Trading Nature: Tahitians, Europeans, and Ecological Exchange

Trading Nature: Tahitians, Europeans, and Ecological Exchange
ISBN-10
0824832817
ISBN-13
9780824832810
Category
History
Pages
312
Language
English
Published
2010-06-30
Publisher
University of Hawaii Press
Author
Jennifer Newell

Description

In August 1803 two Russian ships, the Nadezhda and the Neva, set off on a round-the-world voyage to carry out scientific exploration and collect artifacts for Alexander I's ethnographical museum in St. Petersburg. Russia's strategic concerns in the north Pacific, however, led the Russian government to include as part of the expedition and embassy to Japan, headed by statesman Nikolai Rezanov, who was given authority over the ships' commanders without their knowledge. Between them the ships carried an ethnically and socially disparate group of men: Russian educated elite, German naturalists, Siberian merchants, Baltic Naval Officers, even Japanese passengers. Upon reaching Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas archipelago on May 7, 1804, and for the next twelve days, the naval officers revolted against Rezanov's command while complex cross-cultural encounters between Russians and islanders occurred. Elena Govor recounts the voyage, reconstructing and exploring in depth the tumultuous events of the Russians' stay in Nuku Hiva; the course of the mutiny, its resolution and aftermath; and the extent and nature of the contact between Nuku Hivans and Russians. Book jacket.

Other editions

Similar books