Erasfion Point

The waters off Erasfion Point lie in the Vanuatu archipelago, a volcanic island chain in Melanesia. The group stands northeast of New Caledonia and west of Fiji. Its history belongs to the wider region: the sea routes and contacts of the Vanuatu islands as a whole.

Archaeological traces indicates that the Vanuatu islands were first settled about 3,000 years ago, roughly between 1100 and 700 BCE, almost certainly by people of the Lapita culture. In 1606 a Spanish expedition under Pedro Fernandes de Queirós reached Espíritu Santo. In 1768 Louis Antoine de Bougainville sailed past the islands, and in July–September 1774 James Cook explored them extensively and named them the New Hebrides. In 1789 William Bligh sailed through the Banks Islands after the Bounty mutiny. Whaleships became early regular visitors; the first recorded visit was by the Rose in February 1804. In 1825 Peter Dillon's discovery of sandalwood on Erromango prompted a rush of incomers that ended in 1830 after a clash. These episodes tied the Vanuatu sea lanes to Pacific navigation, trade, and imperial contact.