AD 1600-1950

In AD 1606 the first European, Louis Vaez de Torres of Spain, sailed through the straits between Australia and Papua New Guinea. Interaction between Europeans and islanders was sparse in the following 150 years. Several British and French voyagers stopped in Vanuatu and nearby islands, including Captain Cook and Luois-Antoine de Bouganville, but relations were often troubled and they did not stay long.

By the 1840s European settlers had established themselves in Australia and New Zealand, and barter between the islanders and European traders thrived throughout the western Pacific. These exchanges were fraught with dangers for both sides in some regions. Trade introduced many new diseases as well as new commodities.

Such trade brought social change, and many islanders joined traders’ ships on expeditions, travelling from Canton to Sydney. Islanders also worked on European-owned sugar and cotton plantations – some of them through kidnap and force. Jealousy between European powers led to the annexation and partition of islands. New Caledonia (1853) and Vanuatu (1906) became joint British and French Protectorates, the Solomon Islands was made a British Protectorate in 1893 and New Guinea was partitioned into German New Guinea and British New Guinea or Papua in 1884 (Papua was handed over to Australia in 1906).