Vanuatu

Overview

Vanuatu (previously known as the New Hebrides Islands) is an archipelago nation consisting of 83 islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, north of New Zealand and east of Australia. The visitor may see local land diving men with vines attached to their feet, fishing, smoking volcanoes and extensive birdlife. These are all attractions of this adventurous destination. Those seeking pure relaxation should go elsewhere, bearing in mind that cyclones are not as rare as everyone might wish. There are also all the usual water sports around the reefs and wrecks.

History

The prehistory of Vanuatu is obscure; archaeological evidence supports the commonly held theory that peoples speaking Austronesian languages first came to the islands some 4 000 years ago. Potsherds have been found dating back to 1300-1100 B.C.

The first island in the Vanuatu group discovered by Europeans was Espiritu Santo when in 1606 the Portuguese explorer Pedro Fernandez De Quiros spied what he thought was a southern continent. Europeans did not return until 1768 when Louis Antoine de Bougainville rediscovered the islands. In 1774 Captain Cook named the islands the New Hebrides a name that lasted until independence.

In 1825 trader Peter Dillon's discovery of sandalwood on the island of Erromango began a rush that ended in 1830 after a clash between immigrant Polynesian workers and indigenous Melanesians. During the 1860's planters in Australia Fiji New Caledonia and the Samoa Islands in need of laborers encouraged a long-term indentured labor trade called "blackbirding." At the height of the labor trade more than one-half the adult male population of several of the Islands worked abroad.

It was at this time that missionaries both Catholic and Protestant arrived on the islands. Settlers also came looking for land on which to establish cotton plantations. When international cotton prices collapsed they switched to coffee cocoa bananas and most successfully coconuts. Initially British subjects from Australia made up the majority but the establishment of the Caledonian Company of the New Hebrides in 1882 soon tipped the balance in favor of French subjects. By the turn of the century...more