BEACHCOMBER and Castaway are not just islands in the South Pacific. In addition to being names of islands, these words have a hidden or unknown history.
Up until now, when people heard of Castaway and Beachcomber, they would think of a vacation on these exotic Fiji islands. That’s because most people did not know that castaways and beachcombers were “early European emigrants in the Pacific”.
This article gives a historical overview of their origin, impact and legacy in Oceania.
The influx of Europeans and spread of their culture in the South Pacific was through people such as beachcombers, castaways, whalers, planters, traders, missionaries, government officials and others. The pioneering work of HE Maude Beachcomber and Castaways (1964) explained the varied roles played by these European immigrants, who said they were “transculturistes” meaning”temporarily or permanently detached from one group, enter the web of social relations that constitute another society, and come under the influence of its customs, ideas, values to a greater or lesser degree”.
He further explained beachcombers: “Were essentially integrated into, and dependent for their livelihood on, the indigenous communities … occasionally be supplemented by casual employment with payment usually in kind as agents and intermediaries for the captains or supercargoes of visiting ships, but to all intents and purposes they had voluntarily or perforce contracted out of the European monetary economy.”
Beachcombers were mostly transient visitors including runaway sailors, escaped convicts, castaways and wanderers. Beachcombers gave respect to the islanders’ customs and protocol of behaviour. On the other hand, islanders’ treatment of these immigrants could never be predicted with certainty; sometimes they were tortured or outright killed and sometime received with kindness and consideration.
Maude reveals the castaways as “simply involuntary beachcombers for the most part of victims of shipwreck, but including persons marooned by their captains or kidnapped by the islanders”.
With a boom in European trading activities and commercial shipping in the Pacific, the role of beachcombers became more prominent. Some of these were marooned while others were shipwrecked. Some were kidnapped by islanders as having a white man gave islanders a sense of prestige or they were used as a status symbol.
Caroline Ralston’s Grass Huts and Warehouses: Pacific Beach Communities of the Nineteenth Century (1977) examined the political, economic and social development of five small towns relative to five independent beach communities, describing the beachcomber as a distinct anthropological and sociological type. Furthermore, she explains the historical sequence for progress in early trade along with the beachcomber community and a detailed reconstruction of the development of early Pacific port towns.
These were the connectors between the Western economy and the Pacific social context. Beachcombers were known to be cultural brokers who introduced and interpreted the Europeans and Islanders to each other.
Thomas Bargatzky’s Beachcombers and Castaways as Innovators signifies beachcombers made the Islanders’ nautical (building European-style ships) and military technology (introduction of regular full-time militia, using European combat weapons and tactics; and other European craftsmanship); basis of cultural change; and also acknowledge innovations such as religious syncretism; constructing houses in European style; changes in native handicraft and technology; and liquor distilling.
He termed their contribution as “evolutionary innovations” which contributed in change towards the islands’ political, administrative and territorial centralisation. He also highlighted a beachcomber was dependent on “his host society for survival, subsistence, shelter and status”.
In contrast, Martin Zelenietz and David Kravitz’s analyses on beachcombers’ influence in respect to integration, trade and warfare were not able to transform political and military centralisation in Pohnpei (formely Ponape) because of possible introduction of European diseases and the resultant epidemics at a crucial time.
“Indigenous beachcombers” are explained by David A Chappell’s Secret Sharers: Indigenous Beachcombers in the Pacific Islands. He stated during late 18th century, “outsider-indigenous maritime relations intensified as convicts began to escape from the British penal colony in Australia, increasing the numbers of ship deserted and castaways arriving on island beaches”.
He further discusses the problems arising from intra-regional cross cultural contact about indigenous beachcombers meaning “those Pacific Islanders who from a very early date chose to join foreign vessels, but later left them in order to settle among other Pacific Island people than their own or who were someone native to the region but not to the particular island at which foreign ship left them”. He comprehensively gives evidence of political and military role played by indigenous beachcombers for native chiefs and their competition or tension against the “expatriate or Euroamerican beachcombers”.
Politically, Maude enlightens their contributed in changing island life through the introduction of firearms. Thereafter they gained priority because of their skills in repairing muskets, pistols, cannon and other European articles in the islands.
Island chiefs gave importance to these men as they could use muskets to terrify and confuse their enemy during warfare. Therefore these men played an invaluable political role as some chiefs, in order to gain military superiority over their rivals, intentionally monopolised the importation of firearms and encouraged European settlements to sustain a constant supply of mercenaries and armourers. This helped them to maintain national sovereignty and also gallantly participated in local power struggles.
Beachcombers’ authority depended on the chiefs and islanders’ will to the extent they wanted to involve them in island warfare. They acted as snipers or marksmen for which they were awarded.
Francais X Hezel’s The Role of the Beachcombers in the Caroline Islands termed them as reviled class of men, reprobates or abandoned and degenerate character. He reveals the beachcomber contributed politically by participation in continuing power struggles between competing alliances or federations of Palau. He termed them as “interpreter of chiefs” who not only tried to barter with passing ships but also acted in a political-military function interceding on this chief’s behalf for military aid against rivals enabling the chief to extend his power base.
Regarding the economy, Maude explained they helped introduce the money economy.
Many participated in chiefly household activities and obeyed the command of natives. They played significant role acting as agents, sometimes middlemen and intermediaries between not just the captains or masters of visiting ships and natives but also locals and outside world.
Many brought valuable European skills of their community into the islands such as carpentry, blacksmithing and musket maintenance. Some served as harbour pilots aboard visiting ships. They also sometimes acted as overseers of sandalwood, bêche-de-mer and other trading activities to make handsome profits. Maude said those beachcombers sometimes obtained land or presents in kind from their chiefs in return for services given though the tenure was at will and sometimes precarious.
Socially, they acted as agents of cultural change between Europe and the islands. They explained European customs, religion, economic and technological systems. According to Maude, beachcombers formed their own churches and converted hundreds with considerable material advantage to themselves.
He said beachcombers integrated into island life by learning island languages, took part in war, tattooed their bodies, ate island food, usually married native wives and had many children. Whereas, Chappell explicates their challenges of acculturation in the Pacific as they faced cultural shocks and other mishaps.
Lastly, Maude said the legacy and political importance of beachcombers waned unto cessation because of the advent of missionaries and naval officers who took over the role of intermediaries in the growth of a commercial community, development of governmental institutions and appointment of consular agents.
He also explained most beachcombers eventually left the islands on their own free will usually as seamen on visiting ships. Others were killed in their recurrent brawls or by the natives.
In conclusion, these men played a pivotal role in regards to political, social, economic domains and left behind the legacy followed by colonisation era in the Pacific Islands.
* Dr Sakul Kundra is an assistant professor in history at the College of Humanities and Education of the Fiji National University. The views expressed are his own and not of this newspaper or his employer. For comments or suggestions, email. dr.sakulkundra@gmail.com.
