Margret Mccowin

ART_HISTORY

ART_HISTORY_136_PAPER

The village, with the occupants trapped inside, quickly became an inferno with Wilkes

noting that the "shouts of men were intermingled with the cries and shrieks of the women

and children" as they burnt to death.Wilkes demanded the survivors should "sue for mercy"

and if not "they must expect to be exterminated".Around 57 to 87 Maloloan people were

killed in this encounter.=== Cakobau and the wars against Christian infiltration ===

The 1840s was a time of conflict where various Fiji clans attempted to assert dominance

over each other.Eventually, a warlord named Seru Epenisa Cakobau of Bau Island was able

to become a powerful influence in the region.His father was Ratu Tanoa Visawaqa, the

Vunivalu (a chiefly title meaning warlord, often translated also as paramount chief) who

had previously subdued much of western Fiji.Cakobau, following on from his father, became

so dominant that he was able to expel the Europeans from Levuka for five years over a

dispute about their giving of weapons to his local enemies.In the early 1850s, Cakobau went

one step further and declared war on all Christians.His plans were thwarted after the

missionaries in Fiji received support from the already converted Tongans and the presence

of a British warship.The Tongan Prince Enele Maʻafu, a Christian, had established himself on

the island of Lakeba in 1848, forcibly converting the local people to the Methodist

Church.Cakobau and other chiefs in the west of Fiji regarded Maʻafu as a threat to their

power and resisted his attempts to expand Tonga's dominion.Cakobau's influence, however,

began to wane, and his heavy imposition of taxes on other Fijian chiefs, who saw him at best
as first among equals, caused them to defect from him.Around this time the United States

also became interested in asserting their power in the region, and they threatened

intervention following a number of incidents involving their consul in the Fiji islands, John

Brown Williams.In 1849, Williams had his trading store looted following an accidental fire,

caused by stray cannon fire during a Fourth of July celebration, and in 1853 the European

settlement of Levuka was burnt to the ground.Williams blamed Cakobau for both these

incidents, and the U.S. representative wanted Cakobau's capital at Bau destroyed in

retaliation.A naval blockade was instead set up around the island which put further

pressure on Cakobau to give up on his warfare against the foreigners and their Christian

allies.Finally, on 30 April 1854, Cakobau offered his soro (supplication) and yielded to these

forces.He underwent the lotu and converted to Christianity.The traditional Fijian temples in

Bau were destroyed, and the sacred nokonoko trees were cut down.Cakobau and his

remaining men were then compelled to join with the Tongans, backed by the Americans and

British, to subjugate the remaining chiefs in the region who still refused to convert.These

chiefs were soon defeated with Qaraniqio of the Rewa being poisoned and Ratu Mara of

Kaba being hanged in 1855.After these wars, most regions of Fiji, except for the interior

highland areas, had been forced into giving up much of their traditional systems and were

now vassals of Western interest.Cakobau was retained as a largely symbolic representative

of a few Fijian peoples and was allowed to take the ironic and self proclaimed title of "Tui

Viti" ("King of Fiji"), but the overarching control now lay with foreign powers.=== Cotton,

confederacies and the Kai Colo ===

The rising price of cotton in the wake of the American Civil War (1861–1865) caused an

influx of hundreds of settlers to Fiji in the 1860s from Australia and the United States in

order to obtain land and grow cotton.Since there was still a lack of functioning government
in Fiji, these planters were often able to get the land in violent or fraudulent ways such as

exchanging weapons or alcohol with Fijians who may or may not have been the true

owners.Although this made for cheap land acquisition, competing land claims between the

planters became problematic with no unified government to resolve the disputes.In 1865,

the settlers proposed a confederacy of the seven main native kingdoms in Fiji to establish

some sort of government.This was initially successful, and Cakobau was elected as the first

president of the confederacy.With the demand for land high, the white planters started to

push into the hilly interior of Viti Levu.This put them into direct confrontation with the Kai

Colo, which was a general term to describe the various Fijian clans resident to these inland

districts.The Kai Colo were still living a mostly traditional lifestyle, they were not

Christianised, and they were not under the rule of Cakobau or the confederacy.In 1867, a

travelling missionary named Thomas Baker was killed by Kai Colo in the mountains at the

headwaters of the Sigatoka River.The acting British consul, John Bates Thurston, demanded

that Cakobau lead a force of Fijians from coastal areas to suppress the Kai Colo. Cakobau

eventually led a campaign into the mountains but suffered a humiliating loss with 61 of his

fighters being killed.Settlers also came into conflict with the local eastern Kai Colo people

called the Wainimala.Thurston called in the Australia Station section of the Royal Navy for

assistance.The Navy duly sent Commander Rowley Lambert and HMS Challenger to conduct

a punitive mission against the Wainimala.An armed force of 87 men shelled and burnt the

village of Deoka, and a skirmish ensued which resulted in the deaths of over 40

Wainimala.=== Kingdom of Fiji (1871–1874) ===

After the collapse of the confederacy, Enele Maʻafu established a stable administration in

the Lau Islands and the Tongans.