I struggled a bit to come up with a blog post for this week as I was torn between two very different fundamental ideas. On the one hand I wished to write and put more words down into pen about my idea pertaining to my likely topic project, that of Rapa Nui’s interaction with the Spanish empire, but at the same time I wished to write down my thoughts of the island itself, whose uniqueness and isolation generate difficulty in description and thus warrant extensive thoughts. In the end, mostly to satisfy myself, I think I’ll try to do a bit of both. In doing so I am going to give my concise version of the history of the island, with some transnational themes included, so that I may more clearly see the feasibility of my project.
I’ll begin with the isle of my focus in Rapa Nui or, as it’s more commonly referred to by Western sources, Easter Island. Nestled in a relative empty corner of the Pacific, and today part of the country of Chile, the island was first settled by Polynesians, who share the same name as the island as The Rapa Nui, most likely around the year 1200 CE. While more famous for mo’ai, or massive face statues, that were built during this period of Polynesian control the island also boasted a relatively stable, if small and threatened by concerns of deforestation, population of 2 to 3 thousand people by the time of the first European contacts in the early 18th century. The island, so isolated, suffered a common occurrence in the Americas with the introduction of European diseases, devastating their population, and eventually slave raids by Peruvian in the 1860’s, which resulted in the capture of most of the native Rapa Nui people. The island then wallowed in a general depopulation until repatriation attempts in the late 19th century helped restore some of its citizens. Even then the country would remain relatively rightless under Chilean sovereignty throughout the 20th century until seminal events in 1966, the granting of Chilean citizenship to the Rapa Nui, and 2007, when the island was designated as special territory.
Now I’ve taken whoever’s read this on a long goose chase of reading a brief history of the island, which unfortunately this blog space does not provide much room for its totality, and you may be wondering what the point of this all is. Unfortunately, that is where I am out of luck, as this a just a piece in my continual attempts to really wrap my head around this oh-so-small island with yet so much history. An effort which I hope shall bear fruit as time wears on, and a proper, full history is made.