History of Fiji
The majority of Fiji's islands were formed through volcanic activity starting around 150 million years ago. Today, some geothermic activity still occurs on the islands of Vanua Levu and Taveuni. Fiji was settled first by the Lapita culture, around 1,500–1,000 BC, followed by a large influx of people with predominantly Melanesian genetics about the time of the beginning of the Common Era. Europeans visited Fiji from the 17th century, and, after a brief period as an independent kingdom, the British established the Colony of Fiji in 1874. Fiji was a Crown colony until 1970, when it gained independence as the Dominion of Fiji. A republic was declared in 1987, following a series of coups d'état.
In a coup in 2006, Commodore Frank Bainimarama seized power. When the High Court ruled in 2009 that the military leadership was unlawful, President Ratu Josefa Iloilo, whom the military had retained as the nominal Head of State, formally abrogated the Constitution and reappointed Bainimarama. Later in 2009, Iloilo was replaced as president by Ratu Epeli Nailatikau. After years of delays, a democratic election was held on 17 September 2014. Bainimarama's FijiFirst party won with 59.2% of the vote, and the election was deemed credible by international observers.
Early settlement and development of Fijian culture
Located in the central Pacific Ocean, Fiji's geography has made it both a destination and a crossroads for migrations for many centuries.Pottery art from Fijian towns shows that Fiji was settled by Austronesian peoples at around c. 3050 to 2950 cal. BP, with Melanesians following around a thousand years later, although the question of Pacific migration still lingers. It is believed that the Lapita people or the ancestors of the Polynesians settled the islands first but not much is known of what became of them after the Melanesians arrived; they may have had some influence on the new culture, and archaeological evidence shows that they would have then moved on to Samoa, Tonga and even Hawai'i. Archeological evidence shows signs of settlement on the island of Moturiki from 600 BC and possibly as far back as 900 BC. Aspects of Fijian culture are similar to the Melanesian culture of the western Pacific but have a stronger connection to the older Polynesian cultures. Trade between Fiji and neighbouring archipelagos long before European contact is evidenced by the canoes made from native Fijian trees found in Tonga and Tongan words being part of the language of the Lau group of islands. Pots made in Fiji have been found in Samoa and even the Marquesas Islands.
In the 10th century, the Tu'i Tonga Empire was established in Tonga, and Fiji came within its sphere of influence. The Tongan influence brought Polynesian customs and language into Fiji. The empire began to decline in the 13th century.
Across from east to west, Fiji has been a nation of many languages. Fiji's history was one of settlement but also of mobility and over the centuries, a unique Fijian culture developed. Large elegant watercraft with rigged sails called drua were constructed in Fiji, some being exported to Tonga. Distinctive village architecture evolved consisting of communal and individual bure and vale housing with an advanced system of ramparts and moats usually being constructed around the more important settlements. Pigs were domesticated for food and a variety of agricultural plantations such as bananas existed from an early stage. Villages would also be supplied with water brought in by constructed wooden aqueducts. Fijians lived in societies led by chiefs, elders and notable warriors. Spiritual leaders, often called bete, were also important cultural figures and the production and consumption of yaqona was part of their ceremonial and community rites. Fijians developed a monetary system where the polished teeth of the sperm whale, called tabua, became an active currency. A type of writing also existed which can be seen today in various petroglyphs around the islands. They also developed a masi cloth textile industry with the woven-bark material being made into sails and clothes. Men would often wear a white cloth waist garment called a malo with a turban-like headdress. Women were known to wear a neat fringed short skirt called a liku. Fijians would also maintain their hair in distinctive large, rounded or semi-rounded shapes.
As with most other human civilisations, warfare was an important part of everyday life in pre-colonial Fiji, employing weapons such as decorative war-clubs and poisoned arrows.
With the arrival of Europeans and colonialism in the late 1700s, many elements of Fijian culture were either repressed or modified to ensure European, namely British, control. This was especially the case concerning traditional Fijian spiritual beliefs. Early colonists and missionaries utilised and conflated the concept of cannibalism in Fiji to give a moral imperative for colonial intrusion. By labelling native Fijian customs as "debased and primitive", they were able to promote a narrative that Fiji was a "paradise wasted on savage cannibals". This narrative was their justification for violence and punitive actions by the colonists which accompanied the enforced transfer of power to the Europeans. Extravagant stories made during the 19th century, such as that regarding Ratu Udre Udre who is said to have consumed 872 people and to have made a pile of stones to record his achievement, permitted an enduring racial typecast of the "uncivilised" Fijian. Cannibalism, as an impression, was an effective racial tool deployed by the colonists that has endured through the 1900s and into the modern day. Authors such as Deryck Scarr, for example, have perpetuated 19th century claims of "freshly killed corpses piled up for eating" and ceremonial mass human sacrifice on the construction of new houses and boats. Although Fiji was known as the Cannibal Isles, other more recent research doubts even the existence of cannibalism in Fiji. This view is not without criticism, and perhaps the most accurate account of cannibalism in 19th century Fiji may come from William MacGregor, the long term chief medical officer in British colonial Fiji. During the Little War of 1876, he stated that the rare occasion of tasting of the flesh of the enemy was done "to indicate supreme hatred and not out of relish for a gastronomic treat".
Early interaction with Europeans
explorer Abel Tasman was the first known European visitor to Fiji, sighting the northern island of Vanua Levu and the North Taveuni archipelago in 1643 while looking for Terra Australis incognita, or the Great Southern Continent. He called this island group Prince William's islands and Heemskerck Shoals.James Cook, the British navigator, visited one of the southern Lau islands in 1774. It was not until 1789, however, that the islands were charted and plotted, when William Bligh, the castaway captain of, passed Ovalau and sailed between the main islands of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu en route to Batavia, in what is now Indonesia. Bligh Water, the strait between the two main islands, is named after him, and for a time, the Fiji Islands were known as the "Bligh Islands."
The first Europeans to maintain substantial contact with the Fijians were sandalwood merchants, whalers and "beche-de-mer" traders. In 1804, the discovery of sandalwood on the southwestern coast of Vanua Levu led to an increase in the number and frequency of Western trading ships visiting Fiji. A sandalwood rush began in the first few years but it dried up when supplies dropped between 1810 and 1814. Some of the Europeans who came to Fiji in this period were accepted by the locals and were allowed to stay as residents. Probably the most famous of these was a Swede from Uddevalla by the name of Kalle Svenson, better known as Charlie Savage. Charlie and his firearms were recognised by Nauvilou, the leader of the Bau community, as useful augmentations to their activities in warfare. Charlie was permitted to take wives and establish himself in a high rank in Bau society in exchange for helping defeat local adversaries. In 1813, however, Charlie became a victim of this lifestyle and was killed in a botched raid.
By the 1820s, the traders returned for beche-de-mer and Levuka was established as the first European-style town in Fiji, on the island of Ovalau. The market for "beche-de-mer" in China was lucrative and British and American merchants set up processing stations on various islands. Local Fijians were utilised to collect, prepare and pack the product which would then be shipped to Asia. A good cargo would result in a half-yearly profit of around $25,000 for the dealer. The Fijian workers were often given firearms and ammunition as an exchange for their labour, and by the end of the 1820s most of the Fijian chiefs had muskets and many were skilled at using them. Some Fijian chiefs soon felt confident enough with their new weapons to forcibly obtain more destructive weaponry from the Europeans. In 1834, Captain Desbureaux of the Brig, Aimable Josephine, which engaged in whaling and trading beche-de-mer, turtle shell and sandalwood, made an arrangement with Tui Makanasese of Viwa to provide transport for his warriors and support them with his canon and the muskets of his crew, in raids against other Fijians in return for the products that Desbureaux traded. However, Tui Makanasese, eventually turned on his allies and joined his warriors in massacring the crew of L'aimable Josephine, and used its cannon against their enemies on the Rewa River, although they later ran it aground.
Christian missionaries like David Cargill also arrived in the 1830s from recently converted regions such as Tonga and Tahiti, and by 1840 the European settlement at Levuka had grown to about 40 houses with former whaler, David Whippey, being a notable resident. The religious conversion of the Fijians, just like the associated incursion of European colonialism, was a gradual process which was observed first-hand by Captain Charles Wilkes of the United States Exploring Expedition. Wilkes wrote that "all the chiefs seemed to look upon Christianity as a change in which they had much to lose and little to gain", but they would endure the preachings of the missionaries because they "bring vessels to their place and give them opportunities of obtaining many desirable articles". Christianised Fijians, in addition to forsaking their spiritual beliefs, were pressured into cutting their hair short, adopting the sulu form of dress from Tonga and fundamentally changing their marriage and funeral traditions. This process of enforced cultural change was called lotu.
The strengthening demands of Western imperial and capital representatives upon coastal Fijians to relinquish their culture, land and resources at this time inevitably led to an increase in the intensity of conflict. In 1840, a surveying party from the Charles Wilkes expedition had a skirmish with the people of Malolo island resulting in a lieutenant and a midshipman being killed. Wilkes, upon hearing of the deaths, organised a large punitive expedition against the Malolo people. He encircled the island with his ships, burnt all the Fijian watercraft he could find and attacked the island. Most of the Maloloans took refuge in a well-fortified village which they defended with muskets and traditional weapons. Wilkes ordered the village to be attacked with rockets which acted as makeshift incendiary devices. The village, with the occupants trapped inside, quickly became an inferno with Wilkes himself noting that the "shouts of men were intermingled with the cries and shrieks of the women and children" as they burnt to death. Those that managed to flee the flames were shot by Wilkes' men. Eventually Wilkes returned to his ship to await the surrender of the survivors saying that whole remaining population should "sue for mercy" and if not "they must expect to be exterminated". Around 57 to 87 Maloloan people were killed in this encounter and even though Wilkes did later face an investigation for these actions, no disciplinary measures were enacted against him.