British Crown colony established 10 October 1874 when Ratu Seru Epenisa Cakobau and senior Fijian chiefs ceded sovereignty to Queen Victoria, ending the short-lived Kingdom of Fiji; administered with a plantation economy built on indentured Indian labor from 1879.
Independence granted 10 October 1970, exactly 96 years after cession, becoming the Dominion of Fiji within the Commonwealth.
By the same cited historian, this ANU Press study reconstructs pre-cession Fijian society, chiefly confederacies and belief — the exact era of the Kubuna/Burebasaga/Tovata polities.
Standard twentieth-century history covering the colony's later decades through independence.