I didn’t know anything about the history of the Cocos Islands:

The archipelago was discovered in 1609 by Captain William Keeling of the East India Company, on a return voyage from the East Indies. North Keeling was sketched by Ekeberg, a Swedish captain, in 1749, showing the presence of coconut palms. It also appears on a 1789 chart produced by British hydrographer Alexander Dalrymple.[20]

In 1825, Scottish merchant seaman Captain John Clunies-Ross stopped briefly at the islands on a trip to India, nailing up a Union Jack and planning to return and settle on the islands with his family in the future.[21] Wealthy Englishman Alexander Hare had similar plans, and hired a captain – coincidentally, Clunies-Ross’s brother – to bring him and a volunteer harem of 40 Malay women to the islands, where he hoped to establish his private residence.[22] Hare had previously served as resident of Banjarmasin, a town in Borneo, and found that “he could not confine himself to the tame life that civilisation affords”.[22]

Clunies-Ross returned two years later with his wife, children and mother-in-law, and found Hare already established on the island and living with the private harem. A feud grew between the two.[22] Clunies-Ross’s eight sailors “began at once the invasion of the new kingdom to take possession of it, women and all”.[22]

After some time, Hare’s women began deserting him, and instead finding themselves partners amongst Clunies-Ross’s sailors.[23] Disheartened, Hare left the island. He died in Bencoolen in 1834.[24] Encouraged by members of the former harem, Clunies-Ross then recruited Malays to come to the island for work and wives.

Clunies-Ross’s workers were paid in a currency called the Cocos rupee, a currency John Clunies-Ross minted himself that could only be redeemed at the company store.[25]