A Selection of Maritime History Books
French Polynesia is a collection of 118 islands covering a vast area of the southeastern Pacific Ocean and divided into five scattered archipelagos: Society Islands, Marquesas Islands, Tuamotu Archipelago, Gambier Islands, and the Tubuai Islands. The capital is Papeete, Tahiti (Society Islands). The larger islands are volcanic with fertile soil and dense vegetation. The more numerous coral islands are low lying. The climate is tropical. Missionaries arrived in Tahiti at the end of the 18th century, and in the 1840s France began establishing protectorates. In 1880–82, France annexed the islands and they became part of its colony of Oceania.
Also included are American Samoa, the Cook Islands, Niue, Pitcairn (famous for the Mutiny on the British ship HMS Bounty), Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu.
The Gambier Islands is a part of French Polynesia . It comprises a cluster of four inhabited islands known as Mangareva and many uninhabited atolls. The Mangareva cluster is within a barrier reef having a circumference of c.40 mi (60 km). The islands have copra and coffee plantations and pearl fisheries. Many of the uninhabited atolls are privately owned and are worked for copra. Mangareva is the seat of Rikitea, the capital. Discovered in 1797 by the British (who named the group), the Gambier Islands were annexed by France in 1881.
Marion Sentinel, July 23, 1903
Marion, Iowa, USA
UNITED STATES MAY GET
ISLANDS IN PACIFIC.
Rumor That France Intends to Transfer
Its Possessions to American Republic.
London, July 20.—A dispatch from Wellington, N. Z. calls attention to a rumor emanating from the French colony at Papeete, Island of Tahiti, which is current in New Zealand that France intends to transfer its possessions in the eastern Pacific to the United States. The Paris correspondent of the Daily Mail says nothing is known of the rumor at the French war and colonial offices. The French possessions in the eastern Pacific consist of the Society islands, the most important of which are Tahiti and Moorea; the Tuametu islands, where the recent disastrous tidal wave occurred; the Leeward islands, comprising Raiatea, Tahaa, Huahine and Berabora; the Tubual and Raivavae groups, the island cf Rapa, the Gambler islands; Rurutu and Rimatara islands, and the Marquesas islands. Their total area 13 about 1,520 square miles and their population about 29,000.
