The History Behind it all

Polynesians, from Tahiti and the Marquesas, were the first to populate the island and did so around 1000 A.D. They sent birds over to Maui and checked to see if the birds were surviving well. Needless to say, the birds came back fatter and the Polynesians settled there. It wasn’t until November 26, 1778 that Maui was even thought of. Captain James Cook was the first person to see the island, but never set food on it because there was no where for his boat to land. French admiral Jean François de Galaup de La Pérouse was the first person to land on the island. And with this first landing, many more Europeans followed. Traders, whalers, and missionaries were the main groups to explore this new and exciting island. With the work of the missionaries to help ‘civilize’ the native people, they helped in altering and preserving the culture. Examples of this would be the fact that no hula dancing was allowed, but the missionaries brought in printing presses to document the culture. Given Maui’s fantastic spot for whales, whalers found it to be a treasure. In one season, Lahaina had had over 400 ships go in and out of its dock. A while later Maui got the attention of the U.S. as a naval base, so the U.S. annexed the Hawaiian Islands. It wasn’t until Pearl Harbor that it got the mass amount of attention that it has today. In 1943-44, Maui had over 100,000 troops stationed on it. It wasn’t until 1959 that Hawaii became a state, and the population has increased more rapidly ever since.