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European Expansion in the Island Pacific. A Historiographical Review

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2010

Robert Aldrich
Robert Aldrich
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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Information
Itinerario , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , July 1989 , pp. 87 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1989

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References

Notes

1 Spate, O.H.K., Paradise Found and Lost (Sydney 1988). The other volumes areGoogle ScholarThe Spanish Lake (Canberra 1979) andGoogle ScholarMonopolists and Freebooters (Canberra 1983)Google Scholar. See Spate's, own reflection on his work, ‘The History of a History’, Journal of Pacific History 23 (1988) 3–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Spate, O.H.K., ‘The Pacific as an Artefact’, in Gunson, Niel ed., The Changing Pacific: Essays in Honour of H.E. Maude (Melbourne 1978) 32–45Google Scholar.

3 Davidson, J.W., ‘European Penetration of the South Pacific, 1779–1843’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge 1942)Google Scholar; Ingram, Jean, International Rivalry in the Pacific Islands, 1800–1875’ (Berkeley 1941)Google Scholar. The only comprehensive study published in later years was Ernest Dodge, S., Islands and Empires: Western Impact on the Pacific and East Asia (Minneapolis 1976)Google Scholar.

4 A recent list, however, counts eighty-five centres specialising in Pacific island studies. Crocombe, Ron, ‘Studying in the Pacific: Past Experiences and Future Potentials’, Antony Hooper, et. al., Class and Culture in the South Pacific (Auckland 1987) 115–38Google Scholar.

5 Historiographical surveys, in addition to Spate's 1978 article, include Howe, Kerry R., ‘Pacific Islands History in the 1980s: New Directions or Monograph Myopia?’, Pacific Studies 3 (1979) 81–90;Google ScholarLeckie, Jacqueline, ‘Towards a Review of History in the South Pacific’, The Journal of Pacific Studies 9 (1983) 9–96; andGoogle ScholarRoutledge, David, ‘Pacific History as Seen from the Pacific Islands’, Pacific Studies 8 (1985) 81–99Google Scholar.

6 Spate, , ‘The Pacific as an Artefact’, 34Google Scholar.

7 The studies which transcend polemics and make an historical contribution are, in English, Dornoy, Myriam, Politics in New Caledonia (Sydney 1984),Google ScholarLyons, Martyn, The Totem and the Tricolour (Sydney 1987),Google ScholarConnell, John, New Caledonia or Kanaky? (Canberra 1988), andGoogle ScholarSpencer, Michael, Ward, Allan and Connell, John eds., New Caledonia: Essays in Nationalism and Dependency (St. Lucia, Qld. 1988); and, inGoogle ScholarFrench, Claude Gabriel and Kermel, Vincent, Nouvelle-Calédonie: la révolte kanake (Paris 1985) andGoogle ScholarChristnacht, Alain, La Nouvelle-Calédonie (Paris 1987)Google Scholar.

8 The standard recent works on the island groups include, in addition to those previously cited, on Papua New Guinea, James Griffin, Hank Nelson and Firth, Stewart, Papua New Guinea (Melbourne 1979)Google Scholar;on the Solomons Bennett, Judith A., Wealth of the Solomons (Honolulu 1987)Google Scholar; on the Torres Strait dependencies of Australia, Beckett, Jeremy, Torres Strait Islanders: Custom and Colonialism (Cambridge 1987); on the New Hebrides (Vanuatu)Google Scholar, Bonnemaison, Joël, La Derniére lle (Paris 1986)Google Scholar and MacClancy, Jeremy, To Kill a Bird with Two Stones (Port Villa 1981)Google Scholar; on New Caledonia, the works of Brou, Bernard, Histoire de la Nouvelle-Calédonie: les temps modernes, 1774–1925 (Nouméa 1973)Google Scholar, Espoirs et réalités: la Nouvelle-Calédonie de 1925 à 1945 (Nouméa 1975)Google Scholar and Trente ans d'histoire de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, 1945–1977) (Nouméa n.d.)Google Scholar; on the Loyalty Islands, Howe, Kerry, The Loyalty Islands (Canberra 1977)Google Scholar; on Fiji, Deryck Scarr, Fiji: A Short History (Canberra 1984); onGoogle ScholarSamoa, R.P. Gilson, Samoa 1830 to 1900 (Oxford 1970); onGoogle ScholarNoel Rutherford, Tonga ed., Friendly Islands (Melbourne 1977); onGoogle ScholarHawaii, Gavan Daws, Shoals of Time (New York 1968 and Honolulu 1974); onGoogle ScholarTahiti, Colin Newbury, Tahiti Nui (Honolulu 1980) andGoogle ScholarToullelan, Pierre-Yves, Tahiti colonial (1860–1914) (Paris 1984); on theGoogle ScholarMarquesas, Greg Dening, Islands and Beaches: Discourse on a Silent Land (Honolulu 1980)Google Scholar; on the Cook Islands Gilson, R. P., The Cook Islands 1820–1950 (Wellington 1980)Google Scholar; on Easter Island McCall, Grant, Rapanui (Honolulu 1981)Google Scholar; on Wallis, and Futuna, Alexandre Poncet, Histoire de v'ile Wallis (Paris 1972)Google Scholar; on the Micronesian Islands Hezel, Francis X., The First Taint of Civilization (Honolulu 1983); on the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (Kiribati and Tuvalu),Google ScholarMacdonald, Barrie, Cinderellas of the Empire (Canberra 1982); onGoogle ScholarNauru, Nancy Viviani, Nauru: Phosphate and Political Progress (Canberra 1977)Google Scholar.

9 The most recent is a superb study by Howe, K.R., Where the Waves Fall (Sydney and London 1984)Google Scholar.

10 Baré, Jean-Francois, Le Malentendu pacifique (Paris 1985) and also hisGoogle ScholarTahiti, , les temps et les pouvoirs (Paris 1987); Spate and Howe, op. cit.Google Scholar; Daws, Gavan, A Dream of Islands (New York 1980)Google Scholar; Vibart, Eric, Tahiti: Naissance d'un paradis au siècle des Lumières (Paris 1978); andGoogle ScholarDonaldson, Ian ed., Australia and the European Image (Canberra 1982). On artistic representations,Google ScholarSmith, Bernard, European Vision and the South Pacific (2nd ed., Sydney 1985)Google Scholar.

11 Homer, Frank, The French Reconnaissance (Melbourne 1987)Google Scholar; Whitney, Lynne, Voyages of Discovery: Captain Cook and the Exploration of the Pacific (London 1987)Google Scholar; Williams, Glyndwr and Frost, Alan, Terra Australis to Australia (Melbourne 1988)Google Scholar.

12 On 1878 in New Caledonia, Roselène Dousset-Leenhardt, , Colonialisme et contradictions (Paris 1984) and, for a Melanesian point of view,Google ScholarApollinaire Anova-Ataba, D'Atai à I'indépendance (Noumea 1984)Google Scholar; on the German islands Hempenstall, Peter J., Pacific Islands under German Rule: A Study in the Meaning of Colonial Resistance (Canberra 1978)Google Scholar.

13 Barbadzan, Alain, Naissance d'une tradition (Paris 1982)Google Scholar; Robineau, Claude, Du Coprah à I'alome(Paris 1984)Google Scholar.

14 See the works listed in note 8, above. For the case of the New Hebrides and New Caledonia, a denunciation of European policies is Guiart, Jean, La Terre est le sang des morts (Paris 1983)Google Scholar. Other useful studies include Macnaught, Timothy J., The Fijian Colonial Experience (Canberra 1982) andGoogle ScholarAdams, Ron, In the Land of Strangers: A Century of European Contact with Tanna, 1774–1874 (Canberra 1984)Google Scholar.

15 See, for example, Shineberg, Dorothy, ‘Un Nouveau regard sur la démographie historique de la Nouvelle-Calédonie’, Journal de la Société des Océanistes 38 (1983) 33–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Latukefu, Sione, Church and State in Tonga (Canberra 1974)Google Scholar; Laracy, HughMarists and Melanesians (Canberra 1976)Google Scholar; Hilliard, David, God's Gentlemen (St. Lucia Gld. 1978)Google Scholar; Gunson, Niel, Messengers of Grace (Oxford 1978)Google Scholar; Wiltgen, Ralph M., The Founding of the Roman Catholic Church in Oceania (Canberra 1979)Google Scholar; Hodée, Paul, Tahiti, 1834–1984 (Papeete 1984) (on the Catholic Church in Tahiti)Google Scholar; Vernier, Henri, Au Vent des cyclones (Paris 1985) (on the Protestants in Tahiti)Google Scholar.

17 Knapman, Claudia, White Women in Fiji 1835–1930 (Sydney 1986)Google Scholar; Ralston, Carolyn, Grass Huts and Warehouses (Canberra 1977)Google Scholar.

18 Shineberg, Doroty, They Came for Sandalwood (Melbourne 1967)Google Scholar; Spoehr, F.M., White Falcon: The House of Godeffroy and its Commercial and Scientific Role in the Pacific (Palo Alto, Ca. 1963)Google Scholar; Buckley, Ken and Klugman, Kris, The History of Burns Philp (Sydney 1981) andGoogle ScholarThe Australian Presence in the Pacific: Bums Philp (Sydney 1983)Google Scholar; Williams, Maslyn and Macdonald, Barrie, The Phosphateers (Melbourne 1985). Recent economic histories of specific territories includeGoogle ScholarBlanchet, Gilles, L'Economie de la Polynésie francaise de 1960 à 1980 (Paris 1985),Google ScholarMoynagh, Michael, Brown or While? A History of the Fijij Sugar Industry (Canberra 1981) andGoogle ScholarKnapman, Bruce, Fiji's Economic History, 1874–1939 (Canberra 1987). On plantations, see the special issue of theGoogle ScholarJournal de la Société des Océanistes, ‘Les Plantations dans le Pacifique Sud’, 41 (1986) 82–83Google Scholar.

19 Bach, John, The Australia Station: A History of the Rotal Navy in the South West Pacific. 1821–1913 (Sydney 1986)Google Scholar.

20 Spate, The Spanish Lake, op.cit.; Alexander Spoehr, ‘Conquest Culture and Colonial Culture in the Marianas during the Spanish Period’, in Gunson, , The Changing Pacific, op. cit., 247–260Google Scholar; Hezel, op. tit.

21 Ward, J.M., British Policy in the South Pacific (1786–1893) (London 1948; reprinted, Westport, Conn. 1976)Google Scholar; Morrell, W.P., Britain in the Pacific Islands (Oxford 1960)Google Scholar; Scarr, Deryck, Fragments of Empire (Canberra 1967)Google Scholar.

22 Thompson, Roger C., Australian Imperialism in the Pacific (Melbourne 1980) andGoogle ScholarPons, Xavier, Le Géant du Pacifique (Paris 1988). See alsoGoogle ScholarRosewarne, Stuart, ‘Australian Imperialism in the Southwest Pacific, 1880–1940’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Sydney 1986). OnGoogle ScholarNew Zealand, Angus Ross, New Zealand Aspirations in the Pacific in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford 1964)Google Scholar; Ross, Angus (ed.), New Zealand's Record in the Pacific Islands in the Twentieth Century (Auckland 1969) andGoogle ScholarBrown, B.M. ed., New Zealand in the Pacific (Wellington 1970)Google Scholar.

23 Aldrich, Robert, The French Presence in the South Pacific, 1842–1940 (London 1989)Google Scholar. For the other works, see note 8, above.

24 Moses, John and Kennedy, Paul M. eds., Germany in the Pacific and Far East, 1870–1914 (St. Lucia, Qld. 1977)Google Scholar; Hempenstall, op. cit.; Firth, Stewart, New Guinea under the Germans(Melbourne 1982)Google Scholar. See also Wood, Cathy, ‘The Marshall Islands and the Germans, 1860–1914’ (M.A. thesis, University of Sydney 1988)Google Scholar.

25 In English, there is Bone, Robert C. Jr, The Dynamics of the Western New Guinea (Irian Barat) Problem (Ithaca, N.Y. 1958 and 1962)Google Scholar; Lijphart, Arend, The Trauma of Decolonization: The Dutch and West New Guinea (New Haven 1966)Google Scholar, and Garnaut, Ross and Manning, Chris, Irian Jaya (Canberra 1974), ch. 2Google Scholar. There is a more substantial literature in Dutch, most recently Esterik, Chris van, Nederlands Laatste Bastion in de Oost (Baarn 1982)Google Scholar.

26 Daws, op. cit. General studies include the older books by Grattan, C. Harley, The United States and the Southwest Pacific (Cambridge, Mass. 1961CrossRefGoogle Scholar) and Freedman, L.E., The United States Enters the Pacific (Sydney 1969)Google Scholar, and, more recently, Goodman, G. K. and Moor, F. eds., The US and Japan in the western Pacific (Boulder, Col. 1981)Google Scholar.

27 Peattie, Mark R., Nan'yo: the Rise and Fall of the Japanese in Micronesia, 1885–1945 (Honolulu 1988)Google Scholar.

28 Davidson, J.W., Samoa mo Samoa (Melbourne 1967) andGoogle ScholarKennedy, Paul M., The Samoa Tangle: A Study in Anglo-German-American Relations (Dublin 1974)Google Scholar.

29 On the New Hebrides, see the relevant sections of Ward, Morrell; Scarr, Thompson, and Aldrich, op. cit., and particularly Bonnemaison, op. cit., as well as Lini, Walter, Beyond Pandemonium (Port Vila 1980)Google Scholar.

30 There is a vast literature on European migrants to Australia. See the essays on various European migrant groups in Jupp, James ed., The Australian People (Sydney 1988)Google Scholar.

31 This topic has also attracted much interest. See, for example, Coppenrath, Gérard, Les Chinois de Tahiti (Paris 1967) andCrossRefGoogle ScholarLai, Brij, Girmitiyas: Origins of the Fiji Indians (Canberra 1983)Google Scholar.

32 Scarr, , Fragments of Empire; xviii:Google Scholar Brown, in Moses, and Kennedy, , op. cit., 152Google Scholar; Lijphart, , op. cit., 291Google Scholar.

33 On the work and influence of Ronald Robinson, see the special issue of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, XVI (1988)Google Scholar. For new French views, Aldrich, Robert, ‘A Note on the Renewal of Colonial Studies in France’, Contemporary French Civilization, XII (1988) 263–268CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 The only full-length studies of decolonisation are Lijphart, op. cit., on West New Guinea, and Beasant, John, De Santo Rebellion (Richmond, Vic. 1984)Google Scholar on the New Hebrides. On continuing economic links, see Knapman, Bruce, ‘Aid and the Dependent Development of the Pacific Island States’, Journal of Pacific History 21 (1986) 139–152CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Denunciations of European nuclear testing in the islands are Bengt and Marie-Thérèse Danielsson, , Poisoned Reign (Ringwood, Vic, 2nd ed. 1986) andGoogle ScholarFirth, Stewart, Nuclear Playground (Sydney 1987)Google Scholar.