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Easter Island: Early Witnesses
William Thomson
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Kava is not grown upon the island and the drink made from the kava-root, common throughout the South Sea, is not known to these people. The diminution of the inhabitants can not be ascribed to the introduction of intoxicating drinks, or indeed any of the factors usually advanced in such cases. The decadence was no doubt accelerated by the introduction of the small-pox, and by the deportation of large numbers, but it is earnestly hoped that the small remnant of the people will increase and multiply under the comforts and protection acquired from contact with civilization.
BRUTAL TREATMENT OF NATIVES BY EARLY VOYAGERS.
The brutal treatment that the islanders received from the hands of their early visitors was not calculated to impress them favorably. Usually the strangers were met upon their arrival by a crowd of noisy, restless, impetuous people, as curious as children and as peaceable and friendly with all their boisterousness. The greatest fault they committed was theft, and in return numbers were shot down and innocent persons murdered. Roggeveen plainly states that his boats approached the island well armed and in great fear of the natives. The men were formed in line of battle as they disembarked, and before all were landed, some one in the rear fired a shot, and immediately a fusilade began by these cowardly ruffians upon the unfortunate islanders, ten or twelve of whom were killed outright and as many were wounded. The admiral quietly shifts the responsibility for this outrage upon the shoulders of the second mate of the Thienhoven, who offers as an excuse that some of the natives were observed to take up stones and make threatening gestures. As soon as the astonishment and terror of the inhabitants had subsided, they sued for mercy, and everything they possessed in the way of fruits and vegetables, poultry, etc., was procured and laid as a peace offering at the feet of the Dutchman. Captain Cook afterwards received the most friendly reception possible from the same people, but he observed their great dread of firearms, the deadly effects of which were thoroughly understood. The landing party conducted a brisk trade, and were highly amused to witness the small thefts committed upon one another in order to obtain articles for barter, yet Lieutenant Edgecomb did not hesitate to immediately shoot with his musket a poor unfortunate who picked up a little bag of botanical specimens.
Captain Beechey was received with friendly demonstrations and his boats, sent on shore for supplies, obtained bananas, yams, potatoes, sugar-cane, nets, etc., in trade, and some were thrown into the boats, leaving the strangers to make what return they chose. His journal dwells at great length upon the thieving propensity of the natives. His boats were surrounded by native swimmers, who made off with small articles that came within reach of them, and among them were women who were not the actual plunderers, but who procured the opportunity for others by engrossing the attention of the seamen.
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