History of the Pacific Islands islands to create Polynesia. During pre-European-contact times there was frequent canoe voyaging between the islands as Polynesian navigation skills are recognised to have allowed deliberate journeys on double-hull sailing canoes or outrigger canoes. Eight of the nine islands of Tuvalu were inhabited; thus the name, Tuvalu, means "eight standing together" in Tuvaluan. The pattern of settlement that is believed to have occurred is that the Polynesians spread out from the Samoan Islands into the Tuvaluan atolls, with Tuvalu providing a stepping stone to migration into the Polynesian Outlier communities in Melanesia and Micronesia. In 1568 Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña
Gilbert and Ellice Islands which was operating on Ocean Island, and questioned the impartiality of Mahaffy. The seat of government was then moved to Ocean Island (now known as Banaba Island), which had been included in the protectorate in 1900, to take advantage of the improved shipping connections resulting from the Pacific Phosphate Company's activities, and the status of the islands was changed on 12 January 1916 to that of a Crown Colony. The role of the British colonial authorities emphasised the procurement of labour for the Ocean Island phosphate mining and keeping order among the workers. The islands became a Crown colony on