In antiquity, the island was called Cicynethus (Ancient Greek: Κικύνηθος, romanized: Kikynethos).

An International Commission sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment was sent to inspect the conditions, but the local guards turned it back under the excuse that there was a cholera epidemic.

[7] On 9 October 1913, the Bulgarian ships Varna, Boris and Bulgaria arrived to Old Trikeri to take the prisoners back.

The first to arrive after a decision by the Minister for National Security, Napoleon Zervas, were male communist political prisoners.

The men were mostly from the districts of Epirus and Thessaly and participated in the EAM-ELAS, a resistance movement during WWII and the occupation period of Greece by Italian, German and Bulgarian military forces.