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40,000 years ago the greater Australian landmass had been colonised by Asian peoples. The amazing part about this colonisation was that it required watercraft. It was not until about 30,000 years later in the Mediterranean that there is strong evidence of watercraft anywhere else. At the end of the last ice age, 10,000 years ago, New Guinea was cut off from the Australian landmass by the Torres Strait. This triggered divergent development of the Australian Aborigines and New Guineans, with Australia being generally dry and arid than the younger New Guinea that is one of the wettest and most fertile places on Earth. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Europeans began to interact with the coastal people of New Guinea. It is thought that kaukau (sweet potato) - a staple in New Guinea - was introduced to the country by the Portuguese about four or five hundred years ago. It was not, however until the nineteenth century that colonial powers took control of New Guinea.
Dutch New Guinea was administered by Holland from 1821 until 1962, in which for a brief time it was controlled by the United Nations until it was handed over to Indonesia in 1963, where it still remains. After being taken over by Indonesia it was known as Irian Jaya, but recently it's name has been changed to Papua. British New Guinea was designated a protectorate in 1884, but later changed to the status of a colony in 1888. In 1906 full responsibility for British New Guinea was handed over to the Commonwealth of Australia and was then called the Territory of Papua. It was believed that Papua's future prosperity would be based on Agricultural Production. Official German interest in New Guinea began in 1884, although some German traders and others had been active in the area prior to this. At first the Germans attempted to govern the colony through The New Guinea Company (based on the model of the East India companies of the seventeenth and eighteenth century). However, in 1895 The New Guinea Company handed over responsibility for the administration of the colony to the Imperial Judge, who was appointed by Berlin. Little development happened in the colony for a number of years. However in 1910 Rabaul, became the capital and had good wharves, a botanic garden and well-planned streets. About six weeks after the outbreak of WWI in 1914, an Australian expeditionary force captured German New Guinea. Between 1914 and 1921 the Australian Military administered the captured colony. It was given a mandate from the League of Nations in 1921 to administer the territory. At this point civil administration began in what was known as the Mandated Territory of New Guinea. During the period between the World Wars, Australia administered both of the Territories separately. This marked a period of patrol expansion into the interior in which white explorers ventured into what was thought of as the uninhabited highlands. Peter Ryan of Melbourne University in Australia said about the period of 1941 to 1945 when The Japanese Imperial Army occupied most of New Guinea: "[that] changes occurred or were set in motion which far exceeded in their effects the original coming of the white man (which had been local and gradual)… Hunger, hardship, captivity and violent death were the lot of many of the indigenous people, for whom the war was an unrelieved disaster." During the war years the two territories were administered together by an organization called ANGAU. (Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit). After the war a Provisional Civilian Administration was created to administer the two territories until the newly formed United Nations entered into a trusteeship agreement with Australia to administer the Trust Territory of New Guinea. The two territories still had a separate legal status but were administered together. In 1949 the Papua and New Guinea Act was passed by the Australian parliament. This transferred some legislative, and executive powers to Indigenous Papua New Guineans. Even though there was a legislative council (with just over half being "official representatives"), the executive power resided in the Australian Governor-General and the Minister for Territories. This form of legislature lasted for eleven years until 1960. In 1961 the Legislative Council was reformed such that the majority were non-official representatives. Between 1961 and independence in 1975 there was a gradual transfer of responsibility to indigenous Papua New Guineans. When the reformist Whitlam Labor Government of Australia came to power they pushed for early independence and this was granted on the 16th of September 1975. Since then Papua New Guinea has had full independence. Its' enormous natural resources are the major driver of the national economy. However its economy remains typically third world, with the majority of exported goods being raw materials with little to no value adding done on-shore. The major exports of Papua New Guinea are gold, copper, gas, oil, timber, coffee, tea, copra, cocoa and vanilla. The majority of the population still lives a subsistence or semi-subsistence lifestyle in the rural areas and people who do live in urban centres often retain strong family and social connections to their villages.
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