The Loyalty Islands (French: Îles Loyauté) are an archipelago in the Pacific. They are part of the French territory of New Caledonia, whose mainland is 100 km (62 mi) away. They form the Loyalty Islands Province (province des îles Loyauté), one of the three provinces of New Caledonia. The native inhabitants are the Kanak people and the Tavu'avua' people. The first Western contact on record is attributed to the British Captain William Raven from the London trading ship Britannia, who in 1793 was on his way from Norfolk Island to Batavia. It is very likely however that the discovery and naming of the islands goes back to the London ship Loyalty (also Loyalist, Jethro Daggett master), being on a South Sea trading voyage from 1789 till 1790.
Read more about Loyalty Islands: Geography, Provincial Congress
Famous quotes containing the words loyalty and/or islands:
“Mine honesty and I begin to square.
The loyalty well held to fools does make
Our faith mere folly; yet he that can endure
To follow with allegiance a fall’n lord
Does conquer him that did his master conquer
And earns a place i’ the story.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Consider the islands bearing the names of all the saints, bristling with forts like chestnut-burs, or Echinidæ, yet the police will not let a couple of Irishmen have a private sparring- match on one of them, as it is a government monopoly; all the great seaports are in a boxing attitude, and you must sail prudently between two tiers of stony knuckles before you come to feel the warmth of their breasts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)