8.31 The pacific: a.d. 1701 to 1800

The pacific

Back to The Pacific: A.D. 1601 to 1700

We have discussed in earlier modules the great difficulties in direct west to east crossings of the Pacific in primitive vessels. Even in 1707 to 1711 Monsieur de Frondad, while sailing without particular difficulty from Port Louis, France down around the tip of South America, up the west coast to Huacho and then across the Pacific to China, then took 6 months to come back across the Pacific to Cape St. Lucas. Ocean currents and winds are not conducive to such trips. European voyages in the Pacific were originally searches for a habitable, southern continent or for a usable northern strait to the orient, both imaginary. But they did reveal an insular New Zealand and a habitable eastern Australia, many attractive islands and a valuable shale industry. (Ref. 8 ) When the Dutchmen Jacob Roggeveen stumbled on Easter Island in 1722, there were probably 3,000 or 4,000 people on the island, representing a mixed group with some fair-skinned and some dark-skinned, who lit fires before some enormous statues standing in a row. The statues, even then, were old and eroded. The people appeared to be living in near anarchy amid the wreckage of a once high culture and cannibalism was common. Roggeveen, however, was given great quantities of sweet potatoes, which they called by the Peruvian name "Kumara". (Ref. 176 , 95 ) When the Spaniards finally arrived on that island in 1770 they found it to be at exactly the direction and distance f rom Ecuador that had been detailed to their earlier comrades by the Incas some two centuries before. The Spaniards' description of Easter Island included the presence of plantains, chili peppers, sweet potatoes and fowls. The plants were all those known in pre-European Peru and had been present in pre-Inca burials. Of perhaps more importance, they found totora reeds in large bogs of old crater lakes and from these the islanders built houses and boats, furniture, baskets, fish-nets, etc.

These reeds also had been grown in irrigated fields on the coast of Peru and similarly used. Easter Island tradition insists that an early ancestor, Ure

In a sense, the first British Empire collapsed in 1783 when the 13 American colonies broke free, but then the second British Empire involved the British dominance of the South Pacific. In this 18th century Oceania belonged to the British and the French. This began before with the voyages of William Dampier, who had twice visited the Indian Ocean coast of New Holland (Australia) between 1681 and 1711. Captain John Byron (grandfather of the poet) took possession of the Falklands in 1765 and Samuel Wallis and Philip Carteret followed with exploration of Tahiti, Pitcairn, New Britain, Philippines, Celebes, etc.