Ratu Seru Epenisa Cakobau had offered to cede the islands, subject to being allowed to retain his Tui Viti (King of Fiji) title.

Rather than establish direct rule in all spheres, Gordon granted autonomy over local affairs to Fiji's chiefs, though they were now forbidden to engage in tribal warfare.

On 21 September, the district police inspector took a number of Fijians to Wakaya, and Graf von Luckner, not realising that they were unarmed, unwittingly surrendered.

In the years that followed, Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna, as he was later known, established himself as a leading chief in Fiji and set up institutions that safeguarded native Fijian land rights.

The Empire of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, on 8 December 1941 (Fiji time), marked the beginning of the Pacific War.

Fijians gained a reputation for bravery in the Solomon Islands campaign, with one war correspondent describing their ambush tactics as "death with velvet gloves."

[5] They disbanded a platoon they had organised, and contributed nothing more than one officer and 70 enlisted men in a reserve transport section, on condition that they not be sent overseas.

The refusal of Indo-Fijians to play an active role in the war efforts became part of the ideological construction employed by Fijian ethno-nationalists to justify interethnic tensions in the post-war years.

The Legislative Council was expanded to 32 members in 1953, 15 of them elected and divided equally among the three major ethnic constituencies (indigenous Fijians, Indo-Fijians, and Europeans).

The Fijian people as a whole were enfranchised for the first time in 1963, when the legislature was made a wholly elective body, except for 2 members out of 36 nominated by the Great Council of Chiefs.

Nevertheless, over the ensuing three years, the then Governor, Sir Derek Jakeway, treated the Members more and more like ministers, to prepare them for the advent of responsible government.

These demands were vigorously rejected by the ethnic Fijian delegation, who still feared loss of control over natively owned land and resources should an Indo-Fijian dominated government come to power.

Ongoing negotiations between Mara and Sidiq Koya, who had taken over the leadership of the mainly Indo-Fijian National Federation Party on Patel's death in 1969, led to a second constitutional conference in London, in April 1970, at which Fiji's Legislative Council agreed on a compromise electoral formula and a timetable for independence as a fully sovereign and independent nation with the Commonwealth.

The Legislative Council would be replaced with a bicameral Parliament, with a Senate dominated by Fijian chiefs and a popularly elected House of Representatives.