Partie de l ´Archipel des iles Basses No.48

Title

Partie de l ´Archipel des iles Basses No.48

Description

Map shows the lower friendship islands in the Pacific ocean

ca. 1825

Artist

Vandermaelen

Historical Description

The archipelago was also called Friendship Islands in the past, today -Kingdom of Tonga-. There are archaeological opinions that the first settlers from the Santa Cruz Islands came to Tonga from Southeast Asia via Micronesia in the course of a migration that began around 3000 BC. By the 12th century, the Tongans and their chief, the Tuʻi Tonga, were known throughout the Pacific region from Niue to Tikopia. Some historians speak of a Tongan empire, but the description as a network of sailors, chiefs, and adventurers probably better fits the condition. In the 15th century and then in the 17th century, tribal feuds broke out again and again. At this time, the first contacts with Europeans occurred: in 1616 with the Dutch explorers Willem Schouten and Jakob Le Maire, who shot a Tongan off Niuatoputapu during their first contact, in 1643 with Abel Tasman (who did a little trading with the natives), and later around 1773 especially with James Cook. In 1781, Francisco Maurelle reached Vavaʻu. The first missionaries followed twenty years later, and an important role was to be played by the Methodist Walter Lawry, who, however, did not arrive in Tonga until 1822. In the Samoa Treaty of 1899, the German Empire renounced all rights to Tonga, and on May 18, 1900, the islands became a British protectorate. In 1970 it received its independence. Tonga is an independent member of the Commonwealth and since 1999 also a member of the United Nations. It is still the only (parliamentary) hereditary monarchy in the entire Polynesian Pacific region.