But in 1845, the warrior Taufa’ahau claimed the title of prime chief, and had himself baptized King George Tupou I. Tonga was plunged into a fifty-year civil war following the assassination of a major chief in 1799. European missionaries extensively Christianized the Tongans during the end of the 18th and early 19th century. Curiously enough, the Tongans appear to have been planning to kill Cook, though they could not agree on a plan to do so and Cook departed unmolested and apparently oblivious to his near-miss. Cook named Tonga “the Friendly Islands” for the hospitality of the Tongans. Ceramic evidence from the Lapita period has been found in Tonga, but that would have represented a considerable feat of navigation for that civilization.įirst contact with the West was recorded by the Dutch in 1616, though the most famous meeting would have been during James Cook’s survey of the Pacific. The oldest unambiguous site is found in the village of Pea on Tongatapu, and is approximately 3,000 years old.

It is difficult to date the arrival of humans to the Tongan archipelago. The archipelago of the Kingdom of Tonga consists of 176 islands scattered over 700,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean, northeast of New Zealand and southwest of the Hawaiian Islands. Tonga reached its zenith as a regional power in the 14th century, during which time it achieved something of a regional hegemony of chiefs and navigators. Tonga is one of the larger cultural groupings within Polynesia, and has vied with the other regions for supremacy of the Pacific islands. Tiu Tonga Empire - City state influence degrades at two-thirds the usual rate and recovers 50% faster Their symbol is a white spiral with a bright red background. They are led by ‘Aho’eitu, who is a reused Montezuma. Tonga is a playable civilization in Paradise Found.

Civ 5 hitler mod