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History was constantly evolving and new ideas with regard to this new area emerged. In
1768, a Frenchman, Louis Antoine de Bougainville, visited the Pacific region and discovered
the New Hebrides, Rossel Island and the Lousiade Islands. All these discoveries are important
in order to study the distribution of the European population in the South Pacific region and
not merely the discovery of islands. Dampier’s famous work A New Voyage Round the World
is very important among all the accounts of expeditions from various countries of Europe.
James Cook is remembered as the first person who gave the name Oceania to new areas
discovered from the 16th to 19th century. He visited the region three times, (1) first in 1769,
(2) second from 1772 to 1775 and (3) third from 1776 to 1779. These journeys resulted in a
report in the form of data that helped determine the disposition and structure of people’s
life in the South Pacific and the use of the name Oceania.
James Cook in his famous work A New Voyage round the World wrote a detailed record
of his visit to Bougainville that describes the atmosphere of royal life and records the ethnic
population in Tahiti. Captain Cook’s report gives a significant overview to institutions about
the lifestyle of the overall population of Oceania. As mentioned in the record, in 1769, he
was sent to Tahiti and New Zealand and the eastern part of Australia. In the course second
journey, from 1772 to 1775, Cook successfully made various records and reflections as well
as finding Tuamotu, Cook Islands, Marquesas Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, New Hebrides,
and Norfolk Island. This added to the developing picture of Oceania. On his third journey,
from 1776 to 1779, Cook focused on the northern Pacific. He discovered the Tonga Islands,
Christmas Island, and the Hawaiian Islands. In contrast to his predecessors, James Cook
focused not only on trade, but also various aspects of life of the indigenous communities.
He identified those aspects and took a relatively more humanistic approach, inasmuch as
he paid attention to such socio-cultural aspects during his journeys to Oceania.
Since the beginning of the 19th century and up until 20th century, there have been people
visiting the Pacific region, with a variety of intentions. In addition to trade, these intentions
included such as humanitarian objectives of providing social and religious services. Along
with such activities, a review of the records made in previous centuries about the structure
of the life of society of Oceania as a whole began. The general impression is that the
people in the islands of Oceania are religious and varied, and isolated from the reach of
the main expeditions to the Americas, Africa, (Asia: India, Colombo, Singapore, Indonesia
and straight into Sydney), to the north: Indonesia, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Yokohama and
continued to America12. In general the inhabitants of the Oceania region are not different
from the population of Southeast Asia, but somewhat different from these races: Negroid,

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