The Conquest of Europe by the Pacific Empire: A Fairy Tale

By Jay Maclean

Today, the Pacific islands reflect the best and worst in western society. On the one hand are the bravery and persistence of early European navigators, missionaries, and government officers; the early, well-meaning efforts by many westerners to help the islanders become ‘civilized’; the assistance readily given in times of natural disasters; and the grants and concessional loans to help Pacific countries develop into independent economic entities, to name but a few. On the other hand are the persistence in demolishing the islanders’ tropical culture and turning them into unwilling citizens or dependents of temperate countries, like puppets; the arrogance of assuming that modern western democracy and societal norms, which date back but a few generations, must replace the islanders’ far longer-standing societies; and the continuation of all these efforts to westernize them and their countries in the face of growing awareness in those Pacific countries of the value of their own well tried-and-tested lifestyles—to name but a few.

What if history had gone another way? What if the Pacific islanders had taken over Europe instead? That would have been impossible, of course, or would it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Jan 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9781537828039

Book preview

THE CONQUEST OF EUROPE BY THE PACIFIC EMPIRE

A Fairy Tale

Jay Maclean

¶

PRONOUN

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Copyright © 2017 by Jay Maclean

Interior design by Pronoun

Distribution by Pronoun

ISBN: 9781537828039

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prologue

A little history

A momentous invasion and response

The retaliation

Knowing the enemy

Starting the campaign

A remarkable voyage around the world

The Conquest of England

Interrogations

The elders meet the philosophers

A new direction for England

The news spreads

The redevelopment of England

Beginning of dissent

How the Pacific empire dealt with dissent

Independence and the tapa treaty

The decline of England

Foreseen and unforeseen consequences

A revision and reversal of history

Epilogue

More by Jay Maclean

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Cover: Samoan tapa cloth, 1890s (Wikipedia Commons)

PROLOGUE

TODAY, THE PACIFIC ISLANDS REFLECT the best and worst in western society. On the one hand are the bravery and persistence of early European navigators, missionaries, and government officers; the early, well-meaning efforts by many westerners to help the islanders become ‘civilized’; the assistance readily given in times of natural disasters; and the grants and concessional loans to help Pacific countries develop into independent economic entities, to name but a few. On the other hand are the persistence in demolishing the islanders’ tropical culture and turning them into unwilling citizens or dependents of temperate countries, like puppets; the arrogance of assuming that modern western democracy and societal norms, which date back but a few generations, must replace the islanders’ far longer-standing societies; and the continuation of all these efforts to westernize them and their countries in the face of growing awareness in those Pacific countries of the value of their own well tried-and-tested lifestyles—to name but a few.

What if history had gone another way? What if the Pacific islanders had taken over Europe instead? That would have been impossible, of course, or would it?

A LITTLE HISTORY

IN THE DAYS BEFORE TIME, that is before time could be accurately measured, the Pacific Ocean and its islands comprised nearly the whole known world, according to the legends of the first people, the Primesians, to occupy the islands of this ocean. The islands of their empire covered hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. Their tiny lands and the vast seas they crossed from one to another made up a huge empire ruled by a council of elders that, because of the distances between islands, only met once every five years. It was, in size, the biggest empire that the world has ever known.

Beyond the empire, were some islands in the far west, whose inhabitants were not great seafarers. Occasionally one of their strange sailing canoes was blown into the empire’s ocean. From these visits, the empire learned that the western islands were similar to theirs, though much bigger and only a few among their peoples bothered to take to the sea. The islanders of the empire, seeing no harm in them, gave them food and water and allowed them to stay until favorable winds would carry them back. Their islands were too far away to consider any kind of alliance.

In the east, there was said to be a large island beyond the edge of the ocean that stretched far to the north and to the south with mountains rising higher than any in the empire. No one in the empire knew any more than that.

Centuries ago, the elders commissioned Artemi, the greatest navigator in the empire, to find the island in the east to learn whether it posed any future threat to the empire or, if uninhabited, could be made part of the empire.

Artemi was said to have been an unprepossessing islander, neither of grand stature nor a weakling. His hair was long but not very wavy; his skin was the color of honey. He wore a short loin cloth like all the men on his island. What set him apart was the fire behind his dark eyes, the fire that lit up and threw out sparks whenever the prospect of exploration was raised. He was an extraordinary navigator, the founder of the empire’s modern navigation techniques. By observing a single leaf in the water, he could tell how far and from which direction it had come and so could name the island on which it grew. No wonder he was chosen to find the almost mythical island in the east.

The account of Artemi’s voyage became a favorite legend around the empire, related up to this day by travelers from island to island, by citizens from house to house, and by parents to children. It has a bearing on our story so it is worth repeating here.

A date for the voyage, when the winds and currents would be favorable, was chosen by the elders. Artemi set off with a small group of sailors to much fanfare on four well-stocked double canoes, each equipped with several sets of sails and oars. The explorers traveled ever eastward, sometimes following currents, scudding along before a storm, or rowing against a gale.

There are legendary stories of their bravery. They encountered seas bigger and more formidable that any sailors before them; storms that threatened to break apart their canoes; and winds that tore sails from the masts. Different story tellers in different islands have made much of these adventures and of the prowess and endurance of individual sailors and of Artemi, who kept their spirits up as they sailed further and further into the unknown. The history of the empire has always been passed down from generation to generation in story form. Some story tellers can keep an audience enthralled for several days in describing the details of the harrowing crossing of the Pacific Ocean by Artemi and his fellow sailors with the ocean. We will pass over these accounts, because a greater voyage was in store for the empire, one on a far grander scale. Had it failed, this story could not have been written.

So it was that after nearly five moons, the sailors spied the mountainous island, its peaks hidden in clouds that formed a white cap as far as they could see to the north and south.

The sailors hauled their canoes up a deserted beach. Venturing inland, they soon realized it was inhabited. Before them were groups of people working in a field. These people were of much the same appearance as themselves in the color of their skin and hair; their clothing was the small loin cloth that islanders use, and their tools were similarly made of stone and wood.

They made the exhausted sailors welcome; gifts were exchanged and the sailors were led to a large village in the mountains where they were astonished to see massive pyramid-shaped temples built of stone. The temples were a great source of wonder to them because there was nothing like them in the empire and because they saw no purpose in such huge edifices; only a very few people were allowed to enter them. The islanders of the empire lived with nature, encroaching as little as was necessary on the land and always took care to appease any gods of the forests and shores that might be upset by their actions.

As they stood gazing at these massive monuments, the strangers suddenly seized them and dragged them into a clearing in the middle of the village, where they were tied together and displayed to the villagers. Before long, the whole population of the village had gathered to look and jeer at them. Then, in a horrific ceremony at the foot of one of the stone pyramids, some were tortured, killed and eaten; the others were made slaves.

In this condition, the survivors, including Artemi, endured more than three moons of cruel treatment. During their captivity, they carefully watched not only their captors but also the winds. As soon as the winds that had brought them to this land had turned to make the long journey back across the Pacific, Artemi made plans for their escape. This wind, they knew, was a wind that would be willing to carry westward any sailors who asked for its favors during the next four or five moons; and it would take that long to reach the homeland of the captive sailors.

About this time there was a gathering of several tribes in the hostile island to celebrate the change of season. The celebration was to be held in a large square between two of the pyramids. Preparations were being made for an elaborate feast and the captives felt sure they were part of the menu. They noticed that the noise and activities of the villagers as tables and decorations were being set up were distracting their guards who, in any case believed there was nowhere the captives could go where they could not easily be rounded up again.

They were not a seafaring population and did not think an escape by sea was possible. They had no inkling of the endurance and navigation skills of the empire’s warriors. And so the guards did not notice in the noise and confusion that a signal from Artemi had passed from one sailor to another; the remaining 60 sailors crept out of their lodgings and made their way stealthily but swiftly back to the coast undetected.

They found their boats near the shore, washed up by storms into the sand dunes; they were all damaged and one of the four had broken up in the waves.

To their captors, the coast was obviously a hostile area; their spirit leaders had placed stone images on the beaches facing the sea. It was apparent that these were gods whose duty it was to protect the inhabitants from whatever fearsome creatures might emerge from the waves. Thus, they did not destroy the islanders’ boats, they simply ignored them.

The escapee sailors were overjoyed to find water containers intact among the wrecks. Some rushed to fill them from a nearby stream; others quickly explored all the boats and, choosing the one in best condition, dug and lifted, heaved and pushed until it was free of the sand and faced down the beach. Before long, before their guards realized that they had gone, their vessel was repaired and afloat. They loaded it with pieces of rigging, fishing gear and whatever else might be useful from the other boats, took some of the stone gods as proof of their visit, and set sail for their long journey home.

Needless to say, they arrived to a heroes’ welcome. Their report, that the inhabitants of the great island to the east were hostile and built massive temples, but posed no threat to the empire, was received with a mix of relief and satisfaction by the elders, though with disappointment that there was no prospect of trade or taking over the island to become part of the empire.

Some of the empire’s spirit leaders, hearing the sailors’ descriptions of the temples, took them aside and pressed them for more details. The gods of those people must be very powerful to make the people build such huge temples, they said secretly among themselves. Therefore their spirit leaders must be very powerful, more powerful than their elders. We must follow their example to make our empire stronger.

Thereafter, the empire entered what was later called the ‘stone age,’ for these spirit leaders persuaded the elders that there was much to be gained by adopting the stone gods that the Artemi expedition brought back and emulating the big stone pyramids they had all heard described in wonder.

By trial and error, huge slabs were hewn from mountainsides on the high islands or cut from the old coral beds that formed the low islands. Building the pyramids taxed the engineering skills of the islanders, who persisted only because they knew it was possible—somehow. They were urged on by spirit leaders and as the news spread from island to island, few wanted to be left behind. Most made new stone gods whose appearance was gradually modified according to the fancy of the masons, sometimes becoming more animal-like than the human-shaped images brought back by Artemi.

After completion of a pyramid, the island’s spirit leader took charge of its use, first by selecting a few close friends to become the elite disciples who alone were allowed to enter its grounds. There followed demands for sacrifices, not human, but of a portion of each harvest of fish, fruit, or game in order to satisfy the god or gods within the pyramid.

As they hoped, the spirit leaders became the islanders’ de facto rulers, their authority exceeding that of the elders in all but trivial matters, for surely the gods were responsible for the islanders’ welfare and were not the spirit leaders their voice?

Everyone settled back to await the promised benefits from these temples that the spirit leaders promised. True, an occasional fish catch exceeded their expectations or a yam harvest attained a record level and such phenomena, along with regular feasts prescribed by the gods, kept the religious fervor surrounding the pyramids alive. Yet, sometimes the crops failed or the fish were nowhere to be found; typhoons still ravaged islands. It did not take many years for the more astute elders and villagers to realize that what they were seeing were the same ups and downs of harvests and the same numbers of damaging storms as before the pyramid temples were built. They were no better off than before the great efforts they had made to attract the stone gods.

Gradually, attendance at the temples fell, sacrificial offerings dwindled, feasts were discontinued. The spirit leaders evidently could not be relied on to help the islanders and when they turned their attention back to the elders they remembered the wisdom and care that the elders had always offered. The pyramids fell into disrepair; over decades and centuries, earthquakes and storms finally leveled them, leaving scattered slabs that were soon overgrown and assimilated into the substance of the islands.

~

With the decline of the Stone Age, the empire entered a period of peace that bordered on complacency. With the lands beyond its boundaries being so distant and their inhabitants posing