Pacific Islanders under German rule : a study in the meaning of colonial resistance / Peter J. Hempenstall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hempenstall, Peter J., author.

Series:

Open Access e-Books

Knowledge Unlatched

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Great Britain--Colonies--Oceania--History.

Germany--Colonies--Oceania--Administration.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 264 pages) : illustrations, maps.

Place of Publication:

ANU Press 2016

Acton, Australia : Australian National University Press, [2016]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This is an important book. It is a reprint of the first detailed study of how Pacific Islanders responded politically and economically to their rulers across the German empire of the Pacific. Under one cover, it captures the variety of interactions between the various German colonial administrations, with their separate approaches, and the leaders and people of Samoa in Polynesia, the major island centre of Pohnpei in Micronesia and the indigenes of New Guinea. Drawing on anthropology, new Pacific history insights and a range of theoretical works on African and Asian resistance from the 1960s and 1970s, it reveals the complexities of Islander reactions and the nature of protests against German imperial rule. It casts aside old assumptions that colonised peoples always resisted European colonisers. Instead, this book argues convincingly that Islander responses were often intelligent and subtle manipulations of their rulers’ agendas, their societies dynamic enough to make their own adjustments to the demands of empire. It does not shy away from major blunders by German colonial administrators, nor from the strategic and tactical mistakes of Islander leaders. At the same time, it raises the profile of several large personalities on both sides of the colonial frontier, including Lauaki Namulau’ulu Mamoe and Wilhelm Solf in Samoa; Henry Nanpei, Georg Fritz and Karl Boeder in Pohnpei; or Governor Albert Hahl and Po Minis from Manus Island in New Guinea.

Contents:

Introduction

1. German Samoa: Early disquiet

2. Lauaki versus the Solf System

3. Ponape: the pattern of Spanish and German rule

4. Reform, rebellion and the sunset of German rule

5. The New Guinea Islands: war and commerce under company rule

6. The Reich and race relations in the New Guinea Islands

7. The Mainland: New Guinea under company and empire

8. Resistance: Conservation and innovation

9. The social dynamics of protest: Organisation and leadership.

Notes:

"First published 1978 by The Australian National University. This edition © 2016"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references.

CC BY-NC-ND

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed August 30, 2016).

ISBN:

9781921934322

1921934328

OCLC:

956277530

Publisher Number:

10.26530/OAPEN_612753