In Kiribati mythology, Tarawa represents the primordial earth, existing before Nareau the spider separated the land, ocean, and sky. After naming the sky "karawa" and the ocean "marawa," Nareau referred to the rock upon which Riiki—another deity discovered by Nareau—stood when he raised the sky as "Tarawa." Following this, Nareau went on to create the remaining islands of Kiribati, as well as Samoa. Gilbertese first settled these islands thousands of years ago, and there have been migrations to and from
Gilbert Islands since antiquity. Evidence from a range of sources, including
carbon dating and DNA analyses, confirms that the
exploration of the Pacific included settlement of the Gilbert Islands by around 200 BC. The people of Tungaru (native name of the Gilbertese) are still excellent seafarers, capable of making ocean crossings in locally made vessels using traditional navigation techniques.
Thomas Gilbert, captain of the
East India Company vessel , was the first European to describe Tarawa, arriving on 20 June 1788. He did not land. He named it Matthew Island, after the owner of his ship
Charlotte. He named the lagoon Charlotte Bay. Gilbert's 1788 sketches survive. survey in 1873 In 1841, the island was mapped by the
US Exploring Expedition. For nine generations, the island was divided between two warring factions, the House of Auatubu and the House of Teabike, until in 1892 arrived, with Captain
Edward Davis proclaiming that the island was now a
British Protectorate. This saved Auatubu from massacre; the day before, they had been badly defeated by Teabike. A very old lady, plaiting a sleeping mat twenty-five years later, described the situation: "In those days death was on the right hand and on the left. If we wandered north, we were killed or raped. If we wandered south, we were killed or raped. If we returned alive from walking abroad, our husbands themselves killed us, for they said that we had gone forth seeking to be raped. That was indeed just, for a woman who disobeys her husband is a woman of no account, and it matters not how she dies. Yet how beautiful is life in our villages, now that there is no killing and war is no more... Behold my son and my grandson! These would have died with me that day at Nea if the warship had not arrived. And these"—she pointed out her great and great-great-grandchildren—"would never have been born. We live because the Government of
Kuini Kabitoria brought peace to us, and here I sit plaiting this mat to be buried in because of the kindness of that woman, with all my generations around me to wrap me in it when I die." The aftermath of land claims and counter-claims between Auatubu and Teabike nevertheless caused high tension for years afterwards.
Charles Richard Swayne, the first
Resident Commissioner, decided to install the central headquarters of the
Gilbert and Ellice Islands protectorate in Tarawa in 1895. Tarawa Post Office opened on 1 January 1911. Sir
Arthur Grimble was a cadet administrative officer based at Tarawa (1913–1919). He became Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony in 1926. '' documentary film, 1944 (0:20:10) During
World War II, Tarawa was
occupied by the Japanese, and beginning on 20 November 1943 it was the scene of the bloody
Battle of Tarawa. On that day
U.S. Marines landed on Tarawa and fought Japanese Marines of the
Special Naval Landing Forces occupying entrenched positions on the atoll. The Marines captured the island after 76 hours of intense fighting that killed 6,000 people in total. The fierce fighting was the subject of a documentary film produced by the Combat Photographers of the Second Marine Division entitled
With the Marines at Tarawa. It was released in March 1944 at the insistence of
President Roosevelt. It became the first time many Americans viewed American servicemen dead on film. The US built
bases on the Island. The Kiribati Government began a road restoration project funded in part by the
World Bank in 2014 to re-surface the main road from Betio in the west to Bonriki in the east, upgrading the main road that transits Tarawa from a dirt road. ==Literature and journal==