Disappointment Islands - History

History

The western Disappointment Islands, Tepoto and Napuka, were colonized by voyagers from the neighboring Tuamotus, but Puka-Puka was colonized by settlers from the Marquesas Islands, several hundred miles to the northeast.

It is said that these islands were given their name by Ferdinand Magellan, who could not find a water source there from which to replenish his ship's supplies, while en route to the Philippine Islands.

However, the first recorded European to reach Napuka Atoll was British explorer John Byron in 1765. He named Napuka and Tepoto "Disappointment Islands" because the natives were of a hostile disposition. The islands were also visited by the United States Exploring Expedition in 1839.

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