 Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the people of the islands practiced a Polytheistic Polynesian religion.Although the Dutch and the British were the first European explorers to see the islands in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was the French who were the first Europeans to settle in the territory, with the arrival of missionaries in 1837, who converted the population to Catholicism.Responsibility for Oceania was given by the Catholic Church to the Society of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in 1825; but the territory was judged to be too large, and the western portion was formed into a vicariate Apostolic and given to the Society of Mary in 1836, with Mgr Jean Baptiste Pompallier (1807–1871) appointed vicar Apostolic of Western Oceania.