544 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1959 
bravely on this occasion, they at last came off victorious, with only one or two 
of themselves wounded, whilst the dead bodies of the Toobouaians covered the 
spot, and were afterwards thrown up in three or four heaps (Wilson, 1799, pp. 
51-52). 
In this, and the various other disputes with the mutineers, the Tubuai 
people were said to have lost nearly a hundred men. It can scarcely 
be wondered that as a result their attitude toward Europeans became 
so hostile that Captain Wilson, of the missionary ship Duff, feared 
to land there in 1797. 
Postmortem.—It is not difficult to sense, in retrospect, that the 
Tubuai experiment never could have succeeded on the lines intended 
by Christian: a small enclave of whites subsisting as a cooperative 
agricultural community in the middle of a virile native society. 
Even if the entire body of immigrant Europeans had possessed the 
humanitarian views of Christian on native rights, it would have been 
difficult enough to maintain friendly relations with the faction-ridden 
inhabitants of a closely populated island where every inch of the area 
was owned and the most suitable areas occupied. 
But most of the mutineers had no conception at all of native rights, 
and even Christian, though he would not permit the forcible abduction 
of the island women, had to countenance the seizure of food supplies 
when sufficient could not be obtained by barter. 
Morrison mentions that the local priests, who had great authority, 
were alienated at an early stage. Not unreasonably, they— 
could not bear to see such superiority as the Europeans in general usurp over 
those who differ from themselves, and became jealous of us with respect to their 
religious authority to which they saw that we not only refused to take notice 
of but even ridiculed, for this reason they used all the Means in their power to 
keep the Chiefs from making Friends, thinking perhaps that if we staid in the 
Island, their Consequence would be lessen’d, which in all probability would have 
been the Case (Morrison, 1935, p. 71). 
Conflict with the islanders was therefore inevitable, but it could 
probably have been postponed if Christian had not made the initial 
error of antagonizing Tamatoa, the most powerful chief on the island, 
by deliberately electing to settle in the territory of his rival. 
Had his explorations taken him west instead of east he might well 
have found suitable land for his purpose in the fertile area around 
Tuporo, which is largely isolated by swamps from the rest of Tubuai, 
where he could have lived with a minimum of contact, and consequent 
friction—but only for a time. Christian can hardly be blamed for the 
implacable antagonism of Tinarou, but the domain of this chief was 
situated at the other end of the island. Even the much-coveted women 
would presumably have arrived in due course, if the mutineers could 
have restrained their impatience, for the unmarried Tubuai girl had 
considerable freedom in bestowing her favors and it is unlikely that a 
