She and her predecessor Tamaeva IV had previously attempted in vain to request a British protectorate to hold off French colonial pressure.

[4][5] A church at the capital of Amaru, constructed in 1857 and renovated in 1892, housed the entire island's population of 300 people under its roof.

[8] Rimatara and its neighbor Rurutu were unique because they remained independent while the other Austral Islands, and even Tahiti to the north, fell to the French colonial empire.

[16] The protectorate treaty was signed by Lascarde and five French officials and countersigned by the queen, Heimataura, and seven other chiefs or councilors.

[13] In 1900, the neighboring King Teuruarii IV of Rurutu had his kingdom formally annexed to France in order to bring it closer economically to the colonial seat of Papeete.

[18] Tamaeva, the last independent monarch in the Austral Islands, ceded Rimatara to France the following year, in a declaration dated to 6 June 1901.

On 2 September 1901, Rimatara was formally annexed to France in a ceremony officiated by Governor Édouard Georges Théophile Petit.

At the end of the transfer, the flag of the protectorate was replaced by the French tricolor with cries of "Vive la République Française" from the populace.

The species was endemic to the southern Cook Islands and Rimatara but had been decimated in the former group after the introduction of the black rat and overhunting by local people.