Pacific Paradises

Captain Wallis discovered Tahiti in 1767 when plans were being made in London to send a scientific expedition to the pacific. His reports of the island were so favourable that Tahiti soon became a favoured place for artists and scientists, as well as a source for provisions and recreation for European ships. While the sailors enjoyed the leisurely, sexually-permissive life, European civilisation as a whole was shocked by this and by the Tahitian's paganism. The London Missionary Society was founded to convert them and the contest between British Protestant and French Catholic missionaries led to the eventual expulsion of the British, war between the Tahitians and the French and the final colonisation of the island by France. In Hawaii, a similar story unfolded. Discovered by Captain Cook in 1776, it was a larger centre of trade and commerce than Tahiti and its ultimate fate was a matter of greater international importance, involving Britain, America, France and Russia. Pacific Paradises is a rich and stirring story of cultures in collision. The reality of the colonisation of Tahiti and Hawaii by western powers is a shameful catalogue of misunderstanding and betrayal. In a final irony, western society now embraces many of the qualities held by the 'noble savages.'