1000 BCE–1300 CEIn-depth studyMarshallese stick chart in the Peabody Museum’s Pacific collection, Harvard University, photographed in 2012. A specifically Marshallese navigational teaching tradition—not a generic Polynesian map or evidence of all Pacific practices. The object’s maker and date are not established here.Picture source & rightsDaderot / Wikimedia Commons · CC0 · Resized and converted to WebP · Licence terms
Communities explored and settled the Pacific through voyages requiring skilled navigation and capable ocean-going craft. This broad survey begins long before European arrival.
Basalt walls, artificial islets and waterways at Nan Madol reveal a specifically Pohnpeian history of engineering, ceremony and political authority in Micronesia.
The killing of Gamilaraay people at Myall Creek exposes the violence accompanying settler expansion and the exceptional nature of the prosecutions that followed.
An agreement between Māori rangatira and the British Crown became central to New Zealand’s history. Its Māori and English texts conveyed different understandings of authority.
A Rewa River photograph, migration records and constitutional documents connect colonial rule with labour and political representation. This focused chapter distinguishes Indigenous Fijian workers, Indian indentured migrants and the unequal terms of inclusion before and at independence.
A portrait of George Tupou I introduces a kingdom that combined constitutional rights, inherited rank and regulated landholding. Historical legal editions and parliamentary records distinguish the 1875 settlement, British protection, women’s franchise and the recovery of responsibility for external affairs in 1970.
A colonial photograph, Samoan testimony and constitutional records connect partition, resistance and the independence of Western Samoa. This focused chapter distinguishes changing administrations, women’s organizing and the limits of political inclusion.
A long campaign secured overwhelming support for removing two discriminatory provisions from the Australian Constitution, while the wider struggle for equality continued.
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