Gilbert and Ellice Islands for the Ellice Islands in 1892 and for the Gilbert Islands in 1893. He was succeeded by W. Telfer Campbell in 1896, who established himself on Tarawa Atoll and remained in office until 1908. Telfer Campbell was criticised for his legislative, judicial and administrative management (including forced labour alleged to be exacted from islanders) and an inquiry was held by Arthur Mahaffy, a former colonial official in the Gilberts, resulting in a report in 1909. In 1913 an anonymous correspondent to the "New Age" journal described the maladministration of Telfer Campbell, linked it to criticisms of the Pacific Phosphate Company
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