Hawaii–Tahiti relations James Cook who was already famous for exploring the Pacific islands including Tahiti. He and his crew were struck by the similarity between the Tahitian and Hawaiian languages, and many crewmen were able to communicate with the Hawaiians. Some of the first Tahitians came to Hawaii aboard foreign vessels as sailors or translators. In 1804, British Captain John Turnbull brought a Tahitian couple to Kauai. Tahitians missionaries led by William Ellis from the London Missionary Society, arrived to assist the American missionaries in Hawaii. A few years prior to 1804, King Kaumualii of Kauai had sent an envoy to Tahiti
Tahiti explorer Juan Fernández in his expedition of 1576–1577. The next European visitors arrived during the period of intense Anglo-French rivalry that filled the twelve years between the Seven Years' War and the American Revolutionary War . The first European to have visited Tahiti according to existing records was lieutenant Samuel Wallis, who was circumnavigating the globe in , sighting the island on 18 June 1767, and eventually harbouring in Matavai Bay. This bay was situated on the territory of the chiefdom of Pare-Arue, governed by Tu (Tu-nui-e-a'a-i-te-Atua) and his regent Tutaha, and the chiefdom of Ha'apape, governed by Amo and