Kiribati – from ocean voyagers to an independent island nation
The atolls of Kiribati were settled by Austronesian-speaking seafarers from Micronesia, probably more than two thousand years ago, and later received influences from Samoa, Tonga and Fiji. The I-Kiribati built a society adapted to life on narrow coral islands, with the maneaba, the community meeting house, at its heart and a strong tradition of navigation.
European ships passed through from the sixteenth century, and in the nineteenth century whalers, traders and missionaries arrived; many islanders were also recruited, sometimes by coercion, as labourers for distant plantations. The name Kiribati is the local rendering of 'Gilberts', after the British captain Thomas Gilbert. In 1892 Britain declared a protectorate over the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, which later became a colony. Phosphate mining on Banaba brought profits to the colonial economy but devastated the island, and most Banabans were later resettled on Rabi in Fiji.
During the Second World War Japan occupied parts of the islands, and the Battle of Tarawa in 1943 was among the bloodiest of the Pacific war. After the war Kiritimati was used by Britain and the United States for nuclear weapons tests. The Ellice Islands separated in 1975 to become Tuvalu, and Kiribati gained independence in 1979. In 1995 the country moved the International Date Line so that all its islands share the same date.
Today Kiribati is shaped by its ocean-based culture and the serious threat of rising sea levels.
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