Tuarii

Tuarii or Tūari'i (died 1911) was the Queen regnant of Raiatea and Tahaa in the Leeward Islands of the Society Islands, part of present-day French Polynesia. She was the last monarch of the kingdom of Raiatea-Tahaa from 1887/1888 to 1897. She and the minor chief Teraupo'o led a resistance government in the Raiatean rebellion (1887–1897) which was part of the larger French conquest and annexation of the Leeward Islands.

Tuarii was a younger daughter of King Tahitoe of Raiatea and Tahaa who ruled from 1871 to 1881. Her grandfather Hihipa Tahitoe was the son of Vete'a-ra'i U'uru, the chief of Opoa, and grandson of King Tamatoa II of Raiatea from whom her family claimed the right to throne of Raiatea.

In 1880, King Tahitoe accepted the provisional protectorate by French commissioner Isidore Chessé. Tahitoe was deposed by his subjects for requesting the protectorate and his daughter and successor Queen Tehauroa unsuccessfully attempted to enlist the protection of the British to preserve the independence of Raiatea in accordance with the Jarnac Convention of 1847. After Tehauroa's death, a civil war nearly broke out between two rivals for the throne. To avoid French intervention a female-line cousin and a junior member of the royal family of Huahine was installed as King Tamatoa VI.

On 16 March 1888, the French annexed Raiatea and Tahaa after formal negotiation between Great Britain and France ended the 1847 Convention. In 1887 or 1888, Tuarii was installed on the throne by the rebel chief Teraupo’o in opposition to King Tamatoa VI who had sided with the French. Her government and the resistance movement was centered at the village of Avera, located on the eastern coast of Raiatea. The Raiateans unsuccessfully appealed to Robert Teesdale Simons, the British Consul in Tahiti, for assistance and offered their country to the "Great White Queen". In 1895, Queen Tuarii traveled to the British protectorate of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands to seek help from the British Resident Frederick Moss who refused to meet with her.

The French appointed Governor Gustave Gallet to suppress the rebellion. Gallet had previous experience with suppressing the 1878 Kanak in New Caledonia. In 1896, two French warships, the Duguay Trouin and L'Aube arrived from New Caledonia with two hundred French soldiers to quell the native resistance. The invasion force was further reinforced with a company of Tahitian volunteers. On 27 December 1896, Governor Gallet attempted to parley with the rebels to avoid bloodshed. He set an ultimatum for the rebels to surrender by 1 January 1897. The rebel government at Avera under Queen Tuarii and 1700 rebels reluctantly surrendered.

Teraupo'o and the rebels of Tahaa and the district of Tevaitoa refused the call to surrender and the rebellion ended after the rebel chief's captured after two months of guerilla warfare on 16 February 1897. The casualty of the six-week campaign was nearly fifty deaths mainly on the side of the Raiateans.

Tuarii was offered an annual pension of 2,400 francs, but the French refused her request for pensions for members of her family. The French governor wrote: "Je vous laisse d’ailleurs le soin, si vous le jugez convenable, de prévenir Tuarii que si elle nous crée la moindre difficulté sa pension lui est retirée, car elle ne la doit qu’à notre extrême bienveillance en sa faveur".

She died in 1911.