Editing History of Samoa (section)

===18th century===

Contact with Europeans began in the early 18th century but did not intensify until the arrival of the [[Kingdom of Great Britain|British]] missionaries. In 1722, [[Netherlands|Dutchman]] [[Jacob Roggeveen]] was the first European to see the islands. This visit was followed by the French explorer [[Louis-Antoine de Bougainville]] (1729–1811), the man who named them the ''Navigator Islands'' in 1768. In 1787 [[Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse]] visited Samoa, where at Tutuila Island, in what is now American Samoa, there was a conflict leading to deaths on both sides, including the deaths of twelve Frenchmen.