Malaita Massacre - Aftermath

Aftermath

In total, 198 Kwaio were arrested and detained between November 1927 and February 1928. They were held in a stockade near the harbour, awaiting transport on the Ramadi to Tulagi, where they waited in prison without formal charges pressed against them. Reacting to the prison food and the crowded conditions, many suffered diseases. In February, dysentery broke out, and in the months to follow, 173 of them were admitted to hospital for it. In all, 30 of the prisoners died from diseases while in jail. The government, reacting to accounts of the deaths, responded that many of these were older men, said to be senile or otherwise already weak. However, they did not explain why such men were being held.

A long pre-trial investigation followed, consolidating testimonies by survivors and detainees. The legal authorities recognised from the investigation who had actually plotted the murder, and it was understood they had used their political dominance to keep others in line. A balance had to be struck between the desire to set an example and to maintain strict British justice, and in the end, it was decided to charge with murder anyone who could be shown to have killed government officers or police, and to imprison others who had inflicted wounds, attempted murder, or otherwise played a central part. In all, 11 men were charged with murder, and six were convicted; of the 71 eventually charged with lesser offences, 21 were convicted. Basiana, who had killed Bell, was hanged publicly on 29 June 1928, in front of his two sons.

In June 1928, seeking a solution to the problem of what to do with those who were acquitted or never charged with crimes, the High Commissioner in Fiji issued a "King's Regulation to Authorise the Detention of Certain Natives Formerly Living on the Island of Malaita." It declared as "legal and valid" "all acts" committed in connection with the detention "in order to preserve peace and good order within the Protectorate", and extended the detention period six months. This permitted resident commissioner Kane to continue planning for the resettlement of the Kwaio on another island, an idea he had conceived already in November 1927. However, Lieutenant-Colonel H.C. Moorhouse, who had considerable colonial experience in Africa and was sent by London to investigate the massacre, quashed the scheme, and urged for the rapid repatriation of the detainees. In August 1928, the remaining detainees were returned to Malaita, and rations of rice were distributed.

During the punitive expedition, many Kwaio sought refuge in Christian villages, and after their sacred sites were polluted, hundreds converted to Christianity rather than face ancestral punishment. There was a precipitous drop in the interior population relative to the coast, and villages became slightly smaller and more widely scattered. The effective end of the power of the ramo and blood feuding increased spatial mobility and reduced sexual mores.

The records kept relating to the massacre were helpful in establishing a lengthy demographic history of the Kwaio people for ethnographer Roger M. Keesing; such a long record is possibly unique among traditional Melanesian societies.