> It's certainly likely that European contact hastened the islanders' decline through diseases and other evils of colonization,

I think it is not quite so simple as the usual European-colonialism tropes here. I think it is more interesting than that. I visited Easter Island a few years ago and had a really interesting Rapa Nui guide who taught us a lot over several days. Her implication (although she never really said it outright) was that the "first contact" with Europeans actually triggered a huge social upheaval:

- The Rapa Nui people have been on their island doing their own thing for centuries without any outside contact, assuming they were the only people who existed on the only land that existed in an endless sea. They have a long-standing and established religion that prominently features the head status (Moai)

- The first European visitor (Roggeveen) turns up and is clearly visible to all inhabitants (i.e. no rumors) and was peaceful and basically just made a few observations, took a few measurements/charts, and observed that all of the head statues were still standing (i.e. at that stage there was no violence, no slave taking etc - that came later). Then they just went away as abruptly as they arrived.

- The Rapa Nui's world view has been totally shattered by the arrival of not only outsiders, but in totally unimaginable ships, clothing, skin colour, food, technology, weaponry etc. This was a collective "What the fuck?!" moment as the Europeans left them to deal with the consequences of this earth-shattering event (for them)

- ??? for the next couple of centuries.

- The next thing we know in the 1800s is that the old head statues have been abandoned and toppled, and an entirely new religion has taken over (Bird Man religion) and some really interesting things have happened, e.g. there is one of the statues that has a crude European ship carved onto its chest (1). Previously these statues were revered as the elders and ancestors etc, and yet this one ended up with the European's ship carved onto its chest. Was the statue abandoned and just re-used as a convenient blank canvas, or did the European ship somehow get woven into the existing religion? Fascinating.

Perhaps the big changes in the Rapa Nui society were going to happen anyway, but for me to have the total earth-shattering revelation that there are not only other people in the world but that they are totally different only then to have them vanish as suddenly as they appeared with no explanation or way to contact them again etc and then being left alone in total isolation again has to to have a part to play.

You can totally imagine the same thing happen to the earth today - rather than some grandiose & reverential alien "first contact" scenario where the sparkly friendly aliens respectfully come in peace and wish to speak to our world leaders etc, but actually what we get is some indifferent & uninterested aliens who turn up out-of-the-blue in orbit around the Earth in a way that every person on the planet can clearly see them with their own eyes. "Hey nice planet you have here - we're just going to take some measurements and plot your planet's orbit. We were actually looking for something else and we're not really interested you guys soooo, er.... yeah, bye." And then poof they're gone - our entire society would be totally turned upside down. Who were they? Where did they come from? Where are they going? Can we talk to them again? What is their technology like? Are they god/gods? Are these things compatible with our religions/morals/ethics? Why didn't they care more about me/us/our history/our culture?

Cautionary tale? Perhaps. Would Christianity/Judaism/Islam/Buddhism/Sikhism/etc survive such an alien encountered unchanged/unscathed? I personally doubt it.

1 - https://imaginaisladepascua.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/M...