Honoré Laval, SS.CC., (born Louis-Jacques Laval; 5/6 February 1808 – 1 November 1880) was a French Catholic priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (also known as the Picpus Fathers), a religious institute of the Roman Catholic Church, who evangelized the Gambier Islands.
Life Louis-Jacques Laval was born 6 January 6, 1807, in the small hamlet of Joimpy, Saint-Léger-des-Aubées in Eure-et-Loir. He was professed in the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (Picpus) December 30, 1825, under the name of Brother Honore and was ordained priest in Rouen in 1831.Mark, André. "La mission aux Îles Gambier"
The Gambier Islands
Accompanied by Fathers François Caret, Chrysostome Liausu, and Brother Columba Murphy, he travelled by coach from Paris via Tours and Poitiers to Bordeaux, where they boarded the Sylphide, which sailed on 1 February 1834 for Valparaíso, arriving on 13 May. Taking passage on Captain Sweetwood's ship, the Peruvian, out of Boston, Caret and Laval arrived 8 August on Akamaru in the Gambier Islands.
From the 10th to the 15th centuries, the Gambiers hosted a population of several thousand people and traded with other island groups including the Marquesas, the Society Islands and Pitcairn Islands. However, excessive logging by the islanders resulted in almost complete deforestation on Mangareva, with disastrous results for the islands' environment and economy. The folklore of the islands records a slide into civil war and even cannibalism as trade links with the outside world broke down, and archaeological studies have confirmed this tragic story. When Laval and Caret arrived the population of the Gambiers was estimated at 800 to 1,000.Wiltgen, Ralph M., "The Picpus Missionaries Reach the Gambier Islands", The Founding of the Roman Catholic Church in Oceania, 1825 to 1850, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2010 Karl Rensch says they counted 2,124 souls.Rencsh, Karl. "Early European Influence on the languages of Polynesia: The Gambier Islands", Language Contact and Change in the Austronesian World, (Tom Dutton and Darrell T. Tryon, eds.), p. 484, Walter de Gruyter, 1994
The Gambiers were fairly isolated. Captain Arnaud Mauruc advised the Apostolic Prefect of Southern Oceania, Chrysostome Liausu, that ships only sailed there every five or seven years for pearl fishing as the area had no other commercial value. Liausu remained in Valparaiso to maintain communications between the scattered missions and the Congregation in France. He died there in September 1839, having contracted typhus.
In August 1834 Caret and Laval arrived on Akamaru and found shelter with a French fisherman. King Maputeoa's uncle, Matua, helped them learn the Mangareva language. Maputeoa himself was converted and baptized in August 1836, perhaps under a suspicion that his uncle may have been planning to usurp the throne. Maputeoa took the name "Gregory" in honor of the Pope at that time. Lal, Brij V. and Fortune, Kate. "Honoré Laval", The Pacific Islands: An Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, University of Hawaii Press, 2000 The mission thrived. The maraes, (sacred places) were destroyed and shrines erected in the sites. The largely unclothed people were given clothing and cloth. On Caret's return from Europe in December 1838 2,157 items of clothing donated by the ladies of France were distributed.
The London Missionary Society, which had been based in Tahiti for thirty years, had established schools in the Gambiers, but subsequently withdrew from the Gambiers in early 1835. Bishop Étienne Jérôme Rouchouze, Laval's immediate superior, arrived in the Gambiers in May 1835, with two lay brothers, Brother Gilbert Soulié and Fabien Costes; a lay missionary, and two priests who were also medical doctors. During an epidemic that year Father Cyprien Liausu set up a hospital in a former temple at Rikitea.
Lay brothers Costes and Soulie trained the local people in the building trades. They gained experience in the construction of chapels and houses. Together they built St. Michael's Cathedral, Rikitea. In 1856 Soulie and sixty workers travelled to Tahiti to work on Notre Dame Cathedral in Papeete. Ten years later, skilled Mangareva workers constructed the beacon at Point Venus in Tahiti.Hodeé, Paul. "Catholic Influence in the Islands", Tahiti 1834-1984
Caret and Laval hoped to expand their work to Tahiti, where they arrived in the Kingdom of Tahiti in February 1836. They found a place to stay in a house on the property of the American consul M. Moerenhout, a Belgian by birth, whom the British considered to be in the pay of King Louis Philippe I of France. Although the priests were received courteously at court, they were expelled by the Protestant queen Pōmare IV on advice of British missionary (and soon to be consul) George Pritchard. Also expelled was a civilian French carpenter, named Vincent, who had accompanied the priests from Gambiers. These expulsions are the origin of the French intervention in Polynesia. As a result, in 1838 France sent Admiral Abel Aubert du Petit-Thouars to get reparation. Shortly before the Admiral's arrival, Madame Moerenhout was murdered during a robbery, which the French believed was instigated by the British.Scott, L., "French Aggressions in the Pacific", The Foreign Quarterly Review, Vol. 34, 1844 Once his mission had been completed, Admiral DupetitThouars sailed towards the Marquesas Islands, which he annexed in 1842.
Caret and Laval then returned to the Gambiers. Caret returned to France in 1837 in search of additional resources; Bishop Rouchouze left for Europe in 1841. On his return in 1843, Rouchouze, 7 priests, seven lay brothers and 10 religious perished when their ship, the Marie-Joseph was lost at sea near the Falklands. Cyprien Liausu became superior of the mission of Our Lady of Peace in the Gambiers, where he remained until 1855.
In 1848, Bishop Jaussen, sent Laval to the Tuamotu Archipelago, where he remained for three years. He returned to the Gambiers in 1851.
Political conflicts
Blackbirders King Maputeoa died in 1857, and Queen Maria Eutokia became regent on behalf of her ten-year-old son Joseph Gregorio II. Slave ships began to appear starting in 1862. In a practice known as blackbirding, Peruvian and Chilean ships combed the smaller islands of Polynesia seeking workers to fill the extreme labour shortage in Peru. The Serpiente Marina out of Lima, anchored off Mangareva Island on 28 October, ostensibly on a scientific voyage. When local beachcomber-trader Jacques Guilloux went aboard and notice certain peculiarities such as iron grilles on the hatches and concealed daggers on the Captain and supercargo, he told Father Laval that he thought the ship was a slaver, and Laval advised the Queen. When the captain and two others paid a visit to the Queen, she had them arrested. Fearing repercussions from the French authorities in Tahiti, Laval had them released and ordered them to leave the Gambiers. Captain Martinez advised Laval that he intended to file a formal complaint against Guillous, Laval, and the Queen with the French authorities in Peru.Maude, H. E. (1981). Slavers in Paradise. Fiji: Institute of Pacific Studies Nonetheless, the exodus of young men on transient ships further reduced the population.
Pearl traders Traders were also attracted to the islands in search of mother of pearl. By 1838 they are complaining that with the presence of the missionaries, they are no longer able to exchange useless items for pearls. As the missionaries made the people aware of the value of their nacre, the Mangarevans monitored more closely the operations in their lagoon. Increased contact with the outside brought exposure to infectious disease. The islands began to be slowly depopulated by pulmonary illnesses, smallpox, and dysentery.Scarr, Deryck. A History of the Pacific Islands, Routledge, 2013 An 1871 census by a French army doctor listed the population as 936.
Pignon-Dupuy incident A conflict arose between a French businessman, Jean Pignon, and the Mangareva local court. Pignon, a former sailor, moved to Mangareva to trade in nacre. His nephew, Jean Dupuy, joined him in 1858. Dupuy refused to sign the recognition of local laws, and was subsequently convicted of adultery and theft. Sentenced to fifteen months, he served two and returned to Valparaiso.
Pignon, who was heavily in debt in Tahiti, began to have difficulties with his landlord in Mangareva. The Mangareva Joint Council authorized the landlord to evict Pignon, and after re-locating his goods, demolish his hut. Pignon complained to M. Roncière, Governor in Tahiti since 1864, who imposed a fine of 160,000 francs on the Regent Maria-Eutokia Toaputeitou, for having ruined Pignon by expropriating and demolishing the hut. The governor then installed the anti-clerical Caillet and twenty soldiers in the Gambiers to collect the fine. Garrett describes the conflict between Laval and the French troops as "a duel between barracks behavior and conventual customs". Governor Roncière told Laval, "Your population is too religious; your people are stupid."
The dispute became an excuse to enhance French power in the archipelago and limit the influence of Laval and the mission. Peace was restored when, at the suggestion of Admiral Rigault de Genouilly, Bishop Florentin-Étienne Jaussen, Apostolic Vicar of Tahiti offered to pay the fine on condition that the soldiers be withdrawn. Jaussen negotiated the amount with Roncière, who agreed to accept 4,300 francs, which "curiously corresponded exactly to the amount that Pignon owed creditors Daniel Guilloux and Augustin Rapamoa.
The Protectorate As early as 1842 Laval protested French occupation of the Marquesas. As Queen Maria Eutokia's chief advisor, he fought to preserve Mangarevan autonomy against colonists. In early 1870, Arone Teikatoara, the penultimate Prince Regent of Mangareva, asks the French government to end the protectorate, (which, due to a change in policy, had never received formal approval by the French government). The government attributed the request to the influence of Laval, who was viewed as "isolated from the world for thirty-six years and carried away by exaggerated religious ideas". French officials sought his removal. Following the visit of the Commander-Motte Rouge in February 1871 and upon the intervention of Admiral Lapelin, in March 1871, in order to appease Paris and "still this storm", Bishop Jaussen transferred Laval to Papeete, Tahiti and named him his pro-vicar, later making him Vice Provincial.
Final years and death Around the 1870s, Laval collobrated with Father Tiripone Mama Taira Putairi, the first indigenous Mangarevan ordained a Catholic priest, to write a traditional history of Mangareva. The work titled E atoga no te ao eteni no Magareva (An Account of the Heathen Times of Mangareva) was deposited in the archives at the Congregation of the Sacred Heart at Braine-le-Comte, Belgium.
Laval returned to the Gambier Islands, in July 1876, for one last time during a jubilee. His visit was the occasion of a great demonstration of esteem and gratitude. His last years were rather lonely, isolated by increasing deafness. "I can no longer preach, hear confessions anymore, nor enjoy the conversation of others."
Father Honoré Laval died on 1 November 1880, and his body rests in the cemetery of the Catholic mission in Papeete.
Character Laval did not have the diplomacy of Bishop Florentin-Étienne Jaussen. Fr. Caret found him too "impatient" in their tour of Tahiti in 1836. Fr. Liausu regretted he seemed too severe. Laval was both paternalistic and very strict towards his flock, but equally zealous to protect them from exploitation, both economic and physical, on the part of the traders and sailors who came to frequent the area. A company could lose its contract for pearl-shell if a captain sailed off with a woman without first marrying her.