BORNEO SETTENTRIONALE, PREFECTURE OF. - By a decree of Propaganda of 4 September 1855 an apostolic prefecture was erected, situated in British Borneo "in insula Labuan eiusque dependentis additis aliis insulae Borneo regionibus indipendentibus" and entrusted to Fr. Carlo Cuarteron, who reached Labuan with two fathers of the Foreign Missions of Milan in 1857. When these latter then passed, in 1858, to the apostolic vicariate of Hong Kong, Cuarteron remained at Labuan until 1879, devoting himself above all to the redemption of numerous Christians from the Philippines, slaves of the pirates. In 1880 the prefecture was transferred to the Society of St. Joseph of Mill Hill (London), whose missionaries arrived there in 1881. On 5 September 1927 the prefecture of Labuan and of North Borneo was divided for the erection of that of Sarawak, taking the name of North Borneo.
Area of the territory (British Borneo, sultanate of Brunei and Labuan Island) 86,838.45 sq. km.; total population 300,000 inhabitants, Catholics 12,955; Protestants in British Borneo 5,000; Muslims there 70,713; pagans in British Borneo 200,000. There are 13 primary stations and 19 secondary ones, directed by 26 priests with three brothers of Mill Hill; 44 sisters (Sisters of St. Joseph of Patricroft, Manchester and Discalced Carmelites of Madrid), 13 catechists, 60 teachers assigned to 32 elementary schools (2,100 pupils); a minor seminary for Chinese.
Evangelization progresses despite the scarcity of personnel and material resources. The impassability of the most remote zones hinders total penetration among the Dusun of British Borneo: there the opposition of the Murut, who are Muslims, is as pronounced as that of the Islamic element of Brunei.