Abemama

Abemama has a land area of 27.39 square kilometres (11 square miles) with a width varying from 50 metres (160 feet) to 2 kilometres (1.2 miles). The island has 3 main islets; the largest and main islet has 11 villages and is home to most of the population. Abatiku, an islet located at the north-western reef, and Biike just south of it, have much smaller populations.^[2]

The island has a lagoon area and an abundance of lagoon fish, shellfish, and worms. There are also some seaweed farms.Causeways were constructed to link all villages on the main islet. The island resembles an incomplete “G” letter, with two reef passages; one is located in between Abatiku and Tabiang village at the north-western end. The other is between Biike and Kenna, the latter being the southernmost end of the main islet. The island is surrounded with an exposed reef at the windward side and submerged reef at the leeward side where Biike and Abatiku are situated. Most of the important food crops in Kiribati such as coconut, giant taro, pandanus and breadfruit grow well in Abemama.^[2]

Captain Charles Bishop happened upon Abemama in 1799 and referred to it on his map as Roger Simpson Island, after one of his friends.^[1]

The island was surveyed in 1841 by the US Exploring Expedition.^[6]

In the mid to late 19th Century, Abemama was ruled by a single paramount chief. This contrasts with the Northern Gilbert Islands where groups of families or kainga would have their own separate leaders, and the Southern Gilberts (from Nonouti southwards) where the old men or unimwane collectively would meet in the maneaba to govern.^[7] Some European sources describe the chiefly family of Abemama as "the Gilbert Islands ruling family"^[8] but local sources recognise that the unimwane wield much of the power even on Abemama, and governing the whole of the Gilbert Islands as a single unit is a logistical challenge even in modern times.^{[citation needed]}

Abemama is known as the island where the declaration of a British Protectorate was first proclaimed by Captain Edward Davis of HMS Royalist (1883) on 27 May 1892.^[1]

Abemama Post Office opened around 1910.^[9]

Robert Louis Stevenson, Fanny Vandegrift Stevenson and her son Lloyd Osbourne spent 2 months on Abemama in 1889. Near Tabontebike is the tomb of tyrant-chief Tem Binoka, who was immortalized by Stevenson in his account of the 1889 voyage of the Equator published as In the South Seas^[10] Robert Louis Stevenson, Fanny Vandegrift Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne returned to Abemama in July 1890 during their cruise on the trading steamer the Janet Nicoll.^[11]

Japan occupied the Gilberts on 9 December 1941.^[12]

On 21 November 1943, the American submarine USS Nautilus landed a company of 78 U.S. Marine Corps Amphibious Reconnaissance Scouts with Australian Army Lt George Hand formerly of the Ocean Island Defence Force acting as an interpreter ^[13] to seize the island. They defeated the Japanese garrison with fire support from Nautilus. On the morning of 25 November, a native reported to the Marines that the remaining Japanese committed suicide. The US Navy built Naval Base Abemama on the island and departed in the fall of 1944. ^[14]