The Plough Boy Anthology of the Bonin Islands:

The History of Japan, giving an Account of the ancient and present State and Government of that Empire; ... and of their Trade and Commerce with the Dutch and Chinese. Together with a Description of the Kingdom of Siam....

De beschryving van Japan, behelsende een verhaal van den ouden en tegenwoordigen staat en regeering van dat ryk ... en van hunnen koophandel met de Nederlanders en de Chineesen. Benevens eene beschryving van het koningryk Siam....

English and Dutch
1727 & 1729.

      Kaempfer's short account of the island of Bunesima is the first that associates a name with the Bonin or Ogasawara islands.

      After Kaempfer, Rémusat was the first to identify by name the group of islands that were to become known as the Bonins (Ogasawara Gunto in Japanese) and at the time, were not known to the world. Abel-Rémusat summarizes an 1785 Japanese publication brought to Europe by Isaac Titsingh. Rémusat's map which appeared in the Journal des Savants article is not included as no complete digital copy has been found in the several online versions of the Journal des Savans that are currently available.

      A notice in an English publication of Remusat's article in the Journal des Savans for July, 1817.

"Description of an almost unknown groupe of islands situated between Japan and the Marianne Islands."

[Compiled from Japanese Accounts by M. Abel Remusat, M. D, Member of the French Institute and Professor of the Chinese and Mandchu Tartar Languages in the Royal College of France.]

      An English translation of the article from the Journal des Savans, July 1817.

Description of an almost unknown groupe of islands situated between Japan and the Marianne Islands.

[Compiled from Japanese Accounts by M. Abel Remusat, M. D, Member of the French Institute and Professor of the Chinese and Mandchu Tartar Languages in the Royal College of France.]

      A reprint of the March 1818 article in the Asiatic Journal

"Description of an almost unknown groupe of Islands, situate between Japan and the Marianne Islands."

Boston Intelligencer & Evening Gazette,
September 30, 1820

      A summary of Remusat's 1817 article — probably from the Annual Register of 1818. This is the only instance yet found of Remusat's article being published in an American book or newspaper.

Description des îles Mou nin sima, c'est-à-dire des îles inhabitées, traduite de l'ouvrage japonais intitulé San kokf tsu ran, imprimé à Yedo en 1785.

Journal Asiatique, October 1825,p.243-250

      Remusat's 1817 article was based on the 1785 Japanese publication San kokf tsu ran but it was almost ten years before Klaproth offered a complete translation. In 1832 Klaproth published a revised translation (see below).

Description des îles Mou nin sima, c'est-à-dire des îles inhabitées, traduite de l'ouvrage japonais intitulé San kokf tsu ran, imprimé à Yedo en 1785.

Memoires relatifs a l'Asie. Vol. 2 1826,p.190-199

      Klaproth republished his article of 1825 with some changes — mainly orthographical with respect to the transliteration of the Japanese.

"Voyage of Exploration."

Nantucket Inquirer,
March 22, 1828, p.2

      The Nantucket Inquirer's account of Pacific islands, reefs and shoals not marked or inappropriately marked on contemporary charts. This information was given to Jeremiah Reynolds who ultimately convinced Congress to authorize the Exploring Expedition to the Pacific (1838-1842) under the command of Lieutenant Charles Wilkes.

      Captain James J. Coffin's August 1825 visit to the middle and northern-most island groups of the Bonin's is featured. The islands have no names known to Nantucket whalers and other seamen at the time of publication.

Voyage autour du monde, execute par ordre de Sa Majeste l'empereur Nicolas 1er, sur la corvette le Seniavine, dans les annees 1826, 1827, 1828 et 1829, par Frederic Lutke ...

French
1835

      Frederic Lutke, commanding the Russian corvette Seniavine, visited the Bonin Islands in May 1828 while on his four-year voyage of discovery. He arrived almost a year after the prior visit of Captain Beechey in H.M.S. Blossom. The two Europeans from the shipwreck of the whale ship William who lived on Peel Island met Lutke and were taken from the the islands at the conclusion of his visit.

Description d'un groupe d'isles peu connu et situé entre le Japon et les Iles Mariannes.

Rédigée d'après les relations des Japonais. (1817).

      An extensive revision to Abel-Remusat's 1817 article which was published in the July 1817 issue of the Journal des Savans. The revised article appears in a two-volume collection of the author's work.

Chapter VI. [Bonin Islands]

from
Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Beering's Strait ... in the years 1825, 26, 27, 28.
Vol. II.
by Captain F. W. Beechey, R.N.
1831.

      Captain Frederick Beechey, commander of H.M.S. Blossom, is generally regarded as the modern discoverer of the Bonin Islands. The Arrowsmith charts used by Beechey included a group of islands called the Bonin Isles that had been placed on these maps in 1823 based on the work of Remusat. Beechey claimed the islands for Great Britain and named the islands of the middle cluster. Beechey did not visit the southern or northern group of islands. Because the group corresponded to the Yslas del Arzobispo that had been noted in an old Spanish pubication from Manilla with the title Navigacion Especulativa y Practica, he retained this as a parallel name for the overall group of islands.

      Selections about the Bonin Islands from Thomas Beale's classic work on the sperm whale and whaling in the Pacific Ocean in the early 19th century. Beale was the surgeon on the British barque Kent which, among other things, carried a half-dozen Hawaiian women from Honolulu to their new 'husbands' in the recently established community in the Bonins. This service to the new community was not mentioned on by Beale.

Ship Plough Boy of Nantucket at the Ladrones, Sulphur and Bonin Islands in 1832.

      Coastal views and entries from the journal of 3d Mate, Lewis Monto.

      Probably the definitive translation and publication of the the 1786 work by Hayashi Shihei ("Rinsifée") – Aperçu général des trois royaumes. It was published in Paris in 1832 with five tinted, well-engraved maps. In his introduction Klaproth notes:

"As for the description of the Mou nin sima (Bonin Sima) or uninhabited islands which I had already given an extract in the second volume of my Mémoires relatifs à l'Asie, it does not seem to agree well with the discoveries of Captain Beechy It is presumed that the island group visited this explorer are not the same as our author has described; however it should not be very far away. One should also not judge the position of the islands from the Japanese map, much less from that of Arrowsmith's Asia, on which they are of enormous magnitude. According to the account published by Rinsifée, the largest of these islands only 15 Japanese ri in circumference, which is about 47 and a half English miles, rather than on the Arrowsmith's map where the circumference is at least 140 miles. While the villages and temples on the Japanese map may no longer exist, and the islands may have been abandoned, it should be known that a Japanese temple in the Sinto faith, is usually a little hut built of planks, as can be seen by the illustrations in Kaempfer's work."

The Sandwich and Bonin Islands: A letter to a noble lord, on the importance of settling the Sandwich & Bonin Islands, in the North Pacific Ocean, on the plan of a proprietary government; together with hints on the probability, in that case, of introducing British manufactures into the great Empire of Japan.
By T. Horton James, Esq.

      This pamphlet deals primarily with the Sandwich Islands (Hawaiian Islands). The Bonin Islands are discussed only in passing. The small colony of Europeans and Sandwich Islanders which was established in 1830 is mentioned.

      This article expands on the argument of T. Horton James in 1832 that the Sandwich and Bonin Islands should be colonized by Great Britain. The author pays special attention to the strategic imporance of these two island groups and suggests ways in which they might be settled and fortified. He suggests that among candidates for settling the islands the Pitcairn Islanders, natives of New Zealand, and the Chinese should be considered.

"The Bonin Islands: their situation, productions, &c., as noticed by the Japanese in 1675, and subsequently; by Captain Beechey in 1827; more recently by a correspondent of the London Metropolitan; and in August, 1834, by Mr. Edwards."

The Chinese Repository,
Vol. 3, No. 3 (March, 1835).

May 16, 1835, p.2

      This is the first instance that the name "Bonin Islands" has been found in the Nantucket Inquirer. The Bonin Islands – identified as "North Island" and "South Island" – are described as a good place for whale ships to obtain wood, water, fresh vegetables, yams, corn, melons, hogs, and green turtle. The colony of Europeans and Sandwich Islanders is said to be between twenty and twenty-five men and women.

      Captain William Worth 2d, master of the Nantucket ship Howard, supplied this information to the newspaper. The Howard visited the Bonin Islands April 25 through June 8, 1834.

      The Nantucket Inquirer article was reproduced in the New Bedford Mercury (May 22, 1835) and in the October 1835 issue of Sailor's Magazine and Naval Journal (v.8, no. 86, p.56).

      The Bonin or Arzobispo Islands are added to the Fourth Edition of Horsburgh's India Directory. Note is made that the southern limits of these islands have not been established.

      This note from: Sandwich Island Gazette (Honolulu) and published in the Charleston Courier(May 16, 1837) suggest things are not going well for the Bonin Island community.

      A few notes on the Bonin Islands from the Sandwich Island Gazette as printed in The Southern Literary Messenger.

      The editors of The Chinese Repository respond to the article of T. Lay arguing for the British assuming control over the Bonin and Sandwich Islands by suggesting that, while the Bonins are important regarding future commerce with Japan, it is not the appropriate location for an plaace to support trade with China

Remarks on Peel Island, Bonin Groupe,
situated in Lat. 27 5' 35" N., Long. 142 11' 30" E.,
August 9, 1837.

Proceedings of the Bombay Geographical Society, Volume 3, September – November 1839, pp. 106-112.

      A popular treatment of Dr. W.S.W. Ruschenberger's essay on the Bonin Islands written while he was surgeon on the U.S.S. Peaoock in its voyage to Muscat and Oman. Ruschenberger's work is strangly truncated in Ellms book.

      Lord Ellesmere of the Royal Geographical Society of London pokes fun at Commodore Perry on his assertions of primacy in the Bonin Islands.

      Description of the effects of a tsunami on the harbor at Peel Island as experienced by an American ship-of-war in 1854.

      Thomas Beale's encounter with an octopus while visiting the Bonin Islands in 1831 is retold in an encyclopedia of the animal kingdom.

      Sailing directions and information for the Volcano and Bonin Islands and other islands in the vicinity.

      Capt. Benjamin Pease calls on the U.S. Consulate in Japan; raises questions about U.S. role vis-a-vis the Bonin Islans. Secretary of State Hamiilton Fish basically says the U.S. has no official responsibility for the Americans resident in the Bonins.

      Announcement of a translation of a Japanese history of the Bonin Islands and their association or relations with Japan.

      Several news notes relating to the Bonin Islands and notice of H.M.S. Curlew's cruise in 1875.

      Translation from the Japanese of an article on the Bonin Islands: their history, population, and Japan's paramount interest in them.

      An account of the Bonin Islands by a Japanese man who was on the Meiji Maru's voyage in 1875.

      British Consul Russell Robertson's comprehensive report on the Bonin Islands in 1876 - Part 1.

      British Consul Russell Robertson's comprehensive report on the Bonin Islands in 1876 - Part 2.

      The U.S. State Department considers it role with respect to the Bonin Islands. The Pease affair is discussed. Contains communications from the British officials in Japan.

      A brief history of the Bonin Islands from the time of Beechey's visit in 1827 until the British Consul Robertson visited in 1875.

      The USS Alert while surveying the waters around the Bonin Islands is engaged to bring children from the non-Japanese community of the Bonins to Japan for several years of schooling. Documents from Perry's expedition are reproduced supporting U.S. interests in the Bonins.

"The Bonin Islands."

By A. C. Jones, Consul, Nagasaki, Japan

Commercial relations of the United States.
Reports from the consuls of the United States on the commerce, manufactures, etc., of their consular districts.

(No. 24. – October, 1882.)

Washington: Government Printing Office, 1882.
pp. 517-529

"The Bonin Islands."

In: Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography.

Vol. 13, No. 6 (June 1891)
pp. 369-372.

      A summary of Warburg's paper published in the April 11, 1891 number of the Geographical Society of Berlin.

"Hypa, The Centenarian Nurse"
By the Rev. A. F. King.

Mission Field, Vol. 43, November 1, 1898. pp. 415-421.

"The Bonin Islands."
By Rev. Cameron Johnson.

The Missionary Review of the World.
September, 1901, pp. 650-653

"Some notes on the Bonin Islands."
By W. B. Mason

Scottish Geographical Magazine, vol. 18, 1902. pp.645-647

      Physical description of the Bonin and Volcano Islands -- translated into English from the German.

      Physical description of the Bonin and Volcano Islands.

"The Seven Isles Of Izu and the Bonin Islands."

A Handbook for Travellers in Japan including the whole Empire from Saghalien to Formosa.

By Basil Hall Chamberlain and W. B. Mason

London: John Murray, 1907. pp. 531-534.

"Ogasawara (Bonin or Arzobispo) Islands"

in: Asiatic Pilot, Volume II: The Japan Islands.

(No. 123) - Hydrographic Office

Washington: Government Printing Office, 1910,
pp. 558-564.

The history of the Bonin Islands from the year 1827 to the year 1876 and of Nathaniel Savory one of the original settlers to which is added a short supplement dealing with the islands after their occupation by the Japanese.
By Lionel Berners Cholmondeley, M.A.

London: Constable & Co. Ltd., 1915.

      Less a comprehensive history of the Bonin Islands than it is a biography of one of the Americans who helped to establish a colony in the Bonins in 1830 – Nathaniel Savory. Yet, this book provides a unique view of the life of the colony in the 19th century through Savory's correspondence.

      Descriptions of the Bonin and Volcano Islands.