European planters started arriving in full force in Fiji in the years leading up to the signing of the Deed of Cession to Great Britain.
Cotton was the chosen crop for many and a good number of brave settlers decided to establish farms in isolated regions well away from any recognised form of authority.
Their decision to set up farms in areas closer to hostile mountain tribes, particularly the kai colo of the Ba region ultimately led to horrific slaughter and tragedy.
A prominent case of white settlers being attacked by hostile mountain tribes of Ba involved the cotton planters Tom McIntosh and John Spiers.
According to most reports the planters had been killed by the Vatusila people while fishing and duck hunting along the Ba River.
The correspondent for the Fiji Gazette of July 10, 1871 shed some light on what happened on July 9 along the Ba River.
“Yesterday morning the deceased gentlemen, in a boat, proceeded up the river to a small spot they had often visited before to fish, accompanied by three Solomon Islanders, their servants,” read the report.
“During the afternoon they were beckoned to the shore by a party of natives, who invited them to land and have some feed.
“As they had often met those natives before to buy yams and taro from them, sometimes to the number of 200, and having no suspicion of treachery, they went to the shore and landed, Mr McIntosh taking with him his gun, and Mr Spiers leaving his in the boat. The three Solomon Island men remained in the boat where the unfortunate gentlemen landed. The bank of the river is steep, but they ascended it, and soon disappeared from view of the boat.
“Almost immediately afterwards the report of a gun was heard, and the men left the boat to see what the firing was, and no sooner mounted the bank than they saw their masters lying on the ground, and the natives dancing round them, one having Mr McIntosh’s shirt and gun in his hand.
“The wretches then made a rush for the boat, but the Solomon Islanders were too quick for them, and one having gained it, took up Mr Spiers’s gun and presented it at them.
“It was not loaded nor capped nevertheless the mountaineers would not face it, turned tail, and ran away.
“The boat then returned, and the men related the sad news. Immediately on hearing of the horrible deed, accompanied by six whites and a number of Fiji men, I proceeded up the river to search for the bodies. On arriving at Mr Burn’s plantation I met some Fiji men carrying the remains of Mr McIntosh, tied up in leaves and slung to a pole.
“They laid the corpse down, and we examined it. There was a large gash on the left side, of the head at the back of the ear, and a piece cut out of the left cheek. Two shot wounds were in the body, and the arms and legs had been cut off. The body was cut through at the small of the back, from which the bowels were protruding. There were some entrails, bits of flesh, and a piece of bone from the shoulder blade, separate, and those were strewn on the ground. All the clothes and the gun had been taken away.”
The Fiji Times of July 1871 carried another account of what happened taken from the witnesses of the tragedy, including the three Solomon Island labourers who were servants of the dead men.
An overseer for McIntosh and Perkin’s was one of the last people to see the two planters alive.
“I last saw Mr McIntosh at 10 o’clock Sunday morning the 9th instant,” the overseer reported.
Kasabeta, a Solomon Islander recalled that Sunday morning when he accompanied the two men along the Ba River.
“The mountaineers came and asked them to lay their arms and turn. They then left the boat and went ashore a short distance with the natives.
“I head the distant reports of guns and one of my mates left the boat to see the reason for the shots and immediately returned telling me the two men were shot dead.
“The Fijians made for the boat I lifted a gun and pointed it but there was no cap on. They ran away when they saw the gun. I believed the two men to be dead, and so we pulled away in the boat.”
An iTaukei man named Banuve was charged with retrieving the bodies of the two men, which were in mutilated state.
The Fiji Times reported that McIntosh’s arms and legs “were cut off from the body” apart from visible wounds to the back of the head and lower torso, which resembled one made by a gunshot
Another settler reported that the same evening “three of his Solomon Islanders, returned from up the river, where they had accompanied the deceased gentleman with the boat and gave me information of the murders by the mountaineers”.
“I immediately spread the report among the settlers.”
Writing on the 10th July, the Fiji Gazette correspondent said: “I am glad to say all the white men are coming up well. All the settlers on this coast have come to the Ba River, and have promised to be here on the day appointed to start to punish the murderers of Messrs McIntosh and Spiers. Nadi and Nadroga settlers are all coming, and bring their imported labour with them. Tui Nadroga is expected to come with a large number of his men.
“We can raise a good number in this district, and we have no doubt that all the white men in Fiji that can will come. July 20 is the day fixed to meet at the Ba River, and every man that intends coming is requested to be here early on the morning of the 20th.
“Mr Berry has gone to Levuka to ask for volunteers, and also for food, arms, and ammunition, hoping that all will give or lend what they can, for it is the general impression here that this undertaking will be either death or glory for the white settlers in Fiji.”
The Times further mentions: “In addition to all the horror attaching to the murder and mutilation of Messrs McIntosh and Spiers at the Ba Coast, we loam that the legs and arms of the two unfortunate gentle- men formed a cannibal feast for the murderers.
Entrails and bits of bone were reported to have been found by William Oliver, an overseer for Fisher and Brown’s plantation.
“Some friendly natives gave the information to the settlers on the coast. The government appear to be in earnest in taking measures for the punishment of the Ba mountaineers,” the Fiji Gazette article continued.
“Messages have been sent to Rewa and other places to stop any muskets, gunpowder, or other material of war being sent to the Ba Coast, and a number of natives of the district whose time of service at Taviuni was expired, have had the muskets originally promised to them in payment for their labour changed for something else.”
The late Professor Asesela Ravuvu noted in his book The Façade of Democracy that planters in Ba only showed willingness to pay taxes and recognise Cakobau’s government after that government sent some men to help them.
“Their willingness to pay taxes and recognise the government came about in 1872 only after an expedition of armed constabulary from Levuka arrived in Ba to protect the European planters after two of them (McIntosh and Spiers) had been killed and several farming families attacked by hostile Fijians,” Ravuvu wrote.
The traditional authority structure in the Ba area was reportedly more fragmented than anywhere else in the country except the interior.
Ravuvu said the planters showed contempt for the Levuka government, failed to pay taxes and recognise the government as they offered them no protection from the hill tribes.
The Fiji Times of July 18 reported on the establishment of an inquest into the murders with a MJ Kennedy acting as coroner and a Mr Lindberg as secretary.
“After careful investigation of the whole of the evidence, the jury has come to the unanimous decision, that Tom McIntosh and John Spiers have been basely and foully murdered by the mountaineers,” the inquest announced.
This group comprised members the likes of CJ Lindberg, Philip Jack, B Dellepiane, Adolf Rydall and JE Kennedy.
The settlers of Ba wasted no time in penning a letter to the Cakobau government at Levuka expressing grave fears for their immediate safety.
“We the residents of the above place do hereby pray for your immediate help and assistance against the above tribe as some of us have been threatened by the said mountaineers and we are in immediate danger.”
A government representative replied on July 18 sympathising with the settlers but also noting that the murdered men had placed themselves in a very vulnerable position.
“I desire to say that this government sympathizes deeply…but lament that Messrs McIntosh and Spiers should have thoughtlessly gone far from their houses, knowing the hostile feeling of the mountaineers of the adjacent districts towards the advance of white settlers.”
However things became complicated when a government minister named Clarkson reportedly told the settlers they had no right to defend themselves or their labourers against the hill tribes and if warned that anyone who shot a kai colo would be hung.
Clarkson had barely returned to Levuka when news of another massacre arrived, this one at Vunisamaloa where the Burns family were all killed.
Neighbours discovered the bodies of the planter and his wife and two young children along with 15 workers from New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) and a woman from the Solomon Islands.
Initially there as some problems when the Cakbau government did send an armed party to Ba led by a Major Fitzgerald.
However two radicals named White and Decourcey Ireland had managed to convince settlers that they could form an armed group to confront and defend themselves and their families and take revenge on the kai colo.
In his book, Fiji’s heritage, a history of Fiji, Kim Gravell mentioned Major Fitzgerald returned to Levuka when confronted with the notion of a wild welcoming party that included plantation workers.
“That bordered on indignity for Cakobau’s forces and soon after, they were ordered to return to Ba, this time under the command of a Captain Harding.
The British warship, Dido, intervened and prevented any bloodshed between the government troops and the armed settlers with their island workers.
Eventually White and Decourcey Ireland were deported and the government and settlers worked together to defeat the mountain tribe.
An excerpt from the campaign from an 1873 diary, the author of whom is unknown, shows the violence that accompanied the taming of the kai colo.
” ..corn planted next ti beans. Jack brothers returned from the mountains, reported 50 killed and wounded on the mountaineers side, and seven killed on the government side.”
“… Philip Jack and Gresham shot by kai colo, the latter died within an hour, the former the same night. Harding severely wounded … Rokogera was killed, his body cut into pieces by government native grooms and cooked and eaten with several others who assisted in the murders of Spiers and MacIntosh.”
Naqaqa people, who were enemies of the kai colo, were a big part of the effort to defeat the mountain tribe even though they were kai colo themselves.
Eventually, under the guidance of a Major Thurston, the brother of JB Thurston, the Levuka government’s chief secretary kai colo villages had surrendered including Bulu, Nasau, Nanukunuku, Savanunu, Nasautabu, Cubu and Magodro.
Only Nubutautau, considered impregnable, was left but the village soon fell after a siege with involved 200 trained Fijian troops and their native auxiliaries.
About a thousand men, women and children were reportedly taken to Levuka as prisoners of war, a few of whom eventually found the hangman’s rope.
Others were hired out to planters as soon as the fee was paid to the government with their servitude lasting until the Deed of Cession effectively released them.
