History of Tuvalu - Voyages By Europeans in The Pacific

Voyages By Europeans in The Pacific

Tuvalu was first sighted by Europeans in 1568 during the voyage of Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira from Spain who is understood to have encounted the island of Nui, which he named Isla de Jesus (Island of Jesus) but was unable to land. Keith S. Chambers and Doug Munro (1980) identify Niutao as the island that Francisco Antonio Mourelle named on May 5, 1781 thus solving what Europeans had called The Mystery of Gran Cocal. Mourelle's map and journal named the island El Gran Cocal ('The Great Coconut Plantation'), however the latitude and longitude was uncertain.

In May 1819, Captain Arent de Peyster (or Peyter) of New York, as captain of the armed brigantine or privateer Rebecca, sailing under British colours, while on a voyage from Valparaíso to India, passed through the southern Tuvalu waters; de Peyster sighted Nukufetau and Funafuti, which he named Ellice's Island after an English Politician, Edward Ellice, the Member of Parliament for Coventry and the owner of the Rebecca's cargo. The next morning, De Peyster discovered another group of about seventeen low islands forty-three miles northwest of Funafuti, naming this group "De Peyster's Islands." It is the first name, however, that was eventually used for the whole island group.

In 1820 the Russian explorer Mikhail Lazarev visited Nukufetau as commander of the Mirny. Following 1819 whalers were roving the Pacific though visiting Tuvalu only infrequently because of the difficulties of landing ships on the atolls. No settlements were established by the whalers.

For less than a year between 1862–63, Peruvian ships, engaged in what became to be called the "blackbirding" trade, combed the smaller islands of Polynesia from Easter Island in the eastern Pacific to Tuvalu and the southern atolls of the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati), seeking recruits to fill the extreme labour shortage in Peru, including workers to mine the guano deposits on the Chincha Islands. While some islander were voluntary recruits the "blackbirders" were notorious for enticing islanders on to ships with tricks, such as pretending to be Christian missionaries, as well as kidnapping islanders at gun point. The Rev. A. W. Murray, the earliest European missionary in Tuvalu, reported that in 1863 about 180 people were taken from Funafuti and about 200 were taken from Nukulaelae as there were fewer than 100 of the 300 recorded in 1861 as living on Nukulaelae.