During the age of exploration when Europeans were going out to ‘discover’ the world (one that others had discovered long since) one of the things they were looking for was the Garden of Eden. I am always reminded when the seasons come and go in the UK how much people wanted to find the Utopia of Adam and Eve and how they imagined part of that Utopia was a climate without seasons. Rather like a balmy English summer all day, every day. Humanity has never been a great lover of the cold.
When they reached the Pacific islands they genuinely thought they had found what they were looking for, though the inhabitants paid the price of cholera and slavery, hardly Utopia and certainly not Eden. Of course they also went looking for wealth, and trade routes that got around their European adversaries.
There are two things I take from this amongst others. The first is that some amazing things are done for stupid reasons, and despite the cruelty of Europeans finding we had one world and knowing all about it, is an amazing thing. The second, perhaps more prosaic but nonetheless pertinent, is that we should always be careful about who finds us.