The End of the Press

As you read in the timeline, May 1818 marked the end of the press's tenure on Eimeo. In its 11 months, the press and its operators had begun the history of printing in the Pacific.

Ellis reflected in the Polynesian Researches on the long-term goal of the missionaries who established the press:

"We look forward, with pleasing anticipation, to the time when the natives themselves shall become writers. In the investigation and illustration of many things connected with the peculiar genius and character of their own countrymen, they will have advantages which no individual, who is a foreigner, can ever possess; and we may hope that the time is not far distant, when they will not only have standard works by native authors, but that their periodical literature will circulate widely, and spread knowledge and piety among all classes of the people" (Ellis 408).