American scribbler

Portrait of Queen Pomare IV of Tahiti. Print by George Baxter, 1845. 
© The Trustees of the British Museum

"Poor Pomare! An American scribbler, Herman Melvil, has just told the world that Queen Pomare is a Tartar, a Jezebel, and calls in question her sobriety and her conjugal fidelity...."
-- John J. Jesson

In a letter to the editor of The Patriot (London, England) John J. Jesson of Runcorn alluded to disparagement of Tahiti's Queen Pomare in Herman Melville's Omoo: A Narrative of Adventure in the South Seas (1847). Jesson wrote in reply to critical comments by George Charter in a previous letter from Raiatea dated July 10, 1847 and published in the London Patriot on February 14, 1848. Fearing that "Pomare is a stranger to vital godliness," Charter had faulted the bad influences of the French government and "Popery" as encouraged and extended by Catholic missionaries.

Early in his long rebuttal, excerpted below, Jesson invokes Melville (misspelled Melvil) as the "American scribbler" who slandered Pomare as a domineering "Tartar" and promiscuous "Jezebel." From the London Patriot of March 23, 1848; found on The British Newspaper Archive with digitized pages added in July 2021:

POLYNESIAN MISSIONS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PATRIOT.

SIR,— The letter you inserted last month under the above head filled me with surprise and regret. I cannot allow the Rev. G. Charter’s remarks on that noble band of Christian patriots, the Tahitians, and on the much injured and long exiled Queen Pomare, to pass unnoticed. I can give Mr. Charter credit for sincerity, but I cannot acquiesce in his views.

The various charges involve the personal character and regal administration of the Queen. Poor Pomare! An American scribbler, Herman Melvil, has just told the world that Queen Pomare is a Tartar, a Jezebel, and calls in question her sobriety and her conjugal fidelity; and now the Rev. G. Charter charges her with despotism and hypocrisy.

Now, Sir, I unhesitatingly declare before the world and before God, that such charges are unmanly and untrue. For several years I very frequently visited the Queen in company with brother Howe and others, and I never saw or heard anything from her of any of her people that could induce such a conclusion—but just the reverse....

... Friend Charter conceived an early antipathy to Queen Pomare, and in sober truth, I believe no love is lost between them. But, in the name of all that we revere, let not personal pique govern sentiments which are given to the world, and that to the prejudice of a spirit-smitten Christian woman and a deeply injured Queen....

JOHN J JESSON.
Runcorn, March 14, 1848

Jesson was then pastor of the Congregational or Independent Chapel in Runcorn. The Biblical Review and Congregational Magazine for January 1847 announced that "The Rev. J. J. Jesson, late of Tahiti, has accepted the invitation of the church at Runcorn, Cheshire, to be its pastor, and enters on his labours the first Sabbath in the year." As narrated in Historical sketches of Nonconformity in the County Palatine of Chester (London and Manchester, 1864) Jesson had been

 "driven by French persecution from the island of Tahiti, South Pacific."

In his 1848 letter to the Patriot editor, Jesson has succinctly and fairly paraphrased the satirical treatment of "Pomaree" in Omoo chapter 80 where Melville indeed figures the Tahitian queen as "a Tartar" and "a Jezebel":

The reputation of Pomaree is not what it ought to be. She, and also her mother, were, for a long time, excommunicated members of the Church; and the former, I believe, still is. Among other things, her conjugal fidelity is far from being unquestioned. Indeed, it was upon this ground chiefly that she was excluded from the communion of the Church.

Previous to her misfortunes, she spent the greater portion of her time sailing about from one island to another, attended by a licentious court; and wherever she went all manner of games and festivities celebrated her arrival....

The Tahitian princess leads her husband a hard life. Poor fellow! he not only caught a queen, but a Tartar, when he married her. The style by which he is addressed is rather significant—"Pomaree-Tanee" (Pomaree's man). All things considered, as appropriate a title for a king-consort as could be hit upon.

If ever there were a henpecked husband, that man is the prince. One day, his cara-sposa, giving audience to a deputation from the captains of the vessels lying in Papeetee, he ventured to make a suggestion which was very displeasing to her. She turned round, and, boxing his ears, told him to go over to his beggarly island of Imeeo, if he wanted to give himself airs.

Cuffed and contemned, poor Tanee flies to the bottle, or rather to the calabash, for solace. Like his wife and mistress, he drinks more than he ought....

... Though Pomaree Vahinee I. be something of a Jezebel in private life, in her public rule she is said to have been quite lenient and forbearing.

In the same chapter Melville attributes the "diminution of the regal dignity" over time to "the influence of the English missionaries at Tahiti." 

Churchman notice of TYPEE

Theodore Hook via NYPL Digital Collections

Submitted by "F. M. H." (Fordyce Mitchell Hubbard?), this review of Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life appeared on the front page of The Churchman for April 17, 1847. Then edited by Samuel Seabury (1801-1872), the Churchman was a weekly religious newspaper published on Saturdays in New York City by the Protestant Episcopal Church. The reviewer excerpts and comments on the Hawaiian material in Chapter 26 of Herman Melville's first book. Specifically, "F. M. H." condemns the immoral and abusive behavior of missionaries there as portrayed by Melville in two segments, "Story of a Missionary's Wife" and "Fashionable Equipages at Oahu." In the Churchman heading, the word Polynesian in Melville's subtitle is misspelled "Polneysian."

For the Churchman.

TYPEE: A PEEP AT POLNEYSIAN LIFE.

BY HERMAN MELVILLE.

This is a singular work and reminds one forcibly of the facetious Daly’s “Travels in the Interior of Africa,” the glossary of the latter work of certain words of the native dialect, bearing a marvellous affinity to sundry words in the former, given as the Typee tongue. The work purports to be the composition of a sailor who deserted from a whaler at Nukuheva, and who in running away reached the Typee country, (the natives of which are notorious cannibals,) instead of that of the Happars, their enemies, and a less barbarous people. The whole matter may be as purely inventive as Daly’s Africa, but the style is “vraisemblable,” and sufficiently dashing to make it attractive. It is an objectionable book for general reading, as the author omits no opportunity to cast a sneer at religion. Speaking of Honolulu, he makes the following bold charge against the Missionaries there established, and against one in particular; we extract from the work, pt 2 p. 251 and seq.— “The natives have been civilized into draught-horses and evangelized into beasts of burden. But so it is. They have been literally broken into the traces and are harnessed to the vehicles of their spiritual instructors like so many dumb brutes! Among a multitude of similar exhibitions that I saw, I shall never forget a robust, red-faced and very lady-like personage, a Missionary’s spouse, who day after day for months together, took her regular airings in a little go-cart, drawn by two of the Islanders, one an old grey-headed man and the other a roguish strapling, both being, with the exception of the fig-leaf, as naked as when they were born. Over a level piece of ground this pair of draught bipeds would go with a shambling unsightly trot, the youngster hanging back all the time like a knowing horse, while the old hack plodded on and did all the work.

Rattling along through the streets of the town in this stylish equipage, the lady looks about her as magnificently as any queen driven in state to her coronation. A sudden elevation and a sandy road, however, soon disturb her serenity. The small wheels become embedded in the loose soil,—the old stager stands tugging and sweating, while the young one frisks about and does nothing; not an inch does the chariot budge. Will the tender-hearted lady, who has left friends and home, for the good of the souls of the poor heathens, will she think a little about their bodies and get out and ease the wretched old man, until the ascent is mounted? Not she; she could not dream of it. To be sure, she used to think nothing of driving the cows to pasture on the old farm in New England; but times have changed since then. So she retains her seat and bawls out,— “Hookee! Hookee!” (pull, pull.) The old gentleman, frightened at the sound, labors away harder than ever; and the younger one makes a great show of straining himself, but takes care to keep one eye on his mistress, in order to know when to dodge out of harm’s way. At last the good lady loses all patience; “hookee! Hookee!” and rap goes the heavy handle of her huge fan over the naked skull of the old savage; while the young one shies to one side, and keeps beyond its range. “Hookee! Hookee!” again she cries— “Hookee tata kanuaka!” (pull strong, men,) but all in vain, and she is obliged in the end to dismount, and, sad necessity! actually to walk to the top of the hill.

At the town where this paragon of humility resides, is a spacious and elegant American Chapel, where divine service is regularly performed. Twice every sabbath towards the close of the exercises may be seen a score or two of little wagons ranged along the railing in the front of the edifice, with two squalid native footmen in the livery of nakedness standing by each, and waiting for the dismissal of the congregation to draw their superiors home. * * * * * * To read pathetic accounts of Missionary hardships and glowing descriptions of conversions, and baptisms taking place beneath palm trees, is one thing; and to go to the Sandwich Islands and see the Missionaries, dwelling in picturesque and prettily-furnished coral rock villas, whilst the miserable natives are committing all sorts of immorality around them, is quite another!”

There is no mention in the book of the name of the parties alluded to, and no particularizing of the Society by which they are delegated; but there can be but one opinion that the “husband” of the lady is a gangrened member of the Mission, and should be at once cut off! Can such things be? If there be truth in the charge, better were it a thousand times that the poor natives were left to themselves, than that they should be depressed below their common nature, under the assumption of christianity. Can it be a matter of astonishment, that scoffers abound, when such things exist under the sufferance and by the support of “a Church,” so called? Is it surprising that men hesitate to contribute to such purposes? There is—there must be a lack of judgment—a perversion of right feeling, that the appointments to such stations should be so misplaced.

Much as there is to object to in this work, if it be but the cause of uprooting this direful ill, it is welcome. That it may do evil, it is feared: but that it cannot fail to effect a certain good, there is no doubt.

F. M. H.
March 31, 1847.

Cite:

"F. M. H." “Typee: A Peep at Polneysian Life.” Churchman (New York, NY) 17, no. 7 (April 17, 1847): 26. http://search.ebscohost.com.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=clp&AN=52063187&site=ehost-live.

The opening reference by "F. M. H." to the "facetious Daly" alludes to the comical friend of Gilbert Gurney in Theodore Hook's autobiographical Gurney Papers, originally serialized in Hook's New Monthly Magazine (1837-8). In the July 1837 installment, Gurney samples Daly's bogus journal of "Travels in the Interior of Africa" which includes a fictitious "vocabulary." Daly's fake "vocabulary" or glossary of common African words reminds the Churchman reviewer of Melville's questionable transcriptions and translations of Polynesian words in Typee.

Reprinted in Gurney Married: A Sequel to Gilbert Gurney (1839).

Typee in Cassius M. Clay's True American

Cassius M. Clay via New York Public Library Digital Collections

This item is from the True American for April 22, 1846, the anti-slavery newspaper owned and edited by Cassius Marcellus Clay and then printed in Cincinnati. Found on GenealogyBank among items "added within 1 month":

Christian Slave-holders Abroad.

We give the following extracts from Herman Melville's work upon Polynesian Life. The reason why it is not necessary to send the bible to the South, is, they are already enslaved.

The foreign business is more profitable! Girls, where are your Sewing Societies? Your foreign "keepers of the poor" need horse-covers! [Excerpt from Typee chapter 26:]

"Look at Honolulu, the metropolis of the Sandwich Islands!—a community of disinterested merchants, and devoted, self-exiled heralds of the Cross, located on the very spot that twenty years ago was defiled by the presence of idolatry. What a subject for an eloquent Bible-meeting orator! Nor has such an opportunity for a display of missionary rhetoric been allowed to pass by unimproved! But when these philanthropists send us such glowing accounts of one half of their labors, why does their modesty restrain them from publishing the other half of the good they have wrought?—Not until I visited Honolulu was I aware of the fact that the small remnant of the natives had been civilized into draught horses, and evangelized into beasts of burden. But so it is. They have been literally broken into the traces, and are harnessed to the vehicles of their spiritual instructors like so many dumb brutes! 

"Among a multitude of similar exhibitions that I saw, I shall never forget a robust, red-faced, and very lady-like personage, a missionary's spouse, who day after day for months together took her regular airings in a little go-cart drawn by two of the islanders, one an old grey-headed man, and the other a rogueish stripling, both being, with the exception of the fig-leaf, as naked as when they were born. Over a level piece of ground this pair of draught bipeds would go with a shambling, unsightly trot, the youngster hanging back all the time like a knowing horse, while the old hack plodded on and did all the work.

"Rattling along through the streets of the town in this stylish equipage, the lady looks about her as magnificently as any queen driven in state to her coronation. A sudden elevation, and a sandy road, however, soon disturb her serenity. The small wheels become embedded in the loose soil,—the old stager stands tugging and sweating, while the young one frisks about and does nothing; not an inch does the chariot budge. Will the tenderhearted lady, who has left friends and home for the good of the souls of the poor heathen, will she think a little about their bodies and get out, and ease the wretched old man until the ascent is mounted? Not she; she could not dream of it. To be sure, she used to think nothing of driving the cows to pasture on the old farm in New England; but times have changed since then. So she retains her seat and bawls out, 'Hookee! hookee!' (pull, pull.) The old gentleman, frightened at the sound, labors away harder than ever; and the younger one makes a great show of straining himself, but takes care to keep one eye on his mistress, in order to know when to dodge out of harm’s way. At last the good lady loses all patience; 'Hookee! hookee' and rap goes the heavy handle of her huge fan over the naked skull of the old savage; while the young one shies to one side and keeps beyond its range. 'Hookee! hookee!' again she cries— 'Hookee tata kannaka!’' (pull strong, men,) — but all in vain, and she is obliged in the end to dismount and, sad necessity, actually to walk to the top of the hill.

"At the town where this paragon of humility resides, is a spacious and elegant American chapel, where divine service is regularly performed. Twice every Sabbath, towards the close of the exercises, may be seen a score or two of little wagons ranged along the railing in front of the edifice, with two squalid native footmen in the livery of nakedness, standing by each, and waiting for the dismissal of the congregation to draw their superiors home."

Lexington, KY True American - April 22, 1846
via GenealogyBank

American Portrait Gallery by Abner Dumont Jones (New York, 1869)

 From George W. Ranck's History of Lexington, Kentucky (Cincinnati, 1872), page 351:

On the 18th of August, 1845, at a great meeting, in Lexington, of the best citizens of Central Kentucky, irrespective of party, it was resolved that the press and materials of the "True American," an anti-slavery newspaper conducted in Lexington by Mr. Cassius M. Clay, should be sent beyond the confines of the state. A committee was accordingly appointed, which proceeded immediately to safely box up the articles, and ship them to Cincinnati, after which, Mr. Clay was notified of the address of the house to which they had been sent, subject to his order, with all charges and expenses paid. Mr. Clay subsequently obtained a judgment for $2,500 against two of the committee, which amount was paid by citizens of Fayette and adjoining counties. The office of the "True American" was located on Mill street, in the rear part of the building now known as Whitney's drug store.

Cassius Marcellus Clay is a son of General Green Clay, and was born in Madison county, Kentucky, October 19, 1810. He was a student at Transylvania University, but graduated at Yale College, in 1832. He has represented Madison and Fayette each in the legislature. In 1839 he removed to Lexington, and on June 3,1845, issued the first copy of the "True American," devoted to the overthrow of slavery in Kentucky. He commanded the "Old Infantry" in the Mexican War, was captured at Encarnacion, and was a prisoner for some time. On his return home, he was presented with a sword. Subsequently, Mr. Clay was minister to Russia. Mr. Clay is dauntless and unfaltering in whatever he believes is right. He resides at present in Madison county, Kentucky. 

"Melville" defends his favorable view of "Indian character"

The deportment of the whole Cherokee people throughout the transactions which have ended in their expulsion, exhibits a magnanimity which we fear will scarcely find a counterpart in the proceedings of the nation which compelled their removal.

CHARACTER OF THE INDIANS.

In the Watchman of October 19, appeared a letter from a ‘missionary among the Indians,’ in one paragraph of which it was said that ‘Melville, a writer in the Ch. Watchman of Nov. 10, 1837,’ had ‘formed mistaken ideas of the Indian character.’ He adds, ‘Nor is he alone; such I presume is the general impression among those who have not had an opportunity to be among them.’ In proof of this first statement, the missionary who signs himself J. G. P., presents a quotation from the article of ‘Melville,’ which, he avers, represents the Indian character in a too favorable view, and in one which is totally opposed by the experience of himself and brethren among the native tribes.

The writer of the article to which J. G. P. refers, begs leave to state that his description was founded on testimony which he had the very best reasons to consider authentic, from authors whose well known character commands implicit belief to their statements. He relied also on the accounts of some acquaintances who had enjoyed opportunities to observe the Indian character; and he had himself seen cases which answered most happily to these representations. Neither can he readily believe that a nation like our own of proverbial acuteness, which has been in contact with the Indians these two-hundred years, and at war with them no small part of the time, can have invariably ascribed to the Indian character virtues which never existed there.— The deportment of the whole Cherokee people throughout the transactions which have ended in their expulsion, exhibits a magnanimity which we fear will scarcely find a counterpart in the proceedings of the nation which compelled their removal.

That virtues frequently appear in the Indian character, according to the common use of the term, he thinks will hardly be disputed; but he regrets to learn, what he readily admits to be true, that the observation of J. G. P., and other missionaries had ascertained them to be more rarely discoverable than the friends of this unfortunate race could desire. After all it must probably be conceded that the Indian is commonly much like other men—virtuous and happy with the gospel, degraded and wretched without it.

‘Melville’ begs that J. G. P. will do him the justice to believe that his stricture is received with the most unfeigned candor, since it appears to have been made in that spirit, and since he certainly desires to entertain upon this subject only the simple truth. It is his candid wish and prayer to Almighty God, that br. J. G. P. may experience the divine blessing in his labors; and he trusts that no one who feels an obligation to devote himself to the eternal interests of the Indians will be deterred by the consideration that their condition is less happy, and their spiritual wants even more imperative than they have usually been supposed to be.

MELVILLE.

 --From the Christian Watchman [Boston, Massachusetts] Friday, November 23, 1838; found in the online Newspaper Archives at Genealogy Bank.

 Related melvilliana posts:

• Missions to the Western Indians No. 1 - Friday, November 10, 1837
• "Melville" on Missions to the Western Indians No. 2 - March 23, 1838.
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 3 - Wednesday, April 4, 1838
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 4 - Friday, April 27, 1838
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 5 - Friday, June 22, 1838
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 6 - Friday, July 13, 1838

Missions to the Western Indians by "Melville" - No. 6 of 6

From the Christian Watchman [Boston, Massachusetts] Friday, July 13, 1838; found in the online Newspaper Archives at Genealogy Bank. 

For the Watchman.
Missions to the Western Indians.— No. 6.

We have now taken a brief survey of the location and general condition of the principal tribes. We have also looked across the Mississippi to the country which has been assigned to the Indians as their future home, where it is proposed to collect the forlorn remnants of these once powerful bands, with the professed hope that under more auspicious circumstances they may not only preserve an existence, but advance in temporal and moral prosperity. Let the Christian church see to it that wherever shall be their location they shall be affectionately proffered the hopes and blessings of the gospel.

And now, my dear reader, suffer me to press home to your heart and conscience the inquiry, what can you do for the unfortunate Indians? Your red brethren are immortal creatures, subject to the same moral laws, and amenable to the same tribunal with yourself. You are bound to do all in your power to give the gospel to all men. The Indian is your neighbor and your brother. He has been expelled from this country to make room for you in common with others,—from that country which now seems to deny him a place in which to rest his weary head. Will you not, then, be entreated to do your utmost, in person, or through the assisted agency of others, to point the wronged and unhappy outcast to a heavenly home, purchased by the atonement of the divine Saviour, whither the wounded and weary spirit may remove from the storms and calamities of life, and enter to go no more out forever?

There is one way, at least, in which you can enjoy the satisfaction of laboring for this people. It is by supplicating the throne of divine grace in their behalf. The thought of calling down a blessing on them by praying to Him who controls all human destinies and events, and who has therefore complete ability to grant our requests, is one which should inspire joy and gratitude in every pious heart. When, therefore, you are knelt before the altar of devotion to pray for yourself and your friends, let the case of the poor Indian find a place in your remembrance and your supplications.

If you feel a genuine interest for the welfare of this people, and if the providence of God may have favored you with the necessary means, you will scarcely need to be reminded of the duty of contributing to sustain the missionary operations of this department. Your assistance, in this sort, is needed, and your donations, if made from a right motive, may be an occasion of the triple benefit of spiritual comfort to yourself, lasting good to those whose welfare you contemplate, and honor to the cause of the Redeemer. How much you are to bestow in this department of Christian benevolence is not for me to say. I have always thought it an extremely delicate business for a second person to pronounce a decision on a case of this character. If you remember that you are but the steward of God, and under an obligation to honor him with your substance, you will, perhaps, after prayerful consideration, be your own best judge respecting your duty upon this subject. Be sure, however, to do what you can; and never allow yourself to be deterred from this by a vain regret that you can do no more.

Your influence over others may also be made to tell for the spiritual good of the Indians. By conversation, and other means, you may awaken an interest in some minds which have heretofore been indifferent to the subject; and some persons, aroused by your influence may hereafter be missionaries to the aboriginal tribes, or may render efficient aid to the cause in some other way. Be discreet, but diligent, in the use of this influence. Do your utmost to form in the church a sentiment which shall say to the missionaries, “Be encouraged to persevere, and to press forward in your efforts. Be assured that whatever aid is in our power to bestow shall be promptly and cheerfully rendered.— Trust in an omnipotent and gracious Providence; and do not relax your benevolent exertions.” But perhaps the Spirit and providence of God are calling you to engage personally in the work of the evangelization of the native tribes. If so, I trust you will not disregard the divine admonitions. Manifest your gratitude to God, and your love of his creatures by implicit obedience to his evident will. If you can be the instrument of spiritual good to the neglected Indian, your destiny is more to be envied than if you were the recipient of all the wealth, the honor, and the pleasures, which this deceitful world has to bestow; and you may be sure of finding the path of duty to be the path of happiness. Seriously inquire whether you have not a duty to perform in relation to this subject; and then act in view of your high obligations to your heavenly Father, and of the awards of eternity.

MELVILLE.

 Related melvilliana posts:

• Missions to the Western Indians No. 1 - Friday, November 10, 1837
• "Melville" on Missions to the Western Indians No. 2 - March 23, 1838.
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 3 - Wednesday, April 4, 1838
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 4 - Friday, April 27, 1838
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 5 - Friday, June 22, 1838
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 6 - Friday, July 13, 1838

Missions to the Western Indians by "Melville" - No. 5 of 6

From the Christian Watchman [Boston, Massachusetts] Friday, June 22, 1838; found in the online Newspaper Archives at Genealogy Bank.

For the Watchman.
Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 5.

The tract called the Indian or Western Territory, and, more recently, Neosho, which has been assigned as a residence for such of the Indians as may be removed from the States under the direction of the government, is situated between the States of Missouri, and Arkansas, and the Rocky Mountains. Several unsuccessful attempts have been made to settle its boundaries, but no efforts have yet produced a final adjustment of them.

The general location of the territory, however, has been definitively settled; and though a formal proposition has been submitted to Congress, during the present session, greatly to extend the limits originally proposed, yet it will probably be considered expedient to adhere to the former arrangement, which furnishes nearly the following boundaries.— A small river, called the Puncah, from a tribe of Indians, forms the northern boundary, from the twenty-third degree of longitude, eastwardly, to where that river discharges its waters into the Missouri. The latter river bounds the Territory on the northeast, and on the east until we meet the western boundaries of Missouri and Arkansas. These states complete the eastern boundary. Red River is the boundary on the southern side, and separates the country from Texas. On the west, it is proposed to make the twenty-third degree of longitude the boundary. These limits will be seen to include a tract about six hundred miles in length, with an average width of about two hundred miles.

The country presents an aspect of great uniformity. It is mostly an elevated prairie, or a tract naturally destitute of wood. In some parts the land is uneven; but by far the greater portion is a plain with only occasional undulations. The soil is extremely fertile; the climate pleasant and healthful. From the extent and position of the country, however, a considerable variety of temperature must be observable in different sections; the northern part of the Territory being in nearly the same latitude with Massachusetts, and the southern with the Carolinas.

The Territory is well watered; being intersected by numerous rivers, creeks, and rivulets. It also affords extensive facilities for the manufacture of salt; and has mines of iron, lead, and coal. A scarcity of wood, in many parts of the Territory, is an apparent deficiency; but the supply is calculated to be adequate to the wants of the present, and one or two future generations. It has also been proved by experiment that the settlement of the country conduces to the growth of wood in the vicinity of the settlements. This seeming paradox is explained in the following manner. The great obstacle to the growth of wood is the annual fires, which sweep across the prairies, and consume the tender shrubs. In the case of settlements, the cattle of the Indian colonists, by devouring the dry grass which supports the fires, proportionably diminish its ravages. In these spots, trees arise, and grow with astonishing rapidity. The united testimony of the most intelligent persons, who have enjoyed opportunities for observation upon this subject, goes to prove that the scarcity of wood in the Territory is owing, not to any natural unadaptedness of the soil to the production of that article, for nowhere do trees, if unmolested, ascend with richer luxuriance, but to the fact alluded to above. When this inconvenience shall be obviated by the population of the country, it is reasonable to suppose that the forest and the coal-mine will each furnish its stores in such abundance as to preclude all fears of a destitution of fuel.

The grass which covers the prairies is, in many places, suitable for the scythe. Some parts of the country abound with excellent game, and are thus fitted to afford a ready subsistence to those tribes who are unaccustomed to the labors of the field, and ignorant of the arts of agriculture.

In the occupation of the lands, each emigrant tribe is to have a distinct portion assigned to it, and each of these districts is to be sufficiently extensive to afford the most ample accommodations to its inhabitants, to render the close neighborhood of two tribes unnecessary, and thus to avoid the principal occasions of those bloody and interminable wars, which, under ordinary circumstances, are so apt to occur between proximate tribes of hostile savages.

The expenses incurred in the removal of the tribes are to be borne by the United States. The Indians are furnished with provisions and necessaries for their journey, and assisted to locate themselves in their new possessions. Each tribe is to receive more or less from the United States in the form of annuities, the appointment and support of teachers, agricultural implements, the preparation of land for planting and sowing, the erection of grist mills and saw mills, and, in short, in the supply of whatever may seem necessary to their comfortable subsistence and residence in the Territory assigned them.

It is proposed to tender to the tribes a simple and practicable system of confederative government for the Territory. The following are the outlines of the proposed organization. “Delegates are to be chosen by the several tribes, to represent them in general council, once a year, or oftener, if necessary. The character of this council will be similar to that of the legislative council of one of our Territories. It will be competent to enact laws of a general nature for the Territory. These laws will take effect after they have been approved by the President of the United States. Each tribe will enact laws which relate merely to its own internal concerns; similar to the action of townships or of city corporations. The tribes thus confederated will choose a delegate, who must be an Indian, to represent them at the seat of government of the United States, during each session of Congress. He will be paid by the United States, and his compensation will be equal to that of a member of Congress. All civil offices, excepting two, which shall be created in the Territory by this organization, will be filled by Indians, if such be found competent to discharge the duties.”

Such are some of the general features of the natural condition and proposed civil organization of Neosho, or the Indian Territory. Assigned by the general government as the future home of the Indians, it possesses an interest for their friends in the United States, and in other places, and especially for those self-consecrated individuals who propose to spend their lives in efforts to dispense the blessings of Christianity to this unfortunate people.

MELVILLE.

Source of the quoted section (highlighted above) and most of the factual information is the Periodical Account of Baptist Missions for 1836, published in 1837 by frontier Baptist missionary Isaac McCoy.

So then. Our professedly Baptist writer, call him "Melville," likes to re-write his sources, and in revision introduces bits of his own such as "proved by experiment." Proved by experiment?!

Herman Melville, re-writing one of his whaling sources, William Scoresby or Desmoulins via Beale:

But more surprising is it to know, as has been proved by experiment, that the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than that of a Borneo negro in summer.  --Moby-Dick, The Blanket

My spell-check automatically underscored "proportionably" and "unadaptedness," neither in Isaac McCoy's 1837 publication.

Related melvilliana posts:

• Missions to the Western Indians No. 1 - Friday, November 10, 1837
• "Melville" on Missions to the Western Indians No. 2 - March 23, 1838.
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 3 - Wednesday, April 4, 1838
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 4 - Friday, April 27, 1838
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 5 - Friday, June 22, 1838
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 6 - Friday, July 13, 1838

Missions to the Western Indians by "Mellville" - 1 of 6

Herman Melville we know was baptized and brought up in the Dutch Reformed Church of his mother and the Gansevoort clan. Herman's father and the Boston Melvilles were Unitarians. The writer of this 1837-8 series on "Missions to the Western Indians" seems happily Baptist and writes for a Baptist newspaper over the pseudonym "Melville" (here spelled with an extra "L," "MELLVILLE, later corrected to "MELVILLE")" So I don't suppose evangelizing MELVILLE of the Christian Watchman can really be farmhand-schoolteacher Herman Melville at the age of 18. For the sake of my own inner peace, however, I would prefer that this "MELLVILLE" (whoever he is) had not wished anything from his "inmost soul." Or generalized so favorably about the "strong affection" of the native people he is trying to describe. sense of honor? Forget about it...

From the Christian Watchman [Boston, Massachusetts] Friday, November 10, 1837; found in the online Newspaper Archives at Genealogy Bank.

For the Watchman.

MISSIONS TO THE WESTERN INDIANS.

It is a very proper subject of gratulation for every disciple of the Saviour that the spirit of missions appears to be gaining a steady prevalence over the minds of the Christian community. The church evinces at least a disposition to act upon the conviction that [a responsibility], of which she cannot divest herself, invokes her immediate attention to the spiritual wants of the heathen. The communicative and benevolent nature of her creed inspires her with zeal to transmit to the poor idolater, wherever he may be found, a sweet hope of immortality and blessedness, founded on the precious faith of the gospel.

It is devoutly to be hoped that the church may continue to indulge this spirit, and to obey its impulses, till she shall behold the accomplishment of her glorious object in the evangelization of the world.

A laudable zeal is manifested for the conversion of the heathen in Burmah and other countries of Asia. This is precisely as it should be. Let not our interest in Eastern missions, however, cause us to forget the claims of our unfortunate brethren at the West. The Indians of our own country, I conceive, have peculiar claims on our Christian sympathy. We possess the inheritance of their ancestors. They have permitted our countrymen to advance step by step, while themselves have receded farther and farther towards the setting sun.

It is touching to consider how rapidly this brave and unfortunate people are dwindling and perishing before the encroachments of the whites. The pleasant hills of our own New-England, where the forest delights us with its calm and somber aspect, or a view of the golden harvest soothes us into tranquility and satisfaction; and our picturesque valleys, with their neat and modest villages, where the murmur of industry is constantly heard, are now the principal objects which meet the eye, in the survey of a country which was once the undisputed domain of the red man. The former inhabitants have mingled their dust with the earth which we tread or withdrawn beyond the pale of civilization, into the rude fastnesses of the West.

Rev. Isaac M’Coy, of the Shawanoe Baptist Mission, who has consecrated himself, with praiseworthy devotion, to the welfare of the Indians, estimated the whole number in North America, in 1836, at four and a half millions; and those within the United States at three hundred and thirty-one thousand, nine hundred and thirty-seven. He ascertained the number of missionaries and assistants in the Indian Territory, at that time, to be eighty-two, of whom but twenty-two were Baptists. This fact affords our friends little reason for complacency in view of their past and present efforts for the Indians. Can the Baptist church furnish and sustain but a score of missionaries to these destitute tribes? Our denomination in the United States numbers nearly half a million. A comparison of these statistics will disclose the humiliating fact that we supply but a single missionary to more than fifteen thousand Indians.

I wish from my inmost soul the number of our missionaries to the Eastward might be increased an hundred fold. But it is to be observed that candidates for missionary labor have generally discovered a greater readiness to go to Burmah, or to some other of the Asiatic provinces, than to the forlorn tribes of our own frontiers. A state of things like this ought manifestly no longer to exist. A far greater share of attention and effort should be directed to the hapless survivors of the once powerful, the brave and interesting, but unfortunate people to whom we have referred. They are near our homes, and means expended for their benefit will go much farther than the same means appropriated to the distant idolaters of Asia. I trust I shall not be misapprehended. I desire not to be understood as saying that we should exert ourselves more to establish and sustain missions to the Indians than to convert the Burmese. I only mean to intimate that we should bestow greater attention than heretofore on missions to the former. We ought to do this and not leave the other undone.

Together with the blessing of God, which should be constantly invoked in the prosecution of this sacred enterprise, we want the men and the means. A requisition for the former must be made on the great body of our pious middle-aged and young men whom the Spirit and Providence of God may seem to designate for the work of evangelization, and especially on the pious members of our literary and theological institutions, together with those who have already received the advantages of these disciplinary establishments. Nor let the pious female consider herself excluded from this labor of love. A young lady with whom I was acquainted, after encountering and overcoming almost every conceivable disadvantage, in the ultimately successful pursuit of a respectable education, set out for one of our South-western States, selected a place for labor among the Indian inhabitants, I believe, and located herself there. The last I heard of her, she had a flourishing school of a hundred or more. I would here mention for the encouragement of some who may be destined to encounter similar trials, that this devoted young female, in addition to her other discouragements, was frequently met by coldness and incredulity, sometimes expressed in words, but more frequently exhibited in the plainer language of action, by not a few of her professedly Christian friends. But she did not waver and retire on account of their indifference; and in this she acted rightly. If we are to wait till our own hearts, the church, the world, and the devil, shall unite to countenance our benevolent efforts, we may as well fold our arms for the rest of our lives, at least, so far as it relates to any thing we might do in the cause of religion.

In conclusion, let me be permitted to say that I hope my youthful Christian friends will give this subject a candid and prayerful consideration. Let them seriously reflect whether the voice of Providence and of duty does not invite them to this sacred work. For the means to sustain them, they must rely on the blessing of God, and on the benevolence of the church. The Lord will smile on every disinterested effort to do good; and the church has certainly ample means, if they could be commanded. The country abounds in natural and commercial wealth; and it is but a comfortable maintenance that the missionaries would desire. This, under ordinary circumstances, would require but a small sum annually for each individual, as each would find it indispensable to use simplicity, industry and strict frugality, in this mode of life. The hundred thousand dollars which Madame Celeste gained with her heels, in this country, would support, for a year, a host of missionaries to the Indians. Most thankful should we be, if a tithe of this wasted wealth could be put into the missionary fund. But let not the parsimony of the church discourage those who burn with the spirit of evangelization. With unwavering resolution, let them proceed to the work. The shall find in the natives of our western wilds, a race possessing some of the noblest qualities which the fall of man has left to the world,—hospitality, generosity, strong affection, and a delicate sense of honor. Let the missionary, then, endeavor to impart to these children of nature that blessed gospel, which shall refine and crown all these estimable qualities. He shall assuredly find an inexhaustible fountain of consolation, and a sweet reward of his labor, in the consciousness of doing good, and in the beneficence of the Divine Being, who has promised that they who turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars forever and ever.

MELLVILLE.

“two and two there floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale”
--Moby-Dick

Related melvilliana posts:

• "Melville" on Missions to the Western Indians and a celebrated infidel book this post has #2 of 6 in the series, transcribed from the Christian Watchman for March 23, 1838.

I will try to give the rest of these as I can, with links eventually:

• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 3 - Wednesday, April 4, 1838 
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 4 - Friday, April 27, 1838
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 5 - Friday, June 22, 1838
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 6 - Friday, July 13, 1838

"Melville" on "Missions to the Western Indians" and "a celebrated infidel book"

Communications to the Boston Christian Watchman signed "MELVILLE" appeared as early as 1828 ("Profitable Pleasure," March 7, 1828, commending the Solar Microscope to families with children) and 1833 (promoting "Wayland's Discourses," July 26, 1833). The numbered "Western Indians" series is more substantial and elaborately argued than anything previously by "MELVILLE" in the Baptist newspaper published by William Nichols and at that time edited by Ebenezer Thresher, then William Crowell. From the Christian Watchman [Boston, Massachusetts], Friday, March 23, 1838; found in the online Newspaper Archives at Genealogy Bank.

Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 2.

It will readily be conceded by every person disposed to reason upon Christian principles, that the church is bound to prosecute, with resolute and unremitting energy, those measures which appear best adapted to spread the gospel through every country on the globe. But it would certainly seem that the claims of the Indian tribes upon the American church, for the light of divine truth, partake more of the nature of strict and imperative justice than any which can be preferred in behalf of another people. The nation is under a deep obligation to the race of red men for the soil of this country. Disguise it as we will, it was hard, on the part of the Indians, to be dispossessed of the territory in the manner they were; and that, too, by a people, whom they had received, on their first landing, as a handful of feeble and forlorn adventurers; and to whom they had manifested that spirit of kind hospitality which may exist as truly in a savage breast as in that of the most enlightened European.

There is something painful in the contemplation of this subject; even after all the mitigating circumstances connected with it has been explained and acknowledged. It has been gravely adduced in justification of Anglo-American rapacity, that the country being capable of affording sustenance to a far more dense population, might permit the expulsion of the former to make room for their civilized neighbors. If this argument proves any thing, it proves too much for ourselves. On the same principle, a deputation from the swarming hordes of China might land on the Atlantic coast and take possession of New England itself. A body of Irish emigrants direct from their over-peopled native island, where a family must contrive to subsist on the produce of half an acre, and pay an enormous rent besides, might prefer a similar and far more urgent claim to the country.

What has been done, however, cannot be undone. It would probably be impossible, and certainly inexpedient to reinstate the Indians in the country of their ancestors. No eligible course remains, therefore, but to hasten forward with promptness and alacrity to the discharge of the duties growing out of our present relations to the Aborigines without consuming time in unavailing regret for the past. The country is wide enough for both races. Let them maintain a friendly neighborhood, and dwell together as brethren. Our people are called to this duty, on their part, by every consideration which should influence a magnanimous and powerful nation, and, above all, by the spirit of that divine gospel which is tacitly recognized as the national faith.

The Christian church, too, owe it to themselves, to the missionaries whom they have dispatched to this field of labor, and to whom they have pledged their zealous and constant co-operation; to their peculiar relations and locality in respect to the Indians as a nation; and above all to their assured obligations of fidelity to the interests of the divine Saviour, in humble reliance on the efficacy of the Spirit to be dispensed from on high, to make a more general and vigorous effort to give the gospel to the Indian tribes, within the jurisdiction and neighborhood of the United States. Here is a great moral and religious enterprise, worthy of the most strenuous exertions and the most ardent prayers of Christian philanthropy. It is a work, too, which circumstances appear to have devolved exclusively upon American Christians. On the Eastern continent and on the Pacific Islands, England and Denmark may very properly divide with ourselves the field of missionary labor. It is not so in respect to the North American Indians; especially as it relates to the tribes inhabiting the territorial lands of the United States, or dwelling in the vicarage [vicinage] of our Western or Southern border.

MELVILLE.

The editorial correction to vicinage (meaning "vicinity") appeared in the Christian Watchman on March 30, 1838. Articles in the series on "Missions to the Western Indians" appeared over the signature "Melville" during 1837-8 in the Christian Watchman as follows:

• Missions to the Western Indians [unnumbered]. Christian Watchman, Friday, November 10, 1837
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 2. - Friday, March 23, 1838
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 3 - Wednesday, April 4, 1838 
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 4 [on the Seminoles] - Friday, April 27, 1838
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 5 - Friday, June 22, 1838
• Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 6 - Friday, July 13, 1838

On October 19, 1838 a missionary signing himself "J. G. P." wrote to correct "Melville's" benign view of Indian character, as presented in the first installment of "Missions to the Western Indians" on November 10, 1837. "Melville" had written that missionaries to the Indians

“shall find in the natives of our western wilds, a race possessing some of the noblest qualities which the fall of man has left to the world—hospitality, generosity, strong affection, and a delicate sense of honor. Let the missionary, then, endeavor to impart to these children of nature that blessed gospel, which shall refine and crown all these estimable qualities.”  --"Melville" in the Christian Watchman, November 10, 1837

"Melville" defended this view in a reply to J. G. P.,  published in the Christian Watchman November 23, 1838. Coincidentally, in his unsigned 1849 review of The Oregon Trail, Herman Melville would tangle with Francis Parkman over the same issue of Indian character. Also employing biblical references and evangelical rhetoric, Melville rebutted Parkman's negative stereotypes as follows:

It is too often the case, that civilized beings sojourning among savages soon come to regard them with disdain and contempt. But though in many cases this feeling is almost natural, it is not defensible; and it is wholly wrong. Why should we contemn them? Because we are better than they? Assuredly not; for herein we are rebuked by the story of the Publican and the Pharisee. Because, then, that in many things we are happier? But this should be ground for commiseration, not disdain. Xavier and Elliot despised not the savages; and had Newton or Milton dwelt among them they would not have done so. When we affect to contemn savages, we should remember that by so doing we asperse our own progenitors; for they were savages also. Who can swear, that among the naked British barbarians sent to Rome to be stared at more than 1500 years ago, the ancestor of Bacon might not have been found? Why, among the very Thugs of India, or the bloody Dyaks of Borneo, exists the germ of all that is intellectually elevated and grand. We are all of us—Anglo-Saxons, Dyaks, and Indians—sprung from one head, and made in one image. And if we regret this brotherhood now, we shall be forced to join hands hereafter. A misfortune is not a fault; and good luck is not meritorious. The savage is born a savage; and the civilized being but inherits his civilization, nothing more. Let us not disdain, then, but pity. And wherever we recognise the image of God, let us reverence it, though it hung from the gallows.  

--The Literary World, Volume 4 - March 31, 1849.

In September 1838 "Melville" wrote the Watchman from Union, Connecticut after attending a Sabbath-School convention in Pomfret on September 26, 1838. The letter from "Melville" closes with a reference to Israel Putnam and his legendary killing of the last wolf in Connecticut:

"God speed to our Connecticut brethren in their spirited enterprize; and from the town where Putnam killed the wolf, which was mentioned as the place of the proposed seminary, may an efficient influence go forth to tame down the fierce dispositions of men to the bland and amiable spirit of Christian virtue."

Poems by "Melville" in the Christian Watchman

• "LINES / WRITTEN ON READING A CELEBRATED INFIDEL BOOK." Friday, March 2, 1838

Christian Watchman / March 2, 1838

This "celebrated infidel book" sounds kind of like the unnamed one that troubled young Nathan in Herman Melville's long poem of spiritual questing, Clarel--especially since "Melville" identifies his book with the "boastful creed of reason." Melville scholar William Schurr in The Mystery of Iniquity identifies Nathan's volume as most likely "Paine's Age of Reason, or possibly Ethan Allan's Reason the Only Oracle of Man." And how about that prayer of "Melville" to preserve illusory hopes in the face of doubt:

"O, let the sweet delusion last!"

 whew! there's nothing more Melvillean than that.

"When now—enlightened, undeceived—
What gain I, barrenly bereaved!"  --After the Pleasure Party

In the same vein, "Nor wake the peaceful dreamer thou" is basically what Vine instructs a monk in the first part of Clarel, telling him not to wake up the sleeping Nehemiah:

... Spare to molest
Let this poor dreamer take his rest.  --Clarel Part 1 - Canto 30

On the other hand, you wouldn't expect to find Herman Melville in late September 1838 at a Baptist Sunday-school convention in Pomfret, Connecticut. Eh? Let's see, where was the young scamp (just 19), anyway? Uh-oh:

"There is no evidence as to where he was from mid-September until early November."
--Hershel Parker, Herman Melville: A Biography - Volume 1 page 132

• "THANKSGIVING HYMN." November 28, 1838. This is the last item signed "Melville" that I have been able to find so far in the Christian Watchman. 

Melville called "a tool of jesuitism" for slander of Protestant missions

Transcribed below from the Nottingham Review (Friday, 8 November 1850), a strong endorsement of the recent attack on Melville's Omoo in the Eclectic Review. The article on "Mr. Melville and South-Sea Missions" first appeared in the Eclectic Review for October 1850 and was reprinted in the December 1850 Eclectic Magazine and Littell's Living Age - 16 November 1850.

LITERATURE.

THE ECLECTIC REVIEW... The next article is an interesting sketch of the "Biography of Leigh Hunt.” Like the subject it is serial, discriminative, and quietly humorous. The paper that follows is a review of the "South Sea Narratives" of Herman Melville. A more thoroughly-deserved castigation no author ever received than the gentleman in question gets in this article. This tool of jesuitism thought that he could quietly damage the Protestant missions in Polynesia by mingling with his "sea-yarns” the most slanderous imputations upon the integrity, character, and worth of the missionaries. But into the pit which he has dug, he has fallen himself! The reviewer, who is evidently au fait at sifting evidence, has made Melville himself prove that he has been guilty of "deliberate and elaborate falsehood," and that he is "a prejudiced, incompetent, and truthless witness!" When the October number of the Eclectic meets his eye, and hereafter when he remembers it, we think his ears will tingle. He has got what he well deserved, and we hope it will do him good. --Nottingham Review and General Advertiser for the Midland Counties (Friday, 8 November 1850); found at The British Newspaper Archive

Typee down the memory hole

Here's a glimpse of Typee as touchstone for arguments (not to mention deep and enduring hostilities), between Catholics and Protestants. Early criticism of Melville's first book on religious grounds came mostly from Congregationalist, Dutch Reformed, Methodist, Presbyterian, and other Protestant readers. Notwithstanding rebukes by Melville here and there of French Catholics, the readers who complained loudest about unfair treatment of missionaries in the first edition of Typee, and subsequently in Omoo, were Protestant.

Forgiving Melville his thoughtless impieties in the first edition, the evangelical Protestant press welcomed the American revised edition of Typee which removed objectionable parts with the author's complicity and blessing.

However, as the following item shows, the Catholic press noticed and lamented the expurgations. Anticipating the idea behind Orwell's memory hole, the Kentucky writer advises readers to hold on to their hard copies of the first, uncensored edition, lest Melville's unflattering views and remarks on Protestant missionaries disappear from the historical record.

"It seems that testimonies like these as to the real results of Protestant missionary efforts are not very palatable to the saints at home. Herman Melville spoke too plainly and honestly of what he beheld, and we are informed that his work, in more recent editions, has been, whether with or without his consent we know not, carefully freed from those passages which recorded the effects and success of missionary zeal. This fact should not be lost sight of, and those who have a copy of the first edition of his work should preserve it carefully, for the benefit of future times."

--The [Louisville, Kentucky] Catholic Advocate, Saturday, December 18, 1847;
found at Old Fulton NY Post Cards

Example of censored material, not present in the American revised edition of Typee:

How little do some of these poor islanders comprehend when they look around them, that no inconsiderable part of their disasters originate in certain tea-party excitements, under the influence of which benevolent-looking gentlemen in white cravats solicit alms, and old ladies in spectacles, and young ladies in sober russet low gowns, contribute sixpences towards the creation of a fund, the object of which is to ameliorate the spiritual condition of the Polynesians, but whose end has almost invariably been to accomplish their temporal destruction.

Let the savages be civilized, but civilize them with benefits, and not with evils ; and let heathenism be destroyed, but not by destroying the heathen. The Anglo-Saxon hive have extirpated Paganism from the greater part of the North American continent; but with it they have likewise extirpated the greater portion of the Red race. Civilization is gradually sweeping from the earth the lingering vestiges of Paganism, and at the same time the shrinking forms of its unhappy worshippers. --Typee, chapter 26

 1846 edition of Typee (uncensored), courtesy of Hathi Trust Digital Library:

Two Gulicks

Brothers they were, missionary kids born in Hawaii.

Luther Halsey Gulick (1828-1891) returned (on a whale ship) to America for schooling, boarded by relatives in New York and New Jersey.  In 1846 he began a course of general studies with a teacher named Dr. Schnapps from Amboy, New Jersey, then in the fall of 1847 entered the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons.  When the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) met in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1849, LHG was there, already looking forward to evangelizing Polynesia.

Luther Halsey and Louisa Lewis Gulick

In 1850 he received his medical degree from New York University where he had transferred (to save expenses, according to the 1895 biography by his daughter Sarah Frances Gulick Jewett).  LHG got ordained as a minister in the Congregational Church ("whose relatively liberal theology appealed to him more than the conservative Old School Presbyterianism of his father," according to Clifford Putney) in 1851, was married in October of the same year, and by 1852 was sailing for his first mission post in Micronesia.

At Luther Halsey Gulick's ordination in 1851, Joseph P. Thompson (reformist pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle Church) preached on The Moral Unity of the Human Race.

Joseph Parrish Thompson

The printed edition of Thompson's sermon alludes to Melville and refers specifically to Melville's first two books.  Thompson shows his familiarity with Typee in particular.  Arguing the case for innate human depravity, Thompson finds a logical flaw in Melville's portrait of Edenic bliss:

However men may vary in the predominance of certain traits, some being fierce and warlike, and others gentle and peaceable, it may be affirmed without contradiction, that among all nations the worst passions of the soul are uniformly displayed when occasion calls them out. Even the dreamy author of "Typee" and "Omoo," while he is so enamored of the simple savage state of the South Sea Islanders as to wish that it might never be disturbed by civilization and missions—likening it to the innocence and blessedness of Paradise—yet naively informs us of the inveterate hostility between "Typee" and " Happar," of his own fears of treachery, of his well-grounded suspicions of cannibalism, and of the desperate risks by which he at length achieved his flight.  ("Moral Unity," 16)

A decade later, L. H. Gulick would complain, after visiting the Marquesas, that Melville's "well-written but debauched pages" accurately reflect the sordid influence of "foreign licentiousness": 

The Marquesas Islands were the earliest discovery of the civilized world in Polynesia proper; they were among the very earliest objects of Protestant Christian philanthropy; and they are the only Polynesian group yet unchristianized. During the long years of amelioration and advance which the other groups have enjoyed, the Marquesans have only been hardening under that horrible system of foreign licentiousness, the possibility of which is the great attraction there, one phase of which deposits its filthy ooze over the well-written but debauched pages of a Herman Melville. -- Missionary Herald Volume 58 (February 1862) page 64.

Luther Halsey's younger brother John T. Gulick (1832-1923) is the Gulick who in the company of Titus Munson Coan visited Melville at Arrowhead on April 20, 1859.

John Thomas Gulick

From John T. Gulick's journal, as published in the article by Mentor L. Williams, "Two Hawaiian-Americans Visit Herman Melville," New England Quarterly 23.1 (March 1950):

Wednesday morning we called on Herman Melville, author of Typee, etc.  We found him on a comfortable farm occupying a fine site about two miles south of Pittsfield.  From his north piazza he has a fine view of Greylock, while to the south lie the Berkshire hills with Washington peak in the centre.  He has a form of good proportions, is about 5 ft. 9" in height, stands erect and moves with firm and manly grace.  His conversation and manner, as well as the engravings on his walls, betray a little of the sailor.  His head is of moderate size with black hair, dark eyes, a smooth pleasant forehead and rough heavy beard and mustache.  His countenance is slightly flushed with whiskey drinking, but not without expression.  When in conversation his keen eyes glance from over his aquiline nose.  Though it was apparent that he possessed a mind of an aspiring, ambitious order, full of elastic energy and illumined with the rich colors of a poetic fancy, he was evidently a disappointed man, soured by criticism and disgusted with the civilized world and with Christendom in general and in particular.  The ancient dignity of Homeric times afforded the only state of humanity, individual or social, to which he could turn with any complacency.  What little there was of meaning in the religions of the present day had come down from Plato.  All our philosophy and all our art and poetry was either derived or imitated from the ancient Greeks.  Three of his children (the eldest about 10 or 12) were at home with him but his wife was absent with the youngest on a visit to Boston.  After a noon lunch he took us in his wagon to the village where he was expecting to meet his lady on the arrival of the next train.  Munson parted from me taking the car to Albany while I took passage by the evening train to Barrington.  (Mentor L. Williams, 98)

So which was it? "a little of the sailor" or "little of the sailor," as Jay Leyda's Melville Log and Hershel Parker's biography have it. But Leyda cites Williams and Williams, like Addison Gulick before him in Evolutionist and Missionary (Chicago, 1932), clearly reports "a little of the sailor," implying perhaps that Gulick saw engravings of nautical scenes.

More about JTG, from Clifford Putney's Legacy of the Gulicks, 1827-1964 (International Bulletin of Missionary Research, January 1, 2001):

Peter and Fanny Gulick's third child, John Thomas Gulick, was arguably their most accomplished. A future missionary scientist, he was born in Waimea, Kaui, on March 13, 1832. Nine years later he entered Punahou Academy, where he stayed until 1847. At that point, overwork and eye problems forced him to drop out. To recover his health, he was sent by his parents in 1848 to the temperate territory of Oregon. There he lived until the California Gold Rush of 1849 swept him into California, where he panned for gold, obtained some, and then lost it all to a thief.

With his gold gone, John Gulick moved to San Francisco, where he made enough money working as a stevedore to buy passage back to Hawaii in 1850. His income as a stevedore also enabled him to buy some Hawaiian land, the income from which helped his parents and siblings and provided for his own education and retirement. Hawaii not only made money for John; it also became a place of exploration for the scientifically minded young man, who took breaks from ranching to collect land snails in the valleys of Oahu. His snail collecting was interrupted in 1852, when he traveled with his brother Luther to the Micronesian island of Pohnpei [formerly Ponape].  There John became the first Westerner to make scientific drawings of the ruined city of Nan-Matal, the largest megalithic monument in Oceania.

After returning to Hawaii from Micronesia, John Gulick was converted to evolutionism by reading Charles Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle in the spring of 1853. Later that year he left Hawaii to undertake academic studies, first at New York University's preparatory school (1853-55); then at Williams College (1855-59). While at Williams, where his classmates included Washington Gladden, John read Darwin's Origin of the Species and paid a visit to Herman Melville, whose unflattering portrayal of missionaries in Typee had offended John.  As his visit to Melville showed, John Gulick cleaved to both evolutionary science and Christianity. His interest in the latter led to his enrollment at Union Theological Seminary in 1859. Two years later, severe eye strain forced him not only to leave Union but also to stay out of the Civil War. His plan at this juncture in his life was to collect shells in Colombia, but a revolution there persuaded him to sail on to Japan, which he reached in 1862. While in Japan, John lived near Yokohama, taught English, and took the first photographs ever taken in Tokyo. He also tried to convince the ABCFM to set up a mission in Japan, but that organization, its funds temporarily depleted by the Civil War, said no.  (Free Library)

Reunited in Micronesia in 1852, our two Gulicks wrote letters to various religious journals and societies about their experiences.  Reports of their activities along with geographical and anthropological observations may be found in contemporary issues of The Friend (December 17, 1852); The Missionary Herald and other publications.

Transmission of early reports from Micronesia by both Gulicks was significantly aided by New York physician James McCune Smith, who communicated their more scientific findings in a presentation before the American Geographical Society (then meeting at New York University in Washington Square) on June 14, 1853. 

More on that, in our next.

• James McCune Smith on the Micronesian Islands
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2012/07/james-mccune-smith-on-micronesian.html