The annexation of the Leeward Islands (French: Annexion des îles Sous-le-vent) or the Leewards War (French: Guerre des îles Sous-le-vent) was a series of diplomatic and armed conflicts between 1887 and 1897, pitting the French Third Republic against the native kingdoms of Raiatea-Tahaa, Huahine and Bora Bora and resulting in the conquest of the Leeward Islands, in the South Pacific archipelago of the Society Islands in modern-day French Polynesia.
This conflict was the last phase of armed indigenous resistance against French rule in the Society Islands, which began in 1843 with the forcible imposition of a protectorate over the Kingdom of Tahiti in the Franco-Tahitian War. The three Leeward Islands kingdoms to the northwest of Tahiti were ensured independence by the Jarnac Convention, a joint agreement signed between France and Great Britain in 1847. Continual instability in the native regimes and the growing threat of the nascent German colonial empire in the Pacific prompted France to declare the islands under a provisional protectorate in 1880, in violation of the 1847 Convention. In 1888, France and Britain agreed to abrogate their previous treaty and allow the French to annex the Leeward Islands.
From 1888 to 1897, the Leeward Island natives resisted the French while civil wars also broke out between pro-French factions and the majority anti-French sectors of the population. Armed conflict began in 1887 with the revolt of the chief Teraupo'o on Raiatea against the pro-French king and the shooting of a French officer and marines on Huahine. The natives of Huahine set up a rival royal government under Queen Teuhe to resist the pro-French factions under her brother Prince Marama Teururai. The resistance was strongest on Raiatea and Tahaa where the chief Teraupo'o and his followers entrenched themselves in the countryside and the mountains and sought British intervention in the war. The conflict ended with the violent suppression of the Raiatean rebellion and the exile of the rebels in 1897.
Name
The conflict has been referred to by a variety of names. Historian John Dumore referred to the conflict as the "Leewards War" in 1997. Historian Matt K. Matsuda noted in Empire of Love: Histories of France and the Pacific, "Struggles in Huahine, Bora Bora, and Raiatea continued over decades as the 'Leewards War,' little remembered in French Pacific scholarship." The Historical Dictionary of Polynesia called the conflict, the "Teraupo'o War" or the "War of Teraupo'o" after the Raiatean resistance leader Teraupo'o. French school teacher Paul Huguenin, who authored Raiatea La Sacrée, a 1902 book on Raiatea's history and traditions, referred to the conflict as the Conquête des Iles sous le Vent. Auguste Charles Eugène Caillot, author of Les Polynesiens Orientaux Au Contact de la Civilisation (1909), referred to the conflict as la guerre de Raiatea-Tahaa. Pierre-Yves Toullelan, author of the article "Le colonialisme triomphant: Tahiti et la IIIe République" (1990), referred to the conflict as "la guerre des îles Sous-le-Vent". Alexandre Juster, author of L'histoire de la Polynésie française en 101 dates (2016), refers to the conflict as "la guerre des Iles sous le Vent".
Background
Prelude
The Society Islands are subdivided into the Leeward Islands in the northwest and Windward Islands or Georgian Islands in the southeast. The Windward Islands include Tahiti, Moorea, Mehetia, Tetiaroa and Maiao. Politically, the Kingdom of Tahiti comprised all the Windward Islands except Maiao and also held nominal sovereignty over the more distant Tuamotus archipelago and a few of the Austral Islands. By the mid-19th century the Leeward Islands was made up of three kingdoms: the Kingdom of Huahine and its dependency of Maiao (geographically part of the Windward Islands); the Kingdom of Raiatea-Tahaa, and the Kingdom of Bora Bora with its dependencies of Maupiti, Tupai, Maupihaa, Motu One, and Manuae.
Tahiti was converted to Protestant Christianity by the London Missionary Society (LMS) in the early 19th century. The Pōmare Dynasty, patrons of the British Protestant missionaries, established their rule over Tahiti and Moorea as part of the Kingdom of Tahiti. Western concepts of kingdoms and nation states were foreign to the native Tahitians or Maohi, people who were divided into loosely defined tribal units and districts before European contact. The first Christian king, Pōmare II headed the hau pahu rahi ("government of the great drum") or hau feti'i ("family government"), a traditional alliance of the inter-related chiefly families of the Society Islands. Christianity spread to the remaining islands after his conversion. He held nominal suzerainty over the other Society Islands. This was later misinterpreted by Europeans as sovereignty or subjugation of the other islands to Tahiti.
In the 1830s and 1840s, tensions between French naval interests, the British settlers and pro-British native chieftains on Tahiti led to the Franco-Tahitian War (1844–1847) and the voluntary exile of Queen Pōmare IV to Raiatea. Tahitian guerilla resistance on Tahiti was forcibly stamped out by the French administration with the capture of Fort Fautaua. Attempts to forcefully incorporate the neighbouring kingdoms of the Leeward Islands (west of Mo'orea) ceased following increased diplomatic pressure from Great Britain, and after a French expeditionary force was defeated on Huahine by Queen Teriitaria II in January 18 and 19, 1846. On February 7, 1847, Queen Pōmare IV returned from her exile and acquiesced to rule under the protectorate government centered in Papeete. Although victorious, the French were unable to annex the islands due to diplomatic pressure from Great Britain, so Tahiti and its dependency of Moorea continued to be ruled under the French protectorate. The Jarnac Convention or the Anglo-French Convention of 1847 was also signed by the French and the British, in which both powers agreed to respect the independence of Huahine, Raiatea, and Bora Bora.
Period of independence
For the next four decades, the three northern kingdoms remained nominally independent from the French in Papeete and remained strongly pro-British because of the influence of the LMS missionaries who remained stationed on the islands. However, economic and political instabilities were continual threats. Although Bora Bora remained politically stable, decades of political unrest plagued the islands of Huahine, Raiatea and Tahaa. The adoption of a British parliamentary system of government eroded the traditional supremacy of the ari'i rahi ("supreme rulers") in favor of the ra'atira ("freeman") class. Local chiefs and district governors (tāvana) gained greater power and autonomy at the expense of the nominal island monarchs. On Huahine, the warrior queen Teriitaria II was deposed in 1852 and her successor Ari'imate was deposed in 1868. On Raiatea, King Tamatoa IV was deposed in 1853 and later recalled. His successor Tamatoa V of Raiatea was deposed for the first time in 1858 and again in 1871. The next king, Tahitoe, who was one of the district governors, was deposed in 1881 for aligning with the French. LMS missionary and acting British consul on Raiatea, Alexander Chisholm, declared, "The foolish people seem determined to prove to the whole world that they cannot govern themselves."
Externally, the island governments feared intervention from the French in each succession crisis and the encroachment of other colonial powers. In 1858, the American consul in Raiatea unsuccessfully attempted to declare a protectorate over or annex Raiatea and Tahaa to the United States. In the late 1870s, there were worries that the German Empire would also incorporate the islands through annexation or a protectorate as part of its nascent colonial empire in the Pacific. The proposed Panama Canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific also increased the value of territorial claims in the Pacific. Huahine signed a treaty of friendship with Germany in May 1879, which was never ratified by the German government. On Tahiti, King Pōmare V abdicated on 29 June 1880 and the Tahitian kingdom was annexed to France.
Internal warfare and introduced diseases, such as dysentery, scarlet fever, measles, whooping cough and typhoid, contributed to a general decline of native populations after European contact. The native population of the Leeward Islands numbered around 5,000 to 6,000 people throughout much of the mid and late 19th century. In 1897, a census of the Leeward Islands recorded: 1,237 people on Huahine, 2,138 people on Raiatea, 1,099 people on Tahaa, 1,264 people on Bora Bora, and 536 on Maupiti. The more isolated Maiao had a sporadic population and numbered less than 100 people by 1871. The 1897 the populations of Tahiti and Moorea were around 10,000 and 1,500 respectively and had decreased in the same period between the 1880s and 1890s. Australian demographer Norma McArthur noted that: "If a mission estimate (Cooper, 1884b) of 'about 5,500' people in the Leeward Islands in 1884 was reasonable, the population had increased by nearly 1,000 by 1897, and this represents an average annual increase of about 1½ percent." However, the exact percentage of population growth due to births versus immigration is hard to determine.
Annexation of the Leeward Islands
Responding to the growing threat of Germany in the Pacific, the French took actions to abrogate the Convention of 1847 and bring the Leeward Islands into their sphere of influence. In 1880 French Commissioner Isidore Chessé convinced the islanders of the growing German threat and urged them to request for French protection. In Raiatea (see below), King Tahitoe and his chiefs signed a request for French protection and hoisted the protectorate flag on 9 April 1880. Chessé was unable to convince Huahine and Bora Bora to sign similar agreements.
The imposition of the French protectorate on the Leeward Islands was initially disavowed by the minister of foreign affairs, Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire, and the French government. Commercial groups in Hamburg and Berlin protested the actions of the French, but the British Foreign Office was less ambivalent, seeing a French takeover as a foregone conclusion, and was open to negotiations in exchange for French concessions. A provisional protectorate was established as France and Great Britain re-negotiated the details of the Jarnac Convention. Speculations included the French concessions in the Pacific or West Africa or the cession of fishing rights in the French Shore off Newfoundland. The convention was finally abrogated in exchange for French military concessions in the New Hebrides. The Convention relating to the New Hebrides and the Leeward islands of Tahiti was signed at Paris on 16 November 1887 and the Declaration for the Abrogation of the Declaration of the 19th June, 1847, between Great Britain and France concerning the Islands to the leeward of Tahiti was signed at Paris on 30 May 1888. News of the change reached Papeete in the beginning of 1888, allowing the French annexation of the islands to commence.
After the removal of this diplomatic obstacle, Governor Théodore Lacascade officially annexed all of the Leeward Islands on 16 March 1888 via proclamation. The Proclamation de Gouverneur aux habitant des Îles sous le Vent à l'occasion de l'annexion de ces îles à la France was done without documents of cession from the former sovereign government of the islands. Lacascade traveled to the Leeward Islands to proclaim the annexation. The mission was accompanied by the French naval warship Decrès, under the command of Captain Alfred Charles Marie La Guerre, and the schooner Aorai, under the command of Captain Louis Marie Reux. Lacascade with other French officials and naval officers took possessions of the islands and raised the flag of France on Huahine (16 March), Raiatea (17 March) and Bora Bora (19 March). The annexation was nominal and native autonomy and resistance continued on the islands for another decade.
Raiatea
In 1880, King Tahitoe accepted the provisional protectorate by Chessé and raised the protectorate flag of Raiatea with the French tricolour on its canton. Captain Mervyn B. Medlycott of the corvette HMS Turquoise ordered French Lieutenant Félix Marie Salaun de Kertanguy, of the war schooner Orohéna, to lower the protectorate flag, and in its place the Raiatean flag was hoisted and accorded a royal salute. According to Guy Hardy Scholefield, "The French flag was permitted to be rehoisted provisionally on 25 May 1881, for periods of six months, the discussion being renewed from time to time." Tahitoe was deposed by his subjects for requesting the protectorate. His daughter and successor, Queen Tehauroa, unsuccessfully attempted to enlist the protection of the British to preserve Raiatea's independence in accordance with the Jarnac Convention. On 17 March 1888, Governor Lacascade took possession of Raiatea and Tahaa and raised the French flag.
On 25 September 1887, five chiefs of Raiatea petitioned Papeete to send a French resident administrator. Teraupo'o, a lesser chief of Raiatea known for his fierce opposition to the French, refused to comply with the order of King Tamatoa VI to surrender to them and built up a resistance force. The following year, King Tamatoa VI, originally from the royal family of Huahine, abdicated to avoid being used by the French and returned to Huahine to become a tāvana. In his place, Teraupo'o led the native resistance against the French and installed a resistance government under Tuarii (a younger daughter of Tahitoe) as queen at Avera. The French established themselves at the former capital of Uturoa and appointed a résident, Marie Maximilien Gustave Alby. The French also had the support of the chief Tavana, a former minister of Tamatoa who held the title of viceroy of Raiatea-Tahaa. A prolonged war prevented the French from entering the rural areas of Raiatea as the natives resorted to guerilla warfare.