Leonidas (ship)

Leonidas (named after king

community that now numbers close to forty per cent of Fiji's population.

Cholera and smallpox aboard the ship

A total of 498 passengers made up of 273 men, 146 women and 79 children under twelve years of age, had embarked on the ship in Calcutta. While only three days out to sea there was an outbreak of cholera and smallpox aboard the ship. Despite efforts by the Surgeon Superintendent to isolate the infected passengers, 17 died before the ship arrived in Levuka, after a journey of 72 days. Since there was no quarantine facility in Levuka, it was decided to anchor the ship some distance from Levuka on the leeward side. While attempting to reach the selected anchorage point, the ship went aground on a reef. The gravity of the situation was all too vivid in the minds of the Government officials as only four years earlier a measles epidemic had wiped out 40,000 Fijians. At high tide the ship floated off the reef and was safely anchored.

Quarantine at sea

The Chief Medical Officer of the colony, Dr McGregor, devised an ingenious method of effectively preventing the infection reaching the shore, during the process of sending stores, letters, etc., to the ship. A stage was erected on the outer reef using trestles of hardwood, with a moving platform. Stores necessary to the ship were placed on this platform at low tide and taken off by the ship's boat. All letters were placed in a

before delivery. At high tide this was cleaned by the sea.

Temporary quarantine station

, leaving only 463 survivors, before they were released from the island on 9 August 1879.

Early voyages of Leonidas

• 8 September 1866 - The 110-ton schooner was in Auckland harbour.^[2]
• 23 November 1870 - Leonidas called into the Bay of Islands on her way to Fiji. She departed for Fiji on 27 November with its original cargo.^[3]

See also

• Indian indenture system
• Indians in Fiji
• Indian indenture ships to Fiji

References

External links

• Picture of Leonidas
• The day the Leonidas arrived in Fiji

Bibliography

• Fiji Times, 17 May 1879
• Fiji Government, The Colony of Fiji: 1874–1924, Government Printer, Suva, Fiji, 1925
• B.V. Lal, Chalo Jahaji: on a Journey through Indenture in Fiji, Australian National University, Canberra, 2000