Pursuing Respect in the Cannibal Isles

Nancy Shoemaker

Description

Full of colorful details and engrossing stories, Pursuing Respect in the Cannibal Isles shows that the aspirations of individual Americans to be recognized as people worthy of others' respect was a driving force in the global extension of United States influence shortly after the nation's founding.Nancy Shoemaker contends that what she calls extraterritorial Americans constituted the vanguard of a vast, early US global expansion. Using as her site of historical investigation nineteenth-century Fiji, the "cannibal isles" of American popular culture, she uncovers stories of Americans looking for opportunities to rise in social status and enhance their sense of self. Prior to British colonization in 1874, extraterritorial Americans had, she argues, as much impact on Fiji as did the British. While the American economy invested in the extraction of sandalwood and sea slugs as resources to sell in China, individuals who went to Fiji had more complicated, personal objectives.Pursuing Respect in the Cannibal Isles considers these motivations through the lives of the three Americans who left the deepest imprint on Fiji: a runaway whaleman who settled in the islands, a sea captain's wife, and a merchant. Shoemaker's book shows how ordinary Americans living or working overseas found unusual venues where they could show themselves worthy of others' respect-others' approval, admiration, or deference.

Sujets

• Histoire
• USA
• Fiyi
• Maritime history
• History of the Americas
• Fiji
• États-Unis
• Fidji

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 novembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501740350
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

PURSUING RESPECT IN THE CANNIBAL ISLES

Avolumeintheseries

TheUnitedStatesintheWorld

editedbyMarkPhilipBradley,DavidC.Engerman, Amy S. Greenberg, and Paul A. Kramer

A list of titles in this series is available at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

PURSUINGRESPECTINTHE CANNIBAL ISLES

AmericansinNineteenth- Century Fiji

NancyShoemaker

CornellUniversityPress IthacaandLondon

Copyright © 2019 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

First published 2019 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Names: Shoemaker, Nancy, 1958– author. Title: Pursuing respect in the Cannibal Isles : Americans in nineteenth  century Fiji / Nancy Shoemaker. Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2019. | Series: The United  States in the world | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019002355 (print) | LCCN 2019004117 (ebook) |  ISBN 9781501740350 (pdf ) | ISBN 9781501740367 (epub/mobi) |  ISBN 9781501740343 | ISBN 9781501740343 (cloth: alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Americans—Travel—Fiji—History—19th century. |  Fiji—Foreign public opinion, American—History—19th century. |  Visitors, Foreign—Fiji—Attitudes. | Fiji—Social life and customs—  19th century. | United States—Social life and customs—19th century. |  Fiji—Description and travel. | Public opinion—United States. Classification: LCC DU600 (ebook) | LCC DU600 .S477 2019 (print) |  DDC 996.11—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019002355 Jacket photograph: A canoe landing on the island of Bau. Conway Shipley, “Mbure’ or house of a Spirit. Mbau. Feejee Is,” fromSketches in the Pacific (London: T. McLean, 1851), T 601 (Folio A), File Number 35592200010, lithograph, Paul Mellon Collection, Yale Center for British Art.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction:WhyGoaFijiVoyage?

1. Butenam: Knowledge

PartI:TheBeachcomber:DavidWhippy 2.Mata ki Bau: RespectVakaviti 3. Chief of All the White Men: Character

PartII:TheSeaCaptain’sWife:MaryD.Wallis 4. By a Lady: Moral Authority 5.Marama: Social Class

PartIII:TheMerchant:JohnB.Williams 6. This Hell upon Earth: Competence and Wealth

vii

1 14

47 76

105 132

161

vi

Contents

7. Tui America: Power Epilogue:ContinuityandChangeinU.S.FijiRelations

AppendixA:SandalwoodVoyages

AppendixB:BêchedeMerVoyages

AppendixC:ForeignNavalVesselsinFijito1860

Abbreviations Glossary Notes

Bibliography Index

186 211

219 227 237 243

245 247 289 327

Acknowledgments

This project was supported by a residential fellowship at the Massachusetts Historical Society sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. I thank Conrad Wright, Kate Viens, and others at that remarkably resource rich and friendly institution for the supportive and intellectual camaraderie they provide to all their research fellows. I also received crucial research travel funds from the University of Connecticut Research Foundation. The majority of written records related to Fiji history before 1860 are at the Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum. I shamelessly over worked the staff with my requests. They were always prompt, gracious, and welcoming, and I feel supremely grateful for their patience and endurance. I also owe special thanks to the staff at the National Archives at Boston, John Thomson of the First Baptist Church of Beverly, Joan Duffy in Special Collections at the Yale Divinity School Library, the staff of the National Archives of the Fiji Islands, and the University of Connecticut interlibrary loan office. The several opportunities I had to present portions of this work were extraordinarily fruitful in prodding me to think through my objectives. For anyone who may have contributed suggestions or questions along the way, I appreciated your engagement with the history of a place that, for nearly

viii

Acknowledgments

all of you, was far outside your own areas of expertise. To Seth Rockman, who invited me to speak at the NineteenthCentury History Workshop at Brown University; Konstantin Dierks, who invited me to participate in an early American globalism workshop at Indiana University; and the organiz ers of the Human Trafficking Conference at the McNeil Center, thanks for allowing me to share my work in these venues as these discussions greatly influenced the course taken by various chapters in the book. Other historians sharing my interest in the Pacific, the role of maritime trade in the history of America and the world, and history in general sup ported this project with advice and encouragement. I particularly thank Ann Fabian, Edward Gray, Vicki Luker, Brian DeLay, Emily ConroyKrutz, Ann Plane, Brian Rouleau, Susan SleeperSmith, and my University of Con necticut colleagues Peter Baldwin, Martha Cutter, Cornelia Dayton, Shawn Salvant, and Chris Vials. When I first conceived of this project, I had an opportunity to speak with Ian Campbell and David Routledge while in Fiji, and I greatly appreciated their insights and recommendations. MichaelMcGandy(acquisitionseditoratCornellUniversityPress),Amy Greenberg (coeditor of Cornell’s United States in the World book series), and two anonymous manuscript reviewers also offered invaluable sugges tions that have found their way into the book. I thank them for the attention they showed the project.

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AUSTRALIA

300 500

600 mi 1000 km

VANUATU

Sydney

Map 1.Fiji and the Southwest Pacific

NEW CALEDONIA

FIJI Levuka

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TONGA

S O U T H P A C I F I C O C E A N

Bay of Islands

NEW ZEALAND