History of the Tongans

Tongans are thought to be products of seafaring people whose diaspora or migration placed them in a series of islands in the pacific at around 900 BC, which is now modern day Tonga.

Some of the earliest settlements of the Tongans were a small village of one of the larger islands that comprise the Kingdom, the island of Tongatapu. Because of these island’s location and landscape, they are very difficult to travel to. It is because of this that not much is known about the Tongans prior to their first contact with Europeans because their was no way to document or research the culture. This coupled with the fact that Tongans lacked a writing system made their history still very much a mystery to the rest of the world. Their first interaction with Europeans was in the year 1616. In this year Jacob Le Maure and Willem Schouten made the voyage to the islands to trade.

Though much of their very early culture remains a mystery, there are some interesting things that I was able to find that I thought was worth sharing. Hundreds of years before the Europeans arrived, we know that Tongans created these very large terraced tombs that were made out of stone. These tombs are made of very large pieces of limestone rock, with some pieces weighing upwards of 40 tons, making the construction of these tombs still a but of a mystery to experts today.

One of the most well documented times in early Tongan history was during the 12^th century. At this time the Tongans and their kings ruled their islands, as well as the surrounding islands, including Samoa and Tikopia. They ruled these islands for nearly four centuries. This time is considered by some to be a “Tongan Empire.” As this empire dissolved and many of the once ruled islands became sovereign, much turmoil arose in Tonga around the year 1800. For the next 50 years, Tonga and the surrounding islands will be entrenched in a civil war until they became united into one kingdom in 1845 by King Topou I. Tonga and its people were now a constitutional monarchy, and were recognized by the Commonwealth of Nations in 1970 and the United Nations in 1999.