In the Long 'Run': Kanak Stockmen, The Cattle Frontier and Colonial Power Relations in New Caledonia, 1870-1988 (Report‪)‬

In the French settler colony of New Caledonia, the 'bush' and the rural world of the stockman hold an important place in the popular mythology of an increasingly urbanised society. Drawing on archival and oral sources as well as microhistorical and ethnographic approaches, this study sketches the involvement of Kanak as stockmen in the cattle industry over more than one hundred years. With particular reference to the locality of Kone, it traces the alliances fashioned between Kanak station workers and their employers in the context of colonisation, rebellion, evangelisation, post-war political emancipation, local development and the struggle for independence. By bringing this figure into focus we aim to provide a new perspective on colonial relations and transformations in New Caledonia. While some of the relations or dynamics described here will be familiar from other parts of the world such as Australia (e.g., Baker 1999: 102-116; Brock 1995; McGrath 1987; May 1994; Paterson 2008; Stevens 1974) and the Americas (e.g., Iverson 1997), including Hawaii (Fischer 2007), in the context of New Caledonia this is a pioneering study which develops, and brings together, our earlier research on the history of the Kone region (Muckle 2004, 2006; Trepied 2007) and our realisation of the importance of the stockman as a political figure. Several studies have documented the historical development of the cattle industry in New Caledonia (Dubois 1984; Pillon 1989; Saussol 1979) and noted the participation of Kanak, but none has closely examined this participation from the perspective of either social, cultural, political or labour history (let alone environmental, ecological or archaeological perspectives). As a result, the dominant image of the extension of the cattle frontier in New Caledonia remains that of a 'fatal impact', documenting the ways in which Kanak were pushed off their land by cattle or provoked into revolt but seldom discussing other practical forms of Kanak engagement with the industry. A common assumption, for example, is that Kanak on New Caledonia's Grande Terre simply did not participate in the colonial economy or could only be made to do so through forced labour or the implementation of head taxes. It is this kind of fallacy--identified in Australia as a 'popular racist assumption' (Curthoys and Moore 1995: 2)--that this study, along with other recent works in the field (e.g., Grochain 2007), aims to help redress.