page_title: Tanna Island
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Tanna Island / History
context_page_description: Tanna is an island in Tafea Province of Vanuatu.
context_section_description: Tanna was first settled about 400 BC by Melanesians from the surrounding islands. The glowing light of Mount Yasur attracted James Cook, the first European to visit the island, in August 1774, where he landed in an inlet on the southeastern tip of the island that he named Port Resolution after his ship HMS Resolution. He gave the island the name of Tanna, probably from the local name for earth, tana in the Kwamera language.
  In the 19th century, traders and missionaries (chiefly Presbyterian) arrived. The Tannese stuck to their traditions more strongly than other islands; there remain fewer Christians in comparison with the other islands of Vanuatu.
  Whaling vessels were some of the first regular visitors to the island in the nineteenth century. The first on record was the Rose in February 1804. The last known such visit was by the Sea Ranger in September 1871.
  Tanna was not a principal site of World War II, but about 1,000 people from Tanna were recruited to work on the American military base on Éfaté. Exposure to First World living standards may have led to the development of cargo cults. Many have died out, but the John Frum cult remains strong on Tanna today, especially at Sulphur Bay in the south east and Green Point in the South West of the Island. The documentary Waiting for John (2015) by Jessica Sherry provides a history and overview of the current scene regarding these beliefs.
  A secessionist movement began in the 1970s, and the Nation of Tanna was proclaimed on 24 March 1974. While the British were more open to allowing its holdings in Vanuatu to achieve independence, it was opposed by the French colonists and finally suppressed by the Anglo-French Condominium authorities on 29 June 1974.
  In 1980, there was another attempt to secede, declaring the Tafea Nation on 1 January 1980, its name coming from the initials of the five islands that were to be part of the nation (Tanna, Aniwa, Futuna, Erromango and Aneityum). British forces intervened on 26 May 1980, allowing the island to become part of the newly independent nation of Vanuatu on 30 July 1980.
  Tanna and nearby Erromango were devastated by cyclone Pam in mid-March 2015, with reports of an unknown number of deaths, complete destruction of the island’s infrastructure and permanent shelters, and no drinking water.  Following this, an El Niño-spurred drought further impacted on the people of Tanna.
caption: Cannibal Feast on Tanna by Charles E. Gordon Frazer c. 1885-9
exif: {}