Missionary Interest in British Expansion in the South Pacific in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

Thomas Haweis, afterwards a founder of the London Missionary Society, decided to send missionaries to the South Seas in 1791, it is clear that he envisaged them as unofficial agents of the State and that, in his eyes at least, they were pioneers of British expansion. As it was, missionaries were sent in 1791, but when Haweis influenced the newly formed Missionary Society to send missionaries to Tahiti in 1796 he made it plain to Henry Dundas, the Home Secretary, that the whole missionary endeavour was a project beneficial to the State. When it looked as if a permanent government depot would be set up on Tahiti to conduct the pork trade with New South Wales at least one missionary, William Shelley, spoke up against the idea. In Sydney in 1801 he impressed Samuel Marsden with the dangers to the mission of establishing a government colony and proposed that the pork trade could be handled satisfactorily by the Missionary Society.