Cannibalism In African Americans

when they saw the indigenous women were “Derected by the Men to Stand in Prow of their Canoes& Expose their Bodys Naked to our View as our man is in good Health& Spirits,” the Europeans did not know how to make sense of this behavior. They tried to use their own European social model to claim that these women were sexually driven and close to the natural status. However, this was not the case. The society in the South Pacific such as Tahiti, respect high ranked people such as the priest or the gods. Sex was a powerful force and “associated with the fertility of the ancestors and the fecundity of local resource.” When the indigenous women first saw the white Europeans, they thought that they were gods or had the images of gods. Therefore,

they were naked to show respect to the gods. Nevertheless, the Europeans failed to know this and thought that these women were just prostitutes.
Cannibalism was another great example of misrepresentations.

The voyages recorded the practice of cannibalism, but these records were very ambiguous. For example, Cook saw “the body of a dead woman floating on the water” and found some human bones in the food basket. Cook questioned the natives. They answered, “the bones of a man” and asked Cook, “have you eat the flesh?” Cook then wondered that the South Sea people practiced cannibalism. However, it was not that simple. Anne Salmond said, “in the Society Islands it was the gods rather than people who consumed the spirits of enemies.” It was very possible that Tupaia actually considered cannibalism to be “blasphemous.” Nevertheless, the Europeans failed to understand this complex ideology behind

cannibalism.
When the voyages came back to England, the Protestants thought that the South Islanders were very immoral. According to Christianity, prostitution was unethical and prohibited. For example, an anonymous Protestant said that Hawkes Worth’s Voyages corrupted the English women and claimed, “Stronger excitements to vicious Indulgences than the most intriguing French Novel.” James Morrison in Tahiti said, “A woman is not ashamed to show her limbs at a dance, or when bathing, if they are perfect; if they are not, she will be seen as much as possible, and tho the Men and Women frequently bathe together.” In other word, Morrison thought that the natives did not know anything about morals. For cannibalism, the missionaries also regarded “these practices as crimes against nature.” The Protestants concluded that the South Pacific was a backward area. The Indigenous people did not know how to move forward again. Around the same time, as Thorne and Wilson mentioned, the birth of missions was to answer the political crisis. The Protestantism presented itself as a universal religion that promoted truth and liberty. All people could enjoy this religion. The Protestant missionaries had to clean up all the savage nations in the world. In their mind, they just want to save the Indigenous people from the barbarians and civilize the natives; in their mind, they were all doing something moral to demonstrate their Britishness. This moral ascendancy was part of the British national identity. When they knew of the corruptions of the South Sea, they decided to go there to “save the debased savage.”
Burder in Sermon II clearly demonstrated that the British missionaries had to go to the South Pacific because of the savage there. In the beginning of his writing, Burder already stated that millions of souls had a “lack of knowledge.” The natives still practiced “their mistaken traditions.” For example, Burder thought, “Human Sacrifices, as before observed, are still common in the South Sea Islands.” The natives also needed the missionaries to save them. Burder suggested that it was not right that the Protestants “remain in Britain, while such vast numbers of our fellow creatures claim our pity, and our exertions abroad.” They should go to the South Sea, so they could bring civilization to the South Sea people and convert them become Christians because only “the Gospel civilizes as well as saves.” This document explains how the misrepresentations motivated the missionaries. Burder probably did not really understand the South Pacific. He only took the misrepresentations from the voyages. By using his Protestant standards, he argued that the South Pacific was a savage area. In order to show the British moral ascendancy and to save the savages there, he advocated the missionaries to go to the South Sea. This action would show the advance British moral ground since only Protestantism or Britain could civilize the natives.
The missionaries went to the South Pacific because they wanted to show the British middle class values. Niel noticed, “The Evangelical missionaries to the South Seas belonged to the lower middle class.” In the early 19th century, the lower middle class had acquired skills and cultivated middle-class attitudes. Although the lower middle class was not very educated, various social institutions still provided education to them. In this kind of education, they did not become completely Evangelical. Ebenezer Elliott, an English poet, wrote “O lift the workman’s heart and mind. Above low sensual sin! Give him a home! The home of taste! Outbid the house of gain.” This poem depicts that the lower middle class wanted to “escape from the shackles of social bondage.” They were not satisfied for being the lower class. During that time, when a class could not move upward in the social hierarchy, “respectability became a much more important distinguishing mark than wealth and certain of independence were aimed at.” In order to gain respect from the society, they chose to practice Protestantism. Protestantism suggested hard working as a religious mission. If a man was an industrious worker, “he might be regarded as one favored in the sight of the Lord, and his outward well-being, provided he had faith, would show that he had attained the perseverance of the saints.” In Protestantism, “A man’s worth was in his usefulness.” In other word, the business of life was a type of a salvation of the soul.
With “their basic Christian experience and zeal,” the lower middle class people chose to become missionaries.

Being a missionary could provide “the feeling that material prosperity would be both conducive to good living and a proof of spiritual progress.” Because of the misrepresentations of the South Pacific Islands, the British people believed that the Island people were lazy and Britain should civilize them. Although the lower middle class missionaries did not receive any missionary training, the missionary societies still want to send them to the South Sea because the lower middle class missionaries were “expected to instruct the people in their own particular skills.” They believed that these particular skills could civilize the South Sea and later brought “Christianization of Tahiti and the other Society Islands.” William Wilson said that they came to the South Pacific “ to do them good, by instructing them in the best and most useful things; and for this end ,some good men of our number intended to settle among them; requiring, on their part, the free gift of a piece of land sufficiently stocked with breadfruit and cocoa-nut trees and so large as to contain a garden that they would not, on any account, intermeddle in their wars, nor employ their arms but for self-defense; and at all times should live free and unmolested them.” This civilization was the version of British middle class. The lower middle class wanted to gain respect from the British society, so they

chose to become the missionaries and went to the South Pacific to introduce their middle class values to the natives. Hence, the lower middle class missionaries went to the South Pacific because they wanted to show their British middle class values.
From the late 18th century to the 19th century, the British missionaries were interested in the South Pacific because they wanted to reconstruct the British identity. The British identity they reconstructed had five elements. First, theology became a justification for the British Empire. Second, the missionaries were to establish more Protestants Church in oversea, in order to resist against Catholicism. Third, the British missionaries wanted to complete their national hero, Captain James Cook’s unfinished business. Fourth, because of the misrepresentations, the natives were depicted as savage. The British missionaries wanted to civilize these savage nations to illustrate the British moral ascendancy. Fifth, the British lower middle class tried to gain respect in Britain, so they decided to get on the mission to demonstrate their British middle class values. Therefore, because of these reasons, the birth of missions was response to the British identity crisis and to recreate another British identity.