He had two known children: Dominika, who was regarded as a potential bride of King Joseph Gregorio II, and Tiripone Mama Taira Putairi, the first Eastern Polynesian to be ordained into the Roman Catholic priesthood.

[5][6][7] While the main line remained on the throne, Putairi served as the tutor and guardian of Agnès and Philomèle, the surviving sisters of King Joseph Gregorio II.

In 1873, the third of these regents, Arone Teikatoara, was forced to resign after kissing a girl in public and was succeeded in his post by Bernardo Putairi.

[10][11] According to Paul Eugene Louis Deschanel, after the death of Agnès and his accession to the regency, the French missionaries under Father Nicolas Blanc, head of the Gambier Island mission, and Bishop Tepano Jaussen, Vicar Apostolic of Tahiti, predicted the regency would pass from Bernardo Putairi to his son Tiripone, who as a priest would bring the archipelago into the domain of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

When French colonial commissioner Henri Isidore Chessé visited the island in 1881, Bernardo Putairi had been named King after the death of Philomèle.

[14] After the demise of most of the royal family (togoʻiti), the Gambier Islands steadily fell under colonial influence, it having already been a French protectorate since 1871 under Regent Arone.