Sailing, Shipping & Shipwrecks | Page 41

January 19, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Third Voyage

In 1768, when Captain James Cook set sail on the first of three voyages to the South Seas, he carried with him secret orders from the British Admiralty to seek ‘a Continent or Land of great extent’ and to take possession of that country ‘in the Name of the King of Great Britain’.

While each of his three journeys had its own aim and yielded its own discoveries, it was this confidential agenda that would transform the way Europeans viewed the Pacific Ocean and its lands. (State Library, New South Wales)

James Cook’s first Pacific voyage (1768-1771) was aboard the Endeavour and began on May 27, 1768. It had three aims; establish an observatory at Tahiti to record the transit of Venus (when Venus passes between the earth and the sun – June 3, 1769;) record natural history, led by 25-year-old Joseph Banks; and continue the search for the Great South Land.

Cook’s second Pacific voyage (1772-1775) aboard Resolution and Adventure aimed to establish whether there was an inhabited southern continent, and make astronomical observations.

Cook’s third and final voyage (1776-1779) of discovery was an attempt to locate a North-West Passage, an ice-free sea route which linked the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Cook commanded the Resolution while Charles Clerke commanded Discovery. (State Library, New South Wales)

The British Navy Board purchased the Marquis of Granby, a ship-rigged sloops-of-war that was built by Thomas Fishburn in 1770 at Whitby. Lord Rockford, Secretary of State, thought the name might offend the Spanish and consulted both the King and the Earl of Sandwich. The Earl advised him she be renamed the Resolution.

The Resolution impressed Cook greatly and he called her “the ship of my choice and as I thought the fittest for service she was going upon of any I have seen.” (Hough) She was 14 months old and her tonnage was 462. She had the same flat-floored, apple-cheeked hull.

Resolution’s lower deck length was 110 feet 8 inches, maximum beam was just over 35 feet. Her crew included 6 midshipmen, a cook and a cook’s mate, 6 quartermasters, 10 marines including a lieutenant, and 45 seamen.

She was fitted out at Deptford with the most advanced navigational aids of the day, including a Gregory Azimuth Compass, ice anchors and the latest apparatus for distilling fresh water from sea water.

Twelve carriage guns and twelve swivel guns were carried. At his own expense Cook had brass door-hinges installed in the great cabin.

The support vessel was the Discovery built by G&N Langborn for Mr. William Herbert from whom she was bought by the Admiralty.

She was 299 tons, the smallest of Cook’s ships. Her dimensions were: lower deck 91’5″, extreme breadth 27’5″, depth of hold 11’5″, height between decks 5’7″ to 6’1″. She cost £2,415 including alterations. Her complement was 70: 3 officers, 55 crew, 11 marines and one civilian.

Cook’s crew first sighted the Hawaiian Islands in the dawn hours of January 18, 1778. His two ships, the HMS Resolution and the HMS Discovery, were kept at bay by the weather until the next day when they approached Kaua‘i’s southeast coast.

On the afternoon of January 19, native Hawaiians in canoes paddled out to meet Cook’s ships, and so began Hawai‘i’s contact with Westerners. The first Hawaiians to greet Cook were from the Kōloa south shore.

The Hawaiians traded fish and sweet potatoes for pieces of iron and brass that were lowered down from Cook’s ships to the Hawaiians’ canoes.

On the afternoon of January 20, 1778, Cook anchored his ships near the mouth of the Waimea River on Kaua‘i’s southwestern shore.

As they stepped ashore for the first time, Cook and his men were greeted by hundreds of Hawaiians who offered gifts of pua‘a (pigs), and mai‘a (bananas) and kapa (tapa) barkcloth.

Cook went ashore at Waimea three times the next day, walking inland to where he saw Hawaiian hale (houses), heiau (places of worship) and agricultural sites.

At the time, the region was thriving with many thatched homes as well as lo‘i kalo (taro patches) and various other food crops such as niu (coconuts) and ‘ulu (breadfruit).

After trading for provisions, gathering water and readying for sail, Cook left the island and continued his search of the “Northwest Passage,” an elusive (because it was non-existent) route from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean.

“It is worthy of observation, that the islands in the Pacific Ocean, which our late voyages have added to the geography of the globe, have been generally found lying in groups or clusters …”

“… the single intermediate islands, as yet discovered, being few in proportion to the others; though, probably, there are many more of them still unknown, which serve as steps between the several clusters.”

“Of what number this newly-discovered Archipelago consists, must be left for future investigation. We saw five of them, whose names, as given to us by the natives, are Woahoo (O‘ahu,) Atooi (Kauai,) Oneeheow (Ni‘ihau,) Oreehoua (Lehua) and Tahoora (Kaula.)” (The Voyages of Captain James Cook)

On January 17, 1779, Cook returned to the Hawaiian Islands, sailing into Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawai‘i. Less than one month later, on February 14, 1779, Cook and several of his men were killed in an encounter with the Hawaiians on the shoreline of Kealakekua Bay.

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December 9, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Exploration in the Pacific

“After Magellan’s daring voyage round South America and across to the Philippines (1519-1521), the magnet of Pacific exploration was Terra Australis Incognita, the great southern continent supposed to lie between the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan.”

“Alvaro de Mendana, the Spanish voyager, sailed from Callao in Peru in 1567 and reached the Solomon Islands. It was not until 1595 that he went back, with Pedro Fernanadez de Quiros, found the Marquesas and got as far as the Santa Cruz Islands.”

“Quiros went out from Callao in 1605 with the Portuguese Luiz de Vaez de Torres and believed he had found the continent when they reached Vanuatu (the New Hebrides), which Quiros called ‘Austrialia del Espiritu Santo’ – managing a compliment to Philip III of Spain who was Archduke of Austria.”

“Quiros and Torres now split: Quiros went north-east to California, while Torres went north-west through the strait named after him, discovering that New Guinea was an island, but failing to see Australia.”

“The English circumnavigations by Drake (1577-1580) and Cavendish (1586-1588) were not rich in discoveries. The Dutch merchant Isaac Ie Maire, with Willem Corneliszoon Schouten, reached the Pacific in 1615 via Cape Horn (which they named) but had no luck with the missing continent before reaching Batavia in 1616.”

“Sailing from there, the Dutch had made several sightings of the coast of Australia, north, west and south, in the early seventeenth century, and Anthony van Diemen, governor-general of the Dutch East Indies from 1631 to 1645, was responsible for a number of expeditions, of which the most important was that of Abel Janszoon Tasman with Frans Jacobszoon Visscher, which left Batavia in August 1642.”

“Tasmania was reached (Van Diemen’s Land), then the south island of New Zealand where four men were killed, followed by the Tonga group and Fiji.”

“Much later, another Dutch expedition, under Jacob Roggeveen, left the Netherlands in 1721 in search of the southern continent. Roggeveen went through the Strait of Le Maire and found Easter Island and Samoa before reaching Batavia after a year’s voyage.

“The English had now come strongly on the scene, with the expeditions of Narborough up the South American coast (1669-1671), a mixed assembly of buccaneers, adventurers and privateers, including Dampier, Wafer, Cowley, Ringrose, Woodes, Rogers and Shelvocke, followed by the grand naval expedition of 1740-1744 under Anson.”

“As far as discoveries go, the most important of these men was the remarkable amateur William Dampier, whose painfully assembled New Voyage Round the World (1697) set alight the imagination of eighteenth-century England.”

“On this first voyage Dampier had touched on Australia (New Holland), ‘a very large Tract of Land’, and had thought the inhabitants ‘the miserablest People in the World’.”

“He returned on his second voyage but was only able to make a cursory investigation of the north-western and northern coasts.”

“The major period of English exploration in the Pacific followed the ending of the Seven Years War with France in 1763. The Earl of Egmont, First Lord of the Admiralty from 1763 until 1766, sent out John Byron in the Dolphin in 1764, and on its return from a speedy circumnavigation in 1766, sent the ship out again under Samuel Wallis, with Philip Carteret in the Swallow as consort.”

“Wallis and Carteret were separated. Wallis went on to find Tahiti, unknown to Europeans. He named it King Georrge’s Island and his five-week visit had an importance for Europeans and Polynesians that is hard to measure.”

“Carteret struggled on alone, and made many important discoveries, including Pitcairn. At this very time the French expedition in La Boudeuse and L’Etoile, under the great Louis-Antoine de Bougainville was making its way through the Pacific, reaching Tahiti, fa nouvelle Cythere, hard on Wallis’s heels.”

“However important these voyages were for geographical knowledge and the advancement of science – and Bougainville with his naturalist Commerson were deeply concerned with the advancement of science …”

“… all these expeditions by the competing European powers of Spain, France and Britain were undertaken for the control of new territory for commercial exploitation and strategic use.”

“The scientific element was very much to the fore, however, in the next British expedition. The Royal Society, which in the hundred years of its existence had always regarded voyages to distant lands as a vital source of scientific information, was making plans for a voyage to the Pacific to observe the transit of Venus across the sun in 1769.”

“The observations were needed to help establish the distance of the earth from the sun, and it was necessary for observers to be stationed at different points on the earth’s surface. The planet had crossed the sun in 1761, but the observations world-wide were unsatisfactory. The phenomenon would not occur again for over a hundred years.”

“In 1767 the Royal Society recommended Alexander Dalrymple to lead the expedition. He was an energetic and imaginative thirty year old who had spent much time in Madras and was a keen advocate of English commercial expansion, as well as a firm believer in the possibilities of the great southern continent.”

“He was a skilled navigator but had comparatively little experience of command at sea. His idea was that he should command the expedition and that he should have a master to sail the ship. This was Bougainville’s position, and the practice was common in England in Tudor times.”

“But the Royal Society knew that it depended on the Royal Navy to transport its observers to the Pacific and the Navy was totally opposed to a divided command.”

“James Cook, thirty-nine years of age, a master in the Navy engaged on the survey of Newfoundland, was proposed by the Navy, and during April and May 1768 it was agreed that he should become leader of the expedition.” (The Journal; Edwards)

In the dawn hours of January 18, 1778, on his third expedition, British explorer Captain James Cook on the HMS Resolution and Captain Charles Clerke of the HMS Discovery first sighted what Cook named the Sandwich Islands (that were later named the Hawaiian Islands.)

Hawaiian lives changed with sudden and lasting impact, when western contact changed the course of history for Hawai‘i.

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Exploration of the Pacific – Magellan to Tazman

Voyages of Captain Cook in the Pacific-Red-1st voyage (1768–1771)-Green-2nd voyage (1772–1775)-Blue- 3rd voyage (1776–1779)

December 1, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Boston Traders Precede Missionaries

In the Islands, as in New France (Canada to Louisiana (1534,)) New Spain (SW and Central North America to Mexico and Central America (1521)) and New England (NE US,) the trader preceded the missionary.

For a generation previous to 1820 New England seamen had found rest, healing and even profit in the Islands.

When US independence closed the colonial trade routes within the British empire, the merchantmen and whalers of New England swarmed around the Horn, in search of new markets and sources of supply.

The opening of the China trade was the first and most spectacular result of this enterprise; the establishment of trading relations with Hawai‘i followed shortly.

Years before the westward land movement gathered momentum, the energies of seafaring New Englanders found their natural outlet, along their traditional pathway, in the Pacific Ocean.

Probably the first American vessel to touch at Hawai‘i was the famous Columbia of Boston, Capt. Robert Gray, on August 24, 1789, in the course of her first voyage around the world. She remained twenty-four days at the Islands, salted down five puncheons of pork, and sailed with one hundred and fifty live hogs on deck.

A young native called Attoo, who shipped there as ordinary seaman, attracted much attention at Boston, on the Columbia’s return, by his gorgeous feather cloak and helmet.

Attoo was the first of several young Hawaiians who, arriving in New England as seamen on merchant vessels, influenced the American Board of Foreign Missions to found the Mission School at Cornwall, Connecticut, which was the origin of the famous mission of 1819-20.

Captain Amasa Delano brought a young Hawaiian boy (whom Delano named ’Bill’,) arriving in Boston on November 2, 1801. (Carr)

“He performed on the Boston stage several times, in the tragedy of Capt. Cook, and was much admired by the audience and the publick in general.” (Delano)

The Boston traders who followed the Columbia to the Northwest Coast and Canton, found ‘The Islands,’ as they called the Hawaiian group, an ideal place to procure fresh provisions, in the course of their three-year voyages.

Capt. Joseph Ingraham stopped there in the Hope, of Boston, in May, 1792. Five months later, Captain Gray, fresh from his discovery of the Columbia River, ‘Made the Isle of Owhyhee, one of the Sandwich Islands,’ writes John Boit, Jr, the 17-year-old fifth mate of this vessel.

(October 30, 1792) “Hove to, for some Canoes, and purchased 11 Hogs from the Natives, and plenty of vegetables, such as Sweet Potatoes, Yams, tarro, etc. These Canoes was very neatly made, but quite narrow. The Outrigger kept them steady, or else, I think, they wou’d too easily upset in the Sea.”

Off Kealakekua Bay: “Some double Canoes came alongside. These was suspended apart by large rafters, well supported. The Masts were rig’d between the canoes, and they carried their mat sails a long time, sailing very fast. The Shore was lined with people. “

(October 31, 1792) “Stood round the Island and hau’d into Toaj yah yah bay, 194 and hove to. Vast many canoes sailing in company with us. The shore made a delightful appearance, and appeared in the highest state of cultivation. Many canoes along side, containing beautiful Women.”

“Plenty of Hogs and fowls, together with most of the Tropical fruits in abundance, great quantities of Water, and Musk, Mellons, Sugar Cane, Bread fruit, and salt was brought for sale. The price of a large Hog was from 5 to 10 spikes — smaller ones in proportion. 6 Dunghill fowls for an Iron Chizzle, and fruit cheaper still.” (Boit)

It did not take long for the Northwest Coast fur traders to discover at Hawai‘i a new medium for the Canton market. That market was, of course, the prime object of our Northwest fur trade.

China took nothing that the US produced; hence Boston traders, in order to obtain the wherewithal to purchase teas and silks at Canton, spent 18-months or more of each China voyage collecting a cargo of sea-otter skins, highly esteemed by the mandarins.

Salem traders, in the same quest for the wealth of the Indies, resorted to various South Sea Islands for edible birds’ nests, and beche de mer or trepang, a variety of sea-cucumber that tickled the mandarin palate.

Captain Kendrick (who originally commanded the Columbia but remained in Pacific waters with the sloop Lady Washington), discovered about the year 1791 that Hawaii produced sandalwood, an article in great demand at Canton.

Captain Vancouver found on the Island of Kauai, in March, 1792, an Englishman, a Welshman and an Irishman whom Kendrick had left there the previous October, to collect pearls and sandalwood against his return.

Practically every vessel that visited the North Pacific in the closing years of the 18th century stopped at Hawai‘i for refreshment and recreation; but it was not until the opening years of the 19th that the sandalwood business became a recognized branch of trade.

The imports at Canton of that fragrant commodity in American vessels rose from 900 piculs (of 133 1/3 pounds each) in 1804-05 to 19,036 piculs in 1811-12.

Sandalwood, geography and fresh provisions made the Islands a vital link in a closely articulated trade route between Boston, the Northwest Coast, and Canton.

Nathan Winship, Wm. Heath Davis, and Jonathan Winship, Jr made a deal with Kamehameha for sandalwood and cotton in 1812. One of the Winships was residing at Honolulu when the missionaries landed, on April 19, 1820, and placed his house at their disposal.

“We were sheltered in three native-built houses, kindly off’red us by Messrs Winship, Lewis and Navarro, somewhat scattered in the midst of an irregular village or town of thatched huts, of 3000 or 4000 inhabitants.”

“After the fatigue of removing from the brig to the shore, Captain Pigot of New York considerately and kindly gave us, at evening, a hospitable cup of tea, truly acceptable to poor pilgrims in our circumstances, so far from the sympathies of home.”

“As soon as the bustle of debarking was over, and our grass-thatched cottages made habitable, we erected an altar unto the Omnipresent God, and in unison with the first detachment of the mission, presented him our offerings of thanksgiving and praise”. (Hiram Bingham) (This was the first communion service on Hawaiian soil.) (Morison)

A new era opened in 1820 with the arrival of the first missionaries, the first whalers and the opening of a new reign. It was the missionaries who brought Hawai‘i in touch with a better side of New England civilization than that represented by the trading vessels and their crews.

But without the trader, the missionary would not have come. The commercial relations between Massachusetts and Hawai‘i form the solid background of American expansion in the Pacific.

At the same time, the Hawaiian market for American goods was rapidly increasing, owing to the improved standards of living.

As early as 1823 there were four mercantile houses in the Islands: Hunnewell’s, Jones’s, ‘Nor’west John DeWolf’s (from Bristol, Rhode Island) and another from New York (possibly that of John Jacob Astor & Son, represented by John Ebbets (Kuykendall.)) (Morison)

“Their storehouses are abundantly furnished with goods in demand by the islanders; and at them, most articles contained in common retail shops and groceries in America, may be purchased.”

“The whole trade of the four probably amounts to one hundred thousand dollars a year – sandal wood principally, and specie, being the returns for imported manufactures.”

“Each of these trading houses usually has a ship or brig in the harbor, or at some one of the islands; besides others that touch to make repairs and obtain refreshments, in their voyages between the north-west, Mexican and South American coasts, and China.”

“The agents and clerks of these establishments, and the supercargoes and officers of the vessels attached to them, with transient visiters in ships holding similar situations, form the most respectable class of foreigners with whom we are called to have intercourse.” (Stewart)

The New England whalers, so much complained of by the China traders, brought them new business by creating a local market for ships’ stores, chandlery, etc.; and by giving them return freights of oil and whalebone.

About 1829 the Islands were visited annually by nineteen American vessels engaged in the Northwest fur, South American, China and Manila trades, and by one hundred whalers.

The little community of respectable traders and missionaries, with a disreputable fringe of deserters from merchantment and whalers, was so predominantly Bostonian that ‘Boston’ acquired the same connotation in Hawaii as along the Northwest Coast. It stood for the whole United States.

Hawaii had, in fact, become an outpost of New England. The foreign settlement at Honolulu, with its frame houses shipped around the Horn, haircloth furniture, orthodox meeting house built of coral blocks, and New England Sabbath, was as Yankee as a suburb of Boston.

(The bulk of this post is from the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society; Samuel Eliot Morison presented the paper to the October, 1920 meeting of the Society.)

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November 4, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Growing US Influence

“It was the Napoleonic Wars more than anything else which allowed Hawai‘i to begin to shift from the British to the American sphere of influence.”

“In 1792, in 1793, and again in 1794 – while the French Revolution was spilling only French blood and the future Admiral Lord Nelson had no cause to marshal His Majesty’s ships at home – Capt. George Vancouver visited the budding conqueror Kamehameha and accepted his offer on behalf of George III of a pseudo-protectorate over Hawai‘i.” (Stauffer)

“Kamehameha’s chief foreign advisors, the British subjects Isaac Davis and John Young, continued their efforts to maintain close relations with their homeland by building on the great initial relations and understanding between the two nations …”

“… and as late as the 1810s Western naval officers recognized a special relationship, a de facto protectorate or alliance as some wrote, existing between Great Britain and Hawai‘i.”

“Into the breach created by the withdrawal of the British came the spirited American merchants, dissuaded from American-European trade by Jefferson’s embargo on Napoleonic combatants.”

“Although delayed slightly by the American-British War of 1812, American merchants experienced an economic boom through the sandalwood trade at the war’s close.”

“By 1820, the year of the establishment of the American-dominated whaling industry centered in Hawai’i as well as the landing of the first American missionaries there, Americans associated with Hawai’i played a key role in the political economy of the northern Pacific.”

“From the wild fur-trading camps of Astoria and Portland to the rollicking ports of Lahaina and Honolulu to the Chinese markets at Canton, business came increasingly under the domination of American traders.”

“Like the British during the previous hundred years, the Americans spread their political relations behind the advance formations of their merchants.”

“Only after decades of American commerce being established in the Pacific did the United States Navy follow.”

“In 1825 a Pacific Squadron made up of the single frigate United States and the small schooners Dolphin and Peacock was mobilized and sent to Peru to guard the routes of American shipping around the Cape.”

“And, as commerce had brought the Navy that far, it was not surprising when, one year later, commerce brought first one and then the other of those schooners to Hawai‘i to address the concerns of American whalers and traders.” (Stauffer)

“Thomas ap Catesby Jones was “Ordered to the Pacific Squadron in 1826, Jones, with the rank of Master Commandant (i.e., Commander) was in command of the sloop Peacock when he was sent to the South Seas and Hawai‘i later that year.”

“Jones’ sloop-of-war Peacock made good time from the Society Islands, arriving at Honolulu after a trip of just 22 days. Spying the whaler Foster out from Nantucket anchored off the mouth of Honolulu harbor, Jones boarded her at four o’clock in the afternoon of October 10, 1826, to gain a background report on the Islands.”

“By 3:30 p.m. the next day the Peacock had been brought into the harbor and was at anchor.”

“Lord Byron had put into port a year earlier and, while not bringing a cession treaty from London, he had reaffirmed the special interest and feelings existing between Great Britain and Hawai‘i.”

“In contrast, the American Navy had not been well represented in the Islands. In the War of 1812 an American privateer holding authentic Letters of Marque and Reprisal had sailed into Honolulu harbor only to be captured, together with several merchant ships, by the British warship Cherub.”

“The next American military ship to enter Honolulu was the sloop Dolphin, commanded by Lieutenant John ‘Mad Jack’ Percival, dispatched by Commodore Hull specifically to look into the matter of the alleged ‘debts,’ and received at port on January 26, 1826.”

“The object of my visit to the Sandwich Islands was of high national importance, of multifarious character, and left entirely to my judgment as to the mode of executing it, with no other guide than a laconic order, which the Government designed one of the oldest and most experienced commanders in the navy should execute”. (Jones, Report of Minister of Foreign Affairs)

“Under so great a responsibility, it was necessary for me to proceed with the greatest caution, and to measure well every step before it was taken; consequently the first ten or fifteen days were devoted to the study and examination of the character and natural disposition of a people who are so little known to the civilized world, and with whom I had important business to transact.”

“The Sandwich Islanders as legislators are a cautious, grave, deliberate people, extremely jealous of their rights as a nation, and are slow to enter into any treaty or compact with foreigners, by which the latter can gain any foot-hold or claim to their soil.”

“Aware of these traits in the character of the Islanders with whom I had to negotiate, I determined to conduct my correspondence with them in such a manner as at once to remove all grounds of suspicion as to the object and views of the American Government, and to guard against misrepresentation and undue influence”.

“(I also wanted to) give the Chiefs and others in authority, the means of understanding perfectly the nature of my propositions, I took the precaution to have all official communications translated into the Oahuan language, which translation always accompanied the original in English”.

“(B)y giving them their own time to canvass and consult together, I found no difficulty in carrying every measure I proposed, and could I have been fully acqainted with the views of my government, or been authorized to make treaties, I do not doubt but my success would have been complete in any undertaking of that character.” (Jones Report to Navy Department, 1827)

Jones’s first order of business was the matter of the deserters; after initial discussions with local Hawaiian officials about a comprehensive treaty, Jones proposed on October 31, 1826, that a ‘rule’ be established, “which ought never to be departed from”’ regarding foreigners in Hawai’i.

Under the proposed ‘rule,’ all American sailors who had deserted their ships would be immediately removed from the Islands no matter under what circumstances or how far back in the past the desertion had occurred. Secondly, any American otherwise living in Hawai’i who had no “visible means of making an honest livelihood” would be removed. Finally, Jones proposed that “all other foreigners who did not support a good character” should likewise be banished.

Governor Boki, as well as both the American and British representatives were in favor of the proposal. He then approached the issue of ’debts’ (on November 4, 1826) – these primarily dealt with the ‘payment’ of sandalwood that was promised to traders for goods given. The chiefs agreed to pay off all the ‘debts’ in full. (Staffer)

Then on November 13, “The communication … which accompanied some regulations of general interest to our commerce in the Pacific was not less successful”. (Jones Report to Navy Department, 1827)

On December 23, 1826, the US signed a treaty (Articles of Arrangement) with the Kingdom of Hawaii thus indirectly recognizing Hawaiian independence. (State Department Historian) It is generally referred to as the Treaty of 1826 and was Hawaiʻi’s first treaty with the US.

It “received the signatures of the Ruling Princes and Chiefs, in testimony of their approbation of them, and as a pledge of their sincere friendship and confidence in the American Nation, and their earnest desire to remain neutral and take no part in any foreign wars.” (Jones Report to Navy Department, 1827)

The meeting considered the ‘Articles of Arrangement,’ a trade agreement between the US and the Hawaiian Kingdom, which was accepted and signed by Thomas ap Catesby Jones, and Kaʻahumanu as Queen Regent, Kalanimōku as Prime Minister, and the principal chiefs Boki, Hoapili, and Nāmāhāna. (Gapp)

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November 3, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Trade Winds

The spice trade began in the Middle East over 4,000 years ago. Initially, the spice trade was conducted mostly by camel caravans over land routes. The Silk Road was an important route connecting Asia with the Mediterranean world, including North Africa and Europe.

Trade on the Silk Road was a significant factor in the development of the great civilizations of China, India, Egypt, Persia, Arabia, and Rome.

In the 15th century, the spice trade was transformed by the European Age of Discovery. By this time, navigational equipment was better and long-haul sailing became possible.

Rich entrepreneurs began outfitting explorers in hopes of circumventing Venice by discovering new ways to reach the areas where spices were grown. There were many voyages that missed their targets, but several of them ended up discovering new lands and new treasures.

When Christopher Columbus set out in search of India, he found America instead, and brought back to Spain the fruits and vegetables he found, including chiles (he called them ‘peppers’, and the term ‘chile pepper’ persists to this day). (Spice Road)

It was not until 1487 that Bartholomew Diaz set off on the voyage that finally reached the southern tip of Africa. By rounding the Cape of Good Hope, Diaz proved that the Atlantic and Indian Oceans were not landlocked, as many European geographers of the time thought, and rekindled the idea that a sea route to India might indeed be feasible.

In 1497 King John’s successor, Manuel I, appointed Vasco da Gama to lead a pioneering voyage to India. The fleet consisted of four ships, two of which had been specially constructed. These were square-rigged ships of shallow draught weighing about 200 tons.

The flagship, St Gabriel, was captained by Vasco da Gama, and the St Raphael was under the command of his brother Paolo da Gama. Berrio Nicolau Coelho commanded a lanteen-rigged caravel of about 100 tons, and the fourth ship was a store ship. they rounded the Cape of Good Hope. (Winser; BBC)

On Christmas Day 1497 the three remaining ships were sailing northwards along the east coast of what is now South Africa and called the country ‘Natal’. By January 11, 1498 they were exploring the mouth of Copper River (‘Rio Cobre’), named after the copper ornaments worn by the local population. (Winser; BBC)

As spices became more common, their value began to fall. The trade routes were wide open, people had figured out how to transplant spice plants to other parts of the world, and the wealthy monopolies began to crumble. (Spice Road)

The development of ocean travel in the 16th century brought with it an increasing knowledge of wind patterns. The phrase ‘trade wind’ is ancient. Deriving from an old use of ‘trade’ to mean a fixed track.

It is applied to any wind which follows a predictable course. Since such winds can be of great value to merchant ships making long ocean voyages, the term becomes understood in the 18th century to mean winds which support trade. (World Heritage Encyclopedia)

Then, the captain of a sailing ship seeks a course along which the winds can be expected to blow in the direction of travel. During the Age of Sail the pattern of prevailing winds made various points of the globe easy or difficult to access. Back then, some ships could only sail downwind. (Silk Road)

The Portuguese recognized the importance of the trade winds in navigation in the Atlantic Ocean as early as the 15th century. They learned, in order to reach South Africa, they needed to go far out in the ocean, head for Brazil and around 30°S go east again.

Following the African coast southbound means upwind in the Southern hemisphere. In the Pacific Ocean, the full wind circulation, which included both the trade wind easterlies and higher-latitude Westerlies, was unknown (to Europeans) until Andres de Urdaneta’s voyage in 1565.

By the 18th century the importance of the trade winds to England’s merchant fleet for crossing the Atlantic Ocean had led both the general public and etymologists to identify the name with a later meaning of ‘trade’, ‘(foreign) commerce’. (World Heritage Encyclopedia)

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