2012/01/01 by W. David McIntyre · 3 citations
Social Sciences · #Island Studies and Pacific Affairs #Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies #Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration
paper · pdf · doi:10.24043/isj.266
openalex publication_date 2012/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
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.