On 25 July 1840 a group of sixty crewmen of the United States Exploring Expedition burned the towns of Sualib and Arro and destroyed all the crops and huts between them. This was after the nephew of the Exposition leader Commander Wilkes and another crew member was killed. “A search of Sualib produced some personal property from Underwood and Henry. On the 27 a small group of chiefs led by a woman came asking for peace, but in keeping with Fiji custom, Wilkes rejected it and demanded that all islanders appear before him. When they came, the commander agreed to peace on condition that they bring provisions to Porpoise on the next day, which they did. In his later accounts of the voyage, Wilkes blamed Lieutenant James Alden, commander of the party with not taking proper precautions and even for pursuing the trade, which Wilkes believed was unnecessary. The squadron departed the Fiji Islands on 11 August”.
Department Of The Navy; Naval Historical Center. The Alfred Agate Collection: The United States Exploring Expedition (Porpoise, Flying Fish, Vincennes Peacock) , 1838-1842 http://www.history.navy.mil/ac/exploration/wilkes/wilkes14.html Accessed 16 August 2008

The particulars are condensed from the Fiji Times of July 23:— “We have just heard frightful news from Ba, on the North-west coast of Viti Levu. For some time past the Ba people have been at war with the mountaineers, and a few have been killed on both sides, but a letter just in from the native minister informs us of a fearful massacre.
The mountaineers from Navosa came down to Nalotu, an inland district…
Peace offerings: The Nalotu people were filled with fear, and presented peace offerings. The mountaineers then entered their towns and remained for a few days in apparent friendliness, but their number was being continually increased by new arrivals from the hills. They then turned round ’suddenly upon the Nalotu people and slaughtered three hundred and seventy of them. That so many have been killed is beyond doubt.
Silas reports from Ba: Silas, the native minister who lives at Ba, writes “The Navuuivasi town 171 killed, Drantani 114, Koroikewa 58, Nasaga 27 — altogether 370. This number clubbed is clear, but there are many still missing, who are hiding in the jungle, or have been taken prisoners of war to Navosa”.
Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXVI, Issue 4070, 7 September 1870, Page 3

On arrival in Levuka, Charles Pickering, M.D., Member Of The United States Exploring Expedition. wrote, “I soon began to perceive the resemblance of the Feejeeans to Labillardiere’s portraits of New Caledonians; and a further acquaintance with the people presented novelty at every step.
Fijians a unique race: Points connected with their personal appearance first arrested attention ; as the presence of wigs, and the variety of colours imparted to the hair. Of these, the flaxen or ashy tint alone appeared to be the result of a process of dyeing; while the coal-black and the red were derived from the mixture of foreign substances.
Variety of fashions: Among a variety of fashions, the men sometimes wore very numerous slender braids ; and though I saw nothing to justify the report, that “the Feejeeans count the separate hairs,” the attentions bestowed on the head-dress occupy no inconsiderable portion of their lives.
No tattoos on the men: The seeming absence of tattooing was at first attributed to the circumstance that the Feejee complexion is too dark to show the markings conspicuously. It appeared, however, that the women have the practice, and cover the markings by Ornament and national designation
The Races Of Man; By Charles Pickering, M.D., Member Of The United States Exploring Expedition.

Charles Pickering, M.D., Member Of The United States Exploring Expedition reported “One of our first inquiries on landing regarded the safety of travelling ; and we were informed; that ” we should be entirely secure within the territory of the chief of Levuka.”
But not safe in the mountains: It appeared, however, that his dominion included part only of the coast of this small island ; while the interior was held by independent mountain chiefs.
On iny first excursion to the woods, at no great distance above the village, I came upon the lair of a ” mountaineer;” an impression left on the herbage, by reclining to watch a small crop of upland taro. The man had fled, and with” the other mountaineers of the vicinity, kept out of sight ; having been forewarned, “by putting the ear to the ground,” of the approach of footsteps. Next to the indiscretion of travelling alone in these islands, the visitor soon learns not to precede his guide”.
The Races Of Man; By Charles Pickering, M.D., Member Of The United States Exploring Expedition.

“On the morning of the 4th of May, 1840, the Squadron left Tongataboo; (Tonga) and towards the evening of the following day we came in sight of TURTLE Island, which is small and unimportant, except as a guide to the navigator. We rested on our course for the night ; but by daylight we had drifted among the other outermost Feejee Islands. Those in sight were small and moderately high ; and according to our European pilot, were ” destitute of yams, although permanently inhabited.”</
On the 7th we reached OVOLAU, (Ovalau) a small island, that from its central position, and from its being the place of residence of some White men, has become a convenient rendezvous for vessels. The broken and mountainous land, in great part covered with woods, and situated in a moderately rainy climate, presented a varied and most inviting aspect ; and we felt that we were now in a part of the world, which, except to a few traders, was very little known.
8 May 1840: On the 8th we entered the reef, and dropped anchor before the village of Levuka ; and our first greeting was a shout of admiration from the shore, when the sailors suddenly ascended the rigging.
Chief rowed on a canoe platform: Canoes soon made their appearance, moving in different directions, and by a singular method of propulsion : a man standing in the centre of the canoe, held an upright oar, and as he threw his weight upon it from side to side, seemed actually to walk over the water, and at a surprising rate.
Pickering muses on mix of genes in Levuka: At length three or four canoes approached us, one bearing upon an elevated platform the chief of Levuka, who introduced himself to our acquaintance, with the accustomed present of yams.
Fijians - ‘big dark people with short necks and artistic fizzy hair’: Independently of the texture of the hair, the people differed strikingly from the Australians in their stoutness of limb, and in the entire absence of graceful forms. At first, indeed, we did not distinguish them from Negroes ; and this resemblance was even recognised by Negroes on board ; one of whom made use of the expression, ” people at home would hardly believe that these were natives.” But it was soon perceived, that a Negro in the midst of a party of Feejeeans, presented a marked distinction in colour. I obtained other evidence of the lightness of the Feejeean complexion ; for on scanning with a glass the crowd of natives on the shore, I had supposed one-half of them to be Polynesians ; whereas, upon landing, they proved to be all Feejeeaus.

There seems, indeed, to be much variation among individuals ; and on comparing the darkest Polynesians with the lightest Feejeeans, there will probably be found no essential difference in the shade of colour. I sometimes thought I perceived a purplish tinge in the Feejeean complexion, particularly when contrasted in the sunlight with green foliage ; and the epithet of ” purple men” might be given to this race, if that of “red men” be retained for the Malayan.
White-Fijian mix children described: The circumstance that first tended to show the diversity from the Negro, was the personal appearance of the children of resident Whites ; for they were evidently not ” mulattoes.” The hair of the Feejeean girls also contributed to remove the Negro aspect. The ashy colour, indeed, was extraneous ; but the hanging locks, although always somewhat crisped, proved that the erect mode of wearing the hair, and its woolly appearance in grown persons, were partly the work of art.
Fijians a unique races, with size smaller than Tongans: Inquiry being thus awakened, careful observation soon led to the conviction, that the Feejeeans belong to-a peculiar physical race. the frequent examples of unusual shortness of neck. The tallest Feejeean met with measured six feet six inches, and was tolerably well proportioned, though more slender than his companions. It was stated on good authority, that there were Feejeeans who exceeded in size any of the Tonga men; but so far as my own observation extended, the average stature was less”.
The Races Of Man; By Charles Pickering, M.D., Member Of The ,United States Exploring Expedition. ]]> http://levuka.wordpress.com/2008/08/17/8-may-1840-ship-the-peacock-of-the-united-states-exploring-expedition-squadron-arrives-at-levuka/feed/ levuka http://levuka.wordpress.com/2008/08/17/david-whippys%e2%80%99s-levuka-dynasty-five-fijian-partners-and-12-known-children-with-adi-tulia-yunus-dorcas-delau-and-tosaka-levuka/ http://levuka.wordpress.com/2008/08/17/david-whippys%e2%80%99s-levuka-dynasty-five-fijian-partners-and-12-known-children-with-adi-tulia-yunus-dorcas-delau-and-tosaka-levuka/#comments Sun, 17 Aug 2008 02:17:16 +0000 levuka http://levuka.wordpress.com/?p=234

The photo shows Nantucket sailor and trader, David Whippy, a bold and commercially-minded adventurer, who created a Fijian dynasty; myriads of Whippys descended from this Levuka gene-source. He was recorded as married in Fiji 1827. This first David Whippy of Levuka was in Fiji by the age of 25, and died in Fiji, age 69. The first recorded child of his was born 1828.
At least 12 children: He had 12 recorded children - and perhaps more, were unrecorded - from at least six partners. Carol Riley, in her impressively researched family tree reported the first David Whippy in Levuka, was born 15 February 1802, in Nantucket, Massachusetts, USA. His father was David WHIPPY b. circa 1769, d. 1812; and his mother Keziah BUNKER b. 22 September 1770.
The three David Whippys: : He also had a son called David Whippy. He had at at least six partners; and at least 12 children. he died 27 October 1871, Wainunu, Vanua Levu, Bua, Fiji and was buried in the “Old People’s Cemetery”, Wainunu, Vanua Levu, Bua, Fiji,
Family one: A Marriage was recorded 1827, Namara, Tailevu, Fiji, to Adi Tulia. One child was recorded as David (Junior) WHIPPY b. 1828, d. 1867, according to an interview, with William Eason in 1985.
Family 2: A marriage was reported but not verified) in to 1831 to “Yunus”. Children were Thomas WHIPPY b. c 1850, d. 17 Dec 1934, Daniel WHIPPY b. c 1852.
Family 3: Unnamed Fijian woman; one child Peter WHIPPY+ b. c 1834, d. 26 Feb 1889
Family 4: A Marriage was reported around 1836, Methodist, Levuka, Ovalau, Lomaiviti, Fiji to Dorcas DELAUS. the he children recorded were Alameda WHIPPY+ b. c 1836; Samuel WHIPPY+ b. c 1837, d. 1910; Kezia WHIPPY+ b. c 1838, d. 6 Jul 1898; Julia WHIPPY+ b. c 1840; Mary WHIPPY+ b. 1842; Sarah WHIPPY b. c 1845; and Elizabeth WHIPPY b. c 1847, d. 2 Aug 1882.
See more at http://www.caroleriley.id.au/familyTree/p101.htm#i6294

Colonel Smythe was sent by the British government as a special commissioner to report on the suitability of Fiji as a naval and coaling station and for the cultivation of cotton. The journey was made as a consequence of the Fijian Kings (Cacobau)  first offer of annexation in exchange for payment of his debt to the United States. Smythe recommended against annexation but advised that the British consul should be invested with full magisterial powers over the British subjects there.
Smythe, Mrs. Ten months in the Fiji Islands / by Mrs. Smythe ; with an introduction and appendix by Colonel W.J. Smythe. (Oxford : J.H. & J. Parker, 1864)

The Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXVI, Issue 4070, 7 September 1870, Page 3  reported Levuka trader Mr, Norman, well known in Sandhurst, Victoria, was murdered, and his body cooked after a group of 22 unnammed Tannese took over Normans boat taking them from Levuka to Norman’s plantation, and  wanted to go back home
‘Colleen Bawn,’ at Tanna: Captain Field, of the Mary Ann Christina,’ informs us that on board the ‘Colleen Bawn,’ at Tanna, he met with Jimmie Lasulasu, who has long since been reckoned witn the dead. Our readers will remember that a’  William and Julia.’ which left Levuka for Nasavusavu about twelve months ago, with seventeen New Hebrides labourers, their employer, Mr. Norman, late of Sandhurst, near Melbourne, and the aforesaid Jimmie, never reached its destination. The boat was thought to have been wrecked, and all on board lost.
Tannanese wanted to go home: Jimmie Lasulasu informed Captain Field that when on their way to Nasavusavu the natives took possession of the boat, compelling them to steer first one way, and then another, and threatened to kill them if they did not land them on their own island.
Killed with a Tomahawk: On the seventeenth, day they murdered Mr. Norman, splitting his head open with a tomahawk. They cooked and ate the body, thrusting portions oi his cooked companion into the face of Jimmie. The journey was long, and no food or water on board the hardships may be imagined. He reported the The natives died one after the other, till by a lucky chance the boat was cast upon the shore leef of an island, only twenty miles from that to which they belonged. Jimmie has been living on that island for the last twelve months, and was perfectly nude when rescued by the ‘ Colleen Bawn ‘ a week or two since.
Another report on the same event: “One who knows ” writes to us to say that the Mr. Norman, of Melbourne, reported as having been murdered, was a Fijian planter who engaged 22 imported labours from the ‘ William and Julia,’ in June, 1869, and with one of his overseers, a man named Jimmy Lasulasu, started from Levuka to his plantation.  They always believed their countrymen had quarrelled with poor Norman (who was a well know n Melbourne grocer), and, after killing him and his overseer, had run away with the boat, probably eating their unfortunate victims on the road. The account of slaughter on the Ba coast is most likely correct, as the mountaineer natives have long been very troublesome m that part of the country, and have frequently attacked the Christian natives on the coast. It is probably the first result of the indiscriminate manner in which, these mountaineers have been supplied with arms by the white men, indirectly through the coast natives.’ Norman a managed a plantation in Fiji,  and had a grocery business at Sandhurst, Fiji. in charge of which he left left wife, now his widow, when he came down here
Tannase brought to Levuka by  Captain McLiver: He procured the labourers from the ‘ William and Julia.’ They had been engaged and brought here by Captain McLiver, and some who came with them are said to be now on Mr. Scott’s plantation “at Vido. A report reaches us of the murder of a man named Malony, by some white men, on the Sigo Toko River.
Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXVI, Issue 4070, 7 September 1870, Page 3

First Fiji Consul, W. T. Pritchard, was the son of Missionaries (London Missionary Society) and born in Tahiti, of English parents. ”I hardly knew whether to call England or Tahiti my fatherland. When, as a boy, playing at my mother’s feet, I heard her talk of ” Old England ” as every daughter of England speaks of her native land, I used to feel proud, and flattered myself that I too was English”.
Date of birth: “Such is the case in my study of the mid-19th century British Consul, William Pritchard, who was born in Tahiti in 1829 and served in Samoa and Fiji before being fired, following a Commission of Inquiry that I show to have been little more than a kangaroo court”. On Writing a Biography of William Pritchard Andrew E. Robson,
Favourite of Tahiti Queen: William Pritchard himself wrote “But when patted on the head by Queen Pomare and called her little favourite, carried about on the backs of her attendants, and every juvenile whim quickly humoured, I forgot all the pretty little stories of the far-off land, and thought only of the present of the actual before and around me; then, there was no place like Tahiti, and I have a lingering fancy that in my childish vanity there was the thought that after all it was perhaps better to be bom a Tahitian than an Englishman”.

Sent to England to study: But when, at the age of ten, I was … sent to the home of my parents, England soon became the fatherland ; and as years rolled on Tahiti was remembered only as the lovely little spot where I was bom where I played and romped under the shade of breadfruit-trees and orange groves, and along the sandy beaches and over the reefs of the seashore, without thought of Latin grammars or Greek hexameters, of puzzling circles and triangles, or mysterious signs and quantities. When at last as a schoolboy I learnt that Tahiti was no longer the Tahiti of my childhood, that from the Tahiti of Queen Pomara it had become the Tahiti of Louis Philippe, I hardly cared to remember even that much..”.

On Writing a Biography of William Pritchard Andrew E. Robson, and
Polynesian Reminiscences; Ob, Life In The South Pacific Islands. By W. T. Pritchard, F.R.G.S., F.A.S.L., F Ormerl Y H.M. Consul At Samoa Fiji. Preface By I) Berthold Seemann (R. Seemann). London : Chapman And Hall, 1932, Piccadilly. J. B. Taylor And Co. http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=krOxFi-KHVAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA320&dq=Polynesian+Reminiscences:+Life+in+the+South+Pacific+Island+(First+Published+in+London+1866+ed.)&ots=l4FMvmBzh1&sig=vScUWL_vw_23ncTgnqhVFAHVinI#PPA357,M

For example appeared that (missionary William) Moore adhered to that stipulation until the 1860s. he then sold land he owned in Australia and placed the proceeds in trust with the Wesleyan Church. This gave him the the capital to invest in Fiji which he did, beging in 1862, when her purchased ( from a Melbourne man named Thompson) a small island between Ovalau and Bau,   He was hoping the Mission chairman might buy is. “ but we cant see together, so I have to purchase this so as to have a place for a cow and some goats.  He argue that rule did not apply to him as he was buying, and “second hand from traders”.   Moore was later in 1858 to help Melbourne entrepreneurs plan the development of the Polynesian Company; this was to get very large land holdings and a Fiji banking monopoly from Cacobau in exchange for paying his US debt, and float the the Polynesian Company;on the stock market. In 1869 the New South Wales Methodost Conference removed Moore from his role as chair.
p372 Exodus of the I Taukei By Andrew Thornley, Tauga Vulaono, University of the South Pacific Institute of Pacific Studies, Institute of Pacific Studies.