Pierre Bataillon

Who is Pierre Bataillon?

Pierre Bataillon was born on 6 January 1810 at Saint-Cyr-les-Vignes in the Loire region of France and became a priest of the Society of Mary. In December 1836 he sailed with the first group of Marist missionaries bound for Oceania, which included Peter Chanel, and on 1 November 1837 he and Brother Joseph-Xavier Luzy landed on Wallis (Uvea) to found the first Marist mission station in the Pacific, while Chanel continued on to neighboring Futuna. Bataillon faced years of hardship and hostility before winning over the island's chiefs; by 1842 the population of Wallis, then some 2,700 people, had largely converted to Catholicism. When the Vicariate Apostolic of Western Oceania was divided in 1842, Bataillon became the first Vicar Apostolic of Central Oceania, a vast territory covering New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, and Wallis and Futuna, and was consecrated bishop in 1843. He also founded the Seminary of Lano on Wallis and, in 1871, drafted the Code of Wallis (Tohi fono o Uvea), a Wallisian-language legal text defining the island's chieftainship, at the request of Queen Amelia Tokagahahau Aliki. He died on Wallis on 10 April 1877.

Sources: Pierre Bataillon, Wikipedia (accessed 2026-07-02) · Encyclopedia.com, "Bataillon, Pierre Marie" · Amelia Tokagahahau Aliki, Wikipedia — Code of Wallis (Tohi fono o Uvea), 1871