Polynesian people native to the Tongan archipelago; Tongatapu was the first island settled in Polynesia by Lapita-culture voyagers roughly 3,000 years before present, well predating the later Tu'i Tonga Empire (from c. 950 AD).
Not an ending: Tongans remain the people of the Kingdom of Tonga — the map hands off to the Tongan kingdoms and the state George Tupou I unified, never colonized.
Standard scholarly history of Tonga spanning ancient settlement, the Tu'i Tonga era, and the modern kingdom.