The War with Peter: Commercial development in the Vitu Islands, German New Guinea

Economic development was a primary objective in the German New Guinea Protectorate (1884–1914). Although much of the Protectorate remained uncontrolled, Indigenous people found their lives and external relations transformed where trading posts and plantations were introduced. The small but coconut-rich Vitu Islands are exemplary. This paper discusses relations between Garove and Mundua Islanders and the trader Peter Hansen, from his arrival in 1888 to his departure in 1904. Ultimately, Hansen's personal behaviour prompted the islanders to oust him. However, by this time they had become enmeshed in a wider economy through village copra production and labour within and outside the island.