Sikaiana

Sikaiana (formerly called the Stewart Islands) is a small atoll 212 kilometres (132 miles) NE of Malaita in Solomon Islands in the south Pacific Ocean. It is almost 14 kilometres (8.7 miles) in length and its lagoon, known as Te Moana, is totally enclosed by the coral reef. Its total land surface is only 2 square kilometres (0.77 square miles). There is no safe anchorage close to this atoll, which makes it often inaccessible to outsiders.

Sikaiana
Stewart Islands
NASA picture of Sikaiana Atoll
Sikaiana
Geography
LocationPacific Ocean
ArchipelagoSolomon Islands
Area2 km2 (0.77 sq mi)
Administration
Solomon Islands (de facto)
United States (disputed)
Demographics
Population249 (2009)
Sikaiana
Location of Sikaiana Atoll in the Pacific Ocean

Geography

Sikaiana is a remote tropical coral atoll located at Latitude: 8° 25' 0 South and Longitude: 162° 52' 0 East, over 200 kilometres from any other islands. The main island at Sikaiana atoll, located at the easternmost corner, is called Sikaiana. The three small islands in the west of the atoll are Tehaolei, Matuiloto and Matuavi. There are also two artificial islands on the reef, Te Palena and Hakatai'atata.

History

Administratively Sikaiana is governed as an outlying region of Malaita Province in Solomon Islands. Sikaiana's population is approximately 300 people of Polynesian descent—not of the Melanesian descent prevalent in the main Solomon Islands. It is considered by anthropologists to be a Polynesian outlier.

A 1998 GAO report stated:

Some residents of the Stewart Islands in the Solomon Islands group ... claim that they are native Hawaiians and U.S. citizens. ... They base their claim on the assertion that the Stewart Islands were ceded to King Kamehameha IV and accepted by him as part of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1856 and, thus, were part of the Republic of Hawaii (which was declared in 1893) when it was annexed to the United States by law in 1898. The 1898 law identifies the islands being annexed only as the “Hawaiian Islands and their dependencies.” However, the annexation was based on the report of the Hawaiian Commission which did not include the Stewart Islands among the islands it identified as part of the Republic of Hawaii. Report of the Hawaiian Commission, S. Doc. No. 16, 55th Cong., at 4 (3d Sess. 1898). In 1996, some Stewart Islands residents applied to register to vote in a plebescite limited to Native Hawaiians. Their requests for ballots, however, were rejected by the Hawaiian Sovereignty Election Council.[1]

In 1893, in order both to regulate a practice of labor recruitment or ‘blackbirding’ of Solomon Islanders to work on labor plantations in Queensland, Australia, and to further its own colonial interests, the United Kingdom established a protectorate over most of what is now the Solomon Islands. On 21 June 1897 the protectorate was extended to include Sikaiana, Rennell, and Bellona Islands.[2][3]

References
  1. GAO/OGC-98-5 : U.S. INSULAR AREAS; Application of the U.S. Constitution (PDF) (Report). United States General Accounting Office. November 1997. p. 39 (note 4).
  2. "Sikaiana : A Contemporary Polynesian Society". Expedition. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. 26 (4).
  3. National Archives Doc ref. DO 118/94 Description: BRITISH SOLOMON ISLANDS PROTECTORATE (STEWART ATOLL) Proclamation declaring a protectorate over Stewart Atoll Sikaiana



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