Aminio Baledrokadroka

Aminio Baledrokadroka (died 1926) was the charismatic leader of Fiji's Methodist (Wesleyan) missionary band to New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea in the latter part of the nineteenth century. He displayed excellent qualities of leadership in adversity and paved the way for later generations of native Fijian missionaries in spreading Christianity to other parts of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

Life The mission to New Britain was launched in June 1875, just forty years after the first Wesleyan missionaries Cargill and Cross brought Christianity to Fiji's shores in 1835. Just months after the tragic measles epidemic which killed 40,000 in Fiji, Reverend George Brown the Methodist missionary, appealed to the students of Navuloa Methodist Mission School, to embark on spreading the Christian gospel to their Melanesian brethren. Reverend George Brown, emphasized to the zealous native Fijian converts the dangers involved in missionary work and pointed out that they might well be going to their deaths. where he lies buried. Reverend Aminio Baledrokadroka and his fellow Fijian missionaries proselytization legacy and martyrdom is today honored in Kabakada village and the Province of East New Britain. A memorial monument was erected on top of the buried remains of the four slain martyrs on Vunela hilltop on 15 August 1975, the one hundredth anniversary of the arrival of the Fijian missionaries in the New Guinea islands. The burial site now known as the Fijian Cemetery holds 41 graves which are now part of the Vunela historical tourism site.