Gazelle Peninsula

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Gazelle Peninsula
Tavurvur volcano edit.jpg
The Tavurvur volcano on Blanche Bay
Geographical location
Gazelle Peninsula (Papua New Guinea)
Gazelle Peninsula
Coordinates 4 ° 14 '15 "  S , 152 ° 12' 40"  O Coordinates: 4 ° 14 '15 "  S , 152 ° 12' 40"  O
Waters 1 Pacific Ocean
Tavurvur volcano 1.jpg
Ash deposits on the Tavurvur

The Gazelle Peninsula is the northeastern part of the Bismarck Archipelago in the Pacific island of New Britain ( colonial German Neupommern) in Papua New Guinea . The peninsula is part of the East New Britain Province . It got its name after the German warship SMS  Gazelle , which visited Blanche Bay in the northeast on an expedition in August 1875 and measured the natural harbor. As early as 1872, the English HMS Blanche had stayed in the bay after which it was named ( Blanche Bay , later Germanized to Blanche Bai or Blanche Bay). The Simpson Harbor in the rear was named after the ship's commander, Captain Cortland Simpson ( Simpson Harbor ). Due to favorable ecological-geological conditions, the Gazelle Peninsula is one of the very old settlement areas of the Bismarck Archipelago.

geography

One of the so-called beehives in Blanche Bay (watercolor around 1890 by Joachim Graf Pfeil )

Topology and geology

The Gazelle Peninsula begins in the southwest on the isthmus of New Britain, which in turn is bounded by the Open Bay and the Henry Reid Bay. The easternmost tip of the peninsula is Cape Gazelle, which protrudes into the St. George's Channel . The area is mostly mountainous with elevations mostly at 1000 meters and above. In the center of the peninsula is Mount Sinewit at 2,438 meters above sea level. The main part of the land area is formed by the Baining Mountains , which are named after the Baining ethnic group who live in them . They begin in the northwest at a short distance from the coast and extend over the green interior to the southeast coast near the Great Bai (Wide Bay) . In front of them are fertile and water-rich plains in the north and west that were used by immigrant Europeans in the 19th century to create plantations .

The region is volcanically active. Your crater landscape lies on a headland (also called crater peninsula), which encloses the Blanche Bay (Blanche Bay) in the northern part. The most important craters are the mother ( Mount Kombiu , 685 m. Above sea ​​level), northern daughter ( Mount Tovanumbatir , 539 m. Above sea ​​level) and southern daughter ( Mount Turanguna , 494 m. Above sea ​​level). The most famous volcano today is the Tavurvur (formerly Ghaie ). It was created when his mother broke out in February 1878.

Blanche Bay is a large caldera with numerous eruption sites and fumaroles . On its western side is the Raluan volcano . When the mother erupted in February 1878, an island (volcanic island or Volcanic Island ) was created here, which was raised during a later eruption of the Tavuvur (1937), was itself volcanically active and connected to the mainland by a headland. Oral tradition of the Tolai also said that the port island of Matupi was created by volcanic activity. To the west of it are the "beehives" ( Beehives or Dawapia Rocks ), two conical rock islands made of tuff .

In the sea area north of the crater peninsula there is a large submarine caldera. This “Tavui Caldera” has an extension of about 10 to 12 kilometers. It was discovered in 1985 during oceanographic survey work. Their last volcanic activity dates back around 5000 years.

history

European Discovery and Early Trade Relations

Early map of the Gazelle Peninsula after measurements by the SMS Gazelle and the captains H. Brück, E. Hernsheim and JT Blohm (Friederichsen, Hamburg, 1879)

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Gazelle Peninsula was still unknown in Europe. It was not until the 1830s that whaling ships from the United States and Hawaii occasionally visited the northeastern coast. They exchanged fresh provisions for European semi-finished goods. Most of the trade with the islanders took place on the ships and was mostly peaceful.

In April 1873, captain Georg Christoph Levison landed in Blanche Bay in the north of the peninsula, two Englishmen who were to work as the first stationary traders for the Hamburg company JC Godeffroy & Sohn . However, due to abuses, the men could not hold out and had to flee to the neighboring Duke of York Islands after a three-month stay . Here they were picked up by a trading schooner.

In the second half of 1875, the English Reverend George Brown founded a station on Amakada Island ( Duke of York Island ) for the Wesleyan Mission (Australia ). From there he initiated the missionary work on the Gazelle Peninsula. Around the same time, the German merchant captain Eduard Hernsheim set up a branch in the north of Duke of York Island. Through his agent JT Blohm, he opened an outpatient swap (turtle shell for glass beads and cotton items) on the northern beaches of the Gazelle Peninsula and in Blanche Bay. The Scottish captain Edward Milne founded the first permanent station for the trading company Capelle & Co (Marshall Islands) at the turn of the year 1875/76 in the village of Nodup (Beridni district).

Captain Levison returned to the island of Mioko (Duke of York Islands) the following July and brought some European traders from Samoa with whom he opened the business for Godeffroy & Son on a "grand scale". On a trip towards the end of the month Levison discovered a bay with an anchorage in the Kabaira district (Gazelle Peninsula), which he named " Weber Harbor" in honor of his superior Theodor Weber . Here erected Godeffroy & Sohn a trading post by the Center made its activities in the island territory to the bankruptcy of the company (1879-80).

The company Hernsheim & Co , which had now been founded , relocated its headquarters from Duke-of-York to the port island of Matupi (Blanche Bay) in July 1879 . An already existing branch in the north was expanded into a trading post. In the following years, a second trading post for Hernsheim & Co was established on the eastern edge of Matupis , which from April 1883 also temporarily housed the Imperial German Consulate.

At the beginning of the 1880s, Hernsheim & Co had a total of seven trading stations with European ladders in Blanche Bay and the Birara district. The business of the Deutsche Handels- und Plantagengesellschaft (successor company of Godeffroy & Sohn ) concentrated with a total of five stations on the northern beaches and the weaver port of the Gazelle peninsula.

First plantation construction

Supported by the tropical planter Richard Parkinson , the Irishman Thomas Farrell began the first systematic plantation construction in November 1882 . Initial attempts at intensive cotton and coffee farming in the Birara district failed. Because of questionable land grabbing in the hinterland of Ralum and illegal introduction of plantation workers, Farrell came under criticism from English and German authorities. As a result of his death (March 1888), his company went bankrupt. After searching in vain for a buyer, Farrell's widow Emma Forsayth decided to continue under his own name, EE Forsayth , with a new headquarters in Guanantambu (near Herbertshöhe, today Kokopo ). Despite an aggressive expansion policy, the plantation branch of the company still posted losses in 1909. For this reason, among other things, EE Forsayth was sold to the Hamburgische Südsee-Aktiengesellschaft (HASAG).

Hernsheim & Co consistently refused to build a plantation on the Gazelle Peninsula. Under the manager for the Bismarck Archipelago, Maximilian Thiel, the company only planted a coconut plantation near Rabaul, which did not involve clearing or planting cotton as a previous crop. Other companies operating on the peninsula also switched to this more extensive type of farming at the beginning of the 20th century.

Residents and languages

The residents belong to the Tolai and Baining ethnic groups . Several languages ​​are spoken on the peninsula, first and foremost Kuanua , the main language of the Tolai. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Creole language Unserdeutsch emerged on the Gazelle Peninsula .

  • Life on the Gazelle Peninsula

  • Tolai live in the lowlands, the Baining in the mountains

  • Village on the port island of Matupi (around 1910)

  • Medical advice in the city of Rabaul (2010)

  • Tolai dancers (1918)

  • Baining Fire Dancers in the Mountains (2008)

  • Women from the Gazelle Peninsula (1890)

  • Men from the Gazelle Peninsula (1890)

Attractions

British forces control access to Blanche Bay in 1918
Bombing of the port of Rabaul by US forces during World War II
Situation of the Japanese occupation 1942–43

The main attraction of the Gazelle Peninsula is the port area, which was the scene of various war events in the 20th century.

Economy and Infrastructure

Agriculture, fishing and commerce

The most important export good of the Gazelle Peninsula until the outbreak of the First World War was the copra (dried coconut meat). At the end of the period there were only intensively cultivated plantations at the Herbertshöhe ( Kokopo ) and Ralum settlements. Until 1910, the so-called “commercial copra” still outweighed the “plantation copra” in exports. The poorly productive cotton cultivation of German New Guinea was also concentrated on the peninsula . From the turn of the century tobacco and a few fruits were also exported. Most recently, a New Guinea Company sawmill was in operation on the east coast (Matla), which processed local timber. Sea products such as trepang and tortoise shell traditionally played a subordinate role in the foreign trade of the Gazelle Peninsula. The fishing industry as a whole also mainly supplied the regional market. Similarly, the domestically cultivated taro was essentially used to feed the population. The clay soils in the Baining Mountains offer good conditions for cultivation.

With the support of the World Bank , after the destruction of Rabaul (see below), a large-scale development concept was introduced for the northeast area of ​​the peninsula. The port economy is currently the main source of income. Other main industries are agriculture and tourism.

Main places

The most significant settlement provided for a long time the port area of the former provincial capital Rabaul is. At the outbreak of the Tavurvur in 1994 Rabaul was buried under ashes and rebuilt elsewhere. Since then Kokopo (until 1914: Herbertshöhe ) has been the capital of the province of East New Britain . This settlement is located in the northeast of the peninsula. It was the seat of the governor of German New Guinea from 1899 to 1910 .

The Matupi peninsula is traditionally inhabited and can be reached either by boat or by road. Other significant settlements are mainly in the coastal areas and flat areas.

Transportation

Due to the developed road network, the areas in the interior of the island are well developed. There is a branched public transport system (PMV), which is supplemented by buses from some hotel companies. Tokua Airport is located south of Blanche Bay, at the headland of Cape Gazelle.

Observation of volcanic activity

As a consequence of the devastating eruption of the Tavurvur in 1937, the Rabaul Volcanological Observatory (RVO) was built to monitor volcanic activities on the side slope of the northern subsidiary . During the Japanese occupation, the facility was destroyed and rebuilt by seismologist Takashi Kizawa on Sulfur Creek . However, it was destroyed again in Allied bombings. The present observation station was built on the initiative of the Australian government in 1950 by GAM Taylor on the Observatory Ridge . It has been operated by the Geological Survey Division (GSD) of Papua New Guinea since 1975 .

literature

  • Jakob Anderhandt: Eduard Hernsheim, the South Seas and a lot of money . Biography in 2 volumes. MV Science, Münster 2012.
  • Andreas Leipold: The first year of the Hamburg South Sea Expedition in German New Guinea (1908–1909) . Book on Demand, Norderstedt 2013, ISBN 978-3-95656-037-8 ( reading sample in the Google book search - master's thesis 2006, University of Bayreuth).
  • Horst founder : Papua New Guinea: one last Christian utopia . In: Franz-Joseph Post u. a. (Ed.): Christian message of salvation and worldly power - studies on the relationship between mission and colonialism (=  Europe-overseas ). tape 14 . LIT Verlag, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-7366-8 , p. 105–126 ( excerpt from page 107 in the Google book search - on proselytizing the Gazelle Peninsula around 1900).
  • Richard Parkinson : In the Bismarck Archipelago - Experiences and observations on the island of New Pomerania (New Britain) . F. A. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1887 ( searchable in the Google book search - Parkinson, 1844–1909, was a German South Sea explorer and planter on the Gazelle Peninsula).
  • Joachim Graf Pfeil : Studies and Observations from the South Seas . Friedrich Vieweg and son, Braunschweig 1899.
  • P. Jos. Meier, MSC: Myths and stories of the coastal inhabitants of the Gazelle Peninsula (New Pomerania). Recorded in Urtex and translated into German. Aschendorffsche Buchhandlung, Münster 1909, p. XII, 291 (Collection Internationale de Monographes Ethnologiques. Bibliotheque Anthropos Bibliothek. Tome / Volume I, 1. Fasc./Heft. International Collection of Ethnological Monographs.).
  • A research trip in the Bismarck Archipelago . In: Hans Vogel, Georg Thilenius (Hrsg.): Hamburg Scientific Foundation . L. Friederichsen, Hamburg 1911 ( searchable in the Google book search).
  • History of the discovery of New Guinea 1828–1885 . In: Arthur Wichmann (Ed.): Nova Guinea . tape 2 , no. 1 . EJ Brill, Leiden 1910.

English:

  • George Brown: Pioneer-Missionary and Explorer: a narrative of forty-eight years' residence and travel in Samoa, New Britain, New Ireland, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands . Hodder & Stoughton, London 1908.
  • Alastair C. Gray: Trading Contacts in the Bismarck Archipelago during the Whaling Era, 1799-1884. In: Journal of Pacific History , Volume 34 (1999), pp. 23-43.
  • Margaret Reeson: Pacific Missionary George Brown 1835–1917: Wesleyan Methodist Church . Australian National University E-Press, Canberra 2013.
  • Peter Sack: German New Guinea: A reluctant plantation colony? In: Journal de la Société des Océanistes . tape 42 , no. 82-83 . Société des Océanistes, Paris 1986, p. 109–127 , doi : 10.3406 / jso.1986.1932 (online and download (currently not available)).
  • Heinz Schütte: The Six Day War of 1878 in the Bismarck Archipelago . In: Journal of Pacific History , Volume 24 (1989), pp. 38-53.

Web links

Commons : Gazelle Peninsula  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files
Commons : Rabaul  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hydrographic Office of the Reich Marine Office (ed.): The research trip SMS "Gazelle" in the years 1874 to 1876: under the command of Captain See Freiherrn von Schleinitz. Volume 1: First part: The travel report. Mittler, Berlin, 1889, p. 239 ff. See also: [Bartholomäus] von Werner: A German warship in the South Seas. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1889, p. 391.
  2. ↑ Richard Parkinson: Thirty Years in the South Seas: Country and People, Manners and Customs in the Bismarck Archipelago and on the German Solomon Islands . Strecker & Schröder, Stuttgart 1907, p. 850.
  3. ↑ Karl Sapper , Krauss: Baining Mountains. In: Heinrich Schnee (Ed.): German Colonial Lexicon , source and Meyer, Leipzig 1920, Volume 1, p. 117 f.
  4. ^ Arthur Wichmann: Nova Guinea: Vol. II. History of the discovery of New Guinea 1828–1885 . Bookstore and printer EJ Brill, Leiden 1910, p. 250.
  5. ^ Arthur Wichmann: Nova Guinea: Vol. II. History of the discovery of New Guinea 1828–1885 . Bookstore and printer EJ Brill, Leiden 1910, p. 250 and Pacific Islands Monthly , June 1937, p. 9 f.
  6. ↑ George Brown: Pioneer-Missionary and Explorer: a narrative of forty-eight years' residence and travel in Samoa, New Britain, New Ireland, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands . Hodder & Stoughton, London 1908, p. 93.
  7. ↑ According to the surviving logbooks of American whalers, only a little more than 1 percent of all documented contacts ended in violence. See Alastair C. Gray: Trading Contacts in the Bismarck Archipelago during the Whaling Era, 1799-1884. In: Journal of Pacific History , Volume 34, 1999, pp. 23–43.
  8. ↑ Richard Parkinson: In the Bismarck Archipelago: Experiences and observations on the island of New Pomerania (New Britain) . Brockhaus, Leipzig 1887, p. 850.
  9. ^ William T. Wawn: The South Sea Islanders and the Queensland Labor Trade: Edited, with an Introduction by Peter Corris . In: Pacific History Series, number 5. Australian National University Press, Canberra 1973, pp. Xxvi; Jakob Anderhandt: Eduard Hernsheim, the South Seas and a lot of money. Biography in 2 volumes. MV-Wissenschaft, Münster 2012, Volume 1, pp. 135 f .; Eduard Hernsheim: Memoirs (unpublished) Hamburg State Archives, Hernsheim Family Archives, p. 43.
  10. ↑ A comprehensive account of this missionary work is provided by George Brown's autobiography: Pioneer-Missionary and Explorer: a narrative of forty-eight years' residence and travel in Samoa, New Britain, New Ireland, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands . Hodder & Stoughton, London 1908.
  11. ↑ Jakob Anderhandt: Eduard Hernsheim, the South Seas and a lot of money. Biography in 2 volumes. MV-Wissenschaft, Münster 2012, Volume 1, pp. 144–146.
  12. ^ G. Brown: Journal 1874-1876. (unpublished) Mitchell Library, Sydney CY 2759, July 11, 1876.
  13. ^ Arthur Wichmann: Nova Guinea: Vol. II. History of the discovery of New Guinea 1828–1885 . EJ Brill, Leiden 1910, p. 226.
  14. ↑ Jakob Anderhandt: Eduard Hernsheim, the South Seas and a lot of money. Biography in 2 volumes. MV-Wissenschaft, Münster 2012, Volume 1, p. 285, and Volume 2, pp. 418-420 and 100 (passim).
  15. ↑ Jakob Anderhandt: Eduard Hernsheim, the South Seas and a lot of money. Biography in 2 volumes. MV-Wissenschaft, Münster 2012, Volume 2, Table pp. 579–585.
  16. ↑ For Parkinson's travel dates, see this: In the Bismarck Archipelago: Experiences and observations on the island of New Pomerania (New Britain) . Brockhaus, Leipzig 1887, p. 8.
  17. ^ E. Hernsheim: Diaries. (unpublished) Hamburg State Archives, Hernsheim Family Archives, April 22, 1883 and June 12, 1884.
  18. ↑ See the reports of the Imperial Commissioner Gustav v. Oertzen from the years 1885 and 1886 in the files The branches in Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land (New Guinea) and in the Bismarck (New Britannia) archipelago. May 1885 – January 1886, RKA 2803–2806, unpublished, Federal Archives Berlin-Lichterfelde.
  19. ↑ Jakob Anderhandt: Eduard Hernsheim, the South Seas and a lot of money. Biography in 2 volumes. MV-Wissenschaft, Münster 2012, Volume 2, p. 260.
  20. ↑ Peter Sack: German New Guinea: a reluctant plantation colony? In: Journal de la Société des océanistes , No. 82–83, Volume 42 (1986), pp. 109–127, here: p. 119.
  21. ↑ Jakob Anderhandt: Eduard Hernsheim, the South Seas and a lot of money. Biography in 2 volumes. MV-Wissenschaft, Münster 2012, Volume 2, p. 448 f.
  22. ↑ Peter Sack: German New Guinea: a reluctant plantation colony? In: Journal de la Société des océanistes , No. 82–83, Volume 42 (1986), pp. 109–127, here: pp. 119 and 110.
  23. ↑ Hans Vogel: A research trip in the Bismarck archipelago. L. Friederichsen & Co., Hamburg 1911, p. 161.
  24. ^ Louis Rothschild: L. Rothschilds paperback for merchants . 42nd edition. GA Gloeckner, Leipzig 1900, pp. 631-632.
  25. ↑ Hans Vogel: A research trip in the Bismarck archipelago. L. Friederichsen, Hamburg 1911, p. 134.