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“The Law of the New Hebrides is the Protector of their Lawlessness”: Justice, Race and Colonial Rivalry in the Early Anglo-French Condominium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2017

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Extract

[It] is not I who am on trial here today, but the Law of the New Hebrides.

In 1906, Britain and France jointly annexed the New Hebrides. A y-shaped archipelago in the southwest Pacific Ocean, the New Hebrides—which became Vanuatu upon independence in 1980—comprised some eighty islands characterized by high levels of linguistic and cultural diversity. At the moment of annexation, there were also Presbyterian, Anglican, and Catholic missionaries and Euro-American planters and traders, who overlaid religious and national divisions onto the existing social and linguistics ones. Anglo-French rule under the New Hebrides Condominium added a hybrid legal system to this complex mix. During the colonial period, four distinct jurisdictions existed, indicative of the divided, rival nature of governance. These included joint Condominium law, British common law, French civil law, and from 1928, a native code and courts. The plurality and ambiguity of the legal system left ample space for critique and for alternative, extrajudicial justice, as this article explores.

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Articles
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Law and History Review , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , August 2017 , pp. 595 - 620
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Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2017 

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Footnotes

She thanks Greg Rawlings, Nicholas Thomas, Sujit Sivasundaram, and Angela Wanhalla for their valuable feedback and insights while she was writing this article, as well as the suggestions from the anonymous reviewers. This research was funded by a Commonwealth Scholarship, and archival visits made possible through grants from the University of Cambridge Faculty of History, Smuts Memorial Fund, and Lucy Cavendish College. All translations are the author's own unless otherwise indicated.

References

1. The epigraph comes from David Crombie, Mission Station Wala, Malekula, to British Resident Commissioner, 4/9/1908, Folder 11/1907 (Complaints: Illicit sale of liquor, illegal recruitings, shooting, etc. 1907–1908), New Hebrides British Service (hereafter NHBS) 1/I General Correspondence, MP Series 1907–1942 Volume One (1907–1914), Western Pacific Archives, University of Auckland Library Special Collections (hereafter WPA).

2. On mission presence in the New Hebrides, see Gunson, Neil, Messengers of Grace: Evangelical Missionaries in the South Seas 1797–1860 (Melbourne and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978)Google Scholar; Hilliard, David, God's Gentlemen: A History of the Melanesian Mission, 1849–1942 (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press 1978)Google Scholar; Jolly, Margaret, “‘To save the girls for brighter and better lives’: Presbyterian Missions and Women in the South of Vanuatu: 1848–1870,” Journal of Pacific History 26 (1991): 27–48 Google Scholar; Bonnemaison, Joël, The Tree and the Canoe: History and Ethnogeography of Tanna (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Richardson, David J., “Kastom versus Cross: A Battle for Cultural Hegemony on Tanna,” in Wansalawara: Soundings in Melanesian History, ed. Lal, Brij (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Pacific Islands Studies Program, Working Paper Series, 1987), 88–118 Google Scholar. On trade, plantations, and labor in the New Hebrides, see Shineberg, Dorothy, They Came for Sandalwood: A Study of the Sandalwood Trade in the South–West Pacific, 1830–1865 (Melbourne: University of Melbourne Press, 1967)Google Scholar; Shineberg, Dorothy, The People Trade: Island Labourers and New Caledonia, 1865–1930 (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Banivanua-Mar, Tracey, Violence and Colonial Dialogue: The Australia-Pacific Labor Trade (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2007)Google Scholar; Lal, Brij V., Munro, Doug, and Beechert, Edward D., eds., Plantation Workers: Resistance and Accommodation (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Moore, Clive, Leckie, Jacqueline, and Munro., Doug eds., Labour in the South Pacific (Townsville: James Cook University of North Queensland, 1990)Google Scholar; Cawsey, Katherine Stirling Kerr, The Making of a Rebel: Captain Donald Macleod of the New Hebrides (Suva: Institute of Pacific Stuides, University of the South Pacific, 1998)Google Scholar; and Shineberg, Dorothy, “‘The New Hebridean is everywhere’: The Oceanian Labor Trade to New Caledonia, 1865–1930,” Pacific Studies 18 (1995): 1–22 Google Scholar.

3. Although provisions for the creation of a Native code were established earlier, relevant legislation was not enacted until 1927–28 with the Joint Regulation No. 6 of 1927 (Code of Native Law), Joint Regulation No. 1 of 1928 (Native Criminal Code), and Joint Regulation No. 2 of 1928 (Institution of Native Courts).

4. On the contested nature of administration and justice in these areas, see: Bonnemaison, The Tree and the Canoe, 198–215; Laracy, Hugh, “The Pentecost Murders: An Episode in Condominium Non-Rule, New Hebrides, 1940,” Journal of Pacific History 26 (1991): 245–55Google Scholar; Miles, William F.S., Bridging Mental Boundaries in a Postcolonial Microcosm: Identity and Development in Vanuatu (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998), 35–86 Google Scholar; Rodman, Margaret, Houses Far from Home: British Colonial Space in the New Hebrides (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001), 136–43Google Scholar; and Widmer, Alexandra, “Seeing Health like a Colonial State: Pacific Island Assistant Physicians, Sight, and Nascent Biomedical Citizenship in the New Hebrides,” in Senses and Citizenships: Embodying Political Life, eds. Trnka, Susanna, Dureau, Christine, and Park, Julie (New York and Oxford: Routledge, 2013), 200–20Google Scholar.

5. Kate Stevens, “Criminal Justice, Race and Gender in the Colonial Southwest Pacific, 1880–1920,” (PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 2014), 88–110; 265–76; 297–321.

6. Dr D. Crombie to Resident Commissioner for the French Republic, 6/9/1915, MS 894/25 Edward Jacomb Diary 1915, Senate House Library, London (hereafter SHL).

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9. During the early colonial period, debates also arose in the New Hebrides over various issues at the intersection of law, gender, and race, including the criminalization of abortion and gendered violence, and marriage laws. These issues dominated Native Courts and were subjects of missionary complaints and intervention: see Folder 15/1926 (Tanna Native Courts. 1925–27), NHBS 1/I General Correspondence, MP Series 1907–1942 Volume Two (1915–1929), WPA; Folder 219A/1908 (Complaint against native customs in Malekula from Rev. F.J. Paton), NHBS 1/I General Correspondence, MP Series 1907–1942, Volume One (1907–1914), WPA; and W. Wilkes to British Resident Commissioner, White Sands, Tanna, 9 October 1912, Folder 115/1912, NHBS 1/I General Correspondence, MP Series 1907–1942 Volume One (1907–1914), WPA; Fletcher to Jacomb, 10 February 1918, MS 894/28 Edward Jacomb Diary 1918–19, SHL. More generally, see Jolly, Margaret, “Other Mothers: Maternal ‘Insouciance’ and the Depopulation Debate in Fiji and Vanuatu, 1890 to 1930,” in Maternities and Modernities: Colonial and Postcolonial Experiences in Asia and the Pacific, eds. Ram, Kalpana and Jolly, Margaret (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 177–212 Google Scholar; and Jolly, Margaret, “‘To save the girls for brighter and better lives’: Presbyterian Missions and Women in the South of Vanuatu: 1848–1870,” Journal of Pacific History 26 (1991): 27–48 Google Scholar.

10. “Declaration between Great Britain and France, for the Constitution of a Joint Naval Commission for the Protection of Life and Property in the New Hebrides” (Paris, January 26, 1888), www.paclii.org/pits/en/treaty_database/1888/1.rtf (December 21, 2016). On the JNC's “rough justice,” see Stevens, “Criminal Justice, Race and Gender,” 265–76; 297–321; and Alexander, Gilchirst, From Middle Temple to the South Seas (London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1927), 219–20Google Scholar.

11. I refer to the indigenous peoples of the colonial New Hebrides by the contemporary term ni-Vanuatu. This avoids both confusion with the colonial term New Hebridean/néo-hébridais, which could include locally born Europeans, as well as the racial overtones of the terms native or indigène.

12. Full text of the convention is available in “Convention between the United Kingdom and France Concerning the New Hebrides. Signed at London, October 20, 1906. (Ratifications exchanged at London, January 9, 1907.),” The American Journal of International Law 1, Supplement: Official Documents (1907): 179–200. See Van Trease, Howard, The Politics of Land in Vanuatu: From Colony to Independence (Suva: Fiji Times, 1991 [1987]), 44–47 Google Scholar, for an excellent discussion of these negotiations, in which the French were largely successful in pushing through their preferred terms.

13. For more on Australian public opinion on the Pacific colonies, see Thompson, Roger C., Australian Imperialism in the Pacific. The Expansionist Era, 1820–1920 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1980)Google Scholar.

14. “Protocol respecting the New Hebrides, signed at London on August 6, 1914, by representatives of the British and French Governments,” enclosed in “The New Hebrides Order in Council 1922,” USP Vanuatu Legislation and Law Reports, http://www.usp.ac.fj/fileadmin/random_images/home_middle_banners/emalus/Pacific_law_materials/Vanuatu/7.New_Hebrides_Order__1922__annexing_protocol_between_Britain_and_France_respecting_New_Hebrides__Auguest_6__1914.pdf (July 2, 2014).

15. Speech of the British judge (along with that of the president and French judge) reported in “Britain and France in the New Hebrides. Opening of the Joint Court,” The Times, November 30, 1910, 5.

16. Alexander, From the Middle Temple to the South Seas, 187.

17. Other Europeans in the colony were required to opt to be considered either British or French for legal purposes. Indigenous ni-Vanuatu could also be brought into the orbit of these courts as victims or witnesses.

18. M. Paul Ad. Serre, Consul de France à Auckland, quoted in “Note pour le Cabinet du Ministre,” Directeur de Institut National d'Agrinomie Colonie, 2 Mai 1927, Dossier A1 (65), Séries Géographiques, Nouvelles-Hébrides, Carton 9, Archives National d'Outre Mer, Aix-en-Provence (hereafter ANOM).

19. Alexander, From the Middle Temple to the South Seas, 189. See also Rodman, Margaret, “Portentous Splendour: Building the Anglo-French Condominium,” History and Anthropology 11 (1999): 479–514 Google Scholar; and Rodman, Houses Far from Home, 40–42.

20. Woodward, Keith, “Historical Note,” in Tufala Gavman: Reminiscences from the Anglo-French Condominium of the New Hebrides, eds. Bresnihan, Brian J. and Woodward, Keith (Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, 2002), 36 Google Scholar; and Count of Buena Esperanza to Secretary of State for Colonies, 26/2/1926, Folder 51/1926 (Re-organisation of Joint Court. 1926), NHBS 1/I General Correspondence, MP Series 1907–1942 Volume Two (1915–1929), WPA.

21. See, for example, Folder 14/1923 (Executions of Judgements of Joint Court under Protocol of 1914. 1923–1924), NHBS 1/I General Correspondence, MP Series 1907–1942 Volume Two (1915–1929), WPA.

22. This term comes from a play satirizing the court: Jacomb, Edward, The Joy Court: Comédie Rosse  (London: Braybrook and Dobson, 1929)Google Scholar; see also Stevens, “Criminal Justice, Race and Gender,” 152–63.

23. Rawlings, Greg, “Statelessness, Human Rights and Decolonisation: Citizenship in Vanuatu, 1906–80,’ Journal of Pacific History 47 (2012): 45–68 Google Scholar; and Miles, Bridging Mental Boundaries, 36–37.”

24. M. Paul Ad. Serre, Consul de France à Auckland, quoted in “Note pour le Cabinet du Ministre,” Directeur de Institut National d'Agrinomie Colonie, 2 Mai 1927, Dossier A1 (65), Séries Géographiques, Nouvelles-Hébrides, Carton 9, ANOM. He states, quoting the views of missionary Frederick Paton, that “D'après lui, il y aurait trois justices aux Nouvelles-Hébrides: une pour les Français, une pour les Britanniques et une pour les indigènes.”

25. Article VIII 2 of the “Protocol Respecting the New Hebrides” stated “No native, as defined above, shall acquire in the Group the status of subject or citizen or be under the protection of either of the two Signatory Powers.” See also “Convention between the United Kingdom and France Concerning the New Hebrides.”

26. The English version of Article VIII 4 of “Protocol Respecting the New Hebrides” stated that “The High Commissioners and Resident Commissioners shall cause a collection of native laws and customs to be made, and these, where not contrary to the dictates of humanity and the maintenance of order, shall be utilised for the preparation of a code of native law, both civil and penal.” The Joint Regulation No. 6 of 1927 (Code of Native Law), Joint Regulation No. 1 of 1928 (Native Criminal Code) and Joint Regulation No. 2 of 1928 (Institution of Native Courts) formally established the native code and related courts.

27. Quoted in Mander, Linden A., “The New Hebrides Condominium,” Pacific Historical Review 13 (1944), 156 Google Scholar. Although effectively disenfranchised and subject to repressive justice, the limits of Condominium legislation and its enforcement did leave many ni-Vanuatu largely free from official interference, and on occasion, Islanders proved adept at using the divisions between the colonial powers to their advantage. Miles, Bridging Mental Boundaries, 41.

28. Stevens, “Criminal Justice, Race and Gender,” 88–110 and 152–63.

29. Jacomb, Edward, France and England in the New Hebrides: The Anglo-French Condominium (Melbourne: George Robertson and Company, 1914)Google Scholar; Jacomb, Edward, The Future of the Kanaka (London: P.S. King and Son Ltd, 1919)Google Scholar; “The New Hebrides Problem” and “The Annual Meeting,” The Anti-Slavery Reporter and Aborigines' Friend 4, no. 2 (July 1914)Google Scholar; Folder 122/1913 (Paper by Mr. Jacomb concerning the treatment of native laborers employed by French settlers and representation by Aborigines Protection Society of Australia), NHBS 1/I General Correspondence, MP Series 1907–1942 Volume One (1907–1914), WPA.

30. Letter to Mother, 12/3/1914, MS 894/24 Edward Jacomb Diary 1914, SHL.

31. Letter to Mother, 3/2/1914, MS 894/24 Edward Jacomb Diary 1914, SHL.

32. Letter to Mother and Father, 2/4/1914, MS 894/24 Edward Jacomb Diary 1914, SHL.

33. On black peril in colonial contexts, see Etherington, Norman, “Natal's Black Rape Scare of the 1870s,” Journal of Southern African Studies 15 (1988): 36–53 Google Scholar; Pape, John, “Black and White: The ‘Perils of Sex’ in Colonial Zimbabwe,” Journal of Southern African Studies 16 (1990): 699–720 Google Scholar; Scully, Pamela, “Rape, Race and Colonial Culture: The Sexual Politics of Identity in the Nineteenth-Century Cape Colony, South Africa,” American Historical Review 100 (1995): 335–59Google Scholar; and Saha, Jonathan, “The Male State: Colonialism, Corruption and Rape Investigations in the Irrawaddy Delta c.1900,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 48 (2010): 343–76Google Scholar. In the Pacific, see Knapman, Claudia, White Women in Fiji, 1835–1930: The Ruin of Empire? (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986), 124–25Google Scholar; and Inglis, Amirah, The White Women's Protection Ordinance: Sexual Anxiety and Politics in Papua (Brighton: Sussex University Press, 1975)Google Scholar.

34. Letter to Mother and Father, 11/9/1915, MS 894/25 Edward Jacomb Diary 1915, SHL.

35. See Folder 77/1914 (Presence of Unemployed Natives in Vila. 1914–1919), NHBS 1/I General Correspondence, MP Series 1907–1942 Volume One (1907–1914), WPA.

36. Highlighting the propensity of British colonial administration to establish their headquarters on island sites, Margaret Rodman suggests that further comparative study on this topic is needed. Rodman, Houses Far from Home, 52–53.

37. Miles, Bridging Mental Boundaries, 40.

38. Letter to Mother, 30/4/1914, MS 894/24 Edward Jacomb Diary 1914, SHL.

39. Letter to Rev. Frank H.L. Paton, 18/4/14, MS 894/24 Edward Jacomb Diary 1914, SHL.

40. Letter to Mother and Father, 2/4/1914, MS 894/24 Edward Jacomb Diary 1914, SHL.

41. This paradoxical tension between equal justice coexisted with race-conscious legislation throughout the colonial New Hebrides.

42. Letter to Rev. Frank H.L. Paton, 18/4/14, MS 894/24 Edward Jacomb Diary 1914, SHL.

43. Written Statement of Dr. Crombie, MS 894/25 Edward Jacomb Diary 1915, SHL.

44. Dr. Crombie to the Commandant of Police (British), undated [1915], MS 894/25 Edward Jacomb Diary 1915, SHL.

45. Dr. D. Crombie to H.B.M. Resident Commissioner, 6/9/1915, MS 894/25 Edward Jacomb Diary 1915, SHL. It is unclear to what extent such feelings were held by staff across the hospital, and to what extent Crombie played up such anxieties to bolster his calls for action.

46. Written Statement of Dr. Crombie, MS 894/25 Edward Jacomb Diary 1915, SHL.

47. Crombie to Jacomb, Iririki, Port Vila, 2nd Sept 1915, Presbyterian Archives of New Zealand, Dunedin (hereafter PANZ).

48. Letter to Mother and Father, 11/9/1915, MS 894/25 Edward Jacomb Diary 1915, SHL.

49. Cole, Anna, “Governing Tattoo: Reflections on a Colonial Trial,” in Tattoo: Bodies, Art and Exchange in the Pacific and Europe, eds. Thomas, Nicholas, Cole, Anna, and Douglas, Bronwen (London: Reaktion Books, 2005), 109–19Google Scholar; Anderson, Clare, Legible Bodies: Race, Criminality and Colonialism in South Asia (Oxford: Berg, 2004)Google Scholar, especially Chapter Two “Inscribing the Criminal Body: The Penal Tattoo,” 15–56; and Caplan, Jane, ed. Written on the Body: The Tattoo in European and American History (London: Reaktion Books, 2000)Google Scholar.

50. David Crombie to M. Austin, 17 August 1915, Dossier A1 (56), Séries Géographiques, Nouvelles-Hébrides, Carton 8, ANOM; Letter to Mother and Father, 11/9/1915, MS 894/25 Edward Jacomb Diary 1915, SHL.

51. David Crombie to M. Austin, 17 August 1915 and Le Gouverneur p.i./Haut Commissaire Repiquet to Ministre des Colonies, Noumea, 6 Octobre 1915—“Violences du Dr Crombie à l’égard d'indigènes. Fermeture de sa hôpital,” Dossier A1 (56), Séries Géographiques, Nouvelles-Hébrides, Carton 8, ANOM.

52. “Rapport d'Ensemble sur la situation des NH en 1910,” Port-Vila, 20 April 1911, Gouverneur to Ministre des Colonies, Noumea, 10 Feb 1910, Dossier A3(1), Séries Géographiques, Nouvelles-Hébrides, Carton 11bis, ANOM. On French concerns regarding the impact of Presbyterian funding (compared with the poorly resourced Catholic mission), see also: “Situation politique et économique,” M. Revel, Chef de la Mission d'Inspection de la Nouvelle-Calédonie et Dépendances to Ministres des Colonies, Noumea, 3 Juin 1912, Séries Géographiques Nouvelles-Hébrides, Carton 31, ANOM.  “Abusant de leurs pouvoirs spirituels, les missionnaires allèrent jusqu'à créer des tribunaux indigènes presidés par les chefs de village qui leur paraissaient les plus sûrs. Ils organisèrent des corps de police et établirent même des droits de sortie” The report states that these missionaries were “leurs véritables chefs politiques,” and “La plupart des missionaires presbytériiens interviennent directement dans la repression des crimes ou des délits.”

53. See W. Wilkes to British Resident Commissioner, White Sands, Tanna, 9 October 1912 and other correspondence in Folder 115/1912, NHBS 1/I General Correspondence, MP Series 1907–1942 Volume One (1907–1914), WPA; Rodman, House Far from Home, 136; Scarr, Fragments of Empire: A History of the Western Pacific High Commission 1877–1914 (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1967), 236–37 and 243Google Scholar; Bonnemaison, The Tree and the Canoe, 199–200; and Guiart, Jean, Un siècle et demi de contacts culturels à Tanna, (Paris: Musée de l'Homme, 1956), 134, 139Google Scholar.

54. Rapport du gendarme Boibelet, adjoint au commandant de la Section Française de la Milice, to Resident Commissaire, Port-Vila, 19 Aug 1915, Dossier A1 (56), Séries Géographiques, Nouvelles-Hébrides, Carton 8, ANOM.

55. Rapport Trimestriel sur la Situation des Nouvelles-Hebrides. Juillet–Aout–Septembre 1915, Séries Géographiques, Nouvelles-Hébrides, Carton 12, ANOM.

56. Written Statement of Dr. Crombie, MS 894/25 Edward Jacomb Diary 1915, SHL.

57. Le Gouverneur p.i./Haut Commissaire Repiquet to Ministre des Colonies, Nouméa, 6 Octobre 1915, Dossier A1 (56), Séries Géographiques, Nouvelles-Hébrides, Carton 8, ANOM.

58. Rapport Trimestriel sur la Situation des Nouvelles-Hebrides. Juillet–Aout–Septembre 1915, Dossier A3 (2), Séries Géographiques, Nouvelles-Hébrides, Carton 12, ANOM.

59. Gouverneur et Haut Commissaire à Ministre des Colonies, Nouméa, 23 Novembre 1923, Dossier “Juge Anglais près le Tribunal Mixte des Nouvelles-Hébrides.” Affaires Politiques, Nouvelles-Hébrides Carton 1AFFPOL/1915, ANOM.

60. Written Statement of Dr. Combie, MS 894/25 Edward Jacomb Diary 1915, SHL.

61. On Resident King, see Scarr, Fragments of Empire, 229.

62. Dr. D. Crombie to H.B.M. Resident Commissioner, 6/9/1915, MS 894/25 Edward Jacomb Diary 1915, SHL. There is little other archival trace of the European nurses’ perspective on the incident.

63. Letter from Dr. D. Crombie to the Resident Commissioner for the French Republic, Vila, not dated [September 1915] and Letter from Dr. D. Crombie to H.B.M. Resident Commisioner, Vila, not dated [September 1915], MS 894/25 Edward Jacomb Diary 1915, SHL.

64. Letter from Dr D. Crombie to H.B.M. Resident Commisioner, Vila, not dated [September 1915], MS 894/25 Edward Jacomb Diary 1915, SHL.

65. Letter to R.J. Fletcher, 11/11/1915, MS 894/25, Edward Jacomb Diary 1915, SHL.

66. Letter to Mother and Father, 11/9/1915 and Jacomb's notes on Written Statement of Dr. Crombie, MS 894/25 Edward Jacomb Diary 1915, SHL.

67. Letter to R.J. Fletcher, 11/11/15, MS 894/25 Edward Jacomb Diary 1915, SHL.

68. Letter from Dr David Crombie, not dated [December 1915], MS 894/25 Edward Jacomb Diary 1915; Letter from Dr David Crombie, 31/3/1916, MS 894/26 Edward Jacomb Diary 1916, SHL.

69. Letters from Dr David Crombie, 31/3/1916 and 20/8/1916, MS 894/26 Edward Jacomb Diary 1916, SHL.

70. Written Statement of Dr. Combie, MS 894/25, Edward Jacomb Diary 1915, SHL.

71. Inglis, The White Women's Protection Ordinance.

72. Minutes of Meeting of Joint Naval Commission held on board HMS Prometheus at Vila on 5 June 1909, Folder 71/1909 (Mixed Naval Commission Cases. 1909–1919), NHBS 1/I General Correspondence, MP Series 1907–1942 Volume One (1907–1914), WPA.

73. Letter to Mother and Father, 11/9/1915 and Written Statement of Dr. Crombie, MS 894/25 Edward Jacomb Diary 1915, SHL. The voices of the ni-Vanuatu nurses do not feature in Jacomb's correspondence, and, therefore, their relation to the men and their feelings about the hospital's visitors are unknown.

74. Rodman, Margaret, ‘“My Only Weapon Being a Pencil’: Inscribing the Prison in the New Hebrides,” Journal of Pacific History 33 (1998): 29–49 Google Scholar.

75. On Faureville and Franceville, see “Wee Small Republics: A Few Examples of Popular Government,” Hawaiian Gazette, November 1, 1895, 1; “The ‘Commune’ of Franceville,”’ North Otago Times, September 5, 1889, 3; Captain Kane to Admiral Fairfax, “Calliope” at Noumea, 19 Aug 1889, Dossier A1 (16), Séries Géographiques Nouvelles-Hébrides, Carton 3, ANOM; Bourdiol, Julian, Condition Internationale des Nouvelles-Hébrides (Nîmes: Imprimerie Cooperative “La Labourieuse,” 1908), 92, 133Google Scholar; Brunet, Auguste, Le régime international des Nouvelles-Hébrides: le condominium anglofrançais (Paris: Arthur Russeau, 1908), 65 Google Scholar; and Rodman, Houses Far from Home, 26, 34. On Tanna mission law, see W. Wilkes to British Resident Commissioner, White Sands, Tanna, 9 October 1912 and other correspondence in Folder 115/1912, NHBS 1/I General Correspondence, MP Series 1907–1942 Volume One (1907–1914), WPA; Stevens, “Criminal Justice, Race and Gender,” 99–102; Scarr, Fragments of Empire, 236–37 and 243; Bonnemaison, The Tree and the Canoe, 199–200 and 215–17; Brunton, Ron, The Abandoned Narcotic: Kava and Cultural Instability in Melanesia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 117 Google Scholar; and Guiart, Un siècle et demi, 134, 139.

76. Cutting from The Daily Telegraph, 13 February 1914, in Dossier A1 (14) (Fonctionnement de la Comm. Navale Mixte. 1887–1914), Séries Géographiques Nouvelles-Hébrides, Carton 2, ANOM; “Meeting of Protest,” in “Rapport Trimestriel du Commissaire-Resident de France aux NH. Octobre-Novembre-Decembre–1913.” encl. to Haut Commissaire à Ministre des Colonies, Noumea, 25 Février 1914, Séries Géographiques Nouvelles-Hébrides, Carton 11bis, ANOM; Jacomb, France and England in the New Hebrides, 123–26; Wallace to Paton, March 30, 1914, External Affairs Records, quoted in Scarr, Fragments of Empire, 242; and Stevens, “Criminal Justice, Race and Gender,’ 265–76.”

77. “Rapport d'Ensemble sur la situation des NH en 1910,” Port-Vila, 20 April 1911, Gouverneur to Ministre des Colonies, Noumea, 10 Feb 1910, Dossier A3(1), Carton 11bis, Séries Géographiques, Nouvelles-Hébrides, ANOM.

78. “Rapport d'Ensemble sur la situation des NH en 1910. Port-Vila, 20 April 1911,” Séries Géographiques, Nouvelles-Hébrides, Carton 11bis, ANOM. See also Scarr, Fragments of Empire, 219–20 on French attempts to replace British economic interests with French ones.

79. See, for example, Folder 12/1911 (Sale of liquor and explosives by the French to natives. (2 parts) 1910–1912), NHBS 1/I General Correspondence, MP Series 1907–1942 Volume One (1907–1914), WPA; and British Judge of the Joint Court R.S. de Vere to the President of the Joint Court, Port Vila, 23 October 1923, enclosure to Gouverneur et Haut Commissaire à Ministre des Colonies, Nouméa, 23 Novembre 1923, Dossier “Juge Anglais près le Tribunal Mixte des Nouvelles-Hébrides,” Affaires Politiques, Nouvelles-Hébrides, Carton 1AFFPOL/1915, ANOM.

80. British Judge of the Joint Court R.S. de Vere to the President of the Joint Court, Port Vila, 23 October 1923, enclosure to Gouverneur et Haut Commissaire à Ministre des Colonies, Nouméa, 23 Novembre 1923, Dossier “Juge Anglais près le Tribunal Mixte des Nouvelles-Hébrides,” Affaires Politiques, Nouvelles-Hébrides, Carton 1AFFPOL/1915, ANOM.

81. Gouverneur et Haut Commissaire à Ministre des Colonies, Nouméa, 23 Novembre 1923, Dossier “Juge Anglais près le Tribunal Mixte des Nouvelles-Hébrides,” Affaires Politiques, Nouvelles-Hébrides, Carton 1AFFPOL/1915, ANOM. “Si la loi française est plus douce, moins brutale que la loi anglaise, la faute n'en est pas à ceux qui sont charges de l'appliquer.”

82. Edward Jacomb to A.W. Jose, 24/4/1914, Edward Jacomb Diary 1914, SHL.

83. David Crombie, Mission Station Wala, Malekula, to British Resident Commissioner, 4/9/1908, Folder 11/1907 (Complaints: Illicit sale of liquor, illegal recruitings, shooting, etc. 1907–1908), NHBS 1/I General Correspondence, MP Series 1907–1942 Volume One (1907–1914), WPA.

84. Ford, Settler Sovereignty, 2.