Annexation of the Leeward Islands by France

Leewards War
The captured rebels of Raiatea, 1897
Date 1880–1897 Location Society Islands (mainly in the Leeward Islands) Result French victory Territorial changes Annexation of the Leeward Islands to the French colonial empire
Belligerents
France Tahiti (French protectorate)	Raiatea-Tahaa Huahine Bora Bora
Commanders and leaders
Gustave Gallet Isidore Chessé Théodore Lacascade Alfred Charles Marie La Guerre Louis Marie Reux Charles Jessé Bayle Paul Louis Albert Chocheprat Pro-French allies: Tavana Marama Teururai	Teraupo'o Tuarii Teuhe

The annexation of the Leeward Islands (French: Annexion des îles Sous-le-vent) or the Leewards War (French: Guerre des îles Sous-le-vent) 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.

This conflict was the last phase of armed indigenous resistance against French rule in the Society Islands, which began in 1843 with the forcible imposition of a protectorate over the Kingdom of Tahiti in the Franco-Tahitian War. The three Leeward Islands kingdoms to the northwest of Tahiti were ensured independence by the Jarnac Convention, a joint agreement signed between France and Great Britain in 1847. Continual instability in the native regimes and the growing threat of the nascent German colonial empire in the Pacific prompted France to declare the islands under a provisional protectorate in 1880, in violation of the 1847 Convention. In 1888, France and Britain agreed to abrogate their previous treaty and allow the French to annex the Leeward Islands.

From 1888 to 1897, the Leeward Island natives resisted the French while civil wars also broke out between pro-French factions and the majority anti-French sectors of the population. Armed conflict began in 1887 with the revolt of the chief Teraupo'o on Raiatea against the pro-French king and the shooting of a French officer and marines on Huahine. The natives of Huahine set up a rival royal government under Queen Teuhe to resist the pro-French factions under her brother Prince Marama Teururai. The resistance was strongest on Raiatea and Tahaa where the chief Teraupo'o and his followers entrenched themselves in the countryside and the mountains and sought British intervention in the war. The conflict ended with the violent suppression of the Raiatean rebellion and the exile of the rebels in 1897.