eli5: How did the people on islands like sentinel island get there? And how have they survived for so long?
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There is a misconception that North Sentinel Island is some remote island.
It’s not.
It’s only 20 miles off the coast of South Andaman Island which is a big tourist island and home to the islands’ main town, Port Blair.
The amazing thing is how the islanders have stayed so uncontacted despite being with sight of an Indian Ocean tourist island. The answer is that during the colonial times, the islanders survived contact with the British and their guns and germs. Many of the other islands suffered greatly due to the European diseases they had no immunity too and were colonised.
North Sentinel Island had no strategic value to the British. Its entire coastline was shallow reefs unsuitable as a harbour and the islanders were aggressive enough (but not too aggressive) for the British to ignore them for the majority of the 19th and early 20th Century.
The islands transferred to India after independence and since 1947, the Indian navy patrols the waters around the island to ensure the island remains uncontacted for anthropological reasons.
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