The Shining Sea (36 page)

As the days went by, Porter and his men came to have a higher and higher regard for the island people. Porter wrote,

They have been stigmatized by the name savages; it is a term wrongly applied; they rank high in the scale of human beings, whether we consider them morally or physically. We find them brave, generous, honest, and benevolent, acute, ingenious, and intelligent, and their beauty and regular proportions of their bodies, correspond with the perfections of their minds: they are far above the common stature of the human race, seldom less than five feet eleven inches, but most commonly six feet two or three inches, and every way proportioned: their faces are remarkably handsome.

Their sexual behavior was of great interest to Porter. He wrote:

Go into their houses, you might there see instances of the strongest affection of wives for their husbands and husbands for their wives, parents for their daughters, and daughters for their parents; but at the camp they met as perfect strangers: all our men appeared to have a right to all their women; every woman was left at her own disposal, and everything pertaining to her person was considered as her own exclusive property. Virtue among them, in the light which we view it, was unknown, and they attached no shame to a proceeding which they not only considered as natural, but as an innocent and harmless amusement, by which no one was injured. Many parents considered themselves honored by the preference given to their daughters, and testified their pleasure by large presents of hogs and fruit. . . . With the young and timid virgins, no coercive measures were used by their parents to compel them to make any sacrifices, but endearing and soothing persuasions enforced by rewards, were frequently used to overcome their fears. . . .

The young girls of this island are the wives of all who can purchase their favors, and a handsome daughter is considered by her parents as
a blessing which secures to them, for a time, wealth and abundance. After they have advanced in years and have had children, they form more permanent connections, and appear then as firmly attached to their husbands as the women of any other country. . . . But the girls, from twelve to eighteen years of age rove at will . . . unrestrained by shame or fear of consequences.

He convinced himself that venereal disease did not exist in the islands. Actually, venereal disease, brought originally by westerners, was well established in the Polynesian islands. Over thirty percent of the
Bounty
's crew, for instance, had contracted syphilis and other ailments from their contact with Tahitian women. Nuku Hiva, although it did not have the traffic with westerners that Tahiti did, certainly had venereal infections spread widely among the population.

In spite of enjoying the remarkable sex provided by the islanders and allowing his men the same privilege, Porter, at the same time, regretted that the Marquesans had come in contact with white men at all. Viewing them as people in a state of nature, he was saddened that they could not remain so. And well he might have been, for
contact with people like Cook and Porter ultimately brought disaster. In their wake came fatal diseases, heartless exploitation, and heartrending depopulation. In less than fifty years, the remarkable Polynesian society that Porter so admired would be completely gone.

B
Y THE TIME THE
T
AIOHAE AND
H
APA'A HAD COMPLETED
Porter's village, all the provisions, stores, and ammunition had been transferred from the
Essex
to the prizes in preparation for the hardest work on the ship. Killing the rats was the first order of business. Hatches were closed and fires lit in large tubs. Thick smoke soon filled every crevice, choking even the tiniest critter. When the hatches were opened, the crew found over fifteen hundred dead rats, many of them collected around the pots. Hands gathered up the gruesome little bodies and threw them overboard.

After the rats had been removed and the ship cleansed, an oven made of bricks from the prizes was fired up, and it made wholesome baked bread every day for the entire command. Carpenters then set to work caulking
seams, while other repairs went ahead expeditiously. Coopers took the best water casks from the prizes and threw out nearly all of the
Essex
's, which had become rotten. The main topmast was rotted as well, but easily replaced with a spare. The ship's bottom was cleansed of barnacles, grass, and moss. Marquesans helped—diving down and scrapping the bottom with the outer shell of coconuts. The coppering also needed fixing; it was much injured just below the water's surface. The ship was careened slightly so that these repairs could be made. The prizes provided the copper.

The boatswain stripped off all the frigate's rigging so that it could be overhauled and refitted. A rope walk was established at the compound, where a good supply of strong cordage was created from whale line and small pieces of rope. While the work went forward, Porter allowed the men sufficient time for amusement and relaxation, but, curiously, he observed, or thought he observed, that there was less frenzy about the women, who formerly had engrossed the whole free time of the crew. Perhaps he was talking more about himself than the others.

Whatever his feelings about the women, Porter was more than a little pleased with how well his plans were working out. The
Essex
and her prizes would soon be in excellent condition, and he could look forward to a glorious showdown with the British hunters who were still searching for him.

CHAPTER

17

A
NNEXATION AND
W
AR

W
ITH REPAIRS GOING WELL AND RELATIONS WITH THE
tribes friendly, Porter had achieved the great objects for which he had come to the Marquesas. Regrettably, this was not enough for him. He was fixated on crushing the Taipi as well, even though they had left him in peace. The other tribes in their separate valleys had been impressed enough with his strength to be on friendly terms. Only the twelve tribes of the Taipi remained unconquered. Why he felt the need to attack them was not immediately apparent. He claimed that if he did not, relations with the other tribes would be put in jeopardy, although it's hard to see why. Friendly relations with the other tribes were more than sufficient for his stated purposes. If he had come to the island just to repair his ships, enjoy the women, and relax, he would be gone soon. The other tribes would continue to be friendly for another few days. He had no need to crush the Taipi. Nonetheless, plans went ahead to enlist the Taiohae and Hapa'a in a war against the Taipi.

Before proceeding, Porter decided to build a much stronger fort. He first sought the approval of the tribes, and he found them enthusiastic about the idea; it seemed that whatever he proposed they went along with. According to Porter, Gattanewa was so taken with the idea that he asked
if his people could help build the fort, and, of course, his offer was gratefully accepted. Porter used old water casks filled with dirt to form a breastwork, where he could mount sixteen guns. But not thinking he needed so much firepower, he mounted only four, which he took from the prizes. When Porter's strongpoint was completed on November 14, he named it Fort Madison.

With the fortress finished, Porter's real reason for attacking the Taipi became clear. He had decided to annex Nuku Hiva to the United States, and he thought that he needed to subdue the Taipi, as he had the other tribes, to form the peaceful, united island of his imagination. But he had no mandate from Washington to conquer Nuku Hiva; it was an outlandish idea. Nevertheless, he was determined to do it, convinced that it would add to his luster. The great deeds he had already accomplished fueled his ambition to rise to even greater heights.

He asked Gattanewa—who could not possibly have understood what Porter meant—if his people would like to become citizens of the United States. Gattanewa gave his enthusiastic approval. Porter insisted that Gattanewa and his people wanted to be more than friends and brothers with him; they wanted to be countrymen. So for Porter, Fort Madison was a symbol of America's power, tangible evidence that he had taken possession of the island.

Defeating the Taipi, he believed, would solidify his authority over the various tribes and make secure the annexation after he left. War plans went ahead expeditiously. He decided to leave a small contingent of men to guard Fort Madison, and as soon as the chiefs had their war canoes prepared, he intended to strike the Taipi by land and water.

Before attacking the Taipi, Porter presided over a formal ceremony on Nuku Hiva that was, to say the least, bizarre, embarrassing, and an outrageous display of arrogance. Porter's critical faculties seemed to have deserted him as he raised the American flag above Fort Madison on November 19 and formally took possession of Nuku Hiva in the name of the United States, even though he had no authorization from his government to do so. Porter claimed that the islanders wholeheartedly approved giving up their sovereignty, even though they obviously were under the threat of his guns, and, in any event, had no conception of what he was talking about.

In a staggering display of his ability to hold two opposing beliefs—he formally took possession of the island, firing a seventeen-gun salute, which the shipping in the harbor returned. He then changed the name Nuku Hiva to Madison's Island and read a formal declaration, before signing it.

“Our right to this island,” he solemnly declared, is “founded on priority of discovery, conquest, and possession.” He claimed that the “natives . . . requested to be admitted into the great American family,” which, of course, they had not. He went on to emphasize the importance of constructing a fort capable of mounting sixteen guns, and at the same time formally named his citadel, Fort Madison, and the adjacent harbor, Massachusetts Bay. He claimed to offer the inhabitants “friendly protection.”

“The object of this ceremony,” he explained, “had been previously and was again explained to the natives. They were all much pleased at being Melleekees, as they called themselves, and wanted to know if their new chief was as great a man as Gattanewa.”

Now that the island's inhabitants were subjects of the United States, Porter expected them to be enemies of Great Britain until peace was made between the two countries, even though they had no idea what he meant. He claimed that most of the tribes of the island “have requested to be taken under the protection of our flag, and all have been willing to purchase, on any terms, a friendship which promises to them so many advantages”—excepting, of course, the freedom to pursue their own way of life.

“Influenced by considerations of humanity,” he continued, “[this conquest] promises speedy civilization to a race of men who enjoy every mental and bodily endowment which nature can bestow, and which requires only art to perfect, [and] secures to my country a fruitful and populous island, possessing every advantage of security and supplies for vessels, and which, of all others, is the most happily situated, as respects climate and local position.”

At the same time that he was taking formal possession of Nuku Hiva, proclaiming the great benefits to the islanders of losing their freedom, Porter wrote in his journal about how devastating contact with Europeans had been to Polynesians. He thought, or rather hoped, that since Nuku Hiva was relatively unspoiled, her people would escape the same fate. How exactly he does not say, and, of course, they did not.

On November 24, Porter made an excursion for a few days to a bay about eight miles from Massachusetts Bay and received a warm welcome from the people, which he took to be their approval of his annexation.

On November 28, Porter set about the final bit of business he thought he had to do before leaving Nuku Hiva for Chile—crushing the Taipi. At three o'clock in the morning he set out in
Essex Junior
to attack, accompanied by five boats filled with armed men, and ten war canoes loaded with warriors. Gattanewa and two other ambassadors were aboard the
Essex Junior
to act as negotiators in the event the Taipi chose to come to terms without a fight. At sunrise Porter was at the Taipi landing place, where ten additional war canoes filled with Hapa'a joined him.

As
Essex Junior
anchored just offshore, large numbers of Taihae and Hapa'a warriors appeared on the mountaintops above the valley of the Taipi with spears, clubs, and slings. Porter thought they numbered in the thousands. His men numbered only thirty-five.

When Porter's force landed on the beach, no Taipi were in sight. They soon made an appearance, however, pelting Porter's party with stones. Porter responded by sending an ambassador with a white flag to offer the Taipi the same terms of submission as those agreed to by the other tribes. The Taipi refused to talk with him or to recognize his white flag. They sent the ambassador back in fear of his life.