Marshall Islands History, and Environment: People, Culture, Tradition, Travel and Tourism

Marshall Islands History, and Environment. People of Marshall Islands, Culture of Marshall Islands, Tradition, Travel and Tourism in Marshall Islands. A Book on Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands were settled initially around the beginning of the Christian era by Micronesians who may have been influenced by early Polynesian (Lapita) culture. Radiocarbon dates from earth-oven charcoal samples that were excavated in Laura village on Majuro yielded dates of about 30 bce and 50 ce. The early Marshall Islanders were skilled navigators and made long canoe voyages among the atolls. Sighted in 1529 by the Spanish navigator Álvaro Saavedra, the Marshalls lacked the wealth to encourage exploitation or mapping. The British captain Samuel Wallis chanced upon Rongerik and Rongelap atolls while sailing from Tahiti to Tinian. The British naval captains John Marshall and Thomas Gilbert partially explored the Marshalls in 1788, but much of the mapping was done by Russian expeditions under Adam Johann Krusenstern (1803) and Otto von Kotzebue (1815 and 1823). U.S. whalers frequented the islands from the 1820s, and U.S. and Hawaiian Protestant missionaries began efforts to convert the islanders in the 1850s