European "Discovery"
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After the Dutch, the Spanish under Don Felipe Gonzalez de Haedo were the next to arrive, in 1770. They claimed the island for the King of Spain in a ceremony that included placing three crosses on the three parasitic cones at Poike. An "official" document was signed by some of the natives these signs were what we call rongorongo symbols seen today on the famous wood tablets and also in the island's rock carvings.
Captain James Cook stopped briefly in 1774, during his second voyage to the South Seas. In need of water and fresh provisions' he was disappointed by how little they found on the island. Of all the early visitors to the island, Cook was in the best position to observe them, having already spent considerable time in Polynesia. He immediately recognized the Easter Islanders as being of the same race and origin of other Pacific islanders. Unfortunately, he was suffering from a gallbladder infection and spent little time ashore.
J.F.G. de la Pérouse, leading a French expedition, spent 11 hours here in 1786 and made an attempt to introduce plants and animals to help the islanders. He left hogs, goats and sheep and sowed various plants such as citrus and vegetables (none were ever seen again). Pérouse estimated some 1200 natives appeared to greet them. Despite the short visit, members of the expedition visited Rano Kau's crater and described native dwellings; some of the Frenchmen saw Rano Raraku but failed to recognize it as the statue quarry.
These early explorers all recorded the astonishment of the islanders when they saw the large ships, metal objects, and strange white skinned foreigners. La Pérouse describes some natives who came on board and carefully inspected the ship's cables, anchors, and steering wheel, and returned the next day to repeat the examination. This led the captain to believe that a discussion on shore left them with doubts about the ship's equipment and they came back to re check.
The first Europeans to arrive to Rapa Nui found the society in crisis, although they did not recognize it as such. Noting the impoverished islanders who could offer them little in the way of food supplies, and contrasting their condition to the question of how the huge statues were constructed and moved, the explorers thought there must have been some earlier race of people who made the monuments.
These first contacts, all before 1800, put Rapa Nui on the map. But discovery by the western world was to have catastrophic effects on the island society in the next century.
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