Apolosi Nawai (1876–1946), known as the King of
Fiji
Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...
, was a charismatic Fijian leader who challenged British colonial rule. He was held by the Fijian government.
Biography
Apolosi founded and led the
Viti Trading Company
Viti or Víti may refer to:
Places
* Viti, Estonia, a village in Estonia
* Viti, Kosovo, a town and municipality in Kosovo
* Víti (meaning "hell" in Icelandic), the name of several locations in Iceland:
** Víti (Askja), a warm crater lake near ...
in 1915 that first aimed to capture the profits of trading Fijian village produce for its mainly Fijian shareholders. The trading company was seen by the European settlers as a challenge to their influence, and the colonial authorities and courts were encouraged to suppress it. The company's agents quickly assumed the role of village authorities in opposition to the Native Administration and Fijian chiefs.
In 1917, Apolosi was reported to have told supporters:
:"I alone am the chief of Fiji: it is the will of God. These other chiefs only work for themselves; they don't spare a thought for you or your welfare."
Six months later, witnesses swore that Apolosi had claimed 'I am the enemy of the government, I am the strong man. But it was a lie
That year, 1917, British Governor
Bickham Sweet-Escott
Sir Ernest Bickham Sweet-Escott (20 August 1857 – 9 April 1941) was a British colonial administrator who was in turn governor of the British Seychelles, British Honduras, British Leeward Islands and British Fiji.
Early years
Sweet-Escott ...
issued a Confining Order exiling Apolosi to
Rotuma. In 1924 Apolosi's first exile came to an end. Shortly afterwards he led a charismatic religious movement promising a New Era and the fall of the British Empire in Viti Levu. In 1930 he was exiled for a second time.
In 1940 Apolosi was allowed to return from exile, but the authorities' fear that he would lead a quasi-religious movement meant that he was exiled again just weeks later, this time to
New Zealand. In 1946 he was brought back to
Yacata to die.
[THE LAST EXILE OF APOLOSI NAWAI, Charles Weeks Jr, ''Pacific Studies,'' Vol. 18, No. 3--September 1995; Timothy Macnaught, ''The Fijian Colonial Experience,'' Australian National University Press, 1982 p 91]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nawai, Apolosi
1876 births
1946 deaths
Fijian rebels
People from Nadi
People from Yacata