ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the later processes and struggles for independence by Pacific Islanders to 1980 plus inter-relationships of the independent island states and with their former colonial masters. Polynesians are natives of the South Pacific Islands to the east of that island chain, with the exception of Fiji, where the indigenous people are mostly Melanesian, but which has a Polynesian culture, such as a strong chiefly system. Many of the islands of the Pacific experienced during the Second World War the traumas of Japanese invasion and US counter attacks, leaving much physical devastation. The one postwar political change in the Pacific Islands occurred in the North Pacific, where Japan's League of Nations mandated islands became an American mandate under UN trusteeship. The relative poverty of the islanders made interisland travel too expensive. In a referendum observed by the UN in 1974, 92 per cent of Ellice Islanders voted for separation.
