History
The British navigator William Bligh was the first European to sight the Yasawas in 1789, following the mutiny on the HMS Bounty. Captain Barber in the HMS Arthur visited the islands in 1794, but they were not charted until 1840, when they were surveyed and charted by a United States expedition commanded by Charles Wilkes.
Throughout the 1800s, Tongan raiders bartered for, and sometimes stole, the sail mats for which the Yasawa Islanders were famous. The islands were largely ignored by the wider world until World War II, when the United States military used them as communications outposts.
Read more about this topic: Yasawa Islands
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)