The people versus the commission: resistance to land registration in Fiji's early colonial history

This paper examines the struggle between indigenous communities and the Native Lands Commission in the registration of native land during Fiji's early colonial period. It argues that the Commission's ineffectiveness in getting land registered in the first 40 years of colonial rule was in large part due to the continuous efforts of indigenous communities to variously delay, undermine, frustrate, subvert, obstruct, and boycott this process. Had this long-running silent but deliberate boycott failed, most native land would have been registered and ready for alienation between 1905 and 1907 when Governor im Thurn's new land laws created a brief but significant moment for native land to be sold. The fact that this resistance movement did not propel any significant personalities onto the public stage suggests that "the people" - in their anonymous mass - are just as important as other agents in creating and shaping the course of history