[6] The social form was a strictly stratified tribal society, with constant inter-clan warfare and intermittent food shortages; cannibalism was not unknown.

There is evidence that, shortly before European influence, unrest was taking place that led to turmoil and civil war between the social classes.

[7] This social upheaval may have greatly facilitated the conquest of the archipelago by King Pomaré II of Tahiti in the early 19th century.

In 1825, the British Frederick William Beechey reached the Gambier Islands with his ship HMS Blossom during a long voyage of exploration to the Pacific and Arctic of North America.

In 1834 the missionaries of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts Honoré Laval and François Caret arrived in the islands to found the first Catholic mission in Polynesia, after the failed attempt of the Spaniards in Tahiti in 1775.

On this island, since Wilson's expedition, there was a Protestant mission led by Pritchard, who was also British consul and advisor to Queen Pomare Vahine.

On the other hand, religious zeal led them to systematically replace all the idols and temples, and in their place they ordered the construction of more than a hundred stone buildings: churches, chapels, convents, seminaries, cemeteries, vicarages, triumphal arches.

The recruitment of labor for the large-scale projects depopulated the smaller Gambier Islands and led according to some sources to famine, as daily food procurement was neglected.

Father Laval had to leave Mangareva in 1871 at the urging of the Bishop of Tahiti, Florentin Etienne "Tepano" Jaussen.

The Gambier Islands were finally annexed on 21 February 1881 under Prince Regent Bernardo Putairi and approved by the President of France on 30 January 1882.

[8] The Gambiers served as a logistical staging base for French nuclear testing activity in Mururoa, approximately 400 kilometers away.

During this time, the French military dragged a chain through some of the coral reef beds to cut a wider and deeper channel for deep draft vessels.

A number of others are actually coral islands, hence of secondary volcanic origin, including Papuri, Puaumu, Totengengie and the Tokorua group.

The Gambier Islands formed from a hot spot under the Pacific Plate, which is moving northwestward at a rate of 12.5 cm per year.

The remoteness of Tahiti and the price of airfare to get there are largely responsible for this, but the islands have potential because of their climate, environment and unique historical past.

A few sailboats call at Rikitea Bay and tourists wishing to visit the British Pitcairn Islands pass through Mangareva as a base.

They grow yams, taro and breadfruit, as well as all kinds of tropical fruits and, to a lesser extent, coffee for export.

[17] Recently restored after years of closure, the former cathedral of St. Michael of Mangareva, in the Gambier archipelago, bears witness to the time when the first Catholic missionaries settled there in the 19th century.

[19] The activity of the Catholic Church was boosted by the Missionary work of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary of Picpus.

The scant information that has survived on the religion and worship of the Gambier Islands comes mainly from letters written by the missionaries to their religious superiors.

In front of the structure was a space twenty feet square paved with hewn coral blocks and bordered with curbs.

On each side of the idol were carved three-armed stands on which were presented various objects, such as decorated coconut shells and pieces of bamboo, possibly intended to represent musical instruments.Only eight artifacts from the pre-European period from the Gambier Islands remain in the world, including a carved deity of the type described by Beechey in the above text[27] in the Musée national des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie in Paris.

[27] Another naturalistic statue, approximately one meter high, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, is believed to represent the god Rogo, the sixth son of Tagaroa and Haumea, the mythical founders of Mangareva.