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Sharing Colonial Sovereignty? The Anglo-French Experience of the New Hebrides Condominium, 1880s–1930s

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British and French Colonialism in Africa, Asia and the Middle East

Part of the book series: Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies ((CIPCSS))

Abstract

This chapter examines the Franco-British condominium in the New Hebrides archipelago in light of recent works in spatial history and colonial territories. It investigates the modalities of shared sovereignty over common territory, building on the multiple plans for partition promulgated during the condominium. It examines the legal grounds of this rule, the practical distribution of colonial authority, and how attempts at separation drove new ideas of colonial territory and power. This cosovereignty requires rethinking the classic opposition between the British and French colonial empires, taking into account the multiplicity of agents involved, including New Caledonian and Australian intermediaries. This study analyzes bilateral conventions and agreements signed between France and Great Britain between 1878 and 1926, as the two powers ruled as frenemies together. It examines those conventions with regard to local practices, including the various partition plans offered throughout the period by sailors, diplomats, and settler groups.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Mohamed-Gaillard (2011).

  2. 2.

    Bonnemaison (1996 [1986]), Rodman (2001), and Riou (2010).

  3. 3.

    Samson (2003), Thompson (1980), MacClancy (1981), Foucrier (2005), and Bare (1985).

  4. 4.

    Politis (1908), Rannou (2011), and Bresnihan and Woodward (2002).

  5. 5.

    It consists of twelve large islands and many smaller ones, along a volcanic axis extending 1,200 km from latitude 13 to 20 south, and longitude 166 to 169 east. The main island of Espiritu Santo is a little over 4,000 km2.

  6. 6.

    Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères (hereafter MAE), La Courneuve, 186CPCOM5.

  7. 7.

    Due to disease and work-related travel. The population is estimated at 57,000 in 1910 and most probably 50,000 in 1920 (Bonnemaison 1986).

  8. 8.

    Adams (1986), Bonnemaison (1986), and Guiart (1986).

  9. 9.

    Archives nationales d’Outre Mer (hereafter ANOM), Aix-en-Provence, Fm, SG, NHB//1, 25 October 1888, Ministry of the Navy and Colonies to Minister of Foreign Affairs: “What the Ministry of the Navy and Colonies dreads most in this arrangement is that it will in fact lead to a kind of condominium or dual protectorate, which would result in the immediate loss of the advantageous dominant situation won by our colonists in the New Hebrides.”

  10. 10.

    The convention was signed on 20 October 1906 and later modified by the protocol of 6 August 1914, which was in turn ratified on 18 March 1922.

  11. 11.

    Benton (2006).

  12. 12.

    On the matter of land ownership and the plantation economy in the New Hebrides, see Adams (1986), Banner (2007), Guiart (1986), Neilson (1979), and Van Trease (1987).

  13. 13.

    A number of political systems existed on the archipelago. There is evidence of systems of elective or hereditary chiefdoms on the central and southern islands. In northern and certain central islands, there was a system based on a hierarchy of ranks (Bonnemaison 1996). Most European observers did not see—or did not want to acknowledge—this complex sociopolitical organization.

  14. 14.

    ANOM, Fm, SG, NHB//1, 16 March 1892, captain of the frigate DAGAUD to the French Consul in Sydney (A1 (2)).

  15. 15.

    Thomson (2000).

  16. 16.

    ANOM, Fm, SG, NHB//35 DOMAINE incident on Api island caused by the displaying of a British flag by a native, 18 September 1903.

  17. 17.

    ANOM, Fm, SG, NHB//4, Picanon report from 1903.

  18. 18.

    MAE, 186CP/COM/4, 1887: Proposal by commanding officer Bayle, leaving Banks and Torres and the southern islands to the British.

  19. 19.

    MAE, 186CP/COM/4.

  20. 20.

    The New Hebrides was a target of the blackbirding practiced by Australians in the Pacific during the nineteenth century.

  21. 21.

    With the creation of a German and US Samoa, along with the renunciation of Great Britain, which obtained a protectorate over the Salomon Islands (and territories in Africa), a short-lived condominium was established by the Treaty of Berlin in 1889, lasting ten years. The condominium recognized the independence of the Samoan government (Gilson 1970 and Ryden 1975).

  22. 22.

    MAE, 186CP/COM/5, 12 February 1900, letter from Ambassador of France Cambon to London.

  23. 23.

    Ibid.

  24. 24.

    MAE, 186CP/COM/8, note for the minister, 16 June 1908.

  25. 25.

    ANOM, Fm, SG, NHB//35 Domaine, Cabinet of the Governor, New Caledonia, Nouméa, 8 August 1905, Partition plan for the archipelago.

  26. 26.

    Verzijl (1970).

  27. 27.

    Protocol of February 1906. Bilingual version. Original text online (http://www.vanuatu.usp.ac.fj/library/Online/Texts/New_Hebrides/archive.htm).

  28. 28.

    Emphasis mine.

  29. 29.

    ANOM, Fm, SG, NHB//6 Nouméa, 29 September 1909, Resident Commissioner of France to the NH to the High Commissioner of France to the New Hebrides.

  30. 30.

    ANOM, Fm, SG, NHB//6 Nouméa, 29 September 1909, Resident Commissioner of France to the NH to the High Commissioner of France to the New Hebrides.

  31. 31.

    ANOM, Fm, SG, NHB//1.

  32. 32.

    ANOM, Fm, SG; NHB//8, 7 October 1920, from the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Minister of the Colonies.

  33. 33.

    MAE 38CP/COM/8, 30 April 1925, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

  34. 34.

    MAE, 38CP/COM/8, 14 November 1926.

  35. 35.

    Agnew (2009).

  36. 36.

    It has sometimes been argued that as a result of this novel situation, colonial domination in the New Hebrides was rather “soft,” at least for the everyday lives of New Hebridians, who in the end were not greatly affected by this administration that lacked substance: “The condominium left a large de facto sphere of autonomy and liberty to Melanesian society, which could rebuild in accordance with its own conceptions once the devastating shock of initial contact with the external world had passed” (Antheaume and Bonnemaison 1988, 65). The fact remains that the seizure of lands was a reality, whose relation to the problems of economic development encountered by the state of Vanuatu upon its independence cannot be denied.

  37. 37.

    In similar fashion but in a different register, the indigénat system established in the French empire led to a differentiated way of ruling over populations living on the same territory.

  38. 38.

    Darwin (2011).

  39. 39.

    Stoler et al. (2007).

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    1. École Normale Supérieure-PSL, IHMC, Paris, France

      Hélène Blais

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    1. European Studies, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

      James R. Fichter

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    Blais, H. (2019). Sharing Colonial Sovereignty? The Anglo-French Experience of the New Hebrides Condominium, 1880s–1930s. In: Fichter, J.R. (eds) British and French Colonialism in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97964-9_10

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