This was just the kind of opening John had been looking for. On September 11, 1818, just days after meeting Tamatoa, the Williamses and Lancelot and Martha Threlkeld, who had agreed to settle with them in Raiatea, climbed into canoes to be paddled into unknown territory.
Chapter 5
Raiatea
Not everyone was happy with the missionaries’ move to Raiatea. Some of those who were the least happy about it were the more experienced missionaries in Tahiti. They warned John and Lancelot of the dangers involved in going out on their own among the local Polynesians, especially since both of them had been in the islands for less than a year. And while John spoke passable Tahitian, Lancelot still had a long way to go before he could make himself properly understood in the language.
Nonetheless the two missionaries would not be held back. This was why John had come to the Pacific. Despite the risks, they would not turn down an invitation to extend the reach of the gospel to the Oro worshipers of Raiatea, especially since there were plenty of other missionaries to carry on the work they had been engaged in.
The canoes carrying the missionaries headed west from Huahine, and eventually the jagged outline of Raiatea appeared on the horizon. From the water the island looked very much like Moorea, with its razorback rocky peaks, lush vegetation, and surrounding coral reef. The boats maneuvered their way through a gap in the reef and were soon floating in the crystal-clear water of the lagoon.
When the canoes pulled up on the beach, the local Christians welcomed the missionaries. They laid at the feet of these new visitors stalks of bananas and plantains, along with a pig and several fish, still warm from being cooked in the umu, or underground oven. They then led the Threlkelds and Williamses, with John Jr. propped on Mary’s hip, to their tiny huts. The place still smelled of the freshly cut coconut fronds that had been woven together for the roof and walls. The floor was compacted dirt, which John promised to cover with a layer of crushed coral.
Upon their arrival on the island, the missionaries set right to work. They had already decided on a schedule. They would spend each Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday taking care of practical matters, such as teaching the locals new skills, including how to use tools. Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays were set aside for writing and practicing sermons in Tahitian. Sunday, of course, was for a range of Christian meetings. Five services were held that day, the first starting at 6 A.M. and the last one ending at 4 P.M. The missionaries then ate dinner together and held their own service in English. The other evenings were busy, too, with a weekly meeting at which the Raiateans were free to ask the missionaries any questions they wanted.
The schedule was a great idea. There was just one problem—people didn’t come to the events. The people of Raiatea lived in scattered huts all over the island. Before the arrival of the missionaries, the constant threat of attack by other tribes had made it unwise for the Raiateans to live together in villages. In many cases getting to Va’oara Beach, where the two missionary families had set up their mission station, was a major trek and not one the people wanted to make each day. Besides, the islanders appeared to have little idea of time. No one had a watch or a clock. Rather, people’s daily life seemed to be delineated by the rhythm of the tides and the changing direction of the wind.
Something had to be done. John, Lancelot, and Tamatoa called a conference of the people, and it was decided that a village should be built beside the beach at Va’oara. Now John had a project he could get to work on. He decided to build himself a house and use it as an example of what a man could do with knowledge and a few local materials. He began right away, laying the foundations for a seven-room villa he had been planning in his head.
Each day many locals came to watch John work. They held the saw and exclaimed over its sharp teeth. They imitated John using his square to place the walls at right angles and the way he notched the poles that would hold the roof before he lashed them with rope. Soon a fine building began to take shape. It was sixty feet long and thirty feet wide, with a veranda that overlooked the lagoon.
Once the frame was up, John filled in the walls with slatted wood and then embarked on an experiment: making plaster from coral. To do this, he built a large fire and heated chunks of coral. When the coral cooled, he ground it into sand, which he mixed with water to make a chalky white plaster. The Polynesians stared in amazement as he daubed the plaster onto the walls. The experiment worked wonderfully, and the house was then completed with a thatched roof, which the local people helped him make.
Once the mission house was finished, virtually everyone on the island made the journey to see it. And just as John had hoped, many of those who saw the place determined to build their own house on the beach at Va’oara.
Missionary reinforcements soon arrived in the form of John and Margaret Orsmond, who had heard of the village project and wanted to come and be a part of it. The Orsmonds brought with them several hundred newly printed portions of the Gospels in the Tahitian language.
Now, with houses being built and a community taking shape, the missionaries were ready to teach the Polynesians how to read. This proved surprisingly easy, mainly because of the enthusiasm with which the Raiateans threw themselves into the task. School was held at noon Monday through Friday, and everyone from the oldest warrior to the youngest child who could sit still attended. The people were astonished as they learned to read and write simple messages on trays filled with sand.
These first months of work in Raiatea were clouded by the death of Margaret Orsmond after a short illness. The missionaries used her death as a reminder that they had a lot more work to do. None of them knew how much longer they had to live among the Raiateans.
In May 1819 news came that King Pomare II of Tahiti had been baptized in an enormous wooden church built in honor of the event. The church was named the Royal Mission Chapel, and at 712 feet long and 54 feet wide, it was big enough to hold six thousand people. Many members of the fledgling church at Raiatea had paddled over to witness the event, and they came back fired up with enthusiasm for building a similar church at Va’oara. John promised to start drawing up plans for such a structure, but since there were only about two thousand inhabitants on Raiatea, he told the travelers that the church would be built on a much smaller scale than the chapel in Tahiti.
That month mail arrived from England. It was the first mail the Williamses had received since arriving in the Pacific islands eighteen months before. John excitedly opened the letters, although his excitement soon turned to frustration when he opened a letter from the director of the London Missionary Society. Dated July 1818, it was obviously a circular letter sent to all the missionaries serving in the Society Islands. The letter read:
The Society cannot allow itself to enter into any engagement with regard to the ownership or employment of the vessel now built or being built by the missionaries in the South Sea Islands and that the directors recommend them to dispose of her in the best manner you are able, in whatever state or place she may be on the arrival of this communication.
John was so shocked by the letter that he didn’t trust himself to speak. The Hawies was being put to good use ferrying missionaries and supplies between the islands. What did the LMS directors think they were doing? Not one of them had ever been to the Pacific islands and had little idea of the challenges the missionaries faced getting around. And the fact that it could take up to two years from the time a letter was sent until a response was received meant that the constantly changing conditions made many of the demands carried in such letters outdated.
By now John had been in the islands long enough to know two things. First, ships were vital to the work of missionaries in the Pacific. The islands were like English villages, only they were connected not by roads and paths but by water. Just as missionaries serving in large countries needed carts and carriages to get around, the missionaries living in the islands needed a way to cross the ocean that surrounded them. On a continent, if all else failed, a missionary could walk to the next village. But in the islands one could not swim to the next group of islands.
The second thing John knew was that he was not the type of missionary to build a single mission station and then spend the rest of his life making sure it ran efficiently. He had a restless streak and was always wondering what unevangelized islands lay over the horizon. As far as John was concerned, using ships to spread the gospel was a vital part of any mission plan in the South Sea islands. And he was not prepared to give up the use of such a vessel at the whim of a mission board located on the other side of the world in London.
Alas, John had little say in the matter. The senior missionaries, led by Henry Nott, agreed to do as the mission board directed, and the Hawies was soon sold.
After the sale of the boat, John’s attention returned to his work, and in September he sent his first report back to England. It was a year since he had moved to Raiatea, and he had much to report. The village of Va’oara now stretched for two miles along the beach, and the Raiateans were eager to learn new skills. John wrote in his report:
We are going to attempt a large clock and wooden smith’s bellows almost immediately. Our various little works of this kind, our boats and our houses have given the natives many new and important ideas. These they readily receive and act upon, and it is with delight I observe them engaging in the different branches of carpentering, some box-making, some bedstead-making, some making very neat sofas (which we have lately taught them) with turned legs and looking very respectable indeed, some again lime-burning, some sawing, some boat-building, some working at the forge, and some sugar-boiling; while the women are equally busy in making gowns, plaiting bark, and working neat bonnets—all the effect of the gospel…I have lately taught a native to bind books, which he can do very well.
By the beginning of 1820, the people of Raiatea were ready to take on the challenge of building their own chapel. The plans John had drawn up called for a structure smaller than the one in Tahiti, but at 191 feet long and 44 feet wide, it was still large enough to hold everyone on the island. Work on the building progressed fast, and on May 11, 1820, two thousand people turned out for the dedication service. The Auxiliary Missionary Society of Raiatea was formed, too, with Chief Tamatoa as its president. Soon seventy Raiateans were baptized.
There were other promising signs as well. As these Polynesians became Christians, they wanted laws, something they had never had before. Tamatoa called a meeting at which the islanders began discussing the laws they wanted. In the end a court system was set up, with Tamatoa’s brother as the judge and the back of the chapel partitioned off to serve as a courthouse.
Many of the Raiateans were very happy with the changes taking place on their island. For the first time ever, the women and children were safe, and the men were not constantly at war. But some of the people resented the shift in power away from the native priests and the god Oro to the missionaries. Within weeks of the chapel’s completion, John Williams found out just how determined these people were to rid the island of the missionaries’ influence.
John was sitting in his chair preparing a sermon one Friday afternoon when he heard a knock at the door. Normally he would have gotten up and answered it, but as he was in the middle of translating a particularly difficult Bible passage into Tahitian, he called for one of the Raiatean women helping Mary prepare dinner to answer it. (Mary was expecting another baby in two months and needed help with the housework.)
