Kingdom of Tahiti
former kingdom
The Kingdom of Tahiti or the Tahitian Kingdom was a Polynesian monarchy founded by paramount chief Pōmare I, who, with the aid of British missionaries and traders, and European weaponry, unified the islands of Tahiti, Moʼorea, Tetiʻaroa, and Mehetiʻa. The kingdom eventually annexed the Tuamotus, and the Austral Islands (Rapa Iti, Rurutu, Rimatara, Tubuai, Raivavae).
Its leaders were Christian following the baptism of Pomare II. Its progressive rise and recognition by Europeans allowed Tahiti to remain free from a planned Spanish colonization as well as other European claims to the islands.
The kingdom was one of a number of independent Polynesian states in Oceania, alongside Ra'iātea, Huahine, Bora Bora, Hawaii, Samoa, Tonga, Rarotonga and Niue in the 19th century. The kingdom is known for bringing a period of peace and cultural and economic prosperity to the islands over the reign of the five Tahitian monarchs. Tahiti and its dependencies transformed into French protectorates in 1842 and largely annexed as a colony of France in 1880 after Pomare V was convinced to give Tahiti and its dependencies to France. The monarchy was therefore abolished shortly after the annexation, though there are still pretenders.
History
Beginning
Pōmare I was born at Pare, ca. 1743. He was the second son of Teu Tunuieaiteatua by his wife, Tetupaia-i-Hauiri.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Kingdom of Tahiti” is former kingdom. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Kingdom, Tahiti and former, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kingdom of Tahiti” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.