Europeans and Easter

“This story of self-induced eco-disaster and consequent self-destruction of a Polynesian island society continues to provide the easy and uncomplicated shorthand for explaining the so-called cultural devolution of Rapa Nui society”

(Rainbird, 2002)

The ‘ecocide’ theory is not the only solution to the Easter Island mystery. Numerous other scholars advocate that the arrival of Europeans and slave traders were the reason behind Easter’s collapse. Benny Peiser (2005) in his paper ‘From Genocide to Ecocide: The Rape of Rapa Nui’ claims that Rapa’s culture and environment were destroyed to all intents and purposes by European slave-traders, whalers and colonists, and not by themselves.

Between the first European contact in 1722 and the beginning of Peruvian slave raids in 1862, it is estimated that 53 European vessels called at Easter Island (Peiser 2005). During this time, the Europeans brought foreign diseases to Easter, particularly smallpox and other Old World diseases. As well as diseases, Benny Peiser paints a gruesome picture of violent assaults, murder, rape and mass deportation of the native people by early European visitors, whalers and slave-raids. Slave-raids first started on Easter Island as early as 1805, however from October 1862 to March 1863 an estimated 1000-1400 people were captured and deported by Peruvian and Spanish slave-raiders. Peiser claims that almost 90% died in the following weeks due to disease and malnutrition (yet provides no evidence to support this claim).

With the deportation and deaths of many within the native population, including tribal and community leaders, the social and religious system disintegrated, leading to internal strife and tribal fighting. It is this fighting, combined with the deaths and deportation of 1000-1400 people that Peiser argues was the cause of societal collapse and starvation. He maintains that there is no reason to believe that Easter’s civilization could not have adapted and survived to an environment devoid of large timber, however what they could not have adapted and survived was the ‘systematic destruction of their society, their people and their culture’. Essentially, it wasn’t suicide by the native people themselves, but rather genocide by whalers, colonists and slave-raiders.  He concludes with a quote from Rainbird (2002):

‘Whatever may have happened in the past on Easter Island, whatever they did to their island themselves, it totally pales in insignificance compared to the impact that was going to come through Western contact’

However, there are a couple points on Peiser’s article that I would like to draw attention to:

1. He spends the majority of his article picking apart Diamond’s ‘ecocide’ theory, claiming that it is not the real cause behind Easter’s collapse. His main line of argument to support this is that Diamond has very little archaeological and palaeological evidence, with statements like ‘Diamond’s methodological approach suffers from a manifest lack of scientific scrutiny. Instead of weighing up and critically assessing the quality, authenticity and reliability of the data he employs to support his arguments, he consistently selects only data and interpretations that seem to confirm his conviction that Easter Island self-destructed.’ This claim is not new (many scholars have questioned Diamond’s lack of evidence), however Peiser seems to do exactly the same as Diamond later on in his article as he uses no scientific evidence to prove his assertion that Western contact was the cause of Easter’s collapse, and makes statements such as ‘It is believed (but by no means certain) that almost 90% died in the following weeks and months of diseases and malnutrition’. Essentially (in my opinion), he seems determined to pick apart Diamond’s theory, before collecting solid scientific evidence to prove his theory.
2. He states that Easter’s population collapse occurred in 1864, however Roggeveen’s observations from 1722 suggested that Easter’s collapse had already happened by the time he arrived, and this is supported by numerous lines of scientific evidence (Flenley and Bahn 2003)

However, Hunt and Lipo (2007, 2009) provide a more solid argument backed by evidence for Western contact as the cause of collapse. They argue that demographic collapse likely began as a consequence of Old World diseases, rather than the murder, rape and mass deportation that Peiser maintains (however, these did still have some impact on Easter’s population). The first wave of epidemics occurred with the arrival of the Dutch in 1722, then with the Spanish in 1770 and the English in 1774. Slave trading, more epidemics and other devastating blows from colonialism then hit the population. However, they contest the arguments made by Flenley and Bahn, and Diamond that Easter’s population collapsed pre-European arrival, simply stating that there is no existing evidence for a pre-European contact population collapse, and that a per-contact demographic collapse remains untested and undemonstrated archaeologically. Rather, the impact of historic slave trading, epidemic diseases, intensive sheep ranching and tragic population collapse has been recognized for a long time.

It is clear from this to see two very opposing sides to the Easter Island mystery with respect to Western contact. While one side argues that there is much evidence for pre-contact population collapse (Diamond, Flenley and Bahn), the other side argues there is no evidence for pre-contact collapse (Rainbird, Peiser, Hunt and Lipo), the quality of archaeological and palaeological evidence on Easter Island is not of good enough quality to prove either argument. European arrival on Easter Island had a clear impact on the population of Easter, however the argument is whether the population was already in decline as a result of population expansion, deforestation and resource exploitation.