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Fiji and the Fijians 1835-1856

Chapter XVIII — the services of the missionaries

page 287

Chapter XVIII
the services of the missionaries

We have already reviewed the work accomplished by the Methodist missionaries in the training of teachers, the translation of the Scriptures and other books, the publication of a grammar and dictionary of the Fijian language and the practice of medicine. These were important achievements by which the Methodists exerted enduring influence for good on the education, religion and health of the natives; but we have yet to consider their contributions to the advancement of the social, judicial and political life of the people.

The children of the Fijians were sorely in need of guidance, training and protection. Their parents had little control over them. Some of their time was spent in innocent games; but they were allowed to amuse themselves by taking part in disgusting and revolting practices such as the mutilation of dead bodies and practising the arts of war on living captives. Because of the ignorance and criminal conduct of many of the mothers, child mortality before and after birth was abnormally high. The schools established by the missionaries were of the most elementary kind: the teachers were untrained and without pay; but children and adults alike were taught to read, write, march and sing, and a little scripture history was sometimes added. All the missionaries strove to educate the mothers up to a higher sense of their responsibilities to the children, born and unborn, alike. Infants were fed on the same food as adults page 288to the ruin of their digestions and it was difficult to persuade the mothers that diet was of any importance. What had been good enough for the parents would do for their children, and the same argument was applied to the treatment of infant diseases. The missionaries were more successful in putting down abortion which was dreadfully common in every part of Fiji. Among the members of the Church Society and many of the attendants at worship it ceased altogether.

The influence exerted by the missionaries in removing some of the more serious disabilities under which the women lived, and in raising their status was greater; but by no means what they hoped, prayed and worked for. In a letter written by Thomas Williams to his father on 4 May 1841 he says: "One thing which the Gospel must effect in these lands is the elevation of female character to its proper standard. At present that standard is exceedingly low."1 The lot of the Fijian woman was hard and cruel. Widow-strangling seems to have been practised in nearly all the islands. The missionaries and naval officers applied them-selves most earnestly to its abolition; but the women themselves were the chief obstacles to reform: they demanded the right to die. Some progress was made especially after it became known throughout Fiji that the practice was held in abhorrence by European and American nations. This was not the only way in which women were sacrificed in the interests of men. Their flesh was considered more delicate than that of men, and on the arrival of a visiting chief who was known to be fond of human flesh they would be slaughtered for the oven. Women of very noble birth were generally entitled to respectful and privileged treatment, but even they were not safe. In his rage Thakombau slashed off the nose and part of the upper page 289lip of his sister for an impropriety. She lived on, a pitiful sight; but only for a short time.

The sheer weight of civilized opinion would of itself have suppressed such fiendish practices in the long run; but meantime, much credit is due to the missionaries for their unremitting efforts to effect reforms. Though there was never any avowed distinction in the treatment of Christian women there is plenty of evidence to show that the chiefs were more careful in dealing with them; not only because the missionaries would vehemently protest against brutalities, but also because all Christians were under the protection of Jehovah who would avenge the wrongs done to His children. Most of the chiefs feared the wrath of Jehovah. In other ways less revolting but highly objectionable the inferiority of women in Fiji was taken for granted. They were not allowed to eat with the men except by special favour shown to some of noble birth; and usually they had to be content with the remainders of the meal. They did most of the menial work. Men went out to the reef to fish for turtle; but women netted the more common fish; men were employed to cook bakola; but ordinary cooking was done by women. They were the carriers of wood and drawers of water. Only on rare occasions were they allowed to enter freely into competition with men either in word or deed.

The life of a missionary and his wife in their own home was a protest against all this, none the less powerful in Fiji because it was inarticulate: concrete evidence impressed the mind of the Fijian more than argument. The whole trend of missionary teaching was in favour of raising the status of women: insistence on the value of a human soul, and the obligation to defend the weak against the strong. The educational system rough as it was helped: there were girls' as well as boys' schools and favour was shown to neither. The salvation of a woman's soul was, in the opinion of the page 290missionaries, quite as important as that of a man's so far as the future welfare and happiness of either were concerned.

The influence of the missionaries on the political life of Fiji is an interesting, but somewhat complicated study. They were as we have seen careful to observe all outward forms of respect in their dealings with the ruling chiefs: but on closer examination it becomes clear that they, true to their experience of English political life, made an important distinction between the king and all other chiefs under him, however powerful they might be. Rarely would they venture to defy the authority of a king openly, and then only after taking great precautions to place their opposition in the most favourable light; but frequently they would take the side of the people against the other chiefs. It may have been partly because they were exceedingly anxious to make Christians of the kings believing that the rest would follow; but it was also due to a genuine conviction that the king's constitutional position demanded much greater respect than that of any of his underlings. Nevertheless the direct and indirect effect of the teaching of the missionaries was undoubtedly to weaken the authority of the kings as well as all the other chiefs in Fiji; and it was the deepening consciousness of this that eventually led to the war between Heathenism and Christianity. That there was good reason for curbing the arbitrary authority of the Fijian chiefs need not be doubted; but whether the missionaries were justified in making themselves the agents of political reforms is another matter. They knew very little indeed about the difficulties and dangers involved in the conduct of great affairs, and in their ignorance they sometimes rushed in where angels might have feared to tread. Wherever the interests of their religion were concerned they dared much and sometimes got themselves into trouble from which they page 291had to be extricated by men of war both European and Tongan as we have seen.

Their policy of encouraging their converts to defy the will of the chief in times of war, and in the training of his subjects for war appears to me wholly unjustifiable; not only because they were strangers in a foreign land and had no right on grounds of fair play to undermine the loyalty of subjects to their king, but also because they did not understand the magnitude of the problem they were dealing with. I think, too, that their interference with the marriage customs of the Fijians was both impolitic and dangerous. They may have been justified in refusing to allow any man to become a member of their Church Society who had more than one wife. They could not do otherwise. The instructions of the London Committee on the point were decisive. But James Calvert went further than that: he deliberately encouraged the people of Ono in their determination to prevent Jemima becoming Tuinayau's wife. Had Tuinayau landed with his army in Ono there would have been a devastating war, and Calvert would have had to share the responsibility for it. As it was one hundred men of Tuinayau's army were drowned in the storm on the way to Ono. Wherever a Christian woman who was a member of the Church Society was betrothed to a heathen chief trouble was bound to arise.

From the white man's point of view Vasu was a ridiculous custom founded in gross injustice; but it was, after all, "the custom of the country," and till the missionaries went to Fiji the people and the victimized uncles acquiesced in it. A case occurred in Yadrana on the island of Lakemba after the town had become Christian. The natives protested knowing that the burden would fall on them eventually. Dr Lyth openly defended them, just as he defended people in other villages of Lakemba against the exactions of their page 292chiefs, especially in commandeering labour. It was natural that he and the other missionaries should feel strongly on such matters, not only because the chiefs were sometimes most unreasonable in their demands; but also because they had a Gospel bias in favour of the poor and the oppressed.

To the ordinary layman it would appear that Christ respected the commands of those who were invested with secular authority: he would render to Caesar the things that were Caesar's. In the crisis of his life he made no effort to escape, and, like Socrates, went to his death rather than evade his country's laws. But there is a general consensus of opinion that his teaching favoured the poor and the oppressed, and, on more than one occasion in his brief ministry, he warned the rich that they had received their reward, and that it would be very difficult for them to pass through the gateway that led to enduring happiness. The beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount are addressed to the poor in spirit and the meek and lowly in heart—virtues sometimes found in the mansions of the rich; but more frequently in the cottages of the poor. The minds of the missionaries were saturated with the teaching of the Gospel, and their journals show that in the disputes between the people and their chiefs on industrial and economic matters they were nearly always on the side of the people.

No doubt in such disputes the missionaries were usually in the right. The journals written by visitors including the captains of men-of-war leave little room for doubt that the chiefs exercised their authority very often in a tyrannical manner, and that they could be exceedingly cruel and oppressive in their treatment of the kaisi or common folk. The only effective check on their excesses was the danger of their subjects transferring their allegiance to some other chief—probably one who was hostile. It is to the credit of the missionaries that they acted with caution in their interference page 293with the industrial relations of chiefs and people; and most of the modifications which they desired were afterwards insisted upon by the British government. But the British government after 1874 had an unquestionable right to enforce its own policy in this as in other matters, while the missionaries had no legal or constitutional right whatever. The case for them must be argued, if at all, on the broader ground of human sympathy. But that has its obvious limitations considering that they were foreigners in the land, and the responsibility for maintaining order was vested not in them but in duly appointed chiefs. In reviewing the whole subject of the influence of the missionaries on the political and industrial life of the Fijian I confess to a doubt as to whether the service which they rendered might not be more appropriately regarded as disservice. I have already condemned their attacks on the war policy of the chiefs, and. also their interference with the marriage customs that prevailed among the Fijians. Had it not been for the impression left upon my mind by the reports of visitors and especially of naval commanders concerning the excesses of the chiefs, and the almost helpless condition of the downtrodden kaisi I should have taken a more decisive stand against their interference in industrial matters also. As it is I am prepared to believe that they paved the way for beneficial reforms at a later time by a power that had a clear right to enforce them.

There was no judicial system in Fiji in the first half of last century: no courts for the administration of law. There were no written laws. Custom was very powerful; the will of the chief was law. In 1856 there came a change for the better. A chief of Mbatiki was tried and found guilty of murder, and a heavy fine was imposed. Immediately after wards it was announced that, in future, all persons convicted of murder would be hanged. The first victim was a chief page 294of Mbau who had murdered his wife. On 7 March he was tried and found guilty: four days later he was executed.2 Here is the first crude attempt to administer justice in Fiji "white man's fashion." Some credit is due to the missionaries for this desirable change. They had prepared the way for it in their own church meetings. When offences were committed by members of the Church Society the offenders were arraigned in the presence of the other members, and definite charges were made. If the defendant were found guilty, he was punished by banishment from the Society. It was a kind of limited excommunication, applied first of all and most frequently at Lakemba where the progress of Christianity was most rapid and the punishment most dreaded. When the roving Tongans despoiled the Fijians, as they often did in these early days, they were brought before the church tribunal and reparation was insisted on; when the Christians of Vatoa refused to hand back the goods they had stolen from a shipwrecked crew they were brought under church discipline until they repented. When Maafu the Tongan chief and Wetasau the most powerful chief in Lakemba under the king went to Matuku and made war on the Heathen Dr Lyth insisted on their being tried. The charge was that they had taken the initiative in the war and had not simply defended themselves against attack. They were found guilty and banished from the Society of the Church.

The discipline administered in this way was, of course, purely ecclesiastical, and it depended for its efficacy mainly on the number and quality of the Christians. After the conversion of Tuinayau in 1849 it was strong enough to bring the most powerful chief to heel, and force him later to public repentance before he could gain readmission. In the West-page 295ern islands the progress of such tribunals was necessarily slow until the battle of Kamba followed as it was by thousands of conversions. The time was then considered ripe for the application of a system more in accordance with the regular judicial procedure of civilized nations. It was the wish of the Methodist missionaries, and naval offices that the Mbau chief should be tried for murder after a proclamation had been issued. The form was not yet strictly correct; but it was an important step on the way to a regular system for the administration of justice.

The Fijian Archipelago is now a part of the British Empire. The part played by the missionaries in bringing that about is interesting; but it cannot be followed here later than the year 1856. In the early days some of the white settlers in Fiji tried to create a feeling against the missionaries by spreading a report among the natives that they had come with disguised intent of taking the country, and were working in co-operation with British naval officers for the establishment of British sovereignty. Whatever suspicions the chiefs and people may have entertained at first they were soon convinced that the report was false. There is not a particle of evidence, so far as I am aware, to show that any of the missionaries went to Fiji with any other idea in his mind than to save the souls of the natives; nor is there any reason to believe that they interested themselves in the transfer of the archipelago to Britain before the year 1850. After that there came a change.

That a contest was going on between the British and the French for imperial supremacy in the Pacific in the forties of last century is now a matter of common knowledge. A perusal of the Journal and correspondence of Captain Henry Byam Martin of H.M.S. Grampus for the year 1846 makes page 296that quite clear.3 But the Methodist missionaries in Fiji were not affected by it at that time. French Roman Catholic missions were established in Lakemba in 1844, Samoa in 1845 and Rotumah in 1846; but there is no indication that the Methodists regarded them as preludes to French imperial expansion in Middle Oceania. Events transpired in the early fifties that aroused their suspicions and led one of them to formulate a definite proposal for the transfer of Fiji to Great Britain.

In 1851 Monseigneur Bataillon arrived in Fiji with the object of settling French Roman Catholic missionaries in Viti Levu and Taviuni. From that time the dread of a French occupation of the archipelago haunted the minds of the Methodists, and in 1855 an ordinary act of courtesy not connected with French imperial designs at all, was quite enough to throw them into a state of anxiety and hurry them on to some definite proposal. When King George of Tonga arrived in March 1855 with his fleet the missionaries learnt that he had been visited by the French Governor of Tahiti and the Commodore, and that they had entrusted to him letters of greeting to be delivered to the French priests at Levuka. There was nothing in that to excite suspicion of French imperial designs in Fiji; but by this time Calvert was thoroughly alarmed, and his worst fears seemed to be justified when not long afterwards news reached him that Tui Levuka had signed a paper and given it to Monseigneur Bataillon, asking for French protection; and that the Bishop had taken the paper with him to Sydney "and would do his best to send down a French frigate." Calvert got busy.

When Captain Denham arrived at Levuka in H.M.S. Herald in July 1855 Calvert went on board, and informed page 297him that Tui Levuka had now decided to cede the whole of the island of Ovalau to Great Britain on the understanding that the British protectorate flag would be hoisted. He urged the captain to accept the offer forthwith; but Denham replied that in the absence of any instructions to do so such a proceeding would be highly improper. Before leaving the ship Calvert wrote a letter to London explaining the situation and expressing the hope that plans would be laid "for the English taking possession of Ovalau and indeed the whole of Fiji." But Calvert's proposal was premature, and, so far as the local authorities in Fiji were concerned, unauthorized. He must have known that Tui Levuka had not the right to hand over Ovalau to any foreign power; for part of the island was owned by Thakombau, and up to that time the king had not made up his mind to offer the sovereignty over Fiji or any part of it to Great Britain. In a later letter dated 12 August 1855 Calvert says that he has had long talks with Thakombau and King George on the subject of the Protectorate; but adds nothing about the result of the conversations beyond the statement that "the matter is delayed." There was plenty of talk in more or less irresponsible circles in England about the annexation of some of the islands of the Pacific which the missionaries in Fiji were aware of. A Mr J. Oliver of Bradford had written to Lord Clarendon urging the British government to anticipate the French by taking over Tonga as well as Fiji! But although King George favoured the suggestion of a British Protectorate over Ovalau he objected to anything of the kind for Tonga, and had said so plainly to Sir George Grey in New Zealand and Sir C. Fitzroy in New South Wales. He considered that he was quite competent to manage his own affairs. And so he was.

Calvert was in a hurry; but the British government was not. Another war had broken out in New Zealand, and the page 298Cabinet decided that Great Britain had as much responsibility in the Pacific as it was desirable to undertake. Nor did Thakombau definitely make up his mind to hand over the sovereignty of the islands till 1858. The offer was refused, nor was it accepted until 1874 when some very important questions about financial commitments, and the possibility of taking over a united Fiji had been satisfactorily answered. But though Britain was cautious she was not indifferent, and when Calvert left Fiji toward the close of the year it was with the assurance that if Britain did not declare a Protectorate over Fiji she would prevent France doing so.

That was enough for the time being. It meant that the cause of Methodism would not be imperilled by the establishment of an alien power in the archipelago. It was in defence of Methodism, and not primarily or chiefly from any imperial design, that Calvert and his colleagues had advocated a British Protectorate.The Methodist missionaries had worked for twenty years in Fiji, and after the battle of Kamba their prospects were very bright indeed. Were they now to be darkened, perhaps eclipsed, by the establishment of a power which would make the success of their rivals, the French Roman Catholics, assured? Not if the missionaries and the Methodist Conference in Sydney could prevent it. Calvert was packing up to leave Fiji in August 1855 when he received a letter from William Bennington Boyce, the first president of the Australasian Conference, asking him to put off his departure for a time as his services might be needed "in that critical period of Feejee's history." Calvert consented; but after receiving the assurance that the French would not be permitted to take over the archipelago he left for Sydney.

There was little ground for Calvert's fears. Apart from the intentions of the British government the mind of Thakombau had to be reckoned with, and in 1855 he was much page 299more favourably disposed toward the British than the French for many reasons. He was, to begin with, a convert to Methodist Christianity; and although willing to help the Roman Catholic missionaries in their good work, he could not forget that the Methodists had done far more than they for the welfare of his people. The French priests had not arrived in the Western group till 1851 and he knew very little about them. On the other hand he knew the Methodists intimately, and notwithstanding his own troubles with them, he had a profound respect for the characters of the men he had been associated with, and had no doubt that they were sincerely devoted to what they conceived to be the best interests of the natives. With William Cross he had not been on very friendly terms; he could never forget that he had slighted Mbau by settling down at first in Rewa; but he had an affection for John Hunt, and deep respect for Lyth, Calvert and Watsford who had resided at Vewa. In the dark days of the year following his conversion to Christianity, Calvert had stood by him and helped to shield him against enemies in Ovalau and traitors in Mbau. Waterhouse's insolence annoyed him, and he could not make a confidant of him as he did of Calvert; but even Waterhouse had promised to do what he could provided the king would remain true to his public profession of Christianity.

Looking back over the history of the past twenty years Thakombau had no reason to doubt the value of the work done by the Methodist missionaries through their schools, their books and their medicine. He believed that the triumph of Christianity was assured in Fiji, and it was to the Methodist far more than to the French priests that the credit was due. The great white Queen had sent out these men to minister to his people. In the event of a transfer of sovereignty it was to be expected that Queen Victoria would continue her good work in the interests of Fiji.

page 300

But the great white Queen was very powerful too; more powerful so far as Thakombau's experience enlightened him, than any of the other rulers whose ships visited his island. He had seen far more of British men-of-war and British naval officers than of any other nations, and men of the stamp of Erskine and Home had left a deep impression on his mind both of their goodwill and their power. He had for long cherished an ambition to unite the whole of Fiji under his own authority. He knew that the ceaseless wars could not be prevented except by some leader strong enough to force his will on all the other chiefs. In his own crude way he had striven to attain to that position; but he now realized that the problem was too difficult for him. Some other leader stronger than he must undertake the work, and who better than the great white Queen who had sent out these powerful ships to protect her own subjects in the far distant islands of the Pacific?

The definite proposals made by James Calvert in 1855 are of little importance in the history of the negotiations that led to the final transfer of the sovereignty over Fiji to Great Britain; but it would be a mistake to pass lightly over the impression made upon Thakombau's mind by the character and work of the British missionaries in the twenty-three years before he made his first offer. The missionaries were not concerned directly with empire building; but they were empire builders for all that. It has been well said that no nation can build up a great empire unless the people who belong to it are an imperial race possessing the qualities indispensable for such work. These old missionaries who went forth to the cannibal islands had those qualities, and under the rigorous discipline to which they were subjected they became more and more imperial in character—perhaps more imperious too. Instead of degenerating and sinking page 301toward the level of the natives they grappled with difficulties and dangers, overcame them, transmuted evil into good and imparted some of their own granite quality to the people with whom they associated. They were able to do this not only by reason of their inborn quality; but also by the help of religious convictions that made the inward light burn brightly, and gave them strength and courage to travel hopefully where other men less inspired would have faltered and fallen. Among these convictions was one—"the best of all" —that calls for special consideration because of the stupendous influence which it exerted on their lives and work in Fiji.

1 See Letters to his Father, vol. i. 1839-43 (M.M.).

2 See Fiji and the Fijians, vol. ii, pp. 352-4.

3 See the Journal and Letters etc. of Henry Byam Martin's cruise in the. Pacific in H.M.S. Grampus in 1846. The original documents are in the British Museum; a photostat reproduction of them is in the Mitchell Library, Sydney.