Bonin Islands  Notes  Source  Whalesite

      The Bonin Islands which lie between the parallels of 26.30 and 27.45 North are situated almost due South of Yokohama at a distance of about 500 miles, Port Lloyd situated in Lat. 27.5.35 N. and 142.11.30 East Longitude being distant 516 milesthe longitude of Port Lloyd has been fixed by a later authority at 142.16.30.

      The Islands consist of three groups, the Northernmost and Southernmost of which are known respectively as the Parry and Bailey or Coffin groups. The centre group is made up of three Islands: Stapleton to the North, Peel Island to the South and Buckland Island in the centre. This middle group is 9 1/4 miles in length 4 1/4 of which are taken up by Peel Island.

      Hillsboro' the largest of the Bailey or Coffin group is 7 1/2 miles long and 1 1/4 miles broad.

      From Japanese records it would appear that these Islands were known to Japan in the year 1593, if not before that, when they were held as a fief by the Daimio Ogasawara Sadayori and communication was maintained with them up to 1624. In Koempfer's [sic] work the following mention is made of the Islands,

      "About the year 1675 the Japanese accidentally discovered a very large island, one of their barks having been forced there in a storm from the Island Hachijo from which they computed it to be 300 miles distant towards the East, they met with no inhabitants but found it to be a very pleasant and fruitful country, well supplied with fresh water and furnished with plenty of plants and trees, particularly the arrack tree, which however might give room to conjecture that the Island lay rather to the South of Japan than to the East, these trees growing only in hot countries. They called it Bone sima or the Island Bune and because they found no inhabitants upon it they marked it with the character of an uninhabited Island. On the shores they found an incredible quantity of fish and crabs, some of which were from four to six feet long."

      The turtle that abound at the Bonins were probably taken by the Japanese for enormous crabs.

      A blank in the history of the Bonin Islands then follows until 1728, when communication was again established by a descendant of Sadayoris, Miyanouchi Sadayori by name, of short duration however, for after a long interval we find no further mention of the Islands in Japanese records until the close of 1861, when Japanese Commissioners were sent to Port Lloyd, the visit resulting in the establishment of it small colony under the governorship of Mr. Obana Sakusuke. The attempt was however a failure. Several of the colonists returned to Japan after a brief stay and the remnant was withdrawn early in 1863.

      The Islands known to most of us by name have during the past few years excited not a little curiosity from the reports that have reached us from time to time as to the condition of the settlers there and from surmises as to what steps might eventually be taken to establish then as the territory of one or other of the countries which it was supposed hall claimed them.

      In November of last year, 1875, the Japanese steamer Meiji Maru, having on board four Japanese officers as Commissioners, proceeded to Port Lloyd and in the same month and simultaneously with the Meiji Maru the Islands were visited by H. M. S. Curlew, Commander Church, R.N. on board of which vessel I was a passenger. The Bonins figure on some charts as the Arzobispo Islands, but again on others the Arzobispo appear as a distinct group. It is contended that the word Bunin is a corruption of the Japanese words Munin "uninhabited" and this appellation would tend to confirm their first discovery by Japanese. Any way they are known generally as the Bonins, the slip from Bunin to Bonin being easily accounted for, though to Japanese they are more familiar as the Ogasawara-shima, or Ogasawara Islands.

      From the name Arzobispo it is not improbable that the Islands were known to the Spaniards long since, the more so that they are not so very far from the Marianas or Ladrones group now settled by the Spaniards and known to navigators early in the 16th century. The object of this paper is not however to settle disputed points about prior occupancy, and I therefore pass on to the time when the Islands became more generally known to the outer world.

      In the year 1823 they were visited by an American whale ship the Transit, Captain Coffin; whence we arrive at the name Coffin applied equally with Bailey to the Southern group. It is not clear however that the Transit visited either the centre or the Northern group. In 1825 the Supply, an English whaler, touched at Port Lloyd and left a record of her visit by nailing a board to a tree, afterwards found there by Captain Beechey R.N. of H.M.S. Blossom which vessel anchored in Port Lloyd on the 9th June 1827. It is to Captain Beechey that we are indebted for the admirable chart of the harbour of Port Lloyd now in use, and for much of the published information about the Bonins. H.M.S. Blossom a sloop carrying 16 guns and a complement of 122 all told had been dispatched from England on the 19th May 1825 with instructions to cooperate with Franklin's and Parry's Arctic Expeditions. Captain Beechey's instructions were that he should be at Behring's Straits in the autumn of 1826, and if he failed to meet either Franklin or Parry he was to leave Behring's Straits in October of the same year, repairing there again in the autumn of the ensuing year 1827 — the intervals to be employed in cruising in the Pacific Ocean; at the close of 1827 the Blossom was to leave on her return voyage to England.

      Captain Beechey having sailed as above narrated on the 19th May 1825 rounded Cape Horn and touching at Tahit and the Sandwich Islands reached Behring's Straits in July 1826. In October the Blossom, failing to meet Franklin left Behring's Straits and proceeded to San Francisco where she anchored on or about the 6th November. On the 28th December 1826 Captain Beechey sailed from San Francisco and again visited the Sandwich Islands, proceeding from there to Canton and Macao at which latter place he arrived on or about April 30th 1827. After a brief stay the Blossom again set sail making for Loochoo, and in due course, some time in May 1827, she anchored off the town of Napha the capital of those Islands.

      From here Captain Beechey took his departure on the 25th May, and shaping his course to the Eastward he reached on the evening of the 7th June the situation of the Bonin Islands as marked in Arrowsmith's chart in use at that time. The following day, the 8th, no land was in sight, and Captain Beechey was on the point of giving up the Islands as having no actual existence, when, after a few hours sail to the Eastward, several islands were seen extending in a North and South direction as far as the eye could discern. These were the Bonins. A full account of the Blossom's visit is formed in Captain Beechey's Bonins narrative, published in two volumes but,

      It will suffice if I narrate here that the Blossom an-

chored in Port Lloyd on the 9th June 1827, having first attempted to fetch the southernmost group, but finding wind and current against the ship and discovering in the nearest land an opening which appeared to give promise of a good harbour, Capt. Beechey made for this and anchored in Port Lloyd. to which He gave this name out of regard to a late Bishop of Oxford.

      Captain Beechey was much surprised to find here two Europeans who turned out to have been two of the crew of the English whaler William which vessel had been wrecked in Port Lloyd some eight mouths previous to the Blossom's arrival. The name of one of the men was Wittrein; that of the other is not given.

      According to the statement of these men it appears that after the wreck of the vessel the crew set to work to build a small schooner in order to find their way to Manilla, as the chances of their being picked off from Port Lloyd were somewhat remote; to their surprize however a whale ship, the Timor, appeared, and took off the crew of the wrecked vessel with the exception of these two men Wittrein and his companion.

      The Blossom remained at Port Lloyd for six days, and the time was fully taken up with surveying the harbour, excursions in the immediate neighbourhood, and in circumnavigating the Island. To the Island in which Port Lloyd is situated Captain Beechey gave the name of Peel Island, in compliment to Sir Robert Peel, the then Secretary of State for the Home Department; and to the other two of the cluster he gave the names Stapleton and Buckland, the last mentioned after the then Professor of Geology at Oxford. A large bay at the South East angle of Peel Island is named Fitton Bay, after a late President of the Geological Society, whilst a bay to the Southwest angle of Buckland Island is called Walker Bay, after Mr. Walker at that time one of the officers of the Hydrographical Department.

      To the Southern cluster of Islands Capt. Beechey gave the name of Bailey, after a former President of the Astronomical Society, but they are equally known as Coffin Islands from the name of the master of the American Whaler Transit, who it was believed was the first to visit them, excepting visits said to have been made by Japanese.

      To the Northern group Capt. Beechey gave the name of Parry after the former Hydrographer to the Admiralty.

      Capt. Beechey has pronounced Peel and surrounding Islands to be volcanic in their nature, which is borne out by Commodore Perry of the United States Navy, who when visiting the Islands later on 1853, writes of Port Lloyd as follows:

"It would appear that Port Lloyd was at one time the certain of an active volcano, from which the surrounding hills had been thrown up, while the present entrance to the harbour was formed by a deep fissure in the side of the cone through which a torrent of lava had poured into the sea, leaving after its subsidence a space into which the waters subsequently were emptied, bringing with them their usual deposits, which together with the coral formation now forms the bottom and sides of the harbour."

After leaving Port Lloyd on the 15th June, Captain Beechey made another attempt to reach the southern group, the Bailey or Coffin Islands, but finding the wind adverse he bore away to the north and fixed the position of the Parry Group.

      This officer's remarks about the Bonins which appear in full in the work to which I have previously alluded furnished the only comparatively full information about them up to 1853 when they were visited by Commodore Perry. The narrative of the Blossom's cruise is a book seldom met with out here, and I am indebted to Captain St. John of H.M.S. Sylvia, for the loan of the work which has thus enabled me to give certain particulars about the Bonins without which this paper would have been incomplete. The sailing directions and notes with regard to the Bonins appearing in that valuable work the "China Pilot" are taken from the narratives of Beechey and Perry. Before leaving, Captain Beechey affixed to a tree a sheet of copper nailed to a board, and on the sheet of copper the following words were punctured: —

"H.M.S. Blossom, Captain Beechey, R.N., took possession of this group of Islands in the name and on behalf of His Majesty King George, the 14th June, 1827."

      On the occasion of our visit in the Curlew, Captain Church and I came across this board in the house of one of the settlers, who parted with it for a trifling consideration. It was in a fair state of preservation, and the inscription as given above could be deciphered after a little trouble; the date appeared to us to be June 17th, but as the Blossom left on the 15th, the proper date is probably the l4th.

      According to Captain Beechey the Japanese accounts of the Bonin Islands as appearing at that time in Mr. Klaproths "Mémoire sur la Chine," and by Mr. Abel Remusat in the "Journal des Savans" for September, 1817, it is said that the Islands of Bonin sima or Munin sima consist of eighty-nine Islands, of which two are large, four of middling size, four small and the remainder of the group consists of rocks. The two large Islands are said to be inhabited, and temples and villages appear in the Japanese chart published in the "Journal des Savans." Further, it is stated that these Japanese accounts, or I should more correctly say the translations of them, depict the Islands as extremely fertile, producing vegetable and all kinds of grain, sugar, cocoa nuts, lofty palm trees, sandal-wood, camphor and other trees.

      From this description, Captain Beechey throws doubts upon the Islands visited by him as being identical with the Bonin sima of the Japanese, and to use his own words says "it may be doubted whether Bonin sima is not an imaginary Island."

      In Captain Beechey's opinion the Islands correspond with a group named Yslas del Arzo Bispo in a work published many years ago in Manila "Navigacion Especulativa y Pratica" and so much indeed that he has retained on the chart the name Arzobispo which was mentioned at the commencement of this paper, equally with that of the Bonins. It must be remembered, however, that neither the Northern nor Southern cluster, the Parry and Bailey or Coffin groups, were visited by Captain Beechey (by visiting I mean, landed upon,) and Japanese have informed me that it was on the Southernmost group Bailey or Coffin, that the early Japanese settlers took up their abode, and where it is believed the remains of a few shrines are still to be found. Making allowance for exaggeration in the description appearing in the early native records, and considering, too, that vegetables, sugar cane, cocoa nuts, pine apple, &c., are now grown on Peel Island, also that among the trees there are palm and sandal wood, it is not unlikely that the Island, visited by the Blossom are the veritable Bonins or Munin sima of the Japanese.

      We are now to witness the influence of the Blossom's visit to these Islands. Before taking leave of this little vessel with whose name and that of her Commander the Bonins cannot but always be associated, I should record that after leaving these Islands, Captain Beechey in pursuance of his original instructions to be at Behring's Straits in the autumn of 1827, again made for the Polar Seas, where he arrived in. due course; but finding no trace of Franklin at the different rendezvous agreed upon he reluctantly left for England by way of San Francisco and Cape Horn, and anchored at Spithead early in October 1828, after an absence of three years and a half during which the ship had sailed over 73,000 miles.

      The Bonins now seem to have attracted attention at the Sandwich Islands where the news of the Blossom's visit was not long in reaching, and from whence a party of colonists sailed for Port Lloyd in 1830. Captain Charlton then British Consul at the Sandwich Islands taking a lively interest in the expedition.

      The party as far as I can ascertain consisted of the following: Mateo Mazarro said to have been a native of Genoa, but I am inclined to think recognized as a British subject, John Millichamp an Englishman, Nathaniel Savory born in Massachusetts, United States, Alden B. Chapin also an American, and Charles Johnson a Dane. They had with them some Sandwich Island natives as labourers, some live stock and seeds, and landing at Port Lloyd hoisted an English flag which had been given them by Captain Charlton.

      Little is now heard of the Bonins until 1842, though doubtless in this long interval of 12 years Port Lloyd was

frequently visited by whalers and communication of some kind was thus kept up. In 1842 Mazarro returned to the Sandwich Islands. He described the settlement at Port Lloyd as flourishing, stated that he had hogs and goats in abundance and a few cattle, that he grew Indian corn and many vegetables and had all kinds of tropical fruits. Mazarro returned to Peel Island and eventually died there. His widow, to whom I shall here after refer, is still living at Port Lloyd.

      I now pass over another interval of seven years until the year 1849 or 1850, when I find that Port Lloyd was visited by the U. S. Surveying Brig Dolphin, but she only made a brief stay of four or five days. The next man-of-war to come was H.M.S. Enterprise, Captain Collinson, in 1851, which vessel also made but a short stay of about a week. The Enterprise was a companion ship with the Investigator both vessels being in search of Sir John Franklin's ill fated expedition. The former had parted company from the Investigator, and had probably taken the Bonins on her way up to Kamschatka and the Arctic.

      Thomas H. Webb, a British subject who had arrived at Port Lloyd in the American Barque Japan of Nantucket in 1849, and where he is still a resident, has a lively recollection of Captain Collinson's visit, and it is to Webb, that I am indebted for much of the information I am able to give in respect to the visits of ships to Port Lloyd from the year 1847 up to the time of the Curlew's visit in 1875, excepting of course the visit of Commodore Perry in 1853 of which a full account has been published elsewhere.

      In 1852 H.M.'s surveying brig Serpent touched at Port Lloyd and remained there some eight days.

      We now come to Commodore Perry's visit in 1853, an important one to the settlers on Peel Island.

      On the 14th June, 1853, the U. S. men-of-war Susquehannah and Saratoga dropped anchor in Port Lloyd, having left the port of Napha in the Loochoos on the 9th of the same mouth. At this time, of the original settlers who came in 1830, and whose names are mentioned at the commencement of this paper, only one, Nathaniel Savory was left, but there were now on Peel Island in all 31 inhabitants, made up as follows; four English, four American, one Portuguese, the rest being natives from either the Sandwich, the Ladrones, the Caroline or Kingsmill Islands, together with children actually born on the Bonins.

      The stay of the Susquehanna and Saratoga was limited to four days, the ships leaving on the 18th June, and returning to the Loochoos which they reached on the 23rd of the same month, but the time was fully taken up in exploring both Peel and Stapleton Islands.

      To the exploration of the first mentioned two parties were told off from the Susquehanna, one headed by Mr. Bayard Taylor which took the South, while Dr. Fahs Assistant Surgeon of the ship with his party went over the North of the Island. They started early on the morning of the 15th June and did not return to the ship till 10 p.m. of the same night. A full account of this day's proceedings, and indeed a very full account generally of the Bonins is given in chapter X, volume I, of the narrative of Commodore Perry's expedition to China and Japan, published by order of the United States Government.

      I do not quote at length from the account therein contained because the work is one of modern date, and is within reach of any one who cares to procure it.

      It will be sufficient if I note that not only are the Bonin Islands prominently mentioned in the work above alluded to, but on his return to the States the Commodore placed in the hands of the compiler some further notes on the subject of these Islands and submitted a scheme for their colonization. He appears to have thought that their situation was most advantageous as forming a point on a proposed mail line, which, starting from San Francisco would touch at Honolulu and the Bonins for coal and supplies and then on to Shanghai as its terminus. The importance that Yokohama was to attain to as a place of call for mail steamers could not then of course be foreseen, considering too that the scheme of a mail line across the Pacific to China, although attracting attention, had not then been developed.

      It was during the visit of the Susquehanna and Saratoga at Port Lloyd that Commodore Perry recommended the settlers to draw up a code or rules of governance for themselves, rather than that they should live under what he described to one of the settlers as Club Law. No mention is made of this in his book, but an organization scheme was drawn up. It consisted of three articles and thirteen sections, and was called "organization of the settlers of Peel Island." It provided for the election of a Chief Magistrate and Council of two persons to be elected by and from amongst the settlers, the chief Magistrate and Council to have power to enact rules and make Regulations for the Government of the Island, such rules and regulations to be binding on the residents provided the concurrence and approval of two-thirds of the whole number of residents had been obtained.

      A copy of the organization scheme has been placed at my disposal, and the manner in which it came about was narrated to me on the Island.

      Under these rules Nathaniel Savory was elected as Chief Magistrate and James Motley and Thomas H. Webb as Councilmen. The document was signed by Nathaniel Savory, Thomas H. Webb, James Motley, William Gilley, John Brava, Joseph Cullen, George Brava and George Horton.

      The rules however were never enforced, and the existence of the scheme is now scarcely remembered on Peel Island.

      It is of importance that I should follow up the fate of those whose names appear appended to the documents. Nathaniel Savory died in 1874.

      Thomas H. Webb is now living at Port Lloyd.

      James Motley died on the Bailey Islands in 1870.

      William Gilley was killed at Port Lloyd thirteen years ago, by a man named Jack Spania said to be an Englishman.

      John Brava and George Brava are still living on the Bonins.

      Joseph Cullen died in Port Lloyd two years ago.

      George Horton was removed to Japan in 1862 by the Japanese, and handed over to the U. S. Consul at Kanagawa. Horton died I believe shortly after arrival in Japan.

      To some of the above names I shall have again occasion to refer.

      Before taking leave of Commodore Perry I should state that he left on Peel Island four head of cattle, and on one of the other Islands five Shanghai sheep and six goats.

      I enquired at Port Lloyd what had become of this stock, and was told that the cattle had disappeared, having probably been lifted by the crews of the whalers that were in harbour either at that time or that came shortly after Perry's visit. The sheep died, but the goats have multiplied to such an extent that the islands now swarm with them.

      Not long after the Susquehanna and Saratoga's visit the U.S. man-of-war Plymouth came to Port Lloyd. Her stay was marked by a most unfortunate accident. One of her cutters with fourteen men had gone outside the harbour in the face of a somewhat rough sea and was never more heard of, there being no doubt that she capsized with all hands, not one of whom ever reached shore.

      The place is a very dangerous one for boat work, which should be avoided as much as possible outside the harbour. Much anxiety was felt while I was at Port Lloyd on account of a party of Japanese that had put off one morning from the steamer Meiji Maru, and rounding the southern headland of the harbour was lost to sight from the ship. At 6 o'clock p.m. of the same day, and night setting in, there were no signs of the boat; a gun was fired and a rocket sent up from the Meiji Maru but it was not until 10 p.m. of the same evening that some of the missing ones returned with the report that the boat had been beached the other side of the headland close to the Frenchman Leseur's holding. The boat was eventually recovered, but Leseur said it was a marvel she had ever escaped for she was lifted in on the top of a raging surf right over the rocks and landed close to his own dwelling.

      The next visit of men of war after the Plymouth was that of four Russian ships which came to Port Lloyd in 1854. This squadron consisted of a frigate, a corvette, a store ship and a small steamer. Their visit was followed by that of the U.S. Frigate Macedonian, Captain Abbott, on her way to Manilla. The Macedonian had left the

U.S. Flag ship Powhattan in Yedo Bay. Commodore Perry entrusted to Captain Abbott's care implements of husbandry and seeds to be distributed amongst the settlers, in a letter to one of whom the Commodore writes

"it must be understood that the sovereignty of the Bonin Islands has not yet been settled, and the interest taken by me in the welfare and prosperity of the settlement has solely in view of the advantages commerce generally."

      In the ensuing year 1855 the U.S. Man-of-war Vincennes visited Port Lloyd and remained 10 days.

      In 1871 an attempt to colonize Peel Island was made from Japan, and in November or December of that year a Japanese steamer was despatched to Port Lloyd from Yedo, having on board a Commissioner, subordinate officers and about 100 colonists.

      Rules and Regulations for the governance of the settlers inclusive of foreigners, and harbour Regulations so called were drawn up in English by the Commissioner and his assistants. They appear never to have been enforced, and the present settlers seem for the most part ignorant of their existence. I have however a copy by me from which I extract the following somewhat unintelligible rules.

      Article 3. — It shall be unlawful for any vessel or vessels that may be come into this port to discharge any of the cannon that will hurtful for the fishing.

      Article 4. — Any vessel or vessels may come into this port or harbour said the vessel shall to pay to the pilot amount of the established pilotage.

      Article 4. — If any person or persons come on shore from any vessel that may be come into this port who shall have pleasure hunting and waste upon the land of any inhabitants and also committed any of such he or they shall be seized and transported to the Captain of their vessel.

      Communication would appear to have been kept up with Port Lloyd from Japan from time to time during 1862, for it is recorded that the colonists soon wearying of the enterprise, left Port Lloyd in batches, until early in 1863 the Commissioner himself withdrew, taking with him the few Japanese that had for some fifteen months cast their lot upon the Islands.

      The Japanese settlement was situated on the South side of the harbour and one of the houses erected by them still remains. Close to this house a large stone has been erected which records that the Bonins were first visited in the time of Iyeyasu by Ogasawara Sadayori and that in 1593 they received the name of Ogasawara jima, that they were again visited in 1828, that they are Japanese territory, that they were re-visited in 1861 and that this tablet was erected as a perpetual memorial.

      From time to time whalers arriving at Yokohama have been reported as from the Bonins, and in 1872, 1873, and for some time in 1874 a small schooner, the Tori, under American colours made trips between Yokohama and Port Lloyd, taking stores and cheap piece-goods from this, and returning with turtle shell, turtle oil, lemons and other Island produce.

      In 1874 the U.S. man-of-war Tuscarora while engaged on her line of soundings visited Port Lloyd and made a brief stay, and in November 1875, we have the visits of the Japanese steamer Meiji Maru and H.M.S. Curlew.

      Later on, and since my return, the Bonins have I believe been visited by the Russian man-of-war Hydamack and the German frigate Hertha.

      I have given prominence to the visits of men-of-war but it is not to be concluded that the settlers were dependent on these alone for their glimpses of the outer world. Port Lloyd has been the frequent resort of whalers mostly under American colours, in some instances flying the French or Hawaiian Flags. In one year the arrivals at Port Lloyd have been as many as 15 vessels, but lately the sight of a whaler has been somewhat rare, as may be judged from the fact that last year 1875, but one vessel, a whaler, had touched there prior to the arrival of the Meiji Maru and Curlew.

      In 1849 the year of the rush to California several vessels, so I was informed by one of the residents, touched at Port Lloyd on their way from China to San Francisco; these ships varied in size from 300 to 1,000 tons, and so far as I can learn must have been coolie passenger ships. That same year, 1849, is also a memorable one in the annals of the settlers, for in the autumn a lorcha and schooner under Danish colours and cutter with the British flag came to Port Lloyd and made a stay of some two months, during which the vessels were hove down and repaired. They then left in company, but after a few days the lorcha and cutter returned and their crews made a raid on the place, offering no personal violence but carrying off every thing they could lay hands on. The two vessels then quitted Peel Island and were seen no more.

      I have thus briefly sketched the history of the Islands down to the time of my visit, but I shall probably in the course of this paper have to refer to past dates in order to complete, as well as can be done in the limits of a paper of this nature, the history of Peel Island and its settlers up to the present time.

Russell Robertson, Esq.
      "The Bonin Islands".
The Japan Weekly Mail.
Vol. VII, No. 13 (March 25, 1876).
pp. 252-255.

Bonin Islands  Notes  Source  Whalesite