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AN ISLAND CHARACTERISTIC
Derivative vulnerabilities to indigenous and exogenous hazards
JAMES LEWIS
<datum@gn.apc.org>
Abstract
Island development policies need to take account of recurrently high proportional
impacts of natural hazards that are set to increase. Assistance could best be considered
as expiatory measures against perpetrations of former world powers; the occupation
and exploitation of islands in history having played a part in present-day vulnerabilities
of communities to an impressive variety of indigenous hazards. Exogenous hazards of
invasion and appropriation cannot be regarded only as past events because, for some
islands, they are continuing, and because aspects of past exploitations continue for
today’s occupiers as derivative vulnerabilities. One islander describes the heightened
significance of events in places of geographic smallness:
For the people in a small place, every event is a domestic event...
eventually they absorb the event and it becomes a part of them, a part of
who and what they really are, and they are complete in that way until
another event comes along and the process begins again...To the people
in a small place, the division of Time into the Past, the Present and the
Future does not exist. An event that occurred one hundred years ago
might be as vivid to them as if it were happening at this very moment.
(Kincaid, 1988: 52-54).
Keywords
Vulnerability, indigenous and exogenous hazards
Vulnerability as an island characteristic
Studies of vulnerability to natural hazards have, since the 1970s, related that condition
largely to recent and current social and economic contexts. Of those studies that have
been geographically specific (Kelman, 2007), a small number examined vulnerability in
island states (eg Jeffery, 1982). As small places, all events in islands, exogenous and
indigenous, interact in ways not experienced elsewhere - asynchronous interaction
being as significant as synchronous. In 1981 Jeffery described how some aspects of
colonial history were identifiable in Martinique as contributors to present day
vulnerability (Jeffery, 1981).
A study of colonial archives of five other selected island countries assessed the effects
upon them of ‘natural disasters’ since the 17th Century (Lewis, 1982
1
)
, studies of
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Antigua (Lewis, 1984) and, earlier of Tonga (Lewis, 1981), observed how distant historic
events might have an impact on present-day vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities now have a
past that they may have accrued or that might have been caused or exacerbated by the
actions of others (Lewis, 1999: 18, 48). If it came to be recognised, in all hazard-prone
contexts, that present-day vulnerabilities may have accrued from events in historic and
recent pasts, it would become more apparent that policies and activities now could
affect future vulnerabilities. The historic vulnerability of islands to appropriation and
occupation, an exogenous hazard, has in many cases emerged as the root of present-
day derivative vulnerabilities to indigenous natural hazards - either real or projected by
occupying powers. For example, from the rich pre-history of the Tonga archipelago it
has been reliably inferred that earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes and tsunamis
were as evident in pre-history as in history but, whereas history is written principally by
Europeans, otherwise descriptively rich Tongan folklore and legend seemed
unconcerned with environmental hazard, with the possible exception of volcanic
eruption
2
(Lewis, 1981: 148). The Kingdom of Tonga became a British protectorate only
in 1900
3
(Fusitu’a and Rutherford, 1977: 173-189) which may explain why, when the
1909 hurricane hit Niua Fo’ou, one of Tonga’s northernmost islands, it was actually
recorded, albeit as “the Government of Tonga sent in relief but it was not required to
any great extent” (Disaster Research Unit, 1975a). The Cook Islands provide earlier
examples of indigenous and missionary questioning of post-disaster assistance sent
from London (Lewis, 1982: 155-158)
4
.
These brief examples, from places where natural hazards had been a fact of life for
previously self-reliant indigenous communities, suggest that ‘disaster’ itself, as well as
subsequent ‘disaster relief’, were products of ‘disaster imperialism’ by which response
to disaster was used to promote imperial power and beneficence (Lewis, 1984: 190;
Lewis, 1999: 146, 160). The negative impact of disaster relief upon self-reliance, a
counter to vulnerability, has been shown to be lasting.
In an introduction to a selection of papers on islands (Dommen, 1980a), their histories
were acknowledged as a significant factor in ascribing differences between them and
their continental counterparts; otherwise, it was stated, there was little to distinguish
islands from continental countries other than their size. Cultural background and
settlement history were demographically more important than location; island
economies differed little from those of continental mini-states; demographic differences
between island regions were “more interesting than those between islands and
continents in general”; plantation economies were recognised in terms of the problems
for their “total social system” in later adaptation to changed political circumstances; and
“in so far as island economies differed from others” they did so “as a consequence of
the historical, psychological and environmental peculiarities of islands”. Numerical
comparison of deaths per thousand people resulting from natural hazards in island and
continental countries revealed “no significant difference”. Proportional differences upon
small populations appear not to have been considered at that time (Dommen, 1980b:
929-943). Whatever may be the significant distinguishing characteristics of islands by
comparison with continental counterparts, it is combinations of their smallness and
remoteness, exogenous appropriation and occupation that, over time, proceeded to
generate islands’ derivative, resurgent and overwhelmingly disproportionate
vulnerabilities to major indigenous natural hazards. What these are and how
vulnerabilities to them have been generated is illustrated by the accounts that follow.
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Indigenous hazards
Used loosely, ‘indigenous’ and ‘exogenous’ are useful indicators of the origins of events
of their time. Earthquakes and volcanoes affect a minority of islands, tsunamis affect
small island landmasses the least
5
, and islands can be missed by tropical cyclones that
proceed catastrophically to impact upon continental countries. Islands, as physical
entities, may not be more vulnerable to natural hazards than anywhere else, the often
overwhelming proportional impacts upon them, their inhabitants and their economies
(Lewis, 1990a) being the more accurate representation of the part played by natural and
other hazards in any assessment of island vulnerability (Lewis, 1979a: 119-122; Lewis,
1991: 39-41; Lewis, 1999: 3-4). As examples, 22% of all housing in Tonga was
destroyed and 50% of the national population made homeless by hurricane Isaac in
1982 (Lewis, 1999: 3), and in 1990, on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, Hurricane
Hugo damaged or destroyed more than 90 percent of all buildings (Clay et al, 1999: 16-
17). When Mount Soufrière erupted on St Vincent in 1979, temporary evacuation of
20,000 people within the island resulted in the survival of the entire population (oral
source: 1991). During the eruption of another Mount Soufrière, on Montserrat, between
1995 and 1997, nineteen people died “within minutes, killed by a force hotter than the
inside of a kiln. No person, no animal, could outrun the Soufrière Hills volcano” (Pattullo,
2000: 1). Pyroclastic flows affected more than 15% of the island, more than 70% of all
buildings were destroyed or made inaccessible, most of its south and western parts
were covered by “massive ash and rock fall deposits”, and the capital, Plymouth, and
the airport, were abandoned (Clay et al, 1999: 16-17). The country was fragmented by
migration and relocation, and two thirds of a population of 10,000 left the island. In
1999, returnees had increased the population to 4,500.
Tonga has recorded some of the world’s largest earthquake magnitudes, for example:
the R8.7 earthquake of 1917 raised the bed of the lagoon in the island of Niua Topatapu
causing it to dry (Angenheister, 1921). In the Tonga archipelago, there are currently six
active volcanic islands
6
,
two of which are inhabited; one of these, Niua Fo’ou in the far
north, is again inhabited after the entire population of 2,500 were evacuated due to an
eruption in 1946 (Lewis, 1979c: 148; Rogers, 1986).
Exogenous hazards
When the European powers began their imperial enterprise, small islands were for the
taking, islanders were overwhelmed and their lands appropriated, occupied, colonised
and governed for the purposes of greater powers. Antigua supplied sugar and on the
same island, Nelson’s Harbour was an important 18th Century British naval base.
Vava’u, in the northernmost group of Tongan islands, was a coaling station for shipping,
first for Germany until the end of World War 1, and then for Britain. The Gilbert and
Ellice Islands
7
in the South Pacific, made a British protectorate in 1892, annexed Ocean
Island (Banaba) in 1900 to gain access to phosphate-rich guano deposits, and the entire
group became a British colony in 1916 (BBC News, 2006). Labour was shipped from the
Gilbert Islands until mining expired in 1979 (de Silva, 2000: 11).
From a European point of view, the great explorers ‘discovered’ many islands but,
within islanders’ own regions, indigenous exploration, trade, and sometimes warfare,
had continued for many years. The desired protection of ports and trade, and control of
shipping routes, was sufficient to create vulnerabilities to possession, occupation and
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subjugation of numerous small islands long before the arrival of British, Dutch, French,
Portuguese or Spanish explorers (Bell, 1931). From the start of European expansion in
the 16th Century, in the Caribbean for example, major powers fought each other for
territories. Large numbers of Caribs, who had lived in the Caribbean for thousands of
years, were killed or expelled. Driven by potential financial gain, prospective plantation
owners and merchants moved into the region, private estates being formed on
appropriated land. Indentured servants and political dissidents provided labour,
augmented by more than three million slaves shipped across the Atlantic between 1662
and 1807 - a massive forced migration. Islands were defended by contingents of armies
and navies and used against anti-slavery protests until emancipation in 1834. Rebellions
by enslaved people occurred, for example, in Antigua, Barbados, Grenada and Haiti,
and in Jamaica’s major 1831 slave revolt (National Archives, 2007).
The British slave trade officially ended in 1807, making illegal the buying and selling of
slaves from Africa, but established slavery ended only in 1834. Former enslaved people
received no compensation and had limited representation in the legislatures. Most
available work was on the same plantations; wages were low, there were inadequate
rights to land, and rent, taxes and unemployment were high. Another rebellion in
Jamaica in 1865 was one protest against such conditions. After slavery ended, Indian
and Chinese indentured labourers were imported to work on Caribbean sugar
plantations (National Archives, 2007).
One account of South Pacific colonial history has been provided by an indigenous
islander:
As traders, missionaries and settlers moved out from Europe to Africa,
Asia and the Pacific in the nineteenth century their governments gradually
followed them... where the citizen went the flag was not far behind. And
when one nation got involved in an area it was commonly followed by
other, rival, nations. Of all the countries in the Pacific, only Tonga
managed to avoid being annexed by some foreign power - and even then
it did not completely escape... To protect her interests in these areas
Germany persuaded Britain in 1856 that they should divide most of the
western and central Pacific between themselves
8
. Each, therefore,
claimed a 'sphere of influence', and agreed not to seek political influence
in the 'sphere' of the other. Kiribati and Tuvalu, along with the southern
Solomons and Banaba fell within the British 'sphere'. Britain had already
in 1877 given the Governor of Fiji the additional title of High
Commissioner for the Western Pacific... Under both labels, protectorate
and colony, Tuvalu was subject to a Resident Commissioner based in
Kiribati
9
, who was responsible to the High Commissioner for the Western
Pacific, who was in turn responsible to the Colonial Office in London. But
while the colonial authority structure developed, the indigenous one
declined.” (Noatia P. Teo in Laracy, 1983: 127, 129)
Tuvalu, Polynesian for “group of eight”, is a 580 kilometre (362 miles) lomg chain of nine
coral atolls comprising numerous very small motu (islets). Eight of the atolls are
permanently inhabited, the largest and principal of which is Funafuti. During Word War
2, island appropriation was perpetuated:
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On occasions during 1943 there were more than 6000 Americans
10
based
in Tuvalu... To the people... those of them whose islands were occupied
by the Americans, the war brought much excitement and material
prosperity... Many did not bother to cultivate their lands and pulaka pits,
preferring to rely on the Americans to supply them - by way of both gifts
and wages… Nine times between 27 March and 17 November 1943
Japanese aircraft attacked Funafuti... The first offensive blow from Tuvalu
was struck on 20 April 1943 when twenty-two B-24s took off from
Funafuti to bomb Nauru. Other airfields were later built on Nanumea and
Nukufetau, in time to be used in November 1943 by aircraft engaged in
the battle for Tarawa.
11
(Melei Telavi in Laracy, 1983, 140-141)
12
Strategic significance increased for numerous islands during World War 2, by
becoming airstrips or naval bases and frequently the focus of intensive battles. For
some, their strategic value continues: Ascension Island in mid-Atlantic for
communications facilities, and the “Isle” of Portland, on the south coast of England, for
institutional, scientific, military and commercial establishments (Lewis, 1979: 26).
Epidemics were serious infestations initially caused by explorers, missionaries and
colonists. In Samoa
13
, diseases newly introduced by explorer and trader Europeans
recurred from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. Influenza first occurred in Samoa
around 1830 and recurred almost every following year for a long period, an especially
severe attack occurring in 1847. Whooping cough reached epidemic proportions in
1849, mumps in 1851, measles in 1893, dysentery in 1907 and measles again in 1915.
Inter-tribal warfare involving the destruction of crops and intermittent hurricanes and
occasional infestations of caterpillars (Lewis, 1982: 153) exacerbated food shortages
induced malnutrition and caused the Samoan national population to decline by almost
40% between 1838 and 1886 (Lewis, 1982: 160). During the worldwide 1918 influenza
epidemic, 8,400 people died in Samoa, one fifth of the national population, with 7,000
more deaths than registered births for that year (Lewis, 1982: 160-162). “While true
isolation constitutes protection, it also makes the isolated population unusually
vulnerable once the isolation is breached” (Brookfield, 1980: 23). Rigorous attention to
public health, endemic diseases and incoming vessels eventually brought epidemics to
an end after 1923 (Lewis, 1982: 160-162). Infections carried by visiting ships and
causing epidemics have been recorded in the Tokelau islands (Prior and Stanhope,
1980: 998) and in Tonga where, in 1893, a ship from Auckland carried a measles
infection, a new disease in Tonga at that time that, that within one month, spread
through the entire archipelago. One thousand people died, 5.25% of a national
population of 19,000 (Rutherford, 1977: 176). The deprivation and underdevelopment
that ensued from these events and experiences became a root cause of continuing
present-day derivative vulnerabilities.
Derivative vulnerabilities
As I have briefly discussed elsewhere (Lewis 1999: 5, 16), vulnerability applies to places
as well as to people - occupants of a place adopting its vulnerability. What was done to
- or with - land by people in distant pasts can affect those that follow on (for many years
and, often, for centuries). Some people’s present-day vulnerabilities have derived from
activities of other people before them who owned or occupied the same place or who
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influenced what was done with it. Vulnerability can thus be derivative, as demonstrated
in the examples that follow.
Exploitation, oppression and domination by slavery and by colonial powers resulted in
eventual independent government knowing no other system but “how to take the wealth
of our country and place it in Swiss bank accounts [and] how to corrupt our societies
and how to be tyrants” (Kincaid, 1988: 34)
14
. In many cases, underdevelopment has
resulted and has been vulnerability perpetrated (Disaster Research Unit, 1975: 33-34).
After its European discovery by Columbus in 1502, Martinique remained uncolonised
until 1635 when French forces defeated the indigenous Caribs and drove them to the
island’s Atlantic side, increasing their exposure to storms and hurricanes. 17th Century
maps show a formal division of the island with a terre des Français to the west, with its
sheltered harbours, and a terre des sauvages to the east. Later, all Caribs were expelled,
slaves being imported to work on land thus appropriated. The greatest exposure and
vulnerability to storms continues for today’s inhabitants of eastern Martinique (Jeffery,
1981: 5). In one region of Martinique
15
, where large areas of land continue to be owned
by descendents of the early French settlers, an “extremely unequal distribution of
landholding” has resulted where more than 90% (1,244 ha) belongs to six of those
owners, the remaining 60 hectares being divided among 221 other owners (ibid: 26).
The “monopoly of key resources” held by this “elite group” created additional
vulnerabilities “for waged labour in the north of Martinique” (ibid: 27). The vulnerability of
small landholders to storms and hurricanes was proportionally greater than that
sustained by larger landholdings. Similarly, in the Dominican Republic, large scale cash-
cropping was identified as responsible for the displacement of small landowners who
were obliged to relocate to marginal exposed land, and were rendered, in consequence,
more physically and economically vulnerable (Jeffery, 1982). Fragmented land and
segmented society are two characteristics of “plantation islands”, identified with others
as leading to “chronic underdevelopment” (Lamusse, 1980: 1036, 1039) - again, a key
indicator of vulnerability to natural hazards (Disaster Research Unit, 1975b: 33-34).
Nine years after the abolition of slavery, the 1843 earthquake on Antigua caused
extensive destruction and damage, especially in the capital, St Johns (Lewis, 1982: 98-
104; Lewis, 1984), where an eyewitness account recorded that numerous “free villages”,
built by former slaves, were destroyed:
Many of the estates that have fallen prey to the earthquake have been
established since emancipation, by men who have exerted themselves to
the utmost... and how they will be able to rebuild them it is impossible to
say. Indeed, it will take many years to restore Antigua to its former
position. (Woodcock, 1843: np
16
).
The cost of reconstruction after the earthquake was aided in 1844 by a government
advance from London. This had to be repaid, creating a substantial public debt not paid
off until 1868. Only in 1867 was construction able to commence on a “waterworks” with
a capacity of 500,000 gallons: “This measure of attention to recurrent drought had to
wait until the burden of the earthquake loan had disappeared” (Lewis, 1984: 194) -
vulnerability to drought prevailing in the meantime. The 1974 R6.7 earthquake in Antigua
was a reminder, if a reminder was necessary, that island vulnerabilities were not
confined to history. Extensive damage in St Johns occurred to similar (in one case the
same) public buildings as in 1843; another similarity was that: “[h]ousing losses were
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sustained mainly in the rural areas, and mostly to buildings of traditional construction
inhabited by the lowest income earners” (Tomblin and Aspinall, 1975: 1559).
World War 2 bypassed many island communities but, for others, brought long-lasting
derivative vulnerability. In Tuvalu:
In the construction of the airfield (on Funafuti) a large portion of the land
formerly used for growing pulaka and taro was covered up. The local
people were later compensated yet they suffered an enduring loss. Pulaka
is no longer a staple food, although during the war it did not matter. The
American occupation brought them more food - as well as cigarettes,
soap and kerosene - more than they had ever had before. Many still think
of that as the best time of their lives… Indeed, most of the damage done
on the island (Nanumea) was done by its defenders. The airfield took up
one sixth of the land area, and to make it the Americans destroyed nearly
half of the coconut trees, 22,000 out of 54,000. Moreover, efforts to
replant that land have not been very successful. The coral is packed too
hard for the trees to grow properly (Melei Telavi in Laracy, 1983: 140,
141).
In 1968, the entire population of Diego Garcia, one of the Indian Ocean Chagos Islands,
was moved to Mauritius and the Seychelles to make way for the island’s use as an
airbase, which has continued for almost 40 years. On hurricane-prone Mauritius,
Chagossians have lived in vulnerable poverty, a series of legal claims only recently
concluding that remaining islanders should be allowed to return (BBC News 2002:
online, Burge, 2007: online). What vulnerabilities will transpire on Diego Garcia from this
episode in its history remain to be observed. Not all islands of a group are equally
vulnerable, as noted in Fiji:
Within Fiji, the eastern islands are more vulnerable than the nation as a
whole, because the effect of natural events tends to be more serious on
small islands dependent on only a few sources of livelihood than on larger
islands with a more diverse resource base. (Brookfield, 1977: 165 quoted
in Lewis, 2003: online).
Expiatory measures
Islands and vulnerability are correlative. Their vicissitudinous histories expose events
within them, that impinge upon them: invasion, seizure, occupying forces, internal and
external warfare, slavery, rebellion, inward and outward forced migration, infestation,
epidemic, fire, famine, drought, floods, cyclones, volcanoes, earthquakes, erosion and
sea level rise – to which could be added tourism, ‘development’, post-disaster
assistance and ‘disaster imperialism’. Islands’ strategic usefulness to others has
resulted in demonstrations of their appropriation in penitentiaries, prisons, quarantine
stations, hotels, private residences, monasteries, lighthouses, fortifications, military and
naval bases, weapons testing, airfields, fuelling stations, ports, trading posts and
communications facilities. This usefulness has not always been of service to indigenous
populations, neither at the time nor subsequently.
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Derivative vulnerabilities ferment, and former vulnerabilities recur in invasion
17
, trans-
shipment of populations, and acquisition of land and sea territories for access to fishing,
minerals or for deep-water waste disposal
18
. New vulnerabilities emerge in private
purchase, housing development, tourism, refugee landings and security management.
One conclusion has to be that, whereas island populations possess an extraordinarily
traditional resilience against exposure to hazards of an indigenous natural kind, they
continue to be at severe risk to hazards of an exogenous human-made kind.
Whereas natural hazards in islands may once have been regarded as a ‘normal fact of
life’, the treatment of small islands by greater powers as if they were useful flotsam in
their oceans, surely has to end. Towards this objective, initiatives such as the UNESCO
Island Agenda (UNESCO, 1994) and organisations uniting islands in their common
purposes, such as Small Island Developing States (SIDS), the Alliance of Small Island
States (AOSIS), and Commonwealth initiatives (eg Lewis, 1990b) are not only good for
islands but for the global common good as well. Especially when island histories are
recalled, the current responsibilities of world powers must include responsiveness to
issues represented on islands’ behalf. Island development programmes, inclusive of
coordinated community based adaptation (eg Jones and Rahman, 2007), are necessary
to counter the exacerbation of natural hazards by climate change and sea-level rise.
Resilience is best reinforced by adaptation of traditional skills and coping systems
within development programmes aimed at removal of the causes of vulnerability. Long-
established practices of mutual self-help between those affected and those not, in many
cases have become eroded by neglect and by dependency on external assistance. In
the Tonga island group, for example, inter-island exchange had become incompatible
with a centralised colonial government; the redevelopment of local fishing, provision and
maintenance of boats, and reconstruction of local jetties, being one recommendation to
be achieved by micro-funded development projects (Lewis, 1981: 156-157).
Islands may be small but within them are ancient civilisations and cultures without
which the world would be a poorer place. One quarter of the world’s countries are
island states, 51 of which are UN classified Island Developing Countries, with a
combined population of forty million (Lewis, 1991: 39; UNDESA, 2007). Climate change
and rising sea levels
19
exacerbate current island vulnerabilities (Sem, 2007; Lewis, 2007:
12). Amid consequent pessimistic forecasts for some islands’ futures, however, have
been the preliminary findings of wave action simulations, with the indication that “reef
islands will physically adjust to sea-level change and will not totally disappear” and that
“changes in sediment supply... can also cause physical alteration of small islands by an
equivalent or greater magnitude than sea level alone”. The authors continue, however:
While the study does not project wholesale devastation of low-lying reef
islands, it would be incorrect to infer that small island nations should not
be concerned about the possible consequences of sea-level rise. (Kench
and Cowell, 2002: 6-12)
Demand for development assistance to island states has sometimes been said to be
disproportionate to their population numbers. Enhanced international regard for island
populations, their cultures and risk ecologies (Kelman and Lewis, 2005), however,
could result in donor assistance measured in accordance with proportionally assessed
vulnerabilities, not only with population totals. Derivative and recurrent vulnerabilities to
natural hazards will reduce when they are recognised as long-term processes and
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when appropriate measures for their amelioration are made an integral part of island
development programmes.
Endnotes:
1
Based upon research into the archives of the London Missionary Society held at the
School of Oriental and African Studies, London; archives at the Arquivo Historico
Ultramarino and the Sociedad de Geografia, Lisbon; and at the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office, London.
2
This statement was corroborated in Tonga by The Honourable Ve’ehala, the Acting
Minister for Works and Education, Governor of Ha’apai, Cabinet Minister and Chairman
of the Tonga Traditions Committee, and with Dr Garth Rogers of the University of
Aukland, whose advice was sincerely appreciated.
3
Tonga was the only independent Pacific island kingdom not to be annexed and
colonised (Rutherford, 1977: ix).
4
Letters dated 31 December 1841 and 30 June 1847.
5
Since the waves can flow round them, rather than being forced up over larger coastal
masses.
6
Tonga’s six active volcanoes are Fonualei, Kao, Late, Niuafo’ou, Tofahi and Tofua and
there are numerous additional submarine volcanoes. Information updated and
confirmed by the Global Volcanism Programme, Smithsonian Museum of Natural
History - http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/region.cfm?rnum=0403 - accessed August
2007.
7
At independence in 1979, the Gilbert Islands became Kiribati and in 1978 the Ellice
Islands became Tuvalu. Between 1850 and 1875 islanders were kidnapped for forced
labour on plantations in Fiji and Queensland (a process known as ‘blackbirding’) and in
1863, Peruvian slave traders kidnapped 400 islanders - nearly two-thirds of the
population of the islands of Funafuti and Nukulaelae (BBC, 2006).
8
By a treaty of 1899, Tonga was retained by Great Britain, becoming a protectorate in
1900 and Samoa was retained and annexed by Germany (Rutherford, 1977: 180, 182).
9
Tarawa, the principal island of Kiribati (Gilbert Islands) and the place of residence of
the Resident Commissioner once responsible for Tuvalu (Ellice Islands), is 1300
kilometres (800 miles) from Funafuti, the principal island of Tuvalu.
10
Tuvalu’s indigenous population in 1943 cannot have been much more than a similar
figure. In 1998, it was recorded as 11,000 (Commonwealth Yearbook) having increased
by a third since independence in 1978 (Lewis, 1988; 41).
11
Tarawa is the principal island of Kiribati, formerly the Gilbert Islands and was the
site of one of the first Pacific battles of World War 2.
12
From the mid 1950s to the early 1960s, Christmas Island, now part of the Kiribati
island complex, was used as a base and site for the testing of nuclear explosions and
the island of Gan, in the southernmost Addu Atoll of the Maldives, was used as a British
air base from 1957 until 1967.
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13
Formerly Western Samoa, now Samoa.
14
Jamaica Kincaid was born and spent her childhood in Antigua.
15
Fieldwork undertaken in 1980; for example, the Macouba district of Martinique.
16
Page reference unavailable (quotation from the publication in the Foreign &
Commonwealth library, transcribed in 1994, which now appears to have been relocated
elsewhere).
17
As examples, Grenada was invaded by the USA in 1983 and the Falklands/Malvinas
islands were invaded sequentially by Argentina and the British in 1982.
18
Letter referring to Matthew and Hunter islands off Vanuatu and New Caledonia
(Crennan et al, 2007).
19
Sea flooding in Male, regarded as an indicator of rising sea levels, had been
experienced prior to 1989, when the Maldives government hosted the Small States
Conference on Sea Level Rise at which AOSIS was initiated.
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