The archipelago is believed to have been named by Captain James Cook during his first voyage in 1769, supposedly in honour of the Royal Society, the sponsor of the first British scientific survey of the islands; however, Cook wrote in his journal that he called the islands Society "as they lay contiguous to one another".

The high chiefs or ari'i rahi were descendants from the gods, reckoned to be forty generations previous.

[11]: 23–28 The Society Islands are home to the Taputapuātea Marae, a UNESCO world heritage site on Ra’iātea.

Europeans quickly found that the islanders were desperate to obtain iron, which was prized for use in woodworking and as fish-hooks.

[11]: 39–47 Louis de Bougainville, a French nobleman, sailor and soldier, left France on his circumnavigation of the globe in 1766.

Despite the crew being twice as numerous as that of the Dolphin, the islanders had sufficient food to trade their surplus for axes, knives and other iron goods.

Between 1772 and 1775, the viceroy of Peru, the Spaniard Manuel Amat y Juniet, organized three expeditions to the Society Islands.

In the second expedition (1774-1775), Domingo de Bonechea and José Andía y Varela, aboard the ships "Águila"[14] and "Júpiter",[14] recognized or discovered a dozen islands between the archipelagos of Tuamotu and the Austral Islands, and established a mission in Tahiti, which lasted only a couple of years.

The main island of Tahiti (Îles du Vent), where 50% of the inhabitants live, is also home to the capital of French Polynesia, the city of Papeete.

The tropical forests of French Polynesia are home to a great variety of rare animals and plants.

The Tahitian tiaré (Gardenia taitensis), which blooms exclusively on the Society Islands, is one of the most fragrant of all flowers and is now protected.

The atolls surrounding the islands are covered with numerous corals, around which butterfly and clown fish frolic.

The heat and very high humidity, together with the islands' fertile volcanic soils, have created dense, mostly inaccessible tropical forests.

By 1774, the Spanish had settled in the region briefly and installed a large cross that they brought from their colonies in Peru.

[15] Queen Pōmare IV expelled French Catholic missionaries from her kingdom in 1836 and provoked the annoyance of France.