White Shadows in the South Seas by Frederick O'Brien
page 39 of 457 (08%)
page 39 of 457 (08%)
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but he does not mention them. Seventy-three years later a Spanish
flotilla sent from Callao by Don Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza, viceroy of Peru, found this island of Fatu-hiva, and its commander, Mendaña, named the group for the viceroy's lady, Las Islas Marquesas de Mendoza. One hundred and eighty years passed, and Captain Cook again discovered the islands, and a Frenchman, Etienne Marchand, discovered the northern group. The fires of liberty were blazing high in his home land, and Marchand named his group the Isles of the Revolution, in celebration of the victories of the French people. A year earlier an American, Ingraham, had sighted this same group and given it the name of his own beloved hero, Washington. Had not Captain Porter failed to establish American rule in 1813 in the island of Nuka-hiva, which he called Madison, the Marquesas might have been American. Porter's name, like that of Mendaña, is linked with deeds of cruelty. The Spaniard was without pity; the American may plead that his killings were reprisals or measures of safety for himself. Murder of Polynesians was little thought of. Schooners trained their guns on islands for pleasure or practice, and destroyed villages with all their inhabitants. "To put the fear of God in the nigger's hearts," were the words of many a sanguinary captain and crew. They did not, of course, mean that literally. They meant the fear of themselves, and of all whites. They used the name of God in vain, for after a century and more of such intermittent effort the Polynesians have small fear or faith for the God of Christians, despite continuous labors of missionaries. God seems to have forgotten them. |
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