From decline to recovery: the Marquesan population 1886-1945

Abstract

Population decline in the South Pacific is poorly documented. Civil-registration data from the Marquesas (French Polynesia) from 1882 to 1945 are here used to calculate most of the usual demographic indices. Deterioration of natural equilibria following the arrival of Europeans in the islands and introduction of new diseases in a non-immune population caused a steady decline in the population. Beside catastrophic epidemics such as smallpox, mortality was high mainly because of introduced respiratory diseases. The very high mortality, ranging from 45 per 1000 to 70 per 1000 at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, combined with low fertility due to the high proportion of sterile women (infected by venereal diseases), caused an annual decline of two to three per cent up to 1924. The arrival of a physician, introduction of basic sanitation and care of venereal diseases in Tahiti, whence most of the visitors to the Marquesas came, were followed by a sudden drop in mortality, rising fertility, and population increase. The depopulation phase lasted until the 1920s although the population generally stabilized elsewhere in Polynesia around the turn of the century. Population decline in the Pacific has often been quoted but rarely demographically studied because the

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