DURING the Age of Exploration many foreigners came to the islands of the Pacific: English, Russians, Americans, Dutch, French, Spanish. They learned a great deal about the life and culture of islanders and the islanders learned a lot from them.
One of the mistakes historians and anthropologists make is to focus on one direction of the two-way street. The history of disease exchange, for example, often looks at illnesses that ravaged island populations but very little work has been done on Pacific diseases that affected Europeans.
In our trove of writings we have a memoir of a physician, Dr. John Coulter, who spent a great deal of time among islanders. Through the pages of his account, “Adventures in the Pacific,” the cultural exchange is fascinating.
One of his earliest run-ins did not involve islanders at all. Coulter was fighting a scurvy epidemic aboard ship when he got the idea that walking around on dry land was a cure for the dreaded disease. They stopped at the Galapagos Islands where Coulter headed into the bush for a stroll. He kept walking, over prairie and through jungle. He swam across bodies of water and even stumbled upon an abandoned settlement complete with the skeleton of its builder.
After quite some time he returned to the encampment on the beach only to find the ship was gone, along with the entire crew and most of the materials they had brought ashore. Feeling betrayed and wondering what he had done to deserve this abandonment, Coulter rummaged around looking for anything that might aid in his survival. He found a note written by the captain which explained that the ship had come loose from its anchor and drifted away in the current. They were chasing after it but it might take some time before they could overtake it and, as there was no time to waste, they could not wait for the doctor.
It felt better knowing that he was not left behind in a spirit of bitterness. Just the same, he was on his own until the crew regained the ship and sailed back for him, if they ever did. What if it took so long to catch the ship that they figured it was not worth turning back for him? What if they never caught it at all? They would all be doomed.
Coulter was not left to his own ingenuity for survival. The captain left a care package that included a frying pan, gunpowder and shot, food and clothes. As long as he was smart he could do quite well.
We can only imagine what went through his mind in the days that followed. Was this his final home? Would he see the ship again? How long would it take for their return, if they came at all? The thoughts lingered for two weeks when his mates returned. They had not abandoned their physician after all.
Dr. Coulter’s accidental marooning on the Galapagos prepared him for some of the experiences that lay in store for him. His greatest adventures involved islanders, as we shall see.
Dr. BC Cook taught history for 30 years and is a director and Pacific historian at Sealark Exploration (sealarkexploration.org). He currently lives in Hawaii.
