John Patteson (bishop) - Death

Death

On 20 September 1871 he was murdered on the island of Nukapu in the Solomon Islands, where he had landed alone. The explanation of his death at the time was that natives killed him as revenge for the abduction of some natives by illegal labour recruiters months earlier. These recruiters, known as "blackbirders", were considered to be virtually slave traders by members of the mission, as they enticed or abducted youths to work on plantations.

Two Norwegian historians (Thorgeir Kolshus and Even Hovdhaugen, 2010) who have examined the evidence, say that there were various stories at the time and later about his death. One was that he was killed by a man whose relative had been abducted, others were that the killing was sanctioned by the men in the community. Kolshus and Hovdhaugen argue that the natives may not have completely distinguished between the blackbirders and the missionaries, as both took young people away from the communities.

The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica asserts that the death was a tragic error:

The traders engaged in the nefarious traffic in Kanaka labour for Fiji and Queensland had taken to personating missionaries in order to facilitate their kidnapping; Patteson was mistaken for one of these and killed. His murderers evidently found out their mistake and repented of it, for the bishop's body was found at sea floating in a canoe, covered with a palm fibre matting, and a palm-branch in his hand. He is thus represented in the bas-relief erected in Merton College to his memory.

An alternative theory, suggested by Kolshus and Hovdhaugen, was that Patteson had upset the local hierarchy among the natives by giving gifts without due regard for precedence and by cultivating support among women in the community, contrary to patriarchal norms. They saw him as a threat to their social order.

His death became a cause celebre in England and increased interest both in missionary work and in improvement of the working conditions in Melanesia. Disorder and forced labour in the islands was taken up as a cause by the Aborigines' Protection Society, resulting in a well-orchestrated campaign in the British Parliament from William McArthur for the annexation of Fiji to remove slavery. Fiji was annexed in 1874.

His life is celebrated in the Church of England as a saintly one, and he is commemorated with a Lesser Festival on 20 September. There is a memorial to him in the chapel of Merton College, Oxford by Thomas Woolner, which depicts his portrait surrounded by fronds, beneath which he is shown lying in the canoe, as described above.