America vs. Oceania by Darryl Weng
America’s wealth was greatly enhanced by Pacific trading, engaging with the ocean’s vast natural resources and major trading partners. David Igler, in The Great Ocean, noted the rapid increase of American whaling activities in the Pacific through 1835-55 - “US whalers had far surpassed their European counterparts in tonnage and yearly kill”. Igler further highlights that, by 1850, “some seven hundred US ships in the Pacific comprised over three-quarters of the world’s whaling fleet” (Igler 118). America completely changed the world’s economic hierarchy. The Americans took advantage of their geography and combined trading networks across both the Pacific and Atlantic, outdoing their European competitors. In the Pacific Historical Review, Prof. Kariann Yokota interpreted America’s Pacific trade success as “propell[ing] America from colonial periphery to neo-imperial center by taking advantage of its geographical location between two oceanic systems” (Yokota 36). The Americans, previously traversing routes to rival competitors, were now the imperial and economic center of the world. Traversing the Pacific was never for the sake of exploration alone.
The Americans tapped Pacific resources and utilized this to their advantage, ignoring the non-materialistic factors. Igler implies the Americans were well aware of their over-exploitation of marine animals and damage to the surrounding environment, despite the never-ending efforts to provide more oil through the whale industry. Igler recalled the industry’s peak in 1849 where “oil processors desired the cleanest oil they could secure” - not the “cloudy grayish stuff rendered from gray whales”. Yet, Igler writes that “within five years of this historic peak, oil production entered a slippery decline (almost 25 percent in ten years), forcing oil processors to discriminate less about quality” - killed gray whales off the Baja coast increased significantly (Igler 127). The ecological impacts of the Pacific trade were knowingly ignored by Americans; as to them, the Pacific was only a vast space of resources to be plundered. This also meant that the Pacific’s inhabitants were not considered part of America’s Transpacific economy.
The indigenous populations across the Pacific were considered an unknown variable to America’s operations. Through the 1830s, the American government was not entirely enthralled with the Pacific, seeming to be blockaded by unknown, malicious natives. In 1835, Rhode Island Congressman Dutee J. Pearce, on behalf of the Committee on Commerce, wrote a report addressing the American public’s excessive Pacific enthusiasm. Pearce acknowledged the profits from the Pacific fur business, including whale fishery where “an aggregate of one hundred and thirty-two thousand tons of shipping and ten thousand men” have been involved. Yet, Pearce highlights the dangerous costs to these profits. The East India Marine Society, one of the pioneers in America’s trade with the East, has pleaded to the government for protection against the natives. Pearce summarizes the Society’s pleas - “to defend them against the natives, who had seen nothing of our power to restrain them from unlawful attacks upon their vessels and their lives” (“Reports of Committees; no. 94). In the same report, Pearce refers to a report by the Naval Committee dated 1828 where it discussed the government’s desire to assert dominance over the Pacific trade, sending naval commanders to display the colonists’ power and assert America’s Pacific presence. The Naval Committee had concluded that the navy had “done all that wise, active, and experienced men could do” and reportedly “taught the natives that [they] are powerful people” (“Reports of COmmittees; no. 94). Even though the Americans had shown military force to push natives from interfering with the exploitation of Pacific resources, the natives were able to deflect the show of force through favorable treaties. Joshua Reid, in The Sea is My Country, noted the natives’ power over trade, especially the Makah. Because the Makah were heavily engaged with their environment, they were able to “exploit marine resources” and, as a result, “provided them with the wealth and power that better positioned them when they needed to negotiate with non-Natives” (Reid 127). Furthermore, the Makah were especially feared by the Americans, as “officials worried that this group could cause them trouble, even after having lost three-quarters of their people to Eurasian diseases” (Reid 128). Despite the Americans being far more technologically advanced than the natives, they were not able to subdue the natives to negotiate favorably towards American terms. The American government, as per Congressional reports, believed themselves to be superior to the natives. Nonetheless, the Americans found themselves at a disadvantage against the natives and forced to comply with unfavorable treaties.
As much as the Americans saw the Pacific as simply a vast area of resources, they had to recognize the dependence on natives to run their Transpacific economic engine. Joyce Chaplin, in “The Pacific before Empire”, highlights the inability of European nations to control the Pacific nations, relying heavily on local islanders. Chaplin records events from 1500-1800, which exemplifies America’s and other western powers’ inability to understand the Pacific landscape in the terms of natives. The Congressional reports regarding the troubled Pacific trade were written in the late 1820s to 30s, proving that the Americans were unable to bypass native authority even into the 1800s. Chaplin noted this continued reliance on natives and reasoned that “Europeans were unable to learn anything from indigenous populations because they had no contact with them. Their encounters with Micronesia were unsustained” (Chaplin 54). While America was well in contact with natives due to, as Yokota highlighted, their geographical proximity and understanding, America’s relationship with natives appeared very similar to Chaplin’s characterization of the European-Native relationship. Within Pearce’s Congressional Report, logs from American Captains were recorded and details the characterization of natives by Americans. These logs described natives as either “savages”, “friendly”, “warlike” or “hostile”. These descriptions aligned well with America’s materialistic view of the Pacific, describing natives for the purpose of the economic opportunity the natives’ land provided for America - whether or not the natives were willing to allow Americans to exploit their resources. Only once in the logs were an indigenous population described beyond materialistic purposes - “passionate fondness for large blue beads” (Reports of Committees; no. 94). Because these descriptions were extremely brief, vague, and serving for one purpose, the Americans had little understanding of how the natives lived and prospered through the Pacific. As a result, Americans had to continuously rely on the natives’ cultural bond with their environment - as discussed by Reid’s analysis on the Makah - to sustain a Pacific economy.
The indigenous people of the Pacific were integral to America’s Pacific quest. The Americans thought of the Pacific as a vast area of untapped resources where they could completely overtake their European counterparts. But their inability to subdue the natives and reliance on local islanders forced them to negotiate unfavorably with the natives. The Americans were aware of and engaged with natives in Pacific trade, even though they refused to acknowledge the natives as integral to America’s Pacific economic gains. The American public imagined a Pacific without inhabitants and completely full of fur, whale oil, and other resources. Yet, the American government and corporations navigating the Pacific learned to be less idealistic and had to constantly engage with natives behind the scenes. Incapable of learning the natives’ bond with the sea, America was, at least before the twentieth century, reluctantly reliant on the natives to achieve their materialistic dreams in the Pacific.
Works Cited
Chaplin, Joyce E. Pacific Histories : Ocean, Land, People. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Igler, David. The Great Ocean. Oxford University Press, 2017.
Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country: The Maritime World of the Makahs. Kingsley Trust Association, 2015.
United States Congress. Reports of Committees: 16th Congress, 1st Session - 49th Congress, 1st Session. Oxford University, vol. 1, 1834.
Yokota, Kariann A. Pacific America. University of Hawai'i Press, 2017.