'' in
Ahu Tongariki,
Rapa Nui Australia and most of the
islands of the Pacific Ocean were
colonized in waves of migrations from
Southeast Asia spanning many centuries.
American,
European and
Japanese colonial expansion brought most of the region under foreign administration, in some cases as
settler colonies that displaced or marginalized the original populations. During the 20th century several of these former colonies gained independence and nation-states were formed under local control. However, various peoples have put forward claims for indigenous recognition where their islands are still under external administration; examples include the
Chamorros of
Guam and the
Northern Marianas, and the
Marshallese of the
Marshall Islands, and the
Native Hawaiians of
Hawaii. which itself was settled by the Polynesian
Rapa Nui people. Eastern Pacific islands such as the
Galápagos and
Juan Fernández Islands, while inhabitable, did not have a population of
Indigenous Americans or Indigenous Oceanians, which helped them form their own unique ecosystems. All oceanic islands of the eastern Pacific (excluding
Clipperton) were eventually annexed by
Central America and
South America, after going unclaimed for a few hundred years following their initial discoveries. They are now politically associated with those regions, The sparse number of current inhabitants are primarily
Spanish-speaking
Mestizos. A percentage of Easter Islanders have race-mixed with Mestizo settlers from their current political administrators,
Chile, and it has gradually become a
bilingual island, where both Spanish and their native language is spoken. Despite this, the inhabitants still view themselves as Polynesians, and by extension Indigenous Oceanians, not South Americans. child learning the
haka in a painting by
Gottfried Lindauer The
Bonin Islands, located about 1,000 to 2,000 kilometers from
Tokyo, are commonly thought to have been uninhabited during pre-Columbian times, even though there may have possibly been a Micronesian presence on the islands approximately 2,000 years ago. The islands are still sometimes associated with Oceania, despite now having become politically integrated into
Japan. Today, they are sparsely inhabited by Japanese citizens, with a proportion having
European and
European American ancestry. Islanders primarily speak
Japanese, and like with those in the eastern Pacific, they could be interpreted as one of the smaller linguistic groups in Oceania.
Norfolk Island (adjacent to
Melanesia) and
Pitcairn Islands (adjacent to
Polynesia) were uninhabited when discovered by Europeans, but there is substantial evidence of prehistoric Indigenous Oceanian settlement. Pitcairn currently have a population of around 50, who are entirely mixed-race
Anglo Euronesians. They are descended from an initial group of Anglo and Polynesian settlers in the 18th century. Pitcairn was later annexed by
Britain, while Norfolk Island became an
external territory of Australia, who are over 1,500 kilometers removed. Norfolk's present population is mostly
European Australian, some are also Euronesians; these individuals are descended from Pitcairn Islanders that were relocated to Norfolk in 1852 because of overpopulation. The Micronesia adjacent islands became unincorporated territories of the United States, and they all have no permanent residents. The United States government restrict access to outsiders on some islands.
Decolonization Oceania is generally considered the least
decolonized region in the world. In his 1993 book
France and the South Pacific since 1940, Robert Aldrich commented: ==Demographics==