On 20 December 1785 the audience of the Covent Garden theatre was treated to a theatrical performance unlike any they had seen before. A Christmas pantomime, Omai, or a Trip Round the World drew its inspiration from the real life Tahitian visitor to England. Only the second Polynesian to visit Europe, Omai was popular with the English social elite and was acquainted with King George III. Presented as an amusing and fantastic story, the story of Omai's life was exceedingly popular with the public, and Omai became the first in a line of Pacific islanders to journey willingly with British explorers and missionaries and one whose remarkable stories would be published and circulated amongst a British audience. While these islanders’ stories were filtered through the often unreliable British press, they provide a fascinating glimpse into the Pacific perspective on these visitors to their islands. While multiple book length studies have ignited an interest in Omai, very few Pacific writers have received such treatment. Casting light on largely undiscovered Pacific authors, this chapter seeks to illuminate the British narrative of the Pacific islands by looking at stories circulated by the British press that focus on native islanders. In previous chapters, I have largely provided narratives which focus on how the British interacted with islanders, but in this chapter I show how accounts that focused on the real-life experiences of Pacific natives often challenged these more dominant records. While first-hand accounts from islanders are scarce, the reinterpreted stories and legends of real islanders that filtered into the British consciousness often subvert the prevailing images of Pacific ‘savages’ living in paradise yet in need of salvation.

Europeans first began recording the impressions of Pacific peoples when they began bringing islanders back on their voyages. Explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville brought the first Pacific islander Ahu-toru to Paris in 1768 followed closely by Tobias Furneaux, sailing a companion ship on Captain Cook's second voyage, bringing Omai to England in 1774. These early voyages would not mark the end of Pacific visitors nor would the reading public tire of their stories which continued to be published alongside the narratives of missionaries, traders, scientists and settlers throughout the nineteenth century.