Humans have inhabited Bikini Atoll for about 3,600 years.[1] U.S. Army Corps of Engineers archaeologist Charles F. Streck, Jr., found bits of charcoal, fish bones, shells and other artifacts under 3 feet (0.91 meters) of sand. Carbon-dating placed the age of the artifacts at between 1960 and 1650 BC. Other discoveries on Bikini and Eneu island were carbon-dated to between 1000 BC and 1 BC, and others between AD 400 and 1400[2][3] though samples may not have been collected from secure stratigraphic contexts and older driftwood samples may have affected results.[4]

 Map of Bikini Atoll, taken from the 1893 map Schutzgebiet der Marshall Inseln, published in 1897

On October 1, 1529, the Spanish ship La Florida, under the command of Álvaro de Saavedra, stopped at a lush atoll, which Saavedra called Los Jardines English: The Gardens. The atoll may have been Bikini or Enewetak Atoll. The Spaniards went ashore and ate with the islanders. According to an account of the voyage, the feast ended abruptly when the island's chief inquired about the purpose of Saavedra's musket. When Saavedra fired it into the air, the islanders fled.[5]

Russian explorer Otto von Kotzebue was the first westerner to have undisputedly seen the atoll during his 1816 and 1817 voyages.[6] He named it Eschscholtz Atoll after Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz, the ship's naturalist.[7]

In 1834, the captain of a trading schooner and two of his crew members were killed at Bikini Atoll. Three vessels were sent to search for the captain, and when the Hawaiian brig Waverly discovered evidence of his death, the crew killed 30 Marshallese hostages in retaliation.[8] Bikini and the other northern Marshall Islands had less European contact and settlement than the southern islands, but in the 1870s, several blackbirding ships kidnapped women from the northern islands to sell into sexual slavery in Fiji.[9]

The German Empire annexed the Marshall Islands in 1885.[10] The Germans used the atoll to produce copra oil from coconuts, although contact with the native population was infrequent. The atoll's climate is drier than the more fertile southern Marshall Islands which produced more copra. Bikini islanders were recruited into developing the copra trade during the German colonial period.[11][better source needed]

Japanese occupation

Bikini was captured along with the rest of the Marshall Islands by the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1914 during World War I and mandated to the Empire of Japan by the League of Nations in 1920. The Japanese administered the island under the South Seas Mandate, but mostly left local affairs in the hands of traditional local leaders until the start of World War II. At the outset of the war, the Marshall Islands suddenly became a strategic outpost for the Japanese. They built and manned a watchtower on the island, an outpost for the Japanese headquarters on Kwajalein Atoll, to guard against an American invasion of the islands.[12]

World War II

The islands remained relatively unscathed by the war until February 1944, when in a bloody battle, the American forces captured Kwajalein Atoll. At the battle's conclusion, there were only five surviving Japanese soldiers left on Bikini, and they chose to die by suicide rather than allow themselves to be captured.[12]

For the U.S., the battle represented both the next step in its island-hopping march to Japan and a significant moral victory, as it was the first time the Americans had penetrated the "outer ring" of the Japanese Pacific sphere. For the Japanese, the battle represented the failure of the beach-line defense. Japanese defenses became prepared in depth, and the battles of Peleliu, Guam, and the Marianas proved far more costly to the U.S. The base became part of the vast US Naval Base Marshall Islands.

Residents relocated  7 March 1946, 161 residents of Bikini Island board LST 1108 as they depart from Bikini Atoll Bikini islanders arrive on Rongerik Atoll and unload pandanus for thatching the roofs of their new buildings.[13]

After World War II, the United States was engaged in a Cold War nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union to build bigger and more destructive bombs.[12]

The nuclear weapons testing at Bikini Atoll program was a series of 23 nuclear devices detonated by the United States between 1946 and 1958 at seven test sites. The test weapons were detonated on the reef itself, on the sea, in the air and underwater[14] with a combined fission yield of 42.2 Mt. The testing began with the Operation Crossroads series in July 1946. Shortly after World War II ended, President Harry S. Truman directed Army and Navy officials to secure a site for testing nuclear weapons on American warships. While the Army had seen the results of a land-based explosion, the Navy wanted to know the effect of a nuclear weapon on ships. They wanted to determine whether ships could be spaced at sea and in ports in a way that would make nuclear weapons ineffective against vessels.[15]

Bikini was distant from both regular sea and air traffic, making it an ideal location. In February 1946, Navy Commodore Ben H. Wyatt, the military governor of the Marshall Islands, asked the 167 Micronesian inhabitants of the atoll to voluntarily and temporarily relocate so the United States government could begin testing atomic bombs for "the good of mankind and to end all world wars." After "confused and sorrowful deliberation" among the Bikinians, their leader, King Juda, agreed to the U.S. relocation request, announcing MEN OTEMJEJ REJ ILO BEIN ANIJ, which translates as "Everything is in God's hands."[16][12] Nine of the eleven family heads, or alaps, chose Rongerik as their new home.[17]

In February, Navy Seabees helped them to disassemble their church and community house and prepare to relocate them to their new home. On 7 March 1946, the residents gathered their personal belongings and saved building supplies. They were transported 125 miles (201 km) eastward on U.S. Navy landing ship 1108 to the uninhabited Rongerik Atoll, which was one-sixth the size of Bikini Atoll.[17] No one lived on Rongerik because it had an inadequate water and food supply and due to deep-rooted traditional beliefs that the island was haunted by the Demon Girls of Ujae. The Navy left them with a few weeks of food and water which soon proved to be inadequate.[12]

Nuclear testing program  The Wilson cloud from test Baker, situated just offshore from Bikini Island at top of the picture.

The weapons testing began with the Operation Crossroads series in July 1946. The Baker test's radioactive contamination of all the target ships was the first case of immediate, concentrated radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion. Chemist Glenn T. Seaborg, the longest-serving chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, called Baker "the world's first nuclear disaster."[18] This was followed by a series of later tests that left the islands of the atoll contaminated with enough radioactivity, particularly caesium-137, to contaminate food grown in the soil.

Strategic Trust Territory

In 1947, the United States convinced the United Nations to designate the islands of Micronesia a United Nations Strategic Trust Territory. This was the only trust ever granted by the U.N.[19] The United States Navy controlled the Trust from a headquarters in Guam until 1951, when the United States Department of the Interior took over control, administering the territory from a base in Saipan.[20] The directive stated that the United States should "promote the economic advancement and self-sufficiency of the inhabitants, and to this end shall... protect the inhabitants against the loss of their lands and resources..."[12]

Despite the promise to "protect the inhabitants", from July 1946 through July 1947, the residents of Bikini Atoll were left alone on Rongerik Atoll and were starving for lack of food. A team of U.S. investigators concluded in late 1947 that the islanders must be moved immediately. Press from around the world harshly criticized the U.S. Navy for ignoring the people. Harold Ickes, a syndicated columnist, wrote "The natives are actually and literally starving to death."[12]

Move to Kili Island  Kili Island is one of the smallest islands in the Marshall Islands.

In January 1948, Leonard Mason, an anthropologist from the University of Hawaii, visited Rongerik Atoll and was horrified at what he found. One resident of Rongerik commented,[21]

We'd get a few fish, then the entire community would have to share this meager amount... The fish were not fit to eat there. They were poisonous because of what they ate on the reef. We got sick from them, like when your arms and legs fall asleep and you can't feel anything. We'd get up in the morning to go to our canoes and fall over because we were so ill... Then we started asking these men from America [to] bring us food... We were dying, but they didn't listen to us.

Mason requested that food be brought to the islanders on Rongerik immediately along with a medical officer. The Navy then selected Ujelang Atoll for their temporary home, and some young men from the Bikini Atoll population went ahead to begin constructing living accommodations. But U.S. Trust Authorities changed their mind. They decided to use Enewetak Atoll as a second nuclear weapons test site and relocated the residents to Ujelang Atoll instead and to the homes built for the Bikini Islanders.[12]

In March 1948, 184 malnourished Bikini islanders were relocated again to Kwajalein Atoll. They were given tents on a strip of grass alongside the airport runway to live in.[19] In June 1948, the Bikini residents chose Kili Island as a long-term home.[12] The extremely small, 200 acres (81 ha) (.36 square miles (0.93 km2)) island was uninhabited and wasn't ruled by a paramount iroij, or king due to its size. It also lacks a coral reef. In June, the Bikini community chose two dozen men to accompany eight Seabees to Kili to begin construction of a village. In November 1948, the residents, now totaling 184 individuals, moved to Kili Island,[12] at 0.36 square miles (0.93 km2), one of the smallest islands in the Marshall Island chain. They soon learned they could no longer fish the way they had on Bikini Atoll. Kili lacked the calm, protected, lagoon.[19] Living on Kili Island effectively destroyed their culture that had been based on fishing and island-hopping canoe voyages to various islets around Bikini Atoll. Kili did not provide enough food for the transplanted residents.[21]

Failed resettlement

After their relocation to Kili, the Bikini residents continued to suffer from inadequate food supplies. Kili is a small island without a lagoon, and most of the year it is exposed to 10 to 20 ft (3.0 to 6.1 m) waves that make fishing and putting canoes out difficult. Starvation ensued. In 1949, the Trust Territory administration donated a 40-foot (12 m) ship for transporting copra between Kili and Jaluit Atoll, but the ship was wrecked in heavy surf while delivering copra and other fruit.[12] The U.S. Trust Authorities airdropped food onto Kili. The residents were forced to rely on imported USDA rice and canned goods and had to buy food with their supplemental income.[12]

During 1955 and 1956, ships dispatched by the U.S. Trust Territory continually experienced problems unloading food because of the rough seas around the island, leading to additional food shortages. The people once again suffered from starvation and the shortages increased in 1956. The U.S. suggested that some of the Bikini Islanders move to Jaluit where food was more readily available. A few people moved.[19]

The United States opened a satellite community for the families on public land on Jaluit Atoll, 30 miles (48 km) north. Three families moved there to produce copra for sale and other families rotated living there later on.[12] Their homes on both Kili and Jaluit were struck by typhoons during 1957 and 1958, sinking their supply ship and damaging crops.

Return to Bikini Atoll

In June 1968, based on scientific advice that the radiation levels were sufficiently reduced, President Lyndon B. Johnson promised the 540 Bikini Atoll family members living on Kili and other islands that they would be able to return to their home. The Atomic Energy Commission cleared radioactive debris from the island, and the U.S. Trust Territory was in charge of rebuilding structures and replanting crops on the atoll. But shortly afterward, the Trust Territory ended regular air flights between Kwajalein Atoll and Bikini Atoll, which seriously impeded progress. Coconut trees were finally replanted in 1972, but the AEC learned that the coconut crabs retained high levels of radioactivity and could not be eaten. The Bikini Council voted to delay a return to the island as a result.[12]

Three extended families, eventually totaling about 100 people, moved back to their home island in 1972 despite the risk. But 10 years later, a team of French scientists performed additional tests on the island and its inhabitants. They found some wells were too radioactive for use and determined that the pandanus and breadfruit were also dangerous for human consumption. Urine samples from the islanders on Bikini Atoll showed low levels of plutonium-239 and plutonium-240. As a result, the Bikini community filed a federal lawsuit seeking a complete scientific survey of Bikini and the northern Marshall Islands. Inter-departmental squabbling over responsibility for the costs delayed the work for three years.[12] Then in May 1977 scientists found dangerously high levels of strontium-90 in the well water exceeding the U.S. maximum allowed limits.[22] In June, the Department of Energy stated that "All living patterns involving Bikini Island exceed Federal [radiation] guidelines for thirty-year population doses." Later that year scientists discovered an 11-fold increase in the caesium-137 body burdens in all of the people living on the atoll.[12] In May 1978 officials from the U.S. Department of the Interior described the 75% increase in radioactive caesium-137 found as "incredible".[23]

Women were experiencing miscarriages, stillbirths, and genetic abnormalities in their children.[24][25][better source needed] Researchers learned that the coral soil behaved differently from mainland soil because it contains very little potassium. Plants and trees readily absorb potassium as part of the normal biological process, but since caesium is part of the same group on the periodic table, it is absorbed by plants in a very similar chemical process. The islanders who unknowingly consumed contaminated coconut milk were found to have abnormally high concentrations of caesium in their bodies. The Trust Territory decided that the islanders had to be evacuated from the atoll a second time.[26][27]

The islanders received US$75 million in damages in 1986 as part of a new Compact of Free Association with the U.S. and in 1988, another $90 million to be used specifically for radiological cleanup. In 1987, a few Bikini elders traveled to Eneu Island to reestablish old property lines. Construction crews began building a hotel, docks, and roads on Bikini, and installed generators, desalinators, and power lines. A packed coral and sand runway still exists on Eneu Island. The Bikini Atoll Divers was established to provide income. But in 1995, the council learned that the US Environmental Protection Agency standard required reducing radiation levels to 15 millirems, substantially less than the US Department of Energy standard of 100 millirems. This discovery significantly increased the potential cost of cleanup and stalled the effort.[28]

Relocation to Kili Island

As a result of the military use of the island and the failed resettlement, the islands are littered with abandoned concrete bunkers and tons of heavy equipment, vehicles, supplies, machines, and buildings.[29] In September 1978, Trust Territory officials finally arrived to relocate the residents. The radiological survey of the northern Marshalls, compelled by the 1975 lawsuit, began only after the residents were removed[12] and returned to Kili Island.[12]

As of 2013[update], the tiny 0.36 square miles (0.93 km2) Kili Island supported about 600 residents who live in cinderblock houses. They must rely on contributions from a settlement trust fund to supplement what they produce locally. Each family receives one to two boxes of frozen chicken, two to four 51-lb (23 kilogram) bags of flour, and two to four bags of rice 2 to 3 times per year. The islanders operate several small stores out of their homes to supply nonperishable food items like salt, Tabasco, candy, and canned items. A generator provides electricity.

Children attend elementary school on Kili through eighth grade. Toward the end of the eighth grade, students must pass a standardized test to gain admission to attend public high school in Jaluit or Majuro.

Beginning in 2011 the resettled residents of Kili Island began to experience periods of ocean flooding during king tide. The highest point of Kili Island is only 9.8 feet (3.0 m) above sea level. Ocean waves have covered portions of the island at least five times from 2011 to 2015, contaminating the wells on the island. The runway servicing the island is unusable during and after rains and ocean flooding because it becomes extremely muddy. In August 2015, the Bikini Council passed a resolution requesting assistance from US government to modify terms of the Resettlement Trust Fund for the People of Bikini to be used to relocate the population once again, this time outside of the Marshall Islands.[28][30]