Editing Guadalcanal (section)

=== Early history ===
The island has been settled since at least 4500–2500 BC based on archaeological finds at Poha Cave and Vatuluma Posovi.<ref name="Review">{{cite web |last1=Walter |first1=Richard |last2=Sheppard |first2=Peter |title=A review of Solomon Island archaeology |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275213610 |website=Research Gate |date=February 2009| access-date=31 August 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1086/662201 |title=Lapita Colonization across the Near/Remote Oceania Boundary |year=2011 |last1=Sheppard |first1=Peter J. |journal=Current Anthropology |volume=52 |issue=6 |pages=799–840 |s2cid=162365253}}</ref> During the period 1200-800 BC, Austronesian [[Lapita]] peoples settled the islands.<ref name="Review"/>

A [[Spanish Empire|Spanish]] expedition from [[Peru]] in 1568 under the command of [[Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira]] were the first Europeans to see the island. Mendaña's subordinate, Pedro de Ortega Valencia, named the island after his home town [[Guadalcanal, Spain|Guadalcanal]] in Andalusia, Spain.<ref name=Guadalcanal>{{cite web |url=http://www.guadalcanal.com/ |title=Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands : A Tourism, Travel and Information Guide : Basecamp International |publisher=Guadalcanal.com |quote="The islands were named by a Spanish explorer, Alvaro de Mendaña de Neira, who, on finding alluvial gold on Guadalcanal in 1568, believed he had found the biblical King Solomon's source of gold." |access-date=2016-04-23 |archive-date=21 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180621093240/http://www.guadalcanal.com/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In the years that followed the discovery, the island was variously referred to as Guadarcana, Guarcana, Guadalcana, and Guadalcanar, which reflected different pronunciations of its name in Andalusian Spanish.

European settlers, whalers, and missionaries began to arrive in the 18th and 19th centuries. With these outsiders also arrived foreign institutions such as forced labour. Beginning during the 1860s, about 60,000 natives from many parts of the Solomon Islands were indentured and sent to Australia or Fiji by British authorities to work on plantations. This system continued into the 1890s.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |title=International Dictionary of Historical Places, Volume 5: Asia and Oceania |publisher=Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers |year=1996 |isbn=1-884964-04-4|editor-last=Schellinger|editor-first=Paul |location=Chicago |pages=298, 299|editor-last2=Salkin|editor-first2=Robert}}</ref> In the 1880s, the Germans and the British vied for control of the Solomons. Germany established a protectorate over the northern Solomons in 1884, while in 1893, the [[British Solomon Islands Protectorate]] was proclaimed, which included the island of Guadalcanal.<ref name="Guadalcanal"/><ref name=":0"/> Germany eventually handed over most of their protectorate to Britain, though, in 1899. By the early 20th century, large agricultural plantations (specialising in [[copra]]), run mainly by Australians, were established in the region. Guadalcanal was not seriously affected by World War I.<ref name=":0"/> In 1932, the British confirmed the name Guadalcanal in line with the town in Andalusia, Spain.