Red and Blond-haired Tahitians

I also came across this description of the native Tahitian population today in a book titled Biographia Nautica. The work was published in 1785 and concerns naval history. The quote comes from the French explorer and admiral Louis Antoine de Bougainville.

The women of Otaheite have features as agreeable as those of the Europeans; and are unrivalled in the symmetry and beautiful proportion of their limbs. The men who live much on the water are of a redder complexion than those who chiefly reside on the shore. Some have their hair brown, red or flaxen, in which they are exceptions to all the natives of Asia, Africa and America, who have their hair universally black.