History of Fanning Island

Prior to 1855, Captain Henry English and 150 laborers from Manihiki settled, and began producing coconut oil for export. He put the island under British protection, when it was visited by W.H. Morshead in HMS Dido on October 16, 1855.

Fanning was formally annexed to Great Britain by Captain William Wiseman of HMS Caroline on March 15, 1888. A deep opening was blasted, thereafter called the English Channel, on the west side of the atoll. Tabuaeran hosted a cable station on the Trans-Pacific Cable between Canada and Australia, a part of the All Red Line, beginning in 1902. In September 1914 (World War I), the Cable Station was shelled by a German cruiser, the Nürnberg, and was slightly damaged. A landing force went ashore to complete the destruction. In 1939 the atoll was incorporated into the British colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, and later, in (1979), gained independence, becoming part of the Republic of Kiribati (pronounced kee-ree-bahs).

Tabuaeran features in John Updike's short story "The Blessed Man of Boston, My Grandmother's Thimble, and Fanning Island."

Tabuaeran had a population of 2,539 at the 2005 Census, principally Gilbertese settlers brought from Kiribati by Fanning Island Plantations, Ltd., to work in the copra industry (copra is the meat of the coconut). The capital is Napari (Paelau) in the northwest. The former capital is Napia (English Harbour) on the western side, south of a passage into the lagoon. Other villages are Tereitaki, in the northwest, Aontena, a resettlement area just south of Napia, and Manuku, a resettlement area in the south. At