MARQUESAS ISLANDS, or Mendana Islands (French, Les Marquises'), an archipelago of twelve islands lying between 7° 50' and 10° 35' S. lat, and 138° 30' and 140° 50' W. long. They extend over 200 miles from S.E, to N.W., and have a total area of 489 square miles. The lower or true Marquesas group consists of the islands Fatouhiva or Magdalena, Motane or San Pedro, Tahouata or Sta Christina, and Hivaoa or Dominica, the last with a coastline of more than 60 miles. With these is often included the rocky islet of Fetohougo or Hood’s, lying in midchannel to the north of Hivaoa. The north-western or Washington group is formed of seven islands, the four largest being Roa-Poua or Adams, Houahouna or Washington, Noukahiva or Marchand. (70 miles in circumference), and Hiaou. Along the centre of each island is a ridge of mountains, sometimes attaining an altitude of 3500 feet, whence rugged spurs forming deep valleys stretch towards the sea. The volcanic origin of the whole archipelago is proved by the principal rocks being of basalt, trachyte, and lava. Except on a few barren peaks the islands are clothed with verdure, and in the valleys, which are well watered with streams and brooks, the vegetation is luxuriant. The flora includes over four hundred known species, many of them identical with those belonging to the Society Islands. The vegetable products comprise bananas, bread-fruit, yams, plantains, wild cotton, bamboos, sugar-cane, cocoa-nut and dwarf palms, and several kinds of timber trees. The land fauna is, however, very poor: there are few mammals with the exception of dogs, rats, and pigs; and amphibia and insects are also generally scarce. Of twenty species of birds more than half belong to the sea, where animal life is as abundant as at other subtropical Polynesian ...groups.
The climate of the Marquesas, although hot and humid, is not unhealthy. During the greater part of the year moderate easterly trade winds prevail, and at the larger islands there are often both land and sea breezes; the rainy season, accompanied by variable winds, sets in at the end of November, and lasts for about six months. During this period the thermometer varies from 84° to 91° F.; in the dry season its average range is from 77° to 8G°.
The inhabitants, a native Polynesian race, have in many respects a great affinity to the Tahitians, but excel them in symmetry of form. They live chiefly on bread-fruit, vegetables, and fish, almost entirely neglect agriculture, but rear hogs and fowls in great numbers. They exchange live stock, timber, vegetables, fruit, and fresh water with traders for iron utensils, firearms, gunpowder, cloth, tobacco, and brandy. They are polite in their intercourse with strangers, susceptible and courageous, but at the same time excitable, revengeful, addicted to stealing, lazy, and immoral. The efforts of missionaries, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, have hitherto proved of little avail either in converting them to Christianity or in improving their moral and social condition. At the commencement of the present century the population exceeded 20,000, but since then petty warfare, infectious maladies, and various other causes have greatly reduced its number; and on the 31st December 1876 it reached only 5754. -
In 1842 the Marquesas archipelago was formally taken possession of for France by Captain Du Petit-Thouars; and the French still maintain a nominal protectorate over the islands, with a resident and a small garrison at Noukahiva. Since 1861, however, French colonization has been virtually abandoned.
The Marquesas Islands were first discovered 21st July 1595, by Alvaro Mendana, who, however, only knew of the south-east group, to which he gave the name of Marquesas de Mendoza, in honour of the viceroy of Peru. Cook, pursuing the same track, rediscovered this group, with the addition of Fetohougo, in 1774. The north- (vest islands were first sighted by Ingraham the American in 1791, and were subsequently visited by Marchand (1791) and Hergest (1792). A more extensive investigation of the archipelago was made by Krusenstern in 1804. Of later navigators to the Marquesas the most noteworthy are Stewart (1829), Bennett (1835), and D’Urville (1838), and, since the date of the French occupation, Dumoulin, Jouan, and above all Jardin.
See C. E. Meinicke, Die Inseln des stillen Oceans, Leipsic, 1875-76; Tableaux de pop., <kc., des col. fran<p for 1877.
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