1790 image of Europeans recording information abut the moai statues
Jacob Roggeveen (1659 - 1729)
The Moai statues today
April 5th 1722: Europeans arrive on Easter Island
On this day in 1722, the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen landed on a small island in the Pacific Ocean, and named the island for the day they arrived - Easter Sunday. The early history of ‘Easter Island’ remains largely a mystery to historians, especially the question of how the first settlers endured the long sea voyage to the remote island in a pre-industrial age; it is agreed that the island was populated by 1200 CE. By the time of European arrival, the island’s Rapa Nui population had dwindled to only around 2,500, partly due to widespread deforestation. Islanders’ initial contact with Europeans did not go well, and a misunderstanding led the Dutch to kill several people. Spanish ships arrived in 1770, and four years later the British fleet of James Cook landed on Easter Island. The nineteenth century saw the tragic exploitation of the island’s indigenous people, with slave raids, disease, and war devastating the Rapa Nui. European colonisation increasingly exercised more control over the island, sending missionaries and eventually, in 1888, Chile annexed Easter Island. The island remains a popular tourist attraction, mainly for its iconic moai statues which were supposedly used for traditional ancestor worship, and indicate a thriving culture.
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