ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the politics of trade and its representation in four episodes from The Cruise of the 'Janet Nichol': two failed trading encounters, at Maraki and Penrhyn, and two successful ones, at Natau and Nanomea. Fanny Stevenson's account of the trading encounter at Maraki reinforces values of civilization and civility, some of them channeled through ideas of racial hierarchy, some of them expressed in a preference for gift-exchange over trade. In Stevenson's narrative, gender is a powerful factor in breaking down the barriers between races created by the slave raids. As she recounts the episode in the saloon the bond between women overcomes differences of race, culture and language, and dissolves the distrust produced by the actions of men. Fanny Stevenson's trading encounters took place within a contact zone, she avoided the use of contact languages, preferring to believe that she could communicate by sympathy with women of different races.
