O’Keefe’s Swan returns from Palau carrying 1,480 pieces of stone money.
What happened
The stone money (rai) was quarried by Yapese in Palau and carried home on O’Keefe’s ships; under his agreement with the chiefs, owners received their stones only after paying in copra. A Smithsonian page says this “single-handedly introduced inflation” into the stone-money system.
Who’s who
- David O’KeefeIrish-born trader on Yap who shipped Palauan stone money in exchange for copra from the 1870s.