History of Kiribati
In 1606 Pedro Fernandes de Queirós sighted Butaritari and Makin, which he named the Buen Viaje ('good trip' in Spanish) Islands.
Messrs. Gilbert and Marshall passed close to Abemama, Kuria, Aranuka, Tarawa, Abaiang, Butaritari, and Makin without attempting to land on shore.
[7] Two ships of the United States Exploring Expedition, USS Peacock (1828) and USS Flying Fish (1838), under the command of Captain Hudson, surveyed the Gilbert Islands of Tabiteuea, Nonouti, Aranuka, Maiana, Abemama, Kuria, Tarawa, Marakei, Butaritari, and Makin[8] (then called the Kingsmill Islands or Kingsmill Group in English).
Dr Hiram Bingham II of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) arrived on Abaiang in 1857.
Samuel James Whitmee of the LMS arrived at Arorae, and later that month he visited Tamana, Onotoa and Beru.
[13] The Roman Catholic faith was introduced on Nonouti around 1880 by 2 Gilbert islanders, Betero and Tiroi, who had become christians in Tahiti.
[14] Robert Louis Stevenson, Fanny Vandegrift Stevenson, and her son Lloyd Osbourne, stayed for 2 months on Abemama in 1889, which was described by Stevenson in his account of the 1889 voyage of the Equator published as In the South Seas[15][16] At the time of their visit, the High Chief was Tembinok', 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 respective unimwaane.
Tembinok' was immortalised in Stevenson's book as "the last tyrant",[17] 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.
[16] Nakaeia allowed two San Francisco trading firms to operate, Messrs. Crawford and Messrs. Wightman Brothers, with up to 12 Europeans resident on islands of the atolls.
Stevenson adopted the strategy of describing himself as the son of Queen Victoria so as to ensure that he would be treated as a person who should not be threatened or harmed.
[21] The earliest trading companies on Butaritari were the Hamburg-based Handels-und Plantagen-Gesellschaft der Südsee-Inseln zu Hamburg (DHPG) with Pacific headquarters in Samoa, and On Chong (Chinese traders with Australian connections via the goldfields).
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 the British Protectorate[broken anchor] by Captain Edward Davis of HMS Royalist (1883) on 27 May 1892.
[28] The Gilbert and Ellice Islands Protectorate was administered as part of the British Western Pacific Territories (BWPT).
This move in headquarters arose from the operations of the Pacific 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 of phosphate and keeping order among the workers.
On 20 November 1943, Allied forces threw themselves against Japanese positions at Tarawa and Makin in the Gilberts, resulting in some of the bloodiest fighting of the Pacific campaign.
The Tuvaluan Order 1975 made by the Privy Council, which took effect on 1 October 1975, recognised Tuvalu 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.
Anote Tong, a London School of Economics graduate, won on 4 July 2003, and was sworn in as President soon afterward.
When the COVID-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.
