The first western contact with Fiji was made in 1643 when Captain Abel
Tasman entered Fijian waters and sighted several islands and reefs
without realizing the nature of his discovery. Over a hundred years
later, Captain Cook made a second contact by stopping at one of the
southern Lau Islands. Real knowledge of the area began in 1792 when
Captain Bligh sailed through the archipelago from the southeast to the
northwest, following the famous mutiny of the _Bounty_. Bligh made an
attempt to land, was attacked by natives, and continued through the
islands with no more landings. He did, however, make a record of most of
the islands he passed.
In the nineteenth century, commercial contacts began in the form of
sandalwood trade. This profitable commodity brought Europeans and
Americans first to the Sandalwood Coast on the west side of Vanua Levu.
During this period the first systematic survey of Fijian waters was
made by the U.S. Exploring Expedition in 1840. After little more
than a decade the sandalwood supply was depleted to the point where
trade virtually ceased.
As a result of this initial commercial contact, which was mainly around
western Vanua Levu and eastern Viti Levu, some marked changes were
effected in Fijian culture. After the sandalwood traders abandoned Fiji
for more profitable fields, a number of deserters and ship-wrecked men
remained. These beachcombers, along with firearms that had been
introduced by trade or salvaged from wrecks, brought about the first
striking alterations. Rival chiefs competed for the acquisition of
muskets, gunpowder, and beachcombers. The latter in some instances
became attached to royal households as dubious advisors and instructors
in the use of guns, powder, and shot. Some of these coaches enjoyed a
status resembling that of household pets.
The introduction of firearms changed the native political scene and
increased the scope and destructiveness of warfare. For a time the
rulers of Mbau in eastern Viti nearly monopolized the supply of muskets
and white men. This established their political supremacy over rival
leaders. Larger and stronger political and military alliances, some
resembling small kingdoms, developed for purposes of defense or
aggression. As warfare grew more frequent, new diseases entered the
islands and trade in liquor advanced.
After the third decade of the nineteenth century better elements began
to enter Fiji and ensuing culture contact was not so consistently
deplorable. _Beche-de-mer_ traders and whalers began to visit the islands
for trade goods and supplies. Some began to settle at the east end of
Viti Levu. Missionaries came in the 1830's and the Christianization of
Fiji began.
Internal conflict between rival chiefs, attacks on French, British, and
American ships, with subsequent reprisals, continued and intensified. By
mid-century, rivalry between the local kingdoms of Mbau and Rewa reached
a peak. At this time the powerful ruler of Mbau, Thakombau, who
dominated a large segment of eastern Viti Levu, had become hard pressed
by his Rewa enemies. Thakombau submitted to the missionaries who had
been pressing his conversion. With his support of the missionaries, the
native struggles became a religious war between Christianity and
paganism as well as between nativism and westernism. Thakombau's cause
was rescued in 1855 when King George of Tonga brought an army of 2,000
warriors to Fiji and combined his strength with that of the kingdom of
Mbau. Thenceforth Thakombau remained the paramount chief in eastern Fiji
and for some twenty ensuing years ruled under the dominance of Tongan
princes. Another Tongan chief, Ma'afu, arrived in 1848 and set up a
political domain that rivaled the kingdom of Thakombau.
Throughout these struggles and particularly with the conversion of
Thakombau and the leadership of the already Christianized Tongan chiefs,
native religion, including cannibalism, rapidly declined. Meanwhile,
English, Australian, and New Zealand settlers were augmenting earlier
trade contacts. Plantations and trade centers developed, and in 1857 a
British consul was appointed and set up at Levuka on the east coast of
Viti Levu. A few years later Thakombau sought relief from the payment of
indemnities to foreign powers and from internal harassments by an offer
to cede his dominions to Great Britain. The initial offer was declined
and the British consul was recalled in 1860.
The next ten years saw a continuation of political and military turmoil
stemming from rival interests of native rulers, Tongan interlopers, and
European immigrants. A second appeal to the British government resulted
in an unconditional deed of cession on October 10, 1874, which marks the
beginning of Fiji's status as a British Crown Colony.