Epilogue

This epilogue addresses how David Whippy, Mary D. Wallis, and John B. Williams—as they pursued respect in different ways—became party to the many changes taking place in Fiji due to foreign influence. Whippy, Wallis, and Williams were all involved, in one way or another, in the U.S.–Fiji trade. In the twentieth century, new incentives enticed Americans to Fiji. American global activism and private development schemes involved Fiji as much as other places around the world, and medical aid and research sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and a Carnegie Library at Suva introduced new forms of American influence in the islands. World War II, of course, brought Americans to the islands in droves. However, the main avenue by which Americans would come to Fiji was through the third wave of economic development that succeeded the sugar plantations of colonial Fiji: tourism. Now that the face of Fiji presented to the rest of the world evokes pleasure instead of fear, references to the cannibal isles have become nothing more than a nostalgic nod to Fiji's past. Previously considered a site of American wealth production, the islands have now become a site of American consumption.