Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- AN EMPIRE ON TRIAL
- Introduction
- 1 On the High Seas
- 2 Queensland, 1869–1889
- 3 Fiji, 1875–1885
- 4 Trinidad and the Bahamas, 1886–1897
- 5 India: The Setting
- 6 India: In the Legal Arena, 1889–1922
- 7 Kenya, 1905–1934
- 8 British Honduras, 1934
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - Fiji, 1875–1885
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- AN EMPIRE ON TRIAL
- Introduction
- 1 On the High Seas
- 2 Queensland, 1869–1889
- 3 Fiji, 1875–1885
- 4 Trinidad and the Bahamas, 1886–1897
- 5 India: The Setting
- 6 India: In the Legal Arena, 1889–1922
- 7 Kenya, 1905–1934
- 8 British Honduras, 1934
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The united voice of the British subjects of Her Majesty in Fiji must be heard through the length and breadth of England … crying out for those sacred rights and privileges to be extended to us today that were given to our forefathers seven hundred years ago.
Fiji Argus, 21 May 1880In January 1877, in the newly annexed British colony of Fiji, a planter named Patrick Scanlon apprehended Masiomo, an indentured Solomon Islander aged eighteen or nineteen who had run away from his employer, a neighbor of Scanlon. Scanlon was later to claim that Masiomo had broken into his house, armed with two spears, whereupon Scanlon in self-defense struck him down. Masiomo was beaten severely with a heavy stick, bound, and left on the ground outside Scanlon's kitchen overnight. Scanlon planned to notify his neighbor the next day to reclaim the man. Hearing his moans and seeing him bleeding, one of Scanlon's servants asked for permission to untie his bindings and dress his wounds, which Scanlon brusquely refused, fearing that he would then run away. Scanlon told another servant to watch all night against an escape. “He cannot escape,” the servant replied; “he cannot walk.” Scanlon did not reply to this. In the morning Masiomo was dead. The British takeover had brought a new regime to Fiji – the Fiji Times was to protest later that year that the employment of Polynesians since annexation had become surrounded by restrictive laws – and, somewhat to his surprise, Scanlon found himself arrested and charged with murder.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- An Empire on TrialRace, Murder, and Justice under British Rule, 1870–1935, pp. 71 - 94Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008