Franco-Tahitian War
Franco-Tahitian War | |||||||
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Capture of Fort Fautaua in Tahiti, depicted by Sébastien Charles Giraud | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
France Tahitian allies |
Tahitian guerillas | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Abel Aubert du Petit-Thouars, Tati Hitoti |
Pōmare IV, Teriitaria II, Tamatoa IV, Tapoa II Minor chiefly allies: Utami Fanaue Maiʻo |
The Franco-Tahitian War (French: Guerre franco-tahitienne) or French–Tahitian War (1844–1847) was a conflict between the Kingdom of France and the Kingdom of Tahiti and its allies in the South Pacific archipelago of the Society Islands in modern-day French Polynesia.
Tahiti was converted to
From 1844 to 1847, the French fought Tahitian forces on the main island of Tahiti. The technologically inferior Tahitians were no match for the French marines
Prelude
The Society Islands are subdivided into the
Tahiti was converted to
In the 1830s, tensions between French naval interests, the British settlers and pro-British native chieftains on Tahiti led to conflict. In 1836, the Protestant Queen Pōmare IV of Tahiti, under the influence of British consul and former LMS missionary George Pritchard, evicted two French Catholic missionaries from the islands to maintain the dominance of Protestantism in the island kingdom.[7] Seeing this as an affront to the honor of France and the Catholic religion, Jacques-Antoine Moerenhout, the French consul in Tahiti, filed a formal complaint with the French.[7][8] In 1838, the French naval commander Abel Aubert du Petit-Thouars responded to Moerenhout's complaints. The commander forced the native government to pay an indemnity and sign a treaty of friendship with France respecting the rights of French subjects in the islands including any future Catholic missionaries. Four years later, claiming the Tahitians had violated the treaty, Dupetit Thouars returned and forced the Tahitian chiefs and the queen to sign a request for French protection which he sent back to Europe for ratification.[9]
War
Pritchard had been away on a diplomatic mission to Great Britain during the incident with Dupetit Thouars and returned to find the islands under French control. Encouraged by Pritchard, Queen Pōmare resisted in vain against French intervention, writing to
In November 1843, Dupetit Thouars deposed the queen for her continued resistance and formally annexed the islands, placing Armand Joseph Bruat in charge as colonial governor. Pōmare IV and her family took refuge in the British consulate and later fled into exile on the neighboring island of Raiatea aboard the British ship HMS Basilisk.[9][12] Pritchard was imprisoned and deported by the French, an action which nearly sparked conflict with the British had the French not formally apologized for the seizure of the British consul.[7][13] The incident became known as the Pritchard Affair.[14][15]In the absence of their queen, the Tahitian populace began an armed resistance on 13 March 1844. The loyalist forces were led initially by a chief named Fanaue, but he was later replaced by Utami (who switched sides after being allied initially to the French takeover) and his second-in-command Maiʻo along with other chiefs sympathetic to the rebel cause.[16][17][18] They fought against the French forces, which also included a few pro-French Tahitian chiefs including Paraita, Tati and Hitoti. At the Battle of Mahaena, on 17 April 1844, a force of 441 French soldiers defeated an under-equipped native force twice its size. A total of fifteen French soldiers and 102 Tahitians died in this battle.[19][20] Following the defeat of the native forces at Mahaena, the two sides engaged in guerrilla warfare in the fortified valleys of the Tahitian countryside.[20]
On the second front, the French attempted to conquer and annex the three neighboring island kingdoms in the Leeward Islands. These were Raiatea under King Tamatoa IV (where Pōmare had sought refuge), Huahine under Queen Teriitaria II, and Bora Bora under King Tapoa II. These islands had traditionally owed formal allegiance to the Pōmare family which the French interpreted as actual jurisdiction.[9][21] A naval blockade of Raiatea by French captain Louis Adolphe Bonard was lifted when the warriors of Huahine under Queen Teriitaria "massacred" the French forces at the Battle of Maeva where eighteen French marines were killed and forty-three were wounded.[20][22]
Great Britain remained officially neutral and never intervened militarily. However, the presence of more than a dozen
Defeat of Tahitian resistance
The guerrilla conflict came to an end with the defeat of the Tahitians at the
A clause to the war settlement, known as the
Notes
- ^ Maohi or Mā’ohi is the Tahitian language name for the indigenous Polynesian people of the Society Islands without association with the largest and most populous islands of Tahiti. Other English exonyms exist for the other islands as well including: the Raiatean of Raiatea, the Tahaan of Tahaa, the Moorean of Moorea, the Huahinean of Huahine, the Boraboran of Bora Bora and the Maupitian of Maupiti.[5]
References
Citations
- ^ Perkins 1854, pp. 439–446.
- ^ Gonschor 2008, pp. 32–51.
- ^ a b Matsuda 2005, pp. 91–112.
- ^ Gonschor 2008, pp. 32–39, 42–51.
- ^ Oliver 1974, p. 6.
- ^ Newbury & Darling 1967, pp. 477–514.
- ^ a b c d Garrett 1982, pp. 253–256.
- ^ Buck 1953, pp. 85–86.
- ^ a b c Gonschor 2008, pp. 35–39.
- ^ a b O'Brien 2006, pp. 108–129.
- ^ Newbury 1973, pp. 8–9.
- ^ Newbury 1980, pp. 105–118.
- ^ a b Ward & Gooch 1991, pp. 182–185.
- ^ Craig 2010, pp. 165–166.
- ^ Fisher 2013, pp. 19–21.
- ^ Newbury 1956, pp. 80–96.
- ^ Newbury 1973, pp. 7, 12–14.
- ^ Newbury 1980, pp. 87–125.
- ^ a b Layton 2015, p. 177.
- ^ a b c d Kirk 2012, pp. 151–154.
- ^ Matsuda 2005, pp. 94–100.
- ^ Matsuda 2005, p. 97.
- ^ Newbury 1956, pp. 84–86.
- ^ Newbury 1956, pp. 87, 89.
- ^ Dodd 1983, pp. 120–131.
- ^ Martin 1981, pp. 7–11.
- ^ "La guerre franco-tahitienne (1844–1846)". Histoire de l'Assemblée de la Polynésie française. Archived from the original on December 14, 2016. Retrieved January 1, 2017.
- ^ Gonschor 2008, pp. 45–46, 77–83, 280.
- ^ Olson & Shadle 1991, p. 329.
- ^ Garrett 1992, pp. 241–245.
- ^ Gonschor 2008, pp. 32–64.
- ^ Kirk 2012, pp. 149–160.
Sources
- Buck, Peter Henry (1953). "J. A. Moerenhout". Explorers of the Pacific: European and American discoveries in Polynesia. Honolulu: Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum. pp. 85–86.
- Craig, Robert D. (2010). Historical Dictionary of Polynesia. Lanham: Scarecrow Press. OCLC 817559562.
- Dodd, Edward (1983). The Rape of Tahiti. New York: OCLC 8954158.
- Fisher, Denise (2013). "The French Pacific presence to World War II". France in the South Pacific: Power and Politics. Canberra: ANU E Press. pp. 13–46. OCLC 1076779234.
- Garrett, John (1992). Footsteps in the Sea: Christianity in Oceania to World War II. Geneva: World Council of Churches; Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific. OCLC 26334630.
- Garrett, John (1982). To Live Among the Stars: Christian Origins in Oceania. Suva, Fiji: Institute of Pacific Studies, OCLC 17485209.
- Gonschor, Lorenz Rudolf (August 2008). Law as a Tool of Oppression and Liberation: Institutional Histories and Perspectives on Political Independence in Hawaiʻi, Tahiti Nui/French Polynesia and Rapa Nui (PDF) (MA thesis). Honolulu: University of Hawaii at Manoa. OCLC 798846333.
- Kirk, Robert W. (2012). Paradise Past: The Transformation of the South Pacific, 1520–1920. Jefferson, NC: OCLC 1021200953.
- Layton, Monique (2015). The New Arcadia: Tahiti's Cursed Myth. Victoria, BC: OCLC 930600657.
- OCLC 8329030.
- Matsuda, Matt K. (2005). "Society Islands: Tahitian Archives". Empire of Love: Histories of France and the Pacific. New York: OCLC 191036857.
- Newbury, Colin W. (1956). The Administration of French Oceania, 1842–1906 (PDF) (PhD thesis). Canberra: A Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Australian National University. OCLC 490766020.
- Newbury, Colin W. (March 1973). "Resistance and Collaboration in French Polynesia: the Tahitian War: 1844–7". The Journal of the Polynesian Society. 82 (1). Wellington: The Polynesian Society: 5–27. OCLC 5544738080.
- Newbury, Colin W. (1980). Tahiti Nui: Change and Survival in French Polynesia, 1767–1945 (PDF). Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii. OCLC 1053883377.
- Newbury, Colin W.; Darling, Adam J. (December 1967). "Te Hau Pahu Rahi: Pomare II and the Concept of Interisland Government in Eastern Polynesia". OCLC 6015244633.
- O'Brien, Patricia (April 2006). "'Think of Me as a Woman': Queen Pomare of Tahiti and Anglo-French Imperial Contest in the 1840s Pacific". Gender & History. 18 (1). Oxford: Blackwell: 108–129. S2CID 143494777.
- Oliver, Douglas L. (1974). Ancient Tahitian Society. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. S2CID 165869849.
- Olson, James Stuart; Shadle, Robert (1991). Historical Dictionary of European Imperialism. New York: Greenwood Publishing Group. OCLC 21950673.
- Perkins, Edward T. (1854). Na Motu, or, Reef-Rovings in the South Seas: a Narrative of Adventures at the Hawaiian, Georgian and Society Islands. New York: Pudney & Russell. OCLC 947055236.
- Ward, Adolphus William; Gooch, George Peabody (1991). The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy. Vol. 2. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. OCLC 1327327.
Further reading
- OCLC 21482.
- OCLC 12469204.
- Koskinen, Aarne A. (1953). Missionary Influence as a Political Factor in the Pacific Islands. Helsinki: University of Helsinki. OCLC 988627551.
- Miller, Joseph A. (1847). Memoir of the Rev. Thomas S. Mc'Kean, M.A., Missionary at Tahiti, who was Killed by a Musket-shot, During an Engagement Between the French and the Natives, on the 30th of June, 1844. London: John Snow. OCLC 154321425.
- Munro, Doug; Thornley, Andrew, eds. (1996). The Covenant Makers: Islander Missionaries in the Pacific. Suva, Fiji: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific. OCLC 184803543.
- OCLC 663667911.
- Senn, Nicholas (1906). Tahiti: The Island Paradise. Chicago: W. B. Conkey. OCLC 1016419160.
- Toullelan, Pierre-Yves; Gille, Bernard (1992). Le Mariage Franco-Tahitien: Histoire de Tahiti du XVIIIe siècle à nos jours. Papeete: Editions Polymages-Scoop. OCLC 27669459.
External links
- Media related to Franco-Tahitian War at Wikimedia Commons