The Roman geographer Ptolemy first referred to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands as the island of cannibals, in the second century AD. Chinese Buddhist monk, Xuan Zang in the seventh century and Arabian travellers in the ninth spoke of the inhabitants as fierce and cannibalistic. Marco Polo's description of the islanders in the 13th century was similar.

Contrary to the above descriptions, accounts of the ferocity of the Andamanese seem to be propagated by Malay pirates who held sway over the surrounding seas and needed to keep looters well away from trade ships that passed between India, China and the Far East.

In the seventeenth century the islands witnessed Maratha Rule. Several futile attempts to convert the Nicobarese to Christianity were made by the French, Dutch and Danish, in the 17th and 18th centuries, when plans were abandoned in the face of repugnant diseases and a severe lack of food and water. Trading companies met with a more treacherous fate at the hands of the Nicobarese with their ships captured and their crew murdered.

Regular prisoners and political activists of the Mutiny of 1857 were made to clear land and build their own prison. Most lost their lives while trying to escape, were hung or attacked by the Andamanese who objected to deforestation.

Mythologically, the name Andaman is presumed to be derived from Hanuman, the Monkey God, who was known to the Malays as "Handuman". Since pre-historic times, these islands were the home of aboriginal tribes. The tribes of the Andaman group of islands are the great Andamanese, Onges, Jarawas and Sentinalese; all of Negrito origin, while the tribes of Nicobars, the Nicobarese and Shompens, both of Mongoloid stock.

The first settlement by the British took place in 1789, which was later abandoned in 1796. The second settlement was basically a penal settlement, taken up in 1858, after the first war of independence, followed by the settlement of convicts, "Moplas", some tribes from central and united provinces, refugees from erstwhile east Pakistan, Burma and Sri Lanka as well as ex servicemen.
During the Second World War, the Japanese forces occupied the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in 1942. Further following the surrender of the Japanese forces in the Second World War, the British India Government reoccupied these islands in 1945 and continued their administration till the Independence of the country in 1947.