On 20 September 1871, Patteson was killed on the island of Nukapu in the Solomon Islands, where he had landed alone. At the time, it was thought that natives killed him as revenge for the abduction of five men by illegal blackbirders a few days before, who had also killed one man. The 1911 "Encyclopædia Britannica" says that Patteson was taken for a blackbirder and killed, but the natives realised their mistake and treated his body with respect, as it was found floating at sea, placed in "a canoe, covered with a palm fibre matting, and a palm-branch in his hand".