Claiming the Bonin Islands: Captain Beechey’s Plaque

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NARRATIVES AND DOCUMENTS Claiming the Bonin Islands: Captain Beechey’s Plaque DAVID CHAPMAN ABSTRACT In 1827, Captain Beechey arrived at what are known today as the Ogasawara Islands and quickly claimed the islands for Britain by attaching a copper plaque to a tree on Peel Island, or present-day Chichijima Island. However, this claim was later complicated by a Japanese assertion of earlier possession. In this article, I trace the provenance of the Beechey Plaque demonstrating that, although the plaque was a powerful tool of sovereignty claim over the Bonin Islands, its significance soon diminished and it became merely an object of curiosity shuffled around various private and public collections. However, I argue that the plaque requires greater recognition and attention because it was used as a symbol of sovereign claim that led to some of the earliest Anglo-Japanese diplomatic interactions and Japan’s first negotiations over sovereign territorial claim with the West. Moreover, the plaque represents territorial assertion by Britain that pinpoints the common origin for the transnational pasts of the descendants of early settlers on the main island of the Osagawara archipelago, Chichijima. Keywords: Ogasawara, Pacific, Beechey plaque, Japan, Chichijima, Britain, sovereignty My first introduction to the Beechey Plaque1 was in 2009 during a research fieldwork visit to the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands, approximately 1000 kilometres south of Tokyo (Figure 1). Whilst there, I was approached by a descendant of the original settler community of the islands to see if it was possible to acquire the plaque for display in the Visitor Centre on Chichijima, the main island in the group.2 He was a government employee working for the local board of education and this was something that he had been trying to achieve since discovering the plaque was part of the Nan Kivell Collection at the National Library of Australia (NLA) in Canberra.3 I was approached about the plaque because I was Australian and this was seen as being advantageous to this project. After some initial inquiries to the NLA I found that, although the transportation and housing would need to follow strict conditions that were aimed at preservation and protection, it would be possible to acquire the plaque and house it on the islands for a limited period. At the time of my inquiry the plaque was about to be placed in a special Nan Kivell exhibition in Canberra, meaning it would not be available for loan for an extended period. However, the library was willing to send the plaque after the exhibition was concluded once the required paperwork had been processed. This news excited my acquaintance and I passed on to him copies of the application forms necessary for having the plaque sent to Chichijima. <Insert Figure 1 around here: Figure. 1. Copper plaque commemorating Capt. F.W. Beechey taking possession of the Bonin Islands, National Library of Australia, PIC CZ 1/1/4 #A40000893.> Although the plaque never made it to Chichijima, this encounter set me on a journey to trace its path from its original location on the island to its present home in the National Library of Australia. Along the way I came to realize that the importance of the plaque as an historical artifact had been lost and I was motivated to resurrect its past so that its place in Anglo-Japanese and Pacific history and its connection to the small group of descendants of Pacific Islander and European settlers on the Ogasawara Islands could be more deeply understood and recognized. The plaque, although originally an object used to assert sovereign claim, explains the existence of a small group of descendants of Pacific Islander and European settlers on the Ogasawara Islands. The story of the Bonin Islanders, although part of Japanese history, is differentially placed within larger national narratives, and the plaque represents the beginning of this unique and important historical lineage within Japan’s trajectory as a modern nation. This article, as far as I know, provides the first account of the plaque from its initial construction and placement in 1827 to its present home in Canberra Australia. The plaque symbolizes a different historical course for a community of Japanese nationals at the same time that it signifies a point in the early history of British and Japanese diplomatic negotiations over sovereign control of a small island archipelago that was first ‘discovered’ by Japan, then ‘claimed’ by Britain and then ‘reclaimed’ by Japan. During the 1850s, Japan’s interests in reclaiming the islands began in earnest and steadily gained momentum with an attempt at reclamation in 1862 that was not opposed by Britain, but in fact encouraged.4 This first attempt was during the last years of the Tokugawa Period (1603−1867) when Japan was making early forays into the international arena and dealing with the outside world after more than two hundred years of isolation from the West. For various reasons,5 the first reclamation attempt and occupation of the islands by Japanese officials and settlers was over in 18 months, and the islands were placed in an ambiguous space where Japan forgave possession and Britain was left unsure of Japan’s intentions.6 There was another attempt in 1875 by Japan that resulted in official annexation of the islands in 1876. This was during the Meiji Period (1868−1912) at a time when Japan’s emergence as a modern nation meant delineating borders and staking territorial claims that would be officially recognized internationally. The plaque therefore represents some of the earliest contexts in which Japan had forged its way in a global context as an emerging modern nation in its own right. Some of the earliest Anglo-Japanese diplomatic interactions were in relation to the sovereign right to possession over the Bonin Islands. The plaque, although peripheral as an object in these negotiations, nevertheless powerfully represents the instrument of territorial assertion and sovereign claim that led to Japan and Britain becoming entangled in dialogue over the Bonins. Furthermore, the plaque remained on the islands for 48 years from its initial placement in 1827 until a Japanese envoy was dispatched to recover this territory in 1875. Although the plaque was merely symbolic at the time it is mentioned in relation to British claim in various accounts in both Japanese and English during this period. Symbolic Acts and Objects and the Claim of Sovereignty There is a long history of the use of symbolic acts and objects to claim sovereign right over territory by colonizing powers. In the West, the Portuguese used ceremony, religious acts and objects such as stone and marble pillars, wooden crosses and stone cairns to represent possession and claim. Such sovereign assertions were made over many geographical formations that included islands, mountains, rivers and land, and often entitlement was declared in the name of royalty. Pronouncements were made for kings and queens and the reporting of these actions were often documented through acta. In a study of the symbolic acts used for sovereign claims, Wagner argues that [The] setting up of some sign of the possession taken, in the form of a cross or plaque, merely served to give notice to later comers that the spot had passed into the possession of some other European power.7 Metal plaques attached to local sites became important symbols to use in these declarations because they would last and be noticed. Early objects from the 16th century were made of lead. Lead was used because it was very cheap, easily inscribed upon and with its oxidization process being slower than most other metals it meant the message had a better chance of surviving longer. Copper was used later and one of its earliest uses for example was in 1791 when Captain George Vancouver (1757−98) presented a copper plaque to King Kamehameha I as a symbolic mark of sovereign possession when he landed in Hawai‘i. As Wagner alludes to in the quote above, it is often the case that such objects soon lose any power that they were given through the symbolic and political act of colonial claim and, if they survive at all, they often become mere remnants of history housed in either public or private collections. However, although the intent in using these objects was mostly to protect the claim of ownership, there can often be a deeper and more significant symbolism that accompanies these articles. The Japanese also used objects and ritual to claim the Ogasawara Islands as part of Japan when they landed in 1675 during a survey voyage. They chose a small bay (Miyanohama) as the site and constructed a small shrine (hokora), prayed to the deities Amaterasu Ōmikami, Hachiman Daibosatsu, and Kasuga Myōjin and declared the islands as part of Japan (kono shima dainihon uchi nari).8 The shrine however, was made of wood and did not survive as a lasting symbol of territorial claim. The Japanese crew left soon after they landed. When Beechey arrived in 1827, apart from the two European sojourners (see below), the islands were uninhabited. There was no community to speak of and Britain’s imperial claim soon opened the way for settlement. It was not long after the islands became British territory that the original long-term settlement of the islands began. As a result, a small population of ethnically, linguistically and culturally diverse settlers from Europe, America, and the Pacific arrived in 1830. Forty-five years later in 1875, Japan reclaimed the islands and annexed them the following year in 1876, whereupon all the islanders became Japanese subjects. Also in 1875, the plaque was removed from the islands. Thus, within this historical trajectory the plaque importantly represents both a beginning point and a point of departure for the community of original settler descendants. The plaque was removed along with any claim that Britain had to the islands. However, the community of Bonin Islanders remained and were subsumed into the Japanese polity as legal subjects of the nation and empire. Provenance The trajectory of the plaque’s journey across four countries and many hands is an interesting one that demonstrates the gradual slippage into insignificance of a once influential object. The narrative of the plaque begins with the travels of Englishman Captain Fredrick William Beechey. Beechey was born on 17 February 1796 in London and entered the royal navy at the age of ten. He became a midshipman at the age of 11. Eight years later in 1815 Beechey distinguished himself in the British attack on New Orleans and as a result he was appointed to the position of lieutenant later that same year.9 After successful expeditions to the Artic and Africa he was made Commander of the sloop HMS Blossom in 1825 and sent on a three-year mission – a mission that would see him land on the Bonin Islands. His charge during the three year mission was to explore unmapped areas of the Pacific, pass through the Bering Strait from the east and to meet up with either an overland journey from the Mackenzie River led by Sir John Franklin (1786−1847) or a naval voyage from Prince Regent Inlet under the control of William Edward Parry (1790−1855).10 After visiting California, the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) and Macao, Beechey arrived in the Loo Choo (Okinawa) Islands and after a brief stay he left on 25 May 1827 and headed for the Bonin Islands, which he nearly bypassed altogether.11 He could not find Disappointment Island, but he eventually caught sight of a small and remarkable atoll. He named it Kater Island (Mukojima) after Captain Henry Kater (1777−1835),12 a well-known physicist and the inventor of the prismatic compass. The larger islands to the south of Kater Island were Beechey’s first choice for exploration. He thought they looked fertile and able to ‘afford good anchor’, and he decided to send one of his lieutenants for a closer inspection.13 The next day Beechey sent his lieutenant again, but he was very surprised this time to see two Europeans, who were not part of his crew, onboard the pilot boat when it returned. They were Charles Wittrein, a Prussian from Königsberg, and John Petersen of Norway.14 These two men were part of the crew of the William, a British whaler that had smashed on rocks the previous year in 1826. Amongst other news, Wittrein and Petersen furnished Beechey with information about an earlier landing of the Supply, a British whaler. The crew of this vessel had nailed a plank of wood to a tree to mark their landing on the island. There does not seem to have been any declaration of sovereign claim associated with this landing, and Beechey interpreted this to mean the islands were as yet untaken. As Beechey himself declared in a book he published four years later, [I] could not allow so fair an opportunity to escape, and declared [the islands] to be the property of the British government by nailing a sheet of copper to a tree, with the necessary particulars engraved upon it.15 It was at this point that Beechey ordered the 38.4cm by 100cm plaque be made and attached to a tree on present-day Chichijima, his intention was for the island archipelago to be a part of the already expansive British Empire. It was an easy procurement because there were no local chiefs to negotiate with and no inhabitants to coerce. By this time ‘taking possession of uninhabited islands [was…] a mere matter of form’ for Beechey.16 This act resulted in the Bonin Islands becoming British sovereign territory and they remained so for the next 49 years until 1876. As part of the process of sovereign claim Beechey continued to name islands and bays, mostly after well-known British men. For example, the bay in which he had landed he named Port Lloyd, after the late Bishop of Oxford and the largest island of the archipelago he named Peel Island (Chichijima) after Sir Robert Peel, the Secretary of State for the Home Department.17 Although at the time Beechey had no idea of the connection between the islands he had claimed and Japan, once he returned to Britain, he encountered San kokf tsou ran to sets: ou, Aperqu géneral des trois royaumes written by German historian, linguist and explorer Julius Klaproth (1783–1835). In his 1831 account of the Bonin Islands, Beechey refers to Engelbert Kaempfer’s translation of earlier Japanese descriptions of the islands and that this was accurate enough in describing distance, the enormous crabs (which were likely turtles)18 and an island ‘abounded in arrack-trees [areca-trees]’.19 However, he discredits the Japanese charts of the islands that appear in Jean-Pierre Abel Rémusat’s Description d'une groupe d'Îles peu connues et situées entre le Japon et les Iles Mariannes.20 This map was originally sketched during an expedition to the islands in 1675 sent by the feudal Tokugawa administration (bakufu) of Japan. The expedition followed the shipwreck of Japanese sailors taking mikan oranges to Edo in 1670. Beechey underscored errors in geography, inaccurate descriptions of the islands, references to temples and villages and descriptions of palm and cocoa trees, sandalwood and camphor, none of which he found on the islands.21 He suggested that the islands may have been imagined by the Japanese rather than actually visited or that the Japanese had mistaken the Bonin Islands for other islands.22 After claiming possession and surveying the islands, Beechey left the Bonins on 16 June 1827 and headed north to complete his mission, never to return. Besides the plaque, Beechey left behind Wittrein and Petersen at their own request. He provided them with plentiful supplies of bread, flour and clothing23 to last until the next vessel arrived. Nine months later in April 1828, German-born Lieutenant-Commander Fédor Petrovich Lütke (1797−1882) of the Seniävin dropped anchor at Peel Island. He was under instructions to journey to the Russian peninsula of Kamchatka and to then head on to the Caroline Islands in winter. In summer he was expected to make his way to the other side of the Bering Strait.24 When Lütke came ashore, like Beechey, he encountered Wittrein and Petersen who he thought were living like Robinson Crusoe.25 The men, used to various visitors by this stage, informed Lütke of Beechey’s recent claim to the islands and, being on a ‘voyage of discovery’, Lütke was understandably frustrated by the news. Lütke left on 15 May with both men on board26 and the islands were left temporarily without inhabitants. Two years later a small, but diverse group of settlers under the instruction of Great Britain’s first diplomatic Consul in the Sandwich Islands, Richard Charlton (1791−1852) left Honolulu to find a new home on the Bonin Islands. The group was led by two men, Matteo (Matthew) Mazarro from Ragusa (or Genoa) Italy27 and Richard Millichamp from Devonshire, Britain.28 They were joined by Americans Nathaniel Savory (1794−1874) and Alden B. Chapin (both from Massachusetts), Charles Johnson from Denmark,29 Hawaiian Harry Otaheite, a boy named John Marquese from the Marquesas Islands30 and 13 others, mostly women, from the Sandwich Islands. Although Charlton had endorsed the small band of settlers, the British government had not been involved in the decision-making process and Charlton had not provided financial support; the group was self-funded and self-governed.31 After leaving Honolulu on 21 May 1830 on board British schooner The Washington captained by William Dowsett, the group travelled 3,300 miles to arrive at Port Lloyd 36 days later. A year later in 1831 Captain William Lawton on the whaler, The Kent, arrived at Port Lloyd with six women from Oahu sent by Charlton to assist the fledgling settlement.32 The budding community struggled, but survived. The next time Beechey’s Plaque is mentioned is in Jules-Sébastien-César Dumont d’Urville’s Voyage Pittoresque Autour du Monde. He relays how French navigator Cyrille Pierre Théodore Laplace (1793−1875) sailed on the American schooner The Oceanic with a Captain Pendleton in 1830. Laplace anchored at Peel Island on 15 November 1830, the same year that the first settlers arrived on the islands. As he spent the day walking around what he described as an ‘uninhabited settlement’ Laplace spotted Beechey’s plaque hanging from a tree. His only comment regarding the plaque was that the act of claiming sovereignty using a copper plaque, as Beechey had done, was antiquated and ‘childish’.33 Given that the original settlers to the islands had arrived some five months earlier on 26 June that same year, it is unusual that Laplace did not meet any of them while he was there. By the description given in Dumont d’Urville’s book,34 Laplace had been in the vicinity of Wittrein and Petersen’s settlement, which is around the same location on the southern part of Port Lloyd where the first settlers landed.35 After this, an Englishman called Edwards reported the location of Beechey’s plaque in August 1834. By this time the significance of the plaque as evidence of British claim over the islands had diminished. Edwards described how the tree upon which Beechey nailed the plaque had been cut down and the ‘copper was now affixed to the house built by Wittrein and his companions after the loss of the William in 1826’.36 The next mention of Beechey’s Plaque is by Commodore Matthew Perry who visited the islands in 1853. Perry visited the Bonins just before sailing to the harbor of Uraga and demanding Japan open its ports to the rest of the world. In a book commissioned by Perry and written by Francis Hawks in 1854, Beechey’s Plaque and the tree to which it had been nailed are described as ‘no longer there [on the island]’.37 This, however, is inaccurate. In 1862 the Japanese bakufu sent a ship with government officials to the Bonin Islands as part of the first colonization plan and a brief entry describing the location of Beechey’s Plaque was included in Japanese records. Whilst surveying the area of Susaki, leader of the expedition, Mizuno Chikugo no Kami Tadanori and another official from the ministry of foreign affairs, Hattori Munekazu, saw the plaque hanging on the eaves of a storage shed belonging to British subject and resident islander Thomas H. Webb.38 The Japanese officials already knew of the plaque and sighting it reminded them of the British claim on the Bonins and contributed to galvanizing their resolve in reclaiming the archipelago for Japan. Differing nomenclature was used to describe the intervention of the Japanese on the Bonin Islands in 1862. Because the Japanese had sent an expedition that mapped the islands in 1675 the bakufu government referred to the 1862 colonization attempt as kaitaku (reclamation) or kaishū (recovery) of the islands.39 They referred to the archipelago as the Ogasawara Islands after a claim that a samurai had discovered the islands in 1593. Despite it being proven a myth, the officials used this account to substantiate Japan’s right to sovereign claim of the islands over Beechey’s earlier assertion. This first colonization only lasted around 18 months. Diplomatic issues with Britain and the US forced the bakufu to retract the small Japanese colony in 1863. The colonists left and the islanders were again on their own. Beechey’s Plaque had not featured prominently in the first colonization process apart from its mention by Japanese officials. In the second attempt by Japan to claim the Ogasawara Islands the plaque is again mentioned, this time by the British. In 1875, prominent Englishmen British consul in Yokohama Russell Robertson (1840−88) and Commander Edmund John Church (1842−1904) visited the islands in pursuit of the Japanese vessel the Meiji Maru. The ship transported the party of officials from Japan and although British authorities had all but conceded the islands to Japan, Robertson had been sent to observe the process and to ensure that the interests of British subjects were taken into account. Robertson had also been specifically instructed by British consul-general in Japan, Harry Smith Parkes (1828–85) to find out if ‘the copper plate and inscription left by Captain Beechey of the H.M.S Blossom [was] still extant’.40 Once there, Robertson met with the islanders and upon visiting the house of Louis Leseur with Church, he came upon Beechey’s Plaque. Leseur had found it in an outhouse on the property he then occupied which was the house Webb had owned.41 This means that the plaque had likely not been moved from Susaki since being placed there by Beechey. However, on this occasion the plaque would leave the islands for good. Leseur sold the plaque to Captain Church ‘for a trifling consideration’.42 Of interest here is Church’s actions after this exchange. Demonstrating the British government’s remaining ambivalence about the islands and the residual power of the plaque as an object of significance, Church appears concerned about how this action may be interpreted. He left behind a statement so that his procurement would not be misconstrued as a relinquishing of British sovereign claim. The statement read as follows: The undersigned wishes to place on record that he has removed from Peel Island the Copper Plate put up by Captain Beechey of H.M.S. Blossom on the occasion of his visit to the Bonins in June 1827 when these Islands were taken possession of by Captain Beechey in the name and on behalf of His Majesty King George the Fourth. The plate was found in the possession of Louis Leseur a resident on Peel Island, who parted with it for a small pecuniary consideration. The undersigned wishes it to be understood that the removal of the plate is in no way to be considered as the relinquishing of any rights that the British Government may have acquired by the action of Captain Beechey, as the undersigned has no authority to determine or pronounce any opinion one way or the other on the question of the acquisition of the Islands, past, present or future. The plate will be retained by the undersigned as an object of curiosity unless circumstances should demand that it be disposed of in any other way.43 Captain Church also penned a brief message on the plaque itself, which remains to this day. It reads: This board with the copper plate attached was found in Blossom Village by Commander Edmund J. Church R.N. on the occasion of the visit of H.M.S. "Curlew" to the Bonin Islands, in November 1875 and presented by him to the Commander-in-Chief, Vice Admiral A.P. Ryder R.N. Great Britain has since relinquished her rights in these islands in favour of Japan. It was the year after these events in 1876 that Japan officially annexed the Bonin Islands and they became the Ogasawara Islands. Another year later, five of the original settlers to these islands naturalized as Japanese subjects and, by 1881, the remaining 63 had also naturalized. Although Church went to great lengths to deflect any interpretation that the removal of the plaque may signal the relinquishing of Britain’s rights to sovereignty, he displays an ambivalence by diminishing the plaque’s significance, referring to it simply as ‘an object of curiosity’. The Royal United Services Institute The location and movements of the plaque after it left Chichijima in 1875 are unclear. However, after departing the islands Church passed the plaque on to Vice Admiral Ryder who was Commander-in-Chief China Station and located in Singapore between 1874 and 1877. Ryder was in possession of the plaque until 1879 when he donated it to the Royal United Service Institution (RUSI).44 The RUSI was founded by the Duke of Wellington in 1831 and it was located in the Banqueting House in London’s Whitehall and, amongst other roles, was used as a repository for numerous and diverse artifacts from British colonies. In 1895, outgrowing its location, the premises moved to a larger building next door where it is located today. As a result of this move the plaque, along with other items, were sold at auction in the same year by Edward Foster & Son of 54 Pall Mall London (Figure 2).45 The auction was conducted at the old premises of the RUSI and the plaque again exchanged hands for a negligible price.46 Indeed, the Evening Telegraph and Star described the prices as ‘ridiculously small’.47 <Insert Figure 2 around here: Figure. 2. Catalogue Royal United Services Institution, London: Dryden Press, 12 February 1895. The entry for the sale price of the plaque and the purchaser can be found in an original copy of the Foster and Son catalogue housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The recorded price was ten shillings and the purchaser was documented as ‘Glen’. Other names entered are distinguishable as surnames so this entry is likely to be the purchaser’s surname as well. No other information on Glen is included in the catalogue.48 Although a small group of buyers at the auction purchased several lots, Glen purchased only Lot 65, which contained the following items. A part of a pile from Old London Bridge, 1176, a panel with copper plate recording the discovery of Bonin Island by H.M.S “Blossom,” a bottle of porter recovered from an East Indiaman, wrecked in 1803, a piece of beam from the roof of the White Tower, 1070, and an Indian canoe in glazed case.49 The plaque was the only significant item in the lot, and this coupled with the fact that the buyer purchased only this lot and no other, suggests that Glen likely targeted the plaque specifically. Information regarding the identity of Glen and the motivation behind the purchase has yet to emerge. Besides the Morning Post commenting on the modest prices of all the lots for sale at the 1895 auction, the article also described how, upon receiving the plaque from Captain Church, Vice Admiral A.P. Ryder passed it on to the RUSI where it was recorded and stored.50 Notes in the RUSI journal state that the plaque came from ‘China’, but this may be because Ryder’s title included the word ‘China’ in it and thus the storage location of the plaque was assumed to be China. The newspaper article also provides some insight into how the plaque was perceived by the RUSI and how it was received at the sale. It was understood, of course, that the lots put up for sale were neither the most valuable nor the most important in the collection, and consequently there was no very great competition.51 William Ockelford Oldman The next stage of the plaque’s provenance can be traced to a collector by the name of William Ockelford Oldman (1879−1949) of Clapham Park London. Oldham was a collector and a dealer in ethnographic art who started amassing Polynesian artifacts from the late 1890s. He is perhaps best known for his collection of Maori artifacts that some suggested were equivalent to that of the British Museum collection. Oldman eventually sold his collection to the New Zealand government for £44,000 on 13 August 1948,52 the year before he died. However, he sold mostly the Maori artifacts that he had amassed and his wife sold the remainder of his collection to the British Museum after he died the following year in 1949.53 In 1944 Oldman sent a photograph of the Beechey Plaque (Figure 1) to the Journal of the Polynesian Society. The photograph appears in the journal and is accompanied by commentary on its history. Oldman writes, I have an interesting historical relic in my possession. Although of course it has no ethnographical value I thought that you might care to publish it as the Bonin islands are coming into the war area. The enclosed photograph I took in 1917, during the last war. It is the original copper plate erected by Capt. F. W. Beechey when he took possession of the group in 1827. In his Voyages, vol. 2, page 231, he describes having this plate made and put up.54 From his entry we can see that Oldman was in possession from at least 1917 and that again the significance of the plaque is under-recognized. The real ethnographic value escapes Oldman and remains unrealized. Oldman does provide some interesting information with regard to the material used for constructing the plaque. He states that the copper sheet was originally part of that used as a ship’s sheathing plate. This is likely, since copper sheathing was common on ships from the late 18th century. Indeed, the piece may have been taken from the shipwreck of the British whaler William mentioned above. In regard to the plaque’s provenance, Oldman’s article places it early in the 20th century, but this still leaves a 22 year gap between the auction at RUSI and Oldman’s possession in 1917. As noted above, the plaque was not part of the collection purchased by the New Zealand government in 1948, and while Oldman’s wife likely sold it after his death in 1949, she did not sell it to the British Museum. The answer to the probable movement of the plaque around this time can be connected to New Zealand and another collector and contemporary of Oldman’s, Ken Athol Webster (1906−67). Webster’s collecting was focused primarily on New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific and he facilitated the purchase of Oldman’s collection by the New Zealand government. According to New Zealand art historian and writer, Dr Oliver Stead, Webster had a close working relationship with Rex Nan Kivell55 and because of his role in facilitating the purchase of the Oldman collection Webster would likely have had first-hand knowledge of the plaque’s existence. It is also likely then, that Webster either purchased the plaque and later on sold it to Nan Kivell or informed Nan Kivell of the plaque after which he purchased it directly. Unfortunately, Nan Kivell’s records do not shine any further light on the plaque’s movements and this period of its provenance remains as conjecture. Rex Nan Kivell The last piece to the provenance jigsaw puzzle lies with Sir Rex de Charembac Nan Kivell. Although parts of the Nan Kivell collection have been in the National Library since 1949,56 the entire collection was sold to the National Library of Australia in 1959 for £70,000.57 The Beechey Plaque was part of the collection at this point and this is when it became part of the NLA where it remains as part of the Nan Kivell Collection today. The collection is extensive and an important part of the NLA’s extensive range of compendia. As the final link in the provenance of the Beechey Plaque it is important here to contextualize Nan Kivell’s collection and Nan Kivell himself. Nan Kivell was born in Christchurch New Zealand in 1898. In 1925 he joined London’s Redfern Gallery and became its managing director in 1931, a position he remained in until he died in 1977. Antiquarian book dealer Sidney Smith influenced Nan Kivell in his childhood to read books on history and geography and he became particularly interested in European voyages to the Pacific. After creating a new persona as an up-and-coming art dealer, from the early 1920s Nan Kivell developed a taste for modern European art as well as a passion for collecting artifacts relating to the exploration of the Pacific and the early British settlement of New Zealand and Australia.58 Biographical author John Thompson (2000) described him as ‘the archetypal outsider – illegitimate, homosexual, self-educated and antipodean’. Nan Kivell was knighted for his achievements in 1976 and died the following year. Described as an omnivorous collector (The Nan Kivell Collection), Nan Kivell (1898-1977) amassed books, maps, manuscripts, paintings and a range of diverse objects. This is reflected in the many remarkable and important artifacts in the approximate 15,000 piece collection. With this many pieces to the collection it is easy to see how the Beechey Plaque became even more obscure and hidden from the world. Conclusion Beechey’s intrusion into the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands was the junction at which the Bonin Islands changed from an uninhabited archipelago in the Pacific to become British sovereign territory and, in turn, inhabited. It was also the early stages of a course that would eventually lead to the the islands being subsumed into the emerging Meiji nation. It is difficult to predict what course the islands would have taken without Beechey’s actions. What is sure, however, is that the claim made by Beechey – with the plaque as notice of British sovereignty to subsequent visitors to the island – forged the path that brought the original settlers from Hawaii in 1830. The British consul to Hawaii in 1830 was Richard Charlton and it was Charlton who provided permission to the original settler party to make its way to the Bonins and thus facilitated the historical events that ensued for this community and its descendants. The territorial claim signified by the plaque also meant that Japan and Britain would be engaged in diplomatic dialogue and negotiation over control of the islands and its inhabitants. These are the earliest negotiations by Japan with the Anglophone world over sovereign possession under international standards. The second and successful reclamation of the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands was at a crucial time in Japan’s emergence as a modern nation. The Meiji nation was delineating its boundaries to encompass Ezo to the North, the Ryūkyū Kingdom to the South and to the East, the Ogasawara archipelago. Britain’s relinquishment of the islands to Japan changed the geographical perimeters of the modern Japanese nation state, extending the borders far south to become part of the Pacific. Indeed, Japan’s reclamation of the Ogasawara Islands was a stepping-stone for its imperial expansion into the Pacific.59 The plaque remained on Chichijima until 1875 and after this second attempt at reclamation by Japan it was taken back to Britain, coinciding with a change of sovereign possession from one nation to another. The plaque left the islands in 1875, but the residents remained and became Japanese subjects with diverse cultural, linguistic and historic heritage. The plaque is tangible and material proof that links all these facts together and is the reason the descendants of the original settlers are connected to these islands. Despite the plaque’s historical significance in joining Britain, Japan and the Pacific, it remains as a somewhat obscure historical artifact housed in the National Library in Canberra. The only information on the plaque available at the National Library site is that it commemorates F. W. Beechey’s taking possession of the Bonin Islands and along with this is a transcript of the inscriptions on both sides of the object. On the back of the plaque is Captain Church’s comment which is included above, and on the copper plate at the front of the plaque is the following statement which is also on the NLA site: HBM Ship Blossom, Capt. F.W. Beechey took posession [sic] of this groupe of islands in the name & on the behalf of His Britannic Majesty George the IV on the 14th June, 1827.60 This brief commentary on the National Library website provides only a glimpse of the complicated and important history that resulted from the attachment of this object to a tree on Peel Island (Chichijima) in 1827. This aim of this paper has been to provide a fuller narrative of this significant artifact and its connection to the Pacific, Japan and Britain.  Appendix 1 The Provenance of the Beechey Plaque 1827 (14 June) – Beechey has the plaque made and hammered to tree on Chichijima. 1830 – Laplace sees the plaque attached to a tree. 1835 – affixed to the house built by Wittrein and Petersen after the loss of the William. 1862 – Mizuno and Hattori mention seeing the plaque attached to Thomas H. Webb’s shed in Susaki. 1875 – Louis Lesseur finds it in the outhouse of the house he was living in (Webb’s house). 1875 – Captain Church acquires the plaque from Lesseur for a ‘trifling consideration’ and presents it to the Commander-in-Chief, Vice Admiral A.P. Ryder RN. 1875 to 1879 - Ryder keeps the plaque until his return to Britain. 1879 – Ryder donates the plaque to the Royal United Service Institution (RUSI) in London. 1895 – the plaque is auctioned at the RUSI by Edward Foster and Son of Pall Mall and purchased for ten shillings. 1917 – Mr W. O. Oldman, Clapham Park, London takes a photograph of the plaque. 1944 – Mr W. O. Oldman, Clapham Park, London, sends the 1917 photograph and it is published in the Journal of the Polynesian Society. 1949(?) – Nan Kivell acquires the plaque. 1959 – The National Library of Australia purchases the Nan Kivell Collection in which the plaque belongs. Present – the plaque is part of the Nan Kivell Collection at the National Library of Australia.  David Chapman − School of Languages and Cultures, University of Queensland [email protected] Acknowledgements: I would like to thank the editors of JPH and anonymous reviewers for their comments on the original submission. 1 I refer to the copper plate as the ‘Beechey Plaque’ after Captain Frederick William Beechey, who claimed the Bonin Islands in the name of the British Empire. 2 The visitor centre features, amongst other things, historical exhibits of artifacts relating to the history of the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands. My acquaintance was interested in including the plaque for temporary display within these exhibits. 3 The plaque’s location had been a mystery to many on the Bonin Islands until researcher David Odo found it in the early 2000s. 4 David Chapman, ‘Britain and the Bonins: Discovery, Recovery and Reclamation’, Japan Forum 29:2 (2017): 154−79. 5 This was around the time of the Namamugi incident in 1862, when a samurai slaughtered British subject, Charles Leonard Richardson. This led to worsening relations between Japan and Britain that resulted in the bombing of Kagoshima by British ships in the Anglo-Satsuma War of 1863. 6 Letter from St John Neale to Earl Russell, 29 July 1863, FO 46/247, The National Archives, Surrey UK (hereinafter TNA). 7 Henry R. Wagner, ‘Creation of Rights of Sovereignty Through Symbolic Acts’, Pacific Historical Review 7:4 (1938): 326. 8 Hiroyuki Tanaka, Bakumatsu Ogasawara [Ogasawara at the end of the Tokugawa Period] (Tokyo: Chuō Kōronsha 1997), 8. 9 Dick Burant, ‘Beechey, Frederick William’, Canadian Dictionary of Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto/Univerité Laval 1985). Available online at: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio.php?id_nbr=3773. Accessed 9 July 2017. 10 Ibid. 11 Frederick Beechey, Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Beering’s Strait to Cooperate with the Polar Expeditions Performed in his Majesty’s Ship Blossom, Under the Command of Captain F. W. Beechey, R.N. in the Years, 1825, 26, 27, 28 (London: H. Coburn and Bentley 1831), 228. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 ‘Russian Voyage of Discovery’, Cambridge Chronicle and Journal, 16 Jan. 1829, 4. 15 Beechey, Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Beering’s Strait, 231. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid. 18 David Chapman, The Bonin Islanders 1830 to the Present: Narrating Japanese Nationality, (Lanham, MD, USA: Lexington Books 2016), 11. 19 Beechey, Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Beering’s Strait, 239. 20 Abel Rémusat, ‘Description d'une groupe d'Îles peu connues et situées entre le Japon et les Iles Mariannes’ [Description of a little known group of islands located between Japan and the Mariana Islands], Journal des Savans, July (1817): 387−96. 21 Also see Chapman The Bonin Islanders 1830 to the Present, 15. 22 Beechey, Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Beering’s Strait, 237−38. 23 John Beckervaise, Thirty-six Years of a Seafaring Life: by an Old Quarter Master (London: W. Woodward 1839), 231. 24 ‘Russian Voyage of Discovery’, 4. 25 Fédor Petrovich Lütke, Voyage autour du monde (Tome Second), 1826−1829 (New York: N. Israel 1971), 156. 26 ‘Russian Voyage of Discovery’, 4. 27 There is reference in Lionel Berners Cholmondeley’s book The History of the Bonin Islands from the Year 1827 to the Year 1876, and of Nathaniel Savory, One of the Original Settlers (London: Constable and Co., 1915), 18, that Mazarro was a British subject. Also see Board of Trade Outletters BT. 3 Vol. 26, Board to Admiralty, from Beasley, 21 November 1835, 19. 28 Mazarro was employed for many years by a Mr Bennett, a whale ship owner in the South Sea Fishery, and also served on board the English sloop-of-war La Morne Fortunée in the West Indies. See Captain Michael Quin, Michael, ‘Notes on the Bonin Islands’, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 26, (1856 ): 232. 29 Referred to as ‘Carl Johnsen’ in Quin, ‘Notes on the Bonin Islands’, 233. 30 Marquese, who was also known as ‘Judge’. See Cholmondeley, The History of the Bonin Islands, 92. This is also mentioned in Bayard Taylor, A Visit to India, China, Japan in the Year 1853 (New York: Putnam and Co., 1855), 401. 31 Chapman, The Bonin Islanders 1830 to the Present: Narrating Japanese Nationality, 27. 32 Cholmondeley, The History of the Bonin Islands, 40−42. 33 Jules-Sébastien-César Dumont d’ Urville and Louis Auguste de Sainson, Voyage pittoresque autour du monde: resume general des voyages de decouvertes, Tome 2 (Paris: L. Tenre, H. Dupuy 1834−1835), 401. 34 Ibid. 35 Beechey, Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Beering’s Strait, 433. This area was later named Susaki and it was the site where Japanese officials resided. 36 Elijah Coleman Bridgman, The Chinese Repository Volume 3 (Canton: Printed for the Proprietors 1835), 516. 37 Francis L. Hawks, Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan Performed in the Years 1852, 1853, and 1854, Under the Command of Commodore M.C Perry, United States Navy, by Order of the Government of the United States (Washington: Beverley Tucker, Senate Printer 1856), 200. 38 Sakunosuke Obana, Ezu Furoku Ogasawaratō Ryakuki (Tokyo: Ogasawara Kyōikuiinkai 2010), 21. 39 Chapman, The Bonin Islanders 1830 to the Presen, 53. 40 Parkes to Robertson 9 Nov. 1875, FO 46/465, TNA. 41 Russell Robertson, ‘The Bonin Islands’, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 4 (1876): 131. The ownership of this house would be disputed later. 42 Robertson, ‘The Bonin Islands’, 117 43 Cholmondeley, The History of the Bonin Islands, 171. 44 Proceedings of the 48th Anniversary Meeting, Royal United Services Institution Journal, 22 (1879), Supp 001: xxvi. 45 No Title, The Morning Post, 13 Feb. 1895, 3. 46 Ibid. 47 ‘Chit Chat,’ The Evening Telegraph and Star, 14 Feb. 1895, 2. 48 There is only one catalogue with information on purchases. The notes are handwritten and the catalogue must have been the one kept by the auctioneers. Catalogue Royal United Services Institution (London: Dryden Press, 12 Feb.1895). This specific catalogue with insert can be found in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. 49 Ibid. 50 See the Proceedings of the 48th Anniversary Meeting, Royal United Services Institution Journal, 22 (1879), Supp 001: xxvi. 51 No Title, The Morning Post. 52 See Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Collections, ‘William O. Oldman’. Available online at: http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/topic/1123. Accessed 31 July 2017. 53 See http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=36841. Accessed 31 July 2017. 54 William Ockelford Oldman, ‘Historical relic’, Journal of the Polynesian Society, 53:4 (1944): 211. 55 Oliver Stead, ‘New Lamps for Old: The Activities of Sir Rex de Charembac Nan Kivell as a Collector and Dealer of Fine Art’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Otago, 2004. 56 National Library of Australia (hereinafter NLA), ‘Nan Kivell Collection’. Information available online at: https://www.nla.gov.au/selected-library-collections/nan-kivell-collection. Accessed 31 July 2017. 57 John R. Thompson. ‘Nan Kivell, Sir Rex De Charembac (1898–1977)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, (Canberra: Australian National University, 2000). Available online at: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/nan-kivell-sir-rex-de-charembac-11219. Accessed 31 July 2017. 58 Thompson. ‘Nan Kivell, Sir Rex De Charembac (1898–1977)’. 59 Chapman, The Bonin Islanders 1830 to the Present, 95−96. 60 NLA, ‘Copper Plaque Commemorating Capt. F. W. Beechey Taking Possession of the Bonon Islands’. Available online at: http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2413292. Accessed on 31 July 2017.