ABSTRACT
Many world historians generally regard the earliest encounters between the “Old World” of Europe and the “New World” of the Americas as the true beginning of global civilization, as it heralded the creation of a single world system, in terms of both ideas and material exchanges. While most of those traditional societies confronting American, European, and Japanese expansionists had been in decline, Polynesia was witnessing the rise of new state systems and experiencing political expansion that was as powerful as that then taking place in Europe. The settling of the southwest Pacific by Polynesian people in 500 to 1550 add is one of the greatest stories of human migration in world history. Given the then current state of European affairs, it was inevitable that the conquest would become as much a part of the initial European voyages as science.
