World Studies Persons Chapter 10 BJU 5th ed.

King Tupou I

The first king of modern Tonga, who unified the islands, established a constitutional monarchy, and protected Tonga from formal colonization by European powers in the 1800s.

Thor Heyerdahl

A 20th-century Norwegian adventurer and anthropologist famous for his Kon-Tiki expedition, where he sailed a raft from South America to Polynesia to prove his theory that ancient people could have made long ocean voyages.

Álvaro de Mendaña

A 16th-century Spanish explorer who led the first European expeditions to find a legendary southern continent. He discovered the Solomon Islands and Marquesas Islands in the 1500s.

Abel Tasman

A 17th-century Dutch explorer who commanded the first known European expedition to reach the islands of Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) and New Zealand, and to sight Fiji in 1642-43.

Louis Antoine de Bougainville

An 18th-century French explorer who led the first French circumnavigation of the globe. His visit to Tahiti in 1768 created a European myth of the island as a tropical paradise.

Captain James Cook

A famous 18th-century British explorer, navigator, and cartographer who made three major voyages across the Pacific Ocean, mapping coastlines from New Zealand to Hawaii and creating the first accurate European charts of the region.

John Paton

A 19th-century Scottish Presbyterian missionary who spent most of his life in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), working to spread Christianity. His writings described his life and the challenges of mission work in the Pacific.

James Chalmers

A 19th-century Scottish Congregationalist missionary and explorer known as "Tamate" who worked in Papua New Guinea. He was known for his adventurous travels and efforts to spread Christianity, but was killed in 1901.

Arthur Phillip

A British Royal Navy officer who became the first Governor of New South Wales, Australia. He commanded the First Fleet in 1788, established the first British penal colony at Sydney Cove, and oversaw the early years of the colony.

Queen Kaʻahumanu

A powerful and influential queen of the Kingdom of Hawaii in the early 1800s. As Kuhina Nui (a role similar to prime minister), she helped abolish the traditional religious system (kapu) after King Kamehameha I's death and promoted Christianity.

Queen Keōpūolani

A high-ranking Hawaiian queen, wife of King Kamehameha I, and mother of two later kings. She was one of the first Hawaiian aliʻi (chiefs) to convert to Christianity and was considered the highest-ranking woman of her time.

Queen Liliʻuokalani

The last reigning monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii. She became queen in 1891 and fought to create a new constitution to restore power to Native Hawaiians. She was overthrown in 1893 by American business interests, leading to the annexation of Hawaii by the United States.