Nukulau Island

Nukulau Island is a small islet belonging to Fiji. It has sea and air links with Suva, Fiji's capital, which lies about fifteen kilometers to the west. It is an island rich in history, which has played a pivotal role in Fiji's demographic and political development over the past 160 years.

Nukulau played a role in the ceding of Fiji to the British Crown in 1874. In 1846, John Brown William, an American settler, had purchased the island for a mere thirty dollars. He subsequently lived there, in the wooden two-story house he built, till 1849. On July 4 of that year, during American Independence Day celebrations, the house was destroyed in a fire which started from a canon burst, and his belongings that he had salvaged from the fire were subsequently looted by natives. William blamed Cakobau, the King of Viti Levu (the largest Fijian kingdom of that time), for the looting, and, supported by the United States Navy, demanded $44,000 in compensation. Cakobau's inability to pay was a major factor in his decision to cede the islands to the United Kingdom in 1874, ushering in almost a century of British rule.

Historians now believe that the debt was created exaggerated and largely fabricated.

The colourful history of Nukulau Island did not end with the advent of British rule. From 1879 to 1916, the island served as a quarantine centre for thousands of Indian indentured labourers brought in by the British colonial rulers. After health checks, they were subsequently employed on Fiji's sugar plantations, or else repatriated to the Indian Sub-continent.

Today, Nukulau is now best known as the location of Fiji's jail, where George Speight, the instigator of the 2000 coup that deposed Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry's government, is now serving a life-sentence for treason.