Timeline

Historical Dictionary

First posted on June 23rd 2004

Narratives : History of Australia and the Pacific http://www.zum.de/whkmla/sat/texts/narrpacific.html

Before the Arrival of the Europeans Australia, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia were settled by Melanesians; Australia is believed to have been settled 40,000 B.C. Micronesians and Polynesians are believed to have moved into the South Pacific, and to have settled the archipelagos at a much later date. Lapita pottery found on a number of the Pacific islands is dated to c.1000 B.C. The Micronesians, and even more the Polynesians, were accomplished navigators. From a core region (Samoa- Marquesas) Polynesians settled Hawaii and New Zealand - in tiny catamarans. Most of the islands of the south Pacific are fairly small; early human communities (i.e. the Micro- and Polynesians) mainly lived on fish, sweet potato and chicken. The islands often were threatened by overpopulation, a factor which may have forced some of them to sail out in search of new lands. Politically they seem to have mainly been organized in small tribal units, several of whom sharing an island. However, Tonga is a Kingdom the origins of which reach back into the 13th century; the Kingdom seems to have extended over many islands. The carving and erection of the Moai in Rapa Nui (Easter Island) has required considerable coordinated effort and therefore suggests to have involved the entire island community. Early European Contact The Spaniard and Dutch explorers of the 16th to early 18th century regarded Australia and the South Pacific with disdain. The Spaniards regarded the island inhabitants as savages (many of them were cannibalistic); the Dutch were searching for trading partners and found no suitable trade partners. The image of Pacific islanders given in travelogues of the time was rather negative. This changed in the later half of the 18th century, with the discovery of (Tahiti by Samuel Wallis 1767, the journeys by James Cook 1768-1771, 1776-1779 and by Louis Antoine de Bougainville 1766-1770. James Cook created the image of noble savages, de Bougainville described Tahiti of an Utopia where free love was practised, by women of statuesque beauty. The next Europeans to stop by were whalers, merchants who sought quick profit (tried to sell alcohol for high prices, obtain pearls etc.), even European settlers, and missionaries. The first missionary arrived in (Tonga in 1797, on (New Zealand in 1814. The first child of European parents was born in New Zealand in 1815. The first missionaries were English protestants (London Missionary Society); they were soon joined by French Catholics. The European contacts resulted in the transmission of infectious diseases, which resulted in a decline of the native population. The missionaries strove to suppress certain practices of the native population, among them cannibalism. On the other hand, they developed Samoan and Tongan into written languages (Tongan Law was codified in 1839, in the Code of Vava'u). In the latter half of the 19th century, another form of contact with the outside world emerged : Peruvian slave raiders, which depopulated entire islands. Meanwhile, in several of the islands a process resulting in political unification took place : Hawaii 1795, Fiji 1871, (Samoa in the late 19th century. European Colonization : the Pacific Islands James Cook claimed eastern Australia for Britain in 1770 and recommended Botany Bay for settlement; a Penal Colony was established near Botany Bay in New South Wales in 1788, on Tasmania in 1803, in Western Australia in 1829. In 1828 the Dutch established a settlement on New Guinea. In 1838 Britain declared a protectorate over Pitcairn (here the descendants of the Bounty mutineers had settled in 1789). France declared Tahiti a protectorate in 1842, annexed New Caledonia in 1853; in order to forestall a French takeover of New Zealand, the British declared NZ a protectorate in 1840. In the late 19th century, new competitors for colonial territory appeared - Germany, the U.S., and in the extreme northwest, Japan. The Pacific islands were partitioned by the colonial forces. More often than not did the colonial powers create larger political entities than those they found upon arrival. The colonial powers, in order to raise revenue, encouraged the establishment of plantations and mining enterprises (Guano, phosphate deposits, nickel on New Caledonia). The plantation and mine owners usually were white immigrants. As slavery no longer was an option (most of these islands were declared protectorates at a time when slavery was banned) and the local people were reluctant to take on heavy work for meager pay, at many places workers were brought in from elsewhere. As a result, over 44 % of the present population of Fiji consists of descendants of Indian immigrant workers; on New Caledonia the indigenous Melanesians are only a minority. Yet even when the immigrant workers were from as near as the next island, they often were resented by the locals, a matter which brought Guadalcanal to the brink of a civil war only a few years ago. Compared to the colonies in Africa and Asia, the Pacific island colonies and protectorates, except for Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and Hawaii, were tiny in land size and population. The interests of the native population were often disregarded. Part of the land was allocated to plantations; on Rapa Nui, the indigenous population was placed on a reservation which covered only a small part of the island. Even in countries under native rule, such as the Kingdom of Hawaii, plantations owned by white immigrants covered a significant share of the land. And these plantation owners featured prominently in a coup d'etat which ousted Queen Liliu'okalani, after which the country, according to the wishes of the coupists, was annexed by the U.S.A. (1898). The Twentieth Century : the Pacific Islands During World War II the Pacific attracted a lot of attention. Here the Japanese expansion came to a halt; the U.S. first built up her forces and then stroke back in the Island Hopping campaign. The U.S. established bases all over the South Pacific. They provided jobs for the local population, which became dependent on the local base as the main supplier of jobs. When such a base was closed down, the effect was devastating for the local economy. Example Honiara on Guadalcanal. The U.S. used the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands for nuclear tests 1946-1958; France used the Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia for the same purpose 1966-1996. An attempt to resettle Bikini has been aborted, and the island was evacuated a second time in 1979, as the ground water is still too radioactive for human consumption. Johnston Atoll, uninhabited, is used by the U.S. as a nuclear waste dump. Many of the islands suffer from a chronic shortage of jobs, and in a number of cases the majority of the population lives abroad (Wallis et Futuna, Niue). Only a few of the islands are tourism magnets ( Tahiti, Pitcairn, Rapa Nui). Beginning with Western Samoa in 1962, Pacific Island nations were released into independence. In some of them, cohabitation of native islanders and the descendants of immigrants (Fiji, New Caledonia, Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands) is problematic; in others the borders drawn by colonial powers caused a problem. Upon independence, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands split up in two states, Kiribati and Tuvalu; Palau separated from what became the Federated States of Micronesia. The islanders of Bougainville strove, hitherto unsuccessfully, to secede from Papua Niugini. Apart from islands uninhabitable because of nuclear contamination, the colonial powers left behind moonscapes of exploited mines useless for agriculture, for instance on Nauru. The ecology of the South Pacific seems to be exceptionally fragile. The Maoris are blamed for the extinction of the Moa and Harpagus, gigantic birds once indigenous to New Zealand. When Jakob Roggeveen found Rapa Nui (Easter Island), the island was treeless, the result of excessive treefelling. The colonial era has continued in this direction; the unintentional introduction of snakes to Guam has resulted in the destruction of the island's entire avifauna. The introduction of rabbits to Australia in the 19th century, by a passionate hunter who believed to have insufficient targets to shoot at, caused havoc and had to be countered by the introduction of a disease which attacked the rabbits' eyes. Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii Here white immigrants have outnumbered the locals, the population has a predominantly English respectively American identity. Australia and New Zealand early were granted self-government. They both developed an economy centered on livestock breeding (sheep); Australia in addition developed a major mining industry, Hawaii more of a plantation economy. In the 20th century, these economies diversified. Australia and New Zealand are immigrant nations; temporarily immigration of Asians has been restricted (Yellow Peril propaganda). Australia, New Zealand are succesfull economies and functioning democracies, Hawaii is part of one. New Zealand was one of the first nations to granmt women the right to vote. In all three nations, the descendants of the original inhabitants found themselves marginalized in society. Only a few decades ago, Australian authorities regarded it appropriate to take babies from aborigine families and place them with white foster parents, believing to do the children a favour. These days, individual Australian Aborigines, New Zealand Maoris and Hawaiian Polynesians gain fame as athletes, for instance Australia's runner Cathy Freeman.

EXTERNAL FILES

REFERENCE

Click here to go Home Click here to go to Information about KMLA, WHKMLA, the author and webmaster Click here to go to Statistics