Early explorers – traversing the continent | australia.gov.au Early explorers – traversing the continent Aboriginal trackers Early explorers – traversing the continent J. C. Armytage, Return of Burke and Wills to Coopers Creek, engraving, in Australia by Edwin Carton Booth, opp. p. 182. Image courtesy of the National Library of Australia. When the English colonised Australia in 1788, little was known about the land by the colonists. Many explorers were sent, or volunteered to travel north and south along the coast, and west into the inland, seeking to cross the Great Dividing Range. Most expeditions were officially sponsored, but some were commissioned by private investors. Explorers set out to discover rivers and land suitable for agriculture as well as to survey the land. Later, it was important to discover the best routes for lines of communication. A major expedition usually produced a published report, known as a 'journal', and a map showing geographical features such as rivers, mountains, plains and deserts, and sometimes information about Aboriginal groups the explorer encountered. The maps named the country they described. Occasionally Aboriginal names were used, for example, Murrumbidgee.

Usually, though, the explorers named places after people, such as members of the British royal family, politicians or expedition members. Other names were coined to describe geographic characteristics, such as 'Tidal River', or a place in the story of the expedition, such as Mount Disappointment. Exploration parties always consisted of a team of men. The smallest groups numbered just two or three, while the best-equipped included gentlemen, Aboriginal guides and negotiators, smiths, carpenters, shipwrights, horsemen, labourers, horses, sometimes camels or bullocks, and scores of sheep and cattle. In either case, it became customary to speak of an expedition as if it were the work of a single man or partnership - as if the white 'explorers' were somehow alone and transcendent in the midst of their men. Davison, G, Hirst, J and MacIntyre, S (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Australian History, Revised Edition, Oxford University Press, 2001 This exploration posed monumental challenges.

Some successful inland explorers like Major Mitchell and Edward John Eyre, who survived their journeys, travelled lightly, had good knowledge of 'the bush' and bushcraft, and were often accompanied by Aboriginal trackers and 'diplomats' in order to seek information from the local inhabitants. Others, like Burke and Wills, who refused to trade or deal with the local Aborigines of the Darling River, did so at their own peril. In between there were other explorers like John Oxley, whose expedition of men travelled independently. Oxley acknowledged, however, that his expedition's survival depended upon access to native wells and at times, the Oxley expedition's fell in with a native family'. The explorers experienced extreme hardship and were faced with what D H Lawrence termed the land's 'lost, weary aloofness' - whether this was the impenetrable mountains or the oppressive heat and insects of tropical Australia. The efforts and sacrifices of these both brave and sometimes foolhardy men paved the way for English settlements beyond the early-settled areas of Port Jackson, Port Phillip, Moreton Bay, Adelaide and Perth.

South to north Burke and Wills – success at a cost Burke and Wills were the first colonists to traverse the continent from south to north. Their 1860 journey of exploration was the largest and most costly ever mounted in Australia. It was also one of the worst failures, with many men needlessly losing their lives. Ludwig Becker, Aborigines at Menindee, col sketch, [sketched on the Burke and Wills expedition]. Image courtesy of the State Library of Victoria. Burke and Wills travelled from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Their 28 horses and wagons and 24 camels carried, among other things, two years supply of food and around six tones of firewood. Their expedition caravan was observed by local Aborigines who were alarmed at the damage to their water-holes. When offered baskets of fish by large family groups, Burke and Wills refused to barter their trade goods. Burke should never have led the expedition. His impatience, questionable decision-making and leadership skills, and lack of bushcraft knowledge meant the expedition was, from the beginning, fatally flawed.

Burke's objective of reaching the Gulf of Carpentaria was successful, but at a high cost. Stranded on the way back at Coopers Creek with dwindling supplies and close to exhaustion, Burke, Wills and John King realised they could not make the long trip back. They lived for some time on locally stored nardoo seed, gradually getting weaker. Nardoo stones used by Burke, Wills and King. Image courtesy of the State Library of Victoria (mp003447). Both Burke and Wills died about the end of June 1861. King was befriended by Aborigines who gave him food and shelter. King was rescued by the relief party, which had been sent out under A W Howitt on 15 September. The relief party also removed the nardoo stones used by King. Burke and Wills were buried in Melbourne. King died nine years later at the age of 31. The fascination with these explorers has never dwindled.

The 1985 film Burke and Wills with Jack Thompson and Nigel Havers was widely seen and exhibitions such as Burke and Wills - Terra Incognita, The Diary of William John Wills and Burke and Wills - From Melbourne to Myth have all sparked interest in these ill-fated adventurers. John McDouall Stuart John McDouall Stuart was based in Adelaide, from where he embarked on his explorations of the most arid regions of the continent. In 1862, Stuart succeeded in crossing Australia from south to north, passing through the centre of the continent. Stuart's journey mapped out the route which was later followed by the Overland Telegraph. Australian mainland and Tasmanian coastlines: Mathew Flinders and George Bass Portrait of Matthew Flinders, colour glass lantern slide, ca 1910. Image courtesy of the State Library of Victoria (b13758). Matthew Flinders met George Bass, a ship's doctor, when they sailed to Australia on the Reliance. It was the first of many journeys of exploration they undertook together. Flinders was the first colonist to prove that Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) was an island.

In 1798, Bass and Flinders sailed the Norfolk through Bass Strait and around the southern island. This was the last voyage Bass and Flinders undertook together as Bass mysteriously vanished somewhere in the Pacific. After returning to England and marrying, the British government asked Flinders to circumnavigate Australia. In 1802, he sailed north from Sydney in the Investigator, passing through Torres Strait and across the Gulf of Carpentaria. On the 1802 voyage from Sydney, Flinders recruited two Aboriginal people, Bungaree, who had sailed with him on the Norfolk, and Nanbaree. The visit of Flinders and other mariners to the coast of Arnhem Land is recorded in the paintings of 'praus' and European ships at rock art sites. Queensland to the Northern Territory: Ludwig Leichhardt Ludwig Leichhardt was a German born explorer and scientist who led an expedition to find a new route to Port Essington, near Darwin. Ludwig left the Darling Downs in October 1844, and after a perilous journey of 15 months and over 5000 kilometres, his party finally reached Port Essington.

They named the Dawson, Mackenzie, Isaacs, Suttor and Burdekin Rivers, as well as Expedition Range and Peak Range. One of his party, John Gilbert, was killed by Aborigines. On a journey from Moreton Bay to Perth, his party disappeared. Many reasons, from mutiny to floods, have been put forward to explain the disappearance. It still remains a mystery today. Leichhardt's expedition and disappearance inspired Patrick White to base his great novel Voss on the explorer. The broad outline of the narrative is based on Leichhardt's expedition from Sydney to Darwin. East to west: Edward John Eyre and Wylie Samuel Calvert (1828-1913), Eyre's journey to Albany, wood engraving, 1891, David Syme and Co, Melbourne. Image courtesy of the State Library of Victoria (IAN01/01/91/SUPP/12). Edward John Eyre, together with his Aboriginal friend Wylie, trekked across the Nullarbor Plain from Adelaide to Albany becoming the first men to cross southern Australia from east to west.

The expedition hoped to find good land and to open up a route to take cattle overland from Adelaide to Western Australia. In 1840, Eyre set out from Adelaide with six white men, and three Aborigines. They took with them 13 horses, 40 sheep and supplies to last them 3 months. The harsh conditions and lack of water on what is now known as Eyre Peninsula, forced Eyre to send all of the members of his party back to Adelaide, except for Baxter (his station manager), Wylie and 2 other Aborigines. Eyre realised that a smaller party might have more chance of success. Their route from Fowler's Bay across the Nullarbor Plain was 1300 kilometres through harsh desolate country with little shade from the fierce heat of the sun. There was little water and very few ways to reach the sea because of the huge cliffs. The expedition around the Great Australian Bight was defined by their desperate search for water and learning how to find it by local Aborigines on route.

Aborigines showed Eyre how to find water by digging behind the sand dunes on the shore, how to break off the roots of gumtrees and suck them to relieve their thirst, to collect early morning dew from leaves and to recognise, use and look after native wells. After Baxter was murdered and the two other Aborigines disappeared with most of the supplies, clothes and firearms; Eyre and Wylie survived by killing and eating kangaroos. In June 1841, they came upon a French whaling ship anchored off the coast at Rossiter Bay (near Esperance) where they rested for two weeks before reaching Albany in July. Their journey had lasted four and a half months. Eyre was awarded a gold medal of the Royal Geographic Society for this incredible journey, and in 1846, he was made Lieutenant-Governor of New Zealand before retiring to England, where he lived until his death in 1901. Wylie was rewarded with a pension, and he remained in Albany, amongst his own people.

West to north-west: Gregory and the Forrest brothers As an assistant surveyor, Augustus Charles Gregory's resource, bushcraft, facility for invention and technical expertise won him the confidence of his superiors and in 1846 he was given command of his first expedition; travelling north of Perth. In 1848 he led a settlers' expedition to map the Gascoigne River and seek more pastoral land, charted part of the Murchison River and found traces of lead which led to the opening of the Champion Bay district centred on Geraldton. Gregory's Tree, near Timber Creek. The boab species (Adansonia gregorii) was described by Ferdinand Von Mueller, who named the species in honour of the expedition leader. Image courtesy of the Northern Territory Government. In 1855, with 18 men, including his brother Henry, botanist Ferdinand Mueller and other scientists he sailed from Moreton Bay, Queensland in August 1855 and in September reached the estuary of the Victoria River, Northern Territory. After initial set-backs Gregory led several forays up the Victoria River.

'Gregory's tree' (a boab - Adansonia gregorii ) marks the area of Gregory's 'entrenchment camp' from October 1855 to July 1856 and still bears inscriptions noting the date of arrival and departure from the camp. Turning east the party explored the Elsey, Roper and Macarthur Rivers, crossed and named the Leichhardt and then travelled to Brisbane by way of the Flinders, Burdekin, Fitzroy and Burnett Rivers. In sixteen months the expedition had journeyed over 2000 miles (3219 km) by sea and 5000 (8047 km) by land. Gregory was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society. John Forrest worked in the Surveyor-General's Office from 1863 to 1890 and made several expeditions into the centre of Australia with his brother, Alexander Forrest. In March 1869 he led an expedition from Perth in search of clues to the fate of Leichhardt.

From 15 April until 6 August he successfully led six men and sixteen horses over 2000 miles (3200 km), inland almost as far as the site later known as Laverton. While he found neither Leichhardt nor any good pastoral land, Forrest systematically surveyed his route using the most up-to-date methods of stellar observation, and he brought back specimens for botanists and geologists. Forrest and his brother Alexander later surveyed the route between Western Australia and South Australia taken thirty years earlier by Edward John Eyre. A telegraph line was completed in December 1877 which put Perth into telegraphic contact with London. In 1883 Forrest, as Surveyor-General and Commissioner of Crown lands, organized the first large-scale survey of the Kimberley district, which had been explored earlier by his brother Alexander in 1879 and Gregory. Forrest was appointed K.C.M.G. in May 1891, the first Australian born to be knighted, and held office as premier and treasurer until 15 February 1901. Other pioneering explorers – eastern Australia William Nicholas (1807-1854), Portrait of Edmund B. Kennedy.

Image courtesy of the National Library of Australia. Many other explorers opened up the country for colonial expansion. Edmund Kennedy made many expeditions into unexplored areas of Queensland, opening up many new areas, before being speared to death while trying to open up a route to the tip of the Cape York Peninsula. John Oxley surveyed and described the country by following the Lachlan River and across to and down the Macquarie River. Oxley then proceeded north-east, discovering the Castlereagh River, finding the rich Liverpool Plains, and followed the Hastings River to its estuary at Port Macquarie. Charles Sturt undertook explorations of the Macquarie, Lachlan, Murrumbidgee, Darling and Murray River system. Of his commitment to exploring, Sturt's own words speak for many of the nation's explorers: I sought that career, not, I admit, without a feeling of ambition as should ever pervade a soldier's breast, but chiefly with an earnest desire to promote the public good, and certainly without any hope of any other reward than the credit due to the successful enterprise.

Useful links Pacific Islands | region, Pacific Ocean | Britannica.com Pacific Islands Polynesian culture Pacific Islands, island geographic region of the Pacific Ocean . It comprises three ethnogeographic groupings— Melanesia , Micronesia , and Polynesia —but conventionally excludes the neighbouring island continent of Australia , the Asia-related Indonesian , Philippine , and Japanese archipelagoes, and the Ryukyu , Bonin , Volcano , and Kuril island arcs that project seaward from Japan . Neither does the term include the Aleutian chain or such isolated islands of the Pacific Ocean as the Juan Fernández group off the coast of South America. The more inclusive term Oceania , in its broadest definition, encompasses all the foregoing; however, the term is used less strictly in this article to refer to the Pacific Islands as defined above. The Pacific Island region covers more than 300,000 square miles (800,000 square km) of land—of which New Zealand and the island of New Guinea make up approximately nine-tenths—and millions of square miles of ocean. It is a mixture of independent states, associated states, integral parts of non-Pacific Island countries, and dependent states.

Map of the Pacific Islands. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Houses on stilts, Port Moresby, P.N.G. Geogphotos/Alamy The great arc of islands located north and east of Australia and south of the Equator is called Melanesia (from the Greek words melas, “black,” and nēsos, “island”) for the predominantly dark-skinned peoples of New Guinea island, the Bismarck Archipelago , Solomon Islands , Vanuatu (the New Hebrides), New Caledonia , and Fiji . Culture areas of the Pacific Islands. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. North of the Equator and east of the Philippines are the islands of Micronesia, which form an arc that ranges from Palau , Guam , and the Northern Mariana Islands in the west eastward through the Federated States of Micronesia (the Caroline Islands), Nauru , and the Marshall Islands to Kiribati .

In the eastern Pacific, largely enclosed within a huge triangle formed by the Hawaiian Islands to the north, New Zealand to the southwest, and Easter Island (Rapa Nui) far to the east, are the many (“poly”) islands of Polynesia. Other components of this widely scattered collection, again generally from west to east, are Tuvalu , Wallis and Futuna , Tokelau , Samoa (the former Western Samoa), American Samoa , Tonga , Niue , the Cook Islands , and French Polynesia (including the Society , Tuamotu , and Marquesas islands). Similar Topics Galapagos Islands The main Pacific Islands span the Equator obliquely from northwest to southeast and can be divided into two major physiographic regions by island type: continental and oceanic. Deep ocean trenches form the Andesite Line along the eastern borders of Japan, the Marianas , New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Fiji, and New Zealand. The line separates the basaltic volcanic islands of the central and eastern Pacific from the islands of the broad western Pacific margin, which are formed mainly of metamorphosed rocks, sediment, and andesitic volcanic material.

The continental islands , lying southwestward of the Andesite Line, are faulted and folded in mountainous arcs, tend to be higher and larger than those farther east, and have rich soils that support almost every kind of vegetation. Continental islands are generally larger (most notably, the Marianas, New Guinea, the Bismarcks, the Solomons, Vanuatu, Fiji, New Caledonia, and the North and South islands of New Zealand) and have richer mineral-bearing soils than their oceanic counterparts. The parent lava material of the oceanic type of island is basalt. Oceanic islands are differentiated as high volcanic-based islands, such as Hawaii, or low coral islands and atolls , such as the Marshalls. Most Pacific islands are coral formations, although all of these rest on volcanic or other cores. In the shallow waters of the tropics, both continental and oceanic islands attract coral growth in the form of fringing reefs, partially submerged platforms of consolidated limestone , with coral organisms at the ocean edge feeding on materials carried in by waves and currents. Many islands have been gradually submerged through a combination of sinking, caused by geologic action, and flooding, caused by the melting of ice caps.

As islands were flooded, coral growth continued outward, producing barrier reefs farther from the shorelines and separated from them by lagoons. Volcanic peaks of Bora-Bora, a high volcanic island surrounded by a lagoon, Society Islands, French … © Nicholas DeVore III/Bruce Coleman Inc. A computer visualization of the process by which volcanic island chains are formed. Great plumes of … Displayed by permission of The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. (A Britannica Publishing Partner) Britannica Stories Scientists Ponder Menopause in Killer Whales A coral atoll results when still further flooding reduces an island to a submarine condition. The usually irregular reef continues to build up in the warm shallows. It encircles a clear-surfaced lagoon of moderate depth and in time supports a number of islets built up from reef debris to 20–30 feet (6–9 metres ) above sea level . Rain catchments are usually the only source of fresh water on atolls . Islet of Bairiki, Tarawa atoll, Kiribati. Richard Vogel/AP History Randomizer The successive geologic lifting of some islands above sea level has created a variety of “raised” coral formations.

The northern half of Guam, for example, is a coralline limestone plateau with a general elevation of about 500 feet (150 metres), while the mountains in the southern half of the island, formed by volcanic activity, reach a maximum elevation of over 1,300 feet (400 metres). Nauru and Banaba (in Kiribati) are raised coral islands that stand at elevations of about 210 and 285 feet (65 and 90 metres), respectively. They have deeper soil and a more adequate water supply than atoll islets, as well as surface deposits of phosphate rock (derived from guano ) that have been mined commercially. The climate of the Pacific Islands is generally tropical (except in New Zealand, which has a temperate climate), with temperatures , humidity , and rainfall relatively uniform throughout the year. Temperature varies from averages in the low 80s F (about 28 °C) on both Nauru and Kiribati to an average in the low 60s F (about 15 °C) on Norfolk Island, one of the southernmost Pacific Islands.

Most vegetation is derived from Indonesia and New Guinea, and its generic variety declines eastward across the Pacific. Local environmental differences and relative isolation have resulted in the evolution of numerous new endemic species. The introduction of new species from throughout the world has also markedly altered island flora. Only a small proportion of the total land area is arable and, outside New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, is devoted mostly to the cultivation of coconut and cassava. Most of the larger islands also support some livestock. As much as two-thirds of the Pacific Islands’ total land area is forested. Most of the islands are poor in mineral resources. Connect with Britannica The population is concentrated in Papua New Guinea, New Zealand (which has a majority of people of European descent), Hawaii, Fiji, and Solomon Islands. Most Pacific Islands are densely populated, and habitation tends to be concentrated along the coasts. Traditionally dressed dancers in Honiara, Sol.Is. Tim Page/Corbis Melanesians make up more than three-fourths of the total indigenous population of the Pacific Islands. Polynesians account for more than one-sixth of the total, and Micronesians constitute about one-twentieth.

People of European origin account for as much as one-third of the Pacific Islands’ population if New Zealand is included in the total and less than one-tenth if it is not; outside New Zealand the largest concentration of people of European origin is in Hawaii. Several hundred distinct languages are spoken in the Pacific Islands; these are mostly Austronesian in origin. Most islanders have some familiarity with English or French; one or the other of these is the official language of virtually all Pacific Islands. Christianity has largely supplanted traditional beliefs and practices, although in some areas, such as Papua New Guinea, Christian faith is often combined with traditional practices. In general the Pacific Islands have developing economies in which both public and private sectors participate. The gross national product (GNP) per capita varies widely. Agriculture , fishing, and services are generally the largest economic sectors, and mining is important on a few of the islands. Subsistence farming predominates on the smaller islands. Almost all the islands grow coconuts, which, with copra, are a major export. Pasture is available only on the larger islands; pigs, cattle , and chickens are raised commercially there, and sufficient milk and meat are produced to satisfy domestic needs.

Villagers on some smaller islands and New Guinea rear pigs and goats for local use. Subsistence fishing is important everywhere except Hawaii and New Zealand and provides a major source of protein in local diets. There is also commercial fishing , notably in Solomon Islands, Kiribati, and Fiji, which account for much of the regional catch. Islanders fishing in shallow waters off Ifalik Island, Yap state, Micron. Wolfgang Kaehler/Corbis Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies Commercially exploitable forests in Fiji, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Samoa, and Vanuatu produce timber, sawn wood, and wood products for domestic consumption and export. The other islands generally must import quality lumber. Mineral production is limited to a few of the continental islands, such as New Caledonia, New Guinea, and New Zealand. The manufacturing sector, except in Hawaii and New Zealand, is mostly undeveloped and limited to processing fish and agricultural products and producing handicrafts.

Other islands with significant manufacturing besides Hawaii and New Zealand include Guam, Fiji, the Northern Marianas, New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomons. Regional electricity is generated largely from imported fuels. Most Pacific Islands’ annual imports (excluding those of New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and Hawaii) far exceed exports. Tourism and remittances from expatriates only partially offset the trade deficits. Frozen or canned fish, minerals , copra , cocoa , coffee , tea , and spices are among the leading exports, mainly to Japan, France , the United States, and Australia. Machinery and transport equipment, mineral fuels, food, and manufactured goods are among the chief imports and come mainly from Australia, France, Japan, and the United States . Only a small proportion of the Pacific Islands’ external trade is intraregional. Tourism is very important to the Pacific Ocean islands. Attractions include fine beaches, good fishing and boating, and local customs and crafts. French Polynesia, Guam, Hawaii, Fiji, and New Zealand have the most developed tourist sectors, but many of the other islands place a priority on developing facilities.

Most Pacific Islands that are overseas territories of other countries receive budgetary and development aid, mainly from the continental governing countries, while the smaller independent island states receive aid particularly from Australia and New Zealand, as well as from Japan, the United Kingdom , and the United States. Air transport and interisland shipping are the principal means of transport. Many of the island groups have international airports. Extensive road networks are limited to the larger islands. Offshore hut, Bora-Bora, French Polynesia. © Digital Vision/Getty Images The remainder of this article covers the history of the region. For more detailed discussion of the land and people of individual island groups and states, see the articles American Samoa , Caroline Islands , Cook Islands , Fiji , French Polynesia , Guam , Kiribati , Line Islands , Mariana Islands , Marshall Islands , Federated States of Micronesia , Midway Islands , Nauru , New Caledonia , Niue , Northern Mariana Islands , Palau , Papua New Guinea , Pitcairn Island , Samoa , Solomon Islands , Tokelau , Tonga , Tuvalu , Vanuatu , Wake Island , and Wallis and Futuna .

For discussion of the arts and cultures of the region, see the articles Oceanic art and architecture , Oceanic music and dance , Oceanic literature , Melanesian culture , Micronesian culture , and Polynesian culture . Area (excluding Indonesian New Guinea and the Hawaiian Islands but including Papua New Guinea) 317,739 square miles (833,926 square km). Pop. (2007 est.; excluding Indonesian New Guinea and the Hawaiian Islands but including Papua New Guinea) 13,518,070. Early period The prehistory of the Pacific Islands, the period before written records begin, extends back at least 33,000 years, according to archaeological remains in the Bismarck Archipelago , and migration to the region may have begun more than 40,000 years ago. Settlers had reached every habitable island by the 2nd millennium ce.

Since the arrival of Europeans in the early 16th century, the cultures , populations, and economies of the Pacific Islands have been transformed to varying extents, at first by contact with passing explorers and then, from the late 18th century, by the influence of more permanent visitors such as castaways, beachcombers, missionaries, and traders. During the 19th and 20th centuries, settlers flowed in, labourers immigrated or were brought in from other countries (predominantly India and China), and European administrators arrived. Missionaries and immigrants still make up significant segments of the population on the islands today, although European governments, with the exception of that of France, have entirely withdrawn from the region. Historical documents for the region are chiefly of European origin and are therefore the products of people who may not accurately have depicted cultures different from their own—cultures they perceived and understood only imperfectly. This distortion can be corrected to some extent by using the findings of social anthropology and the oral traditions of the Pacific Island people, but these sources may describe the past inaccurately because they serve contemporary purposes; they do not record the past for its own sake. But the main historiographic challenge provided by the region is its diversity .

Some 10,000 islands scattered across a wide expanse of ocean, a variety of cultures, hundreds of mutually unintelligible languages, and diverse historical experiences make generalizations difficult. (The arts of the region are treated in separate articles; see Oceanic art and architecture ; Oceanic music and dance ; and Oceanic literature .) The influence of physical geography Because of the distances involved, contact between islands has never been easy. In addition, the islands’ physical environments are isolated and varied. The large continental islands of Melanesia have widely varied landscapes, climates, and soil types; moreover, their rugged terrain has facilitated social isolation. The smaller volcanic high islands have greater homogeneity and easily support life well above the subsistence level. The physical environment did not determine the kinds of society that developed, but it did limit them. The large islands of Melanesia set the stage for profound cultural differences between people of the coast and those of the interior, particularly those in the more isolated valleys. Thus, Melanesia became characterized by many small groups of people, divided from each other by language and custom. There was little political and social organization, because most families and communities expended their energies on gathering food and other basic necessities.

The high volcanic islands of Polynesia offered no such barriers to social and political unity. Their fertility allowed elaborate social, religious, and political rituals to develop. These geographic and cultural contrasts between the Pacific Islands, which were obvious to early European visitors, concealed a similarity: the societies all rested on the principle of reciprocity . Whether the society was small, with leadership a matter of acquiring influence rather than hereditary position, or larger, with chiefs who were looked on with awe and treated with reverence, every gift or service had to be reciprocated . Origins of Oceanian peoples Jules-Sébastien-César Dumont d’Urville , an early 19th-century French navigator and explorer, classified the islanders as Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian. The apparent differences between the islanders were regarded as evidence of separate waves of ethnically different people out of Southeast Asia . (A discredited variant theory traced the Polynesians to South America).

More recent research suggests that the differences arose within the islands themselves, through the intermixture of an original settlement of non-Austronesian-language speakers (see Papuan languages ) from Southeast Asia with a later wave of Austronesian speakers (see Austronesian languages ). The earlier wave of settlement occurred in Melanesia at least 33,000 years ago and probably, since New Guinea and Australia were then linked by land, at dates contemporaneous with Australian dates of settlement, extending back some 40,000 years or more. Secure dates in the interior of New Guinea approach 30,000 years ago. However, more sites must be uncovered to increase the level of certainty. Linguists have used a chronology of sound changes to trace the time and place of dispersion of language groups, but a considerable number of the languages of Oceania are as yet unstudied and unclassified. Geneticists have conducted studies in order to establish connections between contemporary human groups, thereby revealing past migrations, but systematic sampling has not yet been carried out.

The later Austronesian speakers, members of the prehistoric Lapita culture , which produced the well-known pottery known as Lapita ware, established themselves in the Bismarck Archipelago about 4,000 years ago. They then spread to Fiji , Tonga , and Samoa, which have been regarded as the Polynesian homeland. Newer evidence, however, has led to disagreement among prehistorians about the Lapita cultural complex: it may have arrived in Fiji with a later wave of seafaring immigrants. There is also disagreement about the speed with which the Lapita culture , distinctively linked with the Polynesians, moved from Southeast Asia through Melanesia into Fiji and thence to eastern Polynesia. The Marianas were probably settled about 1500 bce. It is possible that the Marquesas were settled as early as the 2nd century bce, rather than 300 ce, a date at which settlements may have occurred in Hawaii. The Society Islands were occupied by at least the 9th century ce. Lapita pottery, reconstructed two-dimensional anthropomorphic design, c. 1000 bc. Courtesy of R.C.

Green At the time of European contact, Oceanian societies had developed a technology based on stone, bone, and shell objects, and they cultivated tubers and tree fruits, most of which were of Southeast Asian origin. Genetic research has shown that some of the cultigens were native to wider areas, including New Guinea . The most notable exception was the sweet potato , which had spread from South America through most of Polynesia in pre-European times but only marginally into Melanesia. There were three main groups of domesticated animals: pigs, dogs , and chickens. The coastal people had developed fishing techniques and considerable skills as sailors. Navigation between the closer islands was well developed, and regular trade may have occurred between several islands. Some skills were lost; pottery , for example, disappeared in Samoa and the Marquesas shortly after initial settlement. European exploration The 16th and 17th centuries The world of the Pacific Islands was not a static one, but changes were slow compared with those that attended European contact.

Vasco Núñez de Balboa was the first European to sight the Pacific, in 1513; seven years later Ferdinand Magellan rounded South America and sailed across the ocean, missing the main island groups but probably encountering Pukapuka Atoll , in the Tuamotu Archipelago , and Guam . After his death in the Philippines, his expedition encountered some of the Carolines . These northern islands were further explored by the Spaniards as they established a galley trade between Manila , in the Philippines , and Acapulco , in western Mexico . The next major Spanish explorations were made by Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira and Pedro Fernández de Quirós . In 1567 the former set out from Peru to discover the great southern continent that was believed to exist in the South Pacific. He reached the Solomons but failed to find them again on his second journey, during which he died. In 1606 his chief pilot, Quirós, after finding part of the Tuamotu Archipelago, reached the northern Cook Islands , Tikopia (a small Solomon Islands atoll), and the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu ).

One of his companions, Luis Váez de Torres , charted southeastern New Guinea and then the strait (later named for him) between that island and Australia, although the discovery was unknown to later sailors. These Spanish expeditions were motivated by the search for riches, by zeal to extend Christianity , and, in the case of Quirós, by an interest in exploration for its own sake. But with the voyage of Torres, the Spanish effort was ended. Thereafter, the Dutch , who were already established in Indonesia , entered the Pacific. They too looked for a southern continent. In 1615–16 the Dutch navigator Jakob Le Maire traveled from the east through the Tuamotus to Tonga and New Ireland and New Hanover in the Bismarck Archipelago. In 1642 Abel Janszoon Tasman , sailing from Batavia (now Jakarta ), the Dutch headquarters in the East Indies , saw New Zealand , Tasmania , Tonga, some of the Fiji Islands, and New Britain . The Dutch were primarily interested in commerce; they found none. Tasman thought that New Zealand was part of the great southern continent. The effect of these visitors on Oceania was transitory.

The Europeans stayed for periods of at most a few months. Their contacts with the islanders were based on simple barter, but the demands they made on food supplies often caused hostilities in which some European and many islanders’ lives were lost, as on Guadalcanal , in Solomon Islands, and in the Marquesas during Mendaña’s visits. The 18th century During the early 18th century, the extent of Oceania was further revealed. The English buccaneer William Dampier visited New Hanover, New Britain, and New Ireland in command of a Royal Navy ship. Dampier’s journey was a forerunner of the voyages of scientific exploration that followed, and he proved that those islands were separated from each other and from Australia. In 1722 the Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen crossed the Pacific from east to west on a voyage of exploration that also had commercial objectives. He reached Easter Island , more of the Tuamotu Archipelago, the northern islands of the Society group, and some of the Samoan islands. William Dampier.

Courtesy of the American Geographical Society These voyages were not essentially different from earlier ones, but they too foreshadowed the scientific interest of the later 18th century. Further study was delayed by European wars. But in 1765 the English admiral John Byron (grandfather of poet Lord George Gordon Byron ), who was sent by the British Admiralty in search of the supposed southern continent, visited more of the Tuamotus and the southern Gilberts . In 1767 Samuel Wallis and Philip Carteret followed, but their ships were separated as they entered the Pacific. Wallis reached Tahiti, more of the Tuamotus, and the Society Islands, while Carteret found Pitcairn Island and revisited the Solomons that Mendaña had visited, although he did not so identify them. This was left to the French following Louis-Antoine de Bougainville ’s visit in 1768, during which he also charted some of the New Hebrides and Rossel Island , in the Louisiade Archipelago .

Dampier’s A New Voyage Round the World and Bougainville’s description of the “noble savage” in Tahiti were particularly influential in Europe. The interest their journeys created was in part responsible for the instructions given to the greatest of all 18th-century explorers of Oceania, James Cook . After three voyages he left others little to do but fill in occasional details of Oceania. Cook was sent (1768–71) to observe the transit of the planet Venus at Tahiti in 1769 and then to search for the great southern continent. He reached some of the Society Islands, but he also circumnavigated New Zealand, and he defined the limits of eastern Australia. During his second voyage (1772–75), he proved that there was no southern continent, but he also charted further lands in Oceania: in the Tuamotus, the Cooks, the Marquesas, Fiji, Niue , Tonga, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and Norfolk Island .

During his third voyage (1776–79), which was mainly concerned with the North Pacific, he located some of the Tongan group, Christmas Island ( Kiritimati Atoll ), and the Sandwich Islands ( Hawaii ), where he was killed in 1779. He had completed the main work of exploration with an exactitude previously unknown. Although his contacts with islanders were not essentially different from those of his predecessors, his relations with them were nevertheless more prolonged and more humane. His exploration of eastern Australia, through the account of his naturalist, Joseph Banks , was of great importance in Oceania because it led to the founding of towns on the Australian coast, relatively close to the islands. Early European settlement Itinerants Oceania became a supply source in 1788 for the settlement of Australia. Pigs from Tahiti were landed at Sydney in 1793, and until 1826 the trade remained important, although it was subject to price fluctuations. The competition among Europeans for sandalwood, pearl shell, and bêche-de-mer (sea cucumber)—valuable cargoes that attracted ships from the Australian colony—further involved Oceania with the European world.

Sandalwood was found in Fiji in 1804, and for the next decade it attracted European traders. The sealing industry drew seal hunters to New Zealand, and in the 1790s fur traders wintered in Hawaii. All of these sustained and prolonged contacts began to affect the island societies. In addition, there were increasing numbers of European castaways and beachcombers, who had begun to live in the islands from the days of first European contact, because of the expansion of commercial shipping in the region. Castaways, such as HMS Bounty mutineers who went to Tahiti in 1789, began to alter the political climate by using their muskets to support the chiefs who befriended them. Missionary activity Christian missionaries traveled to Oceania with the deliberate intention of changing its societies. In 1797 the London Missionary Society (LMS) sent a party to Tahiti. After some vicissitudes the missionaries converted a prominent chief, Pomare II , who controlled the area of Matavai Bay, where European ships had called since Wallis’s landing.

The LMS failed in its first attempts in Tonga and the Marquesas, although it was more successful in Huahine (in the Society Islands), the Tuamotus, the Cook Islands, and, later, Samoa. English and American missionaries then tried to win over additional Polynesian chiefs so that the masses would follow. Indigenous converts were sent to other islands to spread the word. In 1823 John Williams of the LMS took Polynesian missionaries to Rarotonga and other islands, and he took Christianity to Samoa in 1830. The Methodists began arriving in Tonga in 1822 and Fiji in 1835. Roman Catholic missionaries began working in New Caledonia in the 1840s, and, at about the same time, the Church of England began to penetrate into Oceania from New Zealand. Meanwhile, Polynesian societies were facing varying degrees of lawlessness and disorder at the hands of European beachcombers and traders. British missionaries responded to the situation by creating missionary kingdoms, whereas the French established direct political control.

In Tahiti, Hawaii, and Tonga, native chiefs became powerful kings by gaining access to European arms and support, consolidating power, and accepting missionary advisers and missionary-designed codes of law. In 1819 Pomare II of Tahiti promulgated such a code. In Tonga, Taufaʿahau took the name George in 1833, and in 1845, when he took the Tongan title Tuʿi Kanokupolu, he became king of Tonga; during his reign Tonga became unified and adopted a constitution (1875). The missionary kingdoms addressed problems of European lawlessness in the islands by attempting to enforce a scriptural code of law. Although missionaries could not prevent the sale of arms, they could at least ensure that these passed into the hands of friendly chiefs. However, the authority of the “kings” was challenged from two sides. Many opposed them because they believed that, by becoming Christian, they had cut themselves off from the mana (a Polynesian and Melanesian religious concept sometimes described as an all-pervasive energy) that came from the old gods.

In Tahiti in 1830 there was a revolt against the new Christian order by supporters of the old ways; in 1831 there was a similar reaction in Tonga. In Samoa, where the holder of the chiefly title Malietoa had embraced Christianity from Tahitian missionaries, heretical movements arose. Traditional beliefs thus resisted the chiefs and their missionary supporters. At the same time, European traders also resisted the political authority of the kings. Dissidents and heretics looked to these Europeans for leadership, and they turned to their own national governments for protection. The French took control of the Society Islands and nearby archipelagoes beginning in 1842. They also established missionary control of Wallis and Futuna. In Melanesia events transpired differently. In Fiji the missionaries who landed in 1835, accompanied by an envoy from George of Tonga, made no headway with the rising chief Cakobau , who was not converted until 1854, when his fortunes were at a low ebb and he needed Tongan support. Elsewhere in Melanesia, the absence of chiefs meant that missionary work had to be conducted with small groups of people and repeated every few miles.

There was no wholesale conversion of the kind that had happened in Polynesia. The LMS failed to win over the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) in the 1840s, and the Anglican Melanesian mission in the Solomons made slow progress in the 1850s. Mission work in New Guinea was divided into four spheres of influence in Papua but did not begin systematically until the 1870s. Micronesia was considered a backwater. The Spaniards had established missionaries in the Marianas in 1668, but the missionaries in the Carolines were killed in 1733. The main effort came from the Hawaiian Evangelical Mission in the 1850s, which dissolved the old ties of society by attacking the supernatural sanctions that supported leadership and social mores. Missionaries thus altered political structures, introduced both European goods and the desire for them, and acted as intermediaries between Pacific Island societies and other Europeans—as political advisers, as agents, and as interpreters. Growth of trading communities Beachcombers and castaways preceded missionaries in many of the islands, but trading communities grew partly because of the missionaries’ work in restraining native violence.

Those individuals were initially pork traders in Tahiti, but European captains followed valuable cargoes from island to island. When the supply of sandalwood was depleted in Fiji by 1813, the traders then found it in Hawaii in the 1820s, in the New Hebrides in 1825, and in New Caledonia in 1840. Pearl shell attracted traders to the Tuamotus in 1807, and the sandalwood trade declined as supplies were exhausted. However, Europeans in both trades were harsh and sometimes committed atrocities, and pearling declined as islanders began to take reprisals. The needs of the Oceanians also changed the character of trade. Once native polities had been established, the demand for muskets fell off; under missionary influence the demand for alcohol was limited. Islanders increasingly desired clothing and hardware. Exchange trading encouraged the establishment of resident agents in the islands, who met the needs of the whalers who went ashore to refit their vessels. After 1840, exchange trading also met the needs of the staple trade of the islands—coconut oil, derived from copra and used for soap and candles.

Copra trading became the mainstay of European trade because even islands that had no other resources had coconut palms. Such commerce promoted the growth of the port towns and of resident trading communities. Papeete in Tahiti, Apia in Samoa, and Levuka in Fiji became centres for Europeans, including respectable traders as well as lawless people who might be escaped convicts from New South Wales (Australia) or others seeking to free themselves from the rules of European societies. Native kings and visiting European captains had difficulty establishing order in these types of frontier towns. Plantation societies Problems became more serious after permanent European settlers arrived. In Fiji, for example, following Cakobau’s first offer to cede the islands to Great Britain in 1858, Europeans began to establish plantations of coconuts and then, during the American Civil War , of cotton and afterward of sugarcane. Developments in Samoa were similar. But planters needed land on a much larger scale than did traders, and they needed labour in much greater quantities to work the plantations. Land sales caused friction because “ownership” was not an Oceanian concept, and land titles were thus disputed or resented.

Labour recruiting often caused the breakup of traditional societies if too many males left their communities and the creation of immigrant labour communities if they did not. By 1870 there were 2,000 such permanent European residents in Fiji. The settlers desired political and economic stability, including secure land titles and a large labour supply, but the missionary kingdoms and independent native governments failed to satisfy their requirements. In Tahiti, Tonga, Samoa, and Fiji no native authority was able to keep order in the novel circumstances created by European enterprise; in any case, the native kings were themselves open to challenge within their own societies. Pomare II encountered revolt in Tahiti; Samoan politics were always a matter of rivalry between chiefs; and Cakobau’s government was threatened by the Tongan chief Maʿafu, who had established his own confederacy in the Lau Group in Fiji. Page 1 of 2

Question: One of the earliest European explorers to reach Australia and New Zealand has which island named after him?
Answer: Tasmania