Tailspins & Tiki Gods:Smoots Guide History
HISTORY
The Kamakama came here sometime in the 1200s, we think. We’re not sure. The Kamakama don’t tell us much, and what they do tell us seems unlikely.
Ile Trouve was originally charted by French sailors in the 1800s (who didn’t land), and was first visited by missionaries.
Ile Trouve proved to be, simultaneously, an easy and a tough nut to crack for missionaries. Missionaries coming loaded to convert natives away from cannibalism, etc, found that most of the savageries they imagined weren’t practiced in the first place. The High King of the Kamakama promptly expelled the first mission in 1836. They weren’t violent, they simply made it clear that they were to *go*, now. They tried again, with a different approach, later, and were allowed to stay. (They maintain a classic mission-style compound on the North side of the Island.)
In 1848, a party of ‘the Banished’ (political exiles after the June Uprising) were sent out here. (Since most of them were just sent to Northern Africa, these must have been something special…ly feared.)
About 1850, the French called a big piece of Polynesia a Protectorate (in order to keep it out of the hands of the Dutch, Britons, Spaniards- later Americans and even Germans.) But it was an edge-case. In disputed territories, not on any trade routes, lacking obvious natural resources, there was no call to seriously enforce the claim. The native people of Ile Trouve, the Kamakama, actually initially petitioned to be part of other, neighboring colonial powers’ territory, before the French were compelled to win them over with hefty concessions.
The initial colonists of the area were missionaries and the Banished (who, unexpectedly didn’t all die), with a robust mix of ethnicities from France’s other holdings (as far away as Madagascar and India), and visitors from other local islands (a mix of Polynesian groups), and (after the emigration waves of the mid-1800s) Chinese, Malay and even a few Japanese people).
Other parts of French Polynesia were made into full-fledged colonies when King Pomare abdicated in 1880, and simply under naval government until 1885. Ile Trouve was in a ‘grey area’ that remained under French protectorate status, but (depending on the whims of the Ministries back home) wafted between one specific island governorship’s jurisdiction and another.
Then, the Europeans combed the islands for products to sell the Chinese. This led to a triangular trade where the Europeans traded the islanders cheap whiskey, muskets and other trinkets, in exchange for sandalwood, sea cucumbers, pearls, turtle shells, etc, that were then sold to the Chinese in exchange for silk, tea, porcelain, and so on. Whalers, sealers, and assorted beachcombers washed in.
Unlike most of the local islands, there was not ample growing space on the Ile Trouve, so plantations were unlikely. There are better locations for strategic bases. It quickly became apparent that what Port Cochere had to sell was a jumping off point to even further, uncharted islands, and affordable, temporary blindness.
Other French colonial holdings have an arrangement called “the Exclusif”, in which The Mother Country monopolizes trade (and profits). Trade went on here that was illegal, not for the content, but for the simple matter that natives from British colonies were talking to natives from French ones. And Germans, and Dutch, and…. So on. It was, unofficially of course, an “Open Port”. All manner of clandestine meetings and 'time-outs from the world' happened here.
The local dignitaries (remittance men, expats, traders of all varieties) expected that the biggest defense against banditry was the general knowledge that nobody would be able to make money if the French government was called in to handle it (and with it enforce the trade monopoly, tax trade, and so on.)
There were a few blocks you wouldn’t want your kids to walk through,but on the whole, things were safe enough. Rumors of buccaneers stopping on a trip around the Horn on the long way to the pirate havens of St Mary’s and Libertatia in Madegascar abound, but surely nobody believes them. Anti-piracy flotillas never found pirates in Porte Cochere. But they did find *great* deals on goods.
The Americans had their own territories- very far away- but they came by every so often as well.
Then the Germans began to be an issue. (Yes, even this far from Europe). In 1899, Germany got control of Samoa (with the US getting American Samoa). The French and British governments were so nervous of this, that they even declared condominium over places like Vanuatu. We don’t know for sure, but we think some of them might have gone so far as trying to contact the Kamakama to win them over to their side, while they were out there. Luckily, in 1914, the Hun lost their Pacific holdings altogether.
And so, here we are. The place is chock full of people who don't want to be found, and people who come to find things. Archaeologists have wondered about what sorts of ruins the Kamakama might have up in those hills. Writers come looking for Pacific inspiration, or just the big story to jot down. Explorers come to explore, travellers for adventure. People with nowhere else to go, but all sorts of ways to get there, end up here- disgraced aristos, second-sons, old soldiers. And the trick of it is: So many have wished to keep it a secret that it has been a secret. There might be a shroud of fog around the crest of the mountains, but the deepest shadows are pulled down over the island by people.
[Future: in 1940, the whole of French Oceania votes to side with de Gaulle’s Free French government, and many islanders fight for the Allies. In turn, they are made an overseas territory in 1946, with representation in the French Senate. --Smoot]
