FUN FIJI FACTS 20

THE INFLUENCE OF THE WORLD MARKET AND INDENTURED LABOR

By the 1830’s the town of Levuka on the island of Ovalau, just east of Viti Levu, went from being from small whaling settlement to one of the main ports of call for traders and warships in the South Pacific. In 1840 a US expedition led by Commandant Charles Wilkes produced the first reasonably complete chart of the Fijian islands. In addition, he negotiated with Cakobau to create a treaty whereby Bau was paid for protection of the foreign ships and their supply of provisions.

This treaty, however, was not without its problems. Tension between the two parties grew when in 1841 Cakobau was suspected of instigating fires which destroyed the town of Levuka. And then in 1849, during the celebration of US Independence Day, the home of US Consul John Brown Williams, on the island of Nukulau, was destroyed by fire and all his belongings stolen by the locals. Because Cakobau was regarded as the “King of Fiji”, Williams held him responsible for the islanders’ actions and sent him a bill for substantial damages.

With pressure bearing down on him from his continuing claim to power, in 1862 Cakobau proposed to the British Consul that he would cede the islands of Fiji to Queen Victoria in return for payment of his debts to the US. With rumors of cession to Britain, the population of Levuka grew and land ownership disputes arose between the Fijians and the foreigners. The British Consul declined the offer, but in 1868 the Australian Polynesia Company agreed to pay Cakobau’s debt in exchange for land.

With the event of the American Civil War came a worldwide shortage of cotton. European plantations in Fiji reacted with great enthusiasm to this need for cotton (as well as copra and sugar) and began what was called the practice of “blackbirding” – the trade in laborers. Most laborers were brought in from other islands, first by agreeing to minimal wages, but later traded for ammunition by greedy chiefs. By the 1870’s the abuses suffered by this practice had grown out of control and Britain was pressured into stopping the trade. In 1872 the Imperial Kidnapping Act was passed, but there was no real power to enforce it.

The world cotton market slumped with the end of the American Civil War in 1865. By 1873 Britain was interested in annexing Fiji, citing the need to abolish blackbirding as justification. Using Cakobau's earlier offer to cede Fiji, Britain pronounced the islands a crown colony on October 10, 1874, in the town of Levuka.

In the years following the end of America’s Civil War, an outbreak of measles wiped out about one-third of the indigenous Fijian population, causing the rise of social unrest. Britain decided that it would be more easy to govern the colony if they could persuade the chiefs to have their to people collaborate with the colonisers, so the colonial government chose to protect the land rights of the Fijians by forbidding the sale of land to foreigners. (To this day indigenous owners still successfully retain over 80% of the land.) Give or take a dissenting chief or two, this wise decision by Britain helped to maintain the peace. Eventually, due to the inability to expand Levuka because of its geography, the administrative capital was officially moved to Suva in 1882.

To further promote good relations with its subjects and due to the fact that Fijians preferred more traditional, less regimented methods to provide for their community, the colonial government prohibited the employment of indigenous Fijians as plantation laborers. However, plantation crops such as cotton, copra and sugar cane had the potential to make Fiji’s economy self-sufficient, and with that demanded large pools of cheap labor. Indentured labor seemed the perfect solution, so in 1878 negotiations were made with the Indian colonial government to bring laborers to Fiji under five-year contracts. After such time as the contract was completed, the laborers, or girmitiyas, were free to return to India, The catch was free passage for the return trip was only available under restrictive conditions.

They began arriving in Fiji at a rate of about 2000 per year; 80% Hindu, 14% Muslim, with the remainder mostly Sikhs or Christians. Overcrowded accommodation gave little privacy, people of different caste and religion were forced to mix, and social and religious structures crumbled. Despite the hardship, the vast majority of girmitiyas decided to stay in Fiji once they had served their contract and many brought their families across from India to join them.

By the early 1900’s India's colonial government was being pressured by antislavery groups in Britain to abolish the indenture system and recruitment to Fiji was halted. Indentured servitude ended officially in January of 1919. By this time over 60,000 indentured laborers resided in Fiji.