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- 4512
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:15.149Z
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- 4442
- text
- departure.
At a period subsequent to my first visit, the island, which before was
divided into nineteen districts, with a native chief over each, in
capacity of governor and judge, was, by Bruat, divided into four. Over
these he set as many recreant chiefs, Kitoti, Tati, Utamai, and
Paraita; to whom he paid 1000 dollars each, to secure their assistance
in carrying out his evil designs.
The first blood shed, in any regular conflict, was at Mahanar, upon the
peninsula of Taraiboo. The fight originated in the seizure of a number
of women from the shore by men belonging to one of the French vessels
of war. In this affair, the islanders fought desperately, killing about
fifty of the enemy, and losing ninety of their own number. The French
sailors and marines, who, at the time, were reported to be infuriated
with liquor, gave no quarter; and the survivors only saved themselves
by fleeing to the mountains. Subsequently, the battles of Hararparpi
and Fararar were fought, in which the invaders met with indifferent
success.
Shortly after the engagement at Hararparpi, three Frenchmen were
waylaid in a pass of the valleys, and murdered by the incensed natives.
One was Lefevre, a notorious scoundrel, and a spy, whom Bruat had sent
to conduct a certain Major Fergus (said to be a Pole) to the
hiding-place of four chiefs, whom the governor wished to seize and
execute. This circumstance violently inflamed the hostility of both
parties.
About this time, Kitoti, a depraved chief, and the pliant tool of
Bruat, was induced by him to give a great feast in the Vale of Paree,
to which all his countrymen were invited. The governor’s object was to
gain over all he could to his interests; he supplied an abundance of
wine and brandy, and a scene of bestial intoxication was the natural
consequence. Before it came to this, however, several speeches were
made by the islanders. One of these, delivered by an aged warrior, who
had formerly been at the head of the celebrated Aeorai Society, was
characteristic. “This is a very good feast,” said the reeling old man,
“and the wine also is very good; but you evil-minded Wee-Wees (French),
and you false-hearted men of Tahiti, are all very bad.”
By the latest accounts, most of the islanders still refuse to submit to
the French; and what turn events may hereafter take, it is hard to
predict. At any rate, these disorders must accelerate the final
extinction of their race.
Along with the few officers left by Du Petit Thouars were several
French priests, for whose unobstructed exertions in the dissemination
of their faith, the strongest guarantees were provided by an article of
the treaty. But no one was bound to offer them facilities; much less a
luncheon, the first day they went ashore. True, they had plenty of
gold; but to the natives it was anathema—taboo—and, for several hours
and some odd minutes, they would not touch it. Emissaries of the Pope
and the devil, as the strangers were considered—the smell of sulphur
hardly yet shaken out of their canonicals—what islander would venture
to jeopardize his soul, and call down a blight on his breadfruit, by
holding any intercourse with them! That morning the priests actually
picknicked in grove of cocoa-nut trees; but, before night, Christian
hospitality—in exchange for a commercial equivalent of hard dollars—was
given them in an adjoining house.
Wanting in civility, as the conduct of the English missionaries may be
thought, in withholding a decent reception to these persons, the latter
were certainly to blame in needlessly placing themselves in so
unpleasant a predicament. Under far better auspices, they might have
settled upon some one of the thousand unconverted isles of the Pacific,
rather than have forced themselves thus upon a people already
professedly Christians.
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