Abstract
In 1929, the steel-hulled barquentine Alexa was destroyed by fire while loading copra, a notoriously unstable cargo, in Butaritari, Kiribati. The ship was the last commercially operated square-rigged sailing vessel on Australian articles. The Dutch-built, Chinese-Australian-owned, New Zealand registered, multi-nationally crewed ship participated in the marginal copra trade from Micronesia to Australia and was serviced by an I-Kiribati population exposed to inequality and exploitation. War in the Pacific and poor returns on island copra relegated Kiribati to commercial obscurity, but Australian operators left the wrecks of at least four of their ships in Butaritari, including Alexa, along with service and commercial infrastructure that together forms a unique maritime cultural landscape. This article discusses initial research into the cultural landscape of the Australian copra trade in Butaritari and examines the potential of archaeological investigations of the site.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 63-84 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Journal | The Great Circle |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Publication status | Published - 2023 |
Keywords
- Chinese-Australian
- copra
- maritime cultural landscape
- Oceania
- Australian colonialism