Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0328/03280.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 20KB | 328 lines

$Unique_ID{COW03280}
$Pretitle{294S}
$Title{Solomon Islands
Chapter 1.    General Information}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Stephan B. Wickman}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{islands
percent
government
population
solomon
groups
new
first
social
british}
$Date{1984}
$Log{}
Country:     Solomon Islands
Book:        Oceania, An Area Study: Solomon Islands
Author:      Stephan B. Wickman
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1984

Chapter 1.    General Information

Political Status     Independent state (1978)
Capital              Honiara
Population           251,000 (1984
                       midyear estimate)
Land Area            28,530 square
                       kilometers
Currency             Solomon Islands
                       dollar (SI$)
Major Islands        Malaita, Guadalcanal,
 and Island            Santa Isabel,
 Groups                Choiseul, Makira,
                       New Georgia, Santa
                       Cruz Islands, Rennell,
                       Bellona, Russell
                       Islands, Florida
                       Islands, Ontong Java

Physical Environment

     The country of Solomon Islands consists of a double chain of islands and
island clusters stretching over 1,400 kilometers; the islands of Bougainville
and Buta, at the northern end of the geographical chain, belong to Papua New
Guinea (see Papua New Guinea, this ch.). The country itself has about 1.3
million square kilometers within its EEZ (see Glossary). The five largest
islands make up 73 percent of the territory (see fig. 8).

     All the large islands of the main chain and most of the outer islands
were formed by volcanic activity, which still occurs in a few areas; the last
serious eruption was on Savo Island in 1840. The mountains are generally
rugged, except on Makira. Guadalcanal has extensive plains along its northern
coast, but the other islands have little flat land. The river systems tend to
have straight and swift courses that can flood the coastal areas during heavy
rains. Rennell, the largest coral limestone island in the country, is a fine
example of a raised atoll.

     The climate is almost uniformly hot and wet. The southeast trade winds
predominate during the driest season, from April to November, and are
strongest and of the longest duration in the southern islands. The
northwesterly monsoonal winds can bring stormy weather and gales from January
to April. Cyclones pass through the islands but seldom cause serious damage.
Rainfall averages 3,000 to 3,500 millimeters per year for the country as a
whole and about 2,200 millimeters in Honiara. Temperatures average around
30C, falling to about 25C during the night and
in the higher elevations.

     Tropical forests, consisting of hardwoods, lianas, orchids, and various
other epiphytes cover most of the large islands; the dense cover resembles
that found in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Some of the forests have been
destroyed by slash-and-burn farming and have been covered over with grasses.
Many of the river deltas have formed mangrove swamps. The animal life is
similar though less varied than that in Papua New Guinea but includes the
cuscus, a monkey-like marsupial. There is a distinct break in the fauna
between the main chain and the Santa Cruz group, which has fewer of the
indigenous species of bats, pigs, and dogs. Insects, including the malarial
mosquito, abound.

Historical Setting

     Historians conjecture that hunting and gathering Papuan-speaking peoples
first came to the islands about 10,300 years ago. Around 2000 B.C. neolithic
peoples speaking a variety of Austronesian languages displaced or mingled
with the early settlers. These peoples were skilled agriculturists who
planted taro on shifting plots and raised chickens, dogs, and pigs. They were
able to build sturdy outriggers to cross from Makira to the Santa Cruz group,
where the Lapita pottery culture later flourished (see Prehistory, ch. 1). It
is unclear when the Polynesian descendants of Lapita culture settled the
outlying islands.

     In 1568 Spanish explorer Alvaro de Mendana de Neira became the first
European to discover the islands, which in South America were rumored to be
the legendary "Islands of Solomon." Some 25 years after his initial
exploration, Mendana returned but was unsuccessful in establishing a permanent
settlement in the Santa Cruz group. A second Spanish settlement effort also
failed in 1606. Except for some passes by Ontong Java, it was more than a
century and a half until other Europeans rediscovered the islands; not until
1838 were they identified as those first explored by Mendana.

     The explorers who passed through the islands in the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries had little contact with the indigenous population,
but by 1830 whalers and traders had begun to frequent the area. The first
Europeans to go ashore for any length of time, however, were a group of Marist
Catholic priests, who founded a mission on Makira in 1845. The mission failed
after several of the priests were killed by the local population. Cautioned by
this experience, the Anglican missionaries who worked out of New Zealand
decided to bring some select Solomon Islanders home with them for training.
The Anglican recruits returned and set up a successful mission in the Reef
Islands. Despite the murder of the first Anglican bishop to the Solomon
Islands, the missionary effort expanded steadily and soon incorporated other
denominations.

     The missionary effort was aided by the importation of Solomon Islanders
to work plantations in Australia and elsewhere, a type of trade that was
called blackbirding. The Solomon Islanders suffered under the trade but were
exposed to European culture and religion in their new environment. Back home,
blackbirding caused violent clashes between the islanders and the Europeans,
although the missionaries opposed the trade. Violence and lawlessness caused
Britain to establish a protectorate over the islands in 1893; Santa Isabel,
Choiseul, Ontong Java, and the islands off Bougainville remained in the German
sphere of influence. In 1899 an Anglo-German agreement brought these islands
into the British protectorate.

     The establishment of civil order and the development of a modest
plantation economy characterized the efforts of the British administration up
to World War II. The task was arduous, being interrupted by World War I and
limited by the small number of administrators willing to take up residence in
the islands. Head-hunting raids and blood feuding were endemic on New Georgia
and Malaita. The last of the main islands, Choiseul, was brought under full
administrative control only in 1941. The economy likewise only slowly slipped
into the modern era. The government leased 78,000 hectares of land to a
British copra processor, and smaller firms and individual planters began to
settle the territory, though often at considerable risk.

     World War II overwhelmed the Solomon Islands. The Japanese invasion,
which moved as far south as Guadalcanal in 1942, destroyed not only the
colonial administration but also the myth of British omnipotence (see World
War II, ch. 5). Solomon Islanders distinguished themselves in service to the
Allied forces-nearly all Americans-as they recaptured the islands in 1943. For
many it was the first time they had been treated as equals and with dignity,
and a sense of both individual pride and nationalism developed.

     In the final years of the war, a populist movement swept the island of
Malaita and spread elsewhere. Called the Marching Rule by the British, the
movement was much more than a cargo cult (see Glossary). Its leaders organized
the indigenous population into paralimitary groups and administrative
organizations that simultaneously reconstructed the war-ravaged villages and
opposed the reinstatement of British rule. The British acted forcefully to
put down the movement when it became violent, virtually smashing it by 1950,
but the tren