Evidence suggests that the Cook Islands were originally settled by the Polynesians approximately 1500 years ago prior to the British Captain James Cook sighting some of the islands in 1773, hence the name given by Europeans. The London Missionary Society had a strong influence in the islands during the 19th century with the final proclamation in 1888 of the status of a British Protectorate. In 1901, New Zealand annexed the Cook Islands until internal self-government was achieved in 1965.
Economic crisis in the mid 1990s sparked a fall in the Cook Islands' population that continues to the present.