Archaeologist
Atholl Anderson spent 18 days exploring the abandoned village of
Kolomaile in 1977, which is accessible via a steep trail from the island's cobbled northern beach. Although it had been abandoned for over a century, remnants of stone walls and other evidence of human inhabitants were still visible;
radiocarbon dating led Anderson to conclude that human settlement on Ata dated back to the 1500s or 1600s. Another archaeological survey was conducted in August 2001; fragments of pottery found during the later survey were of a type that had ceased manufacture in Tonga by 400 BC, meaning the settlement on Ata was considerably older than previously thought. According to oral tradition, the
diviner Hama discovered Ata, but the first Tongans to live there were Motuapuaka and Tapuosi, who had eloped there to escape the wrath of Tapuosi's father, the
Tui Tonga Fakanaanaa; when they arrived in the early 1700s, the aboriginal inhabitants played a rough game which frightened Tapuosi, and Motuapuaka drove them into a cave, then suffocated them by building a great fire at its mouth. The two lovers were presumably accompanied by attendants, befitting their high status. Adverse winds prohibited him from coming closer and no native people were seen coming to him in canoes either. From his position looking towards the northeast the shape of the island resembled to him the
breasts of a woman. The island was visited by Captain
James Cook during his
second voyage on 7 October 1773, Because of its remote location from the main islands of Tonga, Ata was largely self-governed; the
Official Report on Central Polynesia by
Charles St Julian stated its population was 150 in 1857. came along and invited the islanders on board for trading. But once almost half of the population was on board, doors and rooms were locked, and the ship sailed away. 144 people never returned. In 1929, anthropologist
Edward Winslow Gifford interviewed two former residents of Kolomaile who were schoolchildren when the
Grecian took its slaves; they said that "[Paul] Vehi [Mayor of Ata] went aboard and presumably arranged the kidnapping. When he was returned ashore, he made a proclamation that each family was to send a good-looking man aboard with provisions to sell. There was to be no selling on shore, and furthermore the selling on the ships was to take place below decks. Once the Ata people were aboard, they were sent to various rooms to select the goods they wanted in exchange. After they entered the rooms, the doors were locked." Meanwhile, however, the Peruvian government, shocked that its labour plan had turned into a slave trade, had already cancelled all labour importation licenses on 28 April.
General Prim and other ships were not allowed to land their captured South Pacific slaves on Peruvian soil, but instead the Peruvian government chartered ships to take them home. By the time the
Adelante, chartered to return the Tongans, finally left on 2 October 1863, many had died or were dying from contagious diseases. In addition, Captain Escurra of the
Adelante, which had been one of the most successful slavers before the licenses were revoked, had no intention to take them home after being paid $30 per head. Instead, he
marooned them on uninhabited
Cocos Island, well off the route to
Tahiti, claiming the 426
kanakas were affected with
smallpox, endangering his crew. 200 survivors were left when the whaler
Active passed along and found them on 21 October. Finally, in November, the Peruvian
warship Tumbes came to save the survivors, who had dwindled to just 38. They were brought to
Paita, where they apparently were absorbed into the local population.
Tongan castaways In June 1965, a group of six Tongan youths were stranded on the island after running away from their strict Anglican boarding school in
Nukualofa on Tongatapu. They stole a boat on short notice and with little preparation, and drifted southwest after being caught in a storm. After swimming to the island, they survived on seabirds, as well as
feral chickens, wild
taro, and
bananas from the ruins of Kolomaile. They were rescued on 11 September 1966 by a passing lobster fisherman named
Peter Warner. After being returned to Tongatapu, the youths were briefly imprisoned for stealing the boat.
Possible resettlement The descendants of the original Ata island dwellers still live in the southern village of Haatua on Eua, of which a part has received the name Kolomaile. Their wish to return to Ata was still alive in the mid-20th century, but it is considered unlikely to happen, as the island does not have a harbour, making shipping to it a dangerous and uneconomical adventure. Currently Ata, still part of the kingdom of Tonga, remains uninhabited. ==Ecology==