Port Moresby: History
=== Discovery by Europeans ===
In February 1873, the territory was discovered by the crew of HMS Basilisk, surveying the southern shore of New Guinea. Captain John Moresby named the harbour in honour of his father Fairfax Moresby and called the anchorage off Paga Hill "Port Moresby" on his charts. Europeans estimated the local population to be around 2000 people. The largest settlement, Hanuabada, consisted of five villages, populated by Motu and Koita people. The Motu were originally coastal dwellers, while the Koita came from the hills inland. There was significant intermarriage between these two groups. They were organised into units called iduhu, which are somewhat similar to clans.
In November 1873, four Polynesian teachers were sent to Port Moresby by the Reverend Samuel Macfarlane of the London Missionary Society. In November 1874, they were joined by the Reverend William George Lawes, who immediately built a mission house at Metoreia, opposite Elevala Island. Port Moresby was an important centre of trade, visited by distant tribes of New Guinea, which the missionaries hoped would help them reach more people.
In September 1877, a Pacific Islander working for the naturalist and collector Andrew Goldie found signs of gold at the junction of the Laloki and Goldie Rivers, within walking distance of Port Moresby. Anticipating a gold rush, entrepreneur William Bairstow Ingham set off from Cooktown in January 1878 to set up a store at Port Moresby. Around 100 miners arrived since April, but most of them left by the end of the year, finding no gold and suffering from diseases.
In March 1883, Sir Thomas McIlwraith, the Premier of Queensland, heard the story that German SMS Carola was about to leave Sydney for the South Seas "with object of annexation". On 20 March, he ordered Henry Chester, the police magistrate at Thursday Island, to sail for New Guinea and "take formal possession in Her Majesty's name of whole of the Island with exception of that portion in occupation of the Dutch". On 4 April, the Union Jack was raised at Port Moresby, and Chester read his proclamation in the presence of thirteen Europeans and about 200 Papuans.
The annexation was rejected by the imperial authorities, which expected the Australian colonies to share the expenses jointly. In May 1884, the Earl of Derby requested the colonies to provide £15,000 annually for the administration of New Guinea, which they agreed. On 10 October, Commodore James Erskine was cabled orders to proclaim the protectorate over the south-eastern coast of New Guinea. Deputy Commissioner for the Western Pacific Hugh Romilly, who also received a telegram from Lord Derby, proclaimed the protectorate in a short statement at Port Moresby on 23 October. Unknown to him, Erskine was also on his way to the island. Commodore held a grand ceremony of his own on 6 November, leaving Romilly in charge of the protectorate.
Special Commissioner Peter Scratchley arrived at Port Moresby in August 1885, choosing the site as a location for the colonial capital. In September, a plot of land to the south from Hanuabada was purchased for the government bungalow. Twenty-eight locals were paid a tomahawk, a handkerchief and half a pound of tobacco each.
The administration began the policy of segregating non-indigenous residential areas, which continued until the early 1960s, and built a two-mile fence around the government land. …