Anti-Colonial Movements, South Pacific

From the beginning of Western contact with islands of the South Pacific, there have been anti-colonial actions that were characterized by Westerners as acts of simple savagery or cannibalism. On first contact [Page 139]with Westerners, the people of the South Pacific suffered great losses in numbers due to epidemics of Western diseases, and the superior firepower of Western guns and cannons overcame native forces. A famous early conflict led to the killing of Captain Cook by Hawaiians in 1779. Other incidents included the deaths of a group of Frenchmen led by the Count de la Perouse to Samoa in 1787 and the death of the London Missionary Society's South Pacific leader John Williams in Vanuatu in 1839.

The original representation of the South Pacific as a natural paradise, as mythologized by Western writers in the 18th century, changed to one of a paradise lost by the 19th century. The London Missionary Society sent its very first mission to the island of Tahiti in 1796 but did not establish itself there until the conversion of King Pomare. Meanwhile throughout the South Pacific, Western influence centered on paramount chiefs weakening the much-decentralized systems of governance traditionally in place.

A search for Pacific routes to Asia and Australia set the United States of America onto great natural harbors at Pearl River in the Kingdom of Hawai'i and Pagopago Bay in Samoa. U.S. naval strategists were incited by 19th-century admiral Alfred Mahan's theory that there were three keys to sea power: production with its exchange, shipping, and colonies to facilitate and enlarge the operations while multiplying points of safety. Today, the U.S. Seventh Fleet, headquartered in Hawai'i, is the largest fleet in the U.S. Navy with about two thirds of its combat capability, where most of the transpacific sea-lanes pass through the Hawaiian Islands.

With missionaries and militarism, tourism also has played a large role in South Pacific colonialism. In French Polynesia, after World War II, Tahitian soldiers returning from fighting for France questioned the oppression of Tahitians by the French. The independence movement they started, however, was suppressed and their leaders imprisoned when the 1962 Hollywood film production of Mutiny on the Bounty with Marlon Brando came to Tahiti, resulting in a sharp rise in tourism. With the 1980s anti-nuclear movement, the Tahitian or Maohi pro-independence parties returned, and eventually its most prominent leader, Oscar Temaru, was elected president of French Polynesia in 2004. A similar anti-nuclear movement was organized in the Marshall Islands where nuclear testing that began in 1946 on the island of Bikini led to entire island relocations and the contamination of these islands. The United States has yet to decontaminate and reinstate any of the Marshall Islands that were used for nuclear testing sites.

The socioeconomic concept of a “Pacific Rim,” often used to describe Pacific interests, exploits Pacific Island sea-lanes and sea resources, including fishing rights. Twenty-one Pacific Rim nations, including the United States and Canada, are members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), which was established in 1989 to provide a forum for discussion on a broad range of Pacific economic issues. Except for the larger countries of Papua New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand, APEC does not include any Pacific island nation. The Pacific island nations are members of the Pacific Islands Forum, which includes the independent nations of Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Aotearoa-New Zealand, and Australia. Nonmember colonial states, which are gaining some autonomy, such as Tahiti (French Polynesia) and New Caledonia, have been allowed to send observers to Pacific Islands Forum meetings.

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