Te Iʼi

[2] During the wars between the Te Iʻi and the Tai Pī in 1813, the American navy Captain David Porter arrived with the frigate USS Essex and ten other armed ships on October 25.

Though the landing was unopposed, Porter's force of thirty men and a cannon led the march inland where they found another, more formidable, enemy fort.

The victory was short-lived however and Captain Porter followed up his landing with an expedition overland, bypassing the fort, to threaten the Tai Pī's village center in Typee Valley as the Americans named it.

In the end, the Americans and their Te Iʻi and Happah allies had won at severe cost to the enemy, who sued for peace soon after.

At least six British prisoners were at Nuku Hiva during the American operations against the natives, not including a number who volunteered to fight for Captain Porter.

He left behind only nineteen navy sailors and six prisoners under two midshipmen and United States Marine Corps Lieutenant John M. Gamble.

Gamble was wounded in the foot and taken captive with his remaining men on the corvette Seringapatam though the Americans were set adrift later that day.

Six American sailors were on the beach at Madisonville when the Te Iʻis attacked, Four of the men were killed and one other man escaped wounded with a second survivor.

Ultimately Gamble beat off the enemy attack single-handedly though after the deaths of four of his men in town, there was no choice but to abandon the colony with the remaining seven, all of whom were either wounded or ill. After that the base was never again occupied by American forces.