History of The Marquesas

From the Global Village Travel Guide and DVD, “Islands of the South Pacific“. Stock footage available from Transcript: The Marquesas receive few visitors. Large airplanes can’t land here and there are no hotels. Though the early inhabitants were a warrior culture practicing cannibalism, Captain Cook found these islands hospitable when he visited during his second voyage in 1774. In 1842, when the French annexed the Marquesas the population was estimated to have been 60,000. By 1926 the ravages of European diseases, tribal warfare, and a collapsing culture had reduced the population to less than 2,500 people! Although the population has now grown to about 7,000 again, there is an eerie sense on these islands that a vanished people still haunt their former homes. These geologically young islands have no reef and no surrounding flatlands. Ea