Edward Ellice (merchant) illustrated diary of a journey to the islands of Rona and Skye. Katherine was an amateur artist and diarist. His brother General Robert Ellice married Eliza Courtney; one of their grandsons became his son's heir in 1880. The Ellice Islands, formerly part of the colony of Gilbert and Ellice Islands and now the independent nation of Tuvalu, were named after him. The Rural Municipality of Ellice in Manitoba, Fort Ellice, and Ellice Avenue in Winnipeg are named after him. Edward Ellice (merchant) Edward Ellice the Elder (27 September 1783 – 17 September 1863), known in his time as the "Bear",
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