Shirley Baker and the kingdom of Tonga

Abstract

FOR the peoples of the Pacific Islands the nineteenth century was a period of bewildering and demoralising change. The islands had received occasional visits from mariners and explorers before the beginning of the century/ but while these visits excited the cupidity and wonder of the islanders they had little effect on their lives. But from about 1800 expanding Western civilisation forced itself upon the island world, and successive waves of Europeans began rapidly eroding traditional societies. First came the beachcombers bringing new technologies. They were followed by whalers bringing alcohol and new diseases, by missionaries with their new beliefs, by traders introducing new patterns of economic activity and by planters insisting on new attitudes to property. Native societies underwent revolutionary changes within a short space of time in an attempt to adjust to the new demands being made upon them, but in almost every case their responses were inadequate. Unable to come to terms with the new dispensation, one by one the island polities succumbed .and were absorbed into one or other of the colonial empires.