australiansouthseaislanders

....the Islanders in most areas of the Pacific depended on continuous contact with Europeans for the supply of pipes, but in some parts of the Solomon Islands, the inhabitants established a clay pipe manufacturing industry which satisfied, in part at least, the newly-acquired habit and lessened native dependence on Europeans. ....the pipe-making craft...developed on Buka Island at the northern end of the Solomon Islands in the late nineteenth century, .. and was adopted by villages which did not traditionally make pottery. Source: JOURNAL ARTICLE SMOKING PIPES AND CULTURE CHANGE ON BUKA ISLAND, PAPUA NEW GUINEA Jim Specht The Journal of the Polynesian Society Vol. 84, No. 3 (SEPTEMBER 1975), pp. 356-364

The Solomons were first settled by people coming from the Bismarck Islands and New Guinea during the Pleistocene era c. 30,000–28,000 BCE, based on archaeological evidence found at Kilu Cave on Buka Island in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea.[20][21] At this point, sea levels were lower and Buka and Bougainville were physically joined to the southern Solomons in one landmass ("Greater Bougainville"), though it is unclear precisely how far south these early settlers spread as no other archaeological sites from this period have been found.[20] As sea levels rose as the Ice Age ended c. 4000–3500 BCE, the Greater Bougainville landmass split into the numerous islands that exist today.[20][22] Evidence of later human settlements dating to c. 4500–2500 BCE has been found at Poha Cave and Vatuluma Posovi Cave on Guadalcanal.[20] The ethnic identity of these early peoples is unclear, though it is thought that the speakers of the Central Solomon languages (a self-contained language family unrelated to other languages spoken in the Solomons) likely represent the descendants of these earlier settlers. From c. 1200–800 BCE Austronesian Lapita people began arriving from the Bismarcks with their characteristic ceramics. Beginning in the 1840s, and accelerating in the 1860s, islanders began to be recruited (or often kidnapped) as labourers for the colonies in Australia, Fiji, and Samoa in a process known as "blackbirding". Anglican missionaries began arriving in the 1850s, followed by other denominations, over time gaining a large number of converts. From the late 1890's until the early 1900's, there were numerous instances of European merchants and colonists being killed by islanders; the British response was to deploy Royal Navy warships to launch punitive expeditions against the villages which were responsible for the murders.[14] The British colonial government attempted to encourage the establishment of plantations by colonists; however, by 1902, there were only about 80 European colonists residing on the islands.[49] Attempts at economic development met with mixed results, though Levers Pacific Plantations Ltd., a subsidiary of Lever Brothers, managed to establish a profitable copra plantation industry that employed many islanders.[49] Small-scale mining and logging industries were also developed.[50][51] However, the colony remained something of a backwater, with education, medical and other social services being the preserve of the missionaries.[41] Violence also continued, most notably with the murder of colonial administrator William R. Bell by Basiana of the Kwaio people on Malaita in 1927, as Bell attempted to enforce an unpopular head tax. Several Kwaio were killed in a retaliatory raid, and Basiana and his accomplices were executed. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Islands

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