POLYNESIAN & MELANESIAN INHABITATION
From
half a mile offshore, the Fiji Islands today look much the
way they did to the first Polynesians to reach these shores
3,500 years ago. More than three hundred islands in the Fiji
group are large enough to support human habitation, but even
today fewer than one third of the islands are inhabited. The
two largest islands -- Viti Levu and Vanua Levu -- together
account for 87% of the land mass and 93% of the population.
The first seafarers to land here came from a relatively crowded
chain of islands stretching back toward Southeast Asia. These
rich, empty islands must have been Nirvana to them.
The first Polynesians had Fiji to themselves for about 2,000 years before a second wave of immigrants arrived from Melanesia. Over 1,000 more years passed before Abel Tasman, the first European to discover Fiji, sailed past Taveuni in 1643. By then the Fiji Islands were well populated by a cohesive, but not entirely cooperative, mixed race.
CAPTAIN COOK'S ERA
One hundred and thirty years later, in 1774, Captain Cook (whose crew included young Lieutenant Bligh), sighted islands in the Lau group but declined to stop. The first detailed observations of Fiji were made fifteen years later by Bligh, now a full fledged Captain (but temporarily limited to command of a lifeboat following the Bounty mutiny in 1789). Considering his circumstances, he made remarkably accurate and detailed observations as his crew rowed and sailed through the channel between the two main islands of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu (now known as Bligh Waters). Bligh didn't come ashore either, perhaps because he was chased out to sea by warriors from the Yasawa Islands.EUROPEAN TRADERS, GREED & DISEASE
Not until the dawning of the new century, 1800, did Europeans venture ashore in Fiji, where they discovered lush stands of sandalwood, a cargo of which could be bought for fifty dollars and sold to the Chinese for twenty thousand dollars.After 3,500 years of successful, if not necessarily peaceful, existence, the addition of European greed to an already unstable and barbarous mix of tribal rivalries ushered in a particularly disastrous period for Fijians. The islands were already divided among hundreds of warring factions, and the only white men able to survive in Fiji were escaped convicts from Australia or plucky raconteurs like Charles Savage and Martin Bushart, who quickly allied themselves with the strongest chiefs and earned their everlasting respect by introducing the wonders of powder and shot.
After the white men got to Fiji it took only ten years to denude the forests of sandalwood. And beche-de-mer, a shallow ocean sea slug considered an aphrodisiac in Asia, was fished out in just 25 years. The Fijian people did not fare much better. Disease introduced from the outside, including measles brought back by the paramount chief after a state visit to Australia, reduced the population by nearly half in eighty years. By 1921 the Fijian population stood at 84,000, only 42% of the prediscovery population.
The late 1800's were exciting but lawless times in Fiji. The paramount chief, Cakobau, having barely survived his bout with measles, watched the resulting epidemic wipe out one third of his people. At the same time, an American con man who had set fire to his own home and trading post during a particularly spirited Fourth of July celebration managed to convince the American government to back his demands for $44,000 in damages from Cakobau. And in Levuka, the 2,000 or so settlers were getting restless. With American warships hovering nearby and the possibility of a US takeover in the wind, Cakobau decided to cede his kingdom to Great Britain.
BRITISH COLONIAL RULE
When Britain took over Fiji in 1874, the United Kingdom was the world master of colonization. Partly by accident and partly by design, Fiji did well under the rule of the first two British governors, both of whom had experience in other British colonies. Sir Arthur Gordon realized that the chiefly system in Fiji worked well, so rather than try to lay down the law from above, he ruled the country through the existing chiefs, whose communal land he protected from ever being sold. To this day the chiefly system functions well in Fiji and the Fijian people remain in control of more than 80% of their land.ARRIVAL OF INDENTURED LABORERS FROM INDIA:
The Stage is Set
Sir Arthur Gordon also realized that it would be futile to
try to make Fijians work the land of the foreign plantation
owners. Using the tried-and-true colonial recipe of divide
and conquer, he initiated the immigration of indentured workers
from India. Over a period of 40 years ending in 1916, 63,000
Indian workers came to Fiji to work out a ten-year contract.
More than half of them elected to stay behind when the contract
expired. These Indian workers, without access to the communal
land belonging to the Fijians, either continued farming small
leased plots of land or went into business. Today the majority
of Fiji businesses are Indian owned and managed.
WORLD WAR I
Under the heavy wing of the British colonial powers, Fiji entered the 20th century: a peaceful, relatively prosperous little country mostly unaffected by the world beyond the surrounding seas. Fiji was hardly noticed during World War I except by Count Felix von Luckner, whose infamous raider the SEEADLER was wrecked in the Society Islands. Intent on finding a new schooner with which to continue the war, von Luckner and five men sailed to Fiji in an open boat. They found a suitable ship to commandeer in Wakaya, but their plans were foiled by the untimely arrival of a British officer and four Indian soldiers. Lacking the uniforms in which to fight chivalrously, they surrendered and were interned in Auckland for the remainder of the war.WORLD WAR II
While W.W.II narrowly bypassed Fiji, Fijian soldiers fought on behalf of their British masters in both the Pacific and European theaters. So skilled were the Fijian warriors in jungle warfare that the term "missing-in-action" was modified in their case to "not-yet-arrived".INDEPENDENCE FROM BRITAIN, 1970
During the 1960's, Fiji's Indian population began to bristle under the inequities of Colonial rule, which they blamed for their second-class position. In 1970 Fiji was granted independence from Britain while remaining within the Commonwealth. The new Constitution went part way toward granting equal rights to all Fiji citizens, regardless of race, but it still protected Fijian land and isolated the Indian population from full equality.For fifteen years after independence Fiji was governed by an Alliance government which appeared on the surface to be a model of social compromise. However, by 1985, a new Coalition party was formed which claimed to better represent the working people in Fiji, the majority of whom are Indian. The Coalition party, dedicated to eliminating the prerogatives of the chiefly oligarchy, won the elections in 1987 and threatened to turn Fijian politics on its ear. This proved to be too much for the extremist taukei (landowners).
BLOODLESS COUP, 1987
In May, 1987, Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka led a bloodless coup to take over government on behalf of the Fijian people. Many of the hard-line old-timers were invited back into government, but when the new Government of National Unity threatened to sack Rabuka, he held another coup and pronounced himself head of state of the new Republic of Fiji. With the support of the traditional Great Council of Chiefs, Rabuka pressed for a government of customary rule unthreatened by the Indian presence, dedicated to Christianity as the official religion, and guided by cultural fundamentalism.The coups had a devastating effect on the Fijian economy. Fiji was thrown out of the Commonwealth, suffered an 11% decline in the gross domestic product, and lost thousands of Indian professionals and their families to overseas emigration: nearly 30,000 all told. But, like all predominantly agrarian peoples whose chiefs and politicians are constantly bickering, the people of Fiji, both Fijian and Indian, continued their normal lives with little attention paid to government. These people, with next to no help from above, put the country back on its feet.
CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE & FREE ELECTIONS, 1992
During free elections in 1992, (now Major-General) Rabuka was elected Prime Minister. A new Constitution was promulgated which permanently guarantees government control by Fijians, a blatantly racist document but one which is working for the time being. Fiji's economy has rebounded to previously unmatched levels, and government has once again earned the trust of outside investors.While the Indian population in Fiji is specifically isolated from full representation in government, an argument can be made in support of the new Constitution: there are very few countries left in the world which are unambiguously ruled by their endemic people. And, in comparison to surrounding Pacific nations, Fiji is well-run and prosperous. No one starves in Fiji, and not too many of the powerful leaders are able to profit at the expense of their country. The people who live in Fiji are happy, despite the overtones of political unrest, and the visitor to the islands would never guess at the tumultuous history which has shaped the country.
It seems odd that a culture which was renown for their savage cannibalism barely more than one hundred years ago should be so peaceful and friendly now, but the overwhelming impression that is left on the foreign visitor or resident in Fiji is that these are the nicest people anywhere. Part of the reason, at least in respect to the Fijian people, is that they control their own destiny. Whereas many of the native peoples in the world are little more than guests in their own lands, powerless to express themselves against the press of outside forces, Fijians own their own land and have every reason to believe that it will always be thus. They welcome visitors to these islands openly and warmly, with none of the subsurface hostility which is so common in Micronesia and in the Caribbean.
