Culture contacts on the Loyalty Islands, 1841-1895

Abstract

This thesis examines the interaction among and between Loyalty Islanders and Europeans from the 1840s, when Europeans first arrived in any numbers, to the end of the nineteenth century. Emphasis is placed upon the islanders' responses to European presence, and the consequences for the island communities. In more general terms, this study is an attempt to describe and examine in some detail on a local level aspects of culture contacts more often approached by historians on a wider basis, encompassing greater numbers of participants and larger geographic areas. The first chapter gives an outline of what is presently known about the more significant pre-contact developments on the Loyalty Islands and the socio-political structure existing at the time of early contact. Chapters Two to Seven discuss the activities of English Protestant missionaries, French Catholic missionaries, and French administrators in the context of the islanders' local politics. The way in which the islanders responded to and applied to their own hostilities the divergent religious and national interests among the European groups is the central theme of these chapters. Chapters Eight to Ten analyse other aspects of European contact, such as the socio-economic, consequences for the islanders of numerous European trading contacts, of their commercial dealings with Europeans, and of certain European ideas. Chapters Eleven to Thirteen investigate the effects of firearms in local fighting, European introduced diseases, and alcohol - influences which are popularly thought to have had a devastating effect upon Pacific island communities, particularly by causing serious depopulation. Show more