DiscoveryBritish and Dutch navigators first included the island on their charts in the early 17th century. Captain William Mynors of the Royal Mary, a British East India Company vessel, named the island when he sailed past it on Christmas Day in 1643. A map by Pieter Goos, published in 1666, was the first to include the island. Goos labelled the island "Mony"; many are not sure what this means.
William Dampier, aboard the British ship Cygnet, made the earliest recorded visit to the island in March 1688. He found it uninhabited. Dampier gave an account of the visit can be found in his Voyages:[citation needed] Dampier was trying to reach Cocos from New Holland. His ship was pulled off course in an easterly direction, arriving at Christmas Island 28 days later. Dampier landed at the Dales (on the west coast). Two of his crewmen were the first humans known to have set foot on Christmas Island.
Daniel Beekman made the next recorded visit, chronicled in his 1718 book, A Voyage to and from the Island of Borneo, in the East Indies.
Exploration and annexation
The first attempt at exploring the island was in 1857 by the crew of the Amethyst. They tried to reach the summit of the island, but found the cliffs impassable. During the 1872-76 Challenger expedition to Indonesia, naturalist Dr John Murray carried out extensive surveys.
In 1887, Captain Maclear of HMS Flying Fish, having discovered an anchorage in a bay that he named Flying Fish Cove, landed a party and made a small but interesting collection of the flora and fauna. In the next year, Pelham Aldrich, on board HMS Egeria, visited it for ten days, accompanied by J. J. Lister, who gathered a larger biological and mineralogical collection.
Among the rocks then obtained and submitted to Sir John Murray for examination were many of nearly pure phosphate of lime, a discovery which led to annexation of the island by the British Crown on 6 June 1888.
Settlement and exploitation
Soon afterwards, a small settlement was established in Flying Fish Cove by G. Clunies Ross, the owner of the Keeling Islands (some 900 kilometres to the south west) to collect timber and supplies for the growing industry on Cocos. Phosphate mining began in the 1890s using indentured workers from Singapore, Malaya and China.
The island was administered jointly by the British Phosphate Commissioners and District Officers from the United Kingdom Colonial Office through the Straits Settlements, and later the Crown Colony of Singapore.
Japanese invasion
From the outbreak of war in South East Asia in December 1941, Christmas Island was a target for Japanese occupation because of its rich phosphate deposits. A naval gun was installed under a British officer and four NCOs supported by Indian soldiers. The first attack, on 21 January 1942, was carried out by the Japanese submarine I-159, that torpedoed a Norwegian vessel, the Eidsvold, which was loading phosphate in Flying Fish Cove. The vessel drifted and eventually sank off West White Beach. 50 European and Asian staff and their families were evacuated to Perth. In late February and early March 1942, two aerial bombing raids and shelling from the sea led the District Officer to hoist the white flag. After the Japanese naval group sailed away the British officer raised the Union Jack once more. During the night of 10–11 March a mutiny of the Indian troops, abetted by the Sikh policemen, led to the murder of the five British soldiers and the imprisonment of the remaining 21 Europeans. On 31 March a Japanese fleet of 9 vessels arrived and the Island was surrendered. A naval brigade, phosphate engineers, and 700 marines came ashore and rounded up the workforce, most of whom had fled to the jungle. Sabotaged equipment was repaired and preparations were made to resume the mining and export of phosphate.
Isolated acts of sabotage and the torpedoing of the Nissei Maru at the wharf on 17 November 1942 meant that only small amounts of phosphate were exported to Japan during the occupation. In November 1943, over 60% of the Island's population was evacuated to Surabayan prison camps, leaving of total population of just under 500 Chinese and Malays and 15 Japanese to survive as best they could. In October 1945 HMS Rother reoccupied Christmas Island.
Transfer to Australia
At Australia's request, the United Kingdom transferred sovereignty to Australia; in 1957, the Australian government paid the government of Singapore £2.9 million in compensation, a figure based mainly on an estimated value of the phosphate forgone by Singapore.
Under Commonwealth Cabinet Decision 1573 of 9 September 1958, D. E. Nickels was appointed the first Official Representative of the new Territory. In a Media Statement on 5 August 1960, the Minister for Territories, Paul Hasluck, said, among other things, that "His extensive knowledge of the Malay language and the customs of the Asian people... has proved invaluable in the inauguration of Australian administration... During his two years on the Island he had faced unavoidable difficulties... and constantly sought to advance the Island's interests." John William Stokes succeeded him and served from 1 October 1960 to 12 June 1966. On his departure he was lauded by all sectors of the Island community. In 1968 the Official Secretary was re-titled an Administrator in 1968 and, since 1997, Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands together are called the Australian Indian Ocean Territories and share a single Administrator resident on Christmas Island. A list and timetable of the Island's leaders since it's settlement is at http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Christmas_Island.html and in Neale (1988) and Bosman (1993).
Refugee and immigration detention
From the late 1980s and early 1990s, boats carrying asylum seekers and mainly departing from Indonesia landed on the island. In 2001, Christmas Island was the site of the so-called Tampa controversy, in which the Australian government stopped a Norwegian ship, MV Tampa, from disembarking 438 rescued asylum seekers at Christmas Island. The ensuing standoff and the associated political reactions in Australia were a major issue in the 2001 Australian federal election.
Another boatload of asylum seekers was taken from Christmas Island to Papua New Guinea for processing, after it was claimed that many of the adult asylum seekers threw their children into the water, apparently in protest at being turned away. This was later proven to be false. Many of the refugees were subsequently accepted by New Zealand.
The former Howard Government later secured the passage of legislation through the Australian Parliament which excised Christmas Island from Australia's migration zone, meaning that asylum seekers arriving on Christmas Island could not automatically apply to the Australian government for refugee status. This allowed the Royal Australian Navy to relocate them to other countries (Papua New Guinea's Manus Island, and Nauru) as part of the so-called Pacific Solution. In 2006 an Immigration Detention Centre, containing approximately 800 beds, was constructed on the island for the Department of Immigration. Originally estimated to cost $210 million, the final cost was over $400 million.
In 2007, the Rudd Government announced plans to decommission the Manus Island and Nauru centres; processing would then occur on Christmas Island itself.
Demographics
As of 2006, the estimated population is 1,493. (The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports a population of 1,508 as of the 2001 Census.)
The ethnic composition is 70% Chinese (mainly Hokkien), 20% European and 10% Malay. Religions practised on Christmas Island include Buddhism 75%, Christianity 12%, Islam 10% and others 3%. English is the official language, but Hokkien and Malay are also spoken. English, Malay and Hokkien are lingua franca.
Postage stamps
A postal agency was opened on the island in 1901 and sold stamps of the Strait Settlements. After the Japanese Occupation (1942–1945), postage stamps of the British Military Administration in Malaya were in use, then stamps of Singapore.
In 1958, the island received its own postage stamps after being put under Australian custody. It had a large philatelic and postal independence, managed first by the Phosphate Commission (1958–1969) and then by the Island's Administration (1969–1993). This ended on 2 March 1993 when Australia Post became the island's postal operator: stamps of Christmas Island can be used in Australia and Australian stamps in the island.
