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.14In evangelical discourse, British trade could represent an extension of British philanthropy;conversely, by introducing colonial nations to commerce, British merchants wereproviding the means of economic and spiritual uplift.However, many critical observers of missionary endeavor saw the coalition of tradeand Christianity as inimical.Hypatia Bonner asked, is it justifiable [or] honest, to attributeto the confused and contradictory teachings of Christianity results which have beenobtained by purely secular and material means educational, medical, industrial, andeconomic? 15 Others believed that LMS agents like Williams and Pritchard were making unchristian amounts of money out of trade.It is unlikely that many missionary tradersdeliberately kept indigenous primary producers ignorant of the ways of commerce, butthey certainly did not act aggressively to achieve good results for them.In Rarotonga,a European beachcomber told the local people that the Missionaries, from interestedmotives, were keeping them in the dark upon these subjects; but that if they would allowhim to manage their trade with the shipping, he would procure for them five or ten timesas much , a scenario repeated elsewhere in the region.16During the early parts of the nineteenth century, in particular, the Pacific wasundergoing a kind of double European incursion.As Harold Maude suggests,Moving west from Tahiti was the increasingly confident army of militant Christianity &From the bustling wharves of Sydney, on the other hand, there were simultaneouslymoving east the vanguards of commerce, equally confident of success as they developed13 Ibid., pp.581 2.14 Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, qtd in Porter, Commerce and Christianity , pp.597 8.15 Hypatia Bonner, Christianizing the Heathen: First-hand Information ConcerningOverseas Missions (London: Watts & Co., 1922), pp.2 3.16 John Williams, pp.224 5, my emphasis.For a detailed discussion of the (fraught)relationship between European beachcombers and the missionaries in the Pacific, see VanessaSmith, Literary Culture and the Pacific: Nineteenth-Century Textual Encounters, CambridgeStudies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture 13 (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1998). 36 Economies of Representation, 1790 2000the trading potentialities of the various island groups, exchanging the products ofEngland s industrial revolution for salt pork, sandalwood, bêche-de-mer and any otherisland product from which profit might be made.17Inevitably, there were significant conflicts between missionary traders and otherEuropean traders.In some ways, this issue proved rather like the friction betweenmissionaries and other Europeans over cross-cultural sexual encounters: missionarieswere quick to condemn what they saw as immoral and exploitative relationsbetween the two cultures, but many proved incapable of resisting sexual temptationthemselves.Similarly, missionaries criticized the exploitation of island produce andPacific Islander labor by European adventurers, but then manipulated indigenouslabor and manufacturing for their own benefit.Those thwarted by the missionarieswere quick to point out their hypocrisy, and keen to disadvantage evangelical trade.Peter Buck notes that part of the missionary discouragement of other whitetraders in the Cook Islands involved the introduction of church-controlled lawswhich enforced taxes on traders from which missionaries exempted themselves.18Conversely, LMS commentators railed against those they called selfish merchantsat Sydney, [who,] fearing lest their interest might suffer, persuaded the Governor tolevy a heavy duty on all imports from the South Sea Islands, the immediate effectof which was to shut them out from that market.Thus the infant trade of Raiatea,and the beneficent purposes of its missionary, were cruelly destroyed.19 It is evidenthere that the moralization of trade effectively attempted to exempt missionaries fromcharges of profiteering, but like much missionary rhetoric, this logic demands theacceptance of evangelical philosophies.In the final part of this chapter, I want to look briefly at some of the specifictrade exchanges that existed in the region during this period, and gesture towardssome of the broader questions suggested by missionary involvement in trade.It isevident that, within missionary contexts, indigenous and European groups appearedto commodify their own and the other s culture.I want to look briefly at two aspectsof this [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
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.14In evangelical discourse, British trade could represent an extension of British philanthropy;conversely, by introducing colonial nations to commerce, British merchants wereproviding the means of economic and spiritual uplift.However, many critical observers of missionary endeavor saw the coalition of tradeand Christianity as inimical.Hypatia Bonner asked, is it justifiable [or] honest, to attributeto the confused and contradictory teachings of Christianity results which have beenobtained by purely secular and material means educational, medical, industrial, andeconomic? 15 Others believed that LMS agents like Williams and Pritchard were making unchristian amounts of money out of trade.It is unlikely that many missionary tradersdeliberately kept indigenous primary producers ignorant of the ways of commerce, butthey certainly did not act aggressively to achieve good results for them.In Rarotonga,a European beachcomber told the local people that the Missionaries, from interestedmotives, were keeping them in the dark upon these subjects; but that if they would allowhim to manage their trade with the shipping, he would procure for them five or ten timesas much , a scenario repeated elsewhere in the region.16During the early parts of the nineteenth century, in particular, the Pacific wasundergoing a kind of double European incursion.As Harold Maude suggests,Moving west from Tahiti was the increasingly confident army of militant Christianity &From the bustling wharves of Sydney, on the other hand, there were simultaneouslymoving east the vanguards of commerce, equally confident of success as they developed13 Ibid., pp.581 2.14 Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, qtd in Porter, Commerce and Christianity , pp.597 8.15 Hypatia Bonner, Christianizing the Heathen: First-hand Information ConcerningOverseas Missions (London: Watts & Co., 1922), pp.2 3.16 John Williams, pp.224 5, my emphasis.For a detailed discussion of the (fraught)relationship between European beachcombers and the missionaries in the Pacific, see VanessaSmith, Literary Culture and the Pacific: Nineteenth-Century Textual Encounters, CambridgeStudies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture 13 (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1998). 36 Economies of Representation, 1790 2000the trading potentialities of the various island groups, exchanging the products ofEngland s industrial revolution for salt pork, sandalwood, bêche-de-mer and any otherisland product from which profit might be made.17Inevitably, there were significant conflicts between missionary traders and otherEuropean traders.In some ways, this issue proved rather like the friction betweenmissionaries and other Europeans over cross-cultural sexual encounters: missionarieswere quick to condemn what they saw as immoral and exploitative relationsbetween the two cultures, but many proved incapable of resisting sexual temptationthemselves.Similarly, missionaries criticized the exploitation of island produce andPacific Islander labor by European adventurers, but then manipulated indigenouslabor and manufacturing for their own benefit.Those thwarted by the missionarieswere quick to point out their hypocrisy, and keen to disadvantage evangelical trade.Peter Buck notes that part of the missionary discouragement of other whitetraders in the Cook Islands involved the introduction of church-controlled lawswhich enforced taxes on traders from which missionaries exempted themselves.18Conversely, LMS commentators railed against those they called selfish merchantsat Sydney, [who,] fearing lest their interest might suffer, persuaded the Governor tolevy a heavy duty on all imports from the South Sea Islands, the immediate effectof which was to shut them out from that market.Thus the infant trade of Raiatea,and the beneficent purposes of its missionary, were cruelly destroyed.19 It is evidenthere that the moralization of trade effectively attempted to exempt missionaries fromcharges of profiteering, but like much missionary rhetoric, this logic demands theacceptance of evangelical philosophies.In the final part of this chapter, I want to look briefly at some of the specifictrade exchanges that existed in the region during this period, and gesture towardssome of the broader questions suggested by missionary involvement in trade.It isevident that, within missionary contexts, indigenous and European groups appearedto commodify their own and the other s culture.I want to look briefly at two aspectsof this [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]