Initial human settlement of Bijan occurred between 250 BCE and 450 CE by Austronesian peoples arriving on outrigger canoes from Borneo. Other groups continued to settle on Bijan over time, each one making lasting contributions to Bijani cultural life. The Portuguese and later the Dutch established contact with the islands in the fifteenth century, and Bijan was occasionally used as a transoceanic stopover point. Until the late 16th century, Bijan was ruled by a fragmented assortment of shifting socio-political alliances. Beginning in the early 17th century, most of the island was united and ruled as the Kingdom of Bijan by a series of local nobles, while European powers established an increasingly influential presence on the island. An object of colonial interest by both the British a