Evacuation of Bikini 1
Early in 1946 4t was decided that Bikini Atoll was the most
suitable location for the testing of atomic weapons:
The Bikini
_ people were asked to leave and, as might have been expected of a
people of their historical conditioning to obedience,
especially
after more than @ quarter of a century of autocratic Japanese
rule, agreed to leave their ancestral home.
The possibilities
of resettlement in the Marshalls were very limited because land
is scarce (only about 74 square miles) and very little of it is
available
for settlement.
The Marshallese
jealously guard
their
_jland rights and will not willingly part with them.
C
Problems
of Resettlement
The 166 Bikinians were offered the choice of moving to
eitner Ujae,
Marshalls.
Lae,
or Rongerik, all atolis
only exploited by the
who had land rights on the atoll.
to make
copra,
reason,
presumably,
Ujae
to
fish,
and
people
of neighboring Rongelap,
These people visited Rongerik
to gather other foods.
For this
as well as the fact that it was the closest
the Bilcind people opted to go to Rongerik rather than
or Lae.
A
village was built
of Bikini men,
1
northwestern
Ujae and Lae were already regularly inhabited, but
Rongerik was
to Bikini,
in the
on Rongerik by Navy Seabees and a group
and all of the Bikini people were moved to that
por a detailed report of the movements of tne Bikini people
from Bikini to Rongerix and to Kili, gee Mason, Leonard ‘The
Bikinians A Transplanted Population, Human Organication,
Vol.
9,
No.
2
1,
Spring 1950,
9009597
pp.
5-15.
_
~