that they had broken through the domes of heaven and that Europeans were, like gods, of supernatural origin. This was a common reaction in many parts of the Pacific; for example, in Hawaii, Cook's visit coincided with a festival for the god Lono, and the Hawaiians thought Cook was Lono himself. In other parts of the Pacific, the first European visitors were mistaken for returning ancestors.

Once Samoans realized that the Europeans were humans like themselves, their ideas about the world and the shape of the universe must have been profoundly disturbed. They had no way of understanding where these strange visitors came from, the origin of many things

42 that they brought with them, or why they had come. Before the fifteenth century, the Europeans, just like Samoans, knew very little about the world. It was generally thought that the world was flat and that if ships sailed too far west, they would fall over the edge. At this time there was great rivalry between European kingdoms, such as Spain and Portugal, to find trade routes across the seas to new lands from which gold and spices and other valuable products could be obtained. The navigator Christopher Columbus wanted to prove that the world was round by sailing west from Europe to reach India and China, and returning to Europe from the east. In trying to demonstrate his theory, he discovered North America and New World in 1492. It was not until 1522 that the world was circumnavigated successfully by a fleet led by Magellan, a Spaniard, who sailed from South America and across the Pacific to the Philippines, where he died. His crew returned to Europe on the regular trading route between Europe and the East Indies, to tell of their captain's discovery. Other voyages were made across the Pacific by the Spanish navigators Mendana and Quiros in 1567 and 1595. Such voyages took many years to complete; European marine technology was not highly advanced and the voyages were very dangerous. The long months at sea without fresh food caused the crews to become ill with scurvy, a disease caused by vitamin C deficiency. There was no accurate means of measuring longitude in those days; thus, the European navigators could not make accurate maps and charts locating Pacific islands they had visited. Nevertheless, these long voyages provided European seamen with new knowledge which enabled them to improve ship building, navigation and mapping.

In the seventeenth century the Dutch became the leading sea- faring nation in Europe and, in 1642, Abel Tasman sailed close to Samoa without realizing it, when he discovered the islands of Tonga while crossing the Pacific to the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). The first European to describe the Samoan islands was Joseph Roggeveen, a Dutch navigator who sailed to the Pacific in 1721 to look for the 'Terra Australis Incognita' (the unknown southern continent) which many European navigators and geographers believed must lie in the south Pacific Ocean. Roggeveen called at Manu'a, where he exchanged beads and mirrors for food. In 1768, the islands of Samoa were sighted by the French navigator Louis de Bougainville, who gave them the name 'the Navigator Islands', because he encountered Samoans sailing small canoes far from the sight of land, and he assumed that they must have good knowledge of navigation to do this without getting lost at sea.

The third recorded visit to Samoa by Europeans resulted in violence when the French explorer, La Perouse, landed on Tutuila.

After an initially peaceful encounter, his men were attacked by a party of Samoans and twelve were killed, probably because the French had punished some Samoans for stealing from the ship. Following this incident, La Perouse sailed along the coasts of Savai'i and Upolu before continuing his voyage. In 1791, the British ship, Pandora, was attacked off the coast of Tutuila. The crew opened fire on the Samoans and many were killed. This may have been the first experience Samoans had of the power of the guns of the papalagi.

By this time, European knowledge of navigation had advanced. The famous English navigator, Captain James Cook, had made three voyages to the Pacific, and had discovered the 'Southern Continent', Australia. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, improved marine technology, and more accurate maps and charts, had opened up the way for European trade in the South Pacific.

Whalers, Traders and Beachcombers (The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries)

During the latter part of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century, goods which were in demand in Europe included whale bone and whale oil, and furs from the north and south Pacific. Whale bone was used in making corsets for women. This required a flexible framework for which whale bone was ideal. Whale oil was used in lamps in the days before petroleum and gas became widely used and, in Europe's cold climate, the upper classes wanted furs for coats. The Pacific coast of North America a rich source of fur-bearing animals and whales, as were the southern areas of the Pacific ocean. This brought many ships to the Pacific from the 1780s onwards.

Goods from China, especially tea, silk and porcelain, were also greatly in demand by the wealthier classes of Europe, and the North American colonies. Ships sailing to China from the east across the Pacific had to sell something to the Chinese to be able to buy these things from them. Thus, the Pacific trade developed. Whaling and sealing vessels came into the Pacific from North America and Europe and, after long months in the cold northern and southern latitudes, sailed to the central Pacific and its tropical islands to collect fruit, pork and other foods. The settlement of Port Jackson in the colony of New South Wales in Australia developed along with trade in the Pacific, and provided a market for pork from the Pacific Islands. Merchant seamen in the Pacific discovered sandalwood on many islands, and sea slugs called 'beche-de-mer', were abundant in tropical lagoons. These two commodities were in demand in China; sandalwood for making sweet-smelling chests and for burning as incense, and dried beche-de-mer,

44 for food and medicine. Ships collected sandalwood and beche-de- mer from the Islands and transported them to China where they were exchanged for tea, silk and porcelain for the European market. The killing of La Perouse's men gave Samoa a bad reputation among the whalers and traders in the 1780s but, by the end of the century, ships began to call regulary at Samoa for supplies, although it was not on the main Pacific trading route. By the 1820s, a number of Europeans had settled in Samoa. Some were criminals who had escaped from prison-settlements in New South Wales, Tasmania and Norfolk Island. Others were sailers who had become tired of the hard life on board the whaling ships. Samoans accepted these men, referred to as `beachcombers' by their fellow Europeans, because they knew how to do useful things, such as fixing muskets and building fautasi (whale boats). They could also explain the strange ways of the papalagi. Some beachcombers were peaceful men who lived quietly among the Samoans; others were violent and tyrannical. For example, `Irish Tom', who lived on Manono in the early 1820s, helped Samoans in their wars. He was greatly feared, and was eventually killed by his hosts who could no longer tolerate his violent demands. On the other hand, two of Samoa's oldest part-European families was established in the 1830s by the beachcombers Stowers and Hunkin. Both became respectable traders.

Sometimes Samoans were taken on board visiting ships as crew members. A Samoan sailor called Sio Vili was one of several who visited Australia and other Pacific islands. He attempted to introduce Christianity to Samoans in the 1820s, before the arrival of the missionaries. The Europeans had substantial influence in Samoa before 1830. Despite the relatively few visits they made to Samoa and the small number of European settlers, their presence had a great impact on the economy, politics and beliefs of Samoans. For example, the introduction of iron tools made it possible to cut trees and clear land in much less time than with stone tools. Steel made it easier to carve weapons, make fish hooks and spears. These factors, combined with the introduction of European muskets, gun powder and iron nails for boat building, may have increased the number of wars among Samoans, since men had more time available and better weapons. (The question of introduced diseases and the effects these may have had on the

Samoan population has been discussed in Chapter Two.) Perhaps the greatest impact of Europeans on Samoans in the early period of contact was in regard to religious beliefs. Old ideas and old gods were no longer adequate to explain the world or to deal with

45 changes. As a result, Samoans were receptive to the teachings about a new God, when John Williams arrived in 1830.

European Philosophy and the Pacific Islands

Discovery of the Pacific islands and the descriptions of them which reached Europe in the eighteenth century had greatly influenced European ideas, especially about human nature.. European philosophers argued about this; some, like the British philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, argued that man was essentially bad, that is, without religion, government, laws and strong leadership, human behaviour would be quarrel-some and uncooperative. Others, like the French philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau, argued that "in a state of nature" the behaviour of man was essentially "good". By a "state of nature" Rousseau meant simple, primitive society. He believed that the complex, unequal, specialized civilizations of Europe had adverse effects upon human nature and that if man lived close to nature, human behaviour would be full of kindness and co-operation. (Similar ideas in the famous book Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead explain why this book has been so popular since it was written in 1929.) When the account of Bougainville's visit to Tahiti reached the intellectuals of Europe, it seemed to prove Rousseau's view of human nature. Tahiti was described as an ideal society where everyone lived in beautiful surroundings with good health and abundant food, without any of the political institutions which Europeans considered necessary to maintain order. The doctrine of "natural goodness" became very popular in Europe, causing many well-meaning people concern for those who lived in ignorance of Christian teaching. These ideas had a strong influence on the missionary movement in European churches.

Later accounts of Tahiti and Hawaii were less romantic and told of social inequality, warfare and human sacrifices. Nevertheless, the idea that Polynesians were noble savages, who lived in islands that were like `paradise', has remained a part of European ideas about the world since that time.

Rivalry in Europe and its Effects upon the Pacific Islands The beginning of the nineteenth century brought great changes to Europe which would eventually affect the whole world. These changes began in Great Britain and led to what is known as the Industrial Revolution. During the eighteenth century gradual changes occurred in Britain which resulted in the transfer of social and economic power from the hands of the land-owning aristocracy to a new middle-class of

46 factory owners, merchants and traders. The discovery of the steam engine and other technological changes transformed the economy of Great Britain from one based upon agriculture to one based upon mechanised manufacturing and trade. The growth of the British Empire in the nineteenth century was directly related to this economic trans-formation; Britain needed raw materials for her industries. Britain's wealth was earned by importing cheap raw materials and manufacturing them into a wide range of products to be sold in Britain and on foreign markets. To produce the raw materials in Britain's colonies, cheap labour was required and British investors moved millions of Africans, Chinese and Indians around the world as slaves or indentured plantation labourers to the various territories under British administration.

The Industrial Revolution made Britain the leader of Europe, but Britain was engaged in strong political rivalry with France throughout the nineteenth century. In 1790, a revolution in France overthrew the king and the aristocracy. The brilliant military leader, General Napoleon Bonaparte, conquered Austria and parts of Italy in the decade following the French revolution and he established himself as the new Emperor of France. By the early years of the nineteenth century the French, under Napoleon, began to threaten Britain and Russia. In 1812 Napoleon failed in his invasion of Russia, lost his position as Emperor and was exiled to the island of Elba. But in 1815 he escaped and returned to power in France, and Britain and her allies defeated France at Waterloo. Napoleon was again sent into exile.

After 1815, competition between England and France was often expressed through rivalry between Catholic and Protestant missions in the Pacific. Although both countries had Protestant and Catholic popultions; the established Church of France was Roman Catholic, whereas the established Church of England was Protestant. During the nineteenth century, the French government supported Catholic missionaries to promote Christianity along with French language, culture and political interests in various parts of the world. Indirectly, British missionaries were doing the same thing in Africa, Asia and the South Pacific. The first missionaries to become established in the South Pacific were British Protestants. The subsequent arrival of French Catholic missionaries aroused alarm and suspicion which was based .upon both sectarian and nationalistic rivalry. It has often been argued py historians that the "cross went before the flag", meaning that -missionary activity was often followed by colonial annexation. It is also argued that colonization was carried out largely to serve European, in this case British, commercial interests.

By the late nineteenth century, Britain had extensive colonies around the world; the largest empire in history. British interests in the

Pacific were not based upon the desire to acquire more colonies. Canada, Australia and New Zealand on the Pacific rim, were already British, and Fiji, in the central Pacific, was ceded to Britain in 1872. The pressure to acquire more colonies came from British missionaries, traders and planters on the many small islands in the South Pacific. They feared that, unless Britain declared sovereignty, the islands would be taken by France or Germany. Germany had only become a nation in the 1870s through the merger of a number of small kingdoms and principalities. As in France, the Industrial Revolution only became established in Germany in the second half of the nineteenth century and, in order to rival Britain in economic development, France and Germany were eager to acquire new colonies. German empire-building was carried out by giving official government backing to German companies in potential colonial areas in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. This policy assumed that once German interests dominated the economy of a territory, a political takeover would be easy. Thus, German interests could call upon their national, political, military and naval resources to support their commercial expansion in many pants of the world. By the 1870s, Apia was the centre of German commercial interest in the South Pacific, arousing strong fears in the British residents of Samoa that Germany intended to colonize the islands. As in many other parts of the Pacific, Britain was not interested in further colonial acquisition, but British authorities had to consider the interests of her citizens, in the islands and in Australia and New Zealand, who strongly opposed the establishment of French and German colonies in the South Pacific.

The only non-European imperial power in the Pacific in the nineteenth century was the United States which, like Britain, Germany and France, had major economic interests in the South Pacific. Whaling and the China tea trade was dominated by Americans, while the United States had no direct colonial ambitions, she wished to protect her commercial interests in the Pacific. These were centered on American merchant shipping and what America wanted was a safe harbour, refuelling and provisioning facilities in the Pacific Islands. The centre of American interests were the Hawaiian islands which, by 1898, had been annexed by the USA, after years of pressure from American commercial interests in Hawaii. In 1878 the American Secretary of State and the Samoan chief Mamea Faletoese negotiated a treaty granting the Unites States a naval base at Pago Pago, but these rights were not exclusive Other Samoan chiefs gave Germany a base at Saluafata on Upolu, anc invited the British to establish a base as well, in the area of their choice. The prospect of German annexation of the Samoan islands was disagreeable to the Americans since they may have lost, as a result, canto of the finest deep water harbour in the South Pacific. This station at

Pago Pago had become particularly important to the United States, as her merchant ships and navy changed from sail power to steam .engines in the second half of the century. Pago Pago Harbour provided American ships with stored supplies of coal, a fuel which was essential in a mid-Pacific location for trans-Pacific shipping. Another subject of disagreement between Britain and Germany concerned the recruitment of labour. By the 1880s Britain was attempting, through the Western Pacific Commission, based in Fiji, to regulate labour recruiting in uncolonized Pacific islands. This had become a serious problem in the nineteenth century, particularly after 1850, with the development of sugar plantations in Queensland and large scale copra plantations in the Pacific islands. Recruiting boats were using tricks to get recruits in many island groups, particularly in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu (New Hebrides). Aside from the cruelty to the people in these islands, it was creating a situation where European traders and missionaries were being killed in revenge for the wicked acts of labour recruiters who had been there before them. The trouble was that by the 1880s, British interests in Fiji no longer needed to recruit island labour. They were bringing indentured workers from India to labour in the sugar plantations. It was Germany which relied most upon Pacific Island labour for her coconut plantations in the western islands of Samoa, and therefore, resented British intrusion into German recruiting activities. By the late 1880s, competition between Germany, Britain and America had centered upon Samoa, and reached a peak when Britain demanded a mandate over the Islands, which led to the dispatch of warships by the three Powers to Apia in 1888. On 16 March 1889, before hostility between three powers broke out, a hurricane hit Samoa, sinking six of the warships.

By the end of the nineteenth century the various European powers had laid claim to all the islands of the Pacific. The Hawaiian islands and Eastern Samoa were annexed by the USA, Germany had taken the Marianas, Marshall and Caroline islands of Micronesia, the north-western part of New Guinea and western islands of Samoa. Britain ruled Fiji, Papua, the Gilbert (Kiribati) and Ellice islands (Tuvalu) and shared the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) with France, which ruled the Society Islands and New Caledonia as well. Tonga alone remained semi-independent as a British Protectorate.

Plate 5. Toyal Kava Ceremony on a Malae (‘ava fa’atupu)

Plate 6. Seumanutafa of Apia.