Malaita
Malaita is the primary island of Malaita Province in Solomon Islands. Malaita is the most populous island of the Solomon Islands, with a population of 161,832 as of 2021, or more than a third of the entire national population. It is also the second largest island in the country by area, after Guadalcanal.
The largest city and provincial capital is Auki, on the northwest coast and is on the northern shore of the Langa Langa Lagoon. The people of the Langa Langa Lagoon and the Lau Lagoon on the northeast coast of Malaita call themselves wane i asi ‘salt-water people’ as distinct from wane i tolo ‘bush people’ who live in the interior of the island.
South Malaita Island, also known as Small Malaita and Maramasike for ꞋAreꞌare speakers and Malamweimwei known to more than 80% of the islanders, is the island at the southern tip of the larger island of Malaita.
Name
Most local names for the island are Mala, or its dialect variants Mara or Mwala. The name Malaita or Malayta appears in the logbook of the Spanish explorers who in the 16th century visited the islands, and claimed that to be the actual name. They first saw the island from Santa Isabel, where it is called Mala. One theory is that "ita" was added on, as the Bughotu word for up or east, or in this context "there." Bishop George Augustus Selwyn referred to it as Malanta in 1850. Mala was the name used under British control; now Malaita is used for official purposes. The name Big Malaita is also used to distinguish it from the smaller South Malaita Island.History
Early settlement and European discovery
Malaita was, along with the other Solomon Islands, settled by Austronesian speakers between 5000 and 3500 years ago; the earlier Papuan speakers are thought to have only reached the western Solomon Islands. However, Malaita has not been archaeologically examined, and a chronology of its prehistory is difficult to establish. In the traditional account of the Kwara'ae, their founding ancestor arrived about twenty generations ago, landed first on Guadalcanal, but followed a magical staff which led him on to the middle of Malaita, where he established their cultural norms. His descendants then dispersed to the lowland areas on the edges of the island.First recorded sighting by Europeans of Malaita was by the Spaniard Álvaro de Mendaña on 11 April 1568. More precisely the sighting was due to a local voyage done by a small boat, in the accounts the brigantine Santiago, commanded by Maestre de Campo Pedro Ortega Valencia and having Hernán Gallego as pilot. In his account, Gallego chief pilot of Mendaña's expedition, establishes that they called the island Malaita after its native name and explored much of the coast, though not the north side. The Maramasiki Passage was thought to be a river. At one point they were greeted with war canoes and fired at with arrows; they retaliated with shots and killed and wounded some. However, after this discovery, the entire Solomon Islands chain was not found, and even its existence doubted, for two hundred years.
Labour trade and missions
After it was re-discovered in the late 18th century, Malaitans were subjected to harsh treatment from whaling boat crews and blackbirders. Contact with outsiders also brought new opportunities for education. The first Malaitans to learn to read and write were Joseph Wate and Watehou, who accompanied Bishop John Coleridge Patteson to St John's College, Auckland.From the 1870s to 1903 Malaitan men comprised the largest number of Solomon Islander Kanaka workers in the indentured labour trade to Queensland, Australia and to Fiji. The 1870s were a time of illegal recruiting practices known as blackbirding. Malaitans are known to have volunteered as indentured labourers with some making their second trip to work on plantations, although the labour system remained exploitative. In 1901 the Commonwealth of Australia enacted the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901 which facilitated the deportation of Pacific Islanders that was the precursor to the White Australia policy. However, many islanders remained and formed the South Sea Islander community of Australia. Many labourers that returned to Malaita had learnt to read and had become Christian. The skills of literacy and protest letters as to being deported from Australia was a precedent for the later Maasina Ruru movement.
Many of the earliest missionaries, both Catholic and Protestant, were killed, and this violent reputation survives in the geographic name of Cape Arsacides, the eastward bulge of the northern part of the island, meaning Cape of the Assassins. The cape was even mentioned in Herman Melville's epic novel Moby Dick by Ishmael, the novel's narrator. Ishmael talks of his friendship with the fictional Tranquo, King of Tranque. However, some of the earliest missionaries were Malaitans who had worked abroad, such as Peter Ambuofa, who was baptised at Bundaberg, Queensland in 1892, and gathered a Christian community around him when he returned in 1894. In response to his appeals, Florence Young led the first party of the Queensland Kanaka Mission to the Solomons in 1904. Anglican and Catholic churches also missionized at this point, and set up schools in areas such as Malu'u.
As the international labour trade slowed, an internal labour trade within the archipelago developed, and by the 1920s thousands of Malaitans worked on plantations on other islands.
Establishment of colonial power
At this time, there was no central power among the groups on Malaita, and there were numerous blood feuds, exacerbated by the introduction of Western guns, and steel tools which meant less time constraints for gardening. Around 1880, Kwaisulia, one of the chiefs, negotiated with labour recruiters to receive a supply of weapons in exchange of workers, based on a similar negotiation made by a chief on the Shortland Islands; this weapon supply gave the chiefs considerable power. However, labour recruitment was not always smooth. In 1886, the vessel Young Dick was attacked at Sinerango, Malaita, and most of its crew murdered. In 1886, Britain defined its area of interest in the Solomons, including Malaita, and central government control of Malaita began in 1893, when Captain Herbert Gibson, of, declared the southern Solomon Islands as a British Protectorate with the proclamation of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate, claiming to regulate the local warfare and unfair labour trade, although it coincided with the German acquisition of territories to the west and French interest in those to the east.Auki was established as a government station in 1909, as headquarters of the administrative district of Malaita. The government began to pacify the island, registering or confiscating firearms, collecting a head tax, and breaking the power of unscrupulous war leaders. One important figure in the process was District Commissioner William R. Bell, who was killed in 1927 by a Kwaio, along with a cadet named Lillies and 13 Solomon Islanders in his charge. A massive punitive expedition, known as the Malaita massacre, ensued; at least 60 Kwaio were killed, nearly 200 detained in Tulagi, and many sacred sites and objects were destroyed or desecrated. Resentment about this incident continues, and in 1983 leaders from the Kwaio area council requested that the national government demand from the United Kingdom about $100 million in compensation for the incident. When the central government did not act on this request, the council encouraged a boycott of the 1986 national elections.
World War II, which played a major role in Solomons history, did not have a major impact upon Malaita. Auki became the temporary capital when Tulagi was seized by the Japanese, and it too was briefly raided by Japan, but little fighting happened on the island. Malaitans who fought in battalions, however, brought a new movement for self-determination known as Maasina Ruru, which spread quickly across the island. Participants united across traditional religious, ethnic, and clan lines, lived in fortified nontraditional villages, and refused to cooperate with the British. The organization of the movement on Malaita was considerable. The island was divided into nine districts, roughly along the lines of the government administrative districts, and leaders were selected for each district. Courts were set up, each led by a custom chief, who became powerful figures. The British initially treated the movement cautiously, even praised aspects of it, but when they found there could be no common ground between the government and the movement, retaliated firmly, with armed police patrols, insisting that the chiefs recant or be arrested. Some did recant, but in September 1947 most were tried in Honiara, charged with terrorism or robbery, and convicted to years of hard labour.
However, the movement continued underground, and new leaders renamed the organization the Federal Council. The High Commissioner visited Malaita to negotiate a settlement, and proposed the formation of the Malaita Council, which would have a president elected by members, though they would have to recognize the government's authority and agree to cooperate with their administrators. The council became the first installment of local government in the Solomon Islands, and its first president was Salana Ga'a. The establishment of the council reduced the tension on Malaita, although Maasina Rule elements did continue until at least 1955. The council was shown not to be simply a means of appeasement, but submitted nearly seventy resolutions and recommendations to the High Commissioner in its first two years of existence.
Post-independence
The Solomon Islands were granted independence in July 1978. The first prime minister was Peter Kenilorea from ꞋAreꞌare. The provinces were re-organized in 1981, and Malaita became the main island of Malaita Province. Malaita remains the most populous island in the country, and continues to be a source for migrants, a role it played since the days of the labour trade. There are villages of Malaitans in many provinces, including eight "squatter" settlements that make up about 15 percent of the population of Honiara, on Guadalcanal.Malaitans who had emigrated to Guadalcanal became a focus of the civil war which broke out in 1999, and the Malaita Eagle Force was formed to protect their interest, both on Guadalcanal and on their home island. The organization of Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands has contributed to the infrastructure development of the island.
After the Solomon Islands switched diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 2019, with a delegation led by prime minister Manasseh Sogavare being received with great hostility and the provincial government refusing to discuss the topics Sogavare had originally arrived to discuss, instead airing concerns over the diplomatic switch. Mass pro-Taiwan protests broke out throughout Malaita, and some protesters even demanded independence from the Solomon Islands, sparking concerns over the fragility of the government.