In 1871 Alexander Jr had picked up rudimentary Rapanui from his hundreds of indentured Easter Island labourers at the Mahina coconut plantation on Tahiti. In 1877 Queen Pōmare IV died, and Alexander's sister became regent. John Brander also died that year, and Dutrou-Bornier was assassinated. Alexander set off for Easter Island to manage the sheep station in around October 1878 with twenty Tahitian workers and an unknown number of Rapanui whose indentures had expired and ran the island for a decade. He introduced the coconut, the first sizeable tree on the island since its deforestation two centuries earlier, apart from some fruit trees at the SSCC Catholic mission and Dutrou-Bornier's estate.
