The Wreck of Alexa: The International Copra Trade and Australia’s Last Commercially Operated Square-rigged Sailing Vessel

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Contextualizing Maritime Archaeology in Australasia" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In 1929, the steel-hulled barquentine Alexa was destroyed by fire while loading copra, a notoriously unstable cargo, in Butaritari, Kiribati. The ship was the last commercially operated square-rigged sailing vessel on Australian articles. The Dutch-built, Chinese-owned, New Zealand registered, multi-nationally crewed ship participated in the marginal copra trade from Micronesia to Australia and was serviced by an I-Kiribati population exposed to colonial exploitation. War in the Pacific and poor returns on island copra relegated Kiribati to commercial obscurity, but Australian operators left the wrecks of at least four of their ships in Butaritari, including Alexa, along with service and commercial infrastructure. This paper reports initial research into the cultural landscape of the Australian copra trade in Butaritari. In particular, it shows how the wreck of Alexa can be identified through historical records and photographs, and examines the archaeological potential of the site.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Contextualizing Maritime Archaeology in Australasia   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology