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Binoka
"HM King Tembenoka of Apemama, Kuria, Arimaka" (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1889)
Uea of Abemama, Kuria, and Aranuka
Reign	1878 – 1891
Predecessor	Baiteke
Successor	Bauro
Born	c. 1840
Died	10 November 1891 State of Abemama, Gilbert Islands
Issue	Bauro (adopted)
Father	Baiteke

Binoka (c. 1840 – 10 November 1891) was the third uea of Abemama, Kuria and Aranuka from 1878 until his death in 1891. Binoka is featured in Robert Louis Stevenson's In The South Seas (1896), a travelogue of the Pacific, where he is known as Tembinok'.

For most of the 19th century, the three central Gilbert Islands, which are now part of Kiribati, comprised the State of Abemama. Their rougly 3,000 inhabitants were ruled by an uea. Binoka became the third uea when his father, Baiteke, abdicated in his favour. While Baiteke focused on keeping his borders secure in the face of European influence, Binoka dreamed of expanding his dominion. Although he took over Nonouti in 1883, his ambitions were quickly dashed when HMS Dart expelled him from the island.

Afterwards, Binoka adopted a sedentary, privileged lifestyle. He maintained the security of the State of Abemama from Europeans. Binoka controlled all trade coming into the State of Abemama, and he built up a large, indiscriminate collection of European trinkets. He hosted Stevenson on Abemama in 1889 and 1890, during his travels in the Pacific Ocean, and was befriended by the British writer. While writers such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Louis Becke, and H. E. Maude portrayed Binoka as an eccentric despot, this characterization is disputed some of Binoka's family and former subjects. Stevenson was the most sympathetic, describing Binoka as "the last tyrant, the last erect vestige of a dead society."

Binoka died in 1891. Bauro, his adopted 10-year-old heir, could not resist the British annexation of the Gilbert Islands in 1892, ending the last independent Gilbertese polity in the 19th century. Binoka's family still live or own land on the islands.

Background

Ancestors

Main article: State of Abemama

Abemama, Kuria, and Aranuka, the central Gilbert Islands

Binoka was a member of the Tuangaona family of Abemama. His great-grandfather, Tetabo, was said to be an aintoa, a man of superhuman size and strength. The utu of Tuangaona was named after his birthplace. Tetabo was the first person to unite the island, leading the I-Abemama against raiders from Tarawa. But it was his sons—led by Namoriki, the eldest brother—who permanantly subjugated Abemama and went on to conquer Kuria and Aranuka. Karotu, the son of Namoriki, consolidated his power over the three central Gilbert Islands, creating a unified State of Abemama. He named Tewaia, the son he sired by his first wife, his heir, and gave him the chiefly title of uea. Tewaia was succeeded by Baiteke, his half-brother, in 1850.

"Tem Baiteke, King of Apemama" (Handley Bathurst Sterndale, c. 1860 – c. 1871)

Gilbertese leaders such as Baiteke were threatened by an increasing European presence in the Gilbert Islands. Beachcombers, traders, and whalers had established a barter trade with Gilbertese people, uncontrolled by indigenous authorities, while Christian missionaries aimed to transform Gilbertese societies. In 1851, Baiteke executed every foreigner on Abemama, Kuria and Aranuka, and closed their borders to outsiders. Trading ships were subsequently restricted to the islet of Abitaku, which he controlled. Baiteke had not only curtailed European influence; he had established a monopoly on their goods, including firearms, which made him very powerful. Baiteke was able to create an organized autocracy and he could more easily suppress revolts. He introduced a feudalistic system of social stratification, placing his family, the utu n uea, at the top.

Early life

Binoka was born c. 1840. He was the firstborn child of Baiteke. Little is known of his mother; he had a brother, Timon, and at least one sister, Teaa. Binoka was raised by the consorts and favourites of his father. Unlike Baiteke, Binoka grew up in privilege, segregrated from the lower classes, and he did not learn the self-discipline and militant spirit of his ancestors.

In 1973, Baiteke allowed Hiram Bingham, a Christian missionary, to send a mission teacher to Abemama. However, Bingham found that Baiteke strictly reserved education for his son. Binoka held the inexperienced teacher, the ill-mannered Moses Kanoaro, in contempt, but learned basic arithmetic and geography and how to read and write Gilbertese. Binoka also convinced his father to employ a German to build Abemama's first stone house.

Early reign and rebellions

Binoka and Bauro. Robert Louis Stevenson, 1889

Binoka was in his mid-thirties when his aging father abdicated in late 1878.

As was customary for an aging ruler, Baiteke abdicated in late 1878. In his mid-thirties, Binoka became the third uea. He retained his father's trade monopoly

Conquests

Binoka harboured lifelong ambitions to conquer all the Gilbert Islands, informed by the legends of Kaitu and Uakeia. In 1880, he attempted to invade Maiana. On 13 July 1884, a respected resident trader named Robert David Corrie recounted the events to William Usborne Moore of HMS Dart.

According to Corrie, he received a message from Binoka from his main factotum Harry Smith. He offered Corrie the position of Maiana's governor if Corrie supplied firearms to Binoka's allies. Corrie refused, and found that the people of Maiana were gradually arming themselves with rifles in preparation for the attack.

Nonouti

In 1883, Nonouti welcomed an Abaiang exile named Nimatu, who went by the name of Kalākaua, his former employer. Unlike Nimatu, who wielded a Winchester rifle, Nonouti had no firearms. They were defenceless as Nimatu and other returned labourers gradually subjugated the island. One day, a drunken Nimatu shot two of their elders. Almost one hundred canoes left Nonouti to seek shelter and aid on Abemama, Kuria, and Aranuka.

Reconstruction of the flag of Binoka in January 1884. The four stars represent the four islands he claimed

The refugees depleted the resources of Binoka's islands, which were already strained by a drought. In December 1883, Binoka asked Horatio C. Hayward,

the master of the schooner Kate McGregor, to ferry 150 forces to southern Nonouti.

They slayed the invaders but also looted the island. Initially, the people of Nonouti were grateful to Binoka for liberating it. However, Binoka treated their island as conquered territory.

He took 150 Nonoutians went aboard the Kate McGregor to become serfs. Extending his trade monopoly to Nonouti, Binoka took its copra for his own and used it to pay off debts he had incurred to Europeans.

In January 1884, Joseph Henty carried Binoka's new flag to Nonouti. Its four stars represented his four dominions: Abemama, Kuria, Aranuka, and Nonouti.

When the Kate McGregor returned to Auckland, rumours spread about its involvement in Nonouti's invasion. This became the subject of a protracted legal case heard by the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific.

Last years

“ THERE is one great personage in the Gilberts: Tembinok' of Apemama: solely conspicuous, the hero of song, the butt of gossip. Through the rest of the group the kings are slain or fallen in tutelage: Tembinok' alone remains, the last tyrant, the last erect vestige of a dead society. The white man is everywhere else, building his houses, drinking his gin, getting in and out of trouble with the weak native governments. [He] figures in the patriotic war-songs of the Gilberts like Napoleon in those of our grandfathers. ” — Robert Louis Stevenson, In The South Seas (1896), p. 329–330

Having bore no child to be his heir, Binoka adopted his nephew Bauro. His brother Timon had married a rang woman, a commoner in Baiteke's social system. At the adoption ceremony, Bauro's feet was cut to purge him of "rang blood" and Binoka announced the child now solely had royal blood. To prevent opposition from the noble inaomata, Binoka had them smear the rang blood on their foreheads to make their blood inferior to Bauro's.

In 1889, the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson asked Binoka to stay on Abemama for two months. He was accompanied by his wife Fanny Stevenson, his stepson the novelist Lloyd Osbourne, and their Chinese cook Ah Fu. Robert wrote about it in his Pacific travelogue In The South Seas (1896), which devotes nine chapters to Abemama (which he spelt Apemama), much of which is focused on Binoka (spelt Tembinok'). This depiction made Binoka known to English-speaking audiences. Robert also took photographs of Binoka and the island.

Robert devoted a chapter to Binoka's household.

Fanny designed a tricolour flag for Binoka. The horizontal red, yellow, and blue stripes represent Binoka's three islands. The uea claimed to descend from the mythical union of a woman and a shark, so Fanny put a shark with a crown over the motto "I BITE TRIPLY". The travel guide Lonely Planet claims this "silly flag" was never used. However, Sir John Thurston, the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, visited Abemama on 4 July 1893 (after Binoka's death) and recorded the flag being flown.

Stevenson briefly saw Binoka again

While Stevenson's account of the uea was more sympathetic,

Legacy

Binoka died on 10 September 1891 of an infected abscess, which a 21st-century uea said was caused by the introduced disease of syphilis. He was succeeded by 10-year-old Bauro.

Citations

• Macdonald, P. D. (2016). "The Would-Be Empire Builder". Retrieved 30 July 2024.
• Maude, H. E. (1970). "Baiteke and Binoka of Abemama: Arbiters of change in the Gilbert Islands". In Davidson, J. W.; Scarr, Deryck (eds.). Pacific Islands Portraits. Canberra: ANU Press. ISBN 0708101666.
• Roberts, R. G. (1953). "The Dynasty of Abemama". The Journal of the Polynesian Society. 62 (3). Polynesian Society: 267–278. JSTOR 20703382.
• Stevenson, Robert Louis (1896). In the South Seas. Scribner.