Discovery and settlement[edit]
Main article: Ancient Hawaiʻi
The earliest settlements in the Hawaiian Islands are generally believed to have been made by Polynesians who reached Hawaii using large double-hulled canoes. They brought with them pigs, dogs, chickens, taro, sweet potatoes, coconut, banana, sugarcane, and other plants and animals.
Several theories describe migration to Hawaii. The "one-migration" theory suggests a single settlement. A variation on the one-migration theory instead suggests a single, continuous settlement period. Several "multiple migration" theories exist. One variation suggests that the original migration could have been followed by settlers from the Marquesas Islands, and then later by Tahitians.
Numerous accounts describe possible landings by Europeans, Chinese and others long before the arrival of Captain Cook; however, none have been documented with certainty.
On January 18, 1778 British Captain James Cook and his crew, while attempting to discover the Northwest Passage between Alaska and Asia, encountered the islands, surprised to find anything so far north in the Pacific.[1] He named them the "Sandwich Islands", after the fourth Earl of Sandwich. Members of this expedition described the population of the islands as abundant, handsome and healthy. It is now estimated that more than one million people inhabited the archipelago at that time. Unfortunately the British brought many new infectious diseases to the islands, in particular tuberculosis and venereal diseases that quickly propagated through the locals.[2]
In 1786, seven years after Cook, a French frigate arrived in Hawai'i and reported that most of the islanders were very sick. By 1832 only 130.000 remained.[2]