ANTHROPOPHAGI IN NEW-YORK AND OTHER VOYAGERS

Authors

Maria Lepowsky, University of Wisconsin, MadisonFollow

Abstract

This chapter continues the exploration of maritime cultures of contact by following the post-shipwreck adventures of voyagers in the Pacific in the nineteenth century. The chapter also examines the literary and cultural afterlives of Pacific travel narratives, particularly those of Benjamin Morrell and Thomas Jacobs, whose depictions of islanders influenced canonical works by Poe and Melville. These narratives reveal the contradictory perceptions American sailors held of Pacific peoples—ranging from “cannibal savages” to noble and intelligent individuals—and the enduring tropes of the “noble savage” and “civilized native.” By tracing these voyages and representations, the chapter highlights the early emergence of a global Pacific and the shared, though asymmetrical, technologies of contact that shaped both indigenous and imperial worlds.

Recommended Citation

Lepowsky, Maria (2015) "ANTHROPOPHAGI IN NEW-YORK AND OTHER VOYAGERS," Pacific Studies Journal: Vol. 38: No. 1, Article 2.
Available at: https://digitalcollections.byuh.edu/pacific-studies-journal/vol38/iss1/2