Missionary Adventures in the South Pacific

1

The Long Journey 1852

IT SEEMS STRANGE that so common a thing as sauerkraut could change the course of history and speed up Man's study of the earth's surface. But that is what happened. From the time of the early Phoenicians, Western Man had made remarkable progress in exploring the seas and mapping the land masses that were discovered all over the world, except in the South Pacific. There, the distances between land areas, much greater than anywhere else, defied the old-time sailing ships to traverse the seas without some means of conquering scurvy, that dreaded enemy of long voyages. It was not until the 18th century that this was finally overcome and sauerkraut was the means of laying low this ancient foe. British science demonstrated in the 1770's that scurvy could be prevented by stocking cabbage on every ship and requiring all on board to eat a little each day. Thus were the map makers and the ships' crews freed from the fear of long voyages.

The South Pacific is an ocean area of about 6,000,000 square miles, with thousands of small islands dotting its surface. There is about one square mile of land in each 600 square miles of ocean, even harder to find than a needle in a haystack! To add to the difficulty, most of the islands were low, not showing much above the ocean's surface, therefore not visible to a ship at any great distance. Only a few were lofty enough to be seen 100 miles away. It is not surprising, therefore, that the process of discovery and charting of these islands was very slow in that period of slow travel. The western group of islands, known as the Carolines, had been discovered in part by the Spanish in the 16th century, but most of this group remained uncharted until the beginning of the 19th. Ponape (pronounced Po-na-pay), one of the highest and largest of this group, had gone undiscovered until 1825, but forthwith there developed a lively commercial exploitation of the natives by American, English, and German traders and whalers.

When these natives first arrived on Ponape and from whence they came has never been established, for there were no written records of their past history, only legends. That they had been there a very long time was evident. It is thought by scientists who have studied this matter that they have been there for well over a thousand years. From whence did they come? This is quite un-unknown. Their legends speak of two canoes having come from the rising sun, filled with their people who settled here and became the progenitors of the present tribes. The rising sun concept points toward the east, perhaps to South America or some of the islands between Ponape and that distant continent. One theory held by anthropologists is that the Polynesian race came from South America in the 3rd or 4th century. Some hold that they came from the Asian side.

That these natives were not the original inhabitants of the islands is suggested by their legend that these first two canoe loads of new arrivals found a race of giants already established there. This legend has it that these giants had been quarreling and fighting among themselves and were almost completely exterminated when the newcomers arrived. It seems possible that there had been another people on the island. Sturges tells us in his journal that there are remains of antiquity found in all parts of the island, and they are truly wonderful, consisting of stone walls, piers and vaults. The most remarkable of these are on several small islands near the weather harbor. On one there is an enclosure consisting of a double wall, the outer one 25 feet high and 15 feet thick. In the center of the enclosure is a stone vault in which several articles were found which indicate that the vault was once used for burial purposes. Next to the walls are elevated platforms, apparently for speakers. This suggests the idea that the place was a great temple where ceremonies for the dead were performed. Through the main wall is a gateway. Several openings near the ground were most likely for private entrance. Some have thought these walls were for defense and that they were the work of a more civilized people than now live here.

I see no necessity for either, says Sturges, "as the whole would seem to be of use in the religious rites of the present natives, and there is nothing about them requiring any more skill than is found among these people. The only thing wonderful is that so much labor could have been performed without machinery. They are built of prismatic stones found on the north side of the island. Some •of these prisms are 19 feet long and 3 feet thick. How such heavy masses could have been moved for a distance of 30 or 40 miles and then elevated into the walls is not easy to see. To complete so many structures, and so huge, must have required the labor of thousands, for ages. From the present natives we can get but little reliable information, but this is not strange, as they are slow to tell what they know to outsiders. They seem very ignorant of the past. There are still sacred rites performed around these antiquities and they are regarded as residences for Spirits. Almost every nook and corner has some peculiar rite connected with it.

"The natives tell us that these ruins were made by a race of giants once inhabiting the island. They point out some of the huge prisms as having been ear ornaments for these monsters.

When [they were] built and [for] what, will never be determined but as monuments of former perseverance they will ever stand, and as faithful preachers proclaim man's short-lived glory. Alas! how these people have dwindled, how unlike what they were when they reared such mighty structures. Thus it is with every nation without the Gospel. They have no food for mind or body and from necessity must grow weak and die. No wonder the little remnant now here fail to identify themselves with their busy and numerous ancestors.

Missionary Sturges, after a long residence on the island among the natives, had the conviction that the giants were not a separate race but the same people in a stronger and more virile stage of their civilization. Their population had grown to large numbers and by sheer numerical strength the people, he thought, had been able to perform building feats that later, to their debilitated descendants seemed gigantic and superhuman. He points out that there was abundant evidence that Ponape must have had a population at one time of at least 20,000, and perhaps even as much as 30,000, but by 1850 it was down to about 10,000 and declining very rapidly. Infanticide and debauchery (kava drinking) had for centuries been reducing their numbers and since 1825 some new diseases (especially syphilis), alcohol (new to the island), and prostitution had greatly accelerated the downward spiral.

Thus, we know that these islands had been discovered at least once and perhaps twice prior to the arrival of the white man, in 1825. Such discoveries had been by Stone-Age people, but the latest brought in a more advanced culture which at once precipitated an inevitable struggle for survival. This struggle had been going on for only 27 years when a new phase of it began with the arrival of a small company of Christian missionaries.

This company was destined to alter very greatly the struggle between the Stone-Age and the Iron-Age civilizations, guarding the former from the certain extinction toward which they were headed and already moving fast. Not only would it forestall their extinction but also it would conserve the good and valuable in this primitive race and help to mold them into a new people, able to take their place in the modern world.

The party of missionaries landed on Ponape in August, 1852, from a tiny sailing vessel that had been home to them for a number of weeks, since departing from Honolulu in July. They had touched at several other islands, where they had gone ashore for brief visits to gain a general idea of the situation into which they had committed themselves, but now on Ponape they had reached the end of the exploratory trip as they had planned it, and six of the ten were to remain and make this island their home. The other four would go back 300 miles to the island of Kusaie, where a second mission headquarters would be established. Then the ship would return to Honolulu.

There was no wharf in the little harbor, so the ship had dropped anchor at a safe distance from the shore and the travelers had come ashore in small boats. It was a great occasion for the islanders, for they could see that it was not the usual kind of ship that had just arrived. The people on it looked different and what was even more unusual, there were women. Curiosity had brought out hundreds of all ages, to see the strange ship, as though it had come from another world, as indeed it had. The clothing of these islanders was scant. Children wore nothing and most of the men had on only a kind of short apron at the waist. Some had pieces of western clothing, here a pair of pants and nothing above, while another might have a shirt or a jacket with nothing below it. Women and older girls usually had a piece of cloth wrapped around the middle, with one corner tucked in to make a kind of short skirt. Here and there were some white men, most of them rough looking and only scantily clad, obviously beachcombers. Some better looking foreigners probably belonged to a whaling ship that was in port.

In personal appearance the newcomers thought that the natives resembled the Hawaiian islanders, somewhat, as they were of medium size, light brown in color, with straight black hair and prominent forehead. Their language sounded like gibberish, but now and then the visitors caught American words, such as Hello, Jack! What you name? Got a chaw of tobacco? From whalers and traders they had picked up many foreign words, but not the kind of words that would help these missionaries get over the language barrier that stood in the way of their accomplishing what they had come to do; that is, teach these people about a better way of life.

Now, while their pilot is helping the missionaries meet the right people in this motley crowd, let us take a little time to give our readers some background information as to how this group came to be there on this South Pacific island shore. Two of the party had come from Maine, two from Ohio and the others from Hawaii. What had brought them together from so widely separated origins? The best answer is the power of the foreign missions movement of that time. This movement was a noteworthy feature of the 19th century, from its earliest years, both in England and America, in several of the Protestant denominations. The urge to serve God in a foreign mission field swept through the churches like an ocean wave, causing thousands of young married couples to go into difficult situations, far from home, because they felt called in a special divine way.

The Congregational Church in America had begun to take part in this movement in 1812, by establishing the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, known by its initials A.B.C.F.M. After sending out many missionaries to Africa, India, Asia and South America, they sent a group to the Hawaiian Islands in 1820. This turned out to be so successful that the vast assemblage of South Pacific islands southwest of Hawaii began to receive new attention. Albert Sturges and Susan Thompson, two young people growing up in Granville, Ohio, were among many Americans who had committed themselves while still young to the missionary call and when they were finally ready they asked the Board to send them together to Micronesia, because of all the mission fields it was farthest away and seemed most fraught with dangers. He had finished college (Wabash) and seminary (Yale) and now in 1851 was 32 years old and ready for foreign service. Susan Thompson, one year younger, had prepared for a teaching career.

Both were of pioneer American stock. Albert's grandfather, Lewis Sturges, had served in Washington's Revolutionary Army and later settled in Stamford, Connecticut, with his wife, Mary Potter Sturges. Their oldest son, Isaac, was Albert's father. In 1817 several members of Lewis' family moved to the new state of Ohio and settled in Granville, where they developed a building business. Albert, born there, November 15, 1819, grew up in this business, gaining some knowledge of construction methods which one day would be very useful to him and to his Micronesian Mission.

Susan also was born in Granville, June 1, 1820, the youngest of nine children of Thomas McKean Thompson. He was Pennsylvania's Secretary of State and later entered the mercantile business. In 1816 he moved his family to Granville and built a large home there (which today is still standing and in use). He became one of the pillars of the Granville community.

Albert and Susan were married the day after Christmas, 1851, and were ready immediately to leave for Boston to embark for the South Pacific.

Micronesia is on the other side of the globe from Ohio, so that it meant a journey of nearly 20,000 miles, going from Boston down the Atlantic Coast to the lower tip of South America (there was no Panama Canal then), then rounding the Horn and pointing northwest toward Hawaii. There the first leg of the journey would end and it would be necessary to wait in Honolulu until they could find a ship that would take them southwestward another 2,000 miles to the Micronesian Islands.

In 1852 most of the ocean travel was still in sailing ships, although the earliest types of steam-powered vessels had begun to ply the Atlantic between Europe and America. For the trip that our young newlyweds were embarking upon only sailing ships were available. In the late 1840's a few large sailing vessels, clipper ships, of 2,000 tons and even larger, began to appear on the Atlantic, to compete with the new steamships of the British Cunard Line. These were wooden ships, square-rigged, 15 times as large as the little Mayflower, which had brought the first Pilgrims to America in 1620. But these clipper ships were only for trans-Atlantic trips, not for the South Pacific. Our young couple knew that it would be a vessel not greatly unlike the Mayflower that would carry them on their long journey. The Mayflower had been a three-masted, square-rigged ship, about 100 feet long and less than 15 feet wide. As measured today it would have been about 160 tons registry. The ship that took our young missionaries was even smaller.

The modern idea of a common carrier line of ships serving the public with a regular schedule of sailings was just then making its first appearance but was limited to travel between England and America. There was no such line operating to the South Pacific, so that privately owned vessels had to be used, when a whaling or trading ship happened to be going that way. The Snow Squall was such a vessel, leaving from Boston in the dead of winter (January 17, 1852) for the Hawaiian Islands, and Albert and Susan Sturges were aboard. This tiny vessel, traveling at the rate of something over 150 miles a day was to be their home for nearly five months.

It was a terribly rough trip, especially the first few weeks. For our young people, it was their first time at sea, and they were totally unprepared for the ordeal. There were times when they had to be tied into their bunks and everything loose in the cabin had to be lashed down. For days at a time they could not eat, so seasick were they, especially Mrs. Sturges, for she was not as strong and robust as her husband.

They encountered the roughest weather between Cape Cod and Cape Hatteras, for January and February storms can be very terrible. Waves, seemingly 50 feet high, would loom up, threatening to swallow them. Each wave would lift the little vessel to a dizzy height, then as the wave rolled under them the ship would drop suddenly to shudder and quiver at the bottom of the trough, before the next wave came to start the same ordeal over again. At each downward plunge they wondered if the ship would survive the shock, but they were so sick they didn't seem to care if it did or not. Between storms it was so cold they could not spend much time outside their little cabin. In due time they were beyond the worst. South of Hatteras the weather moderated somewhat, for they were moving into the Gulf Stream. After some weeks they found themselves in summer instead of winter and knew that they had crossed the Equator and were in the southern hemisphere.

With pleasant weather they could spend more time on deck, as the little ship carried them on down past Brazil and Argentina to the extreme tip of the continent. There as they rounded the Horn, they left the Atlantic Ocean and turned northwestward heading for the Hawaiian Islands, many thousands of miles distant in the middle of the vast Pacific. In the weeks to come they would realize how tremendous this ocean is, covering a large percentage of the earth's surface. They soon learned that belying its lovely name the Pacific could also be very stormy and make passage over it very uncomfortable and even dangerous. Writing about it later, Sturges said that the trip had been both tedious and perilous, but on the whole, the young couple enjoyed the total experience.

A letter from Susan Sturges, written in May 1852 on board the Snow Squall, to a sister in Ohio, indicates that they were enjoying smooth sailing in the Pacific. Apparently the rough part of the voyage was behind them and had been forgotten. We have had fair winds for several days, she wrote, and we have been speeding along at the rate of 180 miles per day. We feel that on the whole we have had a favorable passage but shall be truly glad to step on the earth once more. Captain has a large box of horseradish growing, which he has cut once a week for salad (to prevent scurvy). It looks pretty, growing, and makes us almost imagine we are on land. We have an awning spread over the deck, so that it is always cool and pleasant there. But at night we really suffer. Our tiny cabin has but one circular window, a foot in diameter, and it doesn't admit much air. When the vessel is rolling, the window has to be kept closed so that water will not come in. We are today one degree south of the Equator, and the Captain says that with fair winds he can reach Honolulu in about two weeks or less. I have enjoyed our voyage very well but shall be quite ready to have it end and bid adieu to the sea for a time, at least.

The Snow Squall arrived in Honolulu on June 2, 1852, after continuous sailing for 136 days. The scene that greeted them was a joyous one, for they were meeting many new friends and seeing tropical vegetation for the first time. They were able at last to stand again on solid ground and not feel a heaving vessel beneath them. What a relief, too, to have a varied diet once again, after five months of monotony. They had had dried meats, dried fruits, dried beans, flour, cheese, but no milk. The Captain had thoughtfully nursed along a growing horse-radish plant in his cabin to give them a bit of diversity. Now they could have green vegetables, fresh fruits, meat, milk and almost anything they might desire which a tropical island could produce.

The Maine couple were Rev. and Mrs. Benjamin Snow. He was a graduate of Bowdoin and of Bangor Seminary. With his young wife, he had been caught up in the same wave of emotional enthusiasm for foreign missionary service that had drawn in the Sturges. couple. They had submitted their names to the American Board, had been accepted and commissioned to Micronesia, and had departed from Boston on a small sailing ship a month earlier, in December, 1851. They were already in Honolulu when the Sturgeses arrived.

Hawaii contributed the rest of the party. One couple, Dr. and Mrs. Luther H. Gulick, were residents of the Hawaiian Mission, which Luther's parents had helped to establish. As Luther had grown up in Hawaii, he knew the Polynesians, their ways and language, and would be very useful in helping to establish a new Mission among the South Sea Islanders, who were presumed to be ethnically related to the Hawaiians. Furthermore, his knowledge of medical science (as it was in 1852) would be important for the welfare of the proposed new Mission.

The other two couples were native Hawaiians and represented what truly was a remarkable development from the 1820 Mission in Hawaii. That a Mission barely 30 years old would already be far enough advanced to be sending some missionaries to another foreign field was really a great achievement. Daniel Opunui was. a school teacher, educated in the Mission and strong enough as a Christian man, with a courageous wife, to be entrusted with the responsibility of helping to carry the gospel message to another people as primitive and benighted as his parents and friends had been a few years ago. Berita Kaikaula was an equally able young man, who had become a deacon in the mission organization, and was very highly thought of by everybody around him. He and his wife had two young children whom they would leave with relatives, as it was thought unwise to take them into a new foreign mission field.

Thus, there had come together in Honolulu this cosmopolitan party of ten missionaries, representing a wide diversity of backgrounds, racially and culturally, but united in their common desire to serve God by carrying His message of hope and better living to a foreign field.

It should be noted that this Mission to Micronesia was to be a joint undertaking of two Boards, the American Board and its daughter, the Hawaiian Board (known then as the Hawaiian Missionary Society). The latter had proudly informed the other that no longer would it be necessary to provide financial support for the Hawaiian Mission, and, what was even more remarkable, the daughter would now be able to meet part of the expense of establishing the new foreign Mission which she would help to staff, as well as support. This enterprising spirit was to show itself again in the new field, when 20 years later the new Christians there would begin sending out their foreign missionaries.

In sending out this missionary party, it was thought that a formal letter from King Kamehameha III, then the ruling monarch of the Hawaiian Islands, to be addressed to the various native rulers of the Pacific Islands, might help as an introduction. It was known that the king was much interested, personally, in the project, being a Christian, himself. Very willingly he prepared such a letter with his official seal. The letter was, of course, in Hawaiian. An English translation would be somewhat as follows, after the salutation and greeting: There are about to sail for your islands some teachers of the Most High God, Jehovah, to make known unto you His Word for your eternal salvation. (Then followed a list of all the names.) "I commend these good teachers to your esteem and friendship and exhort you to listen to their instructions. I have seen the value of such teachers. We here on my islands lived once in ignorance and idolatry. We were given to war and were very poor. Now my people are enlightened. We live in peace and some have acquired property. Our condition is greatly improved and the Word of God is the cause of our improvement. I advise you to throw away your idols, take the Lord Jehovah for your God, worship and love Him and He will bless and save you." Could a missionary party start off with better credentials?

How to travel to Micronesia was a problem, for there were no ships plying regularly between Hawaii and that large group of islands. Whalers and traders were very uncertain in their sailings and in any case were not well equipped to carry such a large party. The only practical thing to do, they decided, was for the new Hawaiian Missionary Society to buy or lease a vessel and use it, not only for this first trip, but for later missionary trips as well. To raise the necessary funds for that, they appealed to the Christian people in Hawaii, and the large business community responded well. They were able to charter and recondition a small ship which was then in the Honolulu harbor. They christened this little brig the Caroline, named for the Caroline group of islands which was the particular part of Micronesia selected for this new venture.

The next step in their preparations was to organize the new Church of Micronesia. This was done in such a way that as soon as the missionaries could open the way for church operations in the new field, it could begin to function at once, without waiting for the formalities. Albert Sturges recalled that in a similar way the first founders of his home town in Ohio had organized the First Congregational Church of Granville, before they left Massachusetts in their wagon trains (in 1807) and before there was any Granville, Ohio.

At last the party of missionaries was ready to go. A farewell service was held in the old stone church in Honolulu on July 15, 1852, to ask God's blessing on the new and great enterprise and to dedicate and consecrate the little band to be the first messengers of God to carry His Word to the peoples of the vast Micronesian area. A little later the same day, there was an even larger meeting of friends at the harbor to see the Caroline depart.

Among the 24 men and women aboard the brig were the ten missionaries; three representatives of the Hawaiian Missionary Society, its director and secretary, Rev. E. W. Clark, a brother of Dr. Gulick and a Hawaiian minister, Rev. Kakela; Capt. Holds-worth, two mates, six Hawaiian sailors, a cook and a steward.

The farewell service ended about four o'clock in the afternoon and when everything was finally in readiness, the Captain gave orders to cast off the moorings and shove off a little into the harbor, where they hoisted sail. Under a gentle breeze, they headed to the west and south. A course was set to reach the islands at the eastern edge of Micronesia, specifically at Pitt's Island, known as Taritari, or Tarawa. This was part of a little cluster of low lying coral islands, known as the Kingsmill group or Gilberts. This destination was about 2,000 miles southwest of Honolulu.

If the reader will examine a map of the Pacific Ocean and look for the point where the Equator and the line of 180 degrees longitude cross, he will not be far from the destination point of the brig Caroline. This longitude line in that part of the Pacific is known as the Date Line, because the traveler crossing it gains or loses a day at that point.

North of Australia and east of Asia there are many thousands of islands, large and small, sometimes collectively called Oceania. Because this part of the world's surface became known to western man after the Old World had discovered the New World (the Americas), geographers used to refer to this great assemblage of islands as the Third World. Our map makers today usually divide this third world into four parts: Polynesia, Melanesia, Indonesia and Micronesia.

Micronesia is a word meaning tiny island. It is an assemblage of nearly 2,500 small islands and islets, many of them too tiny to be inhabited. Altogether they occupy a section of the Pacific Ocean as large in total surface area as the United States. This area lies on the Equator from longitude 180 East to 130 East and between latitude 3 degrees South to 22 degrees North.

Present day geographers divide Micronesia into four groups: (1) the Gilbert group at the eastern edge, (2) the Marshall group, north and a little west of the Gilberts, (3) the Caroline group, covering the large area between these two and the western boundary of Micronesia, and (4) the Mariannas, north of the western half of the Carolines. In 1852, when the missionaries first went to this world of tiny islands, the maps and navigation charts were relatively crude, but in general, these same four divisions had been established, although some of the names were different. The Gilberts were usually called the Kingsmill group, and the Mariannas were generally known as the Ladrones (den of thieves). Individual island names were changing considerably from time to time, as different world powers took control.

2

Exploring the Islands 1852

IN 1852 THERE was practically