The influx of so many Europeans wishing to call the area home brought about this major change in the history of the Fiji Islands.
These were Lapita people, probably from Vanuatu, who arrived about 1220 BC and stayed for only a short while before disappearing from the archaeological record. In his 1873 report, the British Consul to Fiji, Edward March, outlined how the labourers were treated as slaves.
After the British gained control, Fiji Islands history began to emerge in a totally different direction. History and Ethnic Relations Emergence of the Nation. Fiji - Fiji - History: When Fiji’s first settlers arrived from the islands of Melanesia at least 3,500 years ago, they carried with them a wide range of food plants, the pig, and a style of pottery known as Lapita ware. Shaped over 35 centuries, Fiji's precolonial history is a complex blend of influences by Polynesian, Melanesian and, to a lesser extent, Micronesian peoples who came and either left or stayed. That pottery is generally associated with peoples who had well-developed skills in navigation and canoe building and were horticulturists. The solution was to form an army. Robert S. Swanston, the minister for Native Affairs in the Kingdom, organised the training and arming of suitable Fijian volunteers and prisoners to become soldiers in what was invariably called the King's Troops or the Native Regiment. Fijians would also have their hair into distinctive large, rounded or semi-rounded shapes. According to oral The Tongan influence brought Polynesian customs and language into Fiji. After the collapse of the confederacy, Many of the settlers had come from British colonies like With the rapid increase in white settlers into the country, the desire for land acquisition also intensified. and later interbred first with Melanesians from the west and subsequently with Polynesians (also Lapita descendants) from the east.
Ancient History Encyclopedia. Fiji’s history was one of the settlements but also of mobility and over the centuries, an unusual Fijian culture emerged. License. Chief Ratu Cakobau conquered over the western islands sometime in the 1850's. Trade between Fiji and neighboring archipelagos long before European contact is indicated by the canoes made from native Fijian trees found in Tonga and Tongan words being part of the language of the Lau group of islands. Some groups managed to overpower the crews of smaller vessels to take command of these ships and attempt to sail back to their home islands.Labour vessels involved in this period of blackbirding for the Fijian market also included the The passing of the Pacific Islanders Protection Act in 1872 by the British government was meant to improve the conditions for the Islanders but instead it legitimised the labour trade and the treatment of the blackbirded Islanders upon the Fiji plantations remained appalling.