Nauruan Tribal War

The Nauruan Tribal War was a war among the twelve indigenous tribes of Nauru between 1878 and 1888. By the end of the war about 500 people had died, around a third of the population.

Since the British captain John Fearn discovered Nauru in 1798, it had been avoided as much as possible by many ships, due to its notoriety as a station for pirates. Nevertheless, in the 19th century, the immigration of Europeans, often lawbreakers, steadily increased. Traditional life had been disrupted by the introduction of arms and spirits, an unknown drink in ancient Nauru, although the Nauruans consumed toddy for several thousand years.

The conflict began during a marriage festival; while discussing a point of etiquette, which turned into a heated argument, one of the guests fired a pistol and shot a young chief. The need to avenge the young chief's death was perceived as clear in a Nauruan cultural context. Former feuds had their origins in similar incidents, but this time every family in every tribe's clan had guns, exacerbating a potential conflict. Moreover, the Nauruans were goaded by the beachcombers, released convicts and dismissed whalers from Europe. Several deadly shootings led to most Nauruans participating in the war. A kind of guerrilla war broke out; drunk people shot others accidentally or broke into an enemy's house, accidentally shooting candles, matches, or anything that moved. Women and children were slaughtered.

A squadron of the British Royal Navy anchored off the coast of Nauru on September 21, 1881, and the squadron's flagship approached the island, to appraise the local situation. An acculturated local beachcomber, William Harris, boarded the British ship, which summoned the rest of the squadron by semaphore that evening, saying that a tribal war was raging, that all of the islanders were drunk, that the actual king of the island, Aweida, wished to have missionaries come to the island to help stop the war.

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