Vanuatu
Vanuatu, officially the Republic of Vanuatu, is an island country in Melanesia located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east of New Guinea, southeast of Solomon Islands, and west of Fiji.
Vanuatu was first inhabited by Melanesian people. The first Europeans to visit the islands were a Spanish expedition led by Portuguese navigator Fernandes de Queirós, who arrived on the largest island, Espíritu Santo, in 1606. Queirós claimed the archipelago for Spain, as part of the colonial Spanish East Indies and named it La Austrialia del Espíritu Santo.
In the 1880s, France and the United Kingdom claimed parts of the archipelago, and in 1906, they agreed on a framework for jointly managing the archipelago as the New Hebrides through an Anglo-French condominium.
In the 1970s, an independence movement arose, and the Republic of Vanuatu was founded in 1980. Since its independence, the country has become a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, and the Pacific Islands Forum.
Etymology
Vanuatu's name derives from the word vanua, cognates of which occur in several Austronesian languages, combined with the word tu, meaning 'to stand'. Together, the two words convey the independent status of the country.History
Prehistory
The history of Vanuatu before European colonisation is mostly obscure because of the lack of written sources, which predate European contact, and because only limited archaeological work has been conducted; Vanuatu's volatile geology and climate are also likely to have destroyed or hidden many prehistoric sites. Archaeological evidence gathered since the 1980s supports the theory that the Vanuatuan islands were first settled about 3,000 years ago, in the period roughly between 1100 BCE and 700 BCE. These were almost certainly people of the Lapita culture. The formerly widespread idea that Vanuatu might have been only marginally affected by this culture was rendered obsolete by the evidence uncovered in recent decades at numerous sites on most of the islands in the archipelago, ranging from the Banks Islands in the north to Aneityum in the south.Notable Lapita sites include Teouma on Éfaté, Uripiv, and Vao off the coast of Malakula, and Makue on Aore. Several ancient burial sites have been excavated, most notably Teouma on Éfaté, which has a large ancient cemetery containing the remains of 94 individuals. There are also sites – on Éfaté and on the adjacent islands of Lelepa and Eretoka – associated with the 16th–17th century chief or chiefs called Roy Mata. Roy Mata is said to have united local clans and instituted and presided over an era of peace.
The stories about Roy Mata come from local oral tradition and are consistent with centuries-old evidence uncovered at archaeological sites. The Lapita sites became Vanuatu's first UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008.
File:Fels Cave Drawings 1.jpg|thumb|Cave drawings, Lelepa Island, associated with the Roy Mata World Heritage Site
The immediate origins of the Lapita lie to the northwest, in the Solomon Islands archipelago and the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea, though DNA studies of a 3,000-year-old skeleton found near Port Vila in 2016 indicates that some may have arrived directly from the Philippines or Taiwan, pausing only briefly en route. They brought with them crops such as yam, taro, and banana, as well as domesticated animals such as pigs and chickens. Their arrival is coincident with the extinction of several species, such as the land crocodile, land tortoise and various flightless bird species. Lapita settlements reached as far east as Tonga and Samoa at their greatest extent.
Over time, the Lapita culture lost much of its early unity; as such, it became increasingly fragmented, the precise reasons for which are unclear. Over the centuries, pottery, settlement and burial practices in Vanuatu all evolved in a more localised direction, with long-distance trade and migration patterns contracting. Nevertheless, some limited long-distance trade did continue, with similar cultural practices and late-period items also being found in Fiji, New Caledonia, the Bismarcks and the Solomons. Finds in central and southern Vanuatu, such as distinctive adzes, also indicate some trade connections with, and possibly population movements of, Polynesian peoples to the east.
Over time, it is thought that the Lapita either mixed with, or acted as pioneers for, migrants coming from the Bismarks and elsewhere in Melanesia, ultimately producing the darker-skinned physiognomy that is typical of modern Ni-Vanuatu. Linguistically, the Lapita peoples' Austronesian languages were maintained, with all of the numerous 100+ autochthonous languages of Vanuatu being classified as belonging to the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian language family.
This linguistic hyperdiversity resulted from a number of factors: continuing waves of migration, the existence of numerous decentralised and generally self-sufficient communities, hostilities between people groups, with none able to dominate any of the others, and the difficult geography of Vanuatu that impeded inter- and intra-island travel and communication. The geological record also shows that a huge volcanic eruption occurred on Ambrym in CE, which would have devastated local populations and likely resulted in further population movements.
Human cannibalism, at least for some parts of Vanuatu, is often mentioned, both by indigenous sources and by foreign observers. However, its existence and exact prevalence remain to be confirmed with empirical evidence.
Arrival of Europeans (1606–1906)
The Vanuatu islands first had contact with Europeans in April 1606, when the Portuguese explorer Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, sailing for the Spanish Crown, departed El Callao, sailed by the Banks Islands, landing briefly on Gaua. Continuing further south, Queirós arrived at the largest island, naming it La Austrialia del Espíritu Santo or "The Southern Land of the Holy Spirit", believing he had arrived in Terra Australis. The Spanish established a settlement named Nueva Jerusalem at Big Bay on the north side of the island, but it was a short-lived endeavor.Regardless of Queirós's intention, relations with the Ni-Vanuatu turned violent within days. The Spanish subsequent attempts to make contact were met with the islanders fleeing or leading the explorers into an ambush. Many of the crew, including Queirós, were also suffering from ill health, with Queirós's mental state also deteriorating. The encampment was abandoned after a month, with Queirós continuing his search for the southern continent.
Europeans did not return until 1768, when the French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville sailed by the islands on 22 May, naming them the Great Cyclades. Of the various French toponyms Bougainville devised, only Pentecost Island has stuck.
The French landed on Ambae, trading with the native people in a peaceful manner, though Bougainville stated that they were later attacked, necessitating him to fire warning shots with his muskets, before his crew left and continued their voyage. In July–September 1774 the islands were explored extensively by British explorer Captain James Cook, who named them the New Hebrides, after the Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland, a name that lasted until independence in 1980. Cook managed to maintain generally cordial relations with the Ni-Vanuatu by giving them presents and refraining from violence.
In 1789, William Bligh and the remainder of his crew sailed through the Banks Islands on their return voyage to Timor following the mutiny on the Bounty; Bligh later returned to the islands, naming them after his benefactor Joseph Banks.
Whaleships were among the first regular visitors to this group of islands. The first recorded visit was by the Rose in February 1804, and the last known visit by the New Bedford ship John and Winthrop in 1887. In 1825, the trader Peter Dillon's discovery of sandalwood on the island of Erromango, highly valued as an incense in China where it could be traded for tea, resulted in rush of incomers that ended in 1830 after a clash between immigrant Polynesian workers and indigenous Ni-Vanuatu. Further sandalwood trees were found on Efate, Espiritu Santo, and Aneityum, prompting a series of boom and busts, though supplies were essentially exhausted by the mid-1860s, and the trade largely ceased.
During the 1860s, planters in Australia, Fiji, New Caledonia, and the Samoan islands, in need of labourers, encouraged a long-term indentured labour trade called "blackbirding". At the height of the labour trade, more than one-half the adult male population of several of the islands worked abroad. Because of this, and the poor conditions and abuse often faced by workers, as well the introduction of common diseases to which native Ni-Vanuatu had no immunity, the population of Vanuatu declined severely, with the current population being greatly reduced compared to pre-contact times. Greater oversight of the trade saw it gradually wind down, with Australia barring any further 'blackbird' labourers in 1906, followed by Fiji and Samoa in 1910 and 1913 respectively.
File:The Landing at Tana one of the New Hebrides, by William Hodges.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|James Cook landing at Tanna island,
From 1839 onwards, missionaries, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, arrived on the islands. At first, they faced hostility, most notably with the killings of John Williams and James Harris of the London Missionary Society on Erromango in 1839. Despite this, they pressed on, resulting in many conversions. To the consternation of the Europeans, Ni-Vanuatu syncretised Christianity with traditional kastom beliefs. The Anglican Melanesian Mission also took young converts for further training in New Zealand and Norfolk Island. Presbyterian missionaries were particularly successful on Aneityum, though less so on Tanna, with missionaries being repeatedly chased off the island by locals throughout the 1840s–60s. The waves of illnesses and deaths the missionaries brought with them may have been partly to blame for the hostile response.
Other European settlers also came, looking for land for cotton plantations, the first of these being Henry Ross Lewin on Tanna in 1865. When international cotton prices collapsed after the ending of the American Civil War, they switched to coffee, cocoa, bananas, and, most successfully, coconuts. Initially British subjects from Australia made up the majority of settlers, but with little support from the British government they frequently struggled to make a success of their settlements.
French planters also began arriving, beginning with Ferdinand Chevillard on Efate in 1880, and later in larger numbers following the creation of the Compagnie Caledonienne des Nouvelles-Hébrides I. 1882 by John Higginson, which soon tipped the balance in favour of French subjects. The French government took over the CCNH in 1894 and actively encouraged French settlement. By 1906, French settlers outnumbered the British, almost two to one.