Pacific Islands Context

Overview | Migration & Settlement | European Exploration | Pacific People & Cultures

In much of the world, European colonization brought major changes where new technologies and ideas challenged age-old systems of commerce and religion. In the Pacific islands, the Europeans of the sixteenth century hoped to find the mysterious Terra Australis Incognita (Unknown Southern Continent). This legendary large and fertile continent was believed to lie in the South Pacific as a counterweight to the northern continents of Europe and Asia. It was with this idea along with the hope of discovery and exploration that the exploration of the Pacific began.

The European era of Pacific exploration began with Magellan's voyage and his consequent discovery of Guam in 1521. Although several Spanish and English navigators had explored the Pacific after Magellan's voyage, this vast body of water was still largely unknown to Europeans in 1600. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Dutch, English, and French navigators launched sailing expeditions throughout the Pacific. However, it was Spain's establishment of its first colony in the Pacific on Guam in 1668 that signaled the beginning of the European wave of colonization.

Some French philosophers of the Enlightenment saw these islands, especially Tahiti, as the original natural society, where people lived in a state of innocence and food fell from the trees. However, this description was far from accurate. Most islands of the Pacific were densely populated by the time of European contact, and the human impact on the natural ecosystem was often disastrous, with wholesale decimation of species and loss of vast tracts of indigenous forest.

Another societal consequence of colonization was a clash of cultures. The European philosophy of commerce and religion brought the Pacific island cultures into direct conflict with Western tradition. The European explorers were accustomed to a system of ownership, as exemplified by the ship's captain, who was the proprietor of his ships and the objects on board. However, the Pacific islanders, in the spirit of reciprocity, welcomed the foreigners with food and hospitality. Consistent with island tradition, the recipient was expected to repay the host with a similar exchange of goods. New values that often clashed with traditional ones disrupted the traditional cultures, resulting in calamity, sometimes death. The influx of non-indigenous people also reinforced the European concept of a cash economy, causing subsistence to give way to economies based on money.

While the cash economy benefited the colonists, the modern Pacific presents challenges to any economy. Creating a vibrant cash-based economy is no easy task for Pacific island nations—whether they be a relative giant like Papua New Guinea, with 4 million people and rich forests and mineral resources, or a micro-state like Tuvalu, with nine low-lying atolls and just 10,000 people.

Huge distances, poor and expensive transport, and lack of a business culture all conspire against economic miracles. In some countries, coups, crime, and corruption have sapped their nations' economic vitality.

Outside of the U.S. Flag Pacific Islands, all the island nations other than Nauru are dependent on foreign aid and import more than they export. But that has not prevented some amazing success stories and some surprising innovations. The crucial economic issues are how to break out of the cycle of high aid and low economic growth, how to share the benefits of growth, and how to ensure development does not come at the expense of the region's environment.