Ratu Seru Cakobau

Who is Ratu Seru Cakobau?

Ratu Seru Epenisa Cakobau was the Vunivalu (warlord-chief) of Bau, a small but powerful island off the coast of Viti Levu, and became the most influential Fijian chief of the nineteenth century. Through military conquest and shifting alliances he extended Bau's authority over much of the Fiji group during the 1840s-1850s, and Western traders and missionaries came to treat him as the closest thing Fiji had to a paramount ruler, styling him "Tui Viti" (King of Fiji). Facing mounting debts to foreign powers, internal rivalries among competing chiefdoms, and pressure from British settlers, Cakobau converted to Christianity in 1854, a turning point that accelerated the spread of the faith across the islands. On 10 October 1874, Cakobau and twelve other high chiefs signed the Deed of Cession, formally ceding Fiji to the British Empire, ending Fiji's era of independent chiefly rule and opening the colonial period. He died in 1883, remembered as the chief whose decisions shaped Fiji's transition into the modern era.

Sources: Deed of Cession, 10 October 1874 (National Archives of Fiji) · R.A. Derrick, A History of Fiji (Government Press, Suva, 1946) · Wikipedia, "Seru Epenisa Cakobau"