The Tale of Christmas Island

Christmas Island is famous for its crabs, which migrate in huge numbers from the jungle to the coast to spawn. It’s one of the most magical sights in the natural world but it hides a much more miserable history.

40-17 million years ago what would become Christmas Island was a small coral atoll. After this, tectonic movements submerged the island, before it reemerged 300km further south 5 million years ago.

For thousands of years the island was uninhabited. Which meant that animal species developed independently here and there are many unique species.

In 1615 everything changed when a White bloke called William Mynors, who isn’t very interesting, sighted the island and plotted it on his stupid map. 200 years later phosphate-rock was discovered and the island was thrust into the global exploitative mining trade.

Smelling money, colonists came to the island to take advantage of the mineral deposits. One man called Ong Sam Leong became insanely rich off of this. He shipped in indentured labour from mainland China to work in appalling conditions. He simultaneously ran brothels and supplied them with opium to make it as hard as possible for them to return.

Hundreds died of disease, while Ong Sam Leong became wealthy from their suffering and British money.

Years passed and this thing called the Second World war happened, which involved the Empire of Japan invading and taking over phosphate exports.

In 1958 the Australian government, via the British government, paid $20 million to Singapore to take over the island.

In the 1980s and 1990s asylum seekers slowly began landing on the island to escape persecution. In 2001, the Australian government enacted the “Pacific Solution” barring people from claiming asylum. Some years later a sprawling detention centre was built, with detainees protesting against poor conditions and going on hunger strike.

The detention centre officially closed in 2018 but is now home to one family of 4 whose deportation was halted by a court mid-flight to Sri Lanka.

No story is an island entire of itself...

...And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for all of us together.