The Gilbert and Ellice Islands was a British territory in the southern Pacific Ocean from 1892 to 1976, comprising the present-day independent countries of Kiribati and Tuvalu.
The Gilbert Islands and Ellice Islands (the colonial name of Tuvalu) were made British protectorates in 1892 and placed under the jurisdiction of the Western Pacific High Commission. They were administered through a resident commissioner, who based on Tarawa until 1908 and then moved to Ocean Island (Banaba) as the phosphate mining industry on Ocean Island became of economic importance. In 1916, the protectorate was made a Crown colony as the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony (GEIC). Portions of the outlying Line Islands and Phoenix Islands were also added the colony.
The Japanese invaded and occupied most of the Gilbert Islands during World War II. British administration resumed after the war's end, with moves towards self-determination beginning in the 1950s. A new constitution was adopted in 1967 allowing for the first general elections and self-government was granted in 1972. The final decades of the colony's existence were marked by tension between the majority Gilbertese and the minority Tuvaluan populations, who spoke different languages and were of Micronesian and Polynesian origin respectively. In 1974, the Ellice Islands voted in favour of separation and the GEIC was split into separate colonies with effect from 1976. Tuvalu and Kiribati achieved full independence in 1978 and 1979, respectively.
Location
The Gilbert IslandsReilly Ridgell. Pacific Nations and Territories: The Islands of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia. 3rd. Ed. Honolulu: Bess Press, 1995. p. 95. sometimes also known as Kingsmill Islands or King's-Mill Islands are a chain of sixteen atolls and coral islands in the western Pacific Ocean. They are part of Remote Oceania, and traditionally part of the Micronesia subregion of Oceania. The Gilbert Islands are the main part of what is now the Republic of Kiribati ("Kiribati" is the Gilbertese rendition of "Gilberts") The atolls of the Gilbert Islands are arranged in an approximate north-to-south line.
Geographically, the Equator is the dividing line between the northern Gilbert Islands and the southern Gilbert Islands. South of the Gilbert Islands lie the Ellice Islands (now called Tuvalu), which were previously politically connected as part of the GEIC. The Ellice Islands comprise three reef islands and six true atolls, spread out between the latitude of 5° to 10° south and longitude of 176° to 180°, west of the International Date Line. The Ellice Islands are midway between Hawaii and Australia, and they, too, lie in the Polynesia subregion of Oceania.
European discovery and naming
In 1568, when Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira was commissioned to explore the South Pacific, he sailed relatively close to the Gilbert Islands. He sailed between the Line Islands and the Phoenix Islands, but without sighting land. The first recorded sighting by Europeans of an Ellice Island was on 16 January 1568, when Álvaro de Mendaña sailed past Nui and charted it as Isla de Jesús (Spanish for "Island of Jesus") because the previous day was the feast of the Holy Name. Mendaña made contact with the islanders but was unable to land.Maude, H.E. "Spanish discoveries in the Central Pacific. A study in identification", in Journal of the Polynesian Society, Wellington, LXVIII, (1959), pages 299,303. During Mendaña's second voyage across the Pacific, he passed Niulakita on 29 August 1595, which he named La Solitaria.
In 1606, Pedro Fernandes de Queirós sighted two of the islands in the Gilbert island group: Butaritari and Makin, which he named the Buen Viaje Islands ('good trip' islands in Spanish).Kelly, Celsus, O.F.M. La Austrialia del Espiritu Santo. The Journal of Fray Martín de Munilla O.F.M. and other documents relating to the Voyage of Pedro Fernández de Quirós to the South Sea (1605–1606) and the Franciscan Missionary Plan (1617–1627) Cambridge, 1966, pages 39, 62.
Commodore John Byron passed through the Ellice islands in 1765, during his circumnavigation of the globe on in company with HMS Tamar (1758). He charted the atolls as Lagoon Islands. Commodore Byron visited Nikunau on 2 July 1765, and the island was referred to on European maps for a while as Byron's Island in his honour and I-Nikunau going away to work as whaling ships' crew were sometimes given the surname, Byron).Byron, J. & Clerke, C. (attributed to). (1767). A voyage round the world in His Majesty's Ship the ‘Dolphin’, commanded by the honourable commodore Byron. London: J. Newbery and F. Newbery.Macdonald, B. K. (1982). Cinderellas of the Empire: Towards a History of Kiribati and Tuvalu, Australian National University Press, Canberra.
Nanumea was sighted by Spanish naval officer Francisco Mourelle de la Rúa who sailed past it on 5 May 1781 with frigate La Princesa, when attempting a southern crossing of the Pacific from the Philippines to New Spain. He charted Nanumea as San Augustin.Keith S. Chambers & Doug Munro, The Mystery of Gran Cocal: European Discovery and Mis-Discovery in Tuvalu, 89(2) (1980) The Journal of the Polynesian Society, pages 167–198Laumua Kofe, Palagi and Pastors, Tuvalu: A History, Chapter 15, (USP / Tuvalu government)
In 1788, Thomas Gilbert, a British captain, encountered the archipelago while commanding one of two ships of the First Fleet that were looking for an outer passage route from Port Jackson to Canton. In 1820, a Russian admiral, Johann von Krusenstern, named the group "îles Gilbert" (French for Gilbert Islands) in honor of Captain Gilbert's earlier voyage. Around that time, the French captain Louis Duperrey became the first to map the whole Gilbert Islands archipelago. He commanded La Coquille, circumnavigating the globe between 1822 and 1825.
In 1809, Captain Patterson in the brig Elizabeth sighted Nanumea while passing through the northern Tuvalu waters on a trading voyage from Port Jackson, Sydney, Australia to China. Captain Arent de Peyster sighted the rest of the Ellice island group in 1819, while sailing the ship Rebecca. He named Funafuti atoll "Ellice's Island", after Edward Ellice, a British politician and merchant who owned the ship's cargo.Miscellanies: by an officer, Volume 1, Chapter LXXX By John Watts De Peyster, A.E. Chasmer & Co. (1888). After the work of English hydrographer Alexander George Findlay was published, the name Ellice was applied to all nine islands in the Ellice Island group, which is now called Tuvalu.Findlay Alexander George, A Directory for the Navigation of the Pacific Ocean: With Description of Its Coasts, Islands, Etc. from the Strait of Magalhaens to the Arctic Sea.
Two ships of the United States Exploring Expedition, and , under the command of Captain Hudson, surveyed the Gilbert Islands of Tabiteuea, Nonouti, Aranuka, Maiana, Abemama, Kuria, Tarawa, Marakei, Butaritari, and Makin (then called the Kingsmill Islands or Kingsmill Group in English). While in the Gilberts, they devoted considerable time to mapping and charting reefs and anchorages.Tyler, David B. – 1968 The Wilkes Expedition. The First United States Exploring Expedition (1838–42). Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society Alfred Thomas Agate made drawings of men of Butaritari and Makin.
'Spheres of influence' in the western and central Pacific Nikunau was the centre of New England and other Atlantic whalers' operations in the 1820s to 1860s on the On-the-Line grounds (the Line refers to the Equator). Coconut oil and copra trading companies from New South Wales, New Zealand and California followed, setting up stations on Butaritari.Maude, H. E., & Leeson, I. (1965). The Coconut Oil Trade of the Gilbert Island, Journal of the Polynesian Society, 74, pp. 396–437.
In 1886 Britain and Germany agreed to divide up the western and central Pacific, with each claiming a 'sphere of influence'. In the previous decade German traders had become active in Samoa, the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, Marshall Islands and the Caroline Islands. In 1877 the Governor of Fiji was given the additional title of High Commissioner for the Western Pacific. However, the claim of a 'sphere of influence' that included the Ellice Islands and the Gilbert Islands did not result in the immediate move to govern those islands. Ships from the navies of the United States of America and European powers that visited the Gilbert and Ellice Islands included:
United Kingdom Ships of the Royal Navy, on the Australian Station, were involved in suppressing the coercive labour recruitment practices, known as blackbirding in the South Pacific Ocean.
1872: from 10 to 14 October, the sloop , under Captain Cortland Herbert Simpson, visited Tawara, Abaiang and Butaritari. Also in 1872, the sloop , under Captain John Moresby, visited the Gilberts, and the corvette , under Captain Lewis James Moore, visited Tabiteuea.
1873: from 28 to 30 June, the schooner , under Captain Francis W. Sanders, lands islanders on Tabiteuea and Maiana who had been kidnapped in 1871 by the brig Carl. The screw sloop also visited the Gilberts in 1873.
1874: in August, the screw sloop , under Commander Arthur Edward Dupuis, visited Tawara and Abaiang searching for William "Bully" Hayes, who was notorious for his blackbirding activities.
1875: the survey ship , under Commander Richard Hare, visited the Gilberts.
1876: from April to June, the schooner , under Lieutenant Horace J. M. Pugh, visited Abaiang and Tawara, regarding the murders in 1874, of Cornelius Sullivan on Tarawa, and St. John C. Keyes on Abaiang. The screw sloop , under Commander Noel Stephen Fox Digby, was also sent to the Gilberts in support of HMS Renard.
1881: from 13 May to 6 June, the corvette HMS , under Captain William Maxwell, visited the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.
1883: from 26 May to 10 June, the sloop , under Captain Cyprian Bridge, visited the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.
1884: from 13 June to 26 July, the survey ship , under Lieutenant-Commander W. W. Moore, visited the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. Moore, W.U., Lt. Reports of Proceedings of H.M.S. 'Dart' in the Fiji, Ellice, Gilbert, Marshall, New Britain, &c., Gr oups, from May to September, 1884. in: RNAS XVI, 26. Government Printer, Sydney.
1886: from 10 May to 26 June, the sloop , under Commander Eustace Rooke, visited the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. Rooke, Eustace. Reports of Commander Eustace Rooke, HMS Miranda, of Proceedings when visiting Islands of the Union Group, Sophia and Rotuman Islands, the Ellice Group and the Gilbert Group. April to July 1886. 29pp (NS National Archives). Royal Navy, Australian Station, Gov't Printer, Sydney.
1892: from 14 April to 30 August, the screw sloop , under Captain Edward Davis, visited the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.
United States 1825: the schooner , under Lieutenant Hiram Paulding, visited Nikunau and Tabiteuea.Paulding, Hiram. Journal of a Cruise of the United States Schooner Dolphin, Among the Islands of the Pacific Ocean; and a Visit to the Mulgrave Islands, in Pursuit of the Mutineers of the Whale Ship Globe. New York: G. & C. & H. Carvill, 1831.
1870: from 15 to 26 May, the sloop , under Captain William Truxtun, visited Tawara, Abaiang and Butaritari.
1872: in August, the sloop visited Nikunau, Beru, Tabiteuea, Abaiang and Tawara.
1889: the steam powered sloop visited Butaritari.
France 1874: the corvette L'Ariane visited Arorae and Ocean Island. 1888: the cruiser Le Fabert, under Commander Benoit, visited Nikunau, Nonouti and Butaritari to deliver Father Joseph Leray, Father Edward Bontemps and Brother Conrad Weber, Roman Catholic Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, who were the first Roman Catholic missionaries to arrive in the Gilberts.
Germany