ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 positions conversion of the British pirate alongside conversion of the stereotypical Pacific cannibal in Ballantyne’s widely read novel, The Coral Island. Complicating the racialization of the cannibal, the pirates figure the savagery of the South Pacific as also inhabiting whiteness, though through Bloody Bill we see that even the most reprobate individual has the capacity to become a Christian. On Mango, the boys are greeted by a missionary whose appearance and speech are the epitome of Western civility; he is a Pacific Islander who guides the boys in their faith and actions, providing a model of appropriate masculinity the pirates cannot, and thus he belies the racialized stereotypes we encounter elsewhere in the novel. The missionary is based on Papehia, a Mā‘ohi from the Society Islands who initiated the Christian conversion of the Cook Islands, and the chapter historicizes Ballantyne’s fictional Christian Islander by introducing periodical accounts of Papehia and other Pacific Islander missionaries, as well as visits to Britain by Pacific Islander converts. Attention to the missionary context of The Coral Island complicates the imperialist stereotypes that pervade the boys’ adventure genre, since Ballantyne’s Pacific Islander missionary constrains the British boys’ behaviour and educates them in their faith. While imperialist assumptions proliferate throughout the novel, the chapter argues that in the evangelical context, savagery is ultimately correlated to the absence of Christian faith, and thus is applicable not only to the racially demarcated heathen, but also to the British sailor and child reader.
