Tanoa,
Vunivalu and Chief of Bau, senile, dingy,
and decrepit, died on 8th December, 1852. After
having wielded the supreme power for years,
Cakobau now succeeded to the title, and was
formally invented on 26th July, 1853. The
ceremony gained added lustre and dignity from
the presence of Tui Kilakila of Somosomo and an
imposing retinue. Tui Kilakila planned the visit
in the grand manner. Not to be outdone by the
fact that his over-lord at Bau possessed a fine
new ship, he chartered Owen's ship, the
Pachet, for the use of which he ceded the
ownership of Kioa Island, at the entrance of
Buca Bay. A formal transfer was executed, for
Owen was a keen man of business; the Pachet
was then deeply laden with tribute, and Tui
Kilakila with a hundred followers sailed in
state to Bau. A raid against the Dauninakelo
people furnished eighteen victims for the feast
of welcome. One of them escaped in the night;
but despite all Calvert's efforts, the others
were clubbed, cut up, and put in the ovens. All
other means of preventing the horrible feast
having failed, Calvert appealed to Owen, who was
staying on his ship, then lying off Bau. Owen
willingly supported the missionary, and
threatened that if the bodies were eaten the
Somosomo people might find their own way home,
for he would not carry them; and he demanded
that the cooked limbs then in the ovens should
be given up for burial. The chiefs were forced
to agree, and Owen appeared at Viwa on the
following morning, bringing for decent burial a
cargo of eighty-four well-cooked portions of
human bodies.
The Somosomo
people and their lavish gifts were doubly
welcome at Bau, for Cakobau's prestige had
continued to decline. An expedition against the
Rewa party at Nakelo had failed; and all his
attempts to dislodge Qaraniqio from Rewa had
been ostentatious act of homage did something to
bolster up Cakobau's waning authority. However,
he did not long survive his return to Somosomo.
His murder, and the events that followed it,
have already been described. The new Tui Cakau,
who achieved notoriety during the next twenty
five years, was the eldest surviving son of Tui
Kilakila. Seemann described him as "a
miserable-looking man, without any chiefly
attributes, possessing appearance". Fison calls
him a drunken chief who, to pay for liquor and
arms, sold whole islands over the heads of his
wretched people. In 1800, when Seemann was at
Somosomo, this man and his young brother Ratu
Golea were the only survivors of the family, but
the feud begun in 1854 was still going on. On
31st May, Seemann saw Golea return from
punishing the people who had murdered his
brother three years before; he had taken and
burnt nine empty towns, and killed one old woman
and one child.
Fiji warriors
The final stages of
the war between Bau and Tewa were powerfully
influenced by an incident apparently far
removed from affairs in the delta lands. In
August, 1853, the Levuka traders took
the law into their own hands and set off to
avenge the outrage. Tui Levuka insisted upon
joining the expedition, with a party of his
warriors. The white members of the captured
crew, who had been set free, were on their way
home when they met and joined the positive
expedition, which hurried on with the
intention of making a demonstration that would
prevent any recurrence of such attacks. But Tui Levuka had other and deeper designs. He
had an old grudge against the Malake people;
and when the demonstration began, his warriors
turned it into a massacre, in which fourteen
of the Malake people fell, and thirteen others
were captured, among them several women.
When the heat of
action had passed, the Levuka traders realized
that the raid had been open defiance of Viwa
and Bau; and, since their hostile neighbours
and tormentors, the Levuni, were subject to
Viwa, they lost no time in putting the
settlement in a state of defence, and setting
a nightly watch. Nevertheless, on the night of
20th September, the settlement was burnt, and
stores valued at several thousands of dollars
were destroyed. Fearing further attacks, the
traders gave Tui Levuka goods with which to
bribe the Lovoni to revolt against Viwa and
Bau; and the ruse was successful. The traders
were convinced that Cakobau and Varani had
instigated the attack on the settlement; but,
at an inquiry held fourteen months later by
Captain Denham of H.M. survey ship Herald,
their representatives offered no proof of
Cakobau's responsibility. Arbitrarily and
unjustly, however, the Court found that, since
Cakobau was King of the Fijis, or so styled,
the act must have been done under his
knowledge as a matter of course, and the
responsibility was therefore his until he
should fix it upon someone else.
Fiji lady
Wherever the blame
for the Levuka fire lay, a breach between Bau
and the white traders had been made. The whole
of Ovalau - traders, coastal villages, and
hill people - was ranged against Cakobau.
Hitherto the whit3es in Fiji had been content
to accept what treatment their patrons the
high chiefs should see fit to accord them;
when the chiefs frowned, they had bowed their
heads to the storm; but the determination they
showed on this occasion raised them to a new
position, from which they never retreated, and
which later events served only to strengthen.
As usual, the wily Tui Levuka managed to "eat
in both camps". He schemed to get his allies
involved as deeply as possible; he persuaded
the traders to send to Kakeba, where the Bau
chief Mara had been in exile since Cakobau's
ill-fated beche-de-mer fishing expedition,
inviting him to come and lead the rebel
forces; he allowed his people to kill and eat
Cakobau's cattle pasturing on Ovalau; and
then, having involved everyone else, he
secretly made his peace with Bau. Whether the
impending campaign should go well or ill, he
felt he was safe. Mara, Cakobau's half brother
and implacable enemy, came to Levuka and
placed himself at the head of the native
forces in alliance with qaraniqio of Rewa. by
November, Cakobau's enemies, both old and new,
had organized a League the membership of which
included Qaraniqio, Williams (the U.S.
commercial agent), Mars, Tui Levuka, and the
traders. All were pledged to effect the
blockade at Bau and the utter defeat of
Cakobwau. Thereafter, no ship was allowed to
approach Bau, and the supplies of food and
ammunition upon which Cakobau depended were
cut off.
Varani felt that the
only way to avert disaster was for Bau to
regain the allegiance of the Lovoni and so
out-flank the people of Levuka. He sent
messengers to Lovoni, but as they were afraid
to land he went himself. Whatever may be said
of the Fijians generally, there can be no
doubt that Varani did not lack courage. He and
six others landed at night, made their way
through the scrub, and appeared at dawn in the
chief Levoni village. Their mission seemed to
be proceeding favourably when a rival emissary
arrived from Levuka, and the scales were
weighted against them. Unarmed, they were
treacherously clubbed and shot as they passed
a temple in the village square, all but one
being killed, and doubtless eaten. When the
party was fired on, a man attacked Varani with
a club; he wrested the club from his
assailant, but spurning to use it, flung it
away. Wounded by a musket shot, he could offer
no further resistance and fell with blows
raining on his head. So died one of the finest
men Fiji ever produced. As a heathen warrior,
he was famed throughout the islands; as a
Christian chief, he proved himself a man of
highest principle and courage, loyal to his
heathen friend Cakobau, yet maintaining
against all odds the traditions of his newly
adopted religion.
Fiji woman
Meanwhile, Cakobau
suffered a serious reverse at Kaba, the
finger-like peninsula of the mouth of the
river leading to Rewa, and about five miles
south-east from Bau. A strategic point, it was
held by five hundred of Cakobau's own men, who
had in their keeping a large war-canoe, the
sails and stores of the gun-boat Cakobau, and
a magazine of ammunition. This garrison
rebelled, seized the king's property, and went
over to the enemy. In August, 1853, Cakobau
led a flotilla of war-canoes and a large force
against Kaba; but, whether because of
treachery or about resistance, he accomplished
nothing. His warriors broke and fled, and he
was forced to retreat leaving several of his
principal men dead on the beach. Without its
sails, his proud ship now swung useless at
anchor; his stores of ammunition were
depleted, and the blockade presented him from
getting more; and now, when five hundred
rebels had defied his army, his prestige
collapsed. Qaraniqio poured warriors into Kaba,
and strengthened its defences; and many of the
boarder people and coastal towns deserted and
went over to Rewa. Three months later, King
George of Tonga, then on his way to Sydney,
paid a visit to Cakobau, and showed keen
interest in the military situation and in the
recent unsuccessful campaign. He is reported
to have said, "The rebel fortress (Kaba) seems
to me to be anything but impregnable" - which
was construed as a promise to help; and
Cakobau, with such a promise in view, gave to
him the canoe Ra Marama, the pride of his
fleet, King George arranging to come and take
it away after his return from Sydney.
The war now took the
usual course of plots and raids. When some of
the Kaba garrison visited Levuka, the
double-dealing Tui Levuka sent to inform
Cakobau, who laid an unsuccessful ambush. On
the night of 4th March, 1854, Bau was
destroyed by fire, and among the many
buildings burnt was an important temple,
dedicated to the war god Cagawalu, recently
built, and full of valuable property.
Cakobau was planning
a second attack on Kaba, but he was
embarrassed by affairs at home. Coroi Ravulo,
an influential chief of Bau, had thrown in his
lot with the rebels; but instead of going to
Kaba he had gone to Sawakasa, a town on the
Tallevu coast, about twenty miles from Bau.
Cakobau had now to wage war on two fronts. On
12th March, Nagalu, the chief of Namena - a
district near Sawakasa - arrived at Bau with
reinforcements totalling six hundred warriors;
but Cakobau's forces were less than he had
expected, for five hundred others, promised
and expected, had been bribed by Koroi Kavalo
to stay away on the pretext of home defence,
while other chiefs, though loyal, feared an
attack in the rear should they leave for Bau,
and stayed at home. Nevertheless, Cakobau was
determined to press on with the campaign, and
on 15th March he reviewed his army of fifteen
hundred men, who made a brave show in the
ceremony of bolebole or challenge to
the absent enemy. Two days later a hurricane
broke over western Fiji. The gale levelled
what the fire on Bau had left standing; it
also blew down the war-fences and many of the
houses at Kabu, leaving that stronghold
practically without defences. Unaccountably,
however, Cakobau failed to seize the
opportunity to attack. Valuable time was spent
in consulting the gods, and in working up the
army's courage by dancing; at length the
warriors were ferried across to Cautata, a
town on the coast, about four miles from Kaba,
where Koroi Ravulo had mustered his men in
preparation for an attack on Bau. Having
dispersed the rebel force, Cakobau was joined
by another five hundred men, and more time was
wasted in the customary reviews and boasting.
A full week had passed since the hurricane
before Cakobau's army, now numbering two
thousand, moved across the river mouth, laid
seige to Kaba, and proceeded to cut and clear
paths for attack and retreat. but the defences
had by this time been rebuilt, and the
garrison reinforced by Europeans and
half-castes from Levuka, who realized that
Kaba was the first line of defence for Levuka
itself. The assault, such as it was, was made
on 27th March. Of the two thousand warriors,
scarcely three hundred did any fighting; and
when a few small parties took panic and fled,
the whole army stampeded to the canoes.
Cakobau now resorted
to tactics in which he was more adept, and
induced Negalu to simulate disloyalty and
offer to join Koroi Ravulo. but that
experienced warrior was not so easily
deceived, and sent a Sawakasa chief to the
parley; and, as he expected, the man did not
return. Three days later the Bau fleet and
army made a combined sea and land attack upon
Sawakasa; but this, too, was a complete
failure. Almost in despair, Cakobau returned
to B au, where news awaited him of Tui
Kilakila's tragic end, which, the missionaries
urged, was a divine judgement for that chief's
opposition to the Lotu. There was also a
letter from the Tongan King, dated 28th
February, which told of an open letter from
Williams - the U.S. commercial agent -
published in the Sydney newspapers, and
appealing to civilized nations to destroy Bau
- "which a warship might easily do while one
is smoking a cigar"; William's letter accused
Bau of every kind of savagery and oppression,
and asserted that the place ought to be
destroyed and its people swept from the face
of the earth. King George went on to say, "I
expect to visit you with the Tongan friends to
bring away my canoe and when we have finished
planting we shall come to you". After urging
Cakobau to lotu, and to be humble, he
concluded, "It will be well for you, Cakobau,
to think wisely in these days".
Three days later,
Cakobau had a long conversation with the
missionary, Waterhouse; and on the following
day there was a full meeting of the remaining
chiefs of bau and of the towns on the
mainland. but though the chiefs were by no
means unanimous in support of their lender's
projected step, Cakobau's mind was made up.
After discussing the political aspect with the
principal chiefs of Bau, he publicly renounced
his old way of life and the gods of his
fathers, and became a Christian, on Sunday,
30th April, 1854. The temples were despoiled;
a sacred grove of casuarina (nokonoko)
trees, gnarled with age, was felled; and
cannibalism and widow-strangling ceased at Bau.
The long-withheld permission was given to the
people to lotu, and old and young
thronged the mission house, begging for
alphabets.
Cakobau's enemies
regarded his conversion as a scheme to gain
time; and, so far from strengthening his
position, it led to the secession of many who
hitherto had supported him. A subject tribe on
Koro Island revolted, and the loss of the
whole island was threatened, while three towns
within a mile or two of Bau placed themselves
under Koroi Ravulo. Indeed, whole districts
deserted. Bau itself was full of plots and
rumours of plots, and a canoe-load of chiefs,
among them two of Cakobau's younger brothers,
went over to the rebels. The bills of Kaba
peninsula swarmed with warriors, easily seen
through a glass from Bau, which was now in a
state of siege, best from without, divided
within. Harassed, and deserted by those upon
whom he had relied, Cakobau fell sick from
depression and anxiety, and Calvert urged him
to fly. But, though he had lost so much, his
courage and pride were undiminished. "I cannot
run away," he said; "if evil comes I must
die". His astuteness also remained; and,
having reason to believe that his cousin
Nayagodamu - Reivalita's friend - was
disloyal, he despatched him to subdue the
rebellion on Koro, which he did through the
agency of prayer meetings and muskets.
The long blockade had
reduced Bau almost to impotence; and muskets,
ammunition, and food were nearly exhausted
when the American ship Dragon (Captain Dunn)
arrived at Levuka with supplies. Learning of
the pass to which Cakobau was reduced, Dunn
announced his intention of sailing to Bau;
and, despite the pleadings and even threats of
the Lewvuka traders, he boldly ran the
blockade. His cargo staved off the crisis, and
with new supplies the Bau forces were able to
repel a formidable attack at Dravo. But that
was the only gleam of light, for Qaraniqio now
took the offensive and his skirmishers
approached close to Bau. Cakobau himself was
now worn, sick, and covered with sores; yet in
October, when his fortunes seemed at their
lowest ebb, Waterhouse proposed to him nine
singularly inappropriate articles of
"political reform" - impracticable moves in
the direction of a liberal constitution. These
measure, ill-adapted at any time to Fijian
conditions, were, at the moment, highly
inexpedient. but Cakobau had more wisdom than
his spiritual adviser. After listening
respectfully he replied, "No. I was born a
chief, and I will die a chief".
On 8th November,
Captain Dunn arranged a meeting on his ship
between Cakobau and Mara; but after a long
discussion they failed to reach any agreement.
On the following day Cakobau accepted an
invitation from Captain Denham, of H.M. survey
ship Herald, to visit the warship and meet the
disaffected chiefs who had fled from Bau; but
none of the rebels appeared. Cakobau had
already intimated to Captain Denham that he
had "very grave charges" to make against
certain British subjects, and also that he
wished for an opportunity to clear himself of
the blame laid upon him for the Levuka fire;
Captain Denham therefore took advantage of his
presence on the ship, and held an inquiry.
Cakobau's charges, however, proved paltry; and
the Levuka people, for their part, failed to
produce any evidence of his responsibility for
the fire - indeed, most of them refused even
to appear.
The year 1854 closed
withy Cakobau in such poor health that his
enemies feared he might die before they
captured him. There were almost nightly
desertions from Bau, and open tr4eachery with
frequent alarms kept the king's nerves on
edge. The morale of the allied forces on Kaba,
on the other hand, was high; they repaired old
temples, built new ones, tightened their grip
on Bau, and drew in their cordon of strong
posts. The peninsula was packed with men ;
rebels from Bau, volunteers from Levuka,
parties of the best warriors from every
fighting town in Rewa, with food, arms, and
ammunition in plenty; and all looked across
the mirror-calm waters of the lagoon to Bau,
isolated in its little bay, and waited for the
moment to strike. but the blow server fell.
Qaraniqio died on 28th January, 1855. Too weak
to speak when the end came, he failed to
observe the custom of naming a successor to
carry on the war; and, its people war-weary
and its chiefs divided, Rewa collapsed.
Qaraniqio had been ill with dysentery for some
time, and Moore, the missionary at Tewa, gave
him what medicine was available.
Unfortunately, shortly after taking it,
Qaraniqio died; and as Moore had just returned
from a peace mission to Bau, his well-meant
aid compromised him in the eyes of the
natives. Believing that his medicine had
killed their chief, they fired his house at
midnight, and he and his family barely escaped
with their lives. William's house at Laucala
was also burnt.
The Rewa people
wanted peace; Cakobau welcomed it. The
customary offering was presented at Bau, and
the war was formally ended on 9th February,
1855. But the Bau rebels on Kaba still held
out: "Peace? there is one man to be killed
then there will be peace." Mara rallied his
forces and prepared to strike. Warriors from
many Rewa towns remained at Kaba, in no way
disheartened by the defection of their
superiors. Indeed, the peace brought little
relief to Cakobau. Help from Tonga was
rumoured and expected, but the only immediate
effect was an accession to the rebel ranks of
many who were prepared to sink local
differences in order to repel and humble the
Tongan invader. Angered by Cakobau's
profession of Christianity and his abandonment
of the gods of Fiji, heathen chiefs everywhere
joined Mars. The war took on an entirely new
character. It ceased to be a struggle between
Bau and Rewa; all that was forgotten. It was
now a conflict of the rebels of Bau against a
few loyalists, of the old ways of life against
the new, of heathenism against Christianity,
of savagery against civilization. The reform
party was led by Cakobau, until now the
foremost enemy of all reforms; and the
reactionaries followed Mara, the late champion
of the new ideas.
The Tongan fleet was
reported on 24th March. Two thousand warriors
and many of their women-folk had left Tonga in
thirty large canoes; the fleet had called at
Lakeba, where Ma'afu and a large following of
Tongans had joined it; and the combined
fleets, thirty-nine canoes in all, had come by
easy stages to western Fiji, in time to save
Cakobau from almost certain defeat and death.
Messages were sent to the Tongan king, asking
him to spend Sunday at Moturiki, to allow time
in which to make preparations at Bau for his
reception. Since he was the bearer of letters
to the priests at Levuka, from the French
Governor of Tahiti and priests in Tonga, he
took the opportunity to send one of his canoes
to Levuka to deliver them. Tui Levuka and the
traders had agreed to allow this canoe to land
without molestation, but Mara arranged
otherwise. As the canoe was being poled to the
beach it was fired upon by natives in the
crowd, and the Tongan chief Tawake, owner of
the canoe and a relative of King George's, was
mortally wounded. The firing was suppressed by Tui Levuka, who with others waded into the
water to receive the letters; and the Tongans
got away in time to avoid Mara's canoe, which
was even then entering the passage through the
sea reef. The incident boded ill for the
rebels. King George had come intending to
mediate, not to fight; but after Tawake's
death Tongan intervention was inevitable.
Calvert did all he could to secure peace by
negotiation, but Mara laughed him and his
messengers to scorn. Pointing to his army, his
fortification, and his stores, he asked, "Are
these Tongans stones, that they can withstand
our muskets? Let them come."
The Tongan fleet left
Bau on 3rd April, and sailed in stately
procession past Kaba to Kiuva, a town on the
coast beyond, and the rendezvous with
Cakobau's fighting men. four days later, the
combine4d forces, consisting of two thousand
Tongans and upwards of one thousand Fijians,
moved against Kaba. There was a fortified
outpost, Koro i cubu, near the end of the
peninsula; the landward base was protected by
a long fence extending from coast to coast;
and between these lay Kaba, the principal
stronghold. The Fijian army was sent to attack
the fence and cut off the rebel retreat, while
the Tongans landed at the seaward end.
Desiring that the reduction of the stronghold
should, if possible, be bloodless, King George
led a party to cut down trees with which to
build fences, in order to invest the place and
reduce it by starvation. but, seeing some of
their number shot or clubbed, and the bodies
dragged within the fences of Koro i Cubu, the
warriors of Vavau, carrying all before them,
stormed the place and set fire to the houses
within. The garrison of Koro i Cubu fell back
upon Kaba itself, where they were joined by
the defenders of the fence, who had been
driven in by the Fijian attack. An assault was
now made upon the main fortifications of Kaba,
from which a brisk fire was opened upon the
advancing Tongans, who attacked with great
dash and bravery. According to the rules of
Fijian warfare they were defeated before the
real attack developed, for some of their
number had already fallen; but knowing nothing
of such rules, they stormed the barricades,
leaving their wounded to be succoured by the
women, who had insisted on accompanying them.
At the critical moment, Ma'afu threw a fresh
division into the attack, the fences were
breached, and the town was taken. but Mara was
not among the prisoners. "The man is a fool
who fights with Tongans," he cried as he ran
through Cautata; "they are gods, not men." In
the excitement of victory, the Fijian warriors
were not to be restrained. Though they had
contributed little to the assault, they now
rushed in; and before their frenzy could be
curbed they had butchered men, women, and
children, bringing the defenders' total losses
to a hundred and eighty killed, and as many
wounded. The Tongans, for all their bravery
under fire and the verve of their attack, lost
only fourteen killed and less than twenty
wounded.
King George
disciplined the Vavau warriors, who had
disregarded his orders and turned the siege
into an assault. Their defence was that they
pressed on, "looking for the fortifications",
and were actually in the town before they
realized that they had passed their objective.
Cakobau, for his part, acted with commendable
restraint in his hour of triumph. Two hundred
prisoners-of-war were at his mercy, and were
spared. Koroi Ravulo was among those taken,
and him, indeed, Cakobau wished to execute;
but miler counsels prevailed, and the
wondering chief was freed. Mars took refuge at
Kumi; but when the combined fleets appeared
off the town on 13th April, he fled to Ovaluau.
The revolt collapsed, the rebel districts
suing for peace, which was granted on generous
terms. Under Mara, the Levuka traders and
natives made some show of continuing the war;
but soon afterwards Cakobau and Mara were
brought together on the deck of a British
warship then at Levuka, and peace was
restored. Mara, however, continued to nurse
his animosity in secret, waiting only for a
favourable opportunity to strike again.
The Battle of Kaba
marks the point where western Fiji turned away
from the old dark ways to adopt the customs of
more enlightened peoples. There were wars and
desultory fighting after 1855; but, except for
Tongan wars of aggression and conquest, they
were mostly outbreaks of the old savagery, and
in remote districts. In August, 1856, there
was a shooting affray at Nasavu (a village on
Nadi Bay, Bua) in which the missionary,
Fordham, was forced to defend his home against
marauders. Captain Denham of H.M.S. Herald
later held an inquiry, the result of which was
that Fordham was exonerated from blame; and
hostilities were ended for the time being by
an argument signed on the warship. The smouldering hatred flared up again, however,
in Aril, 1858, when the heathen party at Bua
was joined by Tui Levuka and Mara. Claiming to
have come to prot4ect the missionary and
mission property, Tui Levuka was admitted
within the defences of the Christian town,
whereupon the heathen warriors rushed and took
it. Tui Levuka refused, indeed, to allow a
general massacre; but the Christians were
spared only to be dispersed as prisoners among
the towns on the coast.
Though Cakobau had,
since his conversion to Christianity, but some
of his lust for conquest, he still dreamed of
the title and position of King of all Fiji
and, indeed, the Tongan intervention had
brought him nearer to a realization of that
dream than he had ever been. But his plans did
not include the complete subjugation of other
kingdoms; and the peace of February, 1855, was
an understanding between war-weary chiefs
rather than a conquest. Rewa was now tributary
to Bau, and its power was broken; but it still
retained its status as a kingdom. The sixty
days' war that ended at Kaba was concluded by
an equally generous settlement. The
intransigent Mara was pardoned and left free
to renew his scheming, and undermining of his
brother's authority. Tui Levuka pursued his
crooked and dissolute course, but with more
circumspection. Most of the chiefs, and their
people, accepted the new conditions which the
conclusion of hostilities brought about.
Violent as the reaction to Cakobau's
conversion had been, now that his enemies were
overthrown and humbled, the religion of the
chief became the religion of the people. To
this day, old men refer to Christianity as
Na Lotu nei Ratu Cakobau - Cakobau's
religion. The people lotu-ed by royal
command. For many years native opinion had
been suffering a succession of rude shocks,
yet belief in the local gods had persisted in
spite of accumulating evidence of visiting
warships and trading vessels, and by the
better class of local whites. A sweeping
change though inevitable, had been damned back
by chiefly authority. Then Cakobau himself
changed, and a howl of rage went up from his
late allies. After Kaba, however, the flood
burst through and swept all before it; whole
towns, even whole districts, lotu-ed,
and the missionaries were hard put to it to
find teachers to instruct their new converts.
They wrote to Tonga, and to Lakeba, asking
each to send thirty teachers; from Tonga they
got four, from Lakeba seven. Twenty-one towns
on Kadavu were calling for teachers, and only
four were available King George diverted one
of his canoes to Lakeba, with a further appeal
for help, and arranged for the transport of
new workers. A year later the missionary at
Rewa reported sixteen thousand attendants at
public worship in that district alone.
Evidences of the adoption of a new code began
to appear. There was, for example, a changed
conception of justice, in which the influence
of the missionaries of plainly to be seen. A
chief of Batiki waylaid and shot his rival;
and he was seized, taken to Bau, tried, found
gu8ilty, and condemned to death. However,
feeling that the notice had not been given
that acts of murder were no longer to go
unpunished, missionaries and chiefs agreed
that the sentence should be commuted into a
heavy fine; but it was announced that future
offences would be punished with death. Within
a few weeks (March, 1856) a Bau chief living
in a town on the mainland butchered his wife,
omitting no horror that the imagination of an
angry save might devise. He was taken and
tried, and, having admitted his guilt, was
publicly hanged four days later.
*
* * * *
* *
On 11th May, five
weeks after Kaba, King George and his party,
accompanied by Cakobau, left Bau for Rewa and
Kadavu. The king travelled on Ra Marama, which
carried a crew of one hundred and forty men ;
and, with a fleet of forty large canoes, he
progressed in regal state through the delta,
past Bureta, Nakebo, Tokatoka, to Rewa. chiefs
who little more than a month before had been
bitter enemies ate and drank in company, and
fraternized on the canoes. The rival sons of
old Tui Nakebo were reconciled, thus removing
the only remaining canoe for anxiety in the
relations between Bau and Rewa. Of all the
delta towns, only Daku remained obdurate; for
two and a half years its chiefs refused to
lotu, and over thirty thousand other
Fijians had done so before they made the
change. At Rewa, King George promulgated a
plan for collective security, a decree
ordaining that "any town offending by taking
steps towards war should be considered the
enemy of all, and liable to chastisement by
the combined powers of Bau and Rewa". The Rewa
chiefs formally renounced their old gods and
savage customs; but they managed to postpone
an inquiry which King George threatened to
make into the burning of the mission house. At
Kadavu, the expedition learned that twenty-one
out of the hundred or more towns on the island
had already lotu-ed.
The Tongan king had
political interests, as well. Hearing that the
people on Rabe Island were defying Tui Cakau,
he offered his services, which were readily
accepted. After the Tongans had subdued the
rebels, the cloven hoof appeared. Payment was
demanded, and Ma'afu retained control of Rabe
Island until 1860, when Tui Cakau was at last
able to buy him off. Cakobau also, was not to
be allowed to forget how and by whom his
restoration had been accomplished. The Tongans
had arrived at a time when he was facing
defeat and death; and, having scattered his
enemies, they had settled him more firmly than
ever in his lace as the principal chief of
Western Fiji. Then the king-makers returned to
their own land, taking with them Ra Marama,
the canoe they had come to receive, and the
Cakobau, which had brought its owner
nothing but trouble. Cakobau would have kicked
away the leader by which he had climbed; but
the events of April, 1855, had brought Ma'afu
and his Tongans such prestige that he feared
to oppose them, though they became more
over-bearing than ever. Cadobau found all his
wider schemes baulked by Tongans, or the
threat of Tongan intervention, and soon
realized that he had merely exchanged one
menace for another.
*
* * * *
* *
The time and manner
of Cakobau's conversion laid upon him a
suspicion of opportunism. Having at the time
little to lose by the change, for his
situation was desperate, he imagined at first
that by serving the god of the missionaries he
might enlist his support; and he sought to
derive a bargain to that end with Waterhouse.
But it was made clear to him that such
considerations must be put aside.
Disillusioned, yet still resolute, he took the
long-postponed step, and if the missionary had
needed evidence that he had not taken it
solely for what he could gain by it, that
evidence was provided by the events of the
months that followed. Deserted by friends and
allies, he saw a desperate situation
deteriorate into something worse. His ruin
seemed inescapable, yet he did not waver. It
is true that at first "the power of religion
had not gone very deep"; and "his hatred of
his enemies was still fierce". nevertheless,
in the hour of his triumph he evinced a
generous spirit. That the implacable Cakobau
should spare the enemies who had brought him
to humiliation and shame, and who had so
nearly accomplished his destruction, is
evidence of an advance towards a civilized
outlook.
Cakobau was born
during the darkest years of the century. In
his youth, Europeans were known only through
worthless beach-combers and the ghastly
memories of the sandalwood trade. He lived the
best years of his life through a violent
period of bloodshed and cannibalism, and he
took a leading part in all its horrors. He
raised himself to be the champion of its
savagery against the newly-introduced religion
and culture of the Western World. That he
should have emerged, in his later years, a
refined gentlemen, courtly and dignified, and
the trusted friend of colonial administrators,
s testimony both to his native qualities and
to the power of religion. That, having
surrendered his cherished authority to the
British Crown, he should have remained loyal
while his favourite son was disciplined and
disgraced, making himself amenable to law
where before he had been the sole arbiter, is
altogether admirable. Judged by civilized
standards, he lacked much. He was without
education, though he could, with painful
scare, write his own name. He understood
little of civilized ways of government, and
much of the duplicity and cynicism of savage
diplomacy - for which, indeed, he showed an
extraordinary capacity. He had lived too long
in an environment of barbarism and bloody
despotism ever to have become a successful
administrator; and the attempt of ambitious
men to set themselves up as a government under
the shadow of his authority made for him many
enemies and detractors. But these were faults
less of character than of circumstance. In
these islands, he towered head and shoulders
above every other native chief of his time.
*
* * * *
* *
The policy to be
developed by Ma'afu was laid down by King George
before the Tongans left Lakeba on the last stage
of their return journey. How much of what
followed was due to the Tongan king's
instructions, and how much to Ma'afu's personal
ambition, can never be known. From that time
Ma'afu openly pursued a course of personal
aggrandisement. He established his headquarters
at Lomaloma, on Vanua Balavu. He added to his
fleet by laying down the keel of a 45-ton
schooner, which would have obvious advantages
over the war-canoes of his rivals. He held the
balance of power in Fijian politics, and was
able to pursue a policy of Divide et imopera.
Under his astute leadership the Tongans in Fiji
won prestige and power altogether out of
proportion to their numbers, which fluctuated,
but were at all times comparatively small. Minor
Fijian chiefs were ever ready to grasp any
opportunity to achieve notoriety by resisting
the ruling chiefs; and the Tongans had only to
make a gesture of support to such men, to
precipitate a crisis in almost any district in
Fiji. Playing off one chief's party against
another, and posing as deliverers while meaning
to be exploiters, they divided the Fijian forces
and dealt with each faction in turn. so
far-reaching, indeed, was Tongan influence upon
the events of the twenty years that elapsed
between the Battle of Kaba and the establishment
of British colonial government in Fiji, that it
forms the background against which all these
events must be viewed.
