WI Easter Island's population is not subjected to genocide in the 1860s?

Over at my blog, I write about the profound flaws in Jared Diamond's theory of Easter Island as a casualty of indigenous ecocide. The Rapa Nui were apparently managing their island quite well, dealing with ecological catastophes not of their own making and sustaining a highly complex and accomplished culture in isolation from the outside world.

What happened to the Rapa Nui? Far from doing themselves in, they were devastated by foreign genocide instead. Peruvian slavers in the 1860s abducted half the population to work in the guano mines off Peru's coast, returning pitfiully few survivors including some infected with cholera. With the death of more than 90% of the island's population, of course the Rapa Nui collapsed.

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ObWI: Peruvian slavers leave Easter Island alone in the 1860s. What happens next? Does France move in and establish a protectorate akin to that over Tahiti? Does Chile still move in? Would knowledge of rongorongo's meaning be hugely transformative?
 
The most important thing is probably the decipherment of rongorongo, which would reveal quite interesting results, no doubt.

Otherwise, the islands are probably up for grabs. I'm not sure Chile would be able to seize a healthy Easter Island society, although they, Peru, and evidently Ecuador had interests in the Pacific at the time.
 
I imagine that some of the Impressionists who went to Tahiti might also be quite interested in a more intact Rapa Nui culture. Gauguin incorporated rongorongo into some of his art, like the painting Merahi metua no Tehamana, without any comprehension of the characters. Imagine what he, and others, might have done if they could understand rongorongo.
 
Otherwise, the islands are probably up for grabs. I'm not sure Chile would be able to seize a healthy Easter Island society, although they, Peru, and evidently Ecuador had interests in the Pacific at the time.

But is a major epidemic of cholera or something worse even avoidable? Inadvertent infection seems inevitable the longer they survive.
 
I heard that it was actually the introduction of European rats that caused the infamous deforestation on Easter Island. They would eat the palm seeds and saplings, and the native vegetation was never able to recover.
 
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