Solomon Islands

The Solomon Islands constitute an independent country in the South Pacific north of Australia and east of Papua New Guinea. Most of the indigenous Melanesian people living there profess Anglican or Roman Catholic Christianity. Spanish explorers were the first Europeans to set foot on the Solomon Islands. In November 1567, Alavaro de Mendaña departed from Callao, Peru, to search for the storied land of Solomon's gold. What Mendaña found instead were countless islands throughout the South Pacific. He landed on a cluster of islands in February of 1568, naming them Las Islas de Solomon, and taking formal possession of the archipelago in the name of Spain. The Spanish theologian José de Acosta commented on the inhabitants of the Solomon Islands in his 1588 missionary manual ...