BONIN ISLANDS

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11827, 7 January 1933, Page 9

BONIN ISLANDS

BRITAIN’S LOST COLONY

WHITE: JAPANESE. Japan is now Australia’s next-door neighbour in t-Jie Pacific. It is a step, so to say, from tlio .remotest islands of our New Guinea mandate territory to the nearest islets of tho Caroline group held by Japan, says a writer in the Sydney “Daily Telegraph.” There was a time when Great Britain had a colony far up in the North Pacific, only 700 miles from Yokohama. This lost colony nvas the Bonins, or Arzobespo Islands, a fertile group of volcanic islands between Japan and tho La,drones. They were uninhabited when discovered, and from 1830 to 1875 they were a British possession, with one brief interval. Since thou they have been Japanese. Walking, down a- London street a hundred years ago Charles Modyott Goodridge, lately come from Hobart Town, in Van Diemen’s Land, met a follow-townsman of Dartmouth, in Devon, John Millichanl. They hail much to say to each other, for they had last met a dozen years earlier, on the Island of Saint Paul, in Hie Indian Ocean _ Since that Milliehant and another old shipmate, Matteo Mazora, or .Mazarco, had settled on an island near Japan, where, so lie told Goodridge. they cultivated a. considerable area, “with the help of slaves.” This island near Japan was tho largest- of the Bonin Group. Afazarro, Milliehant, Goodridge, and two others had been wrecked on the Crozets in 1820. After two yeans of’ a Crusoe life, an American sealer took them to Saint Paul. Goodridge went to Van Diemen’s Land in a sloop that called at the island, and Afazarro and Milliehant found their way, aTter various adventures, to Honolulu.

Encouraged by Richard Chariton. Ihe British Consul, the British Consul, who lent Afazarro a Union Jack, the two men, two New Englanders, Nathaniel -Savory and Addin Chapin, and CkArles Johnson, a- Dane, with twenty-five Hawaiians, sailed in a schooner for the Bonin,s in May. 1830. A LOST WITK. If so happened that. Savory lost one of his wives, a Hawaiian girl, soon ai'ter AJaxorro’s death. In JS3O a- cutter named the Maid of Australia, Captain Young, originally from -Sydney, and a junk commanded by one Darker, put into the Bonins. Barker and Young robbed Savory of 2000 dollars, and of anything else on which they could lay their hands. Savory fled to the woods, but Ids wife revealed 1 lie hiding place of his valuables, and went away with the pirates. In .1853 Perry, on his way to .Lilian, called at 'he Borins and bought land for a United States naval base from Savory. Perry also gave the islands a constitution, but that was soon forgotten. Brought info contact with the outer world by Perry, Japan began to take an interest in the Bonins. Ju 1861, a Japanese vessel brought- to Port Lloyd a Commissioner, some officials, and a hundred Japanese settlers. The Commissioner drew up laws, which the older set-tiers accepted, as they had Perry’s constitution. The Japanese settlers, however, soon tired of the undertaking. Early in 1863 the Commissioner left, taking with him the few Japanese who had not already gone.

Savory, the last \>f tho pioneers, died in 1874. On 18th November, 1875, a Japanese vessel, the Aleiji Alaru, commanded by an Englishman named Peters, left Yokohama for the Bonins, carrying four Japanese Commissioners, headed by Obama Snkastike, who became Governor. Next day H.M.S. Curlew left A'okohama with the British Consul, Bussell Robertson, as a passenger. TOO LATE. The Aleiji Alaru reached Port Lloyd on the morning of 2Lst November, and at 2 p.m. the Chief Commissioner speaking in English, proclaimed to a group of settlers, headed by Webb, that the Emperor of Japan was pleased to take all the inhabitants of the Bonins under his protection. The Curlew arrived on 23rd November. Robertson described the settlers as fairly prosperous, well-mannered, and orderly, Japanese settlers were slow to go to the Bonins, but later fishermen and others flowed in. By 1914 there were 6000 Japanese there and to-day the number is nearly 10,000. The original settlers, with mixed strains of English, American, Portuguese, French, German, Spanish, Hawaiian, Afarquesan , and Ladrone Islander blood, became naturalised Japanese. Their children went to Japanese schools. There has been much intermarriage. The “white Japanese” tend to be swamped in the rising flood of Japanese. Port Lloyd is a naval base and a- station on the cable from Japan to Guam. Some day, perhaps, only the little church of St. George will recall the earlier history of this British colony in the seas ot Japan.