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Nukunonu

  • 3 min read
  • 5 chapters

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History

The first European vessel known to have come upon Nukunonu was the Royal Navy ship HMS Pandora, in 1791, whose captain, Edward Edwards, named Duke of Clarence Island in honour of Prince William, Duke of Clarence and St Andrews (1765-1837), the third son of King George III and later king himself, as William IV. At the time, the Pandora was searching for mutineers from HMS Bounty. During the early 19th century, Nukunonu's inhabitants were converted to Roman Catholicism by Samoan missionaries.

In 1859, the U.S. Guano Company claimed Duke of Clarance along with a number of other Tokelauan atolls under the U.S. Guano Islands Act. The U.S. State Department bonded the claim in 1860. However, many of these islands were not worked by the company and in 1889 they were claimed by Great Britain as part of the Union Islands. In 1916, the Union Islands were annexed to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony and then, in 1925, reassigned to the Dominion of New Zealand under the administration of Territory of Western Samoa. In 1979, as part of the Treaty of Tokehega, the U.S. formally renounced its prior claim on Nukunonu and the other Tokelauan islands now under New Zealand sovereignty, and a maritime boundary between Tokelau and American Samoa was established.

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