When it was time for the group to leave Aitutaki, two families and several other single men volunteered to go along as missionary teachers to the Fijians.
Six days of pleasant sailing westward brought them to an island that Captain Cook had called Savage Island (today called Niue). John hoped that the local people had calmed down since Captain Cook’s disastrous visit, but he wasn’t prepared to take any chances. Once the Messenger of Peace lay at anchor off a long, sandy beach on the island, he ordered a man to climb the mast and wave a white flag. In quick response a group of men appeared on the beach and began waving a piece of cloth.
“But they are not getting in their canoes to greet us,” John said thoughtfully as he leaned on the railing. “I think it will be safe for us to go to them, as long as there are no white people in the boat to alarm them.”
“We will go,” said two of the men from Aitutaki.
A canoe was lowered over the side of the ship with the two men in it. John took out his spyglass and watched anxiously as they paddled toward the shore. When they were about two hundred yards off the beach, the men stopped rowing and bowed their heads. John knew they were praying, and when he looked at the Savage Islanders he knew why! By now about fifty big, strong men were gathered on the beach. Each of them carried three or four spears and a slingshot. John swung the spyglass back to the canoe where the two men were motioning for the islanders to put down their weapons. None of them did.
Finally the boat reached the shore, and the Aitutakian men got out. For a long moment no one moved, and then John watched as one of the islanders stepped forward with a breadfruit and a coconut frond. It was a good sign, an utu, or sign of welcome that Polynesians sometimes gave a stranger as a way of saying they would not fight them.
The men talked for a while, and then some of the islanders launched their canoes and followed the two men toward the ship. As they got closer, some of the canoes began lagging behind until only one canoe followed the two Aitutakian men.
John noticed that the man in this canoe was older than most of the others and his hair was decorated with red feathers, which meant he was probably the chief. “Welcome. All is good between us. Come on board,” John yelled in Tahitian to him.
The chief stopped paddling, his eyes large with fear. John repeated his invitation several more times, until the chief finally took up his paddle again. Five minutes later the chief was on board, though he did not stop leaping around the deck long enough for John to hold any kind of conversation with him. The more the crew tried to calm him, the more agitated the chief became, gnashing his teeth and frantically waving his arms about. John had to remind himself that most of the items nearby were completely foreign to the chief. He tried to give the chief a hatchet, a knife, scissors, and a mirror, but none of them interested him. Then the chief saw a large mother-of-pearl shell on deck. He dropped the other objects and ran over to it, signaling that this was the prize he really wanted.
Meanwhile the rest of the canoes and the two men from Aitutaki had returned to the beach, where the islanders gestured at them. The chief got back in his canoe, too, and as he paddled ashore, the two teachers pushed their boat into the water and headed back to the ship. “They do not want us!” one of them yelled to John as they got closer. “They told us to leave before they sacrifice us to their gods.”
“We will have to leave this in the hands of God,” John said, trying not to sound too disappointed. This was the first island he had visited where not one person appeared to welcome them.
John decided to press on westward, but as he did, he began to have second thoughts about his original plan. With his lack of success on Savage Island, he wondered whether going on to the Fiji islands and then, as he had hoped, to the New Hebrides was such a good idea. He had heard that some veteran Wesleyan missionaries were working in the Tongan Islands to the southwest, and he thought it might be wise to visit them first before going any farther west. Perhaps these missionaries would have information and insights that would help him in his mission. So the Messenger of Peace changed course and headed for Tongatapu, the main island in the Tonga group, about 350 miles away.
John had heard a lot about Tongatapu over the years. Ten London Missionary Society missionaries from the original group sent out from England on the Duff had first set foot on the island in 1797, a year after John was born. But they encountered many problems, and within two years they were all gone. Three of the missionaries were caught in the middle of a local fight and killed, six others fled for their lives, and one chose to give up his Christian beliefs and live among the islanders.
No more attempts were made by European missionaries to work in the Tongan islands until the Wesleyans sent in two men, John Thomas and John Hutchinson, in 1826. The two men were followed a year later by two more men, Nathaniel Turner and William Cross. Amazingly, when John Thomas and John Hutchinson arrived on the island of Tongatapu they found in the village of Nuku’alofa a Christian church and school. Three Tahitian missionaries had gone to the Tongan Islands in the early 1820s. They eventually settled on Tongatapu and worked diligently teaching the gospel there. Surprised and delighted to find Christians already among the Tongan people, the Wesleyan missionaries took over running the church, and the last of the Tahitian teachers returned home in 1828.
On Thursday, June 25, 1830, the Messenger of Peace sailed past the mountainous island of Eua and then on to Tongatapu, a long, low island surrounded by a reef and several smaller islands. Gingerly they navigated their way through a maze of reefs, shoals, and rocky outcrops until they were safely at anchor off Nuku’alofa. Much to their surprise, another schooner was anchored off the village.
John and Charles rowed ashore and were greeted by Nathaniel, who welcomed them warmly. Soon they were enjoying a meal with Nathaniel and William and their wives and children. John was delighted to hear about the progress these Wesleyan missionaries were making and the news that John Thomas had settled in one of the northern islands of the Tonga group.
Finally John’s curiosity got the better of him. “Who does the schooner anchored off the village belong to?” he asked.
“A Christian trader by the name of Samuel Henry. You might have heard of him. His father was an LMS missionary who came out on the Duff and settled in Tahiti. A wonderful man he is,” Nathaniel replied.
“What is he doing here?” John continued. “Do you send crops to Sydney with him?”
“Sometimes, but that is not the reason he is here. He brought a chief from Fiji with him. His name is Takai, and he came to ask us to send teachers to spread the gospel in his island. He is very persistent, and we don’t know what to tell him. The only Polynesian I would feel comfortable sending at present is a man named Fauea. But sending him creates a whole new problem.”
“How so?” John asked, sipping the wonderful cup of tea Jane Cross had just served him.
“Strangely enough, Fauea is not from here. He is a Samoan who has been living on Tongatapu for eighteen years. He has a Tongan wife and many children, and they are all Christians. Recently he has been telling me he wants to take the gospel back to Samoa, but we Wesleyans are not intending to spread ourselves in that direction just yet.”
John’s mind whirled with possibilities, but it was not until after he had met Fauea that he decided to present his plan to Nathaniel and William. One evening after dinner, John and Charles and the two Wesleyan missionaries sat together under a large mango tree.
“We need to plan ahead,” John began. “Right now many islands are opening up, and the biggest waste of our resources would be to both go after the same island while leaving another untouched. We all know that the LMS and the Wesleyans have always worked side by side in the Pacific, so let us work out a way to get the gospel to every island as smoothly as possible.”
“Here, here,” William responded. “Besides, two different missionary groups working in one area would confuse the islanders. I’d hate to see them torn apart by small matters of doctrine after they have been saved from idol worship and eating each other!”
The conversation and planning continued for several days and grew to include the Fijian Takai, the Samoan Fauea, and the Polynesian missionaries from the Messenger of Peace. The results made John very happy, although it meant he had to change his plans. The missionaries, realizing there was plenty of work for all of them, decided to divide up the western islands of Polynesia. They agreed that the Wesleyans should continue their efforts in Tonga and spread their work into Fiji while the LMS should keep working in the Society Islands and move into the Samoan islands. This still left the problem of a lack of teachers to go back to Fiji with Takai, and for Fauea, who wanted to return to Samoa. The solution was for the Polynesian missionaries to swap missions so that Fauea would go to Samoa with John and Charles under LMS leadership. Meanwhile, a number of the Raiateans and Aitutakians traveling with John would go to Fiji with Takai aboard Samuel Henry’s schooner and come under the leadership of the Wesleyans.
Together they also decided to stay away from the New Hebrides islands for the time being. Samuel Henry had told John that the crews from some trading ships had stirred up a great deal of trouble there while trying to harvest the massive sandalwood trees that dotted the New Hebrides. Sandalwood fetched a high price in China, where it was used to make incense sticks, and some captains would stop at nothing to get their hands on the wood. If the islanders tried to stop the sailors from cutting down their trees, they were beaten or killed. Now, no ships were welcome in the Pacific islands far to the west of them.
While this certainly was not the way John had originally planned for things to work out when he left Raiatea, all agreed that the new arrangement would help everyone in Polynesia hear about God as quickly as possible. And that was the most important thing of all for the missionaries.
After two productive weeks at Tongatapu, the Messenger of Peace sailed north for Samoa. Fauea and his family were on board, and the more time John spent with them, the more impressed he was with their faith.
The voyage to Samoa was the worst John had ever encountered. Storm after storm buffeted the ship, shredding her mainsail and snapping the rigging. To make matters worse, just about everyone on board came down with influenza, which made them too weak to man the ship properly. Much to everyone’s relief, the sun eventually shone again and the Messenger of Peace limped on.
As they neared Samoa, John and Fauea sat on deck eating dried coconut.
“You look worried,” John commented.
“I am trying to maintain my faith,” Fauea replied, “but I have a single great concern in returning to the land of my fathers.”
“What is that?” John asked.
“In Samoa we do not have maraes or worship idols as do the people on other islands. We worship the spirits of the fishes and the birds. But there is a man in Samoa whose name is Tamafainga. This man has very strong evil powers, and he goes about the islands doing great wickedness and inciting the people to kill and eat each other. All of the chiefs obey him, and he might attempt to do great harm to anyone who brings the message of peace. Not that I am afraid,” he added hastily. “If my blood, and the blood of my family, is shed in the name of Jesus, then so be it, but it would be a great loss for all those who will not hear the gospel.”
Admiration filled John as he looked at his Samoan friend. “We will have to pray for a miracle then,” he said quietly.
Chapter 12
Samoa
After they had been at sea seven days, the cloud-capped island of Savai’i came into view, though many on the ship were still too sick to climb out of their bunks and see it. John and Charles decided to find safe anchorage so that everyone could rest on board rather than go ashore right away. They sailed around the island to the leeward side, where, as soon as they had found a safe anchorage and dropped anchor, five small canoes were pushed off from the beach and paddled out toward it. Yelps of surprise were heard as several of those paddling the canoes recognize Fauea.
