Tahiti Shipping Arrivals and Departures 1767-1852

by Rhys Richards

Reviewed by Ian Church
Tahiti and the Society Islands, Shipping Arrivals & Departures 1767 to 1852 in which Rhys Richards has reworked lists originally compiled by the late Robert Langdon.

This soft-cover book of 257 pages has been published by the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau and Jean-Louis Boglio Maritime Books. Useful as the lists are for revealing the extent of whaling in this part of the Pacific and the consequent impact on the local people, the work also contains information on Tahitians who went to sea in European ships before 1825 and other appendices.
 
Dr Paul D'Arcy says in his preface: "Tahiti and the Society Islands occupy a central place in the history of early European contact with the Pacific Islands... firmly etched in the consciousness of Europeans eager for the exotic...most associated with the Western literary notion of a South Seas paradise. This image still prevails today in popular imagination. Like all images however it is a mixture of fact and interpretation." He points out that this work will enable researchers to get behind the "images and illusions".
 
Though the book follows Cumpston's original, somewhat constricting, format, this is compensated for by the many references to sources to which the interested scholar can refer. I was pleased to find reference to John Howell's visit in the Amazon in May-June 1849.
 
Copies are available for $45, inclusive of postage, from the Paremata Press, 73 Seaview Road, Paremata, Porirua, 5024 or by email from mrhys@paradise.net.nz.