It is written in many history books that the first ship that opened the key to the mysteries of Fiji Islands to the world was called ‘Argo.’
Leonard Wibberley in his book, Fiji Islands of the Dawn wrote: “The first Argo of Greek mythology had sought the golden fleece. Its namesake found a golden fleece in Fiji, but by accident.”
Argo was an American Schooner that had ran aground near Bukatatanoa reef , east of Lakeba, in January 1800. After an extensive research, Wibberley stated the vessel had no classical beauty and picked up cargoes she could and transported them ‘wherever the profits lay’.
According to the Fiji Museum this ship was travelling from China for Port Jackson in Sydney, Australia when the unfortunate event took place.
The museum further stated that its surviving crew members spread about in Fiji.
They were thought to have brought to Fiji the epidemic locals called ‘lilabalavu’ that killed thousands of people.
It is said that this was the first of a series of epidemics that hit Fiji which greatly reduced the Fijian population during the 1800s from perhaps 250,000 to a low of 85,000 by 1921.
“There were signs in the heavens to foretell to the Fijians the coming of the Argo, for a great comet streaked through the sky and was accompanied by a shower of falling starts shortly before her arrival,” Wibberley penned.
“This heavenly display filled the Fijians with awe and may have saved the lives of some of the Argo’s people.” The Argo had been caught in typhoon during its journey for Port Jackson, Sydney and was blown off course when the night sky saw the vast comet streaking through.
“The reef is exposed to the open ocean and when there is any wind a tremendous swell pounds on its coral. The Argo was a total wreck in a matter of hours.
“Most of the crew were drowned or torn to death by the surf pounding them on the reef as they struggled in the water.”
However, a few of them were rescued by locals who came in their traditional wooden canoes from nearby Oneata Island. Some crew members died ashore while some survived.
“The survivors were held in great awe for not only had their ship struck at the time of a comet but shortly after the shipwreck there was an astonishing hailstorm, pellets of ice flinging down from the tropical so that the Fijians believed the whites were gods able to summon the stars to their protections. They had never seen hailstones before and thought they were stars.
“Ashore, the survivors of the Argo discovered a land of fearful wonders,” Wibberly continued.
From magnificent huts made from trunks of coconut palms with pandanus to war fences made from bamboo and coconut, and warriors whose faces were painted in red, white, and green, it was a wonder for them.
Wibberly said the crew discovered a people who were outrageously savage yet kind and even gently.
“The names of the survivors of the Argo wreck have almost all been lost, a generation or two ago the Fijians of Mbau (Bau) spoke of a white man who lived among them and was called Na Mataithe craftsman.
“He was probably one of the seamen from the Argo who made his way to Mbau and who like all seaman of his time was skilled with tools.”
The book and the Fiji Museum also concur that a survivor named Oliver Slater was the one who spread the word to Port Jackson about the abundance of sandalwood groves at Bua Bay and brought the white men to the islands to cut them down for riches.
Slater managed to get to the island of Vanua Levu. There he found growing along the shore ‘thickets of a tree’ which he recognised immediately.
“He had been long enough in the China trade, so he knew the trees were sandalwood. One grove of sandalwood represented a fortune for sandalwood and the Chinese even saved the sawdust. Wibberley wrote how Fijians used the sandalwood for ‘scenting the coconut oil’ and then used it to anoint themselves.
“The area in which Slater made his discovery was to become known as The Sandalwood Coast.
“About a year after Slater got ashore from the wreck of the Argo, the ship, El Plumier, cruising north-northwest from Tonga, came to anchor off Vanua Levu.”
He noted that when the El Plumier anchored off Vanua Levu, Slater had become someone of importance among the locals, and was taken out on a canoe to the ship. He had good knowledge of their language and customs.
“He seemed mad or at least deranged. He wanted a private interview with the captain which he got and babbled to him the story of the groves of sandalwood, whole forest of trees of gold growing on the island.
“But the captain of El Plumier had been long at sea, the ship had lost part of its keel and its rudder on a reef, and he was not interested in sandalwood.”
At this point, the crew decided to do a mutiny and seize the ship. Hearing of the sandalwood news, they used some to repair the ship before heading for the Chinese coast.
“Slater went with them but later made his way to Port Jackson in Australia.
“Soon the capital of the Australian penal colony was buzzing with news of the discovery of sandalwood in the Fijis (Fiji Island).” Fiji’s days of isolation were over.
“Men who sailed from Port Jackson looking for a fortune from a single voyage…”
However, they had to contend with an “alternative death by drowning or death by Fijian war clubs.” Despite the hazards, there was nothing to stop shipowners and only the oldest vessels were sent to Fiji to harvest sandalwood.
“Ship captains short of a crew and bound for the Fijis, helped convicts in the penal settlements in Australia to escape and shipped them on board as seaman.
“Many of these men proved so useless on-board ship that they were marooned in the Fijis.
“But it was from these that the Fijians got their first impression of the papalangi, the white men.”
According to the Fiji Museum, as a result, colonial vessels from Port Jackson, along with East Indian traders from Calcutta and Yankee merchant seamen from New England, began sailing towards Fiji because of its sudden commercial attraction.
Wibberley shared that no vessel could technically be cleared from Port Jackson to engage in sandalwood trading without the permission of the Governor of the colony, Captain William Bligh.
“Within six years of the wreck of the Argo, the sandalwood coast was the best-known port in the Pacific.
“It was no port, as such but just a bay behind a coral reef… “The voracious demand for cargoes of sandalwood was such that twelve years after Slater got to Australia with his news, every stick of the wood was ripped off the sandalwood coast.”
