But with Markham we enter that sad period which few islands of the Pacific escaped, in which the scum of the white race carried on their bloodstained trade in whaling products and sandalwood. They terrorized the natives shamelessly, and when these, naturally enough, often resorted to cruel modes of defence, they retaliated with deeds still more frightful, and the bad reputation they themselves made for the natives served them as a welcome excuse for a system of extermination. The horrors of slave-trade were added to piracy, so that in a few decades the native race of the New Hebrides and Banks Islands was so weakened that in many places to-day its preservation seems hopeless.
Thus, for the financial advantage of the worst of whites, and from indolence and short-sighted national rivalry, a race was sacrificed which in every respect would be worth preserving, and it is a shameful fact that even to-day such atrocities are not impossible and very little is done to save the islanders from destruction.
The only factor opposing these conditions was the Mission, which obtained a foothold in the islands under Bishop John Williams. He was killed in 1839 by the natives of Erromanga, but the Protestant missionaries, especially the Presbyterians, would not be repulsed, and slowly advanced northward, in spite of many losses. To-day the Presbyterian mission occupies all the New Hebrides, with the exception of Pentecoste, Aoba and Maevo. To the north lies the field of the Anglican mission, extending up to the Solomon Islands.
In 1848 Roman Catholic missionaries settled in Aneityum, but soon gave up the station; in 1887 they returned and spread all over the archipelago, with the exception of the southern islands and the Banks group.
Of late years several representatives of free Protestant sects have come out, but, as a rule, these settle only where they can combine a profitable trade with their mission work.
Owing to energetic agitation on the part of the Anglican and Presbyterian Churches, especially of Bishop Patteson and the Rev. J. G. Paton, men-of-war were ordered to the islands on police duty, so as to watch the labour-trade. They could not suppress kidnapping entirely, and the transportation of the natives to Queensland continued until within the last ten years, when it was suppressed by the Australian Government, so that to-day the natives are at least not taken away from their own islands, except those recruited by the French for New Caledonia.