On his “voyage round the world” from 1766 to 1769 in the frigate La Boudeuse and the storeship L’Etoile, Bougainville sailed into what he called Archipel des grandes Cyclades (see figure 3.5). Here I focus primarily on the English translation of Bougainville by Johann Reinhold Forster, published in 1772. Bougainville sighted and renamed several of the northern islands: Pentecôte (Pentecost, named for Whitsuntide); Île des Lepreux (Isle of Lepers; as noted above, now Ambae) and Aurore (Aurora, because it was sighted at dawn; now Maewo). He also sighted the tiny peak Pic de l’Etoile (this was probably named for their storeship rather than its shape, which was rather like a “sugar-loaf” (Bougainville 1967 [1772], 287). On the island of Aurora, as well as the steep shores and dense woods, they observed several natives, all of them men in canoes. Though these canoes followed them along the coast, in contrast to Quirós’ experience in the Banks, “none seemed desirous to come near us” (288). Finally, they found a good anchorage on the coast of Ambae, but saw men lined up on the shore with bows and arrows. Despite this forbidding aspect the French decided to land in order to get refreshments (especially for those who were sick with scurvy and “the venereal”) and to gain “intelligence concerning the country” (288). Three armed boats preceded the main landing party and, despite initial signs of resistance, they landed unopposed: “in proportion as our people advanced, the savages retired” (289). When Bougainville landed, the advance party was already cutting wood and local men were helping them carry it to the boats.

At first these Ambae men kept their distance with arrows and stones poised, but when the Prince of Nassau (an aristocrat who was travelling with the voyage) advanced alone and proffered gifts of red cloth, the men accepted these and this occasioned “a kind of confidence between them” (Bougainville 1967 [1772], 289). This confidence may have originated in the affinities perceived between such red cloth and valued local textiles, plaited from pandanus, often dyed red, and used as both male and female clothing and ceremonial valuables (see Bolton 2003; and figure 3.6).^[33] Significantly, the Ambae men were completely uninterested in nails and iron (in dramatic contrast to Tahiti) and were loathe to part with their bows and arrows. They gave only a few arrows in return for the red cloth. Once he had laden the boats with fruits, water and wood, Bougainville peremptorily took possession of the islands by burying an engraved sign on an oak plank at the foot of a tree and made a hasty departure. As with Quirós on Gaua, it was at this point that men attacked them, using bows and arrows, ironwood clubs and stones, one of which slightly wounded a French sailor. The French responded with musket fire, at first in the air and then “better directed” (290). Bougainville does not report as to whether anyone was hurt, only that “they fled to the woods with great cries” (290).^[34]

(“Chart of the Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean made by M. de Bougainville in 1768: Continuation of the Track of the French Ships”).

Source: Bougainville, Louise de 1967 [1772] A Voyage Round the World. Translated from the French by John Reinhold Forster, Amsterdam. N. Israel: New York, Da Capo Press 1961, faces p.205. Reproduced with permission of ASHER Rare Books, Ijmuiden and the Perseus Books Group.

Bougainville found ni-Vanuatu men bellicose. Moreover, their propensity for war was for him a sign of their state of savagery, though presumably the state of armament of the French party did not condemn them to a similar status. Observing that the first group they met on Ambae appeared to be at war with another group from the western part of the island, he declared, “I believe they are very wretched, on account of the internecine war, of which we were witnesses, and which brings great hardships upon them” (Bougainville 1967 [1772], 292).

Inter-tribal war was likely a condition of life in pre-colonial Vanuatu, but Bougainville overemphasises the warlike state of the indigenes, as he underemphasises that of the French. He took the rhythms of slit gongs as signs for rallying to battle, whereas slit gongs were used to communicate a wide variety of messages in rituals of rank and in daily life (likely including the unexpected arrival of strangers on curious ships with many sails). Slit gongs were not just “war drums” (see Layard 1942, 310ff). Similarly, Bougainville thought enclosed pallisades might be entrenchments, when they were more likely routine enclosures that kept pigs out of gardens and settlements.^[35] Moreover, he did not recognise – as Quirós had done – that his own presence and the differential access to exchanges with foreigners probably precipitated greater preparedness for war and aggravated pre-existing differences or hostilities between ni-Vanuatu. In any case, his anxiety about the warlike state of the locals inhibited Bougainville from making another landfall in the group.

As on Quirós’ voyage, most of the natives seen were men, standing armed on the shores of islands or sailing canoes tracking the foreigners along the coast. Women were seen but at a distance and were not party to the exchanges of goods or of violence. Unlike Quirós’ experience on Guau however, Ambae men were wary rather than enticing and keenly enthusiastic to exchange goods. Interactions on Ambae, at first peaceful, quickly turned violent. The male activity of war thus becomes diacritical in Bougainville’s labelling the natives “wretched” or “savage.” Their debasement, compared to the noble Tahitians, was apparent to Bougainville in the crudeness of their houses, “into which one could not enter otherwise than creeping on all-fours” (Bougainville 1967 [1772], 292), in the character of their clothes, and especially in their bodies.

Collection: Museum der Kulturen, Basel, Vb 4486. Photo: Peter Horner. Reproduced with permission of the Museum der Kulturen, Basel.

So, apart from finding the pandanus textiles of Ambae women fine (see figure 3.6), Bougainville’s pen portrait of the people of Ambae and their accoutrements is resoundingly negative.^[36] They are ugly and unhealthy savages, far removed from Quirós’ rosy portraits of clean and corpulent pagans. Moreover, as this quote suggests, there is another rupture here, for in the emergent language of race the people of Ambae are portrayed in a language that distantiates them, and as “wretched savages” they are more removed from the Europeans than the Tahitians. As if to clinch this adjudication, Bougainville quotes from Aotourou, their Tahitian guide and interpreter: “Our Taiti-man, who desired to go on shore with us, seemed to think this set of men very ugly; he did not understand a single word of their language” (Bougainville 1967 [1772], 292).

Bougainville’s short stay on Ambae was the only landfall. After this, both ships were often becalmed in the waters of the archipelago, “shut up in a great gulph” (Bougainville, 293). They saw canoes crossing from island to island and saw (on what proved to be Santo) fertile ground, great plantations and a red colour in the mountains, which indicated minerals (probably ferric soils rather than Quirós’ imagined treasures). Again men approached in canoes but as soon as they were within musket shot would come no closer. Perhaps word about the strangers had spread to nearby islands in the archipelago on the canoe crossings that were part of indigenous exchange circuits. Then, off the west coast of Santo, musket shot was heard from a boat that had come close to the shore and was dangerously proximate to three canoes, from which men were shooting arrows. The boat got free of these canoes. But Bougainville writes:

They were in dire need of wood, water and fresh food. Bougainville thus sought a deeper anchorage on Santo, and one safe enough to protect his landing craft from attack, but found none. To have landed in such circumstances, he adjudged:

Summarily leaving Santo and the consequences of these violent exchanges, Bougainville concluded that the inhabitants were of the “same species” as Ambae, “black, naked, except their nudities, wearing the same ornaments of collars, and bracelets, and using the same weapons” (Bougainville 1967 [1772], 297). He takes a final passing shot at Quirós – Espiritu Santo was no great southern continent but just a larger island in a sea of islands.^[37]