Early Tuvalu Islands Contact with European Explorers

May 24, 2010
Brian Cross

Beach at Funafati, Tuvalu - Flickr user Mrlins

Tuvalu was part of the Gilbert and Ellis Islands group before independence from Britain in 1978. The first Europeans to explore its waters were Spaniards

Tuvalu comprises nine coral atolls lying between five and ten degrees south of the equator in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The combined land area of the widely-spaced group is 25.9 sq. km, the biggest being Vaitupu at 5.6 sq. km. The capital island of Funafuti contains about one third of the group’s 10,000 inhabitants.

Spanish Exploration of Tuvalu Waters

Spanish explorer Alvaro de Mendana de Neira was the first European to sight one of Tuvalu’s islands when he came across Nui in January 1568, which he named the Isle of Jesus. Mendana was in command of the Los Reyes and Todos Santos, the expedition out of Peru in search of the southern landmass that Europeans were convinced existed to balance the northern hemisphere. Mendana sailed on from Nui without making direct contact with the local inhabitants, although observations were made on their appearance from a distance.

Twenty seven years later Mendana was on his second voyage when he discovered Niulakita, which he named La Solitaria. Once again he did not make contact with the local people.

It was 1781 and two centuries had passed before the next encounter between Tuvalu and Europe. By then Captain James Cook’s extensive voyages to the Pacific had been completed and tragically ended with his death in Hawaii. He had sailed close to Tuvalu territory, but not nearly close enough to have any chance of discovering the small, low-lying islands. Contact would remain a matter of chance.

Mendala’s compatriot Don Francisco Maurelle, a sea trader, was sailing La Princesa well south of his intended Manila – Mexico route when in May 1781 he sighted the island he called Isla del Cocal. It was Nanumanga, where short of provisions, Maurelle attempted to land. The first contact of Tuvaluans with Europeans occurred when some of the native people came aboard La Princesa as they tried to tow her into sheltered waters. But the efforts were to no avail and Maurelle was forced to sail on, passing Nanumea, which he named San Augustin.

The Whalers Come to Tuvalu

In May 1819 the British brigantine Rebecca under command of an American, Captain Arent de Peyster, was almost aground on Funafuti before its crew realised it was there. De Peyster named it Ellice's Group after Edward Ellice, British politician and merchant, for whom the Rebecca's was shipping cargo. When the next day he sighted Nukufetau, de Peyster named it for himself.

Six of Tuvalu’s islands had now been discovered and with British interest the territory was on the map. Whales had become an important Pacific industry, and over the next decade the remaining three would be located and identified. In 1821 Nukulaelae was discovered by Captain George Barrett in the Nantucket whaler Independence II. Barrett also rediscovered Mendan’s Niulakita, and in 1825 another whaler, the Loper, came across Niutao and Vaitupu. In the same year Nui was seen by European eyes for the first time in more than 250 years.

The name Ellice was applied to all nine islands after the work of English hydrographer A. G. Findlay (1812-1876).

Colonisation of Tuvalu

All these discoveries were incidental to other objectives, and even with their charting the Europeans had little interest in the islands of Tuvalu for a time. But it wasn’t long before Tuvalu became another chapter in the story of colonisation, and its people experienced everything that went with it. Diseases to which they had no immunity, Christian prothletising by the London Missionary Society, and conversion from traditional ways to a trade-based economy were all issues for the native Tuvaluans to deal with in the years of the mid to late 19th century. The islands came under British Jurisdiction in 1877.

Coconuts were Tuvalu's cash crop, with significant amounts of copra produced for the island traders who would call regularly. A very small number would stay, as beachcombers or to set up trading enterprises. Author Louis Becke, at times an associate of the notorious Bully Hayes, was one such trader, spending time on both Nanumanga and Nukufetau in 1880/81.

Today Tuvalu is best known in the international debate on climate change.