Nauru Pt. 1/2: The Island Built on Phosphate

Join us for the episode Nate calls "Depressing", but id argue its more "Interesting with a hint of depressing". It's our episode on the island nation of Nauru. Join us in this two part series as we go over Nauru as it evolves from island paradise, to victim of phostphate mining.
In this first episode, we go over the beginnings of Nauru as a tribal nation, and how the British discovering them influenced their future. Things ramp up when valuable phosphate is discovered on the island and everyone wants a piece of the action.
We end this episode with the Nauruan people making their bid for independence from Australia.
All this and more, on this episode of Oft Off Topic

Feel free to check out our website for links to our YouTube channel and more!
https://oftofftopic.com/

Our host Nathan also does art in addition to this podcast, including having is own sticker store. Please check it out and purchase anything that strikes your fancy.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/stickersbytownsend

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Even if you didn't like the show, please do it, we appreciate it. You can also email us at OftOffTopic@gmail.com and let us know what you like or don't like, maybe we will even read your email on our show!
Thanks for listening and stay tuned for more Oft Off Topic!

Transcript

Shaun: 0:14

Island Nation of Nauru, an island whose history I stumbled upon on YouTube, found interesting, learned a lot about it, and now I bring this information I learned to you, nate, and the listener, nate, what do you know about the island nation of Nauru?

Nate: 0:27

I know it's depressing as hell.

Shaun: 0:29

Yup, that's kind of the history of it too. But there's some other cool stuff too and you get to learn about politics and international trade and all sorts of fun things. So, yeah, the video I sent you always kind of scraped the surface on it. Uh, we're gonna learn a lot more about it today and it'll be fun, I promise.

Nate: 0:44

No.

Shaun: 0:45

You will learn, whether you like it or not.

Nate: 0:48

Don't depress me, I'm feeling happy. A little too bad motherfucker.

Shaun: 0:53

You finally got a little scraped up, a little bit of serotonin, and I'm about to take it away from you, but it's not all depressing, in fact. We'll start out with the beginning of the island's history, which is kind of chill. Some five million years ago, give or take a million tectonic plates shift, volcanoes erupt and the tiny island of Nauru is born. It's roughly eight square miles in size, or 21 kilometers. Uh, the middle 80% of this island is a giant plateau that jets up 233 feet into the air above sea level, or it's roughly 50 feet tall in Scrooge's money bin. So there's another reference for you.

Nate: 1:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah, money bin.

Shaun: 1:27

Yeah, money bin Probably been a convenient place for Scrooge to put his money bin. A lot harder to invade on an island, I would think.

Nate: 1:34

Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, you know, or Scrooge.

Shaun: 1:36

Mcdonalds. They probably just stole the whole island.

Nate: 1:39

Right right.

Shaun: 1:43

Eventually this island becomes lush with vegetation and sea life on plenty on the shores. No land craters living there other than the crabs it would scuttle about, but there were lots and lots of birds. You see, the plateau in the middle is convenient place for migrating birds to stop and take a rest and eat and crap and crap and crap everywhere. One of the greatest places in the world for birds to poop, and they came from all around to do it. This will actually be important later. That's why I bring it up.

Nate: 2:05

I hope it was important, like you know, ace Ventura Pethio too, because you know Guano was important.

Shaun: 2:11

Actually, yeah, that's pretty much where we're going. Okay, yeah.

Nate: 2:14

Ha, ha, ha, ha ha ha. I know the tip of you. Thank you, Ace Ventura you did you stole the mystery before I knew it was a mystery?

Shaun: 2:22

Right, oh, I could just think of a thousand licking that bowl. Now let's forward 4,997,000 years to approximately 1000 BC, and the first Micronesians, or possibly Polynesians, discover the island and settle it. And uh, yeah, you got a bit. That is some pretty brass balls. To just look out there in the ocean and be like I wonder what's out there, because the nearest inhabitable island from there was 190 miles away and that seems like a long ways to go on a boat when you don't know where you're going. And not only make it to that island but make it back as well. Talk to people and be like look what I found, let's head back that way. I can barely make it?

Nate: 2:58

Did they go back? I thought that it was kind of like a virus. Just yeah, I'm not trying to, you know that sounds like a really good idea.

Shaun: 3:04

Maybe they did come back. I don't know. They don't really know how it was found, but I assumed they found the island and then they like headed back and got some more people, because I don't know. I always just assumed it was smaller boats that are hanging over, but you're right, it could have been a couple dozen people at a time.

Nate: 3:14

Well, according to the documentary Moana I watched, you know they you know a whole like bunch of them would just get together and take off and then they'd land somewhere and after a while you know like, oh, we're explorers. But I mean they in the movie they never straight up said, oh, we sit out, a party, or like we just split off, or the whole island is up and leaves. But that doesn't really make sense. Why would you up and leave? Yeah, I get trying to spread out. You have too many people one area, so you want to spread. I mean that just makes some perfect sense, because the only other way is cannibalism and killing each other. That's just. This is not going to work. After a while. You might be that for the first two islands, but as it continues, so they get messy.

Shaun: 3:53

People just get tired of the whole cannibalism thing Right. I need two of my children today. That's a.

Nate: 3:58

So I mean, you think, over time, in fact that's the tell sure humanity spread like okay, we call this place is too small, Some people left it, et cetera, et cetera. You know so, but I just don't know why they want to, I guess, maintain communication.

Shaun: 4:12

But I don't know, Like, I don't know, Like I underestimate the nautical abilities of our ancestors, because now I do too, because these people are hovering thousands of miles in boats and stuff and even like little row boats and little sailboats like wow, that's, that's pretty impressive.

Nate: 4:28

Yeah, I mean I'm thinking back. I'm like you know they. They've made some pretty awesome voyages using starbaps. You know, nautical people, not necessarily Europeans, but everyone who you set up to do it. They usually found out how to do it.

Shaun: 4:42

Yes, in my mind, when they're finding these islands, it's like civilization, where you just send out one scout or two and they find the island and come back. But you're right, it probably you know. Hey, let's send out, you know, this crew of 20 or 30 and see what they come up with. Also, if you want some reference on where Nauru is located, it's basically the halfway point between Australia and Hawaii, about 3000 miles from each of those places, 3000 miles west of Hawaii and 3000 miles east of Australia. Australia will become important in this story as well. Hawaii, let's say. That's the case.

Nate: 5:08

If it's smack in the middle, I'm really kidding. They're alleges have gone either way, yeah.

Shaun: 5:13

Well, actually not really, because they're up and running long before Hawaii was a state, because it's kind of easy to forget that Hawaii wasn't a state until what? 58, or something like that.

Nate: 5:21

Very true. Yeah, I did forget that.

Shaun: 5:24

Yeah, I know it's kind of I do the same thing where it's like, well, we became American 1776 and you just think like everything was just like boom, there we go. And now there's a lot of timers like hey, what's out there past, you know the Mississippi.

Nate: 5:37

Nothing Pokes that up.

Shaun: 5:40

It just literally did drop off at the end of the world?

Nate: 5:43

Yeah, it just is there, it's just foretold. Yeah, keep on going until we fall off.

Shaun: 5:48

Yep, and then you, just as you're falling, you look back and be like huh, it is all in the back of a giant turtle.

Nate: 5:52

Just like Discworld.

Shaun: 5:53

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Nate: 5:55

Kind of love, that series, that's still whatever. I think of the edge of the world. I always think I don't know what, I don't know what book it was, because I listen the most to them through audiobook but there was one where the civilization wanted to see the whole point was to see the sex of the turtle the real male or female, and so they had this whole voyage where they got shoved guy over the side and they would scroll them down like that. I always think about that. You know that had they had this whole thing, they also had my favorite little bit in there where the guy who made it it's the whole cliche where you have this master inventor and he makes something for somebody and they're like we don't want anybody else to know. It's like kill them or whatever.

Nate: 6:31

It's poor bastard. He was blind, crippled like bird, all this stuff. He's like the only request I have To make this thing is to not be killed, because everyone he's made things for of all like one people try to blind them. One people are one people blinded and one people did this and they're like oh sorry, we can't do that. The killer's asked.

Shaun: 6:55

Well, the only good thing about is that dude being sent down to check out the turtle gen tail and he gets down and he's like wait, I don't know what turtle gen tail you look like.

Nate: 7:05

Yeah, that's the information you need to know.

Shaun: 7:07

Yeah right, I should have brought down a guide or a book or something. So back to Nauru. The people that settled there had a pretty chill couple of thousand years there. At first they were fairly isolated, didn't have to worry about much invaders and were able to cultivate their own languages and beliefs. During this time, 12 tribes formed on the island, which was represented by the 12 pointed star on their flag. They had plenty of pandanus fruit and coconuts to eat, pineapple and the such. They also practiced aquaculture, which was. They had a freshwater lagoon on the island called Boada Lagoon, and they were actually able to climatize saltwater fish to freshwater fish and they were able to stock that lagoon with milkfish, which I didn't know. You could actually climatize saltwater fish to freshwater. Apparently, you can't do it with all fish, but certain kinds of fish. Yeah, you can, and people a couple of thousand years ago could do that.

Shaun: 7:56

Yeah that's pretty impressive. Yeah, that took some trial and error, I would imagine, like a lot of things back then. So, yep, they had a source of fresh water in there in the lagoon. They stocked with fish, good food there, and they're also able to hunt the birds too on the island. All of them pooping birds, and also all that bird poop did give them very fertile soil so they were able to grow whatever crops they wanted that they could. So good times in paradise, as they say. Now we fast forward to 1798, and British sea captain John Fern is puttering around Oceania, which, uh, that's a continent that, uh, nauru is on that whole ocean area over there, australian, that area that's called Oceania, apparently.

Nate: 8:38

So there you go.

Shaun: 8:39

Yeah.

Nate: 8:40

No, except the battle.

Shaun: 8:42

And there you go.

Nate: 8:44

You failed, I did, I was reading ahead.

Shaun: 8:47

I'm staying on topic Threw things at him. Ha, oh God, why did tomato just hit me? I'm home all alone. So John Fern is the first European to find Nauru and he just putters along his boat, looks out over the starboard side, or, however he did, said Bye, joe, that's a pleasant little island over there. I think I shall name it Pleasant Island. And he just kind of putter on his way and just like rode down the chart and was like there you go.

Nate: 9:14

That's. Look at that island. Well, the pleasant place. Let's have to rape it Ha.

Shaun: 9:20

Uh, nah, give it another hundred years. Um right, Uh. Fern was commemorated by being put onto a $10 Nauru coin and a Nauru posted stamp in 1974 for his efforts. He's like he's the first English person to compliment our island. We'll put him on a stamp. Right, this guy passed by it was Look at that, Yep. He said this place looked pleasant. We appreciate that by 1826, the British sailors had become regular traders on the island and even occasional deserters from the ships or like escaped convicts and stuff would make their way to the shore and live on their beachcombers and kind of sort of integrate with the groups, but not so much.

Nate: 10:01

Not so much you think.

Shaun: 10:03

Well, that depends on the one of them. There's one dude there named William Harris who actually got in pretty good with the tribesmen and he was kind of used as a diplomat between the British government and the tribes. But some of the other guys just kind of like to just show up and kind of cause trouble and be drunken asses on the beach. I guess Love a little more on them later too. But also some of the people were literally just guys who were like working as a trader on a boat and they just showed up on that island and they're like dude, I am not getting back on that shitty ship with like 20 other dudes, I'm just going to stay here Bye. They'd be like you know, you're deserting your contract. They're like you know, I don't care.

Nate: 10:35

Yeah, I mean, what do they get there, you know? I guess they kill them.

Shaun: 10:38

Yeah, they could. But I mean, then you're wasting a bullet for something you really don't care that much about.

Nate: 10:44

But I'm sure the people in the island just loved that.

Shaun: 10:47

Yeah, right, yeah, because lots of good juju being having done with lots of killings on your island.

Nate: 10:54

Oh yeah, everyone loves them when they get you know. Oh yeah, I love it when we get you know slaughtered.

Shaun: 10:59

Yeah. So the islanders traded food and potable waters, as well as palm wine, in exchange for hard alcohol and firearms from the British traders. I looked up palm wine. Apparently it's wine made from the sap of palm trees. Apparently it's kind of an acquired taste, kind of weird, yet fruity, and only kind of slightly alcoholic around like 4% alcohol. But I guess because it don't taste that strong it's pretty easy to drink too much of it and have it sneak up on you.

Shaun: 11:30

Okay, that's from the comments I found on Reddit and other message boards. They were like hey, it's not bad once you get used to it. Just be careful, because they can go down too easy sometimes.

Nate: 11:41

Well, maybe you just have fun. Have a drink next year in Zimbabwe.

Shaun: 11:46

Yep, don't know how I got there. Don't know how to get back, but somehow I appear to be married now.

Nate: 11:53

And these anal beings just keep going.

Shaun: 11:57

I think I feel them in my throat.

Nate: 12:01

I honestly don't know how they got all these up there, but as for I am as impressed as I am horrified.

Shaun: 12:08

Dude with really long, slender arms. Anyways, as any good American can tell you, once you get some firearms and some booze in you, it's time to start a civil war. And 1878 starts the teen years civil war of Nauru. You want to know how it started, nate? Of course you do. Well, there is a marriage ceremony going on and the attendees had discussion about the points of etiquette at a wedding ceremony, which you should and should not do. Well, that discussion became heated thanks to the booze and uh, well, since there's firearms now there, there became an argument between the chief and one of the tribes members, and the chief's son wound up getting shot in the chest and killed out of the deal, which.

Nate: 12:45

I do believe that is against. They got heated and had an argument that there was a fierce debate whether they should go to civil war or not.

Shaun: 12:54

And then, after hours of debate, they decided no. At first it was very civilized.

Nate: 12:59

She can't realize we shouldn't do this, and so it took a bridge.

Shaun: 13:04

Honestly, if there wasn't a hard booze there, that might have been how it worked out. But nope, they were talking about the do's and don'ts of a wedding ceremony and they did one of the don'ts and shot one of the other people and killed them. Well, in the Rune culture it's pretty clear that death must be avenged by the family, ifer and I. That kind of stuff which you know back in the olden days when you were doing stuff with like spears and rocks and slings. It's a little harder to kill somebody, a little bit easier to take your revenge when you have guns and you just basically have to. You know, point and click.

Shaun: 13:35

So, all of a sudden, hmm.

Nate: 13:37

I was just laughing at the point and click.

Shaun: 13:39

Oh yeah, that is guns. It's you know point and click fighting.

Nate: 13:42

If you miss a dog would come up and laugh at you. He was horrible, the horrors of war. Every single time you miss he would pop up and laugh. Many of them may have fallen to the laughter of that fucking dog.

Shaun: 13:57

People are in PTSD just rocking the car and the dog just keeps laughing, Keep laughing. I can't shoot him. So basically this yeah, this eye for an eye all snowballed into two groups eventually, one loyal to King Awida, awida Awida something like that.

Shaun: 14:13

Awida, awida, awida, awida, awida, awida, Awida, awida and the rebels who won their own man in charge. This basically became a stalemate, with one group in the north and one in the south of the island, because they're both equally matched same amount of guns, same amount of weapons, same amount of knowledge of the area. Basically, yeah the same fighting the same Big stalemate. Also, here's the point.

Nate: 14:34

Yeah, I think it would be pretty difficult. Yeah, it'd be pretty difficult to. And again, everyone knows it's small island. We all know everything that little hidey hole you have, we all know about it.

Shaun: 14:45

We've all been in that hidey hole that's called the jerking off hole. That's where we go when we need some privacy.

Nate: 14:51

But then, if you think about it this way as well once the fighting's all done, you know somebody, you killed someone, you knew Like oh hey, how was that one so and so oh yeah, nice to meet you. I'm pretty sure I killed half your family.

Shaun: 15:04

Yeah right, it would be a very awkward holiday season next year when you're just like so guess I got to buy you less gifts this year since I killed your kids.

Nate: 15:17

With all point left.

Shaun: 15:20

Here's a fun fact the king of Nauru, King Awaites. Dad was named Chief Jim J-I-M. Like old Jim who works at the machine shop. Not a name you'd expect for a Naurushan, Naurushan, Nauruin. Right, there's old Jim over there.

Shaun: 15:37

Jim D-Mini Nauru 1881 rolls around, three years into the Civil War, and the British Navy swings by the island to see what's up with them. They go to that British beachcomber, william Harris, we talked about a minute ago, the guy who's kind of the diplomat, and he reports that the whole island is at war, everybody's drunk, everybody has guns and it's not good happy times. He also says that the king is kind of talking to people being like I really wish a mission area would show up from other places and kind of like be an intermediary or somebody to kind of be the go between, because nobody really trusts anybody at this point on the island. The British Navy heard this report, said huh, neat, and they just left. They didn't care.

Shaun: 16:16

1887, six years later, another British captain out of Australia heads up to Nauru. He stalks up on some coconuts and some palm wine and he basically reports that all the islanders seem in good spirits but despite them all, but despite, you know, the war still being on, everybody there is sick and tired of the fighting they really wanted to end, but nobody's willing to put their guns down first. Because you know what happens when you put your guns down first you probably get shot. So again they're just like, hey man, could somebody get out here and just kind of like be an intermediary and help us hammer out some negotiations? That sure would be nice. Oh yeah, and the captain also. He ran into that William Harris dude who, uh, the diplomat guy, and he reports that things on the island are actually kind of sucky and two of his family members have been shot since the last visit and he would like help as well.

Nate: 17:01

And they're like don't worry, we'll help you. All we got to do is take over your entire fucking abut.

Shaun: 17:08

And actually it'd be the German Navy who shows up in 1888 and they just plop one of their warships off the coast and they come on the island and they're like All right, here we're trying to make money in this area and this seems like it'll be something that'll prevent us from making money in this area. So you guys need to make nice and prepared to be annexed and disarmed and assimilation is nigh. You're going to be bored to people. So basically, germany, just they gathered up all the tribe members, or the tribe leaders, tribe chiefs, basically stuck them in a room and explained to them your guys have your entire island, has one day to give up all your firearms and booze or we killed you. And the next morning the natives turned out, turned over 765 weapons and several thousand rounds of ammunition.

Shaun: 17:55

And guns and booze were made illegal on the island. The king that was in charge of the time. However, he got to stay in charge of King of the Island, kind of sort of in name only, but he was able to make rules and, you know, he did have influence on there. It wasn't like a complete takeover at this point, In exchange not a complete takeover, but less, not kidding us at all.

Nate: 18:16

If the German said this is happening Now, he's like yeah, right, yeah.

Shaun: 18:22

the first thing you do is plop a warship down on the shore.

Nate: 18:24

I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But you may have some power, but the ultimate say is, unfortunately not worse.

Shaun: 18:31

We have veto power is what is called in diplomatic terms.

Nate: 18:34

There you go, veto with a gun.

Shaun: 18:38

So Germany hoists the flag above it and all of a sudden boom. Now Rue is now part of the Marshall Islands and they also deposit some Christian missionaries there to help keep things in line.

Nate: 18:47

This ends the bloodiest tribal war in our history.

Shaun: 18:50

Yeah, absolutely. We fast forward to 1899 and we skip over to New Zealand for a moment. We're in the office buildings of the Pacific Island company, where a 30 year old man named Albert Fuller Ellis stares at a doorstop that his boss has. It's this large chunk of rock. And Albert is like hey, what's that doorstop there? And his boss is like that's petrified wood. I got out on an island and Albert stares at some more and goes Can I take the rock for testing? I think that's something else. And the boss is like, sure, go for it. So he takes that rock and gets it tested. Well, it's not petrified wood. In fact, it is super high quality phosphate Super high quality and super valuable phosphate too. Albert Fuller comes back to the boss is like Yo, where'd you get this rock? This thing could be worth a lot of money. And the boss is like, yeah, go over to this island, nauru. This place is just covered with rocks like that no-transcript. And uh, yeah, remember how we were talking about birds crapping for for millions of years, turns out the petrified bird poop turns into phosphate Among other stuff too, you know

Shaun: 19:55

yeah, and that island is just thick with it. In fact, that giant plateau in the middle of it is basically just all phosphate. What's phosphate used for, you might ask? Uh, mainly the number one use, especially back then, was fertilizers, good for grown crops, but it can also be used in explosives, stuff like rodent poison and animal feed and some medicines Main use fertilizers, though, for all intents and purposes.

Shaun: 20:18

So Albert is on the next ship to Nauru and arrives in 1900 to find his greatest dreams come true that island is just covered in the highest quality phosphates you could imagine. Now imagine, you know little dollar signs that pop up over his pupils. You know he's like hat flies off his head for just saying he's like Ruga Pulls a Scrooge, mcduck, ruga Woo, look at that. So didn't take long, because in 1906 the Pacific phosphate company is all set up and them in Germany are ready to tag, team that island and get all they can out of it. They import a bunch of Chinese workers because they're actually seen as harder workers and they work for cheaper wages. Then, uh, the Nauru's would, and by 1907 the first shipment of Nauru phosphate is on its way by ship. Yeah, you see trouble ahead, huh.

Nate: 21:09

Yeah, like I said, I mean I, I see, yeah, I watch the video, so I know this is going. So, yeah, I'm not, I'm not down. No, sir, I don't like it Ha.

Shaun: 21:19

Well, also, it's kind of a note that they also found basically the exact same thing on Nauru's closest neighbor, banaba, the one that we actually talked about a little earlier. There's 190 miles, I think away. Well, the downside for Banaba it was, these guys were not under German jurisdiction, so when the mining company went over there and saw, hey, it is full of phosphate boy, they just Scrooge McDuck to that chief hard and they bought the entire for basically some trinkets. And I guess one of the big selling points they had was canned food. They're like look at this miracle, we're so much money. So yeah, at least with the Nauru the Germans were there and they're like uh-uh, we see what you're trying to do. We're gonna least profit off this. Make sure some stuff is going right. Uh, over on Banaba. Nope, that co-corporation, they got just carte blanche to do whatever they want.

Nate: 22:03

And uh, you know, whatever the what they did.

Shaun: 22:07

Yeah, exactly, we'll actually visit that island again in a few moments. Well, in a little bit. Yeah, check in see how things went with them.

Nate: 22:16

Ha, let me guess, not well.

Shaun: 22:19

Not well, no, as reward for all this, though, albert Fuller Ellis was knighted by the Queen of England in 1938, as Is tradition. Thank you for wiping out some of those other people. Yeah, be knighted for it.

Nate: 22:33

Ha ha. We love it when you kill other people, other people, those folk. We also like that. Pause before you put other people In the language. It only can't pause.

Shaun: 22:47

Yeah, and you do that little eyebrow race. Yeah, other people, yeah, I do a little knock on uh-huh.

Nate: 22:51

And you know we're talking about no matter what you're talking about. Any cut like even if you're alone talking to your child, say if other people come up with conversation, you must pause other people. Uh, and look around conspiratorily like other people don't, don't, don't.

Shaun: 23:13

1914, in world war one starts up and right away the australia just zoops right up there to naroon, kicks the germans out of it. They're like, hey, we kind of like this island. When the war is sitting, done all over, there's a fire sale on german assets, as you might know, and Australia just raises their hand, points in our room. They're like, oh, look what we found, kin will keep it. And uh, yeah, the league of nations was just like sure, why not use little cute little scamps? You can have that tiny little island out there. And now naroo is under aussie control. As a side note, the early 1900s are kind of rough on Nauru, in the form of a sudden influx of outside people that caused a massive outbreak of the Spanish flu, tuberculosis and infantile paralysis that led to mortality-.

Nate: 23:55

Are you telling me are you telling me borders with rare weird diseases coming to a smile and at bad outcome?

Shaun: 24:02

This led to a mortality rate of about 18% of the native people, which was about 230 deaths, so not a whole lot of people on Nauru at the time 18% of all your people dying, that's still a lot.

Nate: 24:15

Yeah, that doesn't sound like a lot, but again, small-.

Shaun: 24:18

That's one in five. So yeah, look around in that room 10 people two of you are going to be gone. So in 1919, the British did a census and realized that the population of Nauru was startlingly low and they determined that for the Nauru people to survive they need a population of at least 1500 people. And they got together with the chiefs and were like, yeah, we need to pump up these rookie numbers, get to bring guys. And it was decided by the chiefs of the island that they proclaimed that on the day of the birth that brought their 1500th Nauruan, it would be a national holiday called Angam Day and they would shower gifts upon the child. And so the race was on to have kids and try to get that 1500th baby and get all those free gifts and stuff kind of like a sweepstakes in a way.

Nate: 25:00

Well hey, gotta, do something so you mean seriously like come on, get the bing and come on Panthers.

Shaun: 25:08

Yeah, basically they just got people like playing the violin just romantically, outside of people's places all the time.

Nate: 25:13

At all times.

Shaun: 25:14

Yeah, around the clock. You're just sitting there pooping listening to romantic music. 1921, national Geographic arrives to take a look at the Nauru mines and describes it as, quote unquote, a ghastly tract of land. October 26, 1932, the first Angam baby is born. Her name is Aida Guwaro. That's probably wrong, but that's close as I'm getting. Her name expresses the feeling of reaching home or attaining a goal. In the Nauruan language, the name was actually given to her by a combination of the Chiefs of the Island and the Australian Administrator in charge, named by committee, I guess. That night large bonfires were lit on the beaches of every district and the Chiefs judged who had the biggest bonfire, and the winners was the Iwo district, and they actually won the best bonfire award by creating blue fire by stoking the fire with copper wire. That's kind of impressive.

Nate: 26:15

That's totally impressive.

Shaun: 26:16

Yeah, probably looked really cool too. I'd imagine those of you with property go buy or chill some copper wire and burn it. Let us know how it looks. On the 6th and 7th of December 1940, the German auxiliary cruisers Komet and Orion sank five supply ships in the vicinity of Nauru. Komet then shelled Nauru's phosphate mining areas, orange-stoyled depots and their equipment. Yes, world War II was now upon us. Bump, bump, bump. A lot of Nauru people would probably stand around and be like you know, we could have just been an isolated island. Y'all could have left us alone. That would have been nice about now.

Shaun: 26:52

Right, y'all could just keep going.

Nate: 26:54

We were totally fine.

Shaun: 26:55

Yeah, I just think it might be like. You know, I could just be swimming with the fish right now. Well, japan decides that they would like a small phosphate-covered island and in 1942, they swoop in and take over. Well, things don't really go good for them. First thing they do is they take 1200 Nauruans and ship them off to the Chuck Islands to be slave laborers. Then they bring in a bunch of Chinese slave laborers and put them to work in the phosphate mines, and, as well as a bunch of the most of the remaining Nauruans were put to work up building an airstrip, building fortifications, working in the mines, doing all sorts of forced labor that they did not want to do. Actually, the Nauruan people were basically told comply or you will be skinned like pigs.

Nate: 27:37

Yeah, I guess we know what we're doing.

Shaun: 27:41

Although if there was one kind of good thing for the Nauruans and this kind of messed up in a good way, but because there's already, because the Japanese brought in Chinese into the island, there's already Chinese laborers there. Well, in a Japanese society at the time, you know, chinese were like the lowest of the low of the low, like lower than dogs or leeches kind of thing, and basically as long as there's Chinese on the island they always got treated the worst out of everybody. So the Nauruans were always, you know, not really getting the shit into the stick. I mean, they had a bad, but the Chinese got slightly worse. So yeah.

Shaun: 28:13

Yeah, yeah.

Nate: 28:14

Yeah.

Shaun: 28:18

But yeah, you know what I mean. You know how history was. Nauruans were only allowed to have 900 grams of rice and 45 grams of beef per day. That was their daily rations. Chinese got much less when the Japanese took over. There was a leper colony with 39 lepers living there that Australia set up. The Japanese said, hey, we're going to take these lepers to our own leper colony off yonder, to a different island, don't worry, it's much nicer there. Load all lepers up onto a boat, took one of their own boats and towed that boat off to sea where they probably let it loose, and then sank the boat with their, shot it with artillery, and just sank that boat, came back to the island and was like I don't know, that boat sank on its own. Apparently they did not want lepers around. Get the tragedy. Yeah, it was a tragedy. No one could have seen this coming than our gunners. All right, remember those Bannabin people, the ones on the non-German controlled island that kind of got shanked. We are shafted. We talked about it just a minute ago.

Nate: 29:13

Yes.

Shaun: 29:14

The Japanese took over that island and basically finished stripping whatever resources that were left there, because the Austrians or the British did a real number on that island at this point. The Japanese basically finished it off and all that was left on that island was basically nothing, and the Bannabin people were reduced to eating tree bark and grass. Well, instead of killing them all off, the Japanese decided to take all 659 of those starving islanders and drop them off on Nauru. Now Nauru's population is roughly about 600 right now, or there's about 600 Nauru people on this island. You got to imagine all of a sudden having a bunch of emaciated, dying people dropped off on your island, numbering about the same as you. There's got to be some weird trauma based along with that. It goes along with that.

Shaun: 29:59

Yeah, I mean just picture your neighborhood right now and all of a sudden it just gets doubled with dying people.

Nate: 30:03

You're like, oh I mean I can't pull out. There's a whole dead person there.

Shaun: 30:11

Just take like a push room, just push them out of the way. Also at first I thought you meant a different kind of pull out and I was very confused. Yes, jenny, you're dying again.

Nate: 30:23

Why is this guy dying in the room I got to get to work?

Shaun: 30:28

Uh, also, the Japanese did eventually basically have a plan of uh, eventually kind of Taking all the neurons off the island and claiming it that way too, because I guess that was a way they did with all those Little Micronesian islands. They just eventually take all the existing people there and just move them to a different island and be like Well, you got no claim to this because you don't live here anymore. It's ours now, which I guess, and which I guess is different than just wiping them out.

Shaun: 30:49

I'm not sure how, but I yes, we're just gonna go like yeah, why don't you just like round them up and just execute them? Hmm, thankfully it did not happen. We love you. No room people, you're an off-topic.

Nate: 31:06

So because you're not, rudy Greenettes?

Shaun: 31:08

Yeah, we are really not. We root for you. Because it was heavily fortified and also had just giant coral reefs surrounding it. Uh, the coral we've made so large boats couldn't get in. Little boats could, but large boats can't. They just get torn up on the reefs. Uh, that island was heavily fortified and hard to invade, so the allies never did actually take it back during the war. They did try a few times but uh, never succeeded. In fact, the only way they took it back was because the war ended in, japan surrendered.

Shaun: 31:35

Okay, and then even then it uh, it took a little while after the uh Surrender for them to actually give up on that island took like five or six days, because the australians had to go through with Plains and drop the leaflets all over the island and be like, hey, guess what? Surprise, yep, surprise. So the end result of naru was the island was bombed and damaged, the infrastructure kind of destroyed, and Of the uh 600 naruans that were actually left on the island that stayed there, only 400 lived. Remember those 1200? They were taken off to uh forced labor camps. Well, they made their way back, but only 737 of them lived. Among the people who died are angam baby idigan. She died of a case of malnutrition and the yaw as well in the labor camp.

Nate: 32:21

Oh.

Shaun: 32:22

Yeah, the yaw is, in case you're wondering, is an infection disease found in tropical climates that leads to ulcers on the skin, that eventually leads to bone and joint infections that eventually cause deformities. And yeah, it's, it's, it's. Don't google pictures of it. It's not cool, I'll be sure.

Nate: 32:37

I'll do that.

Shaun: 32:38

But transmitted by. Uh. Yeah, it's transmitted by contact with bodily fluids, non sexually to. It's usually spread by kids playing and stuff and horse around. Uh, no vaccine for it, but they can cure it if they catch it uh, soon enough, with some penicillin. However, right after world war two penicillin was in short supply, so they actually were giving people injections of arsenic to cure it, which I guess that helps. Also, injections of arsenic can be used to cure syphilis. Arsenic can yeah, arsenic, who would have guessed? I mean yeah, oh it's like bleach.

Shaun: 33:09

Yeah, arsenic, and bleach.

Nate: 33:11

No, just like you know, back in you know, oh gotcha.

Shaun: 33:16

So after world war two and everything's wiped out, it's time to try to make another angam baby, and the new rins would celebrate their second angam baby on march 31st 1949. However, for the actual angam celebration they stuck with the original birth from the first time, and that is a holiday that's still actually celebrated on the island. So war is over and australia gets right back to naru and starts crank it out even more phosphate once they get the mine up and running again. Uh, the uan made a new group of trustees to oversee naru. Australia, new zealand and the uk are now being, uh, the guys in charge of, with australia being the main shot callers.

Shaun: 33:52

1948, the chinese laborers on the island would have a financial dispute with the phosphate mining company. Uh, essentially, their work contracts were up and uh, they're supposed to leave the island, but there's money issues, going on, a lot of disputes, and this led to one of the laborers threatening an interpreter and assaulting the messenger. When the police arrived to arrest the guy, the chinese all barricaded themselves in their compound and readied themselves for a standoff. The island's administrator, mark ridgeway, declared a state of emergency and dispatched dispatched an armed riot squad composing of 44 Naru and policemen and 16 european volunteers to the chinese compound and the subsequent fight. Two of the laborers were shot dead and 16 were wounded. The police arrested 49 of the workers, who were taken to the island's jail. There, two of them were bayoneted to death by a naru and constable who alleged they were trying to escape Uh yeah, yeah, try to escape, also known as insulting his mother?

Shaun: 34:44

Yeah, exactly, or I didn't like the way he looked at me.

Nate: 34:46

Yeah, he, yeah. If he wasn't trying to escape he should have talked shit. He said my lego game was some bar. I'm mother fucker. It deserved to die.

Shaun: 34:57

The government of the soviet union and china actually made official complaints against australia at the united nations over this incident.

Nate: 35:05

Yeah, two of the kids have pants with china and soviet union are like making complaint. Yeah, yeah, the united nations, like what?

Shaun: 35:13

where I actually found a news article about that, uh, a whole situation. If you would like to hear it, Uh sure.

Nate: 35:20

All right, lay it on me naru riots clash with chinese wukas.

Shaun: 35:25

Great official secrecy has been maintained by ken berra regarding rather serious riots in june on the phosphate island of naru. For the administration of austria, for which the administration of australia is responsible, having completed two years service under indenture, 1500 chinese laborers employed at naru were due for reparation. The steamer heledon arrived to take them to china. The chinese refused to go. They built barricades, armed themselves with spears, clubs and axes and showered stones upon officials who approached them. The administrator, mr Im ridgeway, declared a state of emergency and issued arms to white residents and some native naruans. Australian officials fired warning shots over the heads of the chinese.

Shaun: 36:05

Behind the barricades, a clash occurred. Four chinese were killed. It was announced on july 18th that the state of emergency has passed, but no one yet told what happened to the chinese. Did they go board the ship or are they still waving their clubs in naru? It is a very great state secret preserved by mr Ward as australian minister for territories. So basically, yeah, the article says that, like hey, they say that the state of emergency passed, but they never actually say what happened to the chinese people.

Nate: 36:32

So there you go. Yeah they're not all dead. They all live just fine, as you can see from the makeup of our country, how we all have now, generations later, with all these chinese they were to take on. We all have chinese characteristics. They were all slaughtered.

Shaun: 36:53

See, look, they're all still alive here. It's budget in the race doing like the slant. I think we, chinese, we all, racist.

Shaun: 37:00

Yeah, and, of course, the australian people not knowing the difference, it's just like, ah, seems right, bye, what? So we're up to 1964 now and the australian government takes a good long hard. Look at naru and says, boy, this rampant strip mining has decimated this once lovely island. This thing will be nigh uninhabitable by the 90s. We should do something. So their plan was not to stop mining, but to offer the nerun people a new home, one that wasn't ravaged by phosphate mines. The australian government said that they britain and new zealand owe the islanders that much because of what happened Actually. Then they chose curtis island off the coast of queensland, australia, which is, say, significantly bigger than narus. Narus eight square miles, 261 square miles for curtis island.

Shaun: 37:48

Australia figured the cost of resettling the neruans to curtis island was an estimated it was going to be 10 million pounds at the time, which is, uh, 324 million australian dollars in 2022. So not really a cheap thing going on. But they were going to set them up with housing, agriculture, fishing industries, built some schools and basically just be like hey, we got everything here set up for you to go. Here's a port, this that sort of like a starting civilization city or sim city. There was one catch though the nation of naru would be no more. They'd have they would have their island, but they'd be completely under australian authority.

Shaun: 38:23

The naran people did not like this idea because they did not want to become australian citizens. They wanted to be their own, you know, separate entity. Maybe they caught inkling from the wild west days in america and were like, hey, wait a minute. We've seen other people get offered this kind of stuff and it didn't work out. Well, yeah, they, if they're gonna be given curtis island, they're like we, we want that as our island, that's gonna be our thing, that's gonna be the new naru. Australia said huh, uh, we ain't doing that, buddy. So naru said nope, and instead they're like give us back our island, all right. And australia actually agreed to this and they started doing the paperwork towards an independent naru. And that's gonna do it for part one on our series about naru. Stay tuned next week for our conclusion, when we take a look at how naru handles its sudden independence and what it decides to do with the ecological disaster that is the phosphate mine. We'll then talk about how those decisions have affected modern-day naru on the next episode of off-tof topic.