THE DISCOVERY, REDISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF THE ISLANDS OF SOLOMON, 1 5 6 8 - l8 3 8 t

A SYNOPSIS

OF A THESIS PRESENTED IN THE

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

BY

C . JACK-HINTON

1962

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This thesis is an attempt to trace the history of the European discovery, rediscovery and exploration of the islands lying immediately to the east of New Guinea which became known after their discovery by

the attractive if historically inaccurate name Islands of Solomon. It

attempts to narrate the story of the successive voyages to the archipelago in some detail, reconstructing the routes followed and identifying the landfalls made, and further attempts to relate those voyages to the background of pre-discovery knowledge and conjecture,

the cartography of the Pacific, and the consideration given over the years to the position, composition and very existence of the archipelago by cartographers, chroniclers, hydrographers, geographers and historians.

The study represents the result of research conducted specifically

between July i960 and December 19^1 , supported by a previous knowledge of part of the Solomons and a voyage in 1961 on the yacht "Staghound" to reconstruct the routes of the discoverers, rediscoverers and explorers, and to identify their landfalls.

To endeavour to summarize the story of the discovery, "disappearance”

(as the immediate post-discovery phase of its history has often been romantically but misleadingly termed) and rediscovery of the Islands of Solomon is inevitably to generalize, to oversimplify and to omit much which, though of secondary importance, is vital to an understanding of

the whole* This brief synopsis should not, therefore, be regarded as anything more than a very general introduction qualified by the study itself. The story of the discovery and rediscovery of the Solomons is perhaps well, if rather generally and incompletely, known. It has not,

however, been previously studied both as a whole and in detail, or in relation to the all-important question of Pacific cartography which is

in fact a mirror set up to its successive stages.In 1568 Alvaro de Mendana came westwards across the Pacific to

discover, explore and name a substantial part of the eastern half of the islands which were shortly afterwards to become popularly known as

the Islands of Solomon. He did so in a spirit of curiosity, colonialism, commercialism and proselytism, against a background of

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supposition and belief that the South Pacific, from the area to the

south of New Guinea and the Moluccas to a point in low latitudes as

little as six hundred Iberian leagues west of Lima, contained a vast

austral continent, the Cphir of King Solomon, the lands reported by

Marco Polo and golden islands reputed to have been known to the Incas.

He navigated in the belief that the Pacific was considerably less wide

than was in fact the case, and in the further belief that the whole

of this area lay within the hemisphere to which Spain laid absolute

claim to explore, colonize, exploit and convert.

The techniques of navigation in the sixteenth century were such

that the influence of the westerly-setting south equatorial current was

insufficiently appreciated or allowed for, and in consequence the

expedition considerably underestimated the distance sailed from Peru.

By virtue of the current underestimate of the width of the Pacific,

however, an underestimate which remained undetected for much of the

period in v/hich navigators crossed that ocean v/ith the westerly-setting

currents, the expedition was able to assume the proximity of its

discovery to New Guinea, even though only the western half of the north

coast of that land was known to them.

Within twenty years of the return of the expedition to Peru charts

and maps had appeared in Europe on which the archipelago was laid down,

exaggerated in size, in close proximity and to the east of New Guinea,

with coastlines and a nomenclature v/hich generally conformed v/ith the

discoveries, exploration and conjectures made by the expedition of 1568.

It was laid down at distances from Peru which varied according to the

distance at which the cartographer plotted New Guinea, but which were

generally less than that estimated by the discoverers. Chroniclers

described the archipelago with varying degrees of accuracy and as lying

either fifteen hundred leagues from Peru (a distance reconcilable with

the l600 plus leagues recorded by the discoverers from Peru to the mid­meridian of the archipelago where the first landfall was made, and with

the exaggerated impression gained of the distance from that landfall to

the eastern perimeter of the archipelago) or, quite inaccurately, as

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lying 800 leagues from Peru,

In 1595 Mendana returned to colonize the archipelago, hut discovered

instead the island of Santa Cruz v/here he established an abortive and

short-lived colony. Abandoning the colony after the death of Mendana

and his successor, the remnants of the expedition sailed for the

Philippines and must have passed within a remarkably short distance of

the main archipelago of the Solomons v/ithout sighting them. The outward

trans-Pacific voyage had been made in slightly higher latitudes where

the south equatorial current is less pronounced, albeit in the trade wind

season when that current tends to be strongest, and an appreciation of

the existence of that current and improvements in the techniques of

navigation had combined with this factor to produce a more correct, but

still inadequate, estimate of the distance sailed. Nevertheless, Quiros,

the Chief Pilot, was able to deduce that the Solomons lay to the west of

Santa Cruz and that the expedition of 1568 had underestimated the

distance of their discovery from Peru.

Quiros himself returned in 1606, burning with a desire to discover

the austral continent and a Catholic zeal to save its inhabitants from

perdition, and discovered the islands of Taumako and Tikopia and heard

of Sikaiana. On this occasion an even more correct estimate was made

of the distance sailed from Peru, and the fact established that Santa

Cruz lay at a short distance to the westwards of the new discoveries.

In the New Hebrides, which he took to be part of the supposed continent,

the expedition became divided, Quiros returning to California and Peru,

Torres, his second-in-command, heading westwards to discover the Torres

Straits and demonstrate the insularity of New Guinea.

In l6l6 Schouten and Le Maire rounded Cape Horn and so defeated the

letter of the Dutch East India Company’s monopoly to the trade of the

Spice Islands, and came westwards in search of the austral continent and

a cargo of spices. Assuming the Hoorn Islands to be offlyers of Quiros’

reputedly continental discoveries, unaware of Torres' voyage to the

south of New Guinea and justifiably timorous of a possible lee shore

extending southwards from New Guinea, they headed northwards to lower

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latitudes and discovered Ontong Java, Tau'u, the Green Islands, St.

John's Island and the north-east coast of New Ireland, assuming the

latter to be the extremity of New Guinea*

In 1643 Tasman, having sailed south of New Holland from the East

Indies, and having entered the Pacific by way of Van Diemen’s Land and

New Zealand, sailed north from t'he Tonga group to join what he thought

to be the route of Le Maire when he was in fact to the west of it.

Misled by his chart to fear that Fiji might be Quiros' supposed continent

he, like his countrymen before him, headed northwards to safety, to join

their track and make the same landfalls amongst the outlyers of the

Northern Solomons.

The seventeenth century saw the continued production of charts and

maps of the Pacific which delineated the Solomons in a form similar to

those of the late sixteenth century, often with improved dimensions, and

the emergence of others of Iberian origin which delineated the

discoveries of 1595 and l606 but excluded those of 1568. It saw charts

of the first category altered by the merging of the islands of the

southern part of the Solomons to form a continental coastline extended

southwards to accommodate the reputedly continental discovery of Quiros.

It saw the Dutch discoveries added to all three types and their derivatives,

the production of greatly improved Dutch charts from which the Spanish

discoveries were excluded entirely, and the emergence of an erroneous

type of map or chart on which the Spanish discoveries were identified

with the chain of islands extending from New Guinea to Tierra del Fuego

which cartographers had long postulated as a fringe of eroded fragments

of the austral continent.

By the end of the century and the first quarter of the l8th century,

however, some of the problems of reconciling the delineation of the *

Solomons in close proximity to New Guinea and also at the distance at

which they were reputed to have been discovered, on charts which laid

down a Pacific of considerably improved dimensions, had come to be

appreciated. They were consequently and variously plotted eight

hundred leagues, fifteen hundred leagues, or at such distances from

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Peru as the individual cartographers or their authorities understood them to have been discovered at. In the majority of cases all that

was left of the Solomons for this repositioning was the one large island of Santa Ysabel and a few diminutive neighbours, the remainder having been lost in the period of their cartographical absorption into the

austral continent or Quiros' reputedly continental discovery. Of cartographers who seem to have run the whole gamut of possible locations

for the Solomons de I’Isle is perhaps the most marked, beginning as he

did by plotting them alongside the Marquesas, then moving them gradually westwards, and ending by plotting them in their earliest position in close proximity to New Guinea.

Dampier* s circumnavigation of New Ireland and New Britain provided further information relating to the general area; whilst the voyages of Byron and Wallis, through the easterly position in which French charts in particular tended to delineate the Solomons, cast serious doubts on the accuracy of that location if not on the very existence of the Solomons. In 1767 Carteret, after becoming separated from Wallis, came westwards across the Pacific in as high latitudes as the winds would permit in an attempt to discover the austral continent. Driven into lower latitudes by contrary winds and shortage of provisions, he

rediscovered and was subsequently to identify the Santa Cruz Group, probably discovered rather than rediscovered Vanikoro, discovered Ndai

Island to the north of Malaita, rediscovered but did not identify Maiaita, and discovered Kilinailau, Buka and the passage between New

Ireland and New Britain.The following year saw Bougainville rediscovering the New Hebrides

and generally recognizing them as Quiros* Espiritu Santo and, after sailing eastwards along the south side of the Louisiade Archipelago, discovering but not identifying the western perimeter of the Solomons.He discovered Ranongga, Vella Lavella, the south coast of the western extremity of Ohoiseul, Bougainville and its southern progeny, and the Bougainville Strait. In what was a veritable spate of maritime activity the Solomons were visited again the following year by Surville

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who, coming so u th -e a s tw a rd s from th e B ashees i n an a ttem p t to re a c h th e

E a s te rn P a c i f i c , c o a s te d th e n o r th e rn and e a s te r n p e r im e te rs o f th e

a r c h ip e la g o , b u t f a i l e d to i d e n t i f y i t o r even to d e te rm in e w ith

c e r t a in t y w h eth er i t was a m ain land o r an a rc h ip e la g o .

In 1769 A lexander D alrym ple, c a n ta n k e ro u s , o p in io n a te d and i l l - u s e d

by h i s to r y , p o s tu la te d th e i d e n t i f i c a t i o n o f th e Solomons w ith Dam pier’ s

New B r i t a in on th e p rim ary ev idence of th e lo c a t io n o f th e Solomons in

c lo se p ro x im ity to New G uinea on l a t e s ix te e n th c e n tu ry c h a r t s . H is

contem porary Cook ev in ced an i n t e r e s t in th e a re a of th e Solomons,

w ith o u t s p e c i f i c a l l y im p ly in g th a t th e y m ight be found th e r e , b u t f a i l e d

to e x p lo re i t when he was in th e New H ebrides d u rin g h is second P a c i f i c

voyage o f 1772- 5 * I t was no t indeed u n t i l 1781 th a t Buache made th e

m ajor s te p in th e i d e n t i f i c a t i o n o f th e Solomons by su g g e s tin g to th e

F rench Royal Academy o f S c ie n ces th a t th e y were in f a c t th e lan d s

d isc o v e re d by C a r t e r e t , B o u g a in v ille and S u r v i l l e . N e v e r th e le s s ,

a lth o u g h he exam ined th e c o r r e c t ev idence and a r r iv e d a t a c o r re c t

c o n c lu s io n , h i s s u g g e s tio n depended on a p e rh ap s in a d eq u a te com prehension

o f th e r a m if ic a t io n s and c o m p le x itie s of t h e i r s ix te e n th cen tu ry

c a r to g ra p h ic a l d e l in e a t io n in c lo se p ro x im ity to New G uinea, and on th e

a p p a re n tly m istak en b e l i e f s t h a t R ichard Hawkins had le a rn e d from th e

S p an ia rd s t h a t th e y la y 25OO E n g lish le ag u es from P eru and th a t th e

d is c o v e r ie s o f C a r t e r e t , B o u g a in v ille and S u r v i l l e la y in th a t p o s i t io n .

The a b o r t iv e a ttem p t o f th e S pan ia rd M ourelle to make an e a s te r ly

c ro s s in g o f th e P a c i f i c so u th o f th e e q u a to r le d him to s ig h t th e N orth ­

w es te rn Solomons and u n w it t in g ly to r e d is c o v e r what was p ro b ab ly th e

f i r s t l a n d f a l l of h is fe llo w -co u n try m en in 1568 - Roncador R eef, though

l i k e most o f h i s co n tem p o ra rie s who r e l i e d on contem porary F rench c h a r ts

he supposed th e Solomons to l i e f u r th e r to th e e a s t . F o r a tim e

B alrym ple seems to have abandoned h is i d e n t i f i c a t i o n of th e Solomons

w ith New B r i t a in and New I r e la n d , p ro b ab ly in th e fa c e o f B uache 's

e v id e n c e , b u t in 1790 he r e tu rn e d w ith v ig o u r to h i s a s s e r t io n s ,

denying th e s l i g h t e s t resem blance betw een th e d is c o v e r ie s to th e e a s t of

New G uinea and th o se o f 1568,

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Tn 1787 an American merchantman under the command of Captain Read

sailed northwards through the Western Pacific, having come hy way of

the South Atlantic, the South Indian Ocean and south of New Holland, en

route to China. He coasted the south-western perimeter of the Solomons,

and headed northwards along the western side of Bougainville and between

Buka and New Ireland without identifying his landfalls. Moreover,

despite the importance of his discovery of a passage to the west of

Bougainville, his voyage seems to have been unknown in Europe and to have

contributed nothing to contemporary cartography.

It was in the Santa Cruz group that the expedition of La Perouse,

on its way towards the main archipelago of the Solomons and to what might

well have been the last phase of this story of rediscovery, met its end

on the cruel reef which embraces the island of Vanikoro like a circlet

of thorns. There, at the hands of the natives or in an attempt to

reach help in a vessel constructed on the island, the members of the

expedition died. In the same year the rather more prosaic figure of

Shortland, returnin to England after the establishment of Port Jackson,

coasted the southern perimeter of the Solomons and passed through the

Bougainville Strait. He, like his predecessors did not identify his

landfalls, and seems indeed to have imagined them to be a quite new

discovery.

The phase of rediscovery can be said to end with the publication in

1790 of Eleurieu’s detailed defence of Buache’s hypothesis and his

production of convincing proof that the discoveries of Carteret,

Bougainville, Surville and Shortland were the Islands of Solomon

discovered in 1568. In the same year what can be described as the

phase of exploration began, with Ball coming north from Port Jackson to

confirm Surville’s rediscoveries in the south-eastern corner of the

archipelago, with Hunter discovering Sikaiana and rediscovering Ontong

Java, and with Edwards coming west from Rotumah to discovery Cherry,

Mitre and Willis’s Shoal or Indispensable Reef.

In 1792 Dentrecasteaux made the first of two visits to the Solomons,

followed by Manning with his exploration of the passage between

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Guadalcanal and New Georgia, Santa Ysabel and Choiseul, and in the following year by I ^ d with his discovery of Rennell and Bellona.

Dentrecasteaux returned in 1793 to explore the south-eastern quarter of the Solomons and to make further advances in the identification of the islands discovered and named in 1568# In 1794 Wilkinson explored the passage between Malaita to the east and Guadalcanal and Ysabel to the west, and added to contemporary knowledge as he was to do yet again by following the same general route two years later.

Taumako was rediscovered, though not recognized, by Duff in the

year 1797> and in the following year Cameron rediscovered but did not identify Tikopia. It was not, however, until 1824, with the discovery by Wellings of Nukumanu, that the whole of the Solomons can be said to have been discovered, if parts of it were still barely known; and it was not until 1838, when D’Urville explored the interior of the main archi­pelago from San Cristoval to the Manning Strait, and albeit to the neglect of northern Guadalcanal and the area between Choiseul and New Georgia, that the next and last major piece of exploration was completed. By the time that the results of his voyage had been published the Solomons had been generally charted, though limited areas were still little known, and much progress still had to be made in the identification of the discoveries of 1568. The detailed completion of the chart, which was the work of naval surveys and Europeans residing in the Solomons, falls by its nature into the final and still uncompleted

historical phase of survey, as opposed to exploration, and lies outwith

the scope of this study.In a study of this kind, where much emphasis must inevitably be

placed on bare factual and technical details, the very humanity of the

principal actors in the drama, the navigators and their crews, tends to be lost. It must, however, be remembered throughout that it was these men, of five nations and four centuries, bound together by the common bond of their often unwitting assocation with the Islands of Solomon and the pursuit of their occupations or aspirations upon the unquiet waters of the South Sea, who made the story what it is. They were not simply

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the shadowy authors of navigational records now fading in the archives of Seville, London or Paris, but men of flesh and blood who actually sailed the courses which they recorded, to whom the wind was not simply

a group of letters on the page of a logbook but something to be felt on a living cheek, heard whining through the rigging or rattling a loose halyard. They were men who experienced hunger, thirst and fear, and

who in a remarkably large number of cases ended their lives on the coral strands or in the blue waters of the Islands of Solomon.

Canberra, November. 1962«