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24 Chapter 1 Self-Determination Interrupted The native must be proud of he who was the soul of the Insurrection of 1878: the high chief Ataï. He must see in him the symbol, the “incarnation” of who must be his model in the construction of his country. Apollinaire Anova-Ataba of New Caledonia, Deux exemples de reflexions melanesiennes (1969, 202) The history constructed and written by a settler people [will] be a history of itself: of the foundation of a self out of the relationships and conflicts among its component parts. J G A Pocock of New Zealand, The Discovery of Islands: Essays in British History (2005, 7) In September 1853, at the request of Marist Catholic missionaries at Balade, Rear Admiral Fébvrier des Pointes arrived in a French warship to annex New Caledonia. He came ashore with twenty armed men and entered the wooden-walled mission station, where Christian villagers had crowded to see the white “high chief.” The admiral read a proclamation: “I officially take possession, in the name of the Emperor and for France, of the island of New Caledonia and its dependencies, on which I raise the national flag, and I declare to everyone that from this day on this land is French and national property.” As the tricolored flag was raised, the warship fired a twenty-one cannon salute. The French then sent the Melanesians home and closed the palisade gate, while the admiral told his officers and the priests “to fill in the blanks” by signing the decree. A priest assured him that the canaques were not a threat: “They saw the guns, that’s enough to cool their martial ardor” (Salinis 1978, 170–178). At the Isle of Pines, missionaries persuaded Chief Vendegou to sign the possession decree, causing a British naval commander, who had also brought an annexation document, to commit suicide for failing (Dornoy 1984, 18). Back at Balade soon afterward, the admiral gave four chiefs a few pieces of cloth, some hatchets, and scissors in return for enough land to build a military blockhouse. The chiefs made x marks beside their names on the deed, but another chief led resistance until the admiral captured him and forced him to kneel and put the Frenchman’s feet on his head. Other “reb- Self-Determination Interrupted 25 els” were exiled to Tahiti (Salinis 1978). At Canala in May 1854, missionaries persuaded Chief Boula of Kouaoua to sign the act of possession (Naepels 1998, 36). Such theatrical rituals typified European claims to sovereignty at the time, but the Melanesians could not read what they had signed and had no concept of selling land permanently instead of granting it only for use. In 1864, the French governor sent an expedition to annex the Loyalty Islands, which became entirely native reserves due to missionary urging and a lack of exploitable resources, unlike mineral-rich Grande Terre. The Global Real Estate Rush Historical events have interrupted the self-determination of the inhabitants of New Caledonia at least twice: first when France took possession of the islands and second when post–World War II progress toward self-government was reversed in the 1960s. Both actions were efforts to revive French national prestige through strategic resources and imperial cartography. In the nineteenth century, the industrial revolution in Europe helped to fuel a competitive quest for high-yield investments, raw materials, cheap labor, land, and markets abroad, as new military technology facilitated conquests (Headrick 1981). The sheer scale of this “scramble for colonies” boosted egotism about white racial superiority because most of the world’s land and population came under European rule. Britain alone controlled one-third of the globe, with an empire one hundred times the size of its home islands, and by 1914, France had a colonial empire twenty-one times its own size (Lenin 1939). International law at the time was an intra-European set of imperial game rules designed to minimize disputes among expansionists (Anaya 2000). A mere cannon shot fired from a passing vessel, for example, might suffice for claiming islands according to the “right of discovery.” By the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, a preprinted treaty could be x marked by chiefs in exchange for gifts, including alcohol, leaving moral rectification to future generations. Initially, some indigenous leaders were able to use interaction with European ships to increase their own authority, as in Tahiti, Hawai‘i, and Tonga, but over time “unequal contracts” with industrial countries destabilized many local polities due to...

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