History of St. Cecilia

The History of the St. Cecilia Archipelago has been recorded since the arrival of European settlers in the late 18th century. Prior to this there are small glimpses into society from earlier explorers.
 * For a timeline of events, please see Timeline of History of St. Cecilia.

Prehistory
The nations that comprise St. Cecilia were historically part of the Polynesia region. In the history of the Austronesian Peoples, migrants from southeast Asia started to head eastward, island hopping throughout the region. First they reached the areas of Micronesia and Melanesia, before reaching the outer boundaries of Polynesia in approximately 1,000 BC. From here, settlers eventually continued heading east, to Altarea, the Capricorn Islands and the Challenger Islands.

Discovery by Europeans
The first European recorded to have visited the area now known as St. Cecilia was Portuguese explorer Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, who sighted an uninhabited island on 10th February 1606. It is now believed he had sighted Libra Atoll North in the Capricorn Islands. There was sporadic trading and exploring over the next century and a half, without any main settlement. This changed in the second half of the 18th century with more aggressive exploring from the likes of Samuel Wallis and John Byron. Land was conquered in the name of King George, firstly the Capricorn and then the Challenger Isles.

Captain James Cook was influential in the discovery and later population of the region. During his second voyage (1772-75) Cook was tasked with discovering the hypothetical continent 'Terra Australis' and so took a southerly course through the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans. Cook discovered Eltanin and the Udintsev islands, all of them uninhabited and claimed them for the crown.

Altarea was discovered and conquered in slightly different means. Being further west, it was closer to the German colony of Samoa and thus fell under German jurisdiction from 1780 onwards.

The Pitcairn & Henderson Isles of course remained uninhabited until settlers from the Mutiny on the Bounty arrived in 1790.