The Japanese settlers in Papua and New Guinea, 1890-1949

Japanese emigration to Papua and New Guinea began around the turn of the 19th century, as an offshoot from the settlement of Japanese pearl divers on Thursday Island. An adventurous Japanese skipper, Komine Isokichi, explored the waters of New Guinea in a schooner, for new shell fishing grounds. He reached Rabaul in New Britain in 1901 to meet Governor Hahl. Komine managed to develop a good relationship with the German administration. In 1910 he acquired a lease in Manus Island and Rabaul and began operating a copra plantation, trochus shell fishing and boatbuilding. More importantly, he began to bring in Japanese employees. However, after the outbreak of World War I, immigration policy and trade restriction by the Australian military administration and later by the civil administration blocked the expansion of the Japanese settlement. The Japanese population declined from 109 in 1914 to 36 in 1939. At the outbreak of the Pacific War Japanese residents were all arrested and interned in Australia just before the landing of Japanese troops. The internees from Papua and New Guinea were never allowed to return, on security grounds. Thus the Japanese settlement vanished. The national policies of both Japan and Australia determined their fate. Japanese nanshin-ron (southward advancement theory) advocates and Australian officials created the image of the settlers pawns of nanshin (southward advancement). However, their perceptions, based on each national interest, are partial. In this thesis I aim to present wider perceptions on the settlers in order to construct a more comprehensive history. I set my analysis in the contexts of Japanese social history and the colonial history of Papua and New Guinea, attempting to conceptualise the position of these migrants in a European colonial apparatus