Futuna Coast

Futuna and neighbouring Alofi belonged to the Polynesian island world west of Samoa.

In 1616 the Dutch navigators Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire reached Futuna and Alofi and named them the Hoorn Islands. Bougainville encountered Futuna in 1768 and called it the “lost child.” At the very end of the period, Marist missionaries arrived in 1837; Pierre Chanel's mission on Futuna began in November. The island's earlier history therefore belongs chiefly to its Polynesian communities, with the dated voyages marking intermittent encounters from the sea.