Franco-Tahitian War

Capture of Fort Fautaua in Tahiti, depicted by Sébastien Charles Giraud

Date	1844–1847
Location	Society Islands
Result	Tahiti remained a French protectorate Jarnac Covention of 1847

Belligerents

France
Tahitian allies

Tahiti

Huahine

Raiatea

Bora Bora and Tahaa

Commanders and leaders

Abel Aubert Dupetit Thouars,
Armand Joseph Bruat,
Louis Adolphe Bonard

Pōmare IV,
Teriitaria II,
Tamatoa IV,
Tapoa II

The Franco-Tahitian War or French–Tahitian War (1844–1847) was a conflict between the Kingdom of the French and the Kingdom of Tahiti and its allies in the South Pacific archipelago of the Society Islands.

Tahiti was converted to Protestant Christianity by the London Missionary Society (LMS) in the early 19th century. In 1836, 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 in order to maintain the dominance of Protestantism in the island kingdom. 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 to the French. In 1838, the French naval commander Abel Aubert Dupetit Thouars 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, he returned and forced the Tahitian chiefs and the queen to sign a request for French protection which he sent back to Europe for ratification.

Pritchard had been away on a diplomatic mission to Great Britain during the incident with the admiral and returned to find the islands under French control. Encouraged by Pritchard, the queen resisted in vain against French intervention, writing to Queen Victoria, asking for British intervention, and to King Louis Philippe I of France. 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 fled into exile on the neighboring island of Raiatea aboard the British ship HMS Basilisk. 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.

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