European Immigration and Disease in Asia Pacific Polynesia 1700s -1920s

In the 1700's, European towns and cities were hit with various flu and cholera epidemics which spread overseas through commercial shipping and military cargo. The diseases traveled by way of both the unclean man and an overlooked furry menace, the barge rat or cabin rat, a survivor on both the lighted city streets and distant sea voyaging (both dead rats and live one were carriers). Domesticated animals may have helped further the Great Plagues of Europe. Life expectancy between 1780-1820 in Spain, France, Britain, and New York was between 45 and 47.5 years old, which then dropped to under 36.5 years in 1880-1920 due to growing economic depressions and further war campaigns.

An Influenza epidemic in 1901-1918 killed over 500 million people in 6 months, so many people, only an estimate is really put forth. The Influenza epidemic eventually reduced down 1/3rd of the European population. Diseases nested in Western European urban-hubs, places with no proper sewage systems, and at times the source of disease pointed to prison and even some hospital conditions. Cholera infection (Ingestion of feces through infested water) was a general common cause of death in Europe in the mid and late 1800's.

In 1832, Dr Henry Gaulter believed that "only cramped and squalid housing conditions were responsible for the Cholera epidemic", denying the clear and apparent flaws of their city. Life expectancy in London in 1832, was at 29 years old when he publicly made excuses. Conditions worsened from the 1830s to the 1850s, British public complaints were published in the media, roaring about the walk-ways filled with feces on the streets each time it rained. The historic British era of "The Great Stink 1858" caused mass immigration, swarms of immigrants began leaving the British Isles. Even though The Great Stink of Britain is given the year of  only 1858, there is no real start year. Public health and basic sewage issues were never addressed from the 14th century (1350) after the Black Death

British writer Charles Dickens slipped into his writings, accounts of inhumane sanitation conditions until his death 1870. British parliament smell is even recorded to have reeked of human excrement during most of the 18th, and the entire 19th Century, founded in 1707. [see: The Black Death]

The Foreign infections of Hawaii 1901-1918
First cases of Influenza in Hawaii were reported on the island of Oahu in June 1918, killing at least 1,200 sailors in port from the Americas. The island of Kauai was also infected in the year 1918. A reliable estimate of Native Hawaiians who died has yet to be produced since there was never a fully connected academic or medical network with the Hawaiian Crown. In 1884, the Hawaiian Crown which was connected to Britain had been forced down under a United States Republic who by that time had only a native Hawaiian population of 40,000.

The Crown Hawaiian systems are seen to have dramatically declined after the death of King Kamehameha II with epidemics coming before 1901, but it was new immigration after 1901 who brought the last disease-sweep declining Moa-Hawaiian culture to an almost halt. The decline in Hawaiian culture regained by 1925, creating the most ever cultural organizations for preservation.

European Plague in New Australia 1890s
In two short centuries of British immigration, Australia Sydney experienced a first wave of Epidemic Euro-smallpox (or chickenpox), Euro-measles epidemic in 1867, The Scarlet Fever Epidemic of the 1870s, a second smallpox epidemic in 1881 to 1882, Epidemic Typhus, cases of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (European Venereal Diseases), and then a sweep of Influenza starting off in 1890 to 1891. In the early 1900s during the WWs, came a number of AIDS cases from Europe to Australia. In a Proclamation by the Order of the Bath, signed by Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson for New South Wales Australia, all dead rats in numbers were to be reported, and it was written that British commoners who did not help fix the problems created by those in the state, to share liability with the Imperial Government, were to be prosecuted and thrown into prisons, the same prisons which were breeding grounds for the infections. The British Australian state had no solutions to the problems except to burn those bodies that were infected, and keep the sick people in contained areas in hospitals until they died. New South Wales did remain under Penal Colony law conditions until Socialists movements began taking hold during the 1920s.

Proclamation in Sydney Australia New South Wales

European Bubonic Plague in Imperial Australia

Influenza in Aotearoa New Zealand from British-Australia
In Aotearoa New Zealand a massive scale Influenza infection swept through Maori populations. Reports count that Maori populations were hit seven times harder than foreign settlements. Even though with the lower Maori population count from 1910 to 1919, a pro-Maori Allied Government took over New Zealand Government offices, Prime Minister Timi Kara a Maori Irish-man. The Reform Party (Allied Maori and British Imperials) during the WWs made plans to defend Scotland-Britain against Nazi Germany.

Influenza in Western Samoa from New Zealand 1918
A lost ship from New Zealand with an infected New Zealand crew drifted to the shores of Western Samoa. Records report that in around 1918 the infected ship spread Influenza to 1/5th of the Western Samoan population on that island (not to the whole of Samoa) and an estimated 5,000 amount of Samoans were sickened, an Apia region also allied to the British. Central and Northwest Western Samoan areas who were once allied to the Germans were sparred and who became the founders of Socialist Mau Movements. Eastern Samoa allied to the USA was untouched by disease as was Eastern Polynesia who were allied to the French.

Western Samoans from 1914 to 1925 immigrated into Aotearoa New Zealand taking interests in trades and new lands and helped found a Socialist Labour Party that took over New Zealand in 1935 elections. The Samoan population today in NZ is substantially higher than in Western Samoa. The City of Auckland, the once capital of NZ, has more Samoans in it's perimeter than in Western Samoa. 

Related articles:

- Nz Influenza in Western Samoa 1918: 3 things wrong

- New Zealand in Samoa: Introduction of Influenza

- Samoan History and Related events Timeline 1700-1940s

- NZ Socialist HE. Holland: Western Samoa and Australia 

Posted in: A.P.I. A. Studies