The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-02-25
South Sea Islands
Governed by
Yank ,es.
CLAIMED THEM FOR
STARS AND STRIPES
a Man { Who Visited Honolulu
Was Afterward Monarch Of
Gente ..slt,,vso.

! nc liioSt luteISSlliiE tnlUSS uhu
in my cruises in the South Sea-" says
Captain w. e. Bostwick of Lima,
Peru, in the Chicago Inter Ocean, "are
| the little islands that rear their heads
/ above the water in the South Pacific
Ocean. There are probably few
Americans who know that for more
! than forty-ffve years the Stars and
| Stripes have been flying over an atoll
! in the South Sea, in the northern part
| of the Samoan group, and that an
ardent American lived there as king
| for twenty-eight years and foEnded a
colony of American-Samoan descend
ants on the palm-fringed islet. The ISL
and is Gente Hermosa, and the lord
and master there was a New Hamp-
shire nap named Jennings. In 1856 or
1858 a young Yankee skipper, Eli Jen-
nings, was sailing around the Horn on
a whaler for the Hawaiian Islands.
The ship stopped at Genie Hermosa
for water and fruit, and Jennings was
charmed with the spot and the print
tive courtesy of the natives. He sailed
away to Honolulu with pleasant mem
cries of the atoll in the South Sea. AT
Honolulu he saw what the Yankees
had done in getting rich among the
Hawaiians. So he quit the whaler and
was back at Gente Hermosa in another
year.
The story Of Jennings. life ON that
bit of land far off in the South Sea is
almost as strange as anything in fc-
ton. He learned the Samoan Iangu-
age, married the most beautiful Sa-
moan girl in the whole archipelago,
and was the undisputed lord of all he
surveyed. He got several English sail
ors to come and live on Gente Her
mosa. English became the language
of the island, and the natives We're
taught industry and temperance.
But Jennings never gave up his con-
tention that he had added Genie Her
mosa to the United States, and that all
people there Were Americans. When he
became rich in the copra trade he
procured American books and an
American teacher from Honolulu, and
all of his many dusky-skinned children
were taught American history, Ameri-
can ideas and the Episcopalean relig
ion.
jennings was loved as much by the
Samoans thirty years ago as Robert
Louis Stevenson was years later. He
made Genie Hermosa one of the most
moral and industrious little communi-
ties in all the South Sea. Under his
skill a dozen large houses were built
for the Jennings family, and as the
headquarters of the community gov
eminent and business of the island.
When he died he left eleven groWn-up
children and thirty grandchildren. His
remains were enclosed IN a mammoth
sarcophagus of cement and coral,
which stands on the spot where he
slept first on Gente Hermosa soil in
1857.
An American colony of vegetarians
are living on Tagula Island, a tiny bit
of land in the Dutch archipelago
about 700 miles southeast from New
Guinea, and 1000 miles northeast from
Australia. Under the leadership of a
Methodist clergyman tie Rev. James
Newlin of Ohio, seventy people sailed
from San Fra .sco in 1890 for Ha Val
They believed hat a higher plane Of
Christianity VS. to be reached by u
tamination Win degenerate mankind.
SO they CAV" up their friends and
homes IT, tn. Eastern States. Taguia
Island was finally chosen for their
colony There were about fifty good
natured Iat.Ees there, who welcomed
the newcomers.
I visited ju- Newlinites on the island
y
desertion sorne twenty of the original
members II jG' vegetarian colony, but
they had 4 good net increase in num-
bers by reason If births and accessions
of people from l. gland. Australia and
America. They mad built roads and
homes and . ll.g. mer,iuG-nouse.
They gained their likelihood by grow
for the Australian and New Zealand
markets They seemed To ba happy.
and believed they Were the pioneers in
ii scheme that would become of
mighty Importance in another century.
The Colouists had very little In COM
mon with anything i'm the world Out
side of the island. 4 few of them
wrote annually to relatives and friends
in America and Europe. and some had
entirely cut themselves off from Il
knowledge of all that had once been
dear to them in the busy world.
The history of the COcos group or
islands and the lOrdShp that a couDle
of English Adventures. Ross and
Hare, assumed over the natives there
is unusual. Hare and Ross by coinci-
dence, settled simultaneously on ISL
ands in the Cocos group. and each pro-
posed to be master there After five
years of petty warfare. Hare died.
From 1927 when the original Ross first
settled in the CocOs, a Ross has ruled
the archipelago. The first two Roses,
the father and grandfather of the
present proprietor ruled the islands, as
their Highland ancestors had held
their lands. There was a formal an
neEation Of the group in 1857 by a
British man-of-war. but until eleven
years ago the Ross dynasty was prac-
tically unmolested by any outside in
reference. Even now the British CO.
lonial office leaves the Ross family to
govern the islands by the traditional
methods and by past experience.
The Cocos Islands are about ten de-
grees south latitude and 100 degrees
east. They are 1900 miles southwest
from Java, and 500 miles from Christ
mas Island. They number Twenty-Five.
and the largest Of them has an average
diameter Of nine miles. The popula-
ton Is about 700, Of whom the greater
portion are native born. and the rest
are Malays. The Ross family are the
only Europeans inhabitirg the group.
and though all the male members Of
the third generation were educated In
Scotland and arc