In 1768, French navigator, Louis de Bougainville, sighted the islands of Samoa calling them “The Navigator Islands” because he encountered many Samoans sailing small canoes far from the sight of the land and assumed they must be good navigators. From then on until late 1700s, early European traders were exploring the Pacific, with many of their ships calling at Samoa for supplies of mainly water and tropical fruits.

This was followed by the arrival of some European escaped convicts, seamen and whalers who were known as “beach-combers”, and by the early 1800s, most of them had settled in Samoa.