These strange little islands. The natives can’t quite work out how to be independent, if it means the end of the subsidy. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
The stamp printers did a good job with this one. From the style, I would have guesses that the stamp was 20 years newer than it was. It shows the Kagu bird, an almost flightless bird that is the symbol of New Caledonia and only exists in the wild there.
Todays stamp is issue A23 a 40 Centimes stamp of New Caledonia issued in 1948. It was part of a 19 stamp issue that were the first stamps issued after New Caledonia ceased being a colony and became an overseas department of France. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 45 cents used.
The first inhabitants of New Caledonia were the Lapita people who went extinct around 500 AD. Next came the Kanack, a Micronesian people. The first European to spot the island group was Captain Cook, who thought it resembled Scotland and named it New Caledonia after the Roman name of the Scottish territory beyond their frontier. Contact with Europeans was scattered and often unfriendly. An American whaling ship that landed in 1849 saw their crew captured and eaten. The French gradually took a bigger influence banning slavery and cannibalism, and sent many missionaries. The Kagu bird was a sensation with the French and many were taken for zoos and efforts taken to stop the natives from eating the nearly flightless bird.
The fist economic activity was the sandalwood trade with China but the supply on the island was quickly worked through. In 1864 nickel was discovered and mining started in 1875 and local smelting in 1879. On one hand, the Kanack people claim they were often tricked into contract labor on other islands in a process called blackbirding. On the other hand, they also complain about being excluded from working in the mines or smelters. Of course both could be true at least anecdotally and it must have been annoying to see such lucrative activity going on and the funds from it staying with the French and their colonial authorities that only benefited them in terms of education, healthcare, and the dole.
The Kanacks repeatedly rebelled and their warriors then killed leaving great numbers of orphans for the colonial authorities to look after. One activity they were allowed to be part of was guarding the great number of prisoners that France sent to penal colonies on the island. Unlike Australia, few of the French prisoners stayed in New Caledonia after their prison time ended.
After the war, France granted New Caledonia the status of an overseas department and bestowed French citizenship on all residents of the islands, no mater their ethnicity. Nickel is still 95 percent of the exports of the island but it still relies on over a billion Euros a year in direct subsidies from France. The remaining Kanacks continue to lead an independence movement but they are now less than 40 percent of the population. In 2018, there was a vote on independence and 56% voted to stay French. France has acted happy about that, just as they acted sad after losing a similar vote in the former colony of Djibouti in 1979. The Kagu bird is down to fewer than 1000 in the wild but has been granted endangered status and there is an active breeding program at the local zoo.
Well my drink is empty and so I will flip a nickel to see if I should have another…. I lost, I wonder if whatever small amount of nickel is still in the coin came from New Caledonia. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.