Annexation of the Leeward Islands by France
The annexation of the Leeward Islands or the Leewards War was a series of diplomatic and armed conflicts between the French Third Republic and the native kingdoms of Raiatea-Tahaa, Huahine and Bora Bora, which resulted in the conquest of the Leeward Islands, in the South Pacific archipelago of the Society Islands in modern-day French Polynesia.
The captured rebels of Raiatea, 1897
Indigenous officers holding the independent flag of Raiatea at Avera, c. 1895
The pa or the military camp of Teraupo'o, 1897
The militia of Bora Bora, 1895
French Polynesia is an overseas collectivity of France and its sole overseas country. It comprises 121 geographically dispersed islands and atolls stretching over more than 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) in the South Pacific Ocean. The total land area of French Polynesia is 3,521 square kilometres (1,359 sq mi), with a population of 278,786 of which at least 205,000 live in the Society Islands and the remaining population lives in the rest of the archipelago.
The French frigate Floréal in November 2002, at anchor in Bora Bora lagoon
A two-franc World War II emergency-issue banknote (1943), printed in Papeete, and depicting the outline of Tahiti on the reverse
The Assembly of French Polynesia
Bora Bora
