 Pearls
have been known and valued in both the orient and the Western world
from earliest times. Curiously enough, however, they did not appear
upon the scene in Polynesia until the arrival of European navigators
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
After the discovery of Tahiti, trading in pearls and mother-of-pearl
developed very quickly. From 1830 on, trading ships called regularly
to the island of Mangareva on the Gambier Archipelago.
In the early days one had only to stand waist-deep in the water
to pick up pearl oysters, but by 1850 the oysters were becoming
scarce. From the time the first navigators arrived until about 1860,
the harvesting and trading of oysters and pearls were entirely in
the hands of the captains of the trading vessels, who operated essentially
according to a barter system. There were no official controls. Beginning
in 1860 the government intervened more and more to regulate oyster
and pearl fishing, which had become a real industry.
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