Introduction Oral tradition states the island was first settled by a two-canoe expedition originating from Marae Renga (or Marae Toe Hau—otherwise known as
Cook Islands), and led by the chief Hotu Matu'a and his captain Tu'u ko Iho. The island was first scouted after Haumaka dreamed of such a far-off country; Hotu deemed it a worthwhile place to flee from a neighboring chief, one to whom he had already lost three battles. At their time of arrival, the island had one lone settler, Nga Tavake 'a Te Rona. After a brief stay at
Anakena, the colonists settled in different parts of the island. Hotu's heir, Tu'u ma Heke, was born on the island. Tu'u ko Iho is viewed as the leader who brought the statues and caused them to walk. The Easter Islanders are considered Southeast Polynesians. Similar sacred zones with statuary (
marae and
ahu) in East Polynesia demonstrate homology with most of Eastern Polynesia. At contact, populations were about 3,000–4,000. though the current best estimate for colonization is in the . Easter Island colonization likely coincided with the arrival of the first settlers in Hawaii. Rectifications in
radiocarbon dating have changed almost all of the previously posited early settlement dates in Polynesia. Ongoing archaeological studies provide this late date: "Radiocarbon dates for the earliest stratigraphic layers at Anakena, Easter Island, and analysis of previous radiocarbon dates imply that the island was colonized late, about . Significant ecological impacts and major cultural investments in monumental architecture and statuary thus began soon after initial settlement." According to oral tradition, the first settlement was at
Anakena. Researchers have noted that the Caleta Anakena landing point provides the island's best shelter from prevailing swells as well as a sandy beach for canoe landings and launchings, so it is a likely early place of settlement. However,
radiocarbon dating concludes that other sites preceded Anakena by many years, especially the
Tahai by several centuries. The island was populated by Polynesians who most likely navigated in canoes or
catamarans from the
Gambier Islands (Mangareva, away) or the
Marquesas Islands, away. According to some theories, such as the
Polynesian Diaspora Theory, there is a possibility that early Polynesian settlers arrived from South America due to their remarkable sea-navigation abilities. Theorists have supported this through the agricultural evidence of the
sweet potato. The sweet potato was a favoured crop in Polynesian society for generations but it originated in South America, suggesting interaction between these two geographic areas. Recent research has suggested that sweet potatoes may have spread to Polynesia by long-distance dispersal long before the Polynesians arrived. However, other researchers pointed out methodological flaws in this study and point to linguistic evidence of contact between Pacific and South American peoples. Specifically the strong similarities between the words for
sweet potato from Polynesian languages
Rapa Nui kumara,
Hawaiian ʻuala and
Māori kūmara with South American
Quechua and
Aymara ''cumar, k'umar
or k'umara''. In support of contact between human populations, recent human genetic evidence shows contact and interbreeding between Pacific and Native American populations occurred 800 years ago, predating human settlement of Easter Island. When
James Cook visited the island, one of his crew members, a Polynesian from
Bora Bora, Hitihiti, was able to communicate with the Rapa Nui. . According to oral traditions recorded by
missionaries in the 1860s, the island originally had a strong
class system: an
ariki, or high
chief, wielded great power over nine other clans and their respective chiefs. The high chief was the eldest descendant through first-born lines of the island's legendary founder,
Hotu Matu'a. The most visible element in the culture was the production of massive moai statues that some believe represented
deified ancestors. According to
National Geographic, "Most scholars suspect that the moai were created to honor ancestors, chiefs, or other important personages, However, no written and little oral history exists on the island, so it's impossible to be certain." It was believed that the living had a
symbiotic relationship with the dead in which the dead provided everything that the living needed (health, fertility of land and animals, fortune etc.) and the living, through offerings, provided the dead with a better place in the spirit world. Most settlements were located on the coast, and most moai were erected along the coastline, watching over their descendants in the settlements before them, with their backs toward the spirit world in the sea.
Ecocide hypothesis In his book
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,
Jared Diamond suggested that
cannibalism took place on Easter Island after the construction of the moai contributed to
environmental degradation when extreme deforestation (
ecocide) destabilized an already precarious ecosystem. Archeological record shows that at the time of the initial settlement the island was home to many species of trees, including at least three species which grew up to or more:
Paschalococos (possibly the largest palm trees in the world at the time),
Alphitonia zizyphoides, and
Elaeocarpus rarotongensis. At least six species of land birds were known to live on the island. A major factor that contributed to the extinction of multiple plant species was the introduction of the
Polynesian rat. Studies by
paleobotanists have shown rats can dramatically affect the reproduction of vegetation in an ecosystem. In the case of Rapa Nui, recovered plant seed shells showed markings of being gnawed on by rats. , 1816 By that time, 21 species of trees and all species of land birds
became extinct through some combination of over-harvesting, over-hunting, rat predation, and
climate change. The island was largely
deforested, and it did not have any trees taller than . Loss of large trees meant that residents were no longer able to build seaworthy vessels, significantly diminishing their fishing abilities. According to this version of the history, the trees were used as rollers to move the statues to their place of erection from the quarry at
Rano Raraku. Deforestation also caused erosion which caused a sharp decline in agricultural production. This was exacerbated by the loss of land birds and the collapse in seabird populations as a source of food. By the 18th century, islanders were largely sustained by farming, with domestic chickens as the primary source of protein. islet, part of the Birdman Cult ceremony As the island became overpopulated and resources diminished, warriors known as
matatoa gained more power and the Ancestor Cult ended, making way for the Bird Man Cult. Beverly Haun wrote, "The concept of mana (power) invested in hereditary leaders was recast into the person of the birdman, apparently beginning circa 1540, and coinciding with the final vestiges of the moai period." This cult maintained that, although the ancestors still provided for their descendants, the medium through which the living could contact the dead was no longer statues but human beings chosen through a competition. The god responsible for creating humans,
Makemake, played an important role in this process.
Katherine Routledge, who systematically collected the island's traditions in her 1914/15 expedition, showed that the competitions for Bird Man (Rapa Nui:
tangata manu) started around 1760, after the arrival of the first Europeans, and ended in 1878, with the construction of the first church by Roman Catholic missionaries who formally arrived in 1864.
Petroglyphs representing Bird Men on Easter Island are the same as some in Hawaii, indicating that this concept was probably brought by the original settlers; only the competition itself was unique to Easter Island. According to Diamond and Heyerdahl's version of the island's history, the ''huri mo'ai''"statue-toppling"continued into the 1830s as a part of fierce internal wars. By 1838, the only standing moai were on the slopes of Rano Raraku, in
Hoa Hakananai'a in
Orongo, and Ariki Paro in Ahu Te Pito Kura.
Criticism of the ecocide hypothesis Diamond and West's version of the history is highly controversial. A study headed by Douglas Owsley published in 1994 asserted that there is little archaeological evidence of pre-European
societal collapse.
Bone pathology and
osteometric data from islanders of that period clearly suggest few fatalities can be attributed directly to violence. Research by Binghamton University anthropologists Robert DiNapoli and Carl Lipo in 2021 suggests that the island experienced steady population growth from its initial settlement until European contact in 1722. The island never had more than a few thousand people prior to European contact, and their numbers were increasing rather than dwindling. Several works that address or counter Diamond's claims in
Collapse have been published. In
Ecological Catastrophe and Collapse -The Myth of "Ecocide" on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Hunt and Lipo set out a claim-by-claim rebuttal to Diamond's claims. This includes, among other things, that deforestation began immediately, but the population grew while the forest declined as the land was converted to more productive farmland; that the island's population grew continuously up to the arrival of Europeans, with the only clear decline starting in the period of 1750–1800; that studies from other islands show clearly that Polynesian settlement without Polynesian rats is only associated with minimal forest loss while the arrival of rats without human settlement is devastating to forest populations; only species favoured by the rats for consumption were lost, not for example the native
Sophora toromiro; that the island's drier, less predictable climate made it inherently more vulnerable to deforestation than other Polynesian islands; and that the population declines on Rapa Nui can be well attributed to the very mechanism described by Diamond in another of his books,
Guns, Germs and Steel – the devastating impact of introduced diseases, raids, slavery, and exploitation of indigenous populations. In another work, Hunt and Lipo discuss more evidence against the ecocide hypothesis. In addition to focusing on the settlement chronology, they note that the island has an abnormally low amount of evidence of warfare compared to other Polynesian islands, only relatively small-scale intergroup conflict. There are no fortifications, and the attributed obsidian mata'a "weapons" show rather evidence of having been used in agriculture, and indeed, match up with agricultural tools long recognized among artifacts of other Polynesian peoples. Evidence of violence among skeletal remains of pre-European native skeletons is minimal, with only 2.5% of crania showing evidence of antemortem fractures, Despite known folklore, Hunt and Lipo also conclude that clear evidence of cannibalism among skeletal remains is entirely lacking. They conclude that when it comes to the science, "It does not matter whether Rapa Nui offers a parable for today's urgent environmental problems." 's 1770 expedition. North is down. Another study published in 2024 finds no genetic evidence of the ecocide hypothesis. A 2025 study using hydrogen isotope analysis of sediment cores from Rano Aroi and Rano Kao identified a prolonged megadrought beginning around 1550 CE, with rainfall declining by an estimated 600–800 mm annually for over a century; the authors suggest this climate stress coincided with cultural changes but does not support a model of abrupt pre-contact societal collapse.
European contact analyzing a Moai statue, 18th-century engraving The first recorded European contact with the island was on April 5, 1722, Easter Sunday, by Dutch navigator
Jacob Roggeveen. His visit resulted in the death of about a dozen islanders, including the ''tumu ivi 'atua
, and the wounding of many others. These islands are considered part of the territory inherited by Chile under the principle of uti possidetis iuris''. On April 10, 1786, French Admiral
Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse anchored at Hanga Roa at the start of a circumnavigation of the Pacific. He made a detailed map of the bay, including his anchorage points, as well as a more generalised map of the island, plus some illustrations.
19th century A series of devastating events killed or removed most of the population in the 1860s. In December 1862, Peruvian slave raiders struck. Violent abductions continued for several months, eventually capturing around 1,500 men and women, half of the island's population. Among those captured were the island's paramount chief, his heir, and those who knew how to read and write the
rongorongo script, the only Polynesian script to have been found to date, although debate exists about whether this is
proto-writing or true writing. When the slave raiders were forced to repatriate the people they had kidnapped, carriers of
smallpox disembarked together with a few survivors on each of the islands. This created devastating epidemics from Easter Island to the
Marquesas islands. Easter Island's population was reduced to the point where some of the dead were not even buried. Those who remained were mostly older men. Six years later, only 111 people lived on Easter Island, and only 36 of them had any offspring. From that point on, the island's population slowly recovered. But with over 97% of the population dead or gone in less than a decade, much of the island's cultural knowledge had been lost.
Alexander Salmon, Jr., the son of an English Jewish merchant and a
Pōmare Dynasty princess, eventually worked to repatriate workers from his inherited
copra plantation. He eventually bought up all lands on the island with the exception of the mission, and was its sole employer. He worked to develop tourism on the island and was the principal informant for the British and German archaeological expeditions for the island. He sent several pieces of genuine Rongorongo to his niece's husband, the German consul in
Valparaíso, Chile. Salmon sold the Brander Easter Island holdings to the Chilean government on January 2, 1888, and signed as a witness to the cession of the island. He returned to Tahiti in December 1888. He effectively ruled the island from 1878 until his cession to Chile in 1888. In 1887 Chile took concrete actions to incorporate the island into the national territory, at the request of the Chilean Navy Captain
Policarpo Toro, who was concerned about the unprotected situation of the Rapa Nui for decades and began to influence the situation on his own initiative. Policarpo, through negotiations, bought land on the island at the request of the Bishop of Valparaiso, Salvador Donoso Rodriguez, owner of 600 hectares, together with the Salmon brothers, Dutrou-Bornier and John Brander, from Tahiti. The Chilean captain put money from his own pocket for this purpose, together with 6000 pounds sterling sent by the Chilean government. According to Rapa Nui tradition, the lands could not be sold, however, third parties believed they owned them and they were bought from them so that they would not interfere in the affairs of the island from that moment on. At that time, the Rapa Nui population reached alarming numbers. In a census carried out by the Chilean corvette Abtao in 1892, there were only 101 Rapa Nui alive, of which only 12 were adult men. The Rapa Nui ethnic group, along with their culture, was at its closest point to extinction.
20th century In 1914 there was an uprising of the natives inspired by the elderly
catechist María Angata Veri Veri and led by Daniel Maria Teave with the aim of getting the State to take charge of the situation generated by the company. The Navy held the company responsible for the "brutal and savage acts" committed by Merlet and the company's administrators and an investigation was requested. sought to protect the Rapa Nui from private abuse with the help of the
Chilean Navy and the powers he had as Vicar of the Military. Monsignor Rafael Edwards sought to have the island declared a "naval jurisdiction" in order to intervene in it as military vicar and in this way support the Rapa Nui community, creating better living conditions. In 1933, the Chilean State Defense Council required the registration of the island in the name of the State in order to protect it from private individuals who wanted to register it in their own name. The island was then managed by the
Chilean Navy until 1966, at which point the island was reopened in its entirety. The Rapanui were given Chilean citizenship that year with the Pascua Law enacted during the government of
Eduardo Frei Montalva. Only Spanish was taught in the schools until that year. The Law also created the
Isla de Pascua commune depending from the
Valparaíso Province and implemented the Civil Registry, created the positions of governor, mayor and councilman, as well as the 6th Police Station of
Carabineros de Chile, the first fire company of Easter Island, schools and a hospital. The first mayor was sworn in 1966 and was
Alfonso Rapu who sent a letter to President Frei two years prior influencing him to create the Pascua Law. Islanders were only able to travel off the island easily after the construction of the
Mataveri International Airport in 1965, which was built by the Longhi construction company, carrying hundreds of workers, heavy machinery, tents and a field hospital on ships. However, its use did not go beyond airline operations with small groups of tourists. At the same time, a
NASA tracking station operated on the island, which ceased operations in 1975. Between 1965 and 1970, the
United States Air Force (USAF) settled on Easter Island, radically changing the way of life of the Rapa Nui, as they became acquainted with the customs of the consumer societies of the developed world. In April 1967 LAN Chile flights began to land and the island began to be oriented towards cultural tourism. Since then, the main concerns for the natives were to strengthen production and marketing cooperatives, which received state support, and to recover their communal lands. woman Following the
1973 Chilean coup d'état that brought
Augusto Pinochet to power, Easter Island was placed under
martial law. Tourism slowed down and private property was restored. During his time in power, Pinochet visited Easter Island on three occasions. The military built a number of new military facilities and a new city hall. On January 24, 1975, television arrived on the island, with the inauguration of a station of
Televisión Nacional de Chile, which broadcast programming on a delayed basis until 1996, when live satellite transmissions to the island began. In 1976 the
Isla de Pascua Province was created with
Arnt Arentsen Pettersen appointed as the first governor between 1976 and 1979. Between 1984 and 1990 the administration of Governor
Sergio Rapu Haoa stands out and since then all the governors have been Rapanui. In 1979, Decree Law No. 2885 was enacted to grant individual land titles to regular holders. On April 1, 1986, Law No. 18,502 is enacted, which establishes the special fuel subsidy in Easter Island, stating that it "may not exceed in each product 3.5 monthly tax units per cubic meter, whose value may be paid directly or through the imputation of the respective amount to the payment of certain taxes". As a result of an agreement in 1985 between Chile and the United States, the runway at
Mataveri International Airport was extended by , reaching , and was re-opened in 1987. Pinochet is reported to have refused to attend the opening ceremony in protest against pressures from the United States to address human rights cases.
21st century Fishers of Rapa Nui have shown their concern of
illegal fishing on the island. "Since the year 2000 we started to lose tuna, which is the basis of the fishing on the island, so then we began to take the fish from the shore to feed our families, but in less than two years we depleted all of it", Pakarati said. On 30 July 2007, a constitutional reform gave Easter Island (commune of
Isla de Pascua) and the
Juan Fernández Islands (
commune of Juan Fernández) the status of "special territories" of Chile. Pending the enactment of a special charter, the island continues to be governed as a province of the V Region of
Valparaíso. Species of fish were collected in Easter Island for one month in different habitats including shallow lava pools and deep waters. Within these habitats, two
holotypes and
paratypes,
Antennarius randalli and
Antennarius moai, were discovered. These are considered frog-fish because of their characteristics: "12 dorsal rays, last two or three branched; bony part of first dorsal spine slightly shorter than second dorsal spine; body without bold zebra-like markings; caudal peduncle short, but distinct; last pelvic ray divided; pectoral rays 11 or 12". In 2018, the government decided to limit the stay period for tourists from 90 to 30 days because of social and environmental issues faced by the Island to preserve its historical importance. A tsunami warning was declared for Easter Island after the
2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha'apai eruption and tsunami. Easter Island was closed to tourists from March 17, 2020, until August 4, 2022, due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. Then in early October 2022, just two months after the island was reopened to tourists, a forest fire burned nearly of the island, causing irreparable damage to some of the
moai. Arson is suspected.
Indigenous rights movement Starting in August 2010, members of the indigenous Hitorangi clan occupied the
Hangaroa Eco Village and Spa. The occupiers allege that the hotel was bought from the Pinochet government, in violation of a Chilean agreement with the indigenous Rapa Nui, in the 1990s. The occupiers say their ancestors had been cheated into giving up the land. According to a
BBC report, on 3 December 2010, at least 25 people were injured when Chilean police using
pellet guns attempted to evict from these buildings a group of Rapa Nui who had claimed that the land the buildings stood on had been illegally taken from their ancestors. In 2020 the conflict was settled. The property rights were transferred to the Hitorangi clan while the owners retained the exploitation of the hotel for 15 years. In January 2011, the
UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous People,
James Anaya, expressed concern about the treatment of the indigenous Rapa Nui by the Chilean government, urging Chile to "make every effort to conduct a dialogue in good faith with representatives of the
Rapa Nui people to solve, as soon as possible the real underlying problems that explain the current situation". The incident ended in February 2011, when up to 50 armed police broke into the hotel to remove the final five occupiers. They were arrested by the government, and no injuries were reported. ==Geography==