Editing Line Islands (section)

==Overview==
[[Copra]] and [[Fishkeeping|pet fish]] are the islands' main export products (along with seaweed).

[[File:Map of Kiribati CIA WFB.png|thumb|left|Map]]
Archaeologists have identified the remains of coral [[Marae]] platforms and/or village complexes on several of the islands,<ref>{{cite book |author=Patricia A. Nagel |title=Results of the First Joint US-USSR Central Pacific Expedition (BERPAC): Autum[n] 1988 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zWwVAQAAIAAJ |year=1992 |publisher=U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=zWwVAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA6&dq=marae+%22line+islands%22 6] |access-date=26 February 2021 |archive-date=2 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220902033415/https://books.google.com/books?id=zWwVAQAAIAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> including the Kiritimati and Tabuaeran atolls, Teraina Island, Malden, Millennium Atoll and Flint Island. These remains are dateable as far back as the 14th century, and show that the inhabitants of the Line Islands were likely permanent or at least semi-permanent.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/basch/uhnpscesu/pdfs/sam/DiPiazza2001AS.pdf |title=Voyaging and basalt exchange in the Phoenix and Line archipelagoes: the viewpoint from three mystery islands |last1=di Piazza |first1=Anne |last2=Pearthree |first2=Erik |journal=Oceania Archaeology |volume=36 |year=2001 |issue=3 |pages=146–152 |doi=10.1002/j.1834-4453.2001.tb00488.x |access-date=5 November 2022}}</ref>

Most 18th-century visitors to these isles overlooked these telltale signs of former Polynesian settlement. This included Captain Cook, who landed on Christmas Island (now called Kiritimati) in 1777, as well as Captain Fanning, who visited Teraina (Washington Island) and Tabuaeran (Fanning Atoll) in 1798.

In the 19th century, [[whaling]] ships were regular visitors to the islands. They came in search of water, wood and provisions. The first whaler recorded to have visited one of them was the ''Coquette'', which docked at [[Kiritimati]] (then called Christmas Island) in 1822.<ref>Robert Langdon (ed.) ''Where the whalers went: an index to the Pacific ports and islands by American whalers (and some other ships) in the 19th century'', Canberra, Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, 1984, p. 149 {{ISBN|0-86784-471-X}}.</ref>

In 1888, the United Kingdom was planning to lay the [[All Red Line|Pacific cable]], and annexed the islands with a view to using Tabuaeran (then Fanning Island) as one of the relay stations for the cable. The cable was laid and was operational between 1902 and 1963 (except for a short period in 1914)<!-- Commenting this disputed area for a moment, -MrMiscellanious: when German naval forces landed (? They did not land) at Fanning to cut the cable -->.

In 1916, the British annexed Fanning and Washington islands, making them part of the British colony of the [[Gilbert and Ellice Islands]].<ref>Order in Council Annexing the Ocean, Fanning, and Washington islands to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, 1916.</ref> In 1919, they annexed Christmas Island to the same colony.<ref>Order in Council under the Colonial Boundaries Act, 1895, Annexing Christmas Island to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, 1919.</ref> The Line Islands occasionally featured briefly in the biennial reports furnished by the Colony's resident commissioner to the Colonial Office and Parliament in London (see, for example, the reports submitted in 1966 and 1967<ref>Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony. (1969). Report for the Years 1966 and 1967. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office.</ref>).

The United States contested the British annexations, based on the U.S. [[Guano Islands Act]] of 1856, which allowed for very wide-ranging territorial claims. It relinquished these claims only in 1979, when it entered into the [[Treaty of Tarawa]], which recognised Kiribati's sovereignty over the majority of the Line Islands chain.