When Professor Sudesh Mishra of the University of the South Pacific wrote about five Kadavu men who accompanied the very first boatload of indentured labourers from India on the ship Leonidas in his 2014 article, “The ‘Leonidas’ Fijians: A minor history,’ there was a feeling of curious disbelief amongst scholars and the public at large.
Really?
Were there Fijians in India in the 1870s?
Sega, sega ni rawa.
Indeed, more and more evidence is emerging as to the amazing adventure of these Kadavu young men — it’s as if the story was taken straight from the popular “Adventures of Sinbad the sailor,” we enjoyed reading in primary schools in Fiji in the early days.
This amazing adventure story, passed down through three generations, is still very much alive and is a constant subject of veitalanoa over yaqona bowls in Galoa Village, Kadavu, where three of the five men came from.
While looking for a Fiji-bound ship, the men came across the “Leonidas” in Calcutta, ready to sail to Fiji.
The deal was that they had to work on the ship as “payment” for their trip back to Fiji.
With a total of 498 passengers (273 men, 146 women and 79 children under 12 years of age), the ship departed Calcutta in March 1879 and arrived in Fiji in May of the same year.
The five Kadavu men were Sunia Ratavo (Sonia), Ilitomasi (Tom), Timoci Salaca (Billi), Joji (George), and Jonetani (Johnee).
Sunia, Ilitomasi, and Timoci were from Galoa while Joji and Jonetani were from other villages.
The oral history in this story was shared with one of the authors, Esala Vakamacawai, also from Galoa Village, by Ilitomasi Nuku (great grandson of Sunia Ratavo) and Pauliasi Bilo one of the village elders.
Kidnapped
IN the 1800s, Galoa Village was the main port of call in Fiji for ships sailing across the Pacific between the United States, Australia and New Zealand.
It is on a tiny island of the same name just to the south of Vunisea, the main government station in the Province of Kadavu.
The Nasalato Wharf in Galoa where the ships anchored, crew rested and picked up provisions operated for a number of years until Levuka became the main port of call when the island ran out of water.
According to Ilitomasi, the men worked at the Nasalato wharf for 2-3 shillings per week and these may have been the very first group of dockworkers in Fiji.
A large number of young men came from around Kadavu and as far as Viti Levu to work at Nasalato wharf.
As related by the two informants, when the five men returned after years of absence, they gave their account of how they were invited on to the whaling ship for a short tour and while on board, the crewmen locked the door behind them and the ship quickly sailed away.
They were later sold as slaves and forced to work on different ships which took them to Australia, America, England and India.
This story seems plausible because the practice of black birding and Shangaiin were common in the 1870s around the time when the men left Galoa.
Blackbirding involved the use of trickery and force to “recruit” people from various parts of the Pacific to provide slave-like labour in plantations around Queensland, Fiji and other places.
Shanghaiin was almost similar but it involved kidnapping men to work in ships, often bound for Shanghai in China, which was the centre of trade in the Asia-Pacific region in those days (thus the tern Shanghaiin).
Most probably, the men were victims of a mixture of these two unsavoury practices.
The stowaway version seems so far-fetched because it would have been very difficult to sneak into and hide in a small schooner.
Also, if they were caught, they would have been subjected to “open sea justice” which meant that they wouldn’t have been able to return alive.
First Fijian-Indian romance and marriage?
The men probably spent a fair bit of time in India before their return because Sunia got married and had children.
This would have been one of the very first, if not the first, Indian-Fijian marriages, which produced the very first child of mixed ancestry between the two ethnic groups.
This is historically significant because, even before the first Girmiteers came to Fiji in 1879, the genealogical connection between the two ethnic groups through Sunia and his Indian wife, had already taken root.
Unfortunately, this great story of trans-ethnic romance, which could have been a great lesson in multicultural interaction, was never told, but instead, what the country kept hearing over the years was the dominant narrative of ethnic division and a general reluctance for inter-racial marriage.
Sunia was eager to bring his wife and children to Fiji, but when they came to the ship the captain refused to allow the family on-board.
This was extremely devastating for the young Galoa man and as the ship moved away slowly from the Calcutta wharf, one would imagine that he would have yelled to his crying wife and children that he would come back for them.
Indeed, upon his return,
Sunia asked his father if he could go back to India to fetch his wife and kids but the response was not exactly what he wanted to hear.
He was told not to leave the village again in case he did not return.
When we think about it, the long distance and the means to get back to India was a farfetched dream in those days.
Today, a flight from Nadi to Delhi and back would take only a few hours, but in those days, it would have taken at least 4-5 months by schooner, if one was lucky enough to find one.
Sunia later remarried in Fiji and had four children and a number of grandchildren who are now living in Kadavu and Suva.
Two of his daughters got married to men from Yale and Drue, also in Kadavu.
The fate of his family in India is not known and this would be a good case for trans-border genealogical investigation, which some groups specialise in nowadays.
Helping to save the “Leonidas”
When the “Leonidas” reached Levuka it was quarantined because of the outbreak of cholera and small pox on-board the ship.
Levuka had no quarantine facilities so the ship had to anchor near Waitovi Village on the calmer leeward side of the island.
The ship ran aground on a reef on its way to the anchorage site.
The Fiji Times of May 17, 1879 described how the ship “passed up the harbour, passed Vagadaci, and when off Waitovu through some stupidity touched the reef…”
Both Vagadaci and Waitovi are on the Eastern side of the island of Ovalau, a few kilometres from Levuka.
Official history is silent on the details here, but according to Ilitomasi and Pauliasi, the five Kadavu men, because of their familiarity with the Fiji sea and reef environment and knowledge of local language and culture, volunteered to swim ashore to seek help.
Most probably they sought assistance from Waitovi, the nearest village.
Whether there are still local stories passed down in the village about any encounter with the Kadavu men still needs investigation.
According to official history, the high tide later re-floated the ship and what is not mentioned was the role of the local villagers who were thoroughly familiar with the detailed contours of the reef as well as the Kadavu men, who, according to their account, also helped re-float and save the ship with the help of the incoming tide.
Significance of forgotten history
This is just a shortened version of a much longer academic paper being put together by the authors, but it must be emphasised that the significance of this episode of “minor history” (as Prof Mishra calls it) needs sharing to dispel some existing myths as well as provide new insights into Girmit history.
Not only does it show that Taukei were present in India in the 1870s and accompanied the first boatload to Fiji, the case of Taukei-Indian
intermarriage and crossbreeding lifts the story to another level of significance, especially in the context of the limited cases of intermarriage
between Indo-Fijians and Taukei today.
The story of Sunia’s marriage to an Indian girl in India, even prior to indenture, should be seen as a groundbreaking example of transcultural and genealogical connectivity, which should be woven into our collective historical consciousness.
Lastly, in helping to save the “Leonidas” from ending up the same way as the “Syria” (another ship bringing indentured workers to Fiji but was wrecked and broken apart by the waves on Nasilai Reef in May1884), Sunia and his group of Kadavu heroes have also contributed to writing a chapter on Fiji’s history of nation building.
This has not been acknowledged by official colonial history and academic research and it is about time that this incredible story of adventure is told.
• Dr Esala Vakamacawai, Dr Suli Vunibola, and Distinguished Professor Steven Ratuva are based at the Macmillan Brown Center for Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury, New Zealand. The article are theirs and not necessarily the views of this newspaper
