Travel Information >> New Caledonia
>> Introduction of New Caledonia.
>> History for New Caledonia
|
|
History for New Caledonia
|
History
New Caledonia's history began with successive population from the northeast, from as early as 2500 BC. Pottery and petroglyphs confirm the existence of the first inhabitants of the archipelago. From the 12th to the 17th century, Polynesian navigators from the east arrived in the Loyalty Islands on their outrigger canoes.
In prehistoric times, Melanesians lived in clans, a system which prevails today. New Caledonia exchanged its petroglyphs for the logbooks of the great navigators. In 1774 the British captain James Cook discovered the island in the northeast and named it "New Caledonia". Eighteen years later, it was the Frenchman d'Entrecasteaux, who in search of La Pérouse, landed on the mainland. As early as the mid-19th century, merchants followed the explorers, then the first Evangelist missions were established. In 1853 Napoleon III annexed New Caledonia and its dependencies, the Loyalty Islands. A year later, the "capital" was founded in the southwest of the mainland. The first colonists settled in, followed by a new kind of immigrant: convicts who were joined in 1872 by the transported criminals of the Commune of Paris. At the end of the 19th century, New Caledonia was still a rough and wild land: violent confrontations erupted between the colonists and natives on the mainland. At the same time, New Caledonia's subsoil revealed great mining riches and the first Asian immigrants came to work them. Up until World War II, with the mining discoveries and successive immigration, New Caledonia determined its fortune and identity. The multicultural population which constitutes the present Caledonian society is the result of all these movements of people. In 1942 the Americans chose New Caledonia for their military base in the Pacific. The American "landing" deeply marked people's consciences: Caledonian society, dozy and far from the rest of the world, began to open up to new techniques and ideas. In the early fifties, the first Caledonian political party was created and in 1957 New Caledonia took on the status of Overseas Territory. The nickel boom (1968-1971) brought New Caledonia into a frenetic industrial period. But the massive arrival of new immigrants, together with the new economic and political state of affairs, accentuated the imbalance between the communities. In the seventies the supporters of independence made many claims. During the eighties violence erupted: the "événements" (events) which divided the country. In 1988, the Matignon Agreements led to the establishment of three Provinces with the aim of restoring the balance of power. Ten years later, in 1998, the Noumea Agreement planned for the progressive autonomy of the new country which should become independent in about twenty years (at that time a referendum will determine this option). The 21st century will mark a new challenge for the little Oceanian archipelago whose fate looms before it. |
|
|
|
