The ‘Segregation Village’ at Reao (Tuamotus): A Leprosarium on the Fringes of the Établissements français de l’Océanie.

While historians and anthropologists have thoroughly documented the management of leprosy in Hawai‘i, Cook Islands, Sāmoa, and Fiji, the case of the Établissements français de l’Océanie (now French Polynesia) has remained overlooked. This article focuses on the small atoll of Reao in eastern Tuamotus, where an official leprosarium was set up in the mid-1930s. It looks at the preventive and therapeutic measures taken between 1919 and 1956 and the endemic’s impacts on society. The article shows that the administrative response was slow and hampered by insufficient resources and Reao’s great distance from Tahiti. Also, these circumstances were conducive to the maintenance of the strong influence of Catholic missionaries and of close links between the patients and other Island inhabitants. Lastly, it appears that while the endemic led to the arrival of new goods, customs, and ideas, socio-cultural change remained limited overall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]