Tales of the South Pacific — The Pirate Tapscott

Marker for John Tapscott (Photo
courtesy of Allegra Marshall, 2016)

One of the Tapscott graves on Tahiti is that of John (said by some to have had the middle name “Novele”), who died 4 Apr 1902 at age 62 (born c1840). John reportedly married Popoua Taurami, a native of Maiana, an atoll in the Gilbert Islands. A marker for Popoua, who died 28 Nov 1918 at age 81 (born c1837), stands in the same family cemetery in which John rests.

John Tapscott’s origins are unknown, though he was likely British. European contact with Gilbert Islanders began as early as the 1500s with visits from whalers, slave traders, and merchants. In the late 1850s American missionaries came to the islands, followed by missionaries from London. The Gilberts became a British protectorate in 1892, and until 1979 were part of the United Kingdom.

Marker for Popoua Taurami (Photo
courtesy of Allegra Marshall, 2016).

Perhaps John arrived as a missionary. But some descendants believe that he was anything but. It is claimed he kidnapped Popoua, with even further misadventures.

In his book Return to Paradise (Random House, 1951) the American author James A. Michener stated that Tapscott was an “English pirate, ... a hell-raising renegade who abducted a wife from the cannibal islands.” It was the Fijis, rather than the Gilberts, that were once given the designation “cannibal islands,” but Michener, who usually wrote fiction based on history, often changed details in the stories he encountered. And where did he get the story? According to Sam Zebba in his book Aspects of My Life (iUniverse, 2013), Ben Bambridge, a resident of Tahiti and John Tapscott’s great grandson, told Michener about his ancestor being a kidnapper and a pirate.

Was John Tapscott a pirate? Probably not. He appears in no contemporary newspaper articles, which did report other Pacific pirates of the period. But who knows?