Elizabeth Morey: Castaway in Tonga, 1802–1804

Abstract

Abstract Elizabeth Morey is believed to have been the first woman castaway in the Pacific Islands. The ship on which she was travelling, the Portland, was cut off in Tonga in 1802 and most of the crew murdered. She lived for the next two years with the chief, Teukava, until she escaped heroically on the Union, which was also the subject of Tongan assault. There is evidence that Morey had borne two children in Tonga before her escape, and subsequently returned to Tonga for the birth of a third. Evidence is also presented that she was an American, from Massachusetts, orphaned at an early age. She joined the Portland in Cape Town, probably by prior arrangement with the Portland's captain, Lovett Mellen, whose family was connected with her own. Mellen broke several laws in three jurisdictions in an apparently desperate endeavour to get to Cape Town and from there to South America, lending support to a theory of a romantic conspiracy with Morey.