Little has been written about when, how and why the British Government changed its mind about giving independance to the Pacific Islands. Using recently opened archives, Winding Up the British Empire in the Pacific Islands gives the first detailed account of this event. As Britain began to dissolve the Empire in Asia in the aftermath of the Second World War, it announced that there were some countries that were so small, remote, and lacking in resources that they could never become independent states. However, between 1970 and 1980 there was a rapid about-turn. Accelerated decolonization suddenly became the order of the day. Here was the death warrant of the Empire, and hastily-arranged independence ceremonies were performed for six new states - Tonga, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati, and Vanuatu. The rise of anti-imperialist pressures in the United Nations had a major role in this change in policy, as did the pioneering examples marked by the release of Western Samoa by New Zealand in 1962 and Nauru by Australia in 1968. The tenacity of Pacific Islanders in maintaining their cultures was in contrast to more strident Afro-Asia nationalisms. The closing of the Colonial Office, by merger with the Commonwealth Relations Office in 1966, followed by the joining of the Commonwealth and Foreign Offices in 1968, became a major turning point in Britain's relations with the Islands. In place of long-nurtured traditions of trusteeship for indigenous populations that had evolved in the Colonial Office, the new Foreign & Commonwealth Office concentrated on fostering British interests, which came to mean reducing distant commitments and focussing on the Atlantic world and Europe.

The focus of this volume is Britain's trans-Pacific empire. This began with haphazard challenges to Spanish dominion, but by the end of the 18th century, the British had established a colony in Australia and had gone to the brink of war with Spain to establish trading rights in the north Pacific. These rights led to formal colonies in Vancouver Island and British Columbia, when Britain sought to maintain a north Pacific presence despite American expansionism. In the later 19th century the international ’scramble for the Pacific’ resulted in new British colonies and protectorates in the Pacific islands. The result was a complex imperial presence, created from a variety of motives and circumstances. The essays selected here take account of the wide range of economic, political and cultural factors which prompted British expansion, creating tension in Britain's imperial identity in the Pacific, and leaving Pacific peoples with a complicated and challenging legacy. Along with the important new introduction, they provide a basis for the reassessment of British imperialism in the Pacific region.

A detailed account - based on recently-opened archives - of when, how, and why the British Government changed its mind about giving independence to the Pacific Islands.

This insightful analysis of British imperialism in the south Pacific explores the impulses behind British calls for the protection and "improvement" of islanders. From kingmaking projects in Hawaii, Tonga, and Fiji to the "antislavery" campaign against the labor trade in the Western pacific, the author examines the deeply subjective, cultural roots permeating Britons' attitudes toward Pacific Islanders. By teasing out the connections between those attitudes and the British humanitarian and antislavery movements, Imperial Benevolence reminds us that nineteenth-century Britain was engaged in a global campaign for "Christianization and Civilization."

This book traces British policy towards the South Pacific islands from 1786 through 1893, emphasizing the official attitude towards the missionaries and other British residents, the loss of the East India Company monopoly, the first attempts at island government, and the establishment of colonial rule.

"This book traces the history of the relations of Great Britain with the peoples of the Pacific Islands from the ages of the discoverers to the treaties of cession, protectorates, and annexations of the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which brought many groups under British administration. It discusses the impact of French and German colonial policy upon British interest and the demarcation of spheres of influence in the Pacific. There is a brief critical account of British colonial administration in Fiji and New Guinea. An epilogue outlines recent developments and the changing conceptions of "colonialism" in the twentieth century Pacific." -- Inside front cover.

Examines the way in which the British transformed the Pacific islands during the nineteenth centuryThe discovery of the Pacific islands amplified the qualities of mystery and exoticism already associated with 'foreign' islands. Their 'savage' peoples, their isolation, and their sheer beauty fascinated British visitors across the long nineteenth century. Dark Paradise argues that while the British originally believed the islands to be commercial paradises or perfect sites for missionary endeavours, as the century progressed, their optimistic vision transformed to portray darker realities. As a result, these islands act as a 'breaking point' for British theories of imperialism, colonialism, and identity. The book traces the changing British attitudes towards imperial settlement as the early view of 'island as paradise' gives way to a fear of the hostile islanders and examines how this revelation undermined a key tenant of British imperialism - that they were the 'superior' or 'civilized' islanders.Key FeaturesThe first monograph to trace the Pacific islands as represented through the lens of British fiction and non-fiction across the long nineteenth centuryExamines texts written by Pacific islanders and published in the British pressSignificantly broadens our understanding of the British Pacific by analysing understudied Pacific texts and authors alongside more canonical works