Louis Antoine de Bougainville, the first French officer to circumnavigate the globe, charted a number of islands in the Pacific which he called the Isles de Navigatieurs, May 3 to May 5, 1768. These islands are present-day American Samoa. As he sailed out of the group he saw Upolu in independent Samoa through a thick fog which prevented him from recording it and two other islands accurately.
     The stamp reproduces a simplified copy of Bougainville's chart of the islands of American Samoa.