In 1616 a Dutch ship called Eendracht arrived in Futuna, the sister island to Alofi. It was commanded by Jacques Le Maire and Willem Corneliszoon Schouten, and their expedition intended to find new routes for commerce that were not under control of the VOC (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie), the powerful Dutch East India Company. Their expedition was full of adventure and discovery, as all of the expeditions to the Pacific were. But for us, what is of interest is the fact that they touched, for the first time for Europeans as far as it is known, Futuna.
Schouten, and also Le Maire, kept diaries of their travel, and they were published after their return (actually Le Maire did not return but his father published on his behalf). The diaries became instant classics of ethnography in the Pacific, and especially Schouten’s book has been repeatedly used for anthropological and archaeological inquiry. The illustrations are indeed evocative. Here some examples:
One of them represents for the first time a kava ceremony.
Importantly, the images, as well as the text, transpire the existence on Futuna of an important population that saluted the newcomers, and were constantly trading and generally interacting with the Europeans. And, as Schouten (1619: 57) consigned: “…le Roy de l’autre Isle vint visiter cesluy cy, & apporta avecq luy 16 pourceaux, avec bien 300 hommes, qui estoyent tous ceints par le milieu de certaine herbe verde, desquoy ils font leur boisso” (The same day the king of the other Island came to visit this [Futuna] and brought with him 16 pigs with well above 300 men, who carried around their belt a green herb that they use for their drink”), i.e. the people from Alofi also visited the Europeans in Futuna, and deployed a large number of people in his visit. Over all, the information gathered by the Dutch points to well populated and healthy islands, showing all the features of a developed chiefdom.
For the complete story, go here
However, by the time the French missionaries settled on Futuna, in 1838, Alofi was empty and Futuna held only 800 people. What happened in between 1616 and 1838 that triggered the nearly abandonment of the archipelago, is our research question in Alofi.