1760: Bau chief Nailatikau seized Ulu-ni-vuaka, expelled the Butoni; rise of Bau rapid partly to the advantages gained from the first use of firearms

Sea warriors/fishermen of yavusa Nabou of Lasakau, who trace their roots to Delailasakau Naitasiri and the Nakauvadra foothills, were brought to Bau from Beqa by the Vunivalu Ratu Banuve.
Levuka and Butoni people exit Bau: This was after the banishment of the Levuka and Butoni people from Bau around the 1760’s. About 1760, the Bau chief Nailatikau seized Ulu-ni-vuaka and expelled the Butoni, who thenceforth were rovers, wandering to many parts of the Group, and establishing settlements at Lakeba and Somosomo.To briefly capture Baun history and emphasize this ascendency, the following excerpt continues, “The rise of Bau was rapid, and was due partly to the natural ability of her chiefs, and partly to the advantages gained from the first use of firearms.
Kauvadra migration: The Bau chiefs claimed descent from certain elements of the Kauvadra migration, which, having come to Verata, divided and wandered widely; in the final stage of their wanderings they settled, in comparatively recent times, on the coast near their present island, then named Ulu-ni-vuaka (The Pig’s Head).
Butoni depart to wander: The island was occupied at the time by the Butoni, a predatory tribe of sailors and traders. However, they continued to own a degree of allegiance to their conquerors, and their canoes were always at the disposal of the chiefs of Bau for the transport of property and warriors.
Nailatikau was succeeded by Banuve, who, during a period of nearly thirty years, consolidated the young state’s position and carried out an ambitious scheme of improvements to the island. He reclaimed wide areas of the adjacent reef flats, and built stone canoe-docks and sea-walls as a protection against erosion. And since chiefs need lesser men to fetch and carry, he allowed fishermen from Beqa and craftsmen from Kadavu to settle on the island in the areas known as Lasakau and Soso”

Author: Jonocan  14 July 2008 (UTC)
Andrew Thornley, Tauga Vulaono,”Exodus of the Taukei: The Wesleyan Church in Fiji 1848-74 “University of the South Pacific of, Institute of Pacific
Studies,Published 2002.p204.
Deryck Scarr, ‘A History of the Pacific Islands: Passages through Tropical Time’,Richmond, Surrey, UK, Curzon Press, 2001,p 115.
NLC ‘Tukutuku Raraba Lasakau Bau’ Ratu Viliame Kamikamica liuliu ni yavusa Nabou.
David Routledge, ‘Matanitu- the struggle for power in early Fiji 1985’ – published by the Institute of Pacific studies and the University of the South Pacific Fiji,p51,54.
Elinor Mordaunt,The recollections,taken from “The Venture Book”, published by the Bodley Head, London, 1926.
Sahlins, Marshall David, ‘Apologies to Thucydides: Understanding History as Culture’, University of Chicago Press , 2004, p 64.
Thomas William, “Fiji and the Fijians v.I, “The Islands and Their Inhabitants” ,Published in 1858 by Alexander Heylin, Paternoster Row, London. Reprint 1983 by the Fiji Museum, Suva, p 290.301,345-7.

1858: Mr. John Binner, Wesleyan teacher, and Mr. John Binner, oil trader are the same person

On the 10th September, 1858, the new British Consul arrived in Levuka. William Pritchard rented two rooms from  John Binner.  Binner was the Wesleyan mission Training Master at Levuka, and under another hat a considerable trader.

Binner’s fleet of trading boats: William Pritchard reported “Another of the complaints thus early brought before me was against the natives of Waca, a small island on the western limits of the group. Mr. Binner, Wesleyan Mission Training Master at Levuka, had several boats, manned by mixed crews of whites and natives, trading amongst the islands for cocoa- nut oil, beche-de-mer, and turtle-shell.
Waea peoples ate Binners crew: A few weeks before my arrival, one of his boats had gone to Waea, in charge of two white men and some natives; one of the former was an Englishman, and the other an American.The natives of Waea had captured the boat, killed and eaten the crew, and appropriated the merchandise. Mr. Binner, as a British subject and owner of the boat and cargo, now pressed his ” claim for redress and indemnity.”

Binner calls in US fire power: ... the U.S. corvette ‘ Vandalia ‘ arrived at Levuka, and at the request of the American Consul, her commander,

Mission politics: Captain Sinclair, took up the matter on behalf of the murdered American, and who it now appeared was in some manner interested with Mr. Binner in the ownership of the boat or cargo,  a fact which had not been made apparent in the first statement of the case to me. Mr. Binner was now convinced that it would be less injurious to the Wesleyan mission for Captain Sinclair to inflict retributive punishment for the murder of the American and his companion, rather than for me to press the savages ” for redress and indemnity ” for Mr. Binnes’s calicoes and hatchets. And so, much to my satisfaction, the case passed out of my hands into those of Captain Sinclair. A party of fifty men was quickly dispatched to Waea, to demand the murderers and to obtain indemnity.

500 men at Waea prepare to fight; The Waea people, mustering nearly five hundred fighting-men, defied the party and declined all communications. The Americans attacked them in their fort on the summit of a hill some 800 feet high. Some twenty of the natives were killed, as many wounded, and their town and fort burnt ; of the Americans five were wounded.