Malaita Massacre - Punitive Expedition

Punitive Expedition

The survivors made their way to the Auki and the Wheatsheaf and waited while a small party of Kwaio Christians went ashore to recover Bell's and Lillies' bodies and wrapped them in sailcloth. The two ships, along with the Advent, anchored near the mouth of the harbour, sailed to Ngongosila where Bell and Lillies were buried together. Then the Auki and the Wheatsheaf sailed off to Tulagi to bring the news to the protectorate headquarters.

In Tulagi, the Resident Commissioner Richard Rutledge Kane was off on tour, and his deputy, Captain N.S.B. Kidson, who had little experience in the Solomons, surmised that the Malaitans were in a general uprising. The High Commissioner in Suva requested a ship to be sent to the Solomons, and HMAS Adelaide sailed from Sydney on 10 October. Australia's quick response symbolised the bond between Australia and the Solomons, official, religious, and commercial, and newspapers printed hundreds of articles about the massacre and its aftermath.

Talk of a punitive expedition began almost immediately among the Europeans in Tulagi. When the Resident Commissioner R.R. Kane returned to the capital, much had already been prepared. Dozens of Europeans volunteered their services, but in the end 28 Europeans, mostly planters, were selected to make up the civilian force. They were issued with 0.303 rifles and given intensive training. The District Officer of Guadalcanal, C.E.J. Wilson, who had a reputation for roughness from his treatment of some resistance on Guadalcanal, was given orders to patrol the coast of Malaita to gather information. Some village constables returned with Wilson and pled that those who had paid their taxes (listed in Bell's tax rolls) the day before not be punished. These people were already in coastal villages, anticipating an official retaliation. In Auki, the Malaitan district headquarters, 880 Malaitans had volunteered to participate in the expedition. Officials, knowing that most were probably simply eager to avenge dead relatives or other old scores, decided to limit their participation, and only accepted the help of 40, who for the most part had served in Bell's police force. The group was rounded out by fifty naval personnel on Adelaide and 120 native carriers.

The first armed party landed from Adelaide on Sunday, 16 October, twelve days after the killing. Five days later, the Ramadi with the colonial officials and the 28 Europeans, anchored in the harbour. A staging area was built 1,600 feet up the mountain. On 26 October, the party set out for the interior, travelling in a line over a quarter-mile long. The leaders of the expedition had considerable trouble keeping the European volunteer army in check, and some volunteers, who had been led to believe they would be permitted to shoot natives on sight, felt betrayed by the limitations and reprimands from their leadership. They had considerable difficulty with the terrain, drank whisky and gambled, and most were dismissed after two weeks.

The naval personnel, added to "stiffen" the civilian party, also had considerable difficulty with the conditions; when Adelaide returned to Sydney on 18 November, 20% of the crew were hospitalised for malaria, dysentery, and septic sores. The naval presence had been thought necessary for dealing with an open rebellion, but as it became clear that the early messages had been exaggerated, their presence was largely unnecessary.

The Europeans largely were no threat to the resistant Kwaio, but the fellow Malaitan police patrols, led by constables who had worked with Bell, were. The only advantage of the Kwaio was a better knowledge of the local landscape, but that was balanced by assistance from some Kwaio guides from the coastal area. Another act which the northern Malaitans took considerable zeal was the systematic desecration of Kwaio holy sites. Ancestral skulls, consecrated objects, and other relics were crushed, burned, or thrown into menstrual huts. Though the police force was Christian, traditional Kwaio religion was similar to that which they had been raised in, and they knew how to most effectively bring the wrath of the ancestors (who punish only their own descendents) upon the Kwaio.

Despite the official command, the dominant leaders in the expedition party were Bell's sergeants and constables, who remained loyal to Bell and wished to avenge his death. In addition, it was decided that all adult male members of the bush kin groups were to be arrested and sent to Tulagi, including large numbers of elderly men who were uninvolved or only peripherally involved in the massacre. Most of the most wanted men were not found in the search, but rather gave themselves up as rumours spread about killings of women, children, old men, and others uninvolved in the massacre. The inland base camp was deserted on 21 December, when twenty fugitives remained at large, but all but one surrendered or was captures in the subsequent weeks.

The police reported the shooting of 27 Kwaio, said to have been attacking patrols, resisting arrest, or trying to flee. An exact number of Kwaio killed during the expedition as a whole is impossible to establish; the estimate of South Seas Evangelical Mission missionaries in the Kwaio area, 60, though dismissed by the government as an exaggeration, was accepted by Roger M. Keesing, who thoroughly studied both the official reports and the memories of the Kwaio forty years later. Keesing reports accounting for 55 deaths as virtually certain. The Kwaio themselves often estimate the number at 200. Keesing accounted for this large estimate as including deaths caused by the supernatural vengeance of the ancestors, upset at the desecration of their shrines.