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First settlers arrive to Vanuatu. They had Lapita culture and made pots.
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The art of making decorative pots disappears from Vanuatu
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Portuguese explorer Pedro Fernandez de Quiros discovered the island of Espiritu Santo which is an island in Vanuatu.
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Europeans did not return until 1777. Captain Cook named the islands the New Hebrides. This name lasted until independence from Britain in 1980.
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The discovery of Sandal wood made people migrate from the UK. This began a long history of exploitative extraction to meet demand for perfume and oils. Extractive harvesting of the local species commenced in the mid 1820s. Wild sources were commercially exhausted by the 1860s.
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During the 1860s, sugar cane planters in Australia and Fiji need labourers.
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In the late 1880s, France became interested in Vanuatu. French and British settlers came looking for land to make cotton plantations. When cotton prices collapsed, they switched to coffee, cocoa, bananas, and coconuts.
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In 1906, France and the UK agreed to administer the islands the islands jointly. This was not successful.
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After a short conflict between the british and the Ni-Vanuatu, the republic of Vanuatu was created.