This paper studies the American intervention in French controlled Algeria from the view point of the relief given to ‘native’ Algerians by missionary providers between 1943 and 1945. Using the archives of the White Fathers (missionnaires d’Afrique) this paper uses the material to present a snapshot of the Christian religious medical provisions provided in Algeria under French dominance. The paper will focus on the transformative and normative qualities of the American intervention as well as the range and limitation of this intervention in a complex colonial medical environment. The paper will argue that the ‘americanisation’ process with its focus on indigenous patients rather than colonial settlers fitted with a much older and broader trend in the provision of relief in Algeria. Nevertheless, the paper will also argue that the normative issues relating to accountability practices narrowed down the range of interventions and the missionaries’s possibilities for political autonomy in the fast moving transformation of Algeria. This paper is based on archival work but will also engage with the historiography of humanitarian aid and the historiography of colonial medicine.