Why Were British Missionaries Interested In The South Pacific?

Why were the British Missionaries interested in the South Pacific? After the Second Age of Discovery, Europe and the South Pacific were influenced by each other. The relationship between missionaries and the British identity is a good example. From the late 18th century to the 19th century, the British public doubted the superiority of Britain because of foreign affairs. Around the same time, many missionary societies such as the London Missionary Society sent missionaries to convert the Islanders to Protestants. Although different scholars had different explanations for the motivations behind the missionaries, they all agreed that going to the South Pacific was a way to reconstruct the British identity. The missionaries showed five different types of British identities. First, the birth of missions was to justify the British Empire. Second, anti-Catholicism played a big role in the birth of missions. Third, the missionaries were influenced by the British national hero, Captain James Cook. Fourth, many voyages were full of misrepresentations about the South Pacific Islands, so the missionaries wanted to save the souls there to show the British moral superiority. Fifth, the lower middle class wanted to spread their values …show more content…
Although in the early 18th century, religious societies such as the Society for Propagation of the Gospel sent missionaries out, it was not popular in Europe. British Protestants generally cared more about individual salvation. For example, John Wesley, an Anglican cleric, targeted “the social worlds to which they imagined themselves to belong.” The doctrine of reparation had three elements. First, human beings were the “natural enemy of God.” Second, Protestants were fear of hell. Third, even converted Protestants still “expressed their unworthiness” because they did not deserved God’s