Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 86.djvu/468

464 words, a form of commercial peonage has replaced the old possession of the body of the slave, and only in proportion as the land is poor, or markets far away, is the native rich in communal liberty.

These facts, well appreciated as they are by the natives are the chief causes of racial distrust, for the native realizes that the European is his exploiter, not his friend. Unable to maintain his ground in open contest, he has recourse to all manner of subterfuge. Much of his so called "laziness" and "lack of ambition" results from these conditions, for while he is sufficiently industrious and often hard working in so far as his own personal needs and profits are concerned; if he can by any means avoid working for the white man's benefit he will do so, even though he must himself endure privation to accomplish this end.

Events in Tahiti moved slowly, for the age of the steamship had not yet come, and the South Sea Islands were still remote from the world's activity.

In 1835 the Catholics began to establish missions among the Pacific Islands, and thus the French government acquired a plausible reason for sending men-of-war into the Pacific, avowedly to afford protection to these missions, but in reality to expand the realms of France.

In Tahiti the drama opened when two French priests. Fathers Laval and Caret, embarked upon a small schooner from Mangareva and landed on Tahiti on November 21, 1836.

The antagonism between the protestant missionaries and their catholic co-workers was well known to these French priests, and thus they avoided Papeete, the only port of entry, and sought a landing upon the remote coast of Tautira on the eastern side of the Island. They then walked slowly along the shore toward Papeete preaching at frequent intervals, and gaining the ears of Tati and other leaders of the old conservative party whose aspirations had been crushed by the missionary element in 1815.

Henceforth the struggle lay between the protestants and the French, the Queen being but a puppet in the hands of Mr. Pritchard, a missionary who was then serving as British Consul; and the upshot of the affair was that on December 13, 1836, the priests were expelled from Tahiti for having failed to respect the port regulations in landing surreptitiously at Tautira; their offer to pay the statutory fine being refused by the Queen.

But the martyr spirit was as strong in these French priests as in their protestant adversaries, and with unexpected suddenness they reappeared, this time as passengers on the American brig Colombo which anchored in Papeete Harbor on January 27, 1837. Their application for