France's Pacific island holdings — the Society Islands (including Tahiti), the Tuamotus, the Marquesas, the Australs, and the Gambiers — beginning as a French protectorate over Tahiti in 1842, formalized as the colony of the Établissements français de l'Océanie (EFO) after Queen Pōmare IV's kingdom was annexed outright in 1880.
Reorganized as an overseas territory in 1946 (full citizenship and voting rights for Polynesians), renamed French Polynesia in 1957, and granted increasing autonomy as an overseas collectivity from 2003 — it remains part of the French Republic to the present, still listed by the UN as a non-self-governing territory.
The atlas holds 2 border frames for French Polynesia — the shape you scrub through changes in 1842 · 1888.
A history of the Pacific situating French Polynesia among the island societies.
Accessible narrative history of Tahiti from European contact through the French protectorate and colonial period.