Damn Europeans…
Tubuai is one of the Tubuai Islands, which makes sense enough. It is located south of Tahiti, has a pleasantly cool tropical atmosphere and is home to a shitload of toa trees, which I have it on great authority is composed of a very dense wood that’s perfect for making spears and clubs. If you’re into that sort of thing.
Sounds idyllic, doesn’t it?
Too bad the British had to show up and ruin everything…
For those of you reading at home who were unaware (up to and including myself, as I will surely forget that I ever wrote this in a few hours), Tubuai is the island where the HMS Bounty landed after their famed mutiny against Captain Bligh in 1789.
Ol’ Fletcher Christian picked it as a good place to lay low, which, of course, meant that the Tubuaiians were screwed.
Hell, even before they got off the fucking boat they were in trouble, as several islanders in canoes were killed upon the Bountys’ arrival. I’m not sure how the fuck that works, but at any rate, it was a shitty note to start out on.
Things got worse as they decided to settle on the island, going so far as to build a fort with turrets and such. Christian, be as forward thinking as a guy that basically annexed an island could be considered to be, hoped to use diplomacy to build a bridge between the two cultures.
The problem with mutineers, however, is that they’re not always the reliable or upstanding of persons, and so they opted for an alternate plan, which was to kidnap their women, burn their houses down, and desecrate their sacred grounds.
The natives fought back, of course, and many of them were killed, what with the Royal Navy having all the guns and everything. But eventually, they realized that maybe they weren’t wanted there (never let it be said that the British can’t take a hint), and departed.
Yes, it had been a rough two months, but finally the Tubuaiians were free, and life could return to normal.
Then more Europeans came, infected the Islanders with their horrible European diseases, and by the early 19th century the island population dropped from 3000 to 300.
So, again:
…Damn Europeans
Pryorball. 