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Murray C. Morgan
The Commodore and the Cannibals
Tacoma News Tribune and Sunday Ledger
May 5, 1974
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The Commodore and the
Cannibals
 After
spending two summers in the Antarctic with the loss of one ship,
the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838-42 headed for North
West America. On the way, they had an important surveying
assignment to carry out.
The
South Pacific had become the haunt of New England whalers. The
dangers of the chase were compounded by uncertainty as to the
whereabouts of many of the islands in the south seas. Charts cased
on earlier French and British expeditions differed dangerously,
sometimes by hundreds of miles in the location of islands and
archipelagoes.
The
Secretary of the Navy's formal instructions to Charles Wilkes,
commodore of the squadron, were to determine the exact position of
the islands, find new harbors that could be used by the whalers
and to make friends with the island peoples.
"You
will carefully inculcate on all the officers and men that courtesy
and kindness toward the natives which is understood and felt by
all classes of mankind; to appeal to their good will rather than
to their fears, until it shall become apparent that they can only
be retrained from violence by fear or force."
The
charting Wilkes did admirably. His performance as a free floating
good will ambassador led to his court martial. Some of the people
the expedition visited were enthusiastic cannibals. The Fiji
Islands, for instances, had for ages ceremonially eaten esteemed
enemies killed in battle. After their acquisition of fire arms the
custom got out of hand. Hunting long pig for the table became an
obsession
There also was dealing in human live stock. A chief lacking a
piece de resistance for a scheduled fete could buy a disposable
villager from a neighboring chief. The honored one was forced to
sit with his chin on his knees; then he was wrapped with vine from
head to toe, carried to a large oven and roasted alive. The
American visitors found this off putting.
Living in the islands at the time of Wilkes' visit was a 75 year
old Irishman, Paddy Connel, who said he had escaped from an
Australian penal colony forty years before, had fathered 148
children by native women and was hoping to make it 150. He told
Wilkes that eight years earlier the people of the Island of Rewa
had captured eight men from the whaler Charles Daggett and eaten
them all though complaining that one sailor tasted strongly of
tobacco.
A
chief named Vendovi was said to have been chef. Wilkes sent his
second in command. William Hudson, to Rewa with orders to capture
the cannibal so he could be taken back to the United States and
tried, if any U.S. Law could be found which applied to the Fiji
Islands.
Vendovi eluded pursuit, once good naturedly serving as guide to
the party that was hunting him. He turned himself in when Hudson
in desperation took as hostage some of his relatives incautious
enough to board the Peacock for a visit.
The
captive cannibal became quite a favorite. Though he acknowledged
past eccentricities in his diet, the Americans found him to be "scrupulously
clean and of proud bearing." He was homesick for his 55 wives
but was allowed to bring his hair dresser, a Hawaiian aboard for
the duration of the Expedition's stay in the islands.
The
stratagem by which Vendovi was taken impressed the Fijians, but
not favorably. Wilkes had difficulty getting guests to visit his
ships. On some islands survey crews encountered resistance as they
set up their paraphernalia; everywhere they had to keep close
watch. Even so they were frequently stoned, sometimes their
equipment was ripped off. When a boat was stolen, Wilkes sent
landing parties ashore to burn two villages and cut down bread
fruit trees.
Hostility to the good will expedition grew. Finally on the island
of Malolo, lieutenants Joseph Underwood and Wilkes Henry, the
latter Wilkes's nephew and namesake were killed in a skirmish.
Wilkes demanded that the islands surrender those responsible for
the death of the officers. His demands were rejected.
On
Wilkes orders landing parties commanded by Lt. Cadwalader Ringgold
destroyed two nearby villages. One was burned without resistance.
The second defended itself but was demolished by rocket fire.
At
least twenty natives were killed in the village, another twenty or
so in attacks on canoes seen approaching or leaving the island.
The landing party burned outlying huts, smashed 17 canoes found
ashore and cut down the bread fruit plantations.
Later the surviving males were forced to crawl on hands and knees
abuse themselves at Wilkes' feet and deliver all their livestock
and weapons to the ships, which left them subject to the mercies
and appetites of their neighbors.
Such reprisals continued. Wilkes ordered the burning and
cannonading of villages in Samoa in retaliation for the reported
death of a crew man from a whale ship; and of a village on
Drummonond Island in the Kingsmill group after a sailor from the
expedition disappeared while ashore.
Years later after the expedition had returned to the United States
Wilkes was court martialled for exceeding his instructions. His
defense was legalistic but spirited. He quoted his orders as
saying that should he find himself in an unprecedented position he
would have to respond as seemed proper to him. Such orders could
not be "exceeded."
If
he had done wrong it was not that he had exceeded his orders but
committed murder a charge which should be brought before a civil
rather than a military court.
The
various reprisals, however, were "...not disproportionate to
the offenses.." the destruction of the villages had been "incumbent
on me for the protection of commerce; it would have been criminal
of me not to have inflicted chastisement." He did not believe
himself guilty of anything. He felt he should not be censured but
saluted by the officers of the court:
"May I not venture to
say that a bare verdict of not guilty is far less than the
nation has a right to require at your hands? Its honor, its
glory, the untarnished lustre of its unconquered flag all have
been assailed, through me. With you rests the power of
vindicating that honor, exalting that glory, and wiping off any
stain which these proceedings have cast on that banner."
Wilkes' peers found him not guilty of all charges growing out of
his reprisals against the islanders.
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