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ABSTRACT: This paper reviews the separation of the Ellice Islands from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, in the central Pacific, in 1975: one of the few agreed boundary changes that were made during decolonization. Under the name Tuvalu, the Ellice Group became the world's fourth smallest state and gained independence in 1978. The Gilbert Islands, (including the Phoenix and Line Islands), became the Republic of Kiribati in 1979. A survey of the tortuous creation of the colony is followed by an analysis of the geographic, ethnic, language, religious, economic, and administrative differences between the groups. When, belatedly, the British began creating representative institutions, the largely Polynesian, Protestant, Ellice people realized they were doomed to permanent minority status while combined with the Micronesian, half-Catholic, Gilbertese. To protect their identity they demanded separation, and the British accepted this after a UN-observed referendum.
Keywords: Foreign and Commonwealth Office; Gilbert and Ellis islands; independence; Kiribati; Tuvalu
© 2012 Institute of Island Studies, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada
Context
The age of imperialism saw most of the world divided up by colonial powers that drew arbitrary lines on maps to designate their properties. The age of decolonization involved the assumption of sovereign independence by these, often artificial, creations. Tuvalu, in the central Pacific, lying roughly half-way between Australia and Hawaii, is a rare exception. Consisting of nine islands with a total land area of only 25 km2 situated along a 600 km north/south spread, it became the fourth smallest country in the world by separating from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony. Tuvalu's secession deserves study as a rare case of agreed boundary-change before decolonization was accomplished.
The Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony (GEIC) lay astride the equator in the central Pacific between Longitude 1500W and 1700W. It is spread over 5 million km2 of ocean. The distance from Ocean Island (Banaba, pronounced Baan-aba), lying west of the Gilbert group, to Christmas Island (Kiritimati), part of the Line Islands in the east, is 3,680 km. From Makin (in the northern Gilberts) to Niulakita (most southerly of the Ellice Group) is 1,680 km. The total land area was just over 800 km2, on a mix of coral atolls and reef islands. Geographic isolation presented unusual challenges for administrative...