Country of Writing: Writing Travel and Travel Writing About New Zealand 1809-1935
240
Country of Writing: Writing Travel and Travel Writing About New Zealand 1809-1935
240eBook
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781775580539 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Auckland University Press |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 240 |
| File size: | 8 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Country of Writing
Travel Writing and New Zealand, 1809â"1900
By Lydia Wevers
Auckland University Press
Copyright © 2002 Lydia WeversAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-77558-053-9
CHAPTER 1
Captain Ceroni's watch
The beginning of the story
On 5 November 1809, the Sydney Gazette, a weekly paper six years old, reported the expected departure the next day of the vessel Boyd, under Captain Thompson, for the Cape of Good Hope, carrying coals, timber and cedar in logs and planks. The notice of the Boyd's sailing appears at the top of page 2 as one of several apparently unrelated items of the colony's business, including a short list of commodity prices, a disclaimer about the number of skins carried by the colonial vessel Unity reported the week before (a 'wanton misrepresentation'), an account of the upcoming wheat harvest and a police notice of absentees, among whom are 'several Persons of very abandoned character with a preference to an idle and criminal course of life'. The notice finishes:
By a recent arrival it is credibly reported that Thomas Ray, otherwise Ratty, who has been repeatedly advertised as an absentee under the head Police Notice, was some time since devoured by the natives at New Zealand, having effected his escape from hence, and afterwards deserted the vessel there to prevent his being returned hither; which the unfortunate man too late discovered must have been the inevitable consequence of his rashness.
The Boyd resurfaces as an item in the Gazette early the following year. On 10 March a letter from Alexander Berry, Supercargo of the City of Edinburgh, was published, having been left at Kororareka and sent to Sydney with Captain Chace in the Ann. It announced the
melancholy information of the Boyd's capture by the New Zealanders under Tippahee, and the massacre of everyone on board except a boy, 2 women and a child, at a place called Whangaria, about twenty miles from the Bay of Islands.
Under 'Ship News' on 31 March 1810, the Gazette reported that Captain Wilkinson of the Star confirmed the 'melancholy' capture of the Boyd at the Bay of Islands and the 'atrocities attending that doleful event'.
As in previous issues of the Gazette, the column in which the Boyd item occurs is a mix of sale advertisements, price lists and various kinds of news. An item about the Governor of New South Wales, Commodore Bligh, appears in the same column as a story about a little girl who died falling in a fire, and a request for claims and demands against the Orphan and Gaol Funds. Such a flow both reveals the principal currents of interest in the colony and suggests a wash of information spilling over its many boundaries. The tide of information enters by sea. Each issue of the Gazette carries announcements of shipping arrivals and departures, passenger lists, mail waiting to be collected and debts discharged, items offered for sale, commodity price fluctuations, and the flow of people in and out of the port and in and out of its institutions. There are also reports of small local events which suggest the many narratives of a penal and commercial colony, like the mysterious fire that afflicted His Majesty's store ship Dromedary, heating casks of spirits until they were nearly boiling. The story of the Boyd and how it was 'cut off' and blown up in New Zealand is one of these narratives, an event which puts New Zealand into the flow of news and information the colony receives, generates and recycles.
Before the Boyd episode there are only five references to New Zealand in the Sydney Gazette over six years; in 1810 there were five substantial articles, including a front-page leader. The attack on the Boyd brought New Zealand into focus. More importantly, as the story of the Boyd is told and retold over the next twenty years, it shifts emphasis and shape to serve conflicting interests. What follows is a mapping of the Boyd narrative as it moves out into textual history.
What happened to the Boyd
What happened to the Boyd took about three months to reach Sydney, and did so principally by way of the letter despatched by Alexander Berry to the City of Edinburgh's owner, which recounts the first version of events. According to Berry, Captain Thompson had contracted with 'Tippahee' [Te Pahi] for
a supply of spars, the delivery of which was protracted for some days by plausible excuses; until at length the treacherous chief, who was assisted by his son Mytye, prevailed on Captain Thompson to send two of his boats manned to a distant part of the island under a pretext of getting the spars on board.
Shortly after the departure of the boats, in one of which Captain Thompson went himself, the passengers and seamen left on board were attacked, and those on deck being prostrated, Tippahee with a speaking trumpet invited six seamen who had gone aloft to return on deck, with a promise of security if they would cut the sails from the yards; and being terrified into compliance, they were immediately bound hand and foot and sent on shore for the purpose of being slaughtered and devoured, which sad destiny unhappily fell upon them after protracted sufferings.
Tippahee was one of the few Maori names Sydney readers could be expected to recognise, as the Gazette in December 1805 carried descriptions of his visit to Sydney and reaction to what the Gazette called an Aboriginal war spectacle (he was said to regard Aboriginal warfare with contempt). On the same page as Berry's letter, the Gazette carried a reference to the previous week's notice of the death of 'the Princess Atahoe, of New Zealand', who with her husband, George Bruce, was returning home for 'the valuable purpose of collecting and cultivating flax'. 'Princess Atahoe', or 'Mary Bruce', was Te Pahi's daughter, who had landed in Sydney after being taken from New Zealand with her husband against their will. No connection is made between Te Pahi and his daughter, nor is there any reference to the quite different circumstances of their visits to Sydney; they remain apparently unconnected narratives in the tide-like flow of the Gazette's information. The metaphor is used to suggest both the marine culture and economy in which the story of the Boyd exists, and the way in which the Gazette as a print medium reflects it. The Gazette seems to scoop events from the pool available to it and report them in an unconnected and undifferentiated way, like objects randomly floating in on the tide, brought there by ocean currents of displacement, colonisation, commerce, opportunism and punishment.
On 21 April 1810, the Gazette published on its front page the full text of a letter signed by Simeon Pattison, Master of the City of Edinburgh, Alexander Berry and James Russell, the Mate. It opened with a warning to all masters of ships frequenting New Zealand not to admit many natives on board, 'as they may be cut off in a moment by surprise' (made possible by the fact that all ships carried boarding nets). A longer account of the Boyd events follows, with Te Pahi remaining at the centre of hostilities, plus further detail of the visit made by the City of Edinburgh to Whangaroa after the attack and the names of those who were rescued. The letter finishes by noting that
the natives of the spar district in this harbour have behaved well, even beyond expectation, and seemed much concerned on account of this unfortunate event, & dreading the displeasure of KING GEORGE have requested certificates of their good conduct, in order to exempt them from his vengeance, but let no man after this trust a New Zealander. We further certify that we gave Terra, the bearer of this, a small flat bottomed boat as a reward for his good conduct, and the assistance of getting us a cargo of spars.
A postscript by William Swain, of the Cumberland, states that 'Terra behaved very well, and all his tribe, for that reason I gave him several gallons of oil.'
The glimpse here of how Maori perceived the power of documents to negotiate their relationship to a rapidly changing world denotes a shift of balance towards what D. F. McKenzie called 'text-led European imperialism', perhaps the most significant European cultural intervention in Maori life. The perceived superiority of a written over an oral culture to document truth is evidenced on both sides of the Tasman and the racial/cultural divide: a warning certificate to shipping is distributed through the Gazette, and the good conduct certificate is requested by Maori in the Bay of Islands in the expectation that it will assert the protective authority of a foreign written language against the incursions of a foreign and punitive military power.
Berry's letter and his attribution of a significant role in the Boyd episode to Te Pahi resulted in speedy retribution, reported in the following Gazette. On hearing of the attack, the captains of the Perseverance, Speke, Diana, Inspector and Atalanta took a party of seamen and sacked Te Puna, Te Pahi's island pa, during which it is reported that a seaman belonging to the Inspector was killed, and about eighteen 'natives'. Lieutenant Finucane of the Experiment commanded the party
with equal spirit and forbearance, not permitting a single discharge to take place that was not actually necessary to the resistance of assault, and the conduct of the party was highly applauded by the Colonel [Foveaux], who bestowed on Lieutenant Finucane, the Captains and their people, the most satisfactory Eulogiums.
Consolidating the case against Te Pahi, the Gazette reports a passenger from the Perseverance claiming he had breakfasted on board the Boyd with Captain Thompson the very morning of the attack.
It was only about four months before Te Pahi's role in the destruction of the Boyd was revised, but exoneration came too late. His death was reported by Captain Samuel Chace in the Gazette of 25 August, together with the death of his son and destruction of his village, a destruction comfortably glossed for Gazette readers as the loss of 'a number of miserable huts into which the people crawl on their hands and knees'.
But the Gazette wasn't finished with the Boyd. The following issue carried another account, 'The Destruction of the Boyd', derived from Captain Chace, who said he got it from an 'Otaheitan' (Tahitian) in New Zealand, who 'as an alien, not being interested on the part of either the Bay of Islands or of the Whangarooans, may still more be entitled to credit'. This new account, purportedly derived from an eyewitness occupying the middle ground (with the authenticity of a native who is not a native) begins with motivation. The four or five New Zealanders, including 'George' [Te Aara], carried by the Boyd are said to have been displeased at their treatment on the voyage from Port Jackson and determined on revenge. The story continues:
On their arrival they communicated their complaints to their friends and relatives, who were of the Whangarooa party, and frequently at war with Tippahee and his subjects; and the design of taking the ship was formed in consequence. It being Captain Thompson's intention to take in a quantity of spars, he applied to the natives for assistance in procuring them, which they promised, but in order to entice him on shore, artfully objected to perform until he should accompany them to point out such as he might best approve. The Captain was thereby prevailed on to leave the vessel, accompanied by his chief officer, with three boats manned, to get the spars on board, the natives who had arrived in the ship being of the party, which was accompanied by a number of others in their canoes. The boats were conducted to a river, on entering which they were out of sight of the ship; and after proceeding some distance up, Capt. Thomson was invited to land and mark the spars he wanted. The boats landed accordingly, the tide being then beginning to ebb, and the crews following to assist in the work. The guides led the party through various parts of the wood that were least likely to answer the desired end, thus delaying the premeditated attack until the boats should be left by the effluence of the tide sufficiently high to prevent an escape; which part of the horrible plan accomplished, they became insolent and rude, ironically pointing at decayed fragments, and enquiring of Captain Thompson whether they would suit his purpose or not? The natives belonging to the ship then first threw off the mask, and in opprobrious terms upbraided Captain Thompson with their maltreatment; informing him at the same time that he should have no spars there but what he could procure himself. The Captain appeared careless of the disappointment, and with his people turned towards the boats; at which instant they were assaulted with clubs and axes, which the assailants had till then concealed under their dresses, and although the boats' crews had several muskets, yet so impetuous was the attack, that every man was prostrated before one could be used. Captain Thompson and his unfortunate men were all murdered on the spot, and their bodies were afterwards devoured by the murderers, who, clothing themselves with their apparel, launched the boats at dusk the same evening, and proceeded towards the ship, which they had determined also to attack.
In Chace's report, the drama of the Boyd has moved from an event produced by 'treachery', consistent with an understanding of 'native' and 'savage', to take on features of a formal narrative, with suggested motivation, dramatic reconstruction of the principal scenes and a revenge plot, authenticated by being filtered through a third party whose ethnicity and speech validate him as a mediator between the opposing groups. The point of view is interesting. Captain Chace's account is said to have been received from a Tahitian, and its detail suggests that it was derived from firsthand accounts (which presumably were Maori, as all the Europeans were killed), but it is recycled through a European point of view. Who is commenting that the 'natives threw off the mask' and on the 'opprobrious' terms in which they upbraided the captain? In its progression from oral reports in Maori and 'Otaheitan' English to the front page of the Sydney Gazette, the story has been dramatised and re-imagined from a British point of view. The 'Otaheitan', known as 'Tom', was later said by Alexander Berry to have been a deserter from the City of Edinburgh on an earlier trip to New Zealand. Berry describes him as 'a great favourite on board' who 'rendered considerable service' from speaking both English and 'the New Zealand language which is a dialect of his own'. Tom is all but invisible behind Chace's report, but there is a drama in the narrative, missing from Berry's account, which conveys the presence of Maori as agents in the landscape, displaying a superior knowledge of the terrain and an ability to use it strategically, with a comprehensible motive for retaliation and, in pointing ironically at decayed fragments of trees, sophisticated social behaviour.
By the end of 1810, the Boyd has appeared eight times in the Gazette, twice on the front page, and is the only continuing narrative about New Zealand to circulate among a Sydney readership. As a narrative and a location, New Zealand had taken a place in the commodity market that was the Gazette – both news-as-commodity and commodity news. In this context, if you imagine the faint, written over but not quite extinguished Maori point of view on these events, there is a shadowed inversion of New Zealand as a location of commodities. A place where you go to fetch cargoes of spars and seals, which had been its principal textual presence in Sydney, and by inference the parent culture, might also be seen as a place in which commodities arrive. Is the Boyd episode a story about savages, treachery and massacre, or an opportunity to possess the ship's cargo and human freight, as well as take revenge for humiliation and maltreatment? As Greg Dening has observed about Tahiti, the question is who possessed whom?
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Country of Writing by Lydia Wevers. Copyright © 2002 Lydia Wevers. Excerpted by permission of Auckland University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Dedication,
Acknowledgements,
Introduction,
1 Captain Ceroni's watch,
2 Adventures of the printer,
3 Swells' sons run out: the travel writing of rovers, ramblers and adventurers,
4 Travel with interest,
5 Empire travellers, 1: writers who travel,
6 Empire travellers, 2: travellers who write,
7 The business of travel,
8 Exhausting the wonders,
Notes,
Select bibliography,
Index,
About the Author,
Copyright,