History
Palmerston was discovered by Captain Cook in 1774, but he did not land on the island until 13 April 1777. He found the island uninhabited, though some ancient graves were discovered. Cook named the island after Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston, then Lord of the Admiralty. The ancient name of the island was supposedly Avarau, meaning “two hundred harbour entrances.” In 1863 William Marsters, a ship's carpenter and barrel maker, arrived on Palmerston from Manuae with two Polynesian wives and annexed the island from the British government. He added a 'third wife' and sired a large family of some 23 children, whose descendants now inhabit Palmerston. Thus, Palmerston Island is the only island in the Cook Islands for which English is the native language. William Masters, originally thought to have come from Leicestershire England, is now thought to have come from Gloucestershire, which might explain why his descendants now spell the name "Marsters" due to the Gloucestershire accent. By the time his youngest daughter Titana Tangi died in 1973, there were over a thousand Marsters descendants living in Rarotonga and New Zealand. Though only some fifty family members remain on Palmerston, all Marsters descendants consider the island their ancestral home. In 1954 the family was granted full ownership of the island. Three branches of the family remain on Palmerston, each branch being descended from one of Williams 'three wives', marriage within a family group is prohibited. Palmerston is now administered by the Cook Islands government in association with New Zealand.
Read more about this topic: Palmerston Island
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