Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony caused the Polynesians of the Ellice Islands to vote for separation from the Micronesians of the Gilbert Islands (later Kiribati). The following year, the Ellice Islands became the separate British colony of Tuvalu. In 1947 Tarawa, in the Gilbert Islands, was made the administrative capital. This development included establishing The King George V Secondary School for boys and the Elaine Bernacchi Secondary School for girls. A Colony Conference was organised at Marakei in 1956, which was attended by officials and representatives from each island in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, conferences were held every two years until 1962.
History of the Pacific Islands Western Samoa became the first Pacific Island nation to gain political independence. In 1997, Samoa officially dropped the 'Western' from its name as it was an appendage from its colonial era. The human history of the Solomon Islands begins with the first settlement at least 30,000 years ago from New Guinea. They represented the furthest expansion of humans into the Pacific Ocean until the expansion of Austronesian-language speakers through the area around 4000 BCE, bringing new agricultural and maritime technology. Most of the languages spoken today in the Solomon Islands derive from this era, but some thirty languages of the