1868: Levuka Mountain Lovonis captured and enslaved to cotton planters: Thakombau at the head of the Government

“The first partially-successful attempt at the establishment of a Government was made in June, 1871, by some adventurers from Australia, with whom were associated two of the business men of Levuka.
These placed an old chief named Thakombau at the head of the Government and constitution as King of Fiji, and he in turn appointed them his Ministers.
 Self-appointed Government created: “They were afterwards joined by Mr. J. B. Thompson, the present Administrator, and others, and continued to conduct the business of the Government aftor a style for some time, in face of numerous obstacles and difficulties, amongst which was a war with the Lovonis, a mountain tribe, which occupied the fastnesses in the centre of Ovalau.. (the Lovoni valley, occupying the centre of Ovalau, the beautiful scenery of which is a great attraction to tourists.)
Better to be enslaved, than eaten? …..”but who being at last totally defeated and taken prisoners, wero allotted to the planters as labourers for a term of years, a happy escape, as they thought, for they expected nothing loss than to be killed and eaten in accordance with time-honoured custom”.
 Rebellion against Thompson Government: “A large section of the European population nlao persistently opposed their solf-elcclcd rulors, whoao régime was of a most arbitrary character, and in 1873 this culminated in open rebellion, until at last, finding it impossible to continue the (facade?) of self-Government any longer, the Ministers accoptd the inevitable, and, with the consent  of the chiefs, made an offer of cession to Great Britain.
The Mercury Supplement, (Hobart, Tasmania)  Saturday 13 February, 1886.  This item appears written by a Levuka resident in early 1886, or late 1885.  It encourages tourism to Levuka, as a rest from an overheated Australia.  Author uses the name “Tasmanian”. Possibly Frederick Langham   Perhaps ship-owner and trader with a long term trading relationship with Levuka and Suva, for at least five years – since 1880.

1873: Thurston’s new constitution: “Even old beachcombers saw the 1870s as the white mans’ age….

“Even old beachcombers saw the 1870s as the white mans’ age…. in the days of Cakobau’s kingdom – from 1871 to 1875 – Levuka was the major European social and polical hub, as race-war loomed.
Ma’afu signed arms contract: The watchful Royal Navy dwarfed the cutters and schooners, and white residents who stood appalled …. in 1873, at the prospect of Fijian control under Chief Secretary Thurston’s new constitution, (and ) discovered that their suppose(d) ally, the Viceroy ‘Enele Ma’aful’atuitonga” had profound limitations as man of action. … Just before, Ma’afu signed the arms contract ( … and?… ) had sailed into port to announce his defection about his yacht Xariffa ,  sometime the property of the absconding Sydney business man, S.C Burt, Cakaobau’s business agent in matters like hiring out labour and member of his first cabinet”.
p 141.
1870: Cakobau’s kingdom – 1870 – 1875 – Race war in Levuka
Scarr, Deryck A history of the Pacific Islands Ch 12, Power, Labour, Production, Output, and Identity: The Fiji Case 1871 – 1919 http://books.google.com/books?id=xmtWaIpX-zYC&pg=RA1-PA143&lpg=RA1-PA143&dq=%22William+kopsen%22+fiji&source=bl&ots=X_9R-9g445&sig=f1fwkbEvmwEV8b4OGI9LzOJu5NQ&hl=en&ei=Fkb2Sdv0GomBkQWqyYT1Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4#PRA1-PA141,M1

1813: Rise of the Fijian Chiefdom of Bau due mainly to the projection of its Sea Power through its sea warriors-the Lasakau and Soso Kai Wai

“The rise of the islet of Bau as the pre-eminent state in pre-colonial Fiji was due mainly to the projection of its Sea Power through its sea warriors – the Lasakau and Soso Kai Wai. As quoted by Deryck Scarr …“for Bau relied on levying… and power projected at sea by the Lasakau and Soso sailors”.
Sea power: ” The kings of Bau based their rule not on native cultivators but on native sailors and fishers-which is to say in Fijian categories, as in political strategies, not on the land but on the sea.
Plus guns from Europeans: Added to this naval superiority was the fire power the War Lord Vunivalu of Bau, Naulivou, exploited through the use of musket-bearing European beachcombers. Of notoriety was Naulivou’s white mercenary Charlie Savage who was the terror of Bau’s enemies until his death in 1813 Thus at the time of Naulivou’s death, Bau seemed well on the way to establishing a Fiji-wide political hegemony.
Author: Jonocan 14 July 2008 (UTC).

20 July 1871: Hennings, Sagar and Woods create Fiji “Government”, at Levuka, fund private army; drill 29 Fijians to fight “Ba mountaineeers”

The North Otago Times, reported “A body of over over 29 natives were being put through their facings in July 20 ( 1871), by Lieutenant Woods and the fact of discplining them in the white man fashion caused much indignation”.

1871 image?  This unsourced image shows about 29 soldiers at a place that looks like Levuka. It was published by Jane Resture (see links at left).  The two men at the right are perhaps Woods (later Prime Minister), and Hennings or Sagar.

Public meeting at Levuka: In the evening a public meeting was held in the (Levuka) Reading room, presided over by Dr Ryley. Opinion were expressed and resolutions passed to the effect that training them to act in concert was a dangerous and impolitic measure, and fraught with great danger to the white residents of Fiji. A delegation, consisting of Dr Ryley, Messers E. S. Smith, Cussake, Sumner, Jackson, Ross and Nicholls, was appointed to wait upon Mr Woods and protest against his action. The proceeded for the purposed of interviewing him, but he was “out;” and, expressing their determination to see him in the morning, they departed.
Office of Fiji “Government”  not recognised: Accordingly the next morning they waited upon him. Mr Burt as “Premier” wished to meet them; but stating they did not not recognise the “Ministry” they insisted on seeing Mr Woods, who appeared, Messrs Hennings and Sagar entered soon after and took part in the conversation. Mr Woods threw to onus of his action on the government, and stated that it was intended to drill some men for the purpose of acting against the Ba Mountaineers.

NZ war example – ‘natives with guns‘: The deputation argued the drilling of the natives was dangerous in the extreme and instanced New Zealand. It was replied the Ministry intended to subjugate the mountaineer and did not recoginise the right of a public meeting to control their actions If any were dissatisfied with the actions of the Government they could leave the country. The deputation again urging the discontinuance of the drill, then withdrew.
Large meeting assembled in the Reading-room: In the course of the day a letter was despatched to the chairman of the committee, stating that the object the Government had in view of drilling the natives was to get their cooperation in the expedition to capture the Ba murderers. In the evening a large meeting assembled in the Reading-room to the hear the report of the deputation, Dr Ryley in the chair. The letter was read, after which Mr Manton proposed, seconded by Mr Rogalsky, “That this meeting still is off opinion that drilling the natives is highly injudicious, but at the same time, while desiring Mr Woods to desist, wishes to express a hope that nothing done at this meeting should in aany way delay active measures being taken against the Ba murderers”.

North Otago Times, 1871

April 1844: Wesleyan religious conversion fails in Somosomo and Thomas Williams turns to anthropological research: starts work which will lead to “Fiji and the Fijians”

English Wesleyan missionary, Thomas Williams, in his Journal under date 10 April 1844 he writes: “Commenced the first of a series of chapters on the customs, etc., of Feejee. I labour in concert with Bro. Lyth.”
Missionary turns anthropologist: “This is an important entry. It marks the beginning of a course of careful investigations that ended in the publication of Fiji and the Fijians fourteen years later. Up to the date of this entry Williams had displayed a lively interest in native customs and beliefs, and many valuable observations had been made in his letters to his father, and recorded in his Notes on the Fijians; but it was from April 1844 that he became the man whom Dr Lyth described as “my observant colleague who is always all-eye and all-ear.”
” a born anthropologist”: “The born anthropologist soon realized that he had found congenial work, and every year after this up to the time he left Somosomo found him more and more absorbed in it. That was a piece of rare good fortune for Thomas Williams coming, as it did, so soon after his arrival at Somosomo. There was little chance of doing effective religious work in that Circuit. The natives almost to a man declined to abandon their heathen worship; and had Williams found no other outlet for his energy, his spiritual acquiescence in the will of God, sustaining as it was, would not of itself have saved him from chafing, disappointment and discontent.

A man who needed a work:” To be at peace in his mind Thomas Williams needed not only a spiritual conviction, but also a definite lasting work on which he could exercise the gifts that Nature had bestowed upon him. There was nothing of the dilettante in his nature} the urge to do and to do well was strong within him. Work, continuous work, was necessary even for his bodily health. His medical practice, translation of parts of the Bible, philanthropic work and the voyages he made in canoes helped to fill in time; but intermittent work was not enough. What he needed was some absorbing occupation that had in it the quality of permanence and the prospect of success. Such an occupation he found in anthropological research”.
The Journal Of Thomas Williams, Missionary In Fiji, 1840-1853 By G. C. Henderson, M.a. (Oxon.) Emeritus Professor Of History, Adelaide University Author Of Sir George Grey : Founder Of Empire In Southern Lands, Fiji And The Fijians 1845-1856 In Two Volumes Vol. I Australia Angus & Robertson Ltd,1931. The manuscript is in the Mitchell Library, Sydney, in two folios, containing 874 pages and about 250,000 words.

24 May 1738: John Wesley’s conversion, while reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans was a foretaste of religious revivals at Vewa, Ono, Lakemba and Mbua Bay 100 years later

24 May 1738 was day and hour of John Wesley’s conversion, while reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans.  “It came, somewhat unexpectedly it would appear, at 8.45 on the evening of 24 May 1738 at a meeting in London of which he has left a definite record in his Journal: In the evening, I went very unwillingly to a Society in Aldersgate where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans.
I felt my heart strangely warmed: About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change that God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more especial manner despitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all what I now first felt in my heart.
This was the day and hour of John Wesley’s conversion: Those who have made a study of his life and watched the development of his religious thought and feeling up to this time will not, perhaps, be able to see so much of the cataclysmic in this supernatural illumination as he and his followers did. The light which shone so brightly and warmly in his soul at that meeting had been smouldering for years, and was ready to burst into a blaze as soon as. the truth which he had been half blindly seeking was revealed to him through the words of Luther. He saw because, by that time, he was ready to see.
Sudden conversion a pattern of the culture: His experience at that little meeting was as much the final stage in a process of progressive illumination as it was a sudden revelation. But on the other hand it would, be a mistake to underrate the importance , of the crisis. It made a profound impression on his followers. They, like him, were accustomed to look back to a definite day on which their souls  found rest in the consciousness of a, change of heart. About the period of spiritual preparation when their souls were in labour for the coming of the great event they say comparatively little. It was the day and hour of.conversion or new birth on which they placed nearly all the emphasis.
Religious revivals in England under the preaching of Wesley: The accounts of the religious revivals in England under the preaching of Wesley and Whitefield must be read in the light that is thrown upon them by a study of the Romantic Revival. There were some strange happenings at these meetings, especially among the poor and uneducated violent emotions and brain storms j and it is clear from what he wrote at various places in his Journal that Wesley expected and welcomed these outward manifestations of inward conflict. Just as the missionaries looked for them in the religious revivals at Vewa, Ono, Lakemba and Mbua Bay. The more wicked the conscience-stricken one, the more violent did they expect the disturbance to be before a genuine conversion could be effected. Did he turn red or black in the face, bellow and roll upon the floor in agony, so much the better: sore travail of the soul was the prelude to spiritual newbirth. The result was a sharp cleavage in the ranks of the Church of England. Wesley saw this, but held on his course, passing from one innovation to another without any serious thought of severing his connexion with the Established Church”.
The Journal Of Thomas Williams, Missionary In Fiji, 1840-1853 By G. C. Henderson, M.a. (Oxon.) Emeritus Professor Of History, Adelaide University Author Of Sir George Grey : Founder Of Empire In Southern Lands, Fiji And The Fijians 18s5-1856 In Two Volumes Vol. I Australia Angus & Robertson Ltd,1931.  The manuscript is in the Mitchell Library, Sydney, in two folios, containing 874 pages and about 250,000 words.

1703: John Wesley was born at Epworth, not far from Gainsborough, Lincolnshire

“Before Thomas Williams left England Methodism had gripped Lincolnshire, and at the time of his departure the grip was tightening.  John Wesley was born at Epworth, not far from Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, in the year 1703. He was educated at Oxford, and paid a visit to America  but although profoundly interested in religion up to the time of his return to England, he had not yet attained to the illuminating experience that gave him a definite assurance of his own salvation”.
The Journal Of Thomas Williams, Missionary In Fiji, 1840-1853 By G. C. Henderson, M.a. (Oxon.) Emeritus Professor Of History, Adelaide University Author Of Sir George Grey : Founder Of Empire In Southern Lands, Fiji And The Fijians 18s5-1856 In Two Volumes Vol. I Australia Angus & Robertson Ltd,1931.  The manuscript is in the Mitchell Library, Sydney, in two folios, containing 874 pages and about 250,000 words.

July 13, 1869: First half of Cakobau debt paid by Polynesia Company: 27,000 acres sold

July 13, 1869 : These instalments were, in fact, paid by the Polynesia Company, Limited, on July 13, 1869, and on November 19, 1870, respectively.
Nine other chiefs and landowners sign: By a deed dated July 13, 1869, Cakobau and one Natika, with the ratification and confirmation of nine other chiefs and landowners, who also signed, conveyed to the Polynesia Company, Limited, certain lands at Suva to the extent of about 27,000 acres, wherein were included the 480 acres in respect of which this claim for compensation is made.

HEIRS OF JOHN B. WILLIAMS (UNITED STATES) v. GREAT BRITAIN (Fijian Land Claim*. November 0, 1923, Pages 606-611.) Cession Of Sovereignty, Annexation : Private Property Rights Acquired Previous To.Interpretation Of (“Primitive) Municipal Law. Reports Of International Arbitral Awards Recueil Des Sentences Arbitrales Benson Robert Henry (United States) V. Great Britain (Fijian Land Claims) 2 November 1923 Volume Vi Pp. 100-104 http://www.untreaty.un.org/cod/riaa/cases/vol_VI/100-104_Benson.pdf

the 28th of September, 1857 William Pritchard appointed Consul only 30-40 Europeans in Fiji

IN December, 1856, my father sailed from Samoa for England, leaving me as Acting Consul. On the 28th of September, 1857, I was appointed H. M. Consul at Fiji, though I still served in Samoa until the middle of 1858. Prior to my appointment there had not been a British Consul resident in Fiji, for though the group was included in my father’s consular district, his residence was at Samoa.

At this period there were not living in Fiji more than thirty or forty Europeans and Americans, and but few vessels trading were there.

Bad  behaviour on all sides: The unenviable character of the natives, their cannibalism, their frequent outrages upon the few whites already settled amongst them, and their constant intertribal wars, deterred the colonial traders from visiting them ; the reported difficult navigation of the group led shipmasters to give it a wide berth ; and indeed the character attributed to the whites themselves, represented them all  most unjustly I afterwards found  as little better than the Fijians.

Polynesian Reminiscences; Ob, Life In The South Pacific Islands. By W. T. Pritchard, F.R.G.S., F.A.S.L.

1863: Consul W. T. Pritchard, frames Fiji code of laws, but was unjustly accused and removed as Fiji administrator

Berthold Seemann in a foreword to  W. T. Pritchard’s, Polynesian Reminiscences wrote “ My personal acquaintance with the author (IW. T. Pritchard) dates from the time when I was attached to the Government mission to the Viti or Fiji Islands, when I was introduced to him by a letter from Lord Russell.
An able administrator: During my stay in those islands, I had ample opportunities of observing the admirable tact, zeal, and industry displayed by Mr. Pritchard in his official capacity ; how he used to exert himself all day long in behalf of the daily increasing number of white settlers, and of the numerous natives who claimed his interference or appealed to his love of justice ; and how he used to sit up all night, writing dispatches or translating documents, so that no impediment should take place in the next day’s proceedings.
Formed code of laws: He was the first who framed a code of laws for a lawless group of two hundred islands; and these laws were so admirably adapted to the primitive state of society then existing in Fiji, that every man of sense willingly submitted to them. A copy of his code may be seen in the library of the British Museum.
No one can read the following pages without feeling that he was the .’Right man in the right place” Pritchard was certainly the right man in the right place. It is, therefore, melancholy to add that all his tact, zeal, and industry were unavailing ; that a combination was formed against him, and that this combination was powerful enough, and lasted long enough, to effect his dismissal from the public service.
Defense: It is satisfactory to the author’s friends, that the moment he was informed of this, he fastened to London to defend himself; but his letters, begging for a fair investigation of his official conduct, were un heeded ;and after wasting more than a year in London, and spending a considerable sum of money, he was reluctantly compelled to acknowledge that no justice was to be had for him through the channel by which he sought it. …in the following pages : there is hardly an allusion to it, and it is only dire necessity which prompts me to mention the subject at all” .
Polynesian Reminiscences; Ob, Life In The South Pacific Islands. By W. T. Pritchard, F.R.G.S., F.A.S.L., F Ormerl
Y H.M. Consul At Samoa Axj) Fiji. PrkfacE By I) Berthold Seemann  (R. Seemann).   London : Chapman And Hall, 1932, Piccadilly.   J. B. Taylor And Co.  Editors note: this book appears written by more than one person. One style, in the first person, and care and discretion; other parts in a dramatised third person with a different culture and vocabulary, with the tone of populised ‘missionary press”.  These parts were perhaps the parts compiled by editor, Seeman., who says in the foreword ‘Indeed, the abundance of the materials was most embarrassing ; and the ungrateful task of selecting the best stories and the most curious information has in a great measure, especially since the author’s departure for Mexico, fallen to my task as Editor. I may add, that I have endeavoured to acquit myself to the best of my judgment, and that I, not the author, must be held responsible for whatever deficiencies may be observed in the following pages”.