ABSTRACT
In Queensland most Solomon Islanders worked from the first on sugar cane plantations and in the sugar mills, which included some very large mechanised estates from the 1880s. When the expanding empires of Europe first began to reach out to the Pacific islands, Malaitans had no way of knowing what this meant for their own way of life. For the first thirty or forty years Kwara’ae, like other Malaitans, gained what they wanted from the colonial system as migrant labourers on overseas plantations without sacrificing their political independence at home. In the process, foundations were laid for the eventual subjugation of Kwara’ae and the other peoples of Malaita and Solomon Islands by the political and economic power of the British, and by the spiritual power of Christianity. The saltwater people travelled by sea around the coasts of Malaita and had relatives in distant parts of the island and beyond.
