Troublesome chiefs and disorderly subjects: the indigénat and the

Version circulated to GDRNC october 2008. Please do not circulate outside of the GDR.
Troublesome chiefs and disorderly subjects: the indigénat and the internment
of Kanak in New Caledonia (1887-1928) Adrian Muckle Lecturer, History Programme, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand Abstract Political internment played an important part in the process by which France’s colonial administration sought to bring Kanak, the indigenous Melanesians of New Caledonia, under French rule. As part of a study examining the function and legacy of the indigénat in regulating relations between Kanak and settlers, this article provides a case study of the internment of Kanak to 1928. Contrary to colonial and popular representations, the majority of Kanak internees were neither “chiefs” nor “rebels”. Internment was widely used to repress acts of everyday resistance, impose discipline within reserves, and to entrench the authority of administrative chiefs. An examination of how internment measures were locally translated, negotiated and mediated contributes to an understanding of how the indigénat evolved locally and its place within the broader colonial system. Keywords history, colonialism, colonial administration, chiefs, local power, political internment, justice, indigénat, New Caledonia, Melanesia, Oceania
Troublesome chiefs and disorderly subjects: the indigénat and the internment
of Kanak in New Caledonia (1887-1928) The indigénat provided French administrators with streamlined measures for the government and repression of Kanak, the indigenous Melanesian people, between 1887 and 1946. Locally, the system remains notorious for the regulations which restricted freedom of movement and subjected Kanak to a head tax and forms of forced labor. Yet, notwithstanding its invidious reputation, and for all that is known about the broader circumstances of its adoption, the operation of the indigénat remains poorly understood. To date, France’s native policy in New Caledonia has been traced mainly in terms of the processes by which Kanak land was alienated during the nineteenth and early­twentieth centuries and by which Kanak communities were geographically reconstituted as or within tribus (reserves). 1 While this spatial reorganization was a central feature of colonial rule, other aspects of colonial policy which the indigénat regulations were intended to help implement and enforce have received less attention. This article presents a case study of one component of the system during its formative decades: the administrative internment of Kanak. In New Caledonia the indigénat was introduced by decree in 1887. 2 Although sometimes glossed as a “code”—as analogous to the various French criminal and civil codes of law—one of its principal functions was to allow administrators to summarily dispense with these codes and thereby depart from the normal separation of administrative and judicial powers. The 1887 decree established: the Governor’s power to pass local laws to delimit and name each tribu as well as appoint chiefs and define their responsibilities and entitlements; that administrators would continue to deliberate on the disciplinary infractions committed by indigènes as determined by local laws; and that the Governor, meeting in Conseil privé, had the power to intern, subject to ministerial approval, ‘natives who were not French citizens and those assimilated to them’ as well as sequester their possessions. For the designated infractions administrators could impose fines (of up to 100 francs) and prison sentences (of up to 15 days) without
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recourse to the civil or common law jurisdictions, while those subject to internment had no right to defense or appeal. 3 The origins and functions of the exceptional measures that made up the indigénat are well known. Developed under military rule in France’s other settler colony, Algeria, the indigénat was introduced into most French colonies after 1881. It has been recently described as a ‘permanent state of exception’ developed by the colonial state and eventually extended to the metropole. 4 In New Caledonia, local authorities requested the indigénat’s introduction in 1886 to meet the growing need to bring Kanak into the colonial system; it was ‘a pretext or a means by which to define the place and role of Kanak in an emerging New Caledonian society.’ 5 As argued in Governor Nouët’s proposal: The assimilation that is the final goal cannot in my opinion be obtained all of a sudden by the contact of the two races unless there were to be a sudden inundation of the country by the French element. In the contrary case, any premature effort at assimilation can only lead to confusion and waste. It would be best to leave the native population its institutions and its chiefs all the while reinforcing the police and security measures made necessary by the presence, throughout the country, of isolated settlers. At present, it is not so much a matter of doting the New Caledonian native with new institutions as giving official recognition to those that exist, of defining them and ensuring public order. Noting the mutual hostility reigning between Kanak and settlers in the wake of a major war in 1878­79, and the problems caused by alcohol and libérés (freed convicts), Nouët argued that the ‘semi­promiscuity’ of the two would not lead to the immediate assimilation of Kanak, and would instead ‘tend to kill the respect that the native should have for the European’. As it appeared that it would be ‘many long years’ before Kanak ceased to exist, the indigénat would help the administration tighten its control over the tribus and furnish it with powers to teach Kanak respect for the state ‘as symbol of obedience’. 6
2 Nouët’s ideal of the indigénat as a tool for assimilation cannot be accepted at face value, but the indigénat was not merely a disciplinary force in the narrow, practical, coercive sense of that term. An historian of French West Africa has made the point that an analysis of the indigénat is ‘more the key to a practical appraisal of the colonial experience than “Assimilation”, “Association” and “Native Justice” which have dominated the literature disproportionately’. There, the indigénat ‘constituted the most commonly employed means of action towards the attainment of colonial objectives’—it was used more than the courts and provided the principal means of imposing discipline. 7 With respect to internment, the questions being asked in this study are: how exceptional was the practice of internment?; to what extent did the system serve the ends of administrators, settlers and Kanak?; what was its role in shaping relations either between Kanak and settlers, between Kanak and the administration, and between Kanak themselves? The parameters for this study are largely defined by the colonial archive. After delimitation, the power to intern Kanak remains the best documented part of the indigénat régime. Whereas the records of appointments of administrative chiefs are fragmented, and those concerning the enforcement of the special infractions are almost non­existent, internment cases can be traced at several levels of administration. The requirement that internment decisions be submitted to Paris for approval allowed for the survival of many of the records: investigations by the Service des affaires indigènes (SAI), the dossiers submitted to the Conseil privé, the Conseil privé’s deliberations, correspondence between Nouméa and Paris, and reports by colonial inspectors. Internment under the indigénat Like all components of the indigénat, the internment provisions were established in continuity with existing exceptional measures (powers of ‘haute police’) which by 1887 were well developed in New Caledonia. 8 During the first thirty­three years of French rule (1853­1886), more than one hundred Kanak suffered deportation, internment or exile; in addition more than 1000 Kanak men, women and children from the west coast of the Grande terre (the mainland) were removed to offshore islands after the war of 1878­
3 79. 9 While nearly half of these cases involved removing Kanak from New Caledonia—at least 28 were sent to Tahiti and at least 15 to Poulo Condor in Cochinchine—the development of a local internment system had been shaped by the recurring difficulties involved in this process: the cost of internment overseas, the time that it took communications to pass between Nouméa and Paris, and high death rates among deported internees. 10 Since 1870 it had become common practice to send internees to offshore islands where they could provide for their own susbsistence and be supervised by local chiefs or resident administrators. 11 By 1887 this precedent was well established and the proportion of cases involving removal from the colony diminished considerably. The offshore islands to which internees were sent in the following decades were: the Belep islands to the north of the Grande terre, the Ile des Pins to the south, and all of the three Loyalty islands to the east: Lifou, Maré and Ouvéa. Nouméa’s prisons constituted another constellation: the Native Depot, the Orphanage, the Nouville Asylum, Amédée islet (‘the Lighthouse’) and Freycinet islet. Finally, the ‘the farm depot’ at Yahoué and its adjacent ‘correction centre’ provided yet another alternative. The introduction of the indigénat removed procedural uncertainties, arising from the appointment of the first civilian governor in 1885, concerning the administration’s authority to intern indigènes and made the process more routine. 12 Governor Nouët noted that while existing measures, principally the law of 3 December 1849, allowed ‘the Governor to expel from the colony natives who disturb public order’, the indigénat would ‘define with greater precision the powers of the Governor, give more force to the action of the Administration and, by surrounding the decisions of the Head of the colony with more guarantees, ensure his resolutions have greater authority’. 13 It did not, however, remove any financial restrictions, or make it easier to remove internees from the colony, and henceforth all internment decisions were to be submitted to Paris for approval even if they could be applied provisionally in the meantime. The dubious honor of being the first internee under the new provisions fell to petit chef Sandouli sentenced to six months on Ilot Amédée for exercising an ‘unhealthy influence’ in the Canala region. Noting that he had been ‘called for the first time to make use of the decree on the indigénat’, the Governor opined that if used wisely it
4 would allow the administration to repress ‘misdemeanors committed by the natives and in turn to maintain good order within the tribus’. 14 The majority of cases prior to 1887 had patently political motives and the system operated on a basis that was arbitrary and opportunistic. Most cases related to direct and violent revolts against French authorities (the most extreme being the war of 1878­79) or to conflicts in which the French had intervened, perceiving their authority or European interests to be threatened. By the mid­1880s, however, in the aftermath of the war and with the appointment of Chefs d’arrondissement responsible for SAI, the offences being punished in proposed internment cases were increasingly of a quotidian nature, involving instances of drunkenness or disobedience towards the Chefs d’arrondissement, though many involved men identified as former insurgents. 15 After 1887, this trend became even more evident. The extent to which internment provisions were used to intervene in the daily lives of Kanak over the next two decades in particular can be seen in the number of cases, as well as in the identities of the interned. In the two decades following 1887, the number of internees doubled. Records for 1887­1896 indicate that there were no fewer than 46 cases involving at least 108 individuals (all were men and at least 15 were identified as chiefs). Between 1897 and 1906 there were no fewer than 57 cases involving at least 104 individuals (at least 24 were identified as chiefs and all but eight were men). From 1907 to 1929, however, the number of cases dropped to a minimum of 13 involving 36 individuals (including four chiefs). All the internees identified here were Kanak, the exception being five men identified as Wallisians who had been living in New Caledonia (Ouvéa) for several generations. 16 During the first two decades, then, the number of cases was almost constant, but from 1907 onwards the number of cases declined significantly. Persons identified as petits chefs or grands chefs, constituted no more than a fifth of all internees. 17
5 Troublesome chiefs and rebels After 1887, only a tiny proportion of internees had been involved in serious challenges to French authority. The three main cases related to conflicts which had involved French military intervention: the Hienghène war of 1897 (resulting in the internment of four chiefs in Tahiti); 18 the Poyes war of 1901 (resulting in the internment of the warrior, Atéa, who caused the war’s single European casualty); 19 and the northern war of 1917­18 (resulting in the internment, in the New Hebrides, of 10 men). The latter had been by far the most serious challenge faced by the French since 1878 and resulted in the imprisonment of up to 300 Kanak by the war’s end. Local authorities had hoped to punish the presumed “rebels” using either Conseils de guerre (military tribunals) or the indigénat’s internment provisions, but Paris insisted that a criminal trial be held. 20 In one other case authorities believed that preparations for a revolt against French authority had been averted: the so­called 1893 “uprising” resulted in the internment of 10 men for periods of up to 10 years. 21 A greater proportion of internees, about one­fifth, were men identified as either petits chefs or grands chefs. The administration’s formal efforts to establish a hierarchy of administrative petits chefs and grands chefs in a rudimentary form of indirect rule dated from at least 1868 and by 1898 had become increasingly formalized with the establishment of grands chefs responsible for defined districts and petits chefs responsible for designated tribus. In 1887 the indigénat had consolidated the Governor’s power to appoint and dismiss chiefs. The stance adopted towards “traditional” figures of authority swung from extreme to extreme: at different times they could be seen as obstacles and allies to the cause of colonization whose authority needed either to be bolstered or to be brought down and replaced. The one constant was the administration’s concern to ensure that whoever was designated as a chief could be held responsible (and punishable) for the behavior of their presumed subjects. Bolstering the authority of chiefs favored by the administration provided a common justification for internment. Rivals or pretenders to the authority of established chiefs could be removed: in 1897 a Poya
6 chief (François) reported a ‘plot’ against himself and his grand chef to the syndic, requesting the ‘punishment’ of three men who were duly interned after a further investigation revealed that threats had also been made against a local settler. 22 In another instance 10 men involved in a movement against grand chef Naisseline of Maré were interned for four years, 23 while in 1898 four petits chefs from Pouébo were interned at the request of their grand chef ‘for refusal to obey’ (as well as ‘opposition to colonization’ and ‘preventing the recovery of the head tax’). 24 According to the SAI, ‘Grand chef Jeremy has a lot of difficulty making his authority respected, he is devoted to us and it is necessary to set some examples to maintain discipline in the Pouébo tribus.’ Governor Feillet concurred: ‘The natives have been proposed for internment … not so much because of the faults for which they are currently reproached and which might not seem to warrant a serious punishment, than because of their habitual tendency to disobey the orders of the administration and to insubordination towards their grand chef.’ 25 The same authority also could be used to remove chiefs deemed less compliant. Thus the Houaïlou grand chef, Mindia, was interned in 1899 for preventing Kanak from working for certain traders and settlers; he was characterized as an ‘alcoholic’ who frequently disobeyed the administration. 26 A Maréen chief described in similar terms was interned for having publicly whipped his mother, for pimping and organizing orgies for freed convicts, and disputing coconut plantations with neighboring reserve. 27 Failure to obey regulations such as those restricting pilous (traditional dances and gatherings) or enforcing collection of the head tax could also result in internment. 28 One chief was interned, at the request of tribal elders, for squandering funds. And in other instances grands chefs were held as a hostages for the good behavior of the tribus under their presumed authority or payment of the head tax. 29 That interned chiefs were often permitted to resume their posts after only short periods of internment exemplifies the extent to which this exceptional measure was used as an instrument of government, a means of ensuring compliance with regulations. Mindia of Houaïlou was released after only a year, during which time he had been taken into the care of the Protestant missionary on Maré, Philadelpe Delord, and upon his return signed the first
7 temperance pledge on the Grande terre. 30 In most cases, though, almost nothing is known of the conditions or experiences of internment. The line between Kanak and administrative initiative and intervention—the degree to which indigenous politics infiltrated the colonial system—was by no means clear, however. In 1901, the denunciation of Boréaré petit chef, Umine Wêmâ Gwâ­ê (Ounine Ouéma), by a member of his tribu was supported by the Houaïlou grand chef, Mindia: ‘Alcoholic and violent, Ounine Ouéma threatened to burn his fellows’ huts, cudgeled his wife with a crowbar and attempted to burn her alive, scalding her with a pot and threatening to kill her with a rifle. His conduct as chief has been so scandalous that grand chef Mindia begs that someone get rid of this individual whose threats of murder and arson gravely compromise public tranquility.’ Umine’s was one of several internments requested following an SAI tour of inspection and was considered necessary to reestablish order in the region. Umine was stripped of his position as petit chef and sentenced to Maré for two years. After only a year, however, he was granted a reduction of sentence for good conduct; the SAI noted that he had been in the care of the missionary, Delord, and cured of his drunkenness: ‘He can without any trouble be placed back at the head of his tribu.’ 31 Significantly, a local oral history recalls that Umine was deposed by a relative named Paul Wêmâ who ‘obtained the chieftaincy of Boréaré thanks to his tricks with the colonial administration which dismissed the former chief, Umine Wêmâ Gwâ­ê, and deported him to the Ile des Pins.’ According to another account, Paul Wêmâ ‘served as interpreter to the chief Umine (as örökau [spokesperson], because he does not seem to have been recognized by the colonial administration). Thanks to this knowledge he succeeded in having Umine Wêmâ Gwâ­è exiled to the Ile des Pins (or to Ouvéa).’ 32 Chiefly tribulations As the case of Umine Wêmâ Gwâ­è indicates, it can be difficult to assess the significance of the internment cases on the basis of the colonial archive alone or when removed from their local political context. The collective administrative biographies of three chiefs from Tipindjé and Poyes on the east
8 coast—Kavéat (c.1862­c.1917), Néa of Ouanache (c.1872­19??) and Amane of Poyes (d.1917)—reveal the extent to which internment sentences were part and parcel of a grand chef’s career during this period and the extent to which such figures were under the thumb of the administration. The central figure in this sketch is Kavéat; the region is one which by the late 1890s was at the centre of the free settlement initiatives promoted by the Feillet administration. The Tipindjé chief, Kavéat (Apénit­Cavéat), was first mentioned in administrative records when a list of chiefs was drawn up in preparation for the introduction of the indigénat in 1886 and parenthetically, in 1887, on the occasion of the internment of a neighboring chief who had refused to obey the Chef d’arrondissement, when ‘The chief Caveate was seen taking off his medals.’ In 1894 Kavéat was himself interned, for an unspecified offense, for one year ‘at the lighthouse’ on Amédée islet where he was employed as a ‘boater’. In 1897 Kavéat was rewarded for assisting the administration in a war against the chiefs of the neighboring Hienghène district (notably Bouarate) who were sent into indefinite internment in Tahiti, and later in the year he was appointed grand chef of the Tipindjé. 33 In 1898, though, complaints made by the chief of the neighboring Poyes district, Amane, and an incident involving a settler whom he had assaulted, resulted in Kavéat’s internment for five years. An 1899 review of internees described him as a ‘Dangerous drunkard hostile to the settlers in his neighborhood’, but in 1900 he was pardoned and in the following year he supported the French army and Kanak from Touho in a war against Poyes. The war ended with a peace agreement between Amane and the administration and claims that Kavéat had caused the conflict. 34 Kavéat emerged from the war in a weaker political position than Amane and for a period his fortunes waned. After the war, chiefs from the Hienghène district, notably Bouarate, who had been sent to Tahiti following the 1897 war, were allowed to return on the grounds that the chiefs who had replaced them lacked authority or experience: ‘it is time to restore to the head of the tribu an intelligent man with uncontested authority like Bouaratte who under good guidance has the potential to be a precious auxiliary for us.’ Bouarate’s brother­in­law, Amane of Poyes, had promised to ensure his good conduct. 35 In 1902,
9 the SAI again requested that Kavéat be interned for five years, citing the ‘indignity’ of his behavior towards Governor Feillet during a meeting of chiefs at Hienghène in 1901 and the ‘cruel treatment’ that he was said to have inflicted on another Kanak. The subsequent decision interning Kavéat included the appointment of Amane as grand chef of the Tipindjé and an adjacent territory. Kavéat, however, had not been arrested: the sentence was pronounced in his absence. 36 In 1903, Kavéat’s fortunes improved when the syndic of native affairs at Touho enlisted him and the Tendo (upper Hienghène) grand chef, Goa, in a campaign against Amane of Poyes. Goa had recently escaped from the island of Maré where he too had been interned in 1901 for refusal to supply labor and pay the head tax. 37 Kavéat and Goa were jointly pardoned and in the following five years Kavéat joined with other Tipindjé chiefs in repeatedly denouncing Amane to the administration. 38 The syndic described Kavéat as the most desirable replacement for Amane as administrative chief: ‘He’s an intelligent subject, devoted to the administration, feared, loved and respected by the natives from the valleys of Tiouandé and Tipindjé who consider him to be their chief. Cavéath could render great services. He is apostate and suffers the influence of no one.’ 39 In 1907, the SAI nominated Kavéat as grand chef, but after a meeting with local chiefs the choice eventually fell upon Néa of Ouanache. The syndic reported that: ‘Cavéat who is certainly the most influential did not want to be [grand chef] on the pretext that … he has difficulty speaking French. Néa is energetic, intelligent, sober. I am more than satisfied, if something goes wrong no harm can come of it. These chiefs are relatives and they make and carry out contracts together…’. 40 Néa himself had been interned from 1893 to 1899 along with nine others suspected of plotting an uprising in 1893; he was also a protegé of the chief, Poindi Pacili, who had been sent to Obock in 1887. 41 The saga drew towards a close in December 1908 when Amane was arrested and in February 1909 a sentence of five years internment on Wallis was pronounced. 42 Protests made on Amane’s behalf made him something of a cause célèbre. After reviewing the dossier, Paris reproached Nouméa for the absence of any ‘precise proof’ which might allow ‘this native to be charged without any doubt’ under the indigénat, and expressed surprise that Nouméa had not gathered more information before inflicting such a serious
10 penalty. Noting that the case relied exclusively on reports established by the syndic whose impartiality had to be questioned, and vague statements by indigenous witnesses and ‘some petits chefs interested in the removal of Amane for personal reasons’, Paris ordered a further enquiry by the Service judiciaire. The administration duly turned over the dossier to the Procureur général, Blondeau (who previously had voted for Amane’s internment in Conseil privé), despite the Governor’s complaint that reopening the case might have an unfavorable impression on Kanak if they saw that his authority was subject to a magistrate. Blondeau’s subsequent report supported the gravity of the various accusations (exactions from other Kanak, insubordination towards authority, and suspected complicity in two murders) made against Amane, but suggested that attempts to investigate further might upset the peace. In April 1910, after further admonishment from Paris, Amane’s sentence was reduced to three years. 43 The administration remained concern about Amane’s influence as well as its own standing. In 1912 local chiefs and settlers were consulted for their views on his imminent return. Several supported his return, but many were opposed, including Néa who declared him to be a mortal enemy who ‘will bring discord to a very calm region’, and Kavéat who reiterated the accusations that he had made previously. 44 When Amane’s internment ended in 1913, he was forced into a “voluntary” exile with relatives on Ouvéa island. Amane died in France in the early months of 1917 while serving as a volunteer in the French army. Kavéat was fatally wounded in December 1917 while being pursued as a “rebel” by French troops and Kanak auxiliaries involved in the repression of the so­called “revolt” of 1917­18; he died some days or weeks later. 45 In this series of decisions changes in the views of French administrators resulted in important reversals which highlight the essentially political nature of many decisions. The imprint of Kanak agency and political interests is also clear, though. This administrative perspective reveals not just the extent to which the punishment of internment could be arbitrarily used by the administration but also the extent to which rivalries between chiefs who were both enemies and allies of the colonial administration—as much as between Kanak and settlers or Kanak and the administration—were being played out in the form
11 accusations and counter­accusations and attempts to bring down the wrath of the administration on rivals. It highlights some of the ways, and one arena, in which Kanak themselves were shaping the boundaries of the political and social spaces allowed to them by the French administration. Disorderly subjects Although not involving direct challenges to French authorities or the establishment of indirect rule, the cases involving the largest proportion of internees provide evidence of widespread resistance to colonization and the extension of the colonial frontier. Insubordination, insolence, threatening behavior, refusal to pay taxes, and attempts to reestablish villages on confiscated land could all result in internment. Examination of these and other circumstances in which internment sentences were used reveals the extensive range of behaviors punished. Associated with this was the increasing emphasis that administrators placed upon the idea of control over Kanak as individuals, a trend in the discourse of affaires indigènes in the period 1887­1920. 46 A selection of internment cases is examined here in terms of which sectors of society or the administration the internees’ behavior allegedly troubled. Individuals whose removal was specifically requested by settlers and Kanak constitute one of the main categories. Cases in which settlers petitioned for the internment of Kanak are evident, and regular tours of the interior by the Governor or the head of the SAI provided the opportunity for them to make their grievances known. The individuals denounced were invariably characterized as being inveterate drunks or engaged in petty theft at the expense of settlers. Five Ponérihouen men were interned for one year for stealing pigs and poultry from local settlers in an atmosphere of suspicion heightened by a ‘brawl’ between two tribus. 47 In 1901 four men from the Amoa valley were interned for two years: as ‘inveterate drunkards and thieves, they are the terror of Amoa. They burgle settler properties, beat women, force young girls and do not recognize any authority.’ In some cases internees had prevented their fellows from working for settlers or had proffered verbal violence—or in one instance threatening to dynamite a settler homestead. 48
12 In these and other cases direct links can be established with the recent clearance of land for assisted migrants in the late 1890s. Several instances in which Kanak requested the removal of people from their own tribus are also striking. The case of Houaïlou petit chef Umine Wêmâ Gwâ­ê, apparently denounced for violence towards his wife and threatening behavior in 1901, has already been mentioned. 49 In another case a Canala man accused of ‘serious physical cruelty’ towards a young child was denounced by an elder thereby preventing others from seeking vengeance; having already fled to Nouméa and being engaged as a laborer, his internment was to follow the expiry of his contract. 50 In 1902, Maré grand chef Naisseline requested the internment of a man who had terrorized his compatriots with a knife and a club, 51 while a Pouébo man was interned at the request of his grand chef in 1901 for drunkenness, debauchery, attacks on other Kanak and kidnapping a girl for a libéré (freed convict). 52 As well as being related to the ravages of alcohol, many of the problems being dealt with related to the restrictions placed on the movement of people and the removal of the normal means of dispute resolution: breaking off relations and moving to another area. Histories of the pre­European era are replete with stories of wanderers who left their homes after disputes with “brothers” and established families elsewhere; multiple changes of residence were common, though warfare and marriage alliances provided other alternatives. Reservations, colonization and Christianization reduced the opportunity for migration and warfare; alcohol (of a dubious quality) only made matters worse. Some requests for internment can be seen as responses to problems created by colonization—a means of imposing social order over individuals—as was probably intended by the administration. As anthropologists have noted, sorcery increased; violence was reinvested in theories of illness and death interpreted as aggressions by others. 53 Two internment cases in the 1890s involved sorcery or poisoning: in 1890 two men who claimed responsibility for the deaths of up to six others by sorcery were arrested and interned for their own protection and to prevent further trouble; in 1891 a man accused of murdering a sorcerer was handed over to the SAI by the Service judiciaire and interned indefinitely on the Isle of Pines. 54
13 In many cases presented by the SAI, those interned were presented as troublemakers, individuals who wielded a destabilizing influence, the authors of brawls, the instigators of tribal fights, though being prepared to resist the head tax occasionally lent cases a more political character. Caroli the “Gaulois” was interned indefinitely in 1887 as ‘a troublemaker and criminal of the worst order’; he was accused of making death threats against neighboring settlers ‘and through his misdeeds caused the bloody brawl that occurred between the Pouëbos and the Balades in 1885’. Marcel of Thio was interned for five years in 1898 as a ‘bad subject’ with numerous previous sentences for drunkenness and ‘inciting disorder’; more specifically he had ‘driven to suicide his brother Charles whose wife he debauched’. 55 In 1892, the son of Touho grand chef, Napoléon, was interned for one year for causing a ‘fight’ involving spears and clubs, while two of Napoléon’s petit chefs were fined for failing to maintain order. Similar fights at Touho later in 1892 and in 1900 occasioned internment sentences of up to two years, while encouraging resistance to the head tax and refusal to obey orders issued by the administration earned two Kokingone men three year sentences. 56 Disorderly behavior among Kanak indentured as laborers in Nouméa also provided grounds for internment. In 1892, 1893 and 1894 street fights among laborers were punished with internment sentences of one­to­ two years. 57 Individuals whose education or experience of travel to France set them apart from other Kanak posed a particular threat to the imposition of colonial categories, boundaries and regulations. Kavita (also known as “Baptiste the Parisien”—a school teacher) was interned for five years in 1898 as a dangerous individual who had incited his ‘camarades’ against authority by preventing payment of the head tax. He was later described by the Catholic mission as having spent ‘several years in France’, being ‘too civilized’, and as having had the temerity to demand civilization before christianization. 58 Louis Saivéné, a Maréen teacher and printer who had been to France was interned for his undue influence over his brother­in­law, grand chef Naisseline. A Lifuan who had been to New Guinea as a teacher with an English Protestant mission was interned for attempting to sell reserve land to a settler. 59 Boé of Ponérihouen—sent to the Isle of Pines in 1892—had visited France and spoke French but had only acquired ‘the worst vices’ of
14 civilization. Considered ‘capable of anything’ Boé had been prevented from assuming control of his tribu after the death of his father when a relative was designated to take his place. Over a period of more than 20 years, he was suspected of involvement in the deaths of four settlers and the disappearance of another. However in none of these cases had evidence been found to support prosecution; the Service judiciaire noted that the unusual degree of consistency in the statements by Kanak witnesses meant that a court would be unlikely to convict him. 60 As in Boé’s case, internment was sometimes favored by the Service judiciaire when criminal prosecutions failed or seemed unlikely to succeed. This is especially evident in cases involving murder or rape, or when the accused appeared to be suffering from mental illness. While Kanak accused of murder generally seem to have been prosecuted in the courts, a couple of exceptions are evident. As noted above, in 1891 the Service judiciaire turned over to the SAI a man accused of murdering a sorcerer as the case did not seem very strong and he had shown signs of ‘insubordination’ while in custody. In 1900, a man accused of murdering his wife was recommended for internment on the grounds that he was ‘a demented person who acted under an inexplicable compulsion’. Despite medical opinion that there was no sign of ‘madness’, he was interned at the Yahoué farm depot for five years. 61 In the previously mentioned case of Louis Saivéné of Rô (Maré), described by medical authorities as ‘afflicted by religious mania’ and accused of various crimes—including disinterment, assaulting a missionary, arson and disobeying orders—the Service judiciaire doubted that Louis ‘was capable of assuming responsibility for his actions’ and therefore recommended internment. 62 In some other instances, the mere fact of having been accused or suspected of complicity in a murder (or difficulties that might be involved in gathering evidence) could be cited as part of the justification for internment, as in two cases previously mentioned: Boé of Ponérihouen and Amane of Poyes. In two rape cases noted, the alleged existence of customs particular to Kanak were cited as the principal justification for not referring the case to the justice system. In 1900 four men were interned for one year for their participation in the pack rape of two girls—in retaliation for the rape of the wife of
15 another man from their reserve. The SAI described the crimes as the consequence of ‘moeurs barbares’ and urged that an example be made. The Procureur général doubted that a jury, ‘taking canaque moeurs into account’, would convict and thus did not want the matter pursued through the Service judiciaire. 63 A second rape case in 1905 provided the occasion for a dispute over criminal and administrative jurisdictions. The SAI requested five years internment for Demoin of Ponérihouen who had raped a Kanak woman and struck her husband and several others in an ensuing struggle. Local chiefs requested his removal and the Gendarmerie report on his conduct was ‘one of the most unfavorable’, noting that he had been interned once before (in 1898) for threatening a European. The head of the Service judiciaire objected that this case ought to have been submitted to him, but other members of the Conseil privé argued that the matter involved only Kanak for whom the crime was not considered important, while the Governor insisted that the matter was one of ‘order internal to the tribu’ and a ‘security’ issue: ‘Let us not forget that the Gendarmerie has been severely reduced in number and that it is our duty to show firmness in our dealing with natives who show turbulent intentions towards one another or signs of revolt against authority.’ The Service judiciaire eventually conceded that the matter was political, rather than criminal, in nature. 64 That almost all internees were men indicates the extent to which the experience of internment was gendered male. By contrast, at least four cases involving the internment of six women between 1898 and 1900 (not including instances where wives accompanied their husbands while interned) indicate an at least fleeting attempt to police relations between Kanak women and libérés. 65 In October 1898, Marie­Louise and Judith from the Conception mission—near Nouméa—were interned for two years on the Ile des Pins as ‘debauched women’; they had spent their time in Nouméa in the company of libérés and had been the cause of a ‘bagarre’ in Nouméa involving a hundred ‘indigènes’. When the case was reviewed in March 1899, the SAI proposed that their sentence be shortened: Marie­Louise had been reclaimed by her husband who had undertaken to supervise her conduct as well as that of Judith. At the same time two ‘women of ill repute’, who had left their tribus to reside with libérés and were the causes of ‘brawls’ and a ‘fight’ at Koné, were interned on Maré; a two year sentence being deemed necessary to curb their ‘debauched habits’. 66 In 1899
16 a Canala woman was interned for two years on Maré, at the request of the administrator, for having occasioned disputes between soldiers and libérés, while in 1900 Céline Sélika of Ponérihouen was confined to the “Orphanage”, having been accused of trying to deliver her métisse child into the hands of the libérés with whom she resided in the mining town of Thio. 67 Evolution of the internment regulations, 1887­1928 Between 1887 and 1928 the indigénat regulations, including the internment provisions, were gradually modified in response both to concerns raised locally and broader colonial debates. A critical issue raised within the Conseil privé, during the indigénat’s first decade, concerned the kinds of offences or behaviors that could be punished by internment and highlighted the tension with the justice system—the heads of the Service judiciaire being the persons most likely to challenge or abstain in decisions relating to internment. In 1893, following a riot in Nouméa amongst indentured Kanak laborers in which police were pelted with wood and stones, and shots were fired, the SAI proposed to intern six men on the Ile des Pins for one year. While the SAI argued that it was necessary ‘to severely repress these scenes of savagery which are constantly being repeated’, the Service judiciaire objected that the proposed internments were illegal and contrary to the intended spirit of the 1887 decree. In principle, indigènes were ‘subject’ to the ‘ordinary penal laws’ to which the special infractions were a supplement rather than a substitute: ‘The 1887 decree was especially intended for insurrectional movements not common assault or instances of rebellion which are within the natural scope of criminal law.’ According to the Service judiciaire’s interpretation, the case in question involved an offence (that of rébellion) provided for by the Penal Code, and the legislator ‘did not intend to submit to administrative repression anything other than incidents not having a sufficiently serious character to constitute an offence’. Such debates clearly set out the contradictions between legislative intent and actual application of the regulations, but the opposition voiced was largely token. In this instance the Service judiciaire abstained from the final vote and the sentence was approved. The majority supported the Governor’s view that the case concerned ‘a political event which
17 takes precedence over the offence of rebellion against an official (an offence which has not been established against any of the accused natives)’. Instead, the action being punished was the threat to ‘public security’ represented by ‘the repeated gathering together of aggressive canaques almost every Sunday afternoon’. Were the case to go to court, it was argued, there would be insufficient evidence to obtain a conviction. 68 Changes to the wording of the indigénat decree upon its renewal in 1897 validated the Service judiciaire’s 1893 criticism. Whereas the 1887 version had not specified the nature of the offences punishable by internment, the 1897 version limited them to ‘insurrection against the authority of France, serious political troubles and conduct likely to compromise public security and not falling within the limits of the ordinary penal law’. 69 There is no evidence, though, that this amounted to an attenuation in practice as the cases that arose in the following decade were just as varied and in many cases trivial. Nor is there any evidence that the 1898 transferal of responsibility for the SAI from civilian administrators, notably the Chefs d’arrondissement, to the Gendarmerie had any effect on the number of internment proposals presented. 70 The conflict with the justice system also remained; as already discussed, in several instances internment was proposed when prosecutions had failed to achieve a conviction or when it was thought that acquittal was likely to be the outcome. These instances support the assessment that administrators saw the justice system and the indigénat as complementary forms of repression. During the indigénat’s second decade, internment practices were singled out for criticism by the colonial inspectorate. In 1902, referring to the 25 people serving internment sentences in Tahiti and offshore islands inspector Rheinhardt queried whether ‘internment’ was ever meant to involve this kind of ‘distancing and in some way exile outside of the Grande terre’. Reinhardt observed that ‘Nothing in the decree authorizes this aggravation’ which, in his opinion, amounted to a ‘double penalty of internment and banishment’. Furthermore, ‘none of the decisions’ had been submitted to the Ministry of Colonies for approval. He thereby challenged the legality of the internment sentences that had been pronounced: ‘the result is that all the natives currently serving sentences have been illegally interned and banished’. In his defense the head of the SAI could only protest that:
18 Internment in the islands is far from being an aggravation of the punishment; the internees enjoy a relative liberty and are even able, by their own labor, to improve their situation. If, to the contrary, they were to stay on the mainland this could only be in a depot where, given the fear of evasions, they would have to be locked up and would as a result be very unhappy. Moreover, no facility of this kind exists in New Caledonia. 71 Governor Feillet conceded to the senior inspector, Revel, that ‘there had in effect been an accidental oversight on his part’ in not forwarding cases to Paris. This resulted in a general pardon for all those serving sentences in 1903. However, when Revel returned in 1907, he was impelled to reiterate his criticisms: the regime contained ‘abuses that were too clear’. He recommended that the Governor’s power to pronounce internment in cases outside the competence of the judiciary should be retained, but that the people concerned should be brought in person before the Conseil privé. 72 Further changes to the wording of the internment provisions were introduced when the indigénat was renewed in 1907: one was the stipulation of a 10­year limit on internment sentences; the other was an article allowing administrators to impose a collective fine on the tribus concerned. 73 However, Revel’s recommendation that Kanak be brought before the Conseil privé was ignored and the need for ministerial approval was no longer formally mentioned. This suggests that the decline in the number of records found after 1907 may be more apparent than actual, though some cases were still being sent to Paris for approval. The 1907 revisions in no way ended criticism of internment practices. In 1913 the Minister of Colonies complained that he had been unable to approve the internment of a petit chef for ‘false accusations and writings’ on the grounds that such an offence ought to have been dealt with by common law tribunals, and that two other cases seemed dubious for similar reasons. The intention of the internment provisions, he stressed, was ‘to permit the repression of activities that are both very serious and very dangerous’, whereas in most of the cases submitted for his approval it would be possible to invoke the special infractions. He urged the Governor to ‘activate the studies that would permit the codification of native custom and to then prepare the local laws that the integral application of the decree of 23 May 1907
19 entails’. 74 While no progress was made on the codification of custom (calls for which are still being made), in 1915 an expanded list of special infractions was introduced. 75 This list accounted for many of the minor offences that had been punished by internment between 1887 and 1907, and suggests that more cases were being dealt with disciplinarily. At the end of its third decade, the indigénat was renewed for a five year period from 1917 to 1922 and then annually until 1928 when further changes to the internment provisions were made: sequestration was limited to the duration of the internment sentence (though there is no evidence of sequestration ever being imposed); and the internment sentence could ‘be replaced by the obligation to reside in a specified place or by being forbidden to reside in a part of the territory’ for up to 10 years. In 1937, a new decree stipulated that internment sentences of more than two years duration had to be submitted to ministerial approval and could not be applied until after such approval had been obtained. Any reduction of such sentences was subject to the same conditions, and women (and children under the age of 16) were exempted from internment and residence restrictions. The decree therefore restored the principle of ministerial ‘approval’, whereas the 1928 decree merely required that a report and copies of the dossier be sent to Paris, and significantly limited the length of sentences that could be imposed immediately. This was the system that remained in place until abolished in 1946. 76 In the “shadows of the colonial period” The preamble to New Caledonia’s 1998 Nouméa Accord famously provides an acknowledgement of the ‘shadows of the colonial period’. Lying in one of these shadows, the internment of Kanak needs to be seen in the context of New Caledonia’s broader colonial and penal history. Penal transportation and political deportation are central features of the history of nineteenth­century French settlement in New Caledonia. 77 Between 1864 and 1897 New Caledonia received 22,500 convicts, 3800 recidivists, 4155 political deportees—the Communards (1872­1880), and up to 1600 Maghrébins (people of Algerian or North African origin—referred to locally as Arabs). Transportation and large­scale political deportation
20 ceased in 1897, but New Caledonia remained a destination for political prisoners from other French colonies, notably a group of Comoréen princes in the 1880s and Indochinese nationalists in 1914. As demonstrated in this article, Kanak, too, were subjects of this archipelago within an archipelago, although the number concerned was small by comparison with the mainly French convicts or deportees: approximately 100 people in the thirty­three years from 1853­1886 (not including the 1000 people exiled to the Isle of Pines and Belep after the 1878­79 war) and about twice this number in the thirty­five years between 1887 and 1928. Deportation, expulsion or exile to exotic locations outside of New Caledonian waters was more common before 1887—destinations included: Obock (Djibouti), Poulo Condor (Con Dao), Tahiti, Wallis and Futuna, and the New Hebrides (Vanuatu)—but internment within New Caledonia and its dependencies became the norm. Interest in deportees and convicts from France dominates the historiography of internment in New Caledonia, and Kanak have been largely ignored. The exception is an exhibition held at the Nouméa City Museum in 2005­06: ‘Island of exile, land of asylum…’. Setting aside completely the history of penal transportation, the exhibition and its catalogue successfully highlighted New Caledonia’s function as a place of internment for a variety of mainly political internees, including Kanak. The treatment of Kanak is indicative of the state of the underlying local historiography: mentioned are the deportation of prominent Kanak chiefs, the mass exiles that followed the war of 1878­79 and the internments that followed other lesser conflicts. There is though no mention of the other eighty percent of cases. As a result, the internment of Kanak is seen as exceptional, as having involved mainly chiefs; and as a response to uprisings or concerted political challenges to French authority. 78 To challenge this portrayal of the Kanak experience of internment has been one of the aims of this discussion. From analysis of the case records, the regulations governing internment, the debates that took place in Conseil privé and criticism provide by the colonial inspectorate several trends are evident across the period 1887­1928: the considerable extent of the administration’s intervention, through internment, in the
21 lives of Kanak until at least 1907; a decline in the number of cases after 1907; and a gradual tightening of the formal regulations to limit the duration of sentences and the range of offences being punished. As an administrative weapon, internment played a vital role in the period, 1887­1907, that one colonial official described as the real period of colonial conquest following the defeat of many Kanak in 1878­79. 79 During this period, however, the power to intern was used for much more than simply repressing revolts or deterring others. Internment was frequently employed, at the request of administrators, settlers, and in some cases Kanak to remove from tribus individuals whose behavior upset, or threatened to upset, relations within or between tribus as well as between Kanak and settlers. While there is evidence that many misdemeanors and crimes committed by Kanak were also being prosecuted in criminal and correctional courts, recourse to the indigénat was not infrequent and few of the offences so punished were overtly political in nature. The wide range of behaviors punished included: acts of everyday resistance to French settlement; conflicts between Kanak and the French pastor appointed to replace the English Protestant missionary on Maré; the peregrinations of “former insurgents”; refusing to pay taxes—in one case seditiously suggesting that Kanak were taxed to pay France’s debt to Germany; tribal fighting; murder and rape; being involved in disturbances of the peace or suspected of stealing pigs and chickens; resisting arrest or the enforced isolation of leprosy sufferers; refusal to limit the size of pilou ceremonies; and fights among laborers in Nouméa. As has been seen, the system was also used to entrench the authority of administrative chiefs, though not always successfully. While there was little control by Paris over individual cases, budgetary constraints—coupled with New Caledonia’s isolation—significantly limited some potential excesses such as removal from the colony. Nevertheless, abuses of the regime became increasingly apparent between 1902 and 1913 and resulted in significant changes in practice and a reduction in the number of cases thereafter. It would be unwise to generalize too widely about the Kanak­settler­administrative relations on the basis of the internment cases alone. It is difficult, for example, to establish how significant recourse to internment measures was in comparison with recourse to the justice system. The value of the internment
22 cases, though, is in highlighting some of the conflicts which shaped relations between Kanak, settlers and the administration during a formative period of New Caledonia’s history. Closer inspection of the individual and local histories underlying the proposals for internment provides evidence of some of the ways in which features of the indigénat were helping to shape relations between certain chiefs as well as within reserves between administrative chiefs and their presumed subjects.
23 Endnotes 1 Joël Dauphiné, Les spoliations foncières en Nouvelle­Calédonie (1853­1913) (Paris: l’Harmattan, 1989); Alain Saussol, L'Héritage: Essai sur le problème foncier mélanésien en Nouvelle­Calédonie (Paris: Musée de l’Homme, 1979); Isabelle Merle, ‘De l’idée de cantonnement à la constitution des réserves. La définition de la propriété indigène,’ in En Pays Kanak: Ethnologie, linguistique, archéologie, histoire de la Nouvelle­Calédonie, ed. Alban Bensa and Isabelle Leblic (Paris: Editions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, 2000), 217­234. New areas of research are gradually being opened up; a good example is Marie Pineau­Salaün, L’école indigène. Nouvelle­ Calédonie. 1885­1945 (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2005). 2 Décret du 18 juill. 1887, Bulletin officiel de la Nouvelle­Calédonie et dépendances (hereinafter BONC), oct. 1887, 513­516. I use the term the indigénat to refer to the provisions of this decree and its successors (rather than to “native affairs” in general). The indigénat in New Caledonia was renewed for 10 years in 1897 and 1907, for five years in 1917, and annually from 1922 to 1928. It was modfiied in 1928, 1937 and 1940 before finally being abolished in 1946. 3 All translations from the French are my own. Merle notes that internment ‘was to be applied, within the framework of the indigénat régime, in all the colonies (with the exception of Cochinchine where it was abolished by the decree of 1903)’. Isabelle Merle, ‘De la “légalisation” de la violence en contexte colonial: le régime de l’indigénat en question’, Politix, 17, no.66 (2004): 144, fn 18; cf. Olivier le Cour Grandmaison, Coloniser, exterminer – Sur la guerre et l’Etat colonial (Paris: Fayard, 2005), 210. 4 Cour Grandmaison, Coloniser, exterminer…, 201­275; Isabelle Merle, ‘Retour sur le régime de l'indigénat. Genèse et contradictions des principes répressifs dans l’Empire français’, French Politics Culture and Society, 20, no. 2 (2002): 77­97; Merle, ‘De la “légalisation” de la violence en contexte colonial…’, 142, fn 14; cf. Donna Winslow, ‘Workers in Colonial New Caledonia to 1945’, in Labour in the South Pacific, ed. Clive Moore, Jacqueline Leckie and Doug Munro (Townsville: James Cook University of Northern Queensland, 1990), 112­116.
24 5 Merle, ‘Retour sur le régime de l'indigénat…’, 86; Isabelle Merle, ‘Le régime de l’indigénat et l’impôt de capitation en Nouvelle­Calédonie. De la force et du droit. La genèse d’une législation d’exception ou les principes d’un ordre colonial,’ in Colonies, Territoires, Sociétés. L’enjeu français, ed. Alain Saussol and J. Ztomersky (Paris: l’Harmattan, 1996), 232­233. 6 Carton Nouvelle­Calédonie (hereinafter NC) 45, Centre des archives d’outre­mer, Aix­en­Provence (hereinafter CAOM): Gouverneur de la Nouvelle­Calédonie (Nouët) to Min. de la Marine et des Colonies, no.2142, Nouméa, 15 nov. 1886. 7 A. I. Asiwaju, ‘Control through coercion: a study of the Indigenat Regime in French West African Administration, l887­l946’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 9, no. 1 (1978): 95. 8 By the early 1880s, the texts defining the Governor’s special powers included: the Royal Ordonnance of 1843 concerning the administration of Justice in the Marquesas (extended to New Caledonia in 1860 upon its separation from the EFO); the 1860 instructions concerning the government of New Caledonia; the decree of 28 Nov. 1866 organising the Justice system; the organic decree of 12 Dec. 1874 concerning the Government of New Caledonia; and the law of 3 December 1849 (promulgated in 1874) ‘on the naturalization and residence of foreigners in France’. 9 Research in the CAOM and in official publications has identified at least 104 people who were exiled or interned during this period (excluding those convicted in courts and those interned at the end of the 1878­79 war). On the 1878­79 internees see: Roselène Dousset­Leenhardt, Terre natale. Terre d’exil (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1976), 177­178; Saussol, L'Héritage…, 245­249; Joël Dauphiné, ‘La déportation kanak au XIXe siècle’ in Ile d’exil, terre d’asile: les déportations politiques et les expulsions en temps de guerre en Nouvelle­Calédonie, ed. Musée de la Ville de Nouméa (Noumea: Musée de la Ville, 2005), 38­40. 10 E.g., the death of 11 of the 15 men sent to Poulo Condor in 1880­81 in a measure described as ‘perpetual banishment’ following a ‘civil war’ on the island of Maré. Carton NC 86, CAOM: Trentinian (Gouverneur p.i.) to Min. de la Marine et des Colonies, no.399, Saigon, 31 mars 1881; Courbet (Gouverneur) to Min. de la Marine et
25 des Colonies, no. 1545, Nouméa, 3 sept. 1880; Gouverneur to Min. de la Marine et des Colonies, no. 1766, Nouméa, 25 oct. 1882; Directeur de l’Intérieur to Résident des Iles Loyalty, no. 957, Nouméa, 2 oct. 1882. 11 Carton NC 26, CAOM: Conseil d’administration, séance du ?25 fév. 1870 (Massacre de Pongouesse). 12 With the appointment of the first civilian Governor, Le Boucher, in 1885 some of the military powers accorded to governors had been regulated. Dépêche ministerielle du 15 juin 1885 portant réglementation des pouvoirs militaires des Goveurneurs civiles, BONC, août 1885, 458. 13 Carton NC 130, CAOM: CP, séance du 12 nov. 1886. The law of 3 December 1849 (promulgated in 1874) ‘on the naturalization and residence of foreigners in France’ authorized the administration ‘to enjoin any foreigner traveling or residing in France to immediately leave French territory and to escort him to the frontier’ (BONC, 1874, 743­744 and 788­795). That authorities needed to invoke this law to remove Kanak, treating them as foreigners, underscores their precarious position as indigènes under French rule and the extent to which recognition of their status as nationals threatened to restrict the administration’s power over them. The other authority that could be invoked, the 1874 organic decree on the government of New Caledonia, placed more precise limits on internment and related measures: exclusion from, and surveillance in, a specific part of the colony was limited to two years; and for those deemed French nationals—as Kanak in theory were—exclusion from the colony itself was limited to seven years (Carton NC 2, CAOM: Décret organique du 12 déc. 1874 concernant le gouvernement de la Nouvelle­Calédonie). 14 Carton Affaires Politiques (hereinafter AFF POL) 285, CAOM: Décret du 18 juill. 1887; Carton NC 132, CAOM: CP, séance du 18 nov. 1887. 15 Carton NC 132, CAOM: CP, séance du 25 mars 1887; and CP, séance du 20 avril 1887. Carton NC 27, CAOM: Gauharou (Sec. Gen.) to Directeur de l’Intérieur, no. 2, Nouméa, 14 mars 1887; Président de la Comm Municipale Moindou to Directeur de l’Intérieur, Moindou, 23 janv. 1887; and Gauharou (Sec. Gen.) to Directeur de l’Intérieur, no. 47, Nouméa, 5 fév. 1887.
26 16 Carton AFF POL 741, CAOM: Internement à l’Ile Walpole de cinq indigènes originaires du district de Saint Joseph (Ouvéa – groupe de Loyalty), 1918. 17 In so far as the research for this study is not exhaustive, these figures should be treated as minimums. They are based primarily on cases identified during research in the Archives de la Nouvelle­Calédonie (ANC, Nouméa) and the Centre des archives d’outre­mer (CAOM, Aix­en­Provence). The sources used are diverse, but the principal series consulted are: the records of the Conseil privé (1883­1918), the JONC (1895­1921) and the BONC (1853­ 1907). Extensive use has been made of the dossiers submitted to Paris relating to particular affaires politiques in the CAOM series of the same name. In 1911 the total Kanak population was estimated to be 28,835. 18 Carton NC 142, CAOM: CP, séance du 7 avril 1897; Carton NC 34, CAOM: CP, séance du 28 déc. 1899. 19 Carton NC 146, CAOM: CP, séance du 24 juin 1901; Décision no. 634 du 24 juin 1901, JONC, no. 2176, 6 juill. 1901. 20 Arrêté 901, 26 déc. 1917; Arrêté 529 A.I., 11 juin 1920, 97W17, Archives de la Nouvelle­Calédonie (hereinafter ANC). Four of the 10 died within two years of their arrival in the New Hebrides. The surviving six were returned to New Caledonia in 1920 before the end of their five year sentence. See: Adrian Muckle, Spectres of Violence in a Colonial Context: The Wars at Koné, Hienghène and Tipindjé—New Caledonia, 1917 (PhD thesis, Canberra: Australian National University, 2004), 311­312. 21 Carton NC 138, CAOM: CP, séance du 27 déc. 1893; Carton NC 139, CAOM: CP, séance du 8 juin 1894; Carton NC 140, CAOM: CP, séance du 28 oct. 1895; Carton NC 34, CAOM: CP, séance du 28 déc. 1899. NB. By 1899 all 10 had been released. 22 Carton NC 142, CAOM: CP, séance du 4 nov. 1897. 23 Carton NC 85, CAOM: CP, séance du 13 juill. 1894. 24 Carton NC 34, CAOM: CP, séance du 6 sept. 1899; and CP, séance du 28 déc. 1899; Carton NC ?, CAOM: CP, séance du 20 juill. 1898,.
27 25 Carton NC ?, CAOM: CP, séance du 20 juill. 1898. 26 Carton NC 34, CAOM: CP, séance du 28 déc. 1899. 27 Décision no. 188 du 17 mai 1895, JONC, no. 1856, 1er juin 1895; Carton NC 140, CAOM: CP, séance du 28 oct. 1895. 28 Carton NC 51, CAOM: CP, séance du 4 juill. 1892; Carton NC 146, CAOM: CP, séance du 23 déc. 1901. 29 Carton NC 139, CAOM: CP, séance du 5 nov. 1894; Carton NC 140, CAOM: CP, séance du 28 oct. 1895; Décision no. 1308 du 30 déc. 1899, JONC, no. 2098, 13 janv. 1900. 30 BONC, janv. 1900, décision en date du 25 janv. 1900; Jean­Francois Zorn, ‘Comment Maurice Leenhardt a­t­il fortifié l'action des nata, pasteurs autochtones de la Nouvelle­Calédonie,’ in Diffusion et acculturation du christianisme, ed., Jean Comby (Paris: Karthala, 2005), 84; cf. Philadelphe Delord, Mon voyage d’enquête en Nouvelle­Calédonie, août­septembre 1899 (Paris: Maison de missions évangéliques, 1901). 31 Carton NC 146, CAOM: CP, séance du 26 oct. 1901; Carton NC 175, CAOM: CP, séance du 16 oct. 1902. 32 E.K.S, ‘Le grand chef Paul Wêmê, de Houaïlou’, Mwà Véé, no.57 (2007), 53. Paul Wêmâ became grand chef of Boréaré when it became a district in its own right in c.1912. 33 Carton NC 131, CAOM: Projet d’arrêté organisant l’administration des tribus indigènes de la Nouvelle­ Calédonie et Dépendances, CP, séance du 12 nov. 1886; Carton NC 132, CAOM: CP, séance du 20 avril 1887; L. Gauharou, Géographie de la Nouvelle­Calédonie, 2 nd edition (Nouméa: Imprimerie nouméenne, 1892); Carton NC 34, CAOM: CP, séance du 28 déc. 1899; Décision du 1er avril 1895, BONC, avril 1895, 228; Arrêté no. 806 du 27 oct. 1897 au sujet de l’organisation des tribus indigènes, BONC, oct. 1897, 515­517. 34 Carton NC 34, CAOM: CP, séance du 28 déc. 1899; Carton NC 175, CAOM: CP, séance du 19 fév. 1902; Chef d’Escadron Baumann to Commandant militaire, Nouméa, 13 fév. 1901, 12H2 (7:5), Service historique de l’Armée de terre, Vincennes (hereinafter SHAT); JONC, no. 2170, 25 mai 1901.
28 35 Carton NC 146, CAOM: CP, séance du 26 oct. 1901. 36 Carton NC 175, CAOM: CP, séance du 19 fév. 1902. 37 Carton NC 146, CAOM: CP, séance du 23 déc. 1901; Ollier to Monseigneur, Hienghène, 12 juin 1902, Archives de l’archévêché de Nouméa (hereinafter AAN) 39.1, from the Oceania Marist Province Archives (OMPA) microfilm series, OMPA 179­360, Pacific Manuscript Series microfilm. 38 Carton 38, Archive privées coloniales, dossier 1 (hereinafter 38 APC 1), CAOM: Rapport No. 15 à M. le Ct de la Compagnie, 6 fév. 1903; Rapport no. 34 à M. le Chef d’Escadron Cdt la Cie, 22 mars 1903; and Rapport No. ?87 au sujet des agissements du grand chef Amane des Poyes, 30 déc. 1905. Décision no. 278 du 5 mars 1903 graciant Goa et Cavéat du restant de leur peine, JONC, 7 mars 1903. In 1905, for example, Kavéat, identified as the former petit chef of Ouanache, claimed that Amane had stolen his wife and that Amane’s “sergeant”, Ty, had threatened to kill him. 39 38 APC 1, CAOM: Rapport No. ?40, 28 avril 1906; Pellegrin à [?Nouméa], Touho, 10 juill. 1906. 40 38 APC 1, CAOM: Rapport no. 4, Au sujet du passage dans la circonscription de M. le Chef du SAI et de l’immigration, 9 fév. 1907. 41 For further detail regarding Néa refer to Muckle, Spectres of Violence in a Colonial Context…, 450­452. 42 Arrêté No. 184 du 5 fév. 1909, JONC, no. 2554, 15 fév. 1909. 43 AFF POL 741, CAOM: Min. des Colonies to Gouverneur de la Nouvelle­Calédonie, Paris, 8 mai 1909; Gouverneur de la Nouvelle­Calédonie to Min. des Colonies, Nouméa, 22 juill. 1909; Procureur Général Chef du Service Judiciaire (Blondeau) to Gouverneur de la Nouvelle­Calédonie, Nouméa, 28 août 1909; Arrêté No. 520 du 2 avril 1910, JONC, no. 2583, 1 er mai 1910. 44 AFF POL 741, CAOM: Procès­verbal no. 22 de la brigade de Touho, 3 oct. 1912.
29 45 R.H. Leenhardt, ‘Figures mélanésiennes: le grand chef Amane des Poyes de 1898 à 1917’, Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 58­59 (1978): 23­35; Sylvette Boubin­Boyer, De la première guerre mondiale en Océanie: les guerres de tous les calédoniens, Thèse de doctorat (Université de la Nouvelle­Calédonie, 2001; Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2003), 445; Muckle, Spectres of Violence in a Colonial Context…, 447­449. 46 Adrian Muckle, ‘Killing the “Fantôme Canaque”: Evoking and Invoking the Possibility of Revolt in New Caledonia (1853­1915),’ Journal of Pacific History, 37, no. 1 (2002): 25­44. 47 Carton NC 134, CAOM: CP, séance du 1er juill. 1889. 48 Carton NC 146, CAOM: CP, séance du 26 oct. 1901; Carton NC 34, CAOM: CP, séance du 28 déc. 1899. 49 Carton NC 146, CAOM: CP, séance du 26 oct. 1901. 50 Carton NC 175, CAOM: CP, séances du 9 mai et du 16 oct. 1902. 51 Carton NC 175, CAOM: CP, séance du 11 avril 1902. 52 Carton NC 146, CAOM: CP, séance du 26 oct. 1901. 53 A. Bensa, ‘L’identité Kanak. Questions d’ethnologie’, in A. Bensa, J.­M. Kohler, A. Saussol and J. Tissier, Comprendre l’identité kanak (La Tourette: Centre Thomas More, 1990), 18­19. 54 Carton NC 135, CAOM: CP, séance du 29 août 1890; Carton NC 136, CAOM: CP, séance du 23 janv. 1891. 55 Carton NC 132, CAOM: CP, séance du 29 juill. 1887; Carton NC 34, CAOM: CP, séance du 28 déc. 1899. 56 Carton NC 51, CAOM: CP, séance du 4 juill. 1892 and CP, séance du 10 nov. 1892; Carton NC 145, CAOM: CP, séance du 2 mai 1900; Carton NC 175, CAOM: CP, séance du 19 fév. 1902. 57 Carton NC 51, CAOM: CP, séance du 11 oct. 1892; Carton NC 138, CAOM: CP, séance du 26 janv. 1893; Décision no.332 du 9 avril 1894, BONC, avril 1894, 180.
30 58 Carton NC 34, CAOM: CP, séance du 7 fév. 1898; Fraysse to Monseigneur, Poya, 4 nov. 1912, AAN 78.1. 59 Carton NC 145, CAOM: CP, séance du 18 oct. 1900; Carton NC 138, CAOM: CP, séance du 8 sept. 1893. 60 Carton NC 51, CAOM: CP, séance du 4 juill. 1892. 61 Carton NC 136, CAOM: CP, séance du 23 janv. 1891; Carton NC 145, CAOM: CP, séance du 18 avril 1900. 62 Carton NC 145, CAOM: CP, séance du 18 oct. 1900. 63 Carton NC 145, CAOM: CP, séance du 2 mai 1900. 64 Carton NC 46, CAOM: CP, séance du 6 juill. 1905. 65 As many as 17 women were interned during this period, on both the Loyalty Islands and the Ile des Pins, in response to complaints made by the Conseil général about the presence of Kanak women on Nouméa’s streets. Sainte Marie to Commandant supérieur, 11 mars 1899, AAN 87.9. 66 Carton NC 34, CAOM: CP, séance du 28 déc. 1899. 67 Carton NC 34, CAOM: CP, séance du 28 déc. 1899; Carton NC 145, CAOM: CP, séance du 26 janv. 1900. 68 Carton NC 138, CAOM: CP, séance du 26 janv. 1893. 69 Bruno Corre, Histoire du Service des affaires indigènes de Nouvelle­Calédonie: affaires indigènes, indigénat, et politiques indigènes de 1856 à 1954, assimilation ou ségrégation? (Mémoire de DEA, Université Française du Pacifique—Centre de Nouméa, 1997), 47, note 150 citing the ‘Recueil administrative “Etienne”, tome V, p.668: décret prorogeant pour une période de dix ans, les articles 2, 3, 4 et 5 du décret du 18 juill. 1887, sur l’indigénat.’ 70 For the indigénat’s first decade, responsibility for the daily administration of affaires indigènes was in the hands of the Chefs d’arrondissement who supplied monthly reports to Nouméa. The local law defining their responsibilities stated that—in addition to the punishments provided for by Article 3 of the decree of 18 July 1887—the administrator could propose internment to the Isle of Pines for those ‘who compromise or trouble public
31 tranquility’. Arrêté ‘réglementant les attributions et les fonctions des chefs d’arrondissement de la Colonie’, CP, régistre 49, séance du 14 juin 1890, Carton NC 135, CAOM. 71 Carton Contrôle 822, CAOM: Rheinhardt, Rapport concernant la vérification du service de M. Aubry Lecomte, Chef du SAI à Nouméa, à l’époque du 28 avril 1902…. 72 Carton Contrôle 821, CAOM: Méray to Min. des Colonies, no. 28, Nouméa, le 24 mai 1902; Carton NC 209, CAOM: Revel, Rapport concernant la vérification de M. Engler, chef p.i. du SAI à Nouméa, à l’époque du 18 mars 1907…. 73 Rapport au Président de la Republique française, suivi d’un décret relatif à l’indigénat en Nouvelle­Calédonie (23 mai 1907), AFF POL 741, CAOM. While precise limits were often stipulated, for the first two decades (to 1907) there had been no formal limit on the duration of a sentence and many simply had been pronounced until ‘further notice’. The solution adopted by the Feillet administration, to concerns raised in 1894, was an annual review of internment sentences; surviving records for reviews conducted in 1895, 1896, 1899, 1901 and 1902 indicate that sentences seldom exceeded 10 years, and were usually in the range of six months to five years. Research for this study has located only one instance of a collective fine being imposed: in 1929, the Maré tribu of Eni was fined four thousand francs payable to the tribu of Médu as compensation for damages caused by men from the former tribu, three of whom were also interned. AFF POL 741, CAOM: Arrêté prononçant l’internement des indigènes Waetheane, Katrupa Norene et Benjamin Nukuai, originaires de la tribu d’Eni (Maré), 6 sept. 1929. 74 AFF POL 741, CAOM: Min. des Colonies (Morel) to Gouverneur de la Nouvelle­Calédonie, Paris, 13 mai 1913. There was probably a broader context for the sensitivity shown by the Ministry: criticism of internment in Algeria had led to the law of 15 July 1914 which limited internment to ‘assigned residence for a period of two years’ for ‘strictly defined offences’. Merle, ‘De la “légalisation” de la violence en contexte colonial…’, 144, fn 18. 75 Arrêté no. 681 du 3 sept. 1915 concernant les infractions spéciales aux indigènes. This arrêté included the first formal definition of an indigène as ‘any person of either Melanesian or Polynesian race or mixed race from New Caledonia and its dependencies or the archipelago of Wallis and Futuna and who does not exercise the rights
32 pertaining to the quality of French citizen’. It thereby resolved another issue that had been first raised by Feillet in 1895: the relationship between European settlers and indigènes and in which of these categories to place ‘the native métis’. Feillet had wanted to restrain the application of the system (including internment) to the benefit of ‘métis’ who were considered to be ‘civilised’, but whose European paternity had not officially been recognised. The possibility of establishing a separate civil register had been proposed, but in the absence of any consensus, a commission was appointed to further consider the issue. Carton NC 140, CAOM: CP, séance du 28 oct. 1895. 76 AFF POL 741, CAOM: Décret portant réglementation des sanctions de police administrative applicables aux indigènes non­citoyens français, en Nouvelle­Calédonie, 29 sept. 1928; Décret (du 12 mars 1937) règlementant des sanctions de police administrative applicables aux indigènes non citoyens français en Nouvelle­Calédonie, Journal officiel de la République Française, 17 mars 1937, 3188­3189. On the abolition of the indigénat see: Ismet Kurtovitch, ‘Sortir de l’indigénat: cinquantième anniversaire de l’abolition de l’indigénat en Nouvelle­Calédonie’, Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 105, no. 2 (1997): 117­139. 77 Isabelle Merle, Expériences coloniales: la Nouvelle­Calédonie (1853­1920) (Paris: Editions Belin, 1995); Louis­ José Barbançon, Archipel des forçats: histoire du bagne de Nouvelle­Calédonie (Villeneuve d'Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2003); Mélica Ouennoughi, Les déportés maghrébins en Nouvelle­Calédonie et la culture du palmier dattier (1864 à nos jours) (Paris: l’Harmattan, 2005); Christiane Terrier­Douyère, La colonisation de peuplement libre en Nouvelle­Calédonie (1889­1909) ou les conséquences de la confrontation entre intérêts métropolitains et insulaires dans l’évolution d’une utopie française en Océanie vers un type colonial spécifique (Thèse nouveau régime histoire, Nouméa: Université de Nouvelle­Calédonie, 2000). 78 Dauphiné, ‘La déportation kanak au XIXe siècle’, 38­40. 79 Marius Archembault, La Colonisation et la question indigène en Nouvelle­Calédonie (Paris: Librairie Charles, 1904).
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