"On the following day, 20 November 1770, Commander José Bustillo took formal possession of Easter Island 'in the name of the King and of Spain, our Lord and Master Don Carlos the third', renaming the island 'San Carlos'.  

Several hundred Rapanui - probably members of the Koro 'o 'Orongo tribe of the eastern 'Otu 'Iti - observed the ceremony not far from Poike's parasitic cones Parehe, Teatea, and Vai 'a Heva, on the tops of which the Spaniards had planted three crosses. Following three boisterous 'Viva el Rey!' for each cross, the land party let off three salvos of musketry, whereupon the two Spanish vessels San Lorenzo and Santa Rosalia responded with 21 cannon salutes. 

Spain's foremost historian of the Pacific, Francisco Mellén Blanco, has written of the event: 'The spectacle must have been awe-inspiring for the islanders. The parade of uniformed soldiers; the fluttering flags; the chaplains in their surplices chanting out the litany; the beating of drums, and the trilling of fifes must have left a lasting impression on all the natives who witnessed the procession'.

Just before this deafening act of 'dispossession', however, something even more extraordinary had occured. Paymaster Don Antonio Romero, who was recording the event in ink as Don Felipe had ordered, had had the Spanish officers sign the official deed, then later noted that 'to better corroborate this so solemn act some of the Indios signed at the same time, writing down on the document to be witnessed certain characters according to their style'... "

"…the Rapanui… had witnessed European writing - and this in a liturgical, histrionic, and awesome context. What is more, they themselves had been enjoined by these opulent, colourful, and infinitely more puissant aliens to set ink to paper in an unforgettable performance imbued with might and mystique. Copying what these aliens had ritually enacted would doubtless have lent the Rapanui's experience a supernatural solemnity, indeed one of temporarily sharing European mana through the act of signing."

(Fischer)