Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 5: Jacob Roggeveen names Easter Island

Roggeveen, a Dutch explorer, was sent to the Pacific to find Davis Land, a mysterious island located near South America and named for the pirate who claimed to have seen it in 1687. Roggeveen didn't find it - no one did, as it doesn't quite seem to exist - but on April 5, 1722, he stumbled across this island and named it for the holiday.

What's not clear is what name the island had up to that point. We often refer to it today as Rapa Nui, but that name wasn't given until the 1800s, and is also the name of the indigenous people who inhabit the island. There are two or three possible names, including one that translates as "The Navel of the World," which to me is the clubhouse leader on romantic notions alone.

Roggeveen would go on to be the first European to sight Bora Bora and Samoa. He did this while sailing for the Dutch West India Company, and would actually be arrested by agents of the Dutch East India Company for violating their monopoly. He eventually got that sorted out, and even worked for that company for a time in Batavia (now Jakarta) before going home to serve as a notary and publisher of controversial religious pamphlets. Easter Island would be annexed by Chile, of which it is still a part today.