| Rotuma is a Fijian Dependency, consisting of the island of Rotuma and the nearby islets of Hatana, H?f Liua, Solkope, Solnoho and Uea. The island group is home to a small but unique indigenous race which constitutes a recognizable minority within the population of Fiji, known as "Rotumans". Its population at the 1996 census was 2810, although a large exodus of Rotumans from the island sees the population on mainland Fijian islands totalling 10,000.
The first known European sighting of Rotuma was in 1791, when Captain Edward Edwards and the crew of the HMS Pandora landed in search of sailors who had disappeared following the Mutiny on the Bounty.
A favorite of whaling ships in need of reprovisioning, in the mid-nineteenth century Rotuma became a haven for runaway sailors, some of whom were escaped convicts. Some of these deserters married local women and contributed their genes to an already heterogeneous pool; others met violent ends, reportedly at one another's hands.
Wesleyan missionaries from Tonga arrived on Rotuma in 1842, followed by Marist Catholics in 1847. Conflicts between the two groups, fueled by previous political rivalries among the chiefs of Rotuma's seven districts, resulted in hostilities that led the local chiefs in 1879 to ask Britain to annex the island group. On May 13, 1881, an anniversary now celebrated as Rotuma Day, a public holiday, Rotuma was officially ceded to the United Kingdom, seven years after Fiji became a colony. The colonial legacy can still be seen today in the variety of old churches that dot the landscape.
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