Nineteenth‐century French missionaries and fa'a Samoa

Abstract Catholicism was introduced into Samoa in 1845 by French Marists. The article gives an overview of the encounter between French Catholicism and Samoan culture in the 19th century. This includes ethnographic descriptions from Mission sources. The Catholic Mission confronted a Samoan culture in the throes of dealing with the intruding European world while entering a Samoan polity of intrigues and alliances. It sought to use these in its own interests, but in turn was used by them. The Marist version of Catholicism may have been unduly narrow in its application to fa'a Samoa (Samoan culture) but the missionaries were dealing with a fa'a Samoa bereft of self‐confidence in the face of the new papalagi (European) world and eager to take in as much of it as possible.