THE TRADING VOYAGES OF ANDREW CHEYNE 1841-1844 Pacific History Series

368 Pages·2016·17.44 MB·English

THE TRADING VOYAGES
OF ANDREW CHEYNE
1841-1844
Dorothy Shineberg
Editor
Pacific History Series: No. 3
f I i his is the record of one man’s
voyages in the Western Pacific in
the 1840s, told by himself. At an early
age, Andrew Cheyne came from the
Shetland Islands to seek his fortune in
the Pacific area, and, being a competent
and trustworthy young man, was soon
engaged in a series of trading voyages
for different ship owners. In the four
voyages described he searched for
sandalwood, beche-de-mer, and other
tropical produce at the Isle of Pines,
New Caledonia, the Loyalty Islands and
the Solomons in Melanesia, and Ponape,
Yap, and Palau in Micronesia.
Relations between the islanders and
the Europeans, and between Cheyne
and rival traders, castaways, and
deserters, were by no means always
harmonious. Encounters with hostile
natives who relished human flesh, and
with belligerent white beachcombers,
added danger to already hazardous
voyages.
Cheyne was shocked by the godless
and abandoned way of life of the native
peoples, but he was an accurate
observer, and it would be hard to better
his careful account of the places and
peoples he encountered and the details
of island trade. This is one of the
earliest documents on the Western
Pacific by a European, a very important
source for Pacific historians and anthro­
pologists, and an exciting book for all
fascinated by the early adventurers of
the Pacific.
Price in Australia
$7-95
This book was published by ANU Press between 1965–1991.
This republication is part of the digitisation project being carried
out by Scholarly Information Services/Library and ANU Press.
This project aims to make past scholarly works published
by The Australian National University available to
a global audience under its open-access policy.
No. 3 of the Pacific History Series
General Editor: H. E. Maude
Literary Adviser: J. W. Davidson
THE TRADING VOYAGES
OF ANDREW CHEYNE
1841-1844
Dorothy Shineberg
Editor
AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY PRESS
CANBERRA
l91l
© Introduction and annotations, Dorothy Lois
Shineberg 1971
The manuscript is reproduced by kind permission
of the Trustees of the Mitchell Library, where it is
accessioned as MS B1408
Printed in Australia
Registered in Australia for transmission by post
as a book
Library of Congress Catalog Card no. 70-135159
National Library of Australia Card no. and
ISBN o 7081 0125 9
I he Pacific History Series of books provides an
outlet for the publication of original manuscripts
important to historians and others interested in the
Pacific islands.
Works already published are:
1 A Cruize in a Queensland Labour Vessel to the South
Seas, by W. E. Giles, edited by Deryck Scarr
(1968)
2 The Works of Ta’unga. Records of a Polynesian
Traveller in the South Seas, 1833-1896, by R. G.
and Marjorie Crocombe (1968)
FOREWORD
Just four and a half centuries ago this year, Ferdinand Magellan
ci ossed the Pacific Ocean, discovered the first Pacific island to be
seen by European eyes—probably Pukapuka in the Tuamotus—
and the hist Pacific islanders—almost certainly Chamorros from
Guam -while on this epic voyage the industrious Pigafetta and
the navigator Albo were writing the earliest accounts of the
region.
Pigafetta and Albo were seafarers; and if we except the docu­
mentation emanating from the Marianas since their occupation
by the Spanish in 1668, and the letters and testimonies of the
martyred Father Cantova and his party who landed at Ulithi in
the Carolines in 1731, for the initial three-fourths of the whole
post-contact period, or until Morrison landed to live in Tahiti
in 1789, the sole written record concerning the islands was
provided by those on board visiting ships.
These were the narratives of the explorers and discoverers,
destined to give way during the first half of the nineteenth
century to the journals of the whaling and trading captains,
which were in turn succeeded during the last half by those of the
labour lecruiters and the commanders of warships, surveying
vessels and scientific research expeditions; and finally by the
never-ceasing modern yachting travelogues.
This maritime literature still fills perhaps a third of the shelving
in a typical Pacific research library, and of the works included
probably none are more important to students of the island
peoples than the accounts of the itinerant trading captains of the
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early part of the nineteenth century, and others on board their
ships. Despite the advent of beachcombers, missionaries and
other literate European residents, they constitute a main, if not
the main, source of our information on events and personalities
in the islands.
Admittedly the sea traders were unable to give the detailed
accounts of life ashore which we find in the best works of the
local residents, but they compensated by their ability to observe
and compare societies and individuals on many islands and
groups, by being less given to parochial or sectarian bias, and
frequently by visiting localities beyond the horizon of the most
venturesome expatriate settler.
Furthermore, as Dr Shineberg points out in her Introduction,
and emphasises with more detail in her book, They Came for
Sandalwood, they had to ascertain and conform to local mores and
etiquette, as well as to the consumer preferences of their cus­
tomers, if they were to succeed in their ventures. Though the
traders frequently had to pay the pipers, it was the islanders who
in reality called the tunes.
Mixing of necessity with all sections of the island societies, and
often employing mainly island crews, the most successful trading
captains took a genuine interest in the island peoples which
transcended the rudimentary knowledge of those aspects of their
culture necessary for the smooth conduct of business relations.
One has only to think of Turnbull, Fanning, Peter Dillon,
Coulter, Benjamin Morrell, Eaglestone, Handy, George Bennett,
Beckford Simpson, and Lucett to realise how much we are in
debt to the shipmasters engaged in trading for sandalwood,
beche-de-mer, and other island produce, and to their super­
cargoes and officers, for our knowledge of the island world in the
early years of culture contact. And not less, one might add, to
some of their wives: intrepid women like Abby Jane Morrell and
Mary Wallis.
In such a percipient and articulate class of sailor-trader-author
Andrew Cheyne is well able to hold his own, as will be seen from
this narrative of his voyages from 1841 to 1844, transcribed from
his original text in the Mitchell Library. The work of editing this
important but hitherto almost unknown manuscript has
fortunately been undertaken by the Pacific historian Dorothy
Shineberg. Certainly no one is better qualified for the task, not
only by virtue of her subject specialisations, but also through her
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special knowledge of early contact history in both Melanesia
and western Micronesia.
In her Introduction Dr Shineberg has provided a biographical
sketch of Cheyne which portrays well his complicated personality:
severe in his criticism of the conduct of others, both islanders and
Europeans, yet conscientious in his own behaviour towards them.
Thanks to her, justice has been belatedly done towards a man
whom the fates treated unkindly throughout most of his life and,
due to not always disinterested detractors such as Karl Semper
and Alfred Tetens, hardly better in retrospect.
H. E. Maude
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