Between Two Crowns: British Encounters and the Royal Transformation of Tongan Political Institutions

This research paper, completed for HIST 6410 The British Empire, examined the ways that Tongan royal leaders adapted and adopted political and cultural institutions from the West to integrate Tonga into the imperial world order on their own terms and preserve native society. The research relied on primary and secondary sources, made available through the Library. The richest source was William Mariner's Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands, an 1817 book documenting an English castaway's four-year experience living with Tongan chiefs; I could access a digital copy of this old rare book through the Library's Gale Primary Sources. Even though Tonga may seem like a niche thing to research, I was able to find and use fantastic secondary sources through the Library, including the landmark 1999 biography of Queen Sālote and the publications of native anthropologist Sione Lātūkefu. The Library's resources make valuable sources accessible and historical research possible for students, so easily we might take them for granted.