Paris Evangelical Missionary Society Archives, 1822-1947.
The Paris Evangelical Missionary Society was founded in 1822. It sent its first missionaries to Africa in the 1820’s and remained active on that continent into the 20th century. In the second half of the 19th century, it extended its work to Oceania (Tahiti and New Caledonia). The missionary correspondence from the field forms a rich source for all those interested in the history, anthropology and linguistics of Africa and the Pacific, as well as in the history of the inculturation of Christianity in non-Western areas. The body of documentation on the auxiliary and home activities of the SMEP provides interesting information not only for the study of the Missionary Society itself, but also for the study of Protestantism in France in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
With the creation in 1971 of the Communaute Evangelique d’Action Apostolique (CEVAA) and the Department Evangelique Francais d’Action Apostolique (DEFAP), the SMEP as such ceased to exit. Its archives, however, have been retained by the DEFAP in the Maison des Missions on the Boulevard Arago in Paris, which has been in use since 1887 and where this present collection was filmed.
