Chief Judicial Commissioner for the Western Pacific Chief Judicial Commissioner was renamed – no longer the Chief Justice of Fiji) and two puisne judges, one based in Port Vila, New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), and the other in Tarawa, Gilbert and Ellice Islands (now Kiribati and Tuvalu). Most of the island groups had gained either independence or internal self-government by 1971. On 2 January 1976 after nearly all had been given separate statehood, the office of High Commissioner and the entity of the Pacific Territories were abolished. The High Commission of the Western Pacific was abolished, the last archives being finally packed up in Honiara in August 1978.
History of the Pacific Islands Tahiti, the islands were annexed as an overseas territory of France 27. “Reconstructing History: Literature, History, and Anthropology in the Pacific.” Ed. Cynthia Klekar. Special Issue of "The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation" 49, no. 3 (Fall, 2008). Introduction, 193-96. History of the Pacific Islands History of the Pacific Islands covers the history of the islands in the Pacific Ocean. Easter Island is one of the youngest inhabited territories on Earth, and for most of the History of Easter Island it was the most isolated inhabited territory on Earth. Its inhabitants, the Rapanui, have endured famines and big push factors,