On 1 July 1799, Charles Bishop and George Bass entered in the lagoon of Tabiteuea and many canoes visited his brig Nautilus.

After one sailor from sloop USS Peacock, was missing without reason, the US party decided on exacting redress for the incident.

Captain James Waddell described the islanders as "of copper colour, short of statue, athletic in form, intelligent and docile" and were "without a stitch of clothing".

[6] In the late 1800s, the two parts of the island were the site of a religious war when the populace of North Tabiteuea, partly converted to Christianity and, led by a Hawaiian pastor called Kapu who had assembled a "hymn-singing army on a crusade", invaded and conquered South Tabiteuea, where was recently (1860) created a cult of Tioba (Jehovah).

[7] Bishop Octave Terrienne built his main Catholic Church in Tanaeang, North Tabiteuea in 1936 and established there the see of his apostolic vicariate of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.