Editing Tuvalu (section)

===Trading firms and traders===
[[File:Tuvalu - Location Map (2013) - TUV - UNOCHA.svg|thumb|right|upright=1.35|[[Islands of Tuvalu]]]]
Trading companies became active in Tuvalu in the mid-19th century; the trading companies engaged white ([[palagi]]) traders who lived on the islands. John (also known as Jack) O'Brien was the first European to settle in Tuvalu; he became a trader on Funafuti in the 1850s. He married Salai, the daughter of the paramount chief of Funafuti. [[George Lewis Becke|Louis Becke]], who later found success as a writer, was a trader on [[Nanumanga]] from April 1880 until the trading station was destroyed later that year in a [[cyclone]].<ref name="DAG">{{cite book |author=A. Grove Day |title=Louis Becke |year=1967 |publisher=Hill of Content |location=Melbourne |pages=30–34}}</ref> He then became a trader on [[Nukufetau]].<ref name="DAG1">{{cite book |author=A. Grove Day |title=Louis Becke |year=1967 |publisher=Hill of Content |location=Melbourne |page=35}}</ref><ref name="SON">{{cite book |first=Sally |last=O'Neill |title=Becke, George Lewis (Louis) (1855–1913) |chapter=George Lewis (Louis) Becke (1855–1913) |year=1980 |url=http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/becke-george-lewis-louis-5177/text8699 |publisher=Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University |access-date=23 March 2013 |archive-date=11 May 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130511212555/http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/becke-george-lewis-louis-5177/text8699 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="M&D">{{cite book |author=Mitchener, James A. |title=Rascals in Paradise |year=1957 |publisher=Secker & Warburg |chapter=Louis Beck, Adventurer and Writer}}</ref>

In 1892, Captain [[Edward H. M. Davis|Edward Davis]] of {{HMS|Royalist|1883|6}} reported on trading activities and traders on each of the islands visited. Captain Davis identified the following traders in the Ellice Group: Edmund Duffy ([[Nanumea]]); [[Jack Buckland]] ([[Niutao]]); Harry Nitz ([[Vaitupu]]); Jack O'Brien (Funafuti); [[Alfred Restieaux]] and Emile Fenisot ([[Nukufetau]]); and [[Christian Martin Kleis|Martin Kleis]] ([[Nui (atoll)|Nui]]).<ref name="JRdd">{{cite book |title=The proceedings of H.M.S. "Royalist", Captain E.H.M. Davis, R.N., May–August, 1892, in the Gilbert, Ellice and Marshall Islands}}</ref><ref name="AM1909">{{cite book |last1=Mahaffy |first1=Arthur |title=Report by Mr. Arthur Mahaffy on a visit to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands |year=1910 |publisher=Great Britain, Colonial Office, High Commission for Western Pacific Islands (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office) |chapter=(CO 225/86/26804) |chapter-url=http://www.wdl.org/en/item/2367/ |access-date=10 June 2013 |archive-date=21 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190321133610/https://www.wdl.org/en/item/2367/ |url-status=live}}</ref> During this time, the greatest number of palagi traders lived on the atolls, acting as agents for the trading companies. Some islands would have competing traders, while dryer islands might only have a single trader.<ref name="Doug Munro 1987"/>

In the 1890s, structural changes occurred in the operation of the Pacific trading companies; they moved from a practice of having traders resident on each island to instead becoming a business operation where the [[supercargo]] (the cargo manager of a trading ship) would deal directly with the islanders when a ship visited an island.<ref name="Doug Munro 1987"/> After the high point in the 1880s,<ref name="Doug Munro 1987"/> the numbers of palagi traders in Tuvalu declined; the last of them were [[Fred Whibley]] on Niutao, [[Alfred Restieaux]] on Nukufetau,<ref name="AR1">{{cite book |first=Alfred |last=Restieaux |title=Recollections of a South Seas Trader – Reminiscences of Alfred Restieaux |publisher=National Library of New Zealand, MS 7022-2}}</ref><ref name="AR2">{{cite book |first=Alfred |last=Restieaux |title=Reminiscences - Alfred Restieaux Part 2 (Pacific Islands) |publisher=National Library of New Zealand, MS-Papers-0061-079A}}</ref> and [[Christian Martin Kleis|Martin Kleis]] on Nui.<ref name="AM1909"/> By 1909 there were no more resident palagi traders representing the trading companies,<ref name="AM1909"/><ref name="Doug Munro 1987"/> although Whibley, Restieaux and Kleis<ref name="TPB12">{{cite web |title=Christian Martin Kleis |url=http://stampsoftuvalu.com/newsletter/2012-02.pdf |year=2012 |publisher=TPB 02/2012 Tuvalu Philatelic Bureau |access-date=19 November 2018 |archive-date=2 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200102024506/https://stampsoftuvalu.com/newsletter/2012-02.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref> remained in the islands until their deaths.