It is an island rich in history, which has played a pivotal role in Fiji's demographic and political development over the past 160 years.
Cakobau's inability to pay the debt, coupled with fear of a U.S. invasion and annexation, led to a series of negotiations with the United Kingdom.
After a failed attempt to establish a stable constitutional monarchy under the effective tutelage of the Australian Polynesia Company, the negotiations culminated in a decision to cede the islands to the United Kingdom in 1874, ushering in almost a century of British rule.
Historians now believe that the U.S. compensation claim was greatly exaggerated and largely fabricated (see Robson, A.E, Prelude to Empire, 2004, p. 84 (citing Calvert 1856 and Freemantle 1856)).
From 1879 to 1916, the island served as a quarantine centre for thousands of Indian indentured labourers brought in by the British colonial rulers.
In 2000, a prison was opened on Nukulau, to house George Speight and other perpetrators of the 2000 coup that deposed Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry's government.