This conflict was the last phase of armed indigenous resistance against French rule in the Society Islands, which began in 1843 with the forcible imposition of a protectorate over the Kingdom of Tahiti in the Franco-Tahitian War.

The three Leeward Islands kingdoms to the northwest of Tahiti were ensured independence by the Jarnac Convention, a joint agreement signed between France and Great Britain in 1847.

Continual instability in the native regimes and the growing threat of the nascent German colonial empire in the Pacific prompted France to declare the islands under a provisional protectorate in 1880, in violation of the 1847 Convention.

From 1888 to 1897, the Leeward Island natives resisted the French while civil wars also broke out between pro-French factions and the majority anti-French sectors of the population.

Armed conflict began in 1887 with the revolt of the chief Teraupo'o on Raiatea against the pro-French king and the shooting of a French officer and marines on Huahine.

The natives of Huahine set up a rival royal government under Queen Teuhe to resist the pro-French factions under her brother Prince Marama Teururai.

The resistance was strongest on Raiatea and Tahaa where the chief Teraupo'o and his followers entrenched themselves in the countryside and the mountains and sought British intervention in the war.

[12][13][14] Western concepts of kingdoms and nation states were foreign to the native Tahitians or Maohi,[note 1] people who were divided into loosely defined tribal units and districts before European contact.

[17] In the 1830s and 1840s, tensions between French naval interests, the British settlers and pro-British native chieftains on Tahiti led to the Franco-Tahitian War (1844–1847) and the voluntary exile of Queen Pōmare IV to Raiatea.

The adoption of a British parliamentary system of government eroded the traditional supremacy of the ari'i rahi ("supreme rulers") in favor of the ra'atira ("freeman") class.

Local chiefs and district governors (tāvana) gained greater power and autonomy at the expense of the nominal island monarchs.

[25] LMS missionary and acting British consul on Raiatea, Alexander Chisholm, declared, "The foolish people seem determined to prove to the whole world that they cannot govern themselves.

[31] Internal warfare and introduced diseases, such as dysentery, scarlet fever, measles, whooping cough and typhoid, contributed to a general decline of native populations after European contact.

[34] Responding to the growing threat of Germany in the Pacific, the French took actions to abrogate the Convention of 1847 and bring the Leeward Islands into their sphere of influence.

His daughter and successor, Queen Tehauroa, unsuccessfully attempted to enlist the protection of the British to preserve Raiatea's independence in accordance with the Jarnac Convention.

Teraupo'o, a lesser chief of Raiatea known for his fierce opposition to the French, refused to comply with the order of King Tamatoa VI to surrender to them and built up a resistance force.

[48][49] The Raiateans unsuccessfully appealed to Robert Teesdale Simons, the British consul in Tahiti, for assistance and offered their country to the "Great White Queen".

The French Protestant missionary Jean-Frédéric Vernier, former chaplain of Queen Pōmare IV, also attempted unsuccessfully to sway the natives.

[51][52] Pastor Gaston Brunel, who took charge of the Protestant schools on the island in 1894 and was largely sympathetic to the natives, often visited the camp of the resistance leader and gained valuable insight into the rebellion.

[35][53] French artist Paul Gauguin, who witnessed the final phase of the rebellion, noted that diplomacy failed to persuade the natives of Raiatea to surrender.

Teraupo'o and the rebels of Tahaa and the district of Tevaitoa refused the call, prompting the French to land and engage the remaining armed natives.

[57] The captured resistance leaders, including Teraupo'o, his wife, his brother and lieutenant Hupe, the chiefess Mai of Tevaitoa and six other men, were deported to Nouméa, New Caledonia.

A week later, on 21 March, Captain La Guerre, of the Decrès, landed a small party of French marines to arrest insurgents on Huahine on the way back to Tahiti.

He noted that the French acquisition had "long been a foregone conclusion" to foreign residents, but it met with the "determined opposition of more than three-fourths of the natives" on Huahine.

[41][62] The elderly queen Tehaapapa II and her son Prince-Regent Marama Teururai, who held the governmental position of Fa'aterehau or Prime Minister, accepted the French takeover.

However, the anti-French forces rallied around Queen Teuhe, Marama's sister and former wife of Pōmare V, and set up a parallel rebel government from 1888 to 1890.

[66] LMS missionary William Edward Richards wrote in 1888 that the Boraborans "were strongly opposed to the [French] flag, and it was feared that blood would be shed" but that they wisely appreciated their weakness and lack of "mountain strongholds", and "gradually settl[ed] down with bad grace into the inevitable".

Through the persuasion of her ex-husband Prince Hinoi, Queen Teriimaevarua III accepted French administration and formally abdicated on 21 September 1895.

Retaining her honor as queen, she was allowed to collect tributes from the outlying northern islands and was provided with a pension by the colonial government.

[70] In 1898 the former queen, Teriimaevarua III, attempted to incite a new resistance movement in the islands and was exiled to Tahaa by the order Governor Gallet on 27 October 1898.