ABSTRACT
A part of island Melanesia first settled about 3,200 years ago, New Caledonia has been a French territory since 1853. From the 1860s to the 1890s it was a penal colony receiving convicts from France and North Africa. It also became a destination for free settlers from France and other parts of its empire, as well as indentured ‘native’ labourers imported in the main from Vanuatu, Indochina, Java, India, China and Japan to work in the colony’s nickel mines and plantations. More recent migrants have come from Wallis and Futuna. In the late 1960s, an independence movement emerged, and in 1984-88, the struggle between supporters and opponents of independence resulted in a period of civil war known as the ‘events’. Political agreements in 1988 and 1998 restored political stability and have provided for forms of decolonisation, while the question of the territory’s future relationship with France remains open.
