Report of the Commission appointed to Inquire into the Decrease of the Native Population, with appendices.

  • Fiji. Commission appointed to Inquire into the Decrease of the Native Population.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Commission appointed to Inquire into the Decrease of the Native Population, with appendices. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    (8) Admiral Washington, E..N., reporting to the Board of Admiralty in preli- 1859, states, The whole population of the Group may be 200,000. (9) Colonel Smythe, R. A., reporting to the Colonial Office in May, 1861, as EstSSs of to the expediency of accepting the olTer made to cede the sovereignty of Population, the islands to Her Majesty, stated that the population is estimated at 200,000; and Dr. Seemann, speaking of the same time, gives the number of Christian converts, according to returns, as 67,489. (10) Mr. Consul Pritchard, referring to the year 1862, speaks of swaying the 250,000 natives of Eiji in the interests of civilisation. (11) Mr. Frederick J. Moss, at one time a planter in Mji, states, in his sketch Through Atolls and Islands of the Great South Sea, that in 1868 the native population of Eiji numbered 140,000. (12) Other estimates give the population in 1868 as 170,000, and in 1874 as 140,000. (13) At the date of Cession (1875) the population was officially estimated at 150,000. 5. The following figures, which are more specific than any of the foregoing estimates, are taken from Eindlay's Directory for the Navigation of the South Pacific, second edition, published in 1863. The figures there given for the population of the various islands have been obtained in most instances from navigators and visitors to the Group—Wilkes and others—and in some cases from statistics furnished by the Wesleyan Mission. The population of the respective islands as ascertained at the Census of 1891 is also given for comparison:— Population from Population by Island. Findlay's Directory, 1863. Statistics, ,1891. Vulaga 150 414 Oneata 200 183 Lakeba 1,000 969 ISTayau 299 240 Cicia... 300 371 Munia... 80 Now owned by Europeans, Susui ... 150 64 Vanuabalavu ... 1,000 With Mag ;o, 1,271 Kanacea 300 Now owned by Europeans, Tacata 20 107 Taviuni (Wilkes' estimate) ... 7,000 2,171 Koro ... 2,000 1,340 Nairai (in 1856—Mission estimate) 1,162 502 Gau (in 1856—Mission statistics) ... 3,173 1,755 Batiki... 509 318 Moala 700 743 Totoya 400 606 Matuku (Denham's estimate, in 1856) 600 644 Waya (Tasawa) 3,000 647 Viwa (Tasawa) 50 249 Vanualevu (d'Urville) 10,000^ (Rev. J. Williams, in 1849) 10,000 to 12,000 y 18,748 (Mr. Bensusan, in 1860) 20,000) (It has been estimated at two or three times this numbe I--) Vitilevu (M. Gaimard in I'Astrolabe, in 1827) 20,000 ) 68,513 „ (Wilkes) 88,000) Kadavu (Wilkes said that it consisted of 45 A'illa^ ?es) 2,000 80 villages. , 6,895 It has of course to l)e borne in mind that some islands were sold to Europeans before the Cession of the Colony, and that the natives of these islands were removed to, and are now included in the census of, other islands. 6.