A plea to the Queen
IN January 1969 Dr Lindsay Verrier, a close friend of then Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, sent a cable to the Queen appealing for her intervention.
This was reported in The Fiji Times of January 5, 1969.
This paper noted that Dr Lindsay was alarmed by the sale of Wakaya Island to an American real estate specialist for $340,000 and tried to block the transaction.
His cable was addressed to the Queen's private secretary at Buckingham Palace.
"On behalf of the Fijian people of Wakaya Island, I humbly and respectfully implore Her Majesty's intervention in the monstrous purported sale of island freehold to foreign interests in spite of Fijian Affairs Board's written undertaking not to sell," Dr Verrier was quoted in The Fiji Times as saying.
"Unadvertised negotiations would dispose of recently regained freehold at one-tenth of its value. King of Wakaya and his people humbly look to the throne for redress."
Rebutting the statement, a spokesman for the Fijian Affairs Board said no such title as the Tui Wakaya existed nor has it ever existed.
"…people who claim to be descendants from the survivors of the Wakaya war in 1852 have no more right to the island than any other Fijian who claims to be descended from the original owners of the land that is now freehold," the FAB spokesman said.
The spokesman said the first record of a sale of Wakaya was in a letter written by David Whippy and printed in the Wilkes expedition records.
This said the island was sold by Tui Levuka in 1840 to Captain Houghton of the Currency Lass.
Twelver years later Tui Levuka drove the Wakaya people from the island. Many died by leaping over the cliff and the survivors settled in Koro.
In November 1857, after the island had been unoccupied for five years, Tui Levuka sold it to Isaac Bower and Robert Swanston.
Cakobau objected to the sale, saying the island belonged to him, and Fordham, the missionary, wrote a letter on his behalf to the American Consul, threatening to oppose the sale when the next British warship visited the group.
There was no other record of his objection.
The spokesman said the Lands Claims Commission investigated the sale and had no hesitation in declaring it to be a lawful.