On May 5 1900, Albert Ellis, acting on behalf of the British Empire, made a deal with the inhabitants of the Pacific atoll known then as Ocean Island. In exchange for an annual payment of £50 in trade goods from a company store, the Empire purchased exclusive mining and trading rights for the next 999 years. The people of Ocean Island were used to hardship. Before the British arrived, devastating drought and an unstable food supply saw the population repeatedly halved. At its peak just over a thousand people eked out an existence there, trading only with passing whalers. The arrival of great cargo ships must have been met with confusion and awe. The islanders had no way of knowing that their home – like its nearest neighbour, Nauru – held in its soil some of the richest deposits of phosphate ever discovered. This phosphate, if processed properly, became a fertiliser that the Empire believed might turn the arid ranges of Australia into profitable farmland.…