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The islands which now form the Republic ofKiribati have been inhabited variously. TheGilbert Islands may have been inhabited for three or four millennia, and certainly for several hundred years. ThePhoenix andLine islands, in contrast, seem to have only been inhabited intermittently, because any intended long-lived human inhabitations have been thwarted by droughts and such like. Regarding the Gilberts, the initialAustronesian peoples’ population, which remains the overwhelming majority today, was visited byPolynesian andMelanesian invaders before the firstEuropean sailors visited the islands in the 17th century. For much of the subsequent period, the islands were ruled as part of theBritish Empire.[1] The country gained its independence in 1979 and has since been known as Kiribati.[2]
For several millennia, the islands were inhabited byAustronesian peoples who had arrived from theSolomon Islands orVanuatu. TheI-Kiribati orGilbertese people settled what would become known as theGilbert Islands (named for British captainThomas Gilbert byvon Krusenstern in 1820) some time in between3000 BC[3][4] and 1300 AD.[5] Subsequent invasions bySamoans andTongans introducedPolynesian elements to the existingMicronesianculture, and invasions byFijians introducedMelanesian elements. Extensive intermarriage produced a population reasonably homogeneous in appearance, language and traditions.
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In 1606Pedro Fernandes de Queirós sightedButaritari andMakin, which he named the Buen Viaje ('good trip' in Spanish) Islands.[6]
CaptainJohn Byron passed through the islands in 1764 during his circumnavigation of the globe as captain ofHMSDolphin.[7]
In 1788, CaptainThomas Gilbert inCharlotte and CaptainJohn Marshall inScarborough. Messrs. Gilbert and Marshall passed close toAbemama,Kuria,Aranuka,Tarawa,Abaiang,Butaritari, andMakin without attempting to land on shore.[8]
In 1820, the islands were named theîles Gilbert (in French, Gilbert Islands) byAdam Johann von Krusenstern, a Russian admiral of theCzar after the British CaptainThomas Gilbert, who crossed the archipelago in 1788. In 1824, French captainLouis-Isidore Duperrey was the first to map the whole Gilbert Islands archipelago. He commandedLa Coquille on its circumnavigation of the earth (1822–1825).[9]
Two ships of theUnited States Exploring Expedition,USS Peacock (1828) andUSS Flying Fish (1838), under the command of Captain Hudson, surveyed theGilbert Islands ofTabiteuea,Nonouti,Aranuka,Maiana,Abemama,Kuria,Tarawa,Marakei,Butaritari, andMakin[10] (then called the Kingsmill Islands or Kingsmill Group in English). While in the Gilberts, they devoted considerable time to mapping and chartingreefs and anchorages.[11]Alfred Thomas Agate made drawings of men ofButaritari andMakin.[12]
At one time, a subset of the northern Gilbert islands was known asScarborough Islands and a subset of the southern Gilberts as theKingsmill Group; in some 19th century texts, this last name of Kingsmills was applied to the entire Gilberts group.[13]
Missionaries began to be active in the Gilbert Islands in the 1850s. DrHiram Bingham II of theAmerican Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) arrived onAbaiang in 1857. The protestant missionaries of theLondon Missionary Society (LMS) were active in the southern Gilberts. On 15 October 1870, Rev. Samuel James Whitmee of the LMS arrived atArorae, and later that month he visitedTamana,Onotoa andBeru.[14] In August 1872,George Pratt of the LMS visited the islands.[15] The Roman Catholic faith was introduced onNonouti around 1880 by 2 Gilbert islanders, Betero and Tiroi, who had become christians in Tahiti. Father Joseph Leray, Father Edward Bontemps and Brother Conrad Weber, Roman CatholicMissionaries of the Sacred Heart arrived on Nonouti in 1888.[16]
Robert Louis Stevenson,Fanny Vandegrift Stevenson, and her sonLloyd Osbourne, stayed for 2 months onAbemama in 1889, which was described by Stevenson in his account of the 1889 voyage of theEquator published asIn the South Seas[17][18] At the time of their visit, the High Chief wasTembinok', the last of the dozens of expansionist chiefs of Gilbert Islands of this period, despite Abemama historically conforming to the traditional southern islands' governance of their respectiveunimwaane. Tembinok' was immortalised in Stevenson's book as "the last tyrant",[19] with Stevenson delved into the high chief's character and method of rule during his stay on Abemama; Tembinok' controlled the access of European traders to the atolls under his control and jealously guarded his revenue and his prerogatives as monarch.[18]
Robert Louis Stevenson, Fanny Vandegrift Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne also visitedButaritari from 14 July 1889 to early August.[20] At this time Bureimoa was the ruler of Butaritari andMakinatolls, his father being Kaiea and his grandfather beingTeitimararoa.[18]
Bureimoa allowed two San Francisco trading firms to operate, Messrs. Crawford and Messrs. Wightman Brothers, with up to 12 Europeans resident on islands of theatolls. The presence of the Europeans, and the alcohol they traded to the islanders, resulted in periodic alcoholic binges that only ended with Bureimoa making tapu (forbidding) the sale of alcohol. During the 15 or so days that Stevenson spent on Butaritari the islanders were engaged in a drunken spree that threatened the safety of Stevenson and his family. Stevenson adopted the strategy of describing himself as the son ofQueen Victoria so as to ensure that he would be treated as a person who should not be threatened or harmed.[18]
Robert Louis Stevenson, Fanny Vandegrift Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne returned to Abemama in July 1890 during their cruise on the trading steamer,Janet Nicoll.[21]
The first traders resident in the Gilberts were Richard Randell and George Durant who arrived in 1846.[22] Durant moved on toMakin, while Randell remained onButaritari.[23] The earliesttrading companies on Butaritari were theHamburg-based Handels-und Plantagen-Gesellschaft der Südsee-Inseln zu Hamburg (DHPG) with Pacific headquarters inSamoa, andOn Chong (Chinese traders withAustralian connections via the goldfields). The Japanese trading companyNanyo Boeki Kabushiki Kaisha established operations on Butaritari. Two San Francisco trading firms, Messrs. Crawford and Messrs. Wightman Brothers, were operating on Butaritari in 1889.[24]
W. R. Carpenter & Co. (Solomon Islands) Ltd was established in 1922.[25][26][27] Through the 1920s On Chong experienced gradual decline in its operations as the result of lowcopra prices. Eventually On Chong was taken over by W. R. Carpenter & Co. These traders helped Butaritari became the commercial and trading capital of theGilbert Islands untilBurns Philp, the trading company based in Sydney, Australia, moved toTarawa, following the seat of political power.
Whalers,blackbirders, and merchant vessels arrived in great numbers in the 19th century, and the resulting upheaval fomented local tribal conflicts and introduced damaging European diseases. In an effort to restore a measure of order, the Gilbert Islands were declared as theBritish Protectorate by CaptainEdward Davis ofHMS Royalist (1883) on 27 May 1892.[28][29] The neighboringEllice Islands (nowTuvalu) were declared a British Protectorate later in 1892.[30] The Gilbert and Ellice Islands Protectorate was administered as part of theBritish Western Pacific Territories (BWPT).[30]
The BWPT were administered by aHigh Commissioner resident inFiji until 1952, then inHoniara.
AResident Commissioner,Charles Swayne, was appointed in 1893 following the protectorate on the Gilbert group and on the Ellice group becoming formal and effective in 1892. The protectorate's headquarters was established onTarawa in 1896, where Resident CommissionerWilliam Telfer Campbell presided from 1896 until 1908. The headquarters were then moved toOcean Island (now Banaba), and continued upon the transition to a Crown Colony. This move in headquarters arose from the operations of thePacific Phosphate Company resulting in good shipping connections to Ocean Island, and in any case the role of the British colonial authorities emphasised the procurement of labour for the mining and shipping ofphosphate and keeping order among the workers.[31][32]
Ocean Island (now Banaba) was included in the protectorate in 1900 and then in the colony in 1916.[31][32] In the same year,Fanning Island andWashington Island were included in it together with the islands of theUnion Islands (now Tokelau).[33]
In 1916, the administration of the BWTP changed as the islands became aCrown Colony on 12 January 1916. But the new colony remained under the jurisdiction of BWTP until 1971.[34]
The islands became aCrown Colony on 12 January 1916 by the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Order in Council, 1915.[35]Christmas Island was included in the colony in 1919 although it was contested by the U.S. under theGuano Islands Act of 1856.[36] TheUnion Islands were unofficially transferred to New Zealand administration in 1926 and officially in 1948. ThePhoenix Islands were added in 1937 and the five islands of the Central and SouthernLine Islands were added in 1972.[33]
The Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony continued to be administered by a Resident Commissioner. One very famous colonial officer in the colony was SirArthur Grimble (1888–1956), at first as a cadet officer in 1914, underEdward Carlyon Eliot who wasResident Commissioner of the BWPT then the colony from 1913 to 1920. This period is described in Eliot's book "Broken Atoms" (autobiographical reminiscences) (Pub. G. Bles, London, 1938) and in SirArthur Grimble's "A Pattern of Islands" (Pub. John Murray, London, 1952).Arthur Grimble became theResident Commissioner of the colony in 1926. In 1930 Grimble, issued revised laws,Regulations for the good Order and Cleanliness of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, which replaced laws created during the BWPT.
Ocean Island remained the headquarters of the colony until the British evacuation in 1942 because of theJapanese occupation of the Gilbert Islands. After World War II, the colony headquarters was re-established onTarawa, first onBetio islet (then occupied by American forces following theBattle for Tarawa) and subsequently onBairiki.[33][37][38]
Japan seized part of the islands duringWorld War II to form part of their island defenses. On 20 November 1943,Allied forces threw themselves against Japanese positions atTarawa andMakin in the Gilberts, resulting in some of the bloodiest fighting of thePacific campaign. TheBattle of Tarawa and theBattle of Makin (in fact Butaritari) were a major turning point in the war for the Allies, which battles were the implementation of "Operation Galvanic".[39]
The formation of theUnited Nations Organisation after World War II resulted in theUnited Nations Special Committee on Decolonization committing to a process of decolonisation; as a consequence the British colonies in the Pacific started on a path toself-determination.
As a consequence of the1974 Ellice Islands self-determination referendum,[40] separation occurred in two stages. The Tuvaluan Order 1975 made by thePrivy Council, which took effect on 1 October 1975, recognisedTuvalu as a separate British dependency with its own government. The second stage occurred on 1 January 1976 when separate administrations were created out of the civil service of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony.[41]
TheGilberts obtained internal self-government in 1977 and held general elections in February 1978 which sawIeremia Tabai elected Chief Minister at only age 27.Kiribati attained independence as arepublic within the Commonwealth of Nations on 12 July 1979 by theKiribati Independence Order 1979 made by thePrivy Council of the United Kingdom.
Although the indigenousGilbertese language name for the Gilbert Islands proper isTungaru, the new state chose the name "Kiribati," the Gilbertese rendition of "Gilberts," as an equivalent of the former colony to acknowledge the inclusion of islands which were never considered part of the Gilberts chain.[42] The United States gave up its claims to 14 islands of the Line and Phoenix chains (previously asserted under theGuano Islands Act) in the 1979Treaty of Tarawa.[43]
Following independence, the Kiribatihead of state was 29-year-oldIeremia Tabai. Tabai served three terms asBeretitenti (President), from 1979 to 1991. Tabai was the youngest head of state in theCommonwealth of Nations.
In 1994,Teburoro Tito was electedBeretitenti. He was reelected in 1998 and 2002 but was ousted in a no-confidence vote in March 2003, and having served the maximum three terms, he is barred by the constitution from running for another term. Tito's temporary replacement wasTion Otang, the Council of State chairman. In 2003, a new presidential election was held, in which two brothers, Anote and Harry Tong, were the two main candidates (a third candidate,Banuera Berina, won just 9.1% of the vote.
Anote Tong, aLondon School of Economics graduate,won on 4 July 2003, and was sworn in as President soon afterward. He wasre-elected in 2007 and in 2012 for athird term.[44]
In March 2016,Taneti Maamau waselected as the new President of Kiribati. He was the fifth president since the country became independent in 1979.[45] In June 2020, President Maamau wonre-election for second four-year term. President Maamau was considered pro-China and he supported closer ties with Beijing.[46]
An emotional issue has been the protracted bid by the residents ofBanaba to secede and have their island placed under the protection ofFiji. BecauseBanaba was devastated by phosphate mining,[31][32] the vast majority ofBanabans was deported to the island ofRabi in the Fiji Islands in the 1940s where they now number some 5,000 and enjoy full Fijian citizenship. The Kiribati government has responded by including several special provisions in the Constitution, such as the designation of a Banaban seat in the legislature and the return of land previously acquired by the government for phosphate mining. Only around 300 people remain on Banaba. Despite being part of Kiribati, Banaba's municipal administration is by theRabi Council of Leaders and Elders, which is based onRabi Island, inFiji. In 2006,Teitirake Corrie, the Rabi Island Council's representative to theParliament of Kiribati, called for Banaba to secede from Kiribati and join Fiji.
When theCOVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020, Kiribati closed off its borders, to the extent that citizens living abroad were prevented from returning. The nation remained free of the infection and in late 2021, as the case rate seemed to be declining in many countries, the government considered relaxing restrictions. By that time, 33 percent of the nation's residents had been fully vaccinated against infection. In January 2022, a group of Kiribati citizens who had been living and travelling abroad asmissionaries forthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when the pandemic began returned to Kiribati on a chartered plane. Despite negative tests for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 before and after arrival, and a quarantine period, 36 of the 54 passengers tested positive soon after their arrival. Within a few days, the viral infection had spread to more than 180 members of the community.[47]
