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In 1841 Captain Hudson, of the United States Exploring Expedition, visited Atafu, and, coming on Fakaofo, or Bowditcli Island, a few days later, believed tliat the expedition was the first to visit it. It happened, however, that a short time previously during the same year Captain Morvan, in command of the French ship " Adolphe," had actually discovered it. Morvan found traces of a European vessel that had apparently been wrecked some yeafs before, and Hale, a member of the United States Exploring Expedition, understood that two survivors of the wreck had lived for some time on Fakaofo before dying there. In 1841 Captain Hudson, of the United States Exploring Expedition, sailed south from Fakaofo in search of Qurios' Island, and, on finding it, renamed it Swain's Island, after his informant in Samoa, by which name it is now generally known. Soon after this visit by Hudson three Frenchmen settled on Swain's Island, as agents of a French company, to make coconut-oil. In 1856 an American, Eli Jennings, from New Bedford, who had lived and married in Samoa, came to the island. Jennings took over the island and the Native labourers who had come from Fakaofo from the Frenchmen, who thereupon left for Samoa. Jennings thus became the owner, and the island has remained in the hands of his family since his death. Swain's Island was annexed to American Samoa in 1925. In 1877 the Tokelau Islands were included under the protection of Great Britain in terms of an Imperial Order in Council. In 1889 Commander Oldham, of H.M.S. " Egeria," landed at each of the three northern atolls and officially raised the Union Jack, declaring the group to be a protectorate of Great Britain. At the request of the inhabitants, these islands, then known as the Union Islands, were formally annexed to Great Britain in terms of an Order in Council of 29th February, 1916, which also extended the boundaries of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony so as to include the Union Islands and their dependencies. From this time up to the Ist October, 1925, they. were governed by the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, and administered by the District Officer at Funafuti in the Ellice Group. In order to facilitate administration, and at the request of His Majesty's Government, the New Zealand Government agreed to govern these islands, which were disannexed from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony in terms of the Union Islands (No. 1) Order in Council, 1925. Arrangements to govern and administer them were made by the Union Islands (No. 2) Order in Council, 1925, which empowered the Governor-General in Council of the Dominion of New Zealand to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Group, with authority to delegate so much of this power as might be considered desirable from time to time to the Administrator of Western Samoa, subject to the right of the Governor-General in Council to disallow any laws so passed, and to any other restriction which the Governor-General in Council might deem proper. The Union Islands (No. 1 of New Zealand) Order, 1926, published in the New Zealand Gazette of 18th March, 1926, delegated administrative authority to the Administrator of Western Samoa, now known in terms of the Samoa Amendment Act, 1947, as the High Commissioner. Administration of these islands was formally taken over by the Administrator of Western Samoa as from the Ist October, 1925 ; but they are not, of course, a part of that Territory. The Group, known variously as the Tokelau Islands or Union Islands, was, by the Tokelau Nomenclature Ordinance, 1946, made by the Administrator of Western Samoa on 7th May, 1946, officially designated the Tokelau Islands or the Tokelau Islands Dependency. This Ordinance also settled the spelling of the name of the Island of Fakaofo.

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