Historical Note.
Balboa, governor of Santa Maria, discovered the Southern Ocean in 1513, named it the South Sea, and took possession in the name of the king of Spain. Six years later Magellan sailed through a large portion of it, and called it the Pacific Ocean. In 1569 Mendana discovered and named the Solomon group, and in 1595 the Queen Charlotte group. The New Hebrides were discovered in 1606 by Quiros, who thought he had discovered a great southern continent, and called it the Land of the Holy Spirit. He anchored in port Philip Santo, and tried to establish a city (New Jerusalem) on the bank of the large river Yor, which runs into the bay. But the Spaniards quarrelled with the natives and left it. Quiros sailed to Mexico, but Torres, the senior officer in command, sailed west, discovered and passed through Torres Straits, which bear his name, between Queensland and New Guinea. Boginville discovered that it was not a continent, but a group of islands, that Quiros had discovered, and he named them the Great Cyclades. Bent on discovering new lands, about that period many eminent navigators sailed in the South Sea, but we hear nothing more of the New Hebrides till, in 1767, the famous Captain Cook sailed on his first voyage to observe the transit of Venus at Tahiti. In 1773 Captain Cook returned, and sailed twice through the group, spending forty-six days in exploring and describing every island and the natives with an accuracy scarcely yet surpassed. Believing he had discovered the most westerly group in the South Sea, he gave it its present name, the New Hebrides; but 200 miles southwest he afterward discovered another large island, and called it New Caledonia. He took possession of it in the name of his sovereign, King George the Third; but in 1854, when Britain was engaged in the Crimean war, France took possession of it, and turned it into a large convict station at the door of Australia, to which, by escaped convicts, it is a source of danger and pollution.—J. G. P.
The Gospel in the New Hebrides.[[1]]
BY REV. JOHN G. PATON, D. D.
[1]. From “The Missionary Review of the World.”
Geographers have arranged the South Sea islands under three divisions: Polynesia, the many eastern islands between 180 degrees and South America; Melanesia, the black islands, from the dark-brown color of their inhabitants—they include Fiji and all the islands west, with New Guinea; Micronesia, all the small islands north of the line from Hawaii on the east to China on the west. The South Sea islands are inhabited by only two races, the Malay Polynesian and the Papuan. The Malays appear to be of Asiatic origin, and are the superior race, with well-developed, powerful persons, yellow in color, and with straight, glossy, black hair. The Papuans are so called from Papua, or New Guinea. They occupy the western islands, and are not generally so tall and handsome in person as the Malays. They are of a dark-brown color, with dark, curly hair of different shades, and appear to be allied to the negro; but have plump, pleasant features, unlike the negro and the aborigines of Australia. The Malays all speak one language, with dialectic differences, all musical and liquid, like the Italian. Every word ends in a vowel. The Papuans speak a different language on almost every island, or dialects differing, so that the natives of one island cannot understand those of another; and on some islands two or even three dialects are spoken on the same island, so different that the inhabitants of the one district cannot understand those of the other. Nearly the whole, if not the whole, population of the South Sea islands were cannibals, in a state of nudity, when missionary work was begun on them, yet even there, by God’s blessing, almost every society and church engaged in the work has been used and honored in the conversion of many thousands, and now each is working on an independent portion of New Guinea for the salvation of its natives, and with encouraging success.
The New Hebrides consist of about thirty inhabited islands, with many small ones adjoining. The group lies south-southeast and north-northwest, extending over 400 miles of ocean, between 21 degrees and 15 degrees south latitude, and 171 degrees and 166 degrees east longitude. The Solomon group, which is the centre of the Church of England’s mission, is about 200 miles northwest from the New Hebrides. New Caledonia is about 200 miles southwest, Fiji about 400 miles, Auckland about 1,000, and Sydney, Australia, 1,400 miles distant from our group. In her first charter to New Zealand, Britain included the New Hebrides, but, apparently by some mistake, they were afterward left out. Yet, except to New Zealand and Australia, the group is of little commercial value to any other country, on account of the great distances of all others from it.
As the natives have got nearly all the blessings of Christianity and civilization which they possess from British missionaries and subjects, they unanimously plead for British annexation and protection, while, from their oppressive cruelty to the natives, and suppression of Protestant schools and mission work on the Loyalty group and on other groups annexed, they fear and hate the French. There are other cogent reasons, for the French Senate passed a resolution “to send 100,000 of France’s lowest criminals to the New Hebrides, as freed men and women, to live as they could and go where they would, on the one condition that they do not return to France.” Against this Australasia and Britain protested so decidedly that the scheme was not carried out; but the resolution to deport them was renewed, and for the present the destination is kept secret. The French have recently been sending Roman Catholic priests to the New Hebrides, apparently as political agents. A few months ago the heathen natives of one of our islands eagerly desired a Protestant missionary to settle among them, and give them the teaching of Jesus and His salvation, and when they were selling our missionaries a site for the station, two priests gave them much abuse, and told them of all the fearful calamities which would befall them if they allowed the Protestant missionaries to land on their island. They also gave the missionaries much abuse, and at last offered the natives three Sniders (rifles) and two large, fat hogs for the site, if they would forbid the Protestant missionaries to settle on the island. Though, above everything else, the heathen islanders desire Sniders and such fat pigs, yet they rejected the priests’ offer, and sold the station to our missionaries. The highest French officials in these colonies have sent a man-of-war to the spot to investigate this case, and their report proves that it was correctly stated by us.
In 1839 the famous John Williams and Mr. J. Harris, of the London Missionary Society, sailed to try and begin mission work on the New Hebrides, but on landing on Erromanga both were murdered by the savages, who feasted on their bodies. In 1843 Drs. Turner and Nisbet were by the London Missionary Society settled on Tanna, but about six months after, by a passing ship, they had to escape for their lives. After this Samoan and Raratongan native teachers were again and again placed on the group, but they were either murdered by the savages, or died in the damp, unhealthy climate (compared with their own), or in sickness had to be taken home again. So no effective mission work was done on the group till in 1848 Dr. John Geddie and in 1852 Dr. John Inglis were landed on Aneityum, where God spared and used them in bringing 3,500 cannibals on that island to serve our dear Lord Jesus Christ; and until they had translated and carried through the press the whole Bible and other books in their language. For the printing and binding of this Bible the converted natives paid the noble British and Foreign Bible Society £1,200 sterling ($6,000), earned by them preparing and selling arrowroot.
