Spread across nearly 2,000,000 square miles of the South Pacific, in an area as large as the continent of Europe, lies the Territory of French Polynesia and its principal island, Tahiti.
Settlers from Southeast Asia are thought to have first arrived in the Marquesas Islands, in the northeastern part of what is today called French Polynesia, around 300 AD and in the Society Islands, including Tahiti, to the west by about 800 AD. Prior to the first European contact, the islands were ruled by a hierarchy of hereditary tribal chiefs.
The first Europeans to visit the area were the English explorers Samuel Wallis in 1767 and James Cook in 1769. French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville arrived in 1768 and claimed the islands for France. In the late 1700s occasional ships arrived in the islands, most notably the H.M.S. Bounty in 1788, captained by William Bligh.
The first missionaries, from the London Missionary Society, arrived in the islands in 1797. By 1815, with the support......

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Title: Tahiti And The French Polynesia
Approximate Word Count: 1485
Approximate Pages: 6 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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