HISTORY OF MISSION FIELDS The South Seas.—Missionary work in the Pacific began with Magellan's visit to the Philippines in 1521. Roman Catholic mis sionary work was carried on from an early date in the Caroline Islands and others adjacent. Modern Protestant effort began with the sending of the London Missionary Society ship "Duff" in 1797 to Tahiti, the Tonga or Friendly Islands and the Mar quesas. By 1815 idolatry was abolished in the larger islands of the Tahiti group. In the work of building up a Christian community the great leaders were William Ellis and John Williams; the latter established at Rarotonga a training school from which workers went as far as Samoa and Fiji, and was murdered at Erromanga in 1839. The London Missionary Society's work was notable for the evangelistic activity of its converts. The Wesleyans had great success in Fiji to which they came in 1834. The bulk of the natives of the Fiji group are now Christians.
The Sandwich or Hawaiian Islands were discovered by Captain Cook and work began in them in 1819 when the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions sent missionaries. Great success was achieved and the work of the mission was handed over to the Hawaiian Evangelistic Association. Hawaiian mis sionaries went to the Marquesas and other islands in the Pacific.
Australasia.—Little success has been gained among the aborigi nes of Australia. In New Zealand much greater success was at tained among the Maoris, among whom the Church Missionary Society began work in 1814. In 1833 Wesleyan missionaries reached the Islands; Bishop Selwyn was consecrated in 1841 and established in 1843 at Auckland a training institution not only for Maoris but for workers from other islands. More than half the Maori population is now Christian ; the first Maori Bishop was consecrated in 1928.
John Patteson became the first Bishop of Melanesia in 1861. He transferred the training institute from Auckland, New Zealand, to the Norfolk Islands. It is part of the tragedy of his martyr dom that he was killed by natives who mistook him for one of the kidnapping traders to whose operations the islands owed so much of the decay of their life. The Church of England Mela
nesian Mission operates in the North New Hebrides, Banks Tor res, Santa Cruz and the Solomon Islands.
In New Guinea the Gossner missionaries were the pioneers, fol lowed by the Dutch who work in the Dutch part of the islands. Several German societies work in what was German New Guinea (now mandated territory), and in British New Guinea the London Missionary Society, the Australian Wesleyans and the Anglicans.
Work was established later in the islands of Micronesia, the Carolines, the Gilberts and Marshalls. The Philippine Islands are fields of Roman Catholic and American Protestant work.
North Africa.—The lands in which Augustine, Cyprian and Tertullian lived have long been occupied by Islam, and even now missionary work whether Protestant or Roman Catholic is weak. The North Africa Mission works mainly on medical lines. The Methodist Episcopal Church has work in Morocco. In the Sudan and right across to Northern Nigeria, missionary work is carried on by agencies such as the Sudan United Mission and the Sudan Interior Mission.
West Africa.—Mission work was begun in West Africa by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 1752, and work has been carried on longer and has achieved greater results in West Africa than in any other part of the continent. The Church Missionary Society, the Wesleyans and the United Free Church of Scotland work on the Gold Coast, in Sierra Leone, Calabar and Nigeria. The Basel Mission had very extensive work on the Gold Coast up to the outbreak of the War, and have now re turned to their field. The American Baptists and the Episcopal ians work in Liberia, the American Presbyterians in the Cameroons, and the Congregationalists of America and Canada in Angola. The Roman Catholic missions in West Africa are chiefly French organized by the Congregation of the Holy Ghost and the Lyons African Mission.