Historyedit

You can help expand this section with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (May 2021) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the French article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Histoire de Wallis-et-Futuna]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|fr|Histoire de Wallis-et-Futuna}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Early humansedit

The earliest signs of human habitation on these islands are artifacts characteristic of the Lapita culture, dating roughly to between 850 and 800 BCE. The islands served as natural stopover points for boat traffic, mostly between Fiji and Samoa. During Tongan invasions in the 15th and 16th centuries, the islands defended themselves with varying levels of resistance, but also accepted varying degrees of assimilation. Futuna retained more of its pre-Tongan cultural features, while Wallis underwent greater fundamental changes in its society, language, and culture. The original inhabitants built forts and other identifiable structures on the islands (many of which are in ruins), some of which are still partially intact. Oral history and archaeological evidence suggests that the Tongan invaders re-occupied and modified some of these structures. The oral history also preserves a cultural memory of relationships between Samoa and Futuna that are so longstanding, they are described in the islanders' origin stories.

European settlementsedit

Futuna was first put on European maps by Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire, during their circumnavigation of the globe, in 1616. They named the islands of Futuna "Hoornse Eylanden", after the Dutch town of Hoorn where they hailed from. This was later translated into French, as "Isles de Horne." The Wallis Islands are named after the British explorer Samuel Wallis, who sailed past them in 1767, after being the first European to visit Tahiti. The French were the first Europeans to settle in the territory, with the arrival of French missionaries in 1837, who converted the population to Roman Catholicism. Pierre Chanel, canonized in 1954, is a major patron saint of the island of Futuna and of the region.

On 5 April 1842, the missionaries asked for the protection of France, after the uprising of part of the local population. On 5 April 1887, the queen of Uvea (of the traditional chiefdom of Wallis) signed a treaty, officially establishing a French protectorate. The kings of Sigave and Alo (on the islands of Futuna and Alofi) also signed a treaty establishing a French protectorate, on 16 February 1888. From that moment, the islands were officially under the authority of the French colony of New Caledonia.

In 1917, the three traditional kingdoms of Uvea, Sigave, and Alo were annexed by France, integrated into the colony of Wallis and Futuna, and remained under the authority of the colony of New Caledonia.

World War IIedit

During World War II, the islands' administration was briefly pro-Vichy, until a Free French corvette from New Caledonia deposed the regime, on 26 May 1942. Units of the US Marine Corps later landed on Wallis, on 29 May 1942.

Overseas territoryedit

In 1959, the inhabitants of the islands voted to become a separate French overseas territory, effective since 29 July 1961, thus ending their subordination to New Caledonia.

In 2005, the 50th king of Uvea, Tomasi Kulimoetoke II, faced being deposed after giving sanctuary to his grandson who was convicted of manslaughter. The king claimed his grandson should be judged by tribal law rather than by the French penal system. As a result, there were riots in the streets involving the king's supporters, who were victorious over attempts to replace the king. Two years later, Tomasi Kulimoetoke died on 7 May 2007. The state was in a six-month period of mourning, during which mentioning a successor was forbidden. On 25 July 2008, Kapiliele Faupala was installed as king despite protests from some of the royal clans. He was deposed in 2014. A new king, Patalione Kanimoa, was eventually installed in Uvea in 2016; Lino Leleivai in Alo on Futuna succeeded after Filipo Katoa abdicated, and Eufenio Takala succeeded Polikalepo Kolivai in Sigave. The French president at the time, François Hollande, attended the installation ceremony.