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1765 Discovery of king Georges islands
Born on 8th November 1723 in Nottingham, John BYRON joined the English Navy at the age of 8.
In 1740, he took part in Commodore Anson’s expedition. His ship wrecked in the Magellan Strait and it was only after 13 months of incredible sufferings that the crew got rescued.
In 1763, after the Seven Year's War, the rivalry between
France and Great Britain took on an economic form and the
two governments decided to take hold of the Falkland Islands, as the former were the gateway to the Pacific. Louis Antoine de Bougainville and John Byron were appointed by their respective governments to carry out that mission.
In June 1764, John BYRON left England with two ships: the frigate Dolphin and the sloop Tamar. He officially took possession of the Falkland Islands, where settlers of Bougainville had
already built a camp, without him knowing it.
He then followed the wakes of Magellan, Le Maire and Roggeveen.
This is how he sailed past the Polynesian atolls of NAPUKA and TEPOTO on 7th June 1765, without being able to land because of the heavy swell and of the many armed savages lined up along the beach.
On 11th June 1765, he landed on the atoll of TAKAROA, in order to get supplies of coconuts and scurvy grass that was indispensable for his ill seamen. His account of that day remains one of the few evidences of what life was like on the atolls before the arrival of the Europeans.
He then tried to land on the atoll of TAKAPOTO, where, 43 years earlier, Roggeveen’s ship Africaansche Galey had wrecked, but the islanders rebuffed all landing attempts.
He gave the name “King George Islands” to the group made of 4 atolls: Ahe – Manihi – Takapoto – Takaroa and to the uninhabited island of Tikei.
Then he continued on his way, narrowly missing the discovery of Tahiti, just like Le Maire and Roggeveen before him.
In May 1766, he was back in England, completing a roundthe-world voyage in less than two years – a record.
In 1769, John BYRON was appointed Governor of Newfoundland.
He was promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral of the Blue Squadron in 1778, and then Rear Admiral of the White Squadron in 1780.
He died on 10th April 1786, and rests in Twickenham, near the Chapel of St Mary’s Church.
180th Anniversary of Henry NOTT Tahitian translation of the bible
When they read the enthusiastic stories related by the great navigators, the directors of the London Missionary Society (LMS) decided that the South Pacific Islands would be their first mission field.This is how, in 1796, 29 unprepared and hastily selected volunteers embarked on the LMS ship, the DUFF, bound for TAHITI. They landed in MATAVAI on 5th March 1797, after a journey of 7 months during which they learnt the basics of the Tahitian language. A year later, most of them, discouraged, sailed back to England. Only 7 remained.
Henry NOTT was one of them. A young mason of 23 years of age, NOTT only had basic education but he was particularly gifted at learning Tahitian. With John DAVIES, a young Welsh missionary who had arrived soon after him, he decided to translate the Bible into Tahitian. That turned out to be a daunting undertaking.
The language existed only in its spoken form. Syntax was a major obstacle. Words were a succession of vowels interspersed with rare consonants whose pronunciations differ.
Moreover, they were sometimes considered taboo and therefore needed to be replaced.
Putting the Tahitian language into written form was really difficult because the Latin alphabet could not transcribe its sounds. After endless debates about phonetics and spelling, the missionaries created new spellings.
They carried out their work in the midst of endless wars between the many clans of TAHITI. In that troubled context, NOTT made friend with King POMARE II, who ensured his protection. Beaten in 1808, the King sought refuge on the neighbouring island of MOOREA, in the company of NOTT. There, the King learnt to read and write and methodically prepared his revenge. The Christian congregation had widened and, by then, comprised some 500 believers throughout all the islands. NOTT carried on his work, set
up a Bible school and, in collaboration with DAVIES and with the assistance of TUAHINE, a devoted Tahitian who remained on his side during all those years, he completed the translation of the Gospel by Luke in 1814.
Back on the island of TAHITI in 1815, King POMARE II and his Christian forces defeated the powerful pagan chief OPUHARA during the battle of FEI PI. The King then proclaimed that the Christian Gospel teaches love and forgiveness. There would be no prosecution, no massacre. Impressed, the defeated turned their back on their previous beliefs in the following weeks. In 1816, the whole population had turned Christian. In the meantime, considerable backup arrived from the LMS.
In 1817, the first press was set up on MOOREA, and the King himself published the first pages of Polynesia. In 1819, the translation of the Gospels, of the Acts of the Apostles and of the Book of Psalms was completed. King POMARE II was baptized. NOTT drafted the POMARE Code, the first statute of the country.
Lastly, on 18th December 1835 at 01.35 AM, after more than 30 years of painstaking work, Henry NOTT, put his pen away. The Bible was fully translated. NOTT returned to England in 1836 in order to have it printed. He presented the first edition of the Bible in Tahitian to Queen Victoria on 8th June 1838, and then sailed back to TAHITI in 1840 with 3,000 copies of the Book. He died there in 1844, at the age of 70. In accordance with his last will, he got buried next to his friend King POMARE II, who had died in 1821.
As the only book made available to the community for about 100 years, the Bible became a fundamental feature of Polynesian culture. By providing a written form to the Tahitian language, the missionaries protected that language and laid down the foundation for translation into other languages of the South Pacific.
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