Life of John Coleridge Patteson : Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands

by Charlotte M. Yonge

A recent traveller has argued that this is all that can be desired, and that no true friend of the poor islander can object to his being taught industry and civilisation. Complaints are all 'missionary exaggeration,' that easy term for disposing of all defence of the dark races, and as to the difficulty of making a man, whose language is not understood, understand the terms of a contract—why, we continually sign legal documents we do not understand! Perhaps not, but we do understand enough not to find ourselves bound to five years' labour when we thought we were selling yams, or taking a pleasure trip. And we have some means of ascertaining the signification of such documents, and of obtaining redress if we have been deceived.

As to the boasted civilisation, a sugar plantation has not been found a very advanced school for the American or West Indian negro, and as a matter of fact, the islander who has fulfilled his term and comes home, bringing tobacco, clothes, and fire-arms, only becomes a more dangerous and licentious savage than he was in his simplicity. It is absolutely impossible, even if the planters wished it, to give any instruction to these poor fellows, so scattered are the settlements, so various the languages on each, and to send a man home with guns and gunpowder, and no touch of Christian teaching, is surely suicidal policy.

Yet, as long as the natives went in any degree willingly, though the Missionaries might deplore their so doing for the men's own sakes, and for that of their islands, it was only like a clergyman at home seeing his lads engage themselves to some occupation more undesirable than they knew. Therefore, the only thing that has been entreated for by all the missions of every denomination alike in the South Seas, has been such sufficient supervision of the labour traffic as may prevent deceit or violence from being used.

For, in the years 1869 and 1870, if not before, the captains of the labour ships, finding that a sufficient supply of willing natives could not be procured, had begun to cajole them on board. When they went to trade, they were thrust under hatches, and carried off, and if the Southern New Hebrides became exhausted, and the labour ships entered on those seas where the 'Southern Cross' was a welcome visitor, these captains sometimes told the men that 'the Bishop gave no pipes and tobacco, he was bad, they had better hold with them.' Or else 'the Bishop could not come himself, but had sent this vessel to fetch them.' Sometimes even a figure was placed on deck dressed in a black coat, with a book in his hand, according to the sailors' notion of a missionary, to induce the natives to come on deck, and there they were clapped under hatches and carried off.

In 1870, H.M.S. 'Rosario,' Captain Palmer, brought one of these vessels, the 'Daphne,' into Sydney, where the master was tried for acts of violence, but a conviction could not be procured, and, as will be seen in the correspondence, Bishop Patteson did not regret the failure, as he was anxious that ships of a fair size, with respectable owners, should not be deterred from the traffic, since the more it became a smuggling, unrecognised business, the worse and more unscrupulous men would be employed in it.

But decoying without violence began to fail; the natives were becoming too cautious, so the canoes were upset, and the men picked up while struggling in the water. If they tried to resist, they were shot at, and all endeavours at a rescue were met with the use of firearms.

They were thus swept off in such numbers, that small islands lost almost all their able-bodied inhabitants, and were in danger of famine for want of their workers. Also, the Fiji planters, thinking to make the men happier by bringing their wives, desired that this might be done, but it was not easy to make out the married couples, nor did the crews trouble themselves to do so, but took any woman they could lay hands on. Husbands pursued to save the wives, and were shot down, and a deadly spirit of hatred and terror against all that was white was aroused.

There is a still lower depth of atrocity, but as far as enquiry of the Government at Sydney can make out, unconnected with labour traffic, but with the tortoise-shell trade. Skulls, it will be remembered, were the ornament of old Iri's house at Bauro, and skulls are still the trophies in the more savage islands. It seems that some of the traders in tortoise-shell are in the habit of assisting their clients by conveying them in their vessels in pursuit of heads. There is no evidence that they actually do the work of slaughter themselves, though suspicion is strong, but these are the 'kill-kill' vessels in the patois of the Pacific, while the kidnappers are the 'snatch-snatch.' Both together, these causes were working up the islanders to a perilous pitch of suspicion and exasperation during the years 1870, 1871, and thus were destroying many of the best hopes of the fruit of the toils of all these years. But the full extent of the mischief was still unknown in Norfolk Island, when in the midst of the Bishop's plans for the expedition of 1870 came the illness from which he never wholly recovered.

Already he had often felt and spoken of himself as an elderly man. Most men of a year or two past forty are at the most vigorous period of their existence, generally indeed with the really individual and effective work of their lives before them, having hitherto been only serving their apprenticeship; but Coleridge Patteson had begun his task while in early youth, and had been obliged to bear at once responsibility and active toil in no ordinary degree. Few have had to be at once head of a college, sole tutor and steward, as well as primary schoolmaster all at once, or afterwards united these charges with those of Bishop, examining chaplain and theological professor, with the interludes of voyages which involved intense anxiety and watchfulness, as well as the hardships of those unrestful nights in native huts, and the exhaustion of the tropical climate. No wonder then that he was already as one whose work was well-nigh done, and to whom rest was near. And though the entrance into that rest was by a sudden stroke, it was one that mercifully spared the sufferings of a protracted illness, and even if his friends pause to claim for it the actual honours (on earth) of martyrdom, yet it was no doubt such a death as he was most willing to die, full in his Master's service—such a death as all can be thankful to think of. And for the like-minded young man who shared his death, only with more of the bitterness thereof, the spirit in which he went forth may best be seen in part of a letter written in the January of 1870, just after his Ordination:—

'The right way must be to have a general idea of what to aim at, and to make for the goal by what seem, as you go, the best ways, not to go on a course you fixed to yourself before starting without having seen it. It is so easy for people to hold theories, and excellent ones too, of the way to manage or deal with the native races, but the worst is that when you come to work the theory, the native race will never be found what it ought to be for properly carrying it out. I am quite sure that nothing is to be done in a hurry; a good and zealous man in ignorance and haste might do more harm in one year than could be remedied in ten. I would not root out a single superstition until I had something better to put in its place, lest if all the weeds were rooted up, what had before been fertile should become desert, barren, disbelieving in anything. Is not the right way to plant the true seed and nourish it that it may take root, and out-grow and choke the weeds? My objection to Mission reports has always been that the readers want to hear of "progress," and the writers are thus tempted to write of it, and may they not, without knowing it, be at times hasty that they may seem to be progressing? People expect too much. Those do so who see the results of Mission work, who are engaged in it; those do so who send them. We have the precious seed to sow, and must sow it when and where we can, but we must not always be looking out to reap what we have sown. We shall do that "in due time" if we "faint not." Because missionary work looks like a failure, it does not follow that it is.