history of Tuvalu

history of Tuvalu, a survey of notable events and people in the history of Tuvalu, from ancient times to the present day. Tuvalu, located in the west-central Pacific Ocean, is composed of nine small coral islands scattered in a chain lying approximately northwest to southeast over a distance of some 420 miles (676 km). The de facto capital is the village of Vaiaku, where most government offices are located. It is on Fongafale islet, which is part of Funafuti Atoll. Together with what is now Kiribati (consisting primarily of the Gilbert Islands), Tuvalu formed the British Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony before separately gaining its independence in 1978.

The first settlers of what is now Tuvalu were from Samoa, Tokelau, Tonga, and/or Uvea and probably arrived about 2,000 years ago. Smaller numbers subsequently arrived from Tonga, the northern Cook Islands, Rotuma, and the Gilbert Islands. Niulakita, Tuvalu’s smallest and southernmost island, was uninhabited before European contact. The other islands had been settled by the 18th century, giving rise to the name Tuvalu, or “Cluster of Eight.”

Europeans first encountered the islands in the 16th century, through the voyages of Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira, but it was only from the 1820s, with visits by whalers and traders, that the islands were reliably placed on European charts. In 1863 labour recruiters from Peru kidnapped some 400 people, mostly from Nukulaelae and Funafuti, reducing the population of the island group to fewer than 2,500. A few people were later recruited for plantations in Queensland, Australia, as well as in Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii. Concern over labour recruiting and a desire for protection help to explain the enthusiastic response to Samoan pastors of the London Missionary Society who arrived in what is now Tuvalu in the 1860s. By 1900 Protestant Christianity had been firmly established there.

With imperial expansion, the island group, then known as the Ellice Islands, became a British protectorate in 1892 and part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony in 1916. There was a gradual expansion of government services, but most administration was through island governments supervised by a single district officer based on Funafuti. Ellice Islanders sought education and employment at the colonial capital in the Gilbert group or in the phosphate industry at Banaba or Nauru. During World War II, U.S. forces were based on Nanumea, Nukufetau, and Funafuti, but hostilities did not reach the island group.

From the 1960s, racial tension and rivalries over employment emerged between Gilbertese and Ellice Islanders. Ellice Islanders’ demands for secession resulted in a referendum in 1974, transition to separate colonial status between October 1975 and January 1976, and independence as Tuvalu in 1978. After independence the main priorities were to establish the infrastructure for a separate, if small, country and to seek foreign assistance to match political independence with economic viability.