Searching for the Land of the Golden Cocoa-Nut: Australian Travel Writing about Commercial Enterprise in the Pacific Islands

Halter, Nicholas (2016) Searching for the Land of the Golden Cocoa-Nut: Australian Travel Writing about Commercial Enterprise in the Pacific Islands. Journal of Pacific History, 51 (4). pp. 375-391. ISSN 0022-3344

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Abstract

Pacific Island trade and commerce was a prominent theme in travel writing produced within Australia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This reflected the long history of European commercial exchange between the Australian continent and the Pacific Islands, and a European literary legacy that idealised the region’s economic potential. This article explores popular perceptions of commercial enterprise in the Pacific Islands as expressed in travel writing, focusing on authors with a significant connection, by birth or affiliation, to either the Australian colonies or the Australian nation. The formation of a distinctively ‘Australian’ vision of the Pacific that evolved since European exploration is traced. The voice that took shape in literary form in the Australian colonies during the late 19th century contributed to a national narrative in the early 20th century that imagined the Pacific Islands as a region for Australian investment, profit and colonial enterprise.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DU Oceania (South Seas)
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts, Law and Education (FALE) > School of Social Sciences
Depositing User:	Nicholas Halter
Date Deposited:	13 Mar 2017 00:05
Last Modified:	13 Mar 2017 00:05
URI:	https://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/9663

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