In January 1877, in the newly annexed British colony of Fiji, a planter named Patrick Scanlon apprehended Masiomo, an indentured Solomon Islander aged eighteen or nineteen who had run away from his employer, a neighbor of Scanlon. Scanlon was later to claim that Masiomo had broken into his house, armed with two spears, whereupon Scanlon in self-defense struck him down. Masiomo was beaten severely with a heavy stick, bound, and left on the ground outside Scanlon's kitchen overnight. Scanlon planned to notify his neighbor the next day to reclaim the man. Hearing his moans and seeing him bleeding, one of Scanlon's servants asked for permission to untie his bindings and dress his wounds, which Scanlon brusquely refused, fearing that he would then run away. Scanlon told another servant to watch all night against an escape. “He cannot escape,” the servant replied; “he cannot walk.” Scanlon did not reply to this. In the morning Masiomo was dead. The British takeover had brought a new regime to Fiji – the Fiji Times was to protest later that year that the employment of Polynesians since annexation had become surrounded by restrictive laws – and, somewhat to his surprise, Scanlon found himself arrested and charged with murder.