Swains Island

Swains Island (; Tokelauan: ''Olohega'' ; Samoan: ''Olosega'' ) is a remote coral atoll in the Tokelau Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. The island is the subject of an ongoing territorial dispute between Tokelau and the United States, which has administered it as part of American Samoa since 1925. Privately owned by the family of Eli Hutchinson Jennings since 1856, Swains Island was used as a copra plantation until 1967. It has not been permanently inhabited since 2008 but has often been visited by members of the Jennings family, scientific researchers, and amateur radio operators.Swains Island
Charles A. Veley, 27 November 2008.2012 Swains Island DXpedition
/ref>Assessment of the Birds of Swains Island, American Samoa
Andrew Titmus, Nicola Arcilla, and Christopher Lepczyk, ''The Wilson Journal of Ornithology'', March 2016.Atoll envisioned as a model for sustainability
Star Advertiser, 20 September 2014.

The island is located south of Fakaofo (Tokelau) and north of Savai‘i (Samoa). The land area is , and the total area including the lagoon is .

Etymology

A persistent misconception about Swains Island is its supposed discovery on 2 March 1606 by Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, a famous Portuguese navigator who sailed for Spain. On that day, he reckoned an island at 10°36'S 171°W, and his ship's historian named it ''Isla de la Gente Hermosa'' (meaning "island of the beautiful people" in Spanish), after its inhabitants. The closest island to that reckoned location is Swains Island at 11°03'S 171°05'W, leading later authors to identify it as the same, and thus refer to it by that Spanish name or by the Spanish version of the navigator's last name, ''Quirós'' (also spelled Quiros in English). However, the island described by Queirós was significantly larger, and at the time the calculation of longitude had a much greater uncertainty than latitude, leading later scholars to conclude that the island found by Queirós was actually Rakahanga, lying to the east at 10°02'S 161°05'W.

Captain William L. Hudson of the USS ''Peacock'' saw the island on 1 February 1841, during the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–42. He claimed to have learned about the island's location from a certain Captain Swain of Nantucket, and after concluding that it did not match the description by Queirós, resolved to call it ''Swain's Island'' (the apostrophe was later dropped):

" om having its position very nearly pointed out to me by Capt. Swain of Nantucket who stated to me at Tahiti that he had seen it in passing – and in consequence of its being a considerable distance in latitude from, and not agreeing in size or character with the island described by Queros – in addition to this in view of it being peopled with a beautiful race – it is uninhabited and perhaps we are the first that have ever set foot upon it – thus much for its name."

This Captain Swain has not been conclusively identified. Authors have suggested Jonathan Swain of whaler ''Independence'' in 1820, or William C. Swain of whaler ''George Champlain'' in the 1830s. Other evidence suggests Obed Swain of whaler ''Jefferson'' of Nantucket, who, unlike William C. Swain, actually was at Tahiti when the United States Exploring Expedition was there with the USS ''Peacock'' and Captain Hudson.

In Tokelauan, the main language formerly spoken on Swains Island, the island is called ''Olohega'' . The name is composed of the prefix ''olo-'', indicating a collective noun, and the word ''hega'', meaning a tuft of feathers tied to the end of a skipjack lure, possibly referring to the island's location at the end of the Tokelau chain.Tokelau Dictionary
Office of Tokelau Affairs, 1986.Wayfinding in Pacific linguascapes: Negotiating Tokelau linguistic indentities in Hawai‘i
Akiemi Glenn, August 2012. A variant of this name is Olosega , either also in Tokelauan or in Samoan, another language formerly spoken there. It should not be confused with the homonymous island in the pair Ofu-Olosega of the Manu‘a group in American Samoa.

It is also called ''Jennings Island'', after Eli Hutchinson Jennings, who settled there in 1856 and whose family still owns and manages the island.

Geography

Swains Island has a total area of about , of which is land. The central lagoon accounts for .

The atoll is somewhat unusual, featuring an unbroken circle of land enclosing a lagoon separated from the sea. The lagoon has a maximum depth of and contains algae and fish. Its water has a salinity of about 0.4%, described as brackish, useful for bathing and washing but not for drinking. Drinking water in the island is derived entirely from rainfall collected in tanks.

Nearly all of the land is filled with coconut palms. The village of Taulaga (meaning harbor or town), in the west of the island, consists of a ''malae'' (open ceremonial space) surrounded by houses, but as of 2013 the only structure still standing was a church, built around 1886. The village of Etena (meaning Eden), in the south, contains the former residence of the Jennings family, also built in the 1880s but abandoned after a cyclone severely damaged it in 2005. A road named Belt Road used to circle the entire island, but as of 2013 only the portion connecting the two villages was usable, the rest being covered in vegetation. The island also contains several cemeteries.

Fauna

The island has been recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports a breeding population of white terns. Seven reptile species have been recorded from the island, including three geckos and three skinks, as well as the green sea turtles which formerly nested on the island, but now occur only as visitors to inshore waters.

Demographics

Swains Island first appeared in the U.S. census in 1930, following its annexation to American Samoa in 1925.

The 2010 census counted 17 people in 6 households. There were 8 males (ages 20 to 61) and 9 females (3 under age 18, 6 ages 18 to 61). There were 11 U.S. nationals (8 born in American Samoa, and 3 in the United States) and 6 foreign nationals (4 born in Samoa, 1 in Tokelau, and 1 in the Philippines). They reported their ethnic origins as 15 Samoans, 1 Tokelauan, and 1 Filipino. Of the 16 people over age 5, 15 spoke mainly Samoan, and 1 spoke another Oceanic language, but all also spoke English.American Samoa's 2010 Demographic Profile Summary File Data
U.S. Census Bureau.

However, the people counted in the 2010 census did not permanently reside on Swains Island. Multiple visitors have reported the island as uninhabited since 2008. The 2020 census recorded no residents there.

History

Anthropologists indicate that the island was initially settled by Polynesian voyagers and later conquered by Tokelauans from Fakaofo.

Whalers from New England began visiting the island in the 1830s or earlier. Frenchmen established copra production there around that time, during which the native population fled due to violence by the foreigners.

Captain William L. Hudson of the USS ''Peacock'' saw the island on 1 February 1841, during the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–42. He named it Swain's Island after a certain Captain Swain, from whom he had learned about the island's location.

The Jennings family

Fakaofoans returned to the island soon after Hudson's visit, and were joined by three Frenchmen, who then left to sell the coconut oil they had accumulated. In 1856, an American, Eli Hutchinson Jennings (14November 18144December 1878), joined a community on Swains with his Samoan wife, Malia. Jennings claimed to have received title to the atoll from a British Captain Turnbull, who claimed ownership of the island by discovery and named it after himself. According to one account, the sale price for Swains was 15 shillings per acre (37 shillings per hectare), and a bottle of gin. One of the Frenchmen later returned, but did not care to share the island with Jennings and left.

On 13 October 1856, Swains became a semi-independent proprietary