Book contents
- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean
- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean
- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors to Volume II
- Frontispiece
- General Editor’s Introduction
- Preface to Volume II
- Part VII Rethinking the Pacific
- Part VIII Approaches, Sources, and Subaltern Histories of the Modern Pacific
- Part IX Culture Contact and the Impact of Pre-colonial European Influences
- 44 The Pacific in the Age of Revolutions
- 45 Disease in Pacific History
- 46 The Culture Concept and Christian Missions in the Pacific
- 47 Trading Nature in the Pacific
- 48 Seaborne Ethnography to the Science of Race, 1521–1850
- Part X The Colonial Era in the Pacific
- Part XI The Pacific Century?
- Part XII Pacific Futures
- References to Volume II
- Index
45 - Disease in Pacific History
‘The Fatal Impact’?
from Part IX - Culture Contact and the Impact of Pre-colonial European Influences
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2022
- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean
- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean
- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors to Volume II
- Frontispiece
- General Editor’s Introduction
- Preface to Volume II
- Part VII Rethinking the Pacific
- Part VIII Approaches, Sources, and Subaltern Histories of the Modern Pacific
- Part IX Culture Contact and the Impact of Pre-colonial European Influences
- 44 The Pacific in the Age of Revolutions
- 45 Disease in Pacific History
- 46 The Culture Concept and Christian Missions in the Pacific
- 47 Trading Nature in the Pacific
- 48 Seaborne Ethnography to the Science of Race, 1521–1850
- Part X The Colonial Era in the Pacific
- Part XI The Pacific Century?
- Part XII Pacific Futures
- References to Volume II
- Index
Summary
After the arrival of European ships, a new age of infectious disease arrived in Fiji. According to the meke (dance poem) above,2 the first epidemic was introduced to Fiji in the late 1700s. This important Indigenous source was recorded by the Fijian public servant Ilai Motonicocoka in the late 1800s; however, his scholarship was later contested.3 This is a fitting way to introduce a set of debates about a European ‘Fatal Impact’ on Pacific peoples because of two central questions. Did the coming of European ships really bring a new age of infectious disease to the island Pacific? Was this new age responsible for steep demographic decline before formal colonial rule was implemented?
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- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean , pp. 335 - 348Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023