• Nauru:
• History

Nauru - History

By the time of the first recorded European sighting of Nauru (by Captain John Fearn in 1798), the Nauruans were a distinct people with their own language and culture. They had little contact with Europeans until whaling ships, traders and beachcombers began to visit regularly in the 1830s.

The introduction of firearms and alcohol destroyed the social balance of the 12 clans living on the island and led to a ten-year internal war, which reduced the population to around 900 by 1888: in 1843 there had been 1,400 people on Nauru. Peace was only restored when Germany took action to remove firearms from the island.

The island was allocated to Germany under the 1886 Anglo-German Convention. Phosphate was discovered a decade later and the Pacific Phosphate Company started to exploit the reserves in 1906, by agreement with Germany. The island was captured by Australian forces in 1914 and administered by Britain. In 1920 the League of Nations gave Britain, Australia and New Zealand a Trustee Mandate over the territory. In reality the island was administered by Australia. The three governments bought out the Pacific Phosphate Company and established the British Phosphate Commissioners, who took over the rights to phosphate mining.

Nauru was damaged by German naval gunfire and later by Allied bombing in the Second World War. During Japanese occupation (1942–45), 1,200 Nauruans were deported to work as labourers to Truk (now Chuuk), Micronesia, where 463 died as a result of starvation or bombing. The survivors were returned to Nauru in January 1946.

After the war, the island became a UN Trust Territory, administered by Australia in a similar partnership to the previous League of Nations mandate, and it remained a trust territory until independence in 1968. Anticipating the exhaustion of the phosphate reserves, a plan by the partner governments to resettle the Nauruans on Curtis Island, off the north coast of Queensland, Australia, was put forward in 1964. However, the islanders decided against resettlement. Legislative and executive councils were established in 1966, giving the islanders a considerable measure of self-government.

In 1967, the Nauruans contracted to purchase the assets of the British Phosphate Commissioners and in June 1970 control passed to the Nauru Phosphate Corporation.

Nauru became independent as a republic in 1968. Following a constitutional convention in 1967–68, a new constitution protecting fundamental freedoms and establishing a parliamentary democracy was adopted. A loose informal party structure emerged. Following independence, Sir Hammer DeRoburt became president and went on to dominate parliament during the next 20 years, leading the government for most of the period. In the absence of a tight party system, there have been many periods when governments have been sustained by a single vote.

In February 1987 Kennan Adeang established the Democratic Party of Nauru, whose stated aims were to curtail the extension of presidential powers and promote democracy. Eight of the 18 members of parliament joined the party, which became the main opposition. A vote of no confidence in DeRoburt, proposed by Adeang in August 1989, was approved and Kenas Aroi was subsequently elected president. Aroi suffered a severe stroke in November 1989, so was not able to stand for re-election.