Missions and Media: The Politics of Missionary Periodicals in the Long Nineteenth Century 351510304X, 9783515103046

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Edited by Felicity Jensz and Hanna Acke Missions and Media

Missionsgeschichtliches Archiv Studien der Berliner Gesellschaft für Missionsgeschichte

---------------------------------Herausgegeben im Auftrag des Vorstandes von Andreas Feldtkeller Irving Hexham Ulrich van der Heyden Gunther Pakendorf Werner Ustorf Band 20

Missions and Media The Politics of Missionary Periodicals in the Long Nineteenth Century Edited by Felicity Jensz and Hanna Acke

Franz Steiner Verlag

Gedruckt mit Unterstützung des Exzellenzclusters „Religion und Politik in den Kulturen der Vormoderne und Moderne“ an der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster.

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek: Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über abrufbar. ISBN 978-3-515-10304-6 Jede Verwertung des Werkes außerhalb der Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist unzulässig und strafbar. Dies gilt insbesondere für Übersetzung, Nachdruck, Mikroverfilmung oder vergleichbare Verfahren sowie für die Speicherung in Datenverarbeitungsanlagen. © Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2013 Gedruckt auf säurefreiem, alterungsbeständigem Papier Druck: Laupp & Göbel, Nehren Printed in Germany

CONTENTS Acknowledgments ………………………………………..………………... 7 Felicity Jensz and Hanna Acke Introduction ………………………………………………………………... 9 I. Modes of Nationalism Hugh Morrison Empire, Nation, and Religion in Canadian and New Zealand Protestant Juvenile Missionary Periodicals, c. 1890–1930s: “Men and Women the King Would Wish You to Be” …………….…..................................... 19 Felicity Jensz Diverging Reports of European Politics and Imperial Aspirations in the Periodical Accounts and in the Missions-Blatt ………..…………... 39 Jeremy Best The Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift and Missionary Nationalism: Science for Mission and Empire …………………………...…………...... 57 II. Creating Nationhood and Modernity Albert Wu Narratives of Conversion in Nineteenth-Century German Missionary Periodicals: Converting Individuals, Saving the State …………………… 79 Helge Wendt The Lettres Édifiantes et Curieuse: The Politics of History in Different Nineteenth-Century Editions ………………………………... 97 Gabriele Richter The Lutheran Mission Magazine Ââkesiŋ in New Guinea: The Indigenous Voice in a New Guinean Magazine ………………........ 113

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Contents

III. Constructing Missionary Politics Armin Owzar The Image of Islam in German Missionary Periodicals, 1870–1930: A ‘Green Peril’ in Africa? …………………………....……. 133 Agnieszka Jagodzińska The London Society and its Mission to the Polish Jews, 1821–1855: The Gospel and Politics ...………………………………………………. 151 IV. Missionary Discourses Amelia Bonea Discourses of Labour, Religion and Race in the Australasian Methodist Missionary Review: The ‘Indian Coolie Mission’ in Fiji ......... 169 Thoralf Klein Protestant Missionary Periodicals Debate the Boxer War, 1900–1901: Martyrdom, Solidarity, and Justification ………………….. 187 Malin Gregersen Swedish Medical Missionary Narratives in the Missionstidning: Mission, Medicine and the Endeavour for Change ………...…….……. 205 Hanna Acke Missionary Periodicals as a Genre: Models of Writing, Horizons of Expectation …………………………………………...…… 225 List of Contributors ……………………………………………………... 245 Selected Bibliography …………………………………………………... 249 Index ……………………………………………………………………. 255

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In December of 2010, we hosted a workshop at the Cluster of Excellence for Religion and Politics at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster entitled ‘Politics within Nineteenth-Century Missionary Periodicals.’ Over the course of two and a half days we discussed many aspects of the intriguing media of missionary periodicals, and many of the presentations from this workshop ultimately contributed to this edited collection. We are grateful for the financial support provided by the Cluster of Excellence for Religion and Politics, which allowed us to host the workshop as well as provided us with a grant to help fund the publication of this volume. Our gratitude goes to Ulrich van der Heyden and the members of the editorial board for allowing us the opportunity to publish within the Missionsgeschichtliches Archiv series in the Franz Steiner Verlag, as well as the editorial staff at the Franz Steiner Verlag for their support. We wish to thank the archive of Svenska Missionskyrkan, who have generously permitted us to use reproductions of images from their collections. Credit for all illustrations belongs to them. Our thanks are extended to all of the workshop participants for providing stimulating discussion. We wish also to acknowledge Sarah Knorr for her technical support during the conference as well as Katharina Pohl and Mark Padgham for their continuing support in the preparation of this manuscript, for which we are very grateful.

INTRODUCTION Felicity Jensz and Hanna Acke The nineteenth century saw the establishment of multitudes of missionary organisations, with many connected to evangelical Protestantism in Britain, continental Europe, North America and the British colonial world. To facilitate the dissemination of information about their work, missionary societies drew upon a variety of media available to them including the rousing immediacy of lectures from missionaries on furlough, the anonymity of missionary monographs and pamphlets, or the exotic nature of photographs and magic lantern shows from far flung places. All of these forms of missionary propaganda attempted to reach a broad range of people in order to engage them in the support of the missionary endeavour. Of these forms, one of the most enduring and multifaceted is that of the missionary periodical. Periodicals had a synthesise function as they were able to incorporate other media, such as reprints of missionary lectures, copies of sketches or photographs, serialised monographs, letters or reports. They differed from newspapers in so far as they appeared at greater intervals, and were more specialised. They were seen at the beginnings of the nineteenth century as closer in form to books, and by the end as part of mass consumption culture. 1 As missionary intelligence was often needed to be drawn together from disparate places, their regularity was more important than their actuality, with many societies relying upon old narratives, or those from other societies to fill the pages. Moreover, their preparation and dissemination was dependent upon vast geographical networks that often went beyond the confines of one missionary society, and thus were a product of, as well as contributing to, the web of missionary connections. Their function was multifaceted being utilised to influence the readership, to conjure support for missions, to construct images of the foreign ‘other’, and to help legitimise the missionary endeavour. They were in and of themselves a political media that both hoped to shape the beliefs of those who read them, as well as themselves being affected by church and state politics. Within this edited collection, the term politics is broadly understood to encompass activities pertaining to the acquisition or exercising of authority or status of one group or individual over another group or individual though either formal or informal means. This definition includes both the effects of the state on the 1

Jürgen Wilke, Grundzüge der Medien- und Kommunikationsgeschichte (Köln, Weimar, and Wien: Böhlau, 2008), 94; Brian Maidment, “Periodicals and Serial Publications, 1780–1830,” in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 5, ed. Michael Suarez and Michael Turner (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009): 498–512.

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content and function of missionary periodicals as well as how the content itself was used as propaganda to secure missionary interests. In particular, we have targeted five different categories that missionary actors could move through from individual to national levels: as individuals; as congregations or local nodes of supra-regional religious groups; as missionary organisations; as denominations; and as nations. The collecting, reporting, manipulation and reception of politics – whether international, transnational, national, religious, or body politics – in missionary periodicals opens up questions as to how missionaries utilised the particular form and function of missionary periodicals to attain their desired ends. Missionary periodicals, like all sources, are problematic. 2 They can inform us of historical events, actors, and places, but must all be read cautiously, and with an awareness of missionary biases. One of these biases is found in the editing process itself, which was often a political act. What was left in, what was taken out, and who determined this, all contributed to the shaping and controlling of missionary intelligence. As chapters in this collection reveal, often political structures beyond the missionary society themselves influenced the editing process. Even when we know the intentions of the editors, missionary periodicals are not a straightforward source that historians interested in non-European societies can turn to. Andrew Porter has argued that much of the text within missionary periodicals was so sanitised and censored before reaching the home readership that it “was often bland and comfortable, often remote from reality because of the conflicting interests it attempted to reconcile,” with it quickly illuminating “an inbuilt tendency to cater for metropolitan prejudice.” 3 To be sure, the content of missionary periodicals was often solicited in order to cater for home audiences and thus reflected both home audience expectations as well as missionary ability to pander to these expectations. As cultural historians and literary scholars have further noted, missionary periodicals helped define the norms and values of the home audience, especially when juxtaposed to the ‘heathen other.’ 4 Amidst the “bland and comfortable” images were, however, ones that were decidedly more sensational and exotic; for sensationalism indeed sells, and missionary periodicals, like non-devotional religious tracts, were intended to reach large audiences as well as be commercial viable. 5

2 3 4 5

As to the problematic nature of missionary sources see: David Arnold and Robert A. Bickers, “Introduction,” in Missionary Encounters: Sources and Issues, eds. Robert A. Bickers and Rosmary Seton (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996): 1–10. Andrew Porter, “Scottish Missions and Education in Nineteenth-Century India: The Changing Face of ‘Trusteeship,’” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 16, no. 3 (1988): 35–57, 45. For example, see: Catherine Hall, Civilising Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination 1830–1867 (Cambridge: Polity, 2002); Anna Johnston, Missionary Writing and Empire, 1800–1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). For an example of sensational religious tracts, see: Rowan Strong, “A Vision of an Anglican Imperialism: The Annual Sermons of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts 1701–1714,” Journal of Religious History 30 (2006): 175–198.

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Religious leaders, and especially evangelical leaders, were aware of the power of the printed word and strove to establish missionary periodicals for their “friends and patrons,” which were to be edifying as well as informative. 6 Terry Barringer has noted that missionary periodicals were “used blatantly as a public relations tool.” 7 Indeed, many missionary societies were forthright about the aims that they held for their periodicals, including that of raising material and spiritual support for the missionary cause. As a subsection of the religious press, missionary periodicals were also seen as being “rarely inventive in format or protocol,” 8 however, by often being modelled on other products in the market, 9 and following mass media trends such as the use of new technologies, they made very efficient use of the opportunities and functions that these media offered. One example is the technology needed to easily print photographs on paper. Introduced in 1882, missionary periodicals, such as Moravian The Little Missionary in the United States of America, were already using this technology by the mid-1880s. 10 Another trend was the diversification into audience specific periodicals, for example those for children or women. Larger missionary societies, such as the Church Missionary Society, catered to many specific interest groups with dedicated periodicals such as: the illustrated Church Missionary Gleaner (London, 1850–1870, 1874–1921) for the middle class; the Church Missionary Intelligencer (London, 1849–1906) for an “intelligent and thinking mind” 11; the Church Missionary Juvenile Instructor (1844–1890) for the upcoming generation; and the Chinese Bible Woman’s Mission (1893) for those women particularly interested in missions in China. The number and breadth of people that read missionary periodicals was significant, with smaller missionary periodicals having a circulation of a couple of hundreds to a number of thousands, and the larger ones with figures in the hundreds of thousands. 12 Just as secular periodicals had become “one of the chief

Thomas Baldwin, Daniel Sharp and James M. Winchell, “Editors’ Address,” The American Baptist Magazine and Missionary Intelligencer 1, no. 1 (1817): 4–6, 4. 7 Terry Barringer, “Why Are Missionary Periodicals [Not] So Boring? The Missionary Periodicals Database Project,” African Research and Documentation, no. 84 (2000): 33–46, 33. 8 Josef L. Altholz, “Anonymity and Editorial Responsibility in Religious Journalism,” Victorian Periodicals Review 24, no. 4 (1991): 180–186, 180. 9 Joseph Stubenrauch, “Silent Preachers in the Age of Ingenuity: Faith, Commerce, and Religious Tracts in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain,” Church History 80, no. 03 (2011): 547– 574, 548. 10 For a general overview of missionary photography, see: Kathryn T. Long, “‘Cameras ‘Never Lie’’: The Role of Photography in Telling the Story of American Evangelical Missions,” Church History 72, no. 4 (2003): 820–851. 11 “Character and Objects of the ‘Church Missionary Intelligencer,’” Church Missionary Intelligencer (London) 1, no. 1 (1849): 1–3, 2. 12 For example, the Church Missionary Society had a combined total monthly periodical circulation in 1898 of about 216,000. See: Steven Maughan, “‘Mighty England Do Good’: The Major English Denominations and Organisation for the Support of Foreign Missions in the Nineteenth Century,” in Missionary Encounters: Sources and Issues, eds. Robert A. Bickers and Rosemary Seton (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996): 11–37, 21. 6

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entertainments of the people,” 13 missionary periodicals were produced on a scale and manner that encompassed a diverse readership, with content that was designed to entertain, edify, and inform supporters and friends of the missionary endeavour. And, like the secular press, missionary periodicals were not homogenous in their opinions, political positioning, or social commentary. Yet, despite the rich content and mass of missionary periodicals, they have not been the focus of much academic attention, especially not as sources in their own right. 14 Part of the dearth of attention is due to the impression that missionary periodicals are formulaic and overtly full of propaganda; but just as other forms of media they had the double function of informing and influencing. 15 Sometimes it was governmental opinion that missionaries groups wished to influence, but more often it was aimed at influencing the views of the home community with the intention of raising funds, legitimising the missionary endeavour, or even their nation’s imperial efforts. In a century where European mapping of the world was not yet complete, missionary periodicals provided some of the richest information about foreign people and lands. Such information about non-Europeans was not only influenced by metropolitan stereotypes. It was just as often used as the basis of various stereotypes, many of which were very resilient, as chapters in this volume demonstrate. Amongst these was the trope of the needy ‘heathen’, which, along with reports of successful missionary work, functioned to legitimise missionary requests for funds. Within the pages of missionary periodicals the entangled nature of the ‘Bible and the flag’ in the nineteenth century is evident. 16 Editors and contributors were able to shape their readership’s opinion as to colonial, imperial, or nationalist aspirations through obviously political texts, or through more subtle

13 John S. North, “The Rationale – Why Read Victorian Periodicals?,” in Victorian Periodicals: A Guide to Research, eds. J. Don Vann and Rosemary T. Van Arsdel (New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1978): 3–20, 5. 14 Exceptions include: Terry Barringer, “What Mrs Jellyby Might Have Read: Missionary Periodicals: A Neglected Source,” Victorian Periodicals Review 37, no. 4 (2004): 46–74; Felicity Jensz, “Origins of Missionary Periodicals,” Journal of Religious History 36, no. 2 (2012): 234–255; Felicity Jensz and Hanna Acke “Forum: The Form and Function of NineteenthCentury Missionary Periodicals,” Church History 82, no. 2 (2013): 368–404; Johnston, Missionary Writing and Empire, 1800–1860. A number of groups have documented the titles of missionary periodicals. For example, see: Roswitha Bodenstein, Die Schriftenreihen der Berliner Missionsgesellschaft (Berlin: Berliner Missionswerk, 1996); Dietrich Meyer, “Deutschsprachige Zeitschriften der Brüderunität,” Unitas Fratrum 9 (1979): 53–64; “Missionary Periodicals Datatbase,” accessed December 2, 2010, http://divdl.library.yale.edu/missionperio dicals/Default.aspx. 15 Our understanding of propaganda is informed by John MacKenzie. See: John MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire. The Manipulation of British Public Opinion 1880–1960 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), 3. 16 For more about the connection between the nineteenth-century missionary enterprise and imperialism, see: Andrew Porter, Religion Versus Empire? British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700–1914 (Manchester and New York: Manchester University, 2004); Brian Stanley, The Bible and the Flag: Protestant Missions and British Imperialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Leicester: Apollos, 1992).

Introduction

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ways, such as reproducing texts and advancing national narratives. Missionary periodicals were on many levels political tools used to influence their audience. As Terry Barringer has noted, missionary periodicals “are valuable sources for the evolution of missionary self-understanding and self-representation.”17 Within this edited volume we also provide evidence that missionary periodicals are valuable sources for the evolution of political thought as well as political placement. Their content reveals the networks between various societies, as well as the boundaries between. One such boundary that was fiercely guarded within the pages of missionary periodicals was that between Protestants and Catholics. Politics on all these various levels affected the content of missionary periodicals, the rationale behind creating images of the ‘other’, the role of censorship, and how missionary organisations promoted and disseminated their periodicals. The broad geographical outlook within the volume over the long nineteenth century provides an opportunity to explore similarities and differences between varieties of missionary periodicals, both of single organisations, or societal publications, as well as those that combined material from various sources, or supradenominational sources. In doing so it broadens the geographical focus of research on missions beyond the Anglo-Saxon realm that has dominated research up until now. The volume has coalesced around four key themes. The first three chapters, bound under the heading ‘Modes of Nationalism’ examine how missionary periodicals contributed to the creation of national or imperial identities. Missionary periodicals for children, argues Hugh Morrison in his chapter, helped construct loyal imperial subjects in various colonies such as Canada and New Zealand, with religions and politics an entangled aspect of the genre of missionary periodicals. In a comparative analysis between two Moravian publications, the Periodical Accounts and the Missions-Blatt, Felicity Jensz argues that the differences between the expressed support for imperialism within these periodicals was based upon the combination of perceived audience, national setting, political standing of the editor, as well as the form of the periodical. Jeremy Best demonstrates in his chapter on the Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift, a German missionary periodical which synthesised material from various other missionary periodicals, that selective reprinting of articles encouraged a German imperialist tone. Together these three chapters demonstrate that imperial politics was reflected in how the missionary periodicals were complied and constructed. The second section, ‘Creating nationhood and modernity’, engages with the theme of how missionary periodicals contributed to a process of the construction of notions of nationhood and modernity. Albert Wu examines missionary periodicals in China, and demonstrates how the Catholic and Protestant mission to China created different visions of a Chinese modernity through conversion narratives. Wu’s chapter highlights confessional differences in the means used to construct an image of the Chinese ‘other’. The identity construction of the missionaries 17 Terry Barringer, “From Beyond Alpine Snows to Homes of the East – A Journey through Missionary Periodicals: The Missionary Periodicals Database Project,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 26, no. 4 (2002): 169–173, 169.

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themselves is a theme that Helge Wendt takes up in his chapter on the republication of eighteenth-century Catholic missionary periodicals in the nineteenth century, which Wendt argues both validated and legitimated the Catholic historical claim to missionary work, as well as contributed to the nationalist aspirations of French Jesuits in India. The construction of identity through print media was not, however, as Gabriele Richter in her chapter argues, purely used by Europeans, rather, indigenous people in the Australian controlled territory of Papua New Guinea also used missionary periodicals as a genre to construct their own cultural identity distinct from that of the German Lutheran missionaries working amongst them, with these Indigenous interests expressed in the backdrop of the turmoil of changing imperial and colonial rule from German to Australian hands. Thus, as these three chapters emphasise, missionary periodicals encouraged a form of identity building that could encompass and underscore nationhood and articulate diverse forms of modernity that were envisaged both by missionaries as well as their protégées. The third section entitled ‘Constructing Missionary Politics’ analyses how an image of the ‘other’ was created within missionary periodicals that was not only complicated by the broader political sphere in which the missionaries found themselves, but also contributed to the changing image of the ‘other’ amongst the readership. As Armin Owzar posits in his chapter, missionary periodicals not only served their Christian European readers with information on the increasingly marginalised Islamic world, they also contributed at the end of the nineteenth century to a dynamic of interdenominational cooperation based on a common Islamophobia, and thus the public transformations of the image of the ‘other’. Agnieszka Jagodzińska argues that missionary politics were affected both by self-censorship and political censorship, which ultimately compromised the content of missionary periodicals, and thus, missionary periodicals often need to be read in conjunction with other material in order to create a representative image of the political situation. In her specific case – the periodicals of the The London Society for Promoting Christianity among Jews – the precariousness of the Protestant missionary endeavour under the strict controls of the Russian administration in Poland meant that much was omitted from the periodicals themselves, leaving historians turning to archival material to gain a full picture of the situation. Together these two chapters indicate that the politics within missionary periodicals were a reflection of both the external politics surrounding these periodicals as well as the political aims of the groups. Despite the threat of censorship, the availability, periodicity, and contemporary nature of missionary periodicals made them, as the chapters under the section ‘Missionary Discourse’ demonstrate, a vibrant and accessible medium in which missionary discourses could be expressed. In non-European spaces, as Amelia Bonea in her chapter argues, missionary periodicals were used to help create a discursive difference. Bonea’s chapter on the ‘Coolie’ Mission in Fiji reveals that missionary periodicals were an important form in the construction of the politics of race and class of the Indians amongst whom Methodist missionaries worked. In Thoralf Klein’s contribution, in which he examines five missionary periodicals

Introduction

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published during the Boxer War, he demonstrates that various groups utilised their periodicals differently as forms of propaganda dependent upon the geopolitical situation of the organisation. In such ways missionary periodicals reflected broader media trends on the late nineteenth century in creating media moments. In reporting on the work of Swedish missionaries and especially their medical mission, Malin Gregersen postulates that wider political debates of the means and ends of the Christian mission are visible in the everyday observations from missionary work that make up a large part of the missionary periodicals. Gregersen examines the discourses presented in a Swedish missionary publication originating from medical missionary work in Southern India to demonstrate how the missionary project was legitimised to its readers through descriptions of social change. In drawing together threads from the chapters, Hanna Acke concludes the collection with a chapter that uses the previous contributions as well as an analysis of one missionary periodical, the Swedish Missionsförbundet, within a theoretical framework to argue that missionary periodicals can be seen as a genre in their own right. Missionary periodicals, as this collection demonstrates, were a necessary and important mode of communication for nineteenth-century missionary organisations, which, like their secular counterparts, provide multiple avenues of research for contemporary historians. Their content was often highly political, and through examining how different actors expressed their voices in missionary periodicals, how editors changed these voices and how missionary organisations promoted and disseminated their periodicals, these chapters offer a nuanced understanding of the often contradictory modes of political expression within missionary periodicals as well as the politics of missionary periodicals themselves.

I. MODES OF NATIONALISM

EMPIRE, NATION, AND RELIGION IN CANADIAN AND NEW ZEALAND PROTESTANT JUVENILE MISSIONARY PERIODICALS, C. 1890–1930S1 “Men and Women the King Would Wish You to Be” Hugh Morrison

INTRODUCTION In 1908, Canadian Congregational children were exhorted through their missionary reading to “study about the Kingdom of Christ” so that they would grow “into the men and women the King would wish [them] to be.” 2 Two decades earlier New Zealand Presbyterian children read about the exemplary General Gordon (of Khartoum) whose “noble, manly, Christian life” should be emulated by enlisting “under the banner of Christ”, fighting “the good fight of faith”, and “overcoming evil with good.” 3 By the late nineteenth century politics and religion were just as intertwined for juveniles 4 as they were for adults in the settler societies of the British Empire. For church-going settler children and young people this was manifested most often through the rhetoric of empire and nation; not surprising given the transitions from colonial to emergent nation status and the high imperialistic tone of that era. In these societies, however, the late-nineteenth-century notion of imperial citizenship extended well into the post-WWI era. As late as the 1930s New Zealand Protestant religious syllabi carried clear messages about the relationship between religion, empire and nation. A 1931 set lesson for children on “keeping our country true to the flag” accentuated the moral, legal and spiritual requirements of

1

2 3 4

Draft versions of this chapter were delivered as papers at the Christian Missions in Global History Seminar Group, Institute of Historical Research, London, June 2010 and at the 5th biennial conference of the Society for the History of Childhood and Youth, New York, June 2011. I appreciate the comments made by John Stuart and Mary Clare Martin and other participants at each of these events, as well as the advice and comments given by the editors. “The Children’s Page,” Monthly Leaflet, January (1908): 9. “General Gordon,” New Zealand Missionary Record, March (1885): 57–58. Throughout this chapter the term “juvenile” collectively refers to both children and adolescents; although other terms will be used where the age groupings need to be specified.

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citizenship.5 The British flag stood as a reminder of the rights and responsibilities, progress and potential, and degrees of human freedom that were intrinsic to imperial citizenship. The “ties of Empire” served to make “vice difficult and virtue easy” in national life. In turn the British Empire stood out supposedly because Christianity had “woven into the very fibre of British character the value of the individual man” and nourished a great multitude of individuals who hold that the first law of their lives is to keep a good conscience towards their Creator, even when it requires them to say, ‘We must obey God rather than men.’ 6

The discursive notion of a virtuous Christian British Empire was not new, but was tempered here by an appeal to Christian freedom within national life. In a similar vein a patriotic speech on “Canada and the Empire,” delivered in 1925 by a Canadian teenager and reported in a Methodist newspaper, reflected a message common to the ears of post-WWI adolescents. 7 In his speech Gus Tweeddale lauded the virtues of Canada, the “best country under the sun,” while indicating the ways in which national identity and history had been contested over two centuries of European colonisation. He acknowledged the increasingly multicultural nature of Canada’s population, arguing that Canadians needed to put aside prevailing cultural stereotypes of non-British migrants. Indigenous peoples were not mentioned at all. At the same time he lamented the increasing influence of American culture on Canadian life, and indicated the increasingly complex world in which Canadian young people were growing up post-1918. He charged the “great institutions” – schools, universities and churches – to train young people to be “fearless and free, calm of judgement, honest in opinion, seeking always that which is just and right”. At the speech’s end he invoked an Athenian oath emphasising civic duty and responsibility. As these introductory vignettes indicate church-going settler society children and adolescents lived out their lives in the shadow lands betwixt such constructed binaries as home and abroad, nation and empire, region/province and nation, colonised and coloniser, white and brown, British and non-British, male and female. To grow up as a young New Zealander or Canadian between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was a complex and ever-changing experience; complicated further by the spatial juxtaposition of coloniser and colonised. Lines of national identity and allegiance were not at all clear cut or obvious, although for settler children being British was a primary (if not exclusive) means of selfreference. In these terms race became one important mark of distinction in terms of juveniles’ perceptions of the world and of their actual experiences. One observation for New Zealand, that by 1900 “the lives of the indigenous Maori child and 5 6 7

Young People’s Text Book: The Graded Bible Lessons of Australia and New Zealand, January–June 1931, Published by the Joint Board of the Graded Lessons Committee of Australia and New Zealand, 19–23. Young People’s Text Book, 22. Gus Tweeddale, “Canada and the British Empire,” Western Methodist Recorder, March (1925): 4–5.

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the colonial Pakeha [European] child were far apart,” was also true for other settler societies like Canada, Australia and South Africa. 8 Race also demarcated white settler children from other children within their mental ambit, whether that was the Solomon Islands for New Zealanders or Japan for Canadians. This chapter introduces religion as an underdeveloped category of analysis in colonial childhood contexts, and in particular focuses on missionary periodicals for settler juveniles as sites of religious, national and imperial discourse. Three questions are addressed. Firstly, how do we properly and contextually locate juvenile missionary periodicals and content with respect to settler societies? Secondly, what vision(s) of national life was conveyed through the pages and content? Thirdly, to what extent were political themes or images of nation and empire central or incidental to this literature? In essence the chapter argues that religion existed as a socio-cultural element that complicated notions of late-colonial children’s national identity and allegiance. Hence, the apparent juxtaposition of religious and political themes in juvenile missionary literature is in itself deeply problematic and in need of careful and judicious thought. Material from a selection of Canadian and New Zealand Protestant denominational periodicals is scrutinised.9 The chapter applies a comparative approach which reflects a consensus amongst historians of childhood that such analysis is ultimately more productive. 10 In the same vein it adopts a transnational approach by using the British world as an analytical model. 11 The Sunday schools, Bible classes and other religious groups populated by Protestant Canadian and New Zealand children and young people, irrespective of their geographical differences, were inherently transnational institutions that acculturated juveniles within a broadly British or Anglo mentalité. Finally, the chapter also positions itself within a body of literature that examines more closely the reflexive impact of political structures like empire on metropolitan society and culture, both British or colonial. 12 Helen May, “Mapping Some Landscapes of Colonial-Global Childhood,” European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 9, no. 2 (2001): 5–20, 11. 9 Material is selected from the following periodicals 1880–1930: (1) Canadian – Canadian Church Juvenile (Anglican), Missionary Outlook (Methodist), Message (Presbyterian), Monthly Leaflet (Congregational), Missionary Messenger (Presbyterian), The Sunbeam (Methodist); (2) New Zealand – The New Zealand Missionary Record (Presbyterian and Congregational), New Zealand Baptist (Baptist), Break of Day (Presbyterian), The Reaper (Anglican), The Lotu (Methodist), The New Zealand War Cry (Salvation Army), The Treasury (Open Brethren). 10 Paula Fass, Children of a New World: Society, Culture, and Globalization (New York and London: New York University Press, 2007), 11. 11 Carl Bridge and Kent Fedorowich, “Mapping the British World,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 31, no. 2 (2003): 1–15. 12 For example, see: Esther Breitenbach, Empire and Scottish Society: The Impact of Foreign Missions at Home, c.1790 to c.1914 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009); Susan Thorne, “Religion and Empire at Home,” in At Home with the Empire: Metropolitan Culture and the Imperial World, eds. Catherine Hall and Sonya Rose (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006): 143–165; and Ruth Watts, “Education, Empire and Social Change in Nineteenth Century England,” Paedagogica Historica 45, no. 6 (2009): 773–786. 8

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EMPIRE, NATION, RELIGION AND CHILDHOOD: HISTORICAL AND HISTORIOGRAPHICAL CONTEXTS The late-nineteenth-century colonial missionary expansion and enthusiasm which engendered such literature occurred at the same time that Canada and New Zealand were emerging as distinctive and unique political entities, albeit still tightly and complexly linked to Britain. Over the second half of the nineteenth century both societies adopted dominion status which cemented their self-governing authority within the British Empire (Canada in 1867, New Zealand in 1907), and each moved from provincial to federal or national government. In the same period each nation developed its own unique demography with respect to indigenous peoples and immigrants, with British derived settlers dominant in both settings. In Canada’s case this process was complicated further by the existence of both anglophone and francophone communities, and by the increasing influx of nonBritish immigrants. There were also internal differences in terms of economic development. Both nations still had frontier regions dominated by primary production and rudimentary infrastructure, at the same time as there emerged sophisticated but socio-economically differentiated cities and towns. These decades were also important for the emergence of demonstrable national identity. Participation in the South African War of 1899–1902 was the first significant overseas troop deployment from either nation, and was enthusiastically endorsed by church and state alike; thus indicating the extent to which people self-identified as Canadians or New Zealanders and as empire citizens by 1900. 13 Canadian and New Zealand children and young people, then, were growing up in a period during which self-definition was increasingly national. For church-going juveniles, however, identity was also packaged within a nexus of religion, empire and nation. Religion, as a category of analysis, has not been applied consistently to scholarship around empire, nation and childhood. If it is “time to gender national, imperial and colonial spaces,” 14 then it is also timely to consider religious perspectives. For example New Zealand educationalist David Keen observes that Sunday schools were pivotal in helping to “develop a broader context for New Zealand’s nascent sense of national identity, indirectly reinforcing the cultural and political imperialism of the period.” 15 While this observation is made for one New Zealand province, it could also be extended to both national contexts. National or provincial identity and “cultural and political imperialism” were both cast in decidedly British terms in this era. These societies belonged to a wider British world (often described in such kinship terms as mother/daughter or sister nations) or to the 13 Gordon L. Heath, A War with a Silver Lining: Canadian Protestant Churches and the South African War, 1899–1902 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009); John Crawford and Ian McGibbon, eds., One Flag, One Queen, One Tongue: New Zealand, the British Empire and the South African War (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003). 14 Katie Pickles, Female Imperialism and National Identity: Imperial Order Daughters of Empire. Studies in Imperialism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 9. 15 David Keen, “‘Feeding the Lambs’: The Influence of Sunday Schools on the Socialization of Children in Otago and Southland, 1848–1901” (PhD thesis, University of Otago, 1999), 192.

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twinned Anglo worlds of North American and British settler colonies/dominions. Canadian historian Phillip Buckner notes that the imperial relationship between Britain and its settler colonies “reflected the sense of common identity between Britons at home and Britons abroad.” Therefore the histories of such societies cannot be understood “without placing [their] evolution in an Imperial context”; indeed “empire mattered.” 16 The relationship between religion and empire is now receiving greater attention in the literature of imperial history and British world scholarship. While some would argue that religion is emerging as a pivotal element of such discussions others at least acknowledge the liveliness of debate concerning the religious factor. 17 This debate has typically revolved around the relationship of missions and empire, religion and British national identity, empire as a cultural construction, and the “mutual constitution” of colonised and colonisers. 18 In these terms religion serves to nuance and complicate our understanding of imperialism as both historical process and discourse; and is increasingly understood from the perspectives of and complex interactions between colonised and coloniser. At the same time there is an acknowledged paucity of research into the role or significance of religion in the constitution of settler societies. 19 With respect to national identity Hilary Carey notes a similar tendency for scholarship to neglect “how religion worked to hold together the imagined British World.” 20 Historiographies shaped around notions of nation and national identity have been important in both New Zealand and Canadian contexts over recent decades; although this is giving way, in part, to other discourses around transnational and global history. 21 Religion has often been regarded as increasingly irrelevant by modernist historiographies fixated on secularisation, or positioned as being contrary to the process of national formation. Recent scholars have argued that the two should not be dichotomised or negated; rather they need to be understood in both relational and historical terms. 22 Chris Lorenz, for example, argues that there may be a “profound analogy between religion and nationalism as forms of collec16 Phillip Buckner, “Preface” and “Introduction: Canada and the British Empire,” in Canada and the British Empire. The Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series, ed. Phillip Buckner (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), vii–viii, 20. 17 Tony Ballantyne, “Review Essay: Religion, Difference and the Limits of British Imperial History,” Victorian Studies 47, no. 3 (2005): 427–455; Hilary M. Carey, “Introduction: Empires of Religion,” in Empires of Religion, Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series, ed. Hilary M. Carey (Houndmills and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008): 1–21; Hilary M. Carey, God’s Empire: Religion and Colonialism in the British World, c. 1801– 1908 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). 18 Carey, “Introduction: Empires of Religion,” 1–5. 19 Buckner, “Canada and Empire,” viii. 20 Carey, “Introduction: Empires of Religion,” 3. 21 Giselle Byrnes, ed., The New Oxford History of New Zealand (South Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press Australia and New Zealand, 2009). 22 Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann, “Introduction,” in Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia, eds. Peter van der Veer and Harmut Lehman (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999): 3–14.

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tive identity;” wherein religion has inter alia “paved the way for the ‘immoral’ practices of nationalism, including ‘ethnic cleansing’.” 23 The very notions of nation and religion are themselves highly contested categories of analysis that add complexity to this relationship. Any relationship between the two is complex and needs to be understood contextually in terms of time and place. Chris Lorenz and Stefan Berger suggest that one approach is to treat conceptual categories like religion as ‘codes of difference’ that operated historically to complicate wider notions of nation, and acted as an internal source of tension within the concept of identity. 24 FOREIGN MISSIONS, JUVENILE SUPPORT AND LITERATURE Foreign missions occupied New Zealand and Canadian churches most properly from the 1870s onwards. These societies were not, however, quite the “latecomers” as some have asserted. 25 On the one hand this energy coincided with the late nineteenth-century surge in missionary involvement emanating from Britain, Europe and the United States of America. Mentally at least, colonial Protestant missionary ventures to other parts of the world in this period were integral to the broader Euro-American missionary movement. On the other hand the religious landscapes of both societies had been shaped partially for at least a century by missions to the indigenous peoples within their boundaries, both to First Nations and to Māori, from which distinctive forms of Christianity or Christian-influenced religious movements had emerged. By the late 1800s colonial settler churches were taking over these internal missions from such British organisations as the Church Missionary Society, at the same time as they were initiating their own missionary efforts abroad. Therefore the two settings were unique in that mission to the “regions beyond” was occurring both within and beyond their national borders. By WWI the primary Canadian overseas missionary foci included India, China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea, as well as selected sites within West Africa, the Caribbean and South America. In the same period New Zealand missionaries went mainly to various localities in the south-west Pacific, India, China and the length

23 Chris Lorenz, “Representations of Identity: Ethnicity, Race, Class, Gender and Religion: An Introduction to Conceptual History,” in The Contested Nation: Ethnicity, Class, Religion and Gender in National Histories, eds. Stefan Berger and Chris Lorenz (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008): 26–27. 24 Lorenz, “Representations of Identity”; Stefan Berger and Chris Lorenz, “Conclusion,” in The Contested Nation: Ethnicity, Class, Religion and Gender in National Histories, eds. Stefan Berger and Chris Lorenz (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008): 534–539. 25 Alvyn Austin and Jamie S. Scott, “Introduction,” in Canadian Missionaries, Indigenous Peoples: Representing Religion at Home and Abroad, eds. Alvyn Austin and Jamie S. Scott (Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2005): 3–18, 11.

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of South America. Both countries had shared the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) as a field in common since the 1860s, through Presbyterian links. 26 Colonial children were caught up in the missionary movement as much as their British contemporaries; 27 as missionary subjects, as children of the missionaries, and as home-based supporters. Thus far we know much more about the first of these groups especially with regards to missions and education. 28 A fertile field lies waiting to be tapped concerning missionary children’s experiences and impact. The same is true of children as missionary supporters whether they were located in the British metropole or in the so-called colonial periphery. It is the latter category of children that comprise the focus of this chapter. Throughout the nineteenth century Protestant Sunday schools became “primary sites for missionary propaganda” across Britain and America. 29 This trend was replicated in British settler societies. In New Zealand the children’s Sunday school was established by the 1870s as the “centrepiece of Protestant religious education” and quickly became a “normal part of childhood experience.” Nearly 70 per cent of all New Zealand children and young people aged 5–14 were enrolled through churches by 1911, proportions which continued at least until WWII. 30 This same change took place in Canada to the extent that modern-day Protestants would “recognise in these new developments of the 1880s and 1890s the formation of a pattern” that has only more recently “shown signs of obsolescence.” 31 Older children and teenagers were also increasingly engaged, in both societies, through Bible classes, missionary support groups, camping and convention programmes, youth associations and especially the American-inspired Christian Endeavour movement. 26 Austin and Scott, “Introduction,” 11–12; Phyllis D. Airhart, “Ordering a New Nation and Reordering Protestantism 1867–1914,” in The Canadian Protestant Experience 1760–1990, ed. George A. Rawlyk (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990): 127–129; Hugh Morrison, “‘It Is Our Bounden Duty’: The Emergence of the New Zealand Protestant Missionary Movement, 1868–1926” (PhD thesis, Massey University, 2004), 1–2, 21–23. 27 Hugh Morrison, “‘Little Vessels’ or ‘Little Soldiers’: New Zealand Protestant Children, Foreign Missions, Religious Pedagogy, and Empire, c.1880s–1930s,” Paedagogica Historica 47, no. 3 (2011): 306–321. 28 For example, see: Fiona Leach, “African Girls, Nineteenth-Century Mission Education and the Patriarchal Imperative,” Gender and Education 20, no. 4 (2008): 335–347; Larry Prochner, Helen May and Baljit Kaur, “‘The Blessings of Civilisation’: Nineteenth-Century Missionary Infant Schools for Young Native Children in Three Colonial Settings – India, Canada and New Zealand 1820s–1840s,” Paedagogica Historica 45, no. 1–2 (2009): 83–102. 29 Jeffrey Cox, The British Missionary Enterprise since 1700 (New York and London: Routledge, 2008), 99–101; Susan Thorne, Congregational Missions and the Making of an Imperial Culture in Nineteenth-Century England (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 114–115; Rennie Schoepflin, “Making Doctors and Nurses for Jesus: Medical Missionary Stories and American Children,” Church History 74, no. 3 (2005): 557–590, 569. 30 Geoffrey Troughton, “Religion, Churches and Childhood in New Zealand,” New Zealand Journal of History 40, no. 1 (2006): 39–56, 40. 31 John Webster Grant, The Church in the Canadian Era (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1988), 59.

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From the late 1800s settler Protestant churches further engaged children’s interest through missionary literature primarily in periodical form; produced locally, distributed denominationally but again replicating wider Anglo-American trends. English missionary organisations had all published such periodicals from the early 1800s, with annual circulation for each ranging between 40,000 and 80,000. 32 All carried the same kinds of messages, information and images as their later colonial progenies. In its first issue in 1845, for instance, the pocket hand-book sized Juvenile Missionary Herald (Baptist) typically told children that it would “visit” them monthly, “always bringing new and interesting stories ... to talk to you about the poor heathen, and to tell you how the missionaries are trying to teach them about God.” 33 Hence, what had been introduced as a “new literary genre” early in the nineteenth century quickly became, for juveniles in both metropole and settler societies, a familiar and “vast” body of “missionary literature created for informing and instructing the home front.” 34 The trend was not an overnight sensation. While colonial juveniles consumed British and American-published literature, it took some decades for a sustained body of locally produced juvenile missionary periodical literature to be established. Such literature often appeared as inserts or as specialist pages in existing periodicals. This approach was commonplace for many denominations. For example, in 1908 Canadian Congregational children were offered their own ‘Children’s Page’ in the Monthly Leaflet. 35 While these pages would act as a more general moral compass for children, the missionary intent was made clear from the beginning: to foster juvenile interest in “the Kingdom of Christ in the world” that would translate into adult citizenship of that “Kingdom;” to learn about missionary work and “the great missionaries who have lived and died to carry out the last order of the Master”; and to elicit children’s written contributions about their own involvement in missionary support. By the late-nineteenth century, however, there were also examples of dedicated juvenile missionary periodicals. In 1882, New Zealand Presbyterian children were offered their own missionary periodical (The New Zealand Missionary Record) with a very similar rationale to the Monthly Leaflet. 36 Its rationale was wholly synchronous with other contemporary literature 32 Jonathan Brooke, “Providentialist Nationalism and Juvenile Missionary Literature, 1840– 1870,” (Henry Martyn Centre Research Seminar, Westminster College, Cambridge University), accessed January 31, 2011, http://henrymartyn.dns-systems.net/media/documents /Archive; Cox, British Missionary Enterprise, 115; Michelle Elleray, “Little Builders: Coral Insects, Missionary Culture, and the Victorian Child,” Victorian Literature & Culture 39, no. 1 (2011): 223–238; Brian Stanley, “‘Missionary Regiments for Immanuel’s Service’: Juvenile Missionary Organizations in English Sunday Schools, 1841–1865,” in The Church and Childhood, ed. Diana Wood (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994): 396–397. 33 Editor, “A Few Words from the Editor,” The Juvenile Missionary Herald, January (1845): 3. 34 Cox, British Missionary Enterprise, 114; Schoepflin, “Making Doctors and Nurses for Jesus,” 569. 35 “The Children’s Page,” Monthly Leaflet [Leaflet], January (1908): 9–10. 36 Hugh Morrison, “The ‘Joy and Heroism of Doing Good’: The New Zealand Missionary Record and Late-Nineteenth-Century Protestant Children’s Missionary Support,” Journal of New Zealand Literature 28, no. 2 (2010): 158–182.

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for juveniles, and it predated a body of literature that would become ubiquitous amongst settler Protestant children from the early 1900s onwards. While part of the periodical’s motivation was to cultivate a ‘habit’ of giving amongst juveniles, it also had in mind: that the practical sympathies of the young be early enlisted in the cause of the Church’s Missions, and that they be early trained, out of the fullness of their own spiritual privileges, to look abroad with a heart full of love and pity to the wide heathen wastes of the world which, through sanctified human agency and help, are yet to be converted into beauteous gardens of the Lord. 37

Both Canada and New Zealand, then, were predominantly Protestant societies with high rates of juvenile involvement in organised religion. Missionary literature, including periodical material in whole or in part, was distributed widely through denominational and organisational networks. At the same time, in an era of nascent compulsory schooling, churches provided important avenues through which children were socialised and educated more broadly. Like their British counterparts, much of what they learned about national and international life was mediated through religious and secular pedagogies or literature; at least until WWI. 38 Missionary literature, therefore, deserves further attention for the ways in which political and religious themes were located and juxtaposed. VISION OF NATIONAL LIFE That children and young people were citizens of emerging nations, albeit shaped by imperial ties, was not lost on religious educators in both New Zealand and Canada and is evident in the archival sources. In 1928 the Cariboo Presbytery of the British Columbia United Church was told that religious publishing and publications aimed at juveniles “is much more than the selling of books, it is a chance to strengthen the spiritual underpinning of our nation”. Religious reading, whether carried out at home or in formal education, could influence how children perceived and understood “missions … social problems … industrial problems” and life in general. 39 Character formation, citizenship, morality and national wellbeing were often linked together as imperatives for religious educational input. Sunday school teacher-training increasingly included a focus on contemporary

37 Editor, “Introduction,” New Zealand Missionary Record [NZMR], November (1882): 3. 38 Keen, “Feeding the Lambs,” 290–292; Morrison, “The ‘joy and heroism of doing good,’” 168–169; and see also Colin McGeorge, “Childhood’s Sole Serious Business: The Long Haul to Full School Attendance,” New Zealand Journal of History 40, no. 1 (2006): 25–27. 39 Donald Solandt to Cariboo Presbytery Secretary, October 1928, “United Church Publishing House” Folder, Subject Files of the Presbytery Secretary and Chair, Cariboo Presbytery Fonds, Box 1591/10, British Columbia United Church Archives [United Church Archives], Bob Stewart Archive, Vancouver School of Theology, Canada.

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social issues as well as on pedagogical techniques. These were seen as educational imperatives with society-wide implications. 40 While both empire and nation appeared in colonial juvenile missionary literature, they did so in varying ways; sometimes as one political entity (nation) subsumed within the other (empire), or as two overlapping (if not always equal) entities, but more often as two inextricably interwoven or conflated entities. Such notions were often more oblique than explicit. In a general sense, however, periodical literature was one of several means by which empire and nation were mediated to colonial juveniles primarily as a set of virtues and values. These acted as a road map by which children and young people should negotiate their lives as juveniles and as future adults. The literature also fed into a more general message: that Christianity legitimated and empowered the British Empire and that the nation was sustained by its integration within the Empire. Imperial and national citizenship was primarily a moral issue, in that character and virtue were intrinsically linked. The starting point for imperial or national citizenship was readily located in scripture and more particularly in the person of Jesus Christ who, amongst other things, incarnated a genuine “missionary spirit.” Good citizens young and old, like “the Master” they followed, should demonstrate qualities of service, generosity, forgiveness, altruism, openness, self-sacrifice and responsiveness. Such qualities were ideally inculcated amongst the young so that throughout their whole lives they would “go through this world, e’en as the Master went, going about doing good.” 41 This was the essence of what it meant to possess a “missionary spirit”. Sunday school and Bible class teachers should ideally first and foremost be marked by this “spirit”. They, in turn, could then focus on “filling the child’s soul with the Spirit of Christ;” so that children would live lives generously, joyfully and heroically. Children as citizens of both the Kingdom and the nation should be people whose lives were marked amongst other things by the “nobility of doing good” and the “nobility of helping and serving others.” 42 There was a clear line of connection between this religiously-framed rhetoric in the late-nineteenth century and the more secular-minded rhetoric of state school pedagogies in subsequent decades. In a 1911 New Zealand School Journal 43 arti40 For example: “Programme Leaflets” of annual Sabbath School Teacher Conventions 1900– 1901, British Columbia, Sabbath Schools Committee Folder, Presbyterian Church in Canada, Committees of British Columbia Synod, Folder 6, Box 463, United Church Archives; “Programme Booklets” of the annual British Columbia Sunday School Association 1912–1913, Christian Education Committee Records, British Columbia Conference of the United Church of Canada, Folder 15, Box 1331, United Church Archives. 41 “The Relation of ‘Young People’s Work’ to our Women’s Missionary Society,” Missionary Outlook [Outlook], January (1898): 13. 42 Rutherford Waddell, “The Sabbath-school and Missions,” NZMR, February (1884): 44–49. 43 The New Zealand School Journal was established in 1907 to be used throughout the national primary school system. It was strongly pro-Empire from its inception in 1907 through until the late 1920s. This ‘imperial ideology’ was quasi-religious in form, pre-dating later forms of civil religion in New Zealand. See: E. P. Malone, “The New Zealand School Journal and the Imperial Ideology,” New Zealand Journal of History 7, no.1 (1973): 12–13.

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cle celebrating the coronation of King George V primary school children were reminded that: [I]t is not by [great] deeds such as these alone that the Empire is built up – they are the signs of strength and vigour in a nation, but not necessarily of a strong and vigorous nation. Even in the weakest nations will be found individuals capable of the greatest self-sacrifice and heroism; but the strength of a nation as a whole depends upon the self-reliance, self-respect, and self-sacrifice of the people as a whole. 44

Colonial children could “help the Empire” by exhibiting and cultivating such qualities; both communally and individually. Such messages were further reinforced through the paraphernalia of school classrooms (especially the wall maps of the world that accentuated the red spaces of the Empire), 45 evolving curricula, and the text books that supported learning. History books focused on the British or European elements of each nation’s history, emphasising the institutions and people that shaped the values and virtues which underpinned ideal citizenship. Children at school and in the churches were thus reminded ad nauseum that both societies owed their origins to Britain as “the head of the most progressive and most just of modern nations.” 46 Missionary rhetoric, interwoven with imperialist or Western sentiments, served to orientate juvenile global thinking towards an understandably Eurocentric perspective. In the decades prior to 1914, however, when children’s participation rates in formal state education were still being consolidated, missionary literature was possibly just as important in conveying information about national and international life as the teaching of geography, history and civics. Missionary pages and periodicals were full of stories, accounts, images and information about the wider world. One fifth of The New Zealand Missionary Record’s content 1882–1885, for example, was devoted to geographical or historical information. In these pages readers were introduced primarily to the Pacific: to exotic sounding places like the “Friendly Islands”, the “Sandwich Islands” and “Thieves Islands,” as well as to more familiar places – New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa, Rarotonga, Fiji, the New Hebrides, and New Guinea. Essays about southern China, India and Africa drew attention to other peoples and places. The underlying message in these accounts was clear. As Christian citizens of empire and nation, settler children were privileged children; and with privilege came responsibility. This was a deeply entrenched line of thinking that often contrasted life at home with life for others beyond the borders of civilised Christianity. It was also typically expressed through exotic descriptions of non-Christian 44 Editor, “How Boys and Girls of New Zealand Can Help the Empire,” New Zealand School Journal, Part III, June (1911): 155. 45 For example, see: Terry Cook, “A Reconstruction of the World: George R. Parkin’s British Empire Map of 1893,” in Canadian Archival Studies and the Rediscovery of Provenance, ed. Tom Nesmith, (Metuchen, N.J. and London: Society of American Archivists and Association of Canadian Archivists in association with Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1993), 325–337. 46 J. Hight, The English as a Colonising Nation (Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombes Limited, c.1904), 11; W. J. Robertson, The Leading Facts of Canadian History (Toronto: The Copp Clark Company Limited, 1892).

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beliefs and practices, often but not always cast in pejorative terms, and in generalised depictions of non-European and non-Christian people as “sad and clouded men and women.” 47 This tendency to depict such people was possibly a key way by which British identity was formed more broadly. Taking an orientalist perspective Hugh McLeod argues that identity was often defined most sharply in juxtaposition to a hostile or conspicuously alien “other” and that Britain in these terms, and by association her settler colonies, emerged as a “favoured nation” through the nineteenth century. 48 The construction of the “heathen” was instrumental in this process, and found wide expression through the periodical literature. However, this rhetoric did not differentiate between missions abroad or at home; it was co-opted for both. In this respect, therefore, the rhetoric of privilege served to underscore the realities of multiple and unequal experiences of nation within the geographical boundaries of each society. Canadian Congregational children read of “half breeds” in Saskatchewan who were “ignorant of the most elementary knowledge of the laws of health”, and whose children “often need attention.” They were exhorted to respond to these perceived needs, out of their material wealth, by sending “books and paper” to “those boys and girls who have so much less.” 49 Over many decades New Zealand Presbyterian children encountered at least three enduring motifs in missionary literature that shaped their views of Māori lives and lifestyles: progress engendered by Christianity, difference, and disadvantage. These constructions of Māori life and experience again counterpoised privileged Pākehā children against supposedly disadvantaged and underprivileged Māori children. As a result Presbyterian mission work amongst Māori in the first half of the twentieth century benefited from substantial juvenile money. 50 Furthermore such constructions of the “other” were not exclusively racial in their dimensions. A Canadian Presbyterian “ABC of Missions” certainly focused on non-Europeans contexts. For example the letter A stood for “Africa, Continent Dark, Where rises the light from Livingstone’s spark;” and C was for “China, fourth of mankind, Whose eyes, through the Gospel, will no more be blind.” The same “ABC”, however, referred to Q for “Quebec, where priestcraft holds sway, May it walk out of twilight into the day.” 51 In the same vein New Zealand children’s attention was often focused on poor Pākehā urban or pioneering rural families as much as on Māori or overseas peoples; and Canadian chil-

47 For example, articles on Hindu ghost charms and Chinese idols, Outlook, September (1897): 135 and October (1897): 152; a series of articles about children’s lives in India and China in the Missionary Messenger 1914–1915; “A Message from the President,” The Lotu, August (1922): 3. 48 Hugh McLeod, “Protestantism and British National Identity, 1815–1945,” in Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia, eds. Peter van der Veer and Harmut Lehman (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999): 44–60. 49 “Letter from Dr Ralph,” Monthly Leaflet, March (1908): 11–12 50 Break of Day, 1909–1939. 51 “ABC of Missions,” Message, September (1916): 14.

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dren’s attention was often drawn to other immigrant groups settling within their borders. 52 Imperial citizenship was a package that broadly encompassed the worlds of both adults and children. In missionary periodical literature for colonial juveniles, it was much more explicitly expressed in relation to the deaths and coronations of contemporary British monarchs. Deaths and coronations offered another avenue by which the messages of responsible Christian citizenship were reinforced. The coronation of George V, for example, was a chance to assert to children that “we love the Empire, and are willing to work for it and live for it, and even ... to fight for it, or to die for it.” 53 Adult’s and children’s literature alike held the monarchy in high esteem. Protestant rhetoric commonly asserted a link between the monarch’s faith and righteousness, and the welfare of both Empire and nation. By the end of Queen Victoria’s reign, Canadian Methodist children read, “[n]ever was Britain so truly strong as now – physically on land and sea, and morally in love of righteousness.” Victoria’s Christian character was deemed to be the “secret of England’s greatness.” 54 Because of this, according to one New Zealand writer, “in times past the British nation has been much used of God in spreading His truth among her own people, and sending it ... to the dark places of the earth.” 55 This was a widely-held view in both secular and church circles. Children were reminded of the qualities that marked out such individuals as Edward VII who was described somewhat romantically as “kind hearted,” “courteous,” and a “lover of peace.” 56 Such comments were often qualified, in that any good quality or lesson to be learnt from a given monarch was paralleled by those of the other “king,” Jesus Christ. Likewise the qualities manifested by individual monarchs and heirsapparent were the very qualities that children themselves should cultivate. There were attempts, too, to humanise the monarch, especially George V in his later frailty and both Princess Elizabeth and her mother before and after George VI’s accession to the throne in 1937. Praying for the king or royal family was offered as a tangible way by which children could help “our King and Queen and the Empire.” 57 This was another responsibility that accompanied the privilege of citizenship. On the rare occasion the monarch became flesh and blood for colonial children. In 1911 a thirteen year old student of All Hallows’ Anglican Girls’ School (for white settler and First Nations students), at Yale in inland British Columbia, reminisced about the visit of the future King George V and Queen Mary ten years previously. She wrote:

52 Break of Day, September (1909): 10; Margaret Jamieson, “Incoming Strangers,” The Message, October (1914): 15. 53 “Editorial,” Break of Day, July (1911): 1–2. 54 D. P. McPherson, “The Story of the Queen,” The Sunbeam, February (1901): 13–14; “The Secret of England’s Greatness,” The Sunbeam, March (1901): 17. 55 “Righteousness exalteth a Nation,” The Treasury, April (1900): 51. 56 Break of Day, June (1910): 8–9; Outlook, June (1910): 133. 57 Break of Day, May (1937): 1.

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Hugh Morrison I have seen the King and Queen a long while ago, but I could not remember all what we did when they came. I just remember we sang to them out in the front. Their train stopped right in front of the school. We were all put in rows, and all had maple-leaf branches in our hands, which we waved about when we sang. 58

The royal couple stopped in Yale as part of their grand tour of the British Empire in 1901, and their visits to New Zealand and Canada respectively were occasions of great Empire enthusiasm in the wake of the South African War. An earlier account in the All Hallows’ school magazine indicates that the songs and symbols used in the All Hallows’ royal visit readily conflated images of national and imperial pride with those of a more religious nature. 59 The girls wore recognisably Canadian colours (red and white) and waved garlands of maple leaves. The royal couple were lead to and seated on seats on the lawn “canopied by the crimson and gold of the maple.” Above them on the school’s central gable stood “gleaming white, the cross pointed heavenwards” while the children stood around a “garden cross covered with English ivy.” A presentation, by representative settler and First Nations’ students, took the form of a school magazine “fastened with a silver maple leaf” and a fruit basket made of “cedar fibre.” Together the students sang a specially-written song with words that reflected the physical setting, and extolled the virtues of monarchy and empire. The final verse sums up the sentiments with which settler colonial juveniles lived: Land of our birthplace, or land of adoption, Fair is the soil of our Canada free, To her, though we feel ever deepest devotion, Our hearts still beat loyal, dear England to thee. Land of our forebears, and Home of our Empire, Far East and broad West thy great glories enshrine, We offer allegiance to son and to sire, With homage we bow to Victoria’s line. 60

Two final observations can be made about the vision of national life to be found in settler society juvenile missionary literature. The first is this: that there was both chronological continuity and discontinuity in the dominant imagery of citizenship, and that WWI was a pivotal turning point. The rhetoric of privilege and responsibility continued to be dominant, and Christian citizens of both societies were still called upon to “bow to Victoria’s line.” The ultimate expression of this was the high level of involvement and sacrifice by both countries in WWI. It could be argued that the ready enlistment of men, and the colossal casualties that followed, were partly an outcome of the previously pervasive imperial rhetoric in literature and pedagogies. The democratic virtues of a British heritage, played up 58 “Our New Pictures,” All Hallows in the West, Easter (1911): 17. While this was not strictly a missionary periodical, it was the magazine of a mission school which carried a good deal of missions-related information and articles. Furthermore this account indicated ways in which religious and imperial citizenship were practically expressed in school life. 59 “A Royal Visit,” All Hallows in the West, Christmas (1901): 67–68. 60 “A Royal Visit,” 67–68.

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during the war years, remained important tropes in the literature, as did broader imperial rhetoric. At the war’s end, however, there was a clear recognition that the preceding four years had been cataclysmically disastrous, and that the world now needed to change. The Canadian Methodist Church’s appeal for a war bonds scheme to finance missionary work in late 1918 argued that the war was a challenge to the churches to show that they are earnest about their task. They can hope to do their work and redeem a ruined world only if they are prepared to enlist their members and make their sacrifices on the war scale.

Christian citizens needed to honour those who had died by perpetuating “their spirit.” Only by a “world-wide propaganda of the Gospel of peace and good will” could the peace they had won be made permanent. Children and young people were critical to that task, both through their energies and as adults who would inherit and nurture that peace. 61 Through the 1920s there was a dual emphasis on responsible nationhood in an international context and on the Empire. Peacemaking both at home and abroad was doubly important. Furthermore the war had shocked Anglo-Saxon settlers out of their complacency about the virtues that were supposedly contingent upon being white and Christian. Therefore by the early 1930s it was becoming typical for children to read such editorial comments as this: Not many years ago we thought of the white races as Christian and the coloured peoples as heathen, or at least non-Christian. But we know to-day that the old ways of thinking need much correction. All our white people are not Christians, and most of us who are called Christians need to grow much more like Christ our Master to be worthy of His name. Some of the dark-skinned people have learned and practised the Christian way of life in ways that we are neglecting. They can send missionaries to help us, as well as we to teach them. A group of Christians from India and Burma have been recently to England and Ireland with their message. Kagawa, the Japanese Christian leader, has been teaching in Canada. Less than two years ago we had in New Zealand Dr T. Z. Koo from China, who led many of us to see the truth of Jesus more clearly than before. 62

The second observation is that different national concerns emerged in the colonial literature born of different circumstances. For example there appears to be more frequent and explicit imperial subject matter in the juvenile missionary periodicals of New Zealand than of Canada. This certainly does not mean that Canadian English-speaking children and young people were any less imperially-minded than their New Zealand counterparts; they were just as enmeshed in British connections and culture. It was in keeping, however, with the wider sense that New Zealand society was for many decades more deliberately British; with British immi-

61 “Victory Bonds, Sunday School and Young People’s War Memorial,” Outlook, November (1918): 249. 62 “The Kingdom of God is for all Peoples,” Break of Day, April (1933): 15.

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grants dominant until well after WWII and an enduring ethos of New Zealanders being “better Britons” par excellence. 63 In the Canadian context the literary evidence indicates at least two important differences: Canada’s proximity to the United States of America, and a very different experience of immigration from the late nineteenth century. The first helps to explain a large body of American-derived material in Canadian juvenile periodicals and the invocation of secular and religious American exemplars. This was typified by a popular poem by Frances E. Willard (The Two Flags), reprinted in a Canadian periodical in 1898, which confidently asserted that British and American virtues together were “heaven born” and beacons of liberty, harmony and peace. 64 In the longer term, however, the American influence would also extend to New Zealand’s religious education and literature. Canada’s greater diversity of immigration - both European and non-European – was uniquely different and explains the more explicitly pervasive and sometimes abrasive nationalistic literary constructions of citizenship. Children’s writer Bessie Marchant evocatively portrayed Canada as “a great mother” in whose heart there was room “not merely for her own children, but for the needy of every nation.” 65 Churches and missionary agencies quickly understood some of the implications and passed these messages on to juvenile readers. An elderly writer to the Monthly Leaflet’s “Children’s Page” in 1908 reminded readers that: we not only have the heathen abroad, but we have this great country. It is said that last year a million of emigrants have come in. What a work there is to do! So I hope that you will try and give something to home, as well as foreign missions. 66

Periodicals and pedagogical materials alike, over the next two decades would have much to say about the duty to these new citizens. But by either advertently or inadvertently depicting these new communities as ‘other’ – especially those that were non-European or non-British – they also conveyed clear messages that linked Canadian citizenship with British and Christian values and virtues. CONCLUSION: EVALUATING THE RELATIONSHIP OF POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS THEMES Throughout this chapter I have argued that periodical missionary literature was integral to a wider pedagogical apparatus deployed for the religious education of colonial juveniles between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the process of informing and educating juveniles both literature and curricula also contained clear messages about the privileges and responsibilities of national and imperial 63 For example, see: James Belich, Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the Year 2000 (Auckland: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 2001), 76–86. 64 “Song of the Flags;” Outlook, April (1898): 55–56. 65 Bessie Marchant, Daughters of the Dominion: A Story of the Canadian Frontier (Toronto: Musson Book Company Limited, 1909), 4. 66 “Letter from Mrs Wheeler,” Leaflet, April (1908): 11.

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citizenship. It remains, then to evaluate the extent to which these messages were central or incidental with respect to the aims and intent of religious pedagogy. A broad reading of periodical material, set within the wider context of the archives of colonial religious pedagogy, suggests that imperial and nationalistic language, imagery and symbols were quite deliberately co-opted for theological and pragmatic ends, to cultivate young citizens of the Kingdom of God whose lives would be indelibly and deeply marked by qualities of service and sacrifice. Two comments are useful here by way of conclusion. First, it is clear that empire and nation were important to religious educators and missionary propagandists of the period, and were clearly linked to Christian antecedents. Yet they were not the primary focus. Nationalistic and imperial language was strategically deployed to draw children into what might be called a form of Christian imperialism. Religion, in this context, was used as a “code of difference” to indicate that if colonial children were legitimately being called in this period to an imperial or national allegiance then, even more so, they were also being called to give their allegiance to something greater. In one biographical account of Canadian Presbyterian missionaries the “national spirit” and the “Spirit of Empire,” both of vital importance, were related but subordinate to the “Mission Spirit” gripping churches in the early 1900s. Juvenile readers were exhorted to follow “the Captain who has ‘girt His sword upon His thigh, and has gone forth conquering and to conquer.’” 67 It was common for royal language to be used in the context of religious themes or messages. Canadian Congregational children were to be subjects of the “Kingdom of God” and of a heavenly “King,” while New Zealand children were exhorted to follow the examples of the “King’s Men” working in places like China and India. 68 Likewise children were reminded that Jesus was a King who was permanently present – unlike “earthly kings” who “come and go” – who never “makes any mistake,” and who is “always wise and good and kind.” Therefore children should first pray to the heavenly King “that He will bless our new king, George V, and help him to be a good king, wise and kind and honourable, such a king as God loves to see.” As war took a hold Jesus Christ was depicted as the king who would “conquer all evil.” 69 It was not just language and imagery that was appealed to. There were, for example, groups like the Daughters of the King in Canada (American-derived) that, while focused on missions, employed a label that explicitly played on the notion of imperial allegiance for a greater purpose. 70 As we have seen such symbols as national flags were also co-opted to impress a higher, more spiritually-focused message. 67 Rev. W. S. McTavish, ed., Missionary Pathfinders: Presbyterian Laborers at Home and Abroad (Toronto: Musson Book Company Limited, 1907), 124. 68 “The Children’s Page,” Leaflet, January (1908): 9; Alice A. Kenny, The King’s Men in India (Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1947); John Mears, The King’s Men in China (Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1948). 69 “Death of King Edward VII,” Break of Day, June (1910): 8–9; “Editorial,” Break of Day, July (1915): 1. 70 For example: “Minutes of the Chapter of the Daughters of the King, Christchurch Cathedral, Vancouver, 1908–1933,” Archdeaconry of Burrard, Series 8, D103, Box 1, Archives of the

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Second, it is also clear that imperial and especially military imagery was most explicitly co-opted during and after WWI. After the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 the Salvation Army exploited patriotic fervour by focusing attention on another flag the “conquering banner, the Yellow, the Red, and the Blue”; a truly international flag to which “the Nations have rallied”. Military images such as “retreat”, “victory”, bravery, and sacrificial death marked those who dedicated themselves to the “Flag of the Salvation Empire.” 71 There were also ambiguities. This same issue of The New Zealand War Cry juxtaposed the message that the so-called “war virtues” should be channelled into “new nobler channels”, with photographs of British dreadnoughts and torpedoes and accounts of the first New Zealand Salvation Army recruits to the front. 72 The emotions of war and war-support both sharpened the rhetoric and muddied the message. The call to a “greater cause” and a “mightier King” was still made loud and clear in the years following WWI. 73 Yet it was also in this period that the language, experiences and lessons of the war were drawn most explicitly. One New Zealand Baptist leader captured the spirit of this when he reminded young people that missions were a: call to sacrifice ... the Master and His service are abundantly worthy of it. No greater honour to a home or a church can be conceived than that they should have a representative on the Mission Field. 74

Young people were commonly exhorted to emulate the spirit of sacrifice shown by soldiers and other wartime volunteers. Whilst wartime service had been of great importance, so also was the cause of worldwide evangelism and humanitarian aid. This was promoted as a high and worthy cause and the language of patriotic service heard so often between 1914 and 1918 fitted easily into the missionary or evangelistic rhetoric of the post-war years. Indeed it may have been the case that the missionary cause post-1918 was seen ultimately as more important than the cause that had so recently scarred national psyches. This was delicate stuff, given the many churches with their crammed Roll of Honour boards, and the vociferous nature of imperial and pro-British rhetoric, especially obvious in both societies during the 1920s. In conclusion, identity remained fluid and even developmental in this period with respect to nation and empire for settler juveniles in both Canada and New Zealand. The introduction of religion, as a “code of difference”, served to complicate identity for those juveniles involved in or in contact with Protestant churches. Therefore we are perhaps best placed to talk about multiple layers of identity, or

71 72 73 74

Dioceses of New Westminster and Cariboo, Bob Stewart Archive, Vancouver School of Theology, Canada. “Up with the Flag,” The New Zealand War Cry (August 22, 1914): cover. The New Zealand War Cry (August 15, 1914): 3; (August 22, 1914): 2, 3, 6. “Presidential Addresses to New Zealand Anglican Bible Class Union, 1921–1922 and 1922– 1923,” New Zealand Anglican Bible Class Union records, ANG062, New Zealand Anglican Archives, Kinder Memorial Library, St John’s College, Auckland, New Zealand. New Zealand Baptist, January (1922): 3.

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of intersecting identities, or of concentric circles of identity for children in the emerging British settler nations of Canada and New Zealand between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In a few cases, notably amongst dissenting pacifist Protestant groups during WWI (for example Mennonites in Canada and Open Brethren in New Zealand), there were tensions over which allegiance took greater priority. 75 The majority, however, seemed to sit comfortably with both. In other ways religion acted to subvert prevailing allegiances and dualistic discourses. This became more noticeable through the 1920s as a more determined internationalist rhetoric and movement emerged, yet it was hinted at in the previous decade. Subversion and ambiguity was certainly evident in the imagery contained in Harold Copping’s celebrated painting “The Hope of the World” produced in 1915; in which a rather European looking Jesus famously embraces children of different ethnicities and geographies. This painting was reproduced and hung on colonial and metropole Sunday school walls the world around until at least the 1960s. It was also liberally reproduced in smaller formats in pedagogical literature and as inserts for juvenile Bibles. This enduring “motif of the peoples of the world gathered together to hear the Christian message” 76 was a reminder to all children that they belonged to a global family, and that inclusion in the Christian family of all nations was the key demarcation of ‘them’ and ‘us’. In these respects children and young people were called to a commitment to Christian citizenship which would hopefully forever mark the trajectories of their lives. The reality remained, however, that as a result of imperial, colonial and nation-building processes, there remained distinctively different groupings of Canadian and New Zealand children and young people; even if indigenous, British settler and other immigrant children were all Christian. The legacy of imperialism, despite the best of intentions, remained in both the historical record and memory, and remains in the lived experiences of communities today.

75 Robert A. Wright, “The Canadian Protestant Tradition 1914–1945,” in The Canadian Protestant Experience 1760–1990, ed. George A. Rawlyk (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990): 139–197, 143–144; Allan K. Davidson and Peter J. Lineham, Transplanted Christianity: Documents Illustrating Aspects of New Zealand’s Church History (Palmerston North: The Dunmore Press, 1989), 294–295. 76 Sandy Brewer, “From Darkest England to the Hope of the World: Protestant Pedagogy and the Visual Culture of the London Missionary Society,” Material Religion 1, no. 1 (2005): 98– 124, 101, 109.

DIVERGING REPORTS OF EURPOEAN POLITICS AND IMPERIAL ASPIRATIONS IN THE PERIODICAL ACCOUNTS AND IN THE MISSIONS-BLATT 1 Felicity Jensz Periodicals were indispensible tools for disseminating information for nineteenthcentury missionary societies. Religious groups had helped to develop the periodical sector during the early nineteenth century, and with their organisational potential, funds, capital, and networks the foray into missionary periodicals was a natural extension of missionary work itself. 2 All major missionary societies had at least one periodical, with bigger societies diversifying their offerings to provide for specific audiences such as for children, women or different social classes. Recent scholarship on missionary periodicals has tended to examine single titles, or particular audiences, with a frequent focus upon children’s periodicals. 3 There have also been a recent number of studies that have examined how the content of missionary periodicals helped shape British society in the nineteenth century. 4 This train of research is particularly illuminating, as missionary periodicals are informative of both the self-perception of the societies that produced them as well as the audience for whom they were intended, with Terry Barringer reminding us that “missionary periodicals are valuable sources for the evolution of missionary

1

2 3

4

This chapter has benefitted from discussions with and help from the following people, to whom I am thankful: Paul Peucker, Lorraine Parsons, Hanna Acke, Sarah Knorr, Mark Padgahm, and participants of the “Politics within Nineteenth Century Missionary Periodicals” workshop in December 2010 in Münster. All shortcomings are, of course, my own. Brian Maidment, “Periodicals and Serial Publications, 1780–1830,” in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 5, ed. Michael Suarez and Michael Turner (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009): 498–512, 509. F. K. Prochaska, “Little Vessels: Children in the Nineteenth-Century English Missionary Movement,” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 6, no. 2 (1978): 103–118; Hugh Morrison, “The ‘Joy and Heroism of Doing Good’: The New Zealand Missionary Record and Late-Nineteenth-Century Protestant Children’s Missionary Support,” Journal of New Zealand Literature, no. 28 (2010): 158–182. See also Morrison in this volume. Anna Johnston, Missionary Writing and Empire, 1800–1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Elizabeth Elbourne, Blood Ground: Colonialism, Missions, and the Contest for Christianity in the Cape Colony and Britain, 1799–1853, McGill-Queen’s Studies in the History of Religion (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002); Catherine Hall, Civilising Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination 1830–1867 (Cambridge: Polity, 2002).

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self-understanding and self-representation.” 5 Her work on the Missionary Periodicals Database project has provided some general quantitative and qualitative analyses of missionary periodicals, while reminding us that differences in periodicals have the potential to shed light on how various missionary societies positioned themselves in terms of societal, political, and religious expectations. 6 This chapter takes a different approach to many other studies as it compares two missionary periodicals from the same church that were printed and distributed in two countries, those being England and Germany. Both of these periodicals, the Periodical Accounts (1790–1960) and the Missions-Blatt (1837–1941), were published under the auspice of the Moravian Church – known as the Brüdergemeine in German, one of the most geographically broadly reaching missionary churches of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These periodicals had access to the same material, yet often presented it in different ways. The differences between the audiences, content and form of the two periodicals not only reflect subtle differences between the Moravian Church in Britain and Germany, but also illustrate the point that broader imperial concerns affected the political content within missionary periodicals. THE MORAVIAN CHURCH AND ITS MISSIONARY WORK The differences in the two Moravian publications can in part be explained by the differences in the makeup of the British and German arms of the Church. The origins of the Church were in Herrnhut, Germany, where, under the stewardship of the Pietist inspired Count von Zinzendorf, the modern Moravian Church was formed in 1727. Soon after its establishment the first two missionaries were sent to work amongst the slaves of St. Thomas in the Danish West Indies in 1732, with further missionaries sent out in the same year to Greenland. The Moravian’s reputation as missionaries grew throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with their work inspiring the establishment of many missionary societies both in Britain and Germany, where the main seat of the Church remained. 7 They were deemed to be a successful missionary Church able to convert the perceived most ‘wretched and bleakest’ of the so-called ‘heathen’, and had a reputation of sending out missionaries to the remotest of locations where other missionary societies had either failed or dared not tread. 8 Their reputation was not confined to the religious realm, for Moravians received requests from colonial governments, mostly the 5 6 7 8

Terry Barringer, “Why Are Missionary Periodicals [Not] So Boring? The Missionary Periodicals Database Project,” African Research and Documentation, no. 84 (2000): 33–46. Terry Barringer, “From Beyond Alpine Snows to Homes of the East – A Journey through Missionary Periodicals: The Missionary Periodicals Database Project,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 26, no. 4 (2002): 169–173. Peter Vogt, “Die Mission der Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine und ihre Bedeutung für den Neubeginn der Protestantischen Missionen am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts,” Pietismus und Neuzeit. Ein Jahrbuch zur Geschichte des neueren Protestantismus 35 (2009): 204–236. Stephen Neill, A History of Christian Missions (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1964), 237.

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British, to establish mission stations amongst indigenous denizens of the new world. 9 Thus, the Moravians, like many of their contemporaries, were entangled in colonial politics, despite their desire to maintain a distinction between worldly and spiritual matters. 10 It has been argued that the establishment of the British arm of the church was more due to circumstance than intent, for when four German Moravians were delayed in England on their way to America, this interlude offered the opportunity for one of them to address a society of interested Englishmen. 11 The resulting band of nine men developed into the Fetter Lane Society, which itself became the “headquarters of a burgeoning evangelical revival spreading across the country.” 12 In the 1730s England was in the midst of “The Great Awakening,” with many people turning to Evangelical religious societies, and the “quadrilateral of priorities” – conversionism, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism – which characterised these societies. 13 The revival itself has been seen to be responsible for the launch of a new literary genre, that of the evangelical newspaper and magazine.14 According to the missionary historian Andrew Porter, the circulation of such religious periodicals through, “networks of influence and contacts built up over nearly half a century” stimulated the establishment of many evangelical missionary societies within England by the end of the eighteenth century. 15 By that time, most denominations within England had their own periodicals, with frequently differing aims, such as the dissemination of religious propaganda, the production of edifying material, the creation of a shared religious identity, and also the informing of the readership about missionary undertakings. 16 A number of missionary-specific periodicals were also published. The content, tone and aim of such differed according to the specific audience, however, a constant within all was desire to impart edifying material that promoted the missionary cause. Although preevangelical revival British missionary societies such as the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG, established in 1701) and the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (SPCK, established in 1698), dissemi9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Felicity Jensz, German Moravian Missionaries in the British Colony of Victoria, Australia, 1848–1908: Influential Strangers, Studies in Christian Missions 38 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 56– 64. August Gottlieb Spangenberg, Unterricht für die Brüder und Schwestern welche unter den Heiden am Evangelio dienen (Gnadau: Verlag der Buchhandlung der Evangelischen BrüderUnität, 1837), 85–87. Colin Podmore, The Moravian Church in England 1728–1760 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 30–41. Colin Podmore, “Zinzendorf and the English Moravians,” Journal of Moravian History no.3 (2007): 31–50, 35. D. W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 3. Susan Durden, “A Study of the First Evangelical Magazines, 1740–1748,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 27, no. 3 (1976): 255–275. Andrew Porter, Religion Versus Empire? British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700–1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), 40–41. Durden, “A Study of the First Evangelical Magazines, 1740–1748.”

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nated material about their work in the British colonies amongst Europeans and Native American Indians through religious periodicals in England, there were no missionary-specific periodicals in Britain until the end of the eighteenth century. 17 The case was different in Germany, where the Pietist leader, August Hermann Francke had published a missionary periodical, Hallesche Berichte, from 1710. 18 This longer German tradition was not, however, reflected in the Moravian Church, where it was the British and not the German arm that was the first to produce regular, published missionary reports. DIFFERENT AUDIENCES Despite the perceived success of the Moravian mission, Moravians were slow in disseminating regular intelligence about their missionary work beyond their own church. The Church had produced monographs and flyers, but no periodicals pertaining to the mission work for non-Moravian consumption. After much internal discussion, their first periodical that was expected to reach beyond Moravians circles was published in London in 1790 under the title Periodical Accounts Relating to the Missions of the Church of the United Brethren, Established among the Heathen (Periodical Accounts). 19 The Periodical Accounts was the first periodical within Britain to report exclusively upon missionary work, and as such inspired other groups to establish missionary societies, which themselves then produced missionary periodicals. 20 For example, Moravian sources suggest that William Carey established the Baptist Missionary Society in 1792 having been inspired to engage in missionary work in part from reading the Periodical Accounts. Throwing a copy of the periodical upon the table in front of a close circle of friends he is reported to have cried, “See what the Moravians have done! Can we not follow their example, and in obedience to our heavenly Master go out into the 17 From 1702, the SPG printed their annual sermons, which were mostly of an edifying nature. From 1713 missionary reports began to be annexed in these publications. These lists do not qualify the annual sermons to be classified as missionary periodicals in the sense used here. A typical title for such a publication was: A sermon preached before the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts; at their Anniversary Meeting, in the Parish Church of St Mary-le-Bow, On Friday February 16, 1827. By the Right Reverend Charles James Lord Bishop of Chester. Together with the Report of the Society for the year 1826. To which are annexed, Lists of the Society's Missionaries, Catechists, and School Masters and of the Incorporated and Associated Members, etc. (London : Printed for the Society and sold by C and J Rivington, St Paul's Church Yard and Waterloo Place. 1827). See also: Rowan Strong, “A Vision of an Anglican Imperialism: The Annual Sermons of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts 1701–1714,” Journal of Religious History 30 (2006): 175–198. 18 Ernst Benz, “Pietist and Puritan Sources of Early Protestant World Mission (Cotton Mather and A. H. Francke),” Church History 20, no. 2 (1951): 28–55. 19 Felicity Jensz, “Origins of Missionary Periodicals: Form and Function of Three Moravian Publications,” Journal of Religious History 36, no. 2 (2012): 234–255. 20 Porter, Religion Versus Empire?, 40–41.

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world and preach the Gospel to the heathen.” 21 The Periodical Accounts was produced and edited by the ‘Brethren’s Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel among the Heathen’ (SFG), a Moravian society revived in September, 1768. 22 Members of this society were themselves well connected within evangelical circles, governmental and scientific circles, including, for example, the botanist of Captain Cook’s crew, Joseph Banks. 23 For over 20 years prior to the initial publication, the SFG had been requesting in vain for permission from Church headquarters in Germany to establish a missionary periodical. The decision not to publish was partly due to the fact that the Moravian Church of the late eighteenth century used a system of drawing lots to make important decisions, and only negative lots were drawn in relation to the publication of a missionary periodical, and secondly, that the leaders of the Church were not keen to have published material in the public domain lest it to be turned against the Moravians. Such disinclination to disseminate material broadly can be understood in light of the smear campaign to which the Moravian Church had been subjected in the mid-eighteenth century when publications demeaning Moravian dogma and religious practices had been circulated in Britain. 24 This event had left the Moravians relatively media-shy, with publications of the mid-nineteenth century suggesting that the Church was “pursuing [a way] of stillness and obscurity, shunning rather than seeking the beaten track.” 25 The material that the SFG wished to publish, however, was not of a religious or dogmatic nature, rather was based either upon first-person reports, or syntheses of material pertaining to the state of the Moravian mission across the globe. It was anticipated that the periodical would reach beyond purely Moravian circles – for there were already internal publications for Church members – and into influential spheres including members of the British Parliament, wealthy, potential patrons and even the British sovereignty. 26 As such the periodical was not solely intended for the edification of the masses; rather it was seen as an organ to inform politics in the hope of bolstering support for global Moravian missionary work. London was the hub of the British Empire and the SFG intended 21 See: J. E. Hutton, History of the Moravian Church (London: Moravian Publication Office, 1909), 252; Bruce D. Hindmarsh, “‘My Chains Fell Off, My Heart Was Free’: Early Methodist Conversion Narrative in England.” Church History 68, no. 4 (1999): 910–929. 22 Minute book Brethrens’ Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel in the British Dominions [SFG Minutes], 23 September, 1768, 1. Moravian Church Archives, London [MCA]. 23 Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel among the Heathen [SFG] Minutes, May 5, 1772, #2, MCA; SFG Minutes, May 8, 1770, #3, MCA. 24 This time is known as the “sifting time” (~1743–50). For a detailed study of this period, and another on how this period effected the Moravians in Britain, see: Paul Peucker, “‘Blut auf unsre grünen Bändchen.’ Die Sichtungszeit in der Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine,” Unitas Fratrum 49/50 (2002): 41–94; Podmore, The Moravian Church in England. 25 “Introduction,” The Moravian Magazine, a Monthly Journal of the Church of the United Brethren (London) 1, no. 1 (1853): 1–5, 1. 26 Protocoll der Unitäts Aeltesten Conference [PUAC] Dec. 4, 1769, #4, Unitäts-Archiv [UA], Herrnhut. For a distribution list for the Periodical Accounts in the initial years see: J. C. S. Mason, The Moravian Church and the Missionary Awakening in England, 1760–1800 (Suffolk: The Boydell Press for The Royal Historical Society, 2001), 202–204.

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through their publications to reach and impress those who, in turn, could or would use their influence to give the Moravians land and support in colonial spaces in order for mission stations to be established. Moravians, like their many contemporaries, had multiple ways of petitioning governments for support within the colonies from face-to-face petitions to written texts, with periodicals forming part of this broader propaganda tool. 27 From 1819 the annual reports of the Moravians and from 1820 the Periodical Accounts were provided gratis to members of the London Association in aid of the Missions of the United Brethren, commonly called Moravians Missions (LAMM), which were a support group of nonMoravians. 28 Members included ministers from many other denominations as well as many aristocrats, 29 thus ensuring that their work was disseminated widely amongst influential people. In contrast, the intended audience of the German-language Missions-Blatt was conceived to be members of the Church and religious supporters. Although the Moravian Church had its origins in Germany, and it was from thence that their first missionaries departed in the 1730s, there was not a regular periodical dedicated to Moravian missions in the German language for over a century. Prior to this time, Moravians in both Germany and England received their information through hand-written news-sheets passed from one Moravian community to the next. This form of communication was intended to maintain an intimacy within the community and also to ensure that news was kept within the community. 30 A periodical miscellany had been published in German from 1819 entitled Nachrichten aus der Brüder-Gemeine, of which the Periodical Accounts suggested that “the contents of which [were] mainly derived from [Moravian] missionary records,” 31 however in actuality also contained much non-missionary edifying material. In 1835, French and Dutch language Moravian missionary periodicals appeared prompting members of the General Church Synod of 1836 to express their desire to provide a similar German-language periodical. 32 The Missions-Blatt aus der Brüdergemeine. Zum Besten ihrer Heiden-Mission (Missions-Blatt, Mission Gazette of the Moravian Church. For the benefit of their Heathen Mission) was consequently established in 1837 as one of the earliest German-language Moravian publications. 33 It was edited by a Danish Moravian by the name of Niels Jo27 Monographs were also used as a tool of political petitioning. For example, see: Felicity Jensz, “Publication and Reception of David Cranz’s 1767 ‘History of Greenland,’” The Library: Transactions of The Bibliographical Society, 7th series, 13, no. 4 (Dec, 2012): 457–472. 28 “Appendix C. Rules Recommended for Auxiliary Organisations,” The Second Report of the London Association in aid of the Missions of the United Brethren, commonly called Moravians Missions formed on the 12th of December, 1817 [LAMM Second Report] (London: Marshall, 1820), 29. 29 “List of Subscriptions,” LAMM Second Report, 35–45. 30 Gisela Mettele, Weltbürgertum oder Gottesreich: Die Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine als globale Gemeinschaft 1727–1857 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009), passim. 31 “Preface,” Periodical Accounts, 12 (1831): iii–xii, xii. 32 “Introduction,” Periodical Accounts, 14 (1836): iii–xvi, xi. 33 Dietrich Meyer, “Deutschsprachige Zeitschriften der Brüderunität,” Unitas Fratrum 9 (1979): 53–64.

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hannes Holm, who had at that stage been editing a Danish-language Moravian missionary periodical for a decade. 34 In the first issue of the Missions-Blatt Holm stated that the fortnightly periodical should be read with a Bible in hand, indicating his concentration upon the spiritual aspects of the mission narrative. 35 Holm’s editorial voice was present from the beginnings of the Missions-Blatt, with it being a voice that stressed the religious aspects of the mission and infrequently mentioning the political sphere in which the missionaries worked, as if the secular world of politics was superfluous for the furtherance of missionary work. However, this is not to suggest that the periodical shied away from reporting upon geopolitical situations. For example, large political events were mentioned, notably the emancipation of slaves within the first volume. Holm noted that the government had Christian intentions in the act, yet subsequently expressed his sympathies with the West Indian plantation owners by noting that they might be adverse to such a ruling, and further expressed fears that there may be an armed uprising if the situation was not carefully controlled, 36 thus, he positioned the Moravians as the moral counterweights of the global imperial endeavour. This was a somewhat more cautious and differentiated sentiment than that expressed in the Periodical Accounts, which noted the emancipation of slaves to be “an act of national justice” 37 and thus positioned themselves within a nationalistic humanitarian discourse. Such a statement followed similar patterns within broader British religious discourses of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in which missionaries were seen as the moral component of colonialism. Rowan Strong describes this as “a consequence of a theology that viewed the empire as a providential gift, bringing with it divine obligations towards the colonial populations for its enduring retention.” 38 As members of both British and German societies, the Moravians participated in various nationalist discourses dependent upon location. 39 Even after 1849 when the Missions-Blatt became a monthly under the editor and ex-missionary Joseph Römer, it remained mostly a periodical for internal consumption and fundraising from Church members. In the 1870s, with the increase in the number of German missionary societies, the Missionsdepartement, a subcommittee of the governing body of the Moravian Church, expressed their concern that since other German missionary societies were doing their best to gain supporters throughout Germany, the associated missionary periodicals from these societies were drawing supporters and friends away from the Moravian Church, and also from subscriptions to the Missions-Blatt. “Our Missionsblatt,” they pro34 After Niels Johannes Holm’s editorialship from 1837 to 1845, there was a new editor annually until 1849, when the editor was appointed by the Missionsverwaltung (Mission administration). The Missions-Blatt ceased publication in 1941. 35 Missions-Blatt 1, no. 1 (1837): 1–3, 1. 36 Missions-Blatt 1, no. 7 (1837): 53–55, 54. 37 “Introduction (1836),” v. 38 Strong, “A Vision of an Anglican Imperialism,” 198. 39 The current analysis does not examine in depth material during the period of German imperialism, however, for an analysis of how German missionary societies engaged in nationalistic debates during this period see Best in this volume.

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claimed “is the best mission agent that we have.” 40 To reinvigorate subscription the Missionsdepartement suggested that missionaries write interesting pieces for the periodical, including material regarding the journeys of missionaries, their houses, their conversations with indigenous people, the habits and customs of indigenous peoples, and anything that readers in Europe themselves would not be able to imagine, or would have a false impression of. Female missionaries were expressly invited to contribute. The circular also noted that any stylistic issues would be improved in order to create a lively picture of the mission work of the Moravian Church. 41 Such circulars indicate that the audiences for the two missionary periodicals were conceived in slightly different ways, with the Periodical Accounts being from its inception more of a public face of the Moravian’s work that could be disseminated amongst colonial authorities than the more internally focused Missions-Blatt. This observation may be partly explained by the fact that editor of the Periodical Accounts also held the role of secretary of the SFG, 42 whereas, from 1849 when the Missionsdepartement appointed the editor, the editor of the Missions-Blatt was an ex-missionary or Diaspora worker, who also held the position of archivist in Herrnhut. 43 Thus, the editors of the two periodicals themselves had different practical experiences with missionary work, as well as having different opportunities to engage with various levels of politics. Indeed, active missionaries were instructed not to meddle in colonial or state politics and thus were directed to refrain from political critique, 44 whereas the office of Secretary of the SFG on occasion initiated political engagement which furthered the Moravian cause. 45

40 “Aufforderung zur Einsendung von Mittheilungen für das Missionsblatt (Aufforderung),” 1879, NB.VII.R1.77d. 2a, UA. 41 “Aufforderung,” 1879, NB.VII.R1.77d. 2a, UA. 42 For example, Peter La Trobe (1795–1863) was Secretary of the Moravian Church in England as well as the SFG, and was inaugural editor of the Periodical Accounts. See: Taylor J. Hamilton, A History of the Church Known as the Moravian Church, or the Unitas Fratrum, or the Unity of the Brethren, During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Bethlehem, PA: Times Publishing Company, 1900), 444. 43 For example, Joseph Römer (1807–1880) was a missionary in Jamaica and St. Croix from 1836–1842. He worked on the Missions-Blatt in an editorial capacity from 1848 until 1857, as well as being the archivist in Herrnhut from 1859–1875. His successor, Alexander Glitsch, had been a Diaspora worker in South Russia. See: Römer and also Glitsch’s Dienstlauf, UA, Herrnhut. 44 August G. Spangenberg, Instructions for Missionaries of the Church of the Unitas Fratrum, or United Brethren, trans. from the German, Second (Revised and Enlarged) ed. (London: Brethren’s Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel among the Heathens, 1840), 68. 45 Jensz, “Publication and Reception of David Cranz’s 1767 ‘History of Greenland.’”

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CONTENT OF THE PERIODICALS Missionary periodicals relied upon letters, reports, and diaries from missionaries to provide their readership with news from field. Letters written in the first-person provided a sense of immediacy, intimacy, and also authority. Although much of the content in Victorian periodicals was anonymous, 46 this was not the case for missionary periodicals which often gave the author’s name, providing a link between the missionary in the field with the home audience. As both the Periodical Accounts as well as the Missions-Blatt were organs of the same church, it is not surprising that they drew upon similar sources. The material that was made available for the initial issues of the publication was itself pre-censored by Moravian authorities, ensuring that the content was strictly controlled. 47 A slight difference was that the Periodical Accounts contained more information pertaining to the Labrador mission, the field for which the SFG had a particular responsibility. Besides from the extracts from missionary diaries the Periodical Accounts sought to include in every issue: 1. A memoir of some departed Missionary, or an extract from the records of the earlier missionary labours of the Brethren’s Church. 2. Diaries of existing missionary stations. 3. Extracts of correspondence. 4. Miscellaneous intelligence-comprehending notices of the recent appointment, retirement, or decease of Missionaries. 48

The content itself reflected the Moravian propensity to report almost exclusively on Moravian missions. Other society missionary periodicals such as the Church Missionary Society’s Missionary Register reported upon missionary activity outside of their own society, and as such demonstrated a more inclusive view than the Moravians. The content of the Missions-Blatt was also very Moravian-centric, however, when the periodical was still a fortnightly it reported upon nonMoravian missions, such as the 35th anniversary of the London Society for the Conversion of the Jews, or the state of ‘heathen’ Chinese. 49 In its new form as a monthly it became more Moravian-centric and provided content as the Periodical Accounts had, that is, long extracts from missionary diaries and letters. Both periodicals provided an overview of the missionary work by summarising important events in the missionary correspondence before providing an extract from missionary texts. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Periodical Accounts tended to cut and paste more material from the Missions-Blatt than the other way around, 50 partly reflecting the fact that Germany was the headquarters of the glob46 Josef L. Altholz, “Anonymity and Editorial Responsibility in Religious Journalism,” Victorian Periodicals Review 24, no. 4 (1991): 180–186, 180. 47 Jensz, “Origins of Missionary Periodicals,” 240–245. 48 “Preface (1831),” xii. 49 “Inhalt des siebenten Jahrgangs,” Missions-Blatt 7 (1843): n.p. 50 For example in volume 27 of the Periodical Accounts (1868), of the first thirteen articles, four of them were re-prints from the Missions-Blatt.

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al Moravian church and the location of the Church’s Missionsdepartement, where the majority of decisions affecting the missions were undertaken. What is, however, surprising is the difference in semantics of the texts, demonstrating that the editors shaped the text before printing. The act of editing, reshaping, rewriting, and rephrasing the original contributions of missionaries was undertaken by many missionary societies. Often the texts were edited to provide a different subtext than what the missionary himself or herself may have intended. For example, in editing a missionary’s report an editor could erase any politically sensitive views which might have otherwise damaged relationships between a colony and the missionary society. 51 In examining the editorial changes between a missionary’s private diary and a published periodical, Lize Kriel has argued that through the juxtaposition of written and final published accounts one can discern the voice projected onto the writings intended to please the audience, and this voice, she argues, was often at odds with the lived experiences of the missionaries. 52 Missionaries themselves often found the work of providing material for periodicals tiring. The Scottish missionary Alexander Duff, who himself was no stranger to missionary propaganda having written a book on missionary work in India, 53 bemoaned, “I scorn the idea of dressing up common facts into interesting stories, for the sake of producing an effect,” noting that “there generally is little romance in real life. Conversations with Natives … are almost always mere conversations.” 54 It was not only publishers who changed and manipulated texts to suit their purposes, but also, as A. Jones has demonstrated, the translators of missionary writings. 55 For Jones the more problematic aspect of these changes is the historians’ willingness to unquestionably use the resulting printed version. Between the English and German versions presented in the Periodical Accounts and the Missions-Blatt there were numerous differences in texts that went beyond those of simple translation to changes that affected how one was to read the text. Reports in the Missions-Blatt were, for example, often more emotive than those in the Periodical Accounts. In a missionary’s letter from Australia, the Missions-Blatt reported that the missionary had expected an “incredible ugliness” from the Aborigines, and expected to have to “compose himself to come close to these beings,”56 whereas the Periodical Accounts provided a more tempered and reserved version of the missionary’s letter in that, “we have not found them at all so repulsive as to 51 Jensz, German Moravian Missionaries, 85–87. 52 Lize Kriel, “From Private Journal to Published Periodical,” Book History 11 (2008): 169–198, 175. 53 Alexander Duff, Indian and India Missions: Including Sketches of the Gigantic System of Hinduism, Both in Theory and Practice (Edinburgh: John Johnston, 1840). 54 Duff to Inglis, 30 July 1833, as quoted in: Andrew Porter, “Scottish Missions and Education in Nineteenth-Century India: The Changing Face of ‘Trusteeship,’” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 16, no. 3 (1988): 35–57, 43. 55 A. Jones, “‘Four Years in Asante’: One Source or Several?” History in Africa 18 (1991): 173–203. 56 “Australien,” Missions-Blatt 28, no. 9, (1864): 167–173, 170.

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make it a trial to us to have to do with them.” 57 Neither article refers to the language of the letter, therefore it is difficult for the reader to ascertain which version is the ‘original’ one. It is, of course, plausible that the missionary may have written two slightly different letters for the two different periodicals. Even if this were the case, the differences in texts go beyond mere translation into the realms of stylistic changes to ensure the greatest response from the different perceived audiences. Since most contributions from missionaries for periodicals were focused upon the state of particular missions in specific colonies, worldly political events that affected the work of the mission-field were best critiqued through the voice of the editor. As noted above, individual Moravian missionaries were explicitly instructed not to meddle in the politics of the colonies in which they found themselves – or in Moravian terminology “those lands, in which God has placed them” 58 – lest they be accused of inciting seditious sentiments that might jeopardise the mission work in that geopolitical area. Thus, it was expected that they would not engage in sustained political critique. However, it was not easy, the preface to the 1831 Periodical Accounts noted, for a missionary under all circumstances, to avoid that interference in the civil or political concerns of a country or a colony, which he professes to abjure, and which is seldom, if ever, compatible with the character and prosperity of the work committed to him. 59

Thus, although a certain resistance to the political hegemony was expected from missionaries, their reports were expected to contain missionary intelligence and edifying material in relation to the progress of the mission, and not of the politics that surrounded it. FORM OF THE PERIODICALS The form of the Missions-Blatt differed from the Periodical Accounts insofar as the former included a masthead on the first page of each issue whereas the individual issues of the later had a paper cover in their un-bound state. Individual issues of the Missions-Blatt were thus able to be immediately recognised, even when bound, leading the form to be a constant reminder of its function as a regular provider of missionary intelligence, rather than for it to be read as a book. This difference in form led to one of the most striking differences between the two periodicals. Around the same time that the Missions-Blatt was established, the SFG voiced its desire to see cumulative years worth of individual octave issues of the Periodical Accounts bound together in a volume – a form that externally resembles a book – and, together with a preface and statistics on missionary stations, active missionaries, converts, and missionary helpers, the reader would have at 57 “From Br. A. Hartman,” Periodical Accounts 25, no. 264 (1864): 234–235, 235. 58 “Preface,” Periodical Accounts 9 (1823): iii–ix, iv. 59 “Preface (1831),” xi.

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hand the constant development of the Moravian missionary history as well as an imposing dominant authoritative narrative of the year’s work. 60 Nine or ten numbers, or about two and a half years worth of the quarterly issues, were bound in a single volume, resulting in books of six to seven hundred pages long. Within the bound volumes title pages did not separate numbers, nor did the individual numbers have a masthead, rather an index at the end of the volume indicating the discrete boundaries of each number. These were bound together with an appendix detailing the subscriptions and donations for the support of the Moravian missions over the period between volumes. In contrast the bound Missions-Blatt did not include such extras as editorial content in the form of a preface. The turning of periodicals into books reflects Brian Maidment’s assertion that at the beginnings of the periodical as an identifiable movement there was much fluidity between the two. 61 In binding individual issues of the periodicals in one volume, the editors were relying upon eighteenth-century ways of reading in which, seriality was seen not necessarily as a mode of publication driven by commercial imperatives, but rather as a valuable mechanism for mediating texts into the more permanent formats offered by bookbinders and volume republication. 62

Thus, binding periodicals together turned them into an object for posterity that could be consulted on later occasions. In this way missionary periodicals differed from the popular, non-religious periodicals of the early nineteenth century. Victorian readers were taught to associate periodicity “with topicality and ephemerality,” which represented a version of commodity culture marked by the repeated consumption of a reduplicated commodity.” 63 For many missionary periodicals there was an expectation that all issues would be collated and bound, a fact demonstrated in the frequent cross-referencing to previous articles. For example, the Periodical Accounts instructed its readership to refer to previous issues, with the assumption that the readership kept these copies. 64 Similar instructions were evident in the Missions-Blatt. 65 Missionary societies, such as the New York Methodist society saw the value in binding volumes stating in the first issue of their Methodist Magazine: Let parents consider the Methodist Magazine as a legacy for their posterity, and as soon as the last number of the year is received, have the whole bound together and carefully preserved. 66

Such ways of reading contrasted with early nineteenth-century century commodities destined for light entertainment and disposal. A comment in the inaugural issue of the Missions-Blatt underscored this point: 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

Protocoll des Synods, 1836, I, 20th Session, 1 July, 1836, UA. Maidment, “Periodicals and Serial Publications,” 498. Maidment, “Periodicals and Serial Publications,” 499. Maidment, “Periodicals and Serial Publications,” 499. For example, see: “Preface,” Periodical Accounts 8 (1834): iii–viii, viii. For example, see: Missions-Blatt 2, no. 25 (1838): 193–195, 193. “Address of the Editors of the Methodist Magazine, to its patrons and Friends in the United States, and especially to the Members of the Methodist Episcopal Church,” The Methodist Magazine, for the Year of our Lord 1818 (New York) 1, (1818): 3–7, 6.

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This gazette is – when one excluded the ‘Latest News’ – not a newspaper, in which the single issues could have directly at the time of their appearance a specific transient interest. Rather it is much more suitable that the whole yearly volume be bound in a book, and on occasion be read together. Through its small price it will be no doubt received by many readers, and only through this can it fulfill its goal, that it ceaselessly keeps in mind to reach, namely to be beneficial to the maturing youth and the generation that will come after us. For a more easy use of the bound volume an index of the content is provided here. 67

Binding issues together also provided an opportunity for the editor to reflect upon the cumulative material by providing a preface. According to the London Missionary Repository for Youth, and Sunday School Missionary Magazine of 1842, the editor uses a preface to “generally [tell] you what he has done to please you in the year that has passed, and what he means to do in the year that is to come.”68 Although this may have been the case for juvenile magazines, the prefaces of the Periodical Accounts were less concerned with pandering to the audience’s wishes, rather they contained historical and factual overviews of the preceding years, both for the Moravian’s missionary work as well as global political events that effected this work. 69 These prefaces were “more retrospective than prospective” with the preface of 1868 noting: And these periodical opportunities for a more general and less formal examinations of the Missions of the United Brethren than those which are afforded by the annual surveys, are equally welcome and useful. They enable the intelligent observer to test the utility of past efforts, to measure results, and to accumulate experience for the future. Indeed, it is only by making good use of such occasions to pause, and scrutinize the work, that it is possible to arrive at any correct idea of what has, by the Lord’s blessing, been effected, and what yet remains to be done. 70

The editors of the Periodical Accounts were well aware of their voice in the preface and expressed to their audience the historical nature of the subsequent pages as well as “an indication of the course of procedure suitable and likely to be followed in the immediate future.” 71 Eighteenth-century religious magazines, such as the Arminian Magazine, had used their inaugural preface in 1778 to engage in “polemical theology”, and included neither news nor politics; portraying itself

67 “Anmerkung,” Missions-Blatt 1 (1837): n.p. German original: “Dieses Blatt ist – wenn man etwa dessen ‘Neueste Nachrichten’ ausnimmt – nicht eine Zeitung, deren einzelne Nummern gerade zur Zeit ihrer Erscheinung ein besonderes, vorübergehendes Interesse haben könnten. Vielmehr ist es dazu geeignet, daß der ganze Jahrgange, als ein Buch eingebunden, gelegentlich im Zusammenhang gelesen werde. Durch seinen niedrigen Preis wird es auch solcher Leser ohne Zweifel viele erhalten, und nur dadurch kann es demjenigen Zweck entsprechen, den es unablässig zu berücksichtigen strebt, nämlich der heranwachsenden Jugend, und dem Geschlecht, das nach uns kommen soll, nützlich zu werden. Zu desto bequemerem Gebrauch des eingebundenen Jahrgangs ist die Anzeige des Inhalts hier vorangesetzt.” 68 “A Letter instead of a Preface,” London Missionary Repository for Youth, and Sunday School Missionary Magazine (London) iv (1842): iii–v, iii. 69 “Preface,” Periodical Accounts 25 (1863): iii–xx, iv. 70 “Preface,” Periodical Accounts 27 (1868): iii–xvi, iii. 71 “Preface (1863),” iii.

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rather as more “a sword than a trowel.” 72 Other religious periodicals such as the Evangelical Magazine, which contained frequent missionary intelligence drawn from various religious sources, used their annual prefaces of the first series to reiterate the pedagogical and edifying aims of the publication. Occasionally they reflect upon how political events, such as the French Revolution and the Union of Ireland with Britain – which itself was another form of British colonisation – provided opportunities for Protestant religious organisations to extend their work into these hitherto Catholic countries. 73 Although such comments were descriptions of the consequence of political events, they were not seen by the editor to be political, for, as the periodical proudly stated: “No political sentiment, from any quarter, has ever obtained admission into our publication,” rather that they wished to direct their readership to “higher objects, and matters of superior consideration.”74 Indeed, as the precursors of many missionary periodicals were non-devotional religious publications, politics were often seen as not being of consequence to the edifying objective of the periodical. In contrast to English-language missionary periodicals, German-language ones tended not to contain regular prefaces, and in this matter the Missions-Blatt was not anomalous. The Evangelisches Missions-Magazin, as a digest of multiple missionary periodicals included a preface when introducing the new series in 1857, but did not provide regular prefaces after this date, even though subsequent annual volumes were bound with content lists and indexes. 75 More common was the inclusion of a ‘Schlußwort,’ or closing remarks, in the last issue of the year. The fortnightly Calwer Missionsblatt, for example was first published in 1828, and although it did not contain prefaces, the bound volumes always contained an index, with the last issue of every year containing a ‘closing remarks’ of between a couple of lines up to one and half pages. 76 These remarks followed more the tone of the London Missionary Repository for Youth, insofar as the editor “generally tells you what he has done to please you in the year that has passed, and what he means to do in the year that is to come.” 77 Politics was a subject rarely commented upon in these closing remarks. The Missions-Blatt generally followed this trend, even after 1880 when a short overview article was included in the first issue of every year, being, however, more edifying than political. Titles such as “I am with you, declares the Lord” reflected the edifying nature of these short pieces. 78 Even in the midst of the Franco-Prussian war, the editorial text did not comment upon the politics of the situation, rather used the war to segue into a discussion 72 “The Hundredth Year of the Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine,” Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine 1 (sixth series), no. 1 (1877): 1–12, 1. For more on inaugural editorials see: Felicity Jensz, “The Function of Inaugural Editorials in Missionary Periodicals,” Church History 83, no. 2 (2013): 374–380. 73 Evangelical Magazine 15 (1807): iii–iv, iii; “Preface,” Evangelical Magazine 11 (1803): n.p. 74 “Preface,” Evangelical Magazine 10 (1802): n.p. 75 “Vorwort,” Evangelisches Missions-Magazin 1 New Series (1857): 3–6. 76 “Schlußwort,” Calwer Missionsblatt 1, no. 26 (1828): 111–112. 77 “A Letter instead of a Preface,” iii–v, iii. 78 “Ich bin mit euch, spricht der Herr. Hag. 1,13.” Missions-Blatt 34, no.1 (1870): 1.

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about the holy war waged upon heathenism. 79 Mostly, however, the editorial voice was evident in introductory comments to missionary texts, or in footnotes, with these comments dotted throughout the text and being of a descriptive and not of an analytical nature. 80 In the initial volume of the Missions-Blatt, it was only in the last issue that Holm provided an editorial overview for the year gone under the title, “Schluß des ersten Jahrgangs” (close of the first year), which was full of Biblical references rather than an overview of the missionary advances during the year. Subsequent issues of the Missions-Blatt did not contain regular closing remarks, rather the fortnightly issues were bound with only a title page and content list, thus providing no singular text in which the reader could glean for editorial comment. From 1883, an overview of the yearly mission work of the Moravians was included in the Missions-Blatt, which was written by the Missionsdepartement. In this text the reader could discern the view of the Missionsdepartement, however, it was mostly as apolitical as that of the editorial comments. Prefaces themselves were written as a retrospective of the year, and provided the readership with a notion of how the subsequent pages should be read. They were not, however, self-evident with the editor often explicitly stating the reason for including one, such as in the case of prefaces to inaugural issues of missionary periodicals. Some periodicals such as the Evangelical Magazine included a preface to the annual volume out of habit, a sentiment expressed in 1807: “No Book can need a Preface less than a Magazine; yet, such is the force of custom, that our Annual Volume would appear imperfect without one.” 81 The Periodical Accounts had sporadically provided prefaces in the early years and only from 1834, after which time the habitual binding of the volumes occurred was a regularly preface provided. The period of two and a half years between prefaces was long enough to see trends develop as well as to observe the medium term consequences of extraordinary events, including political ones. POLITICS WITHIN THE PREFACES The prefaces of the Periodical Accounts largely contained historical and edifying texts, with this forum used to reiterate the Church’s dominant historical narrative as well as to reflect on the progress of this singular missionary society from the date of the last preface. However, on occasion it also included remarks on European political developments, especially when these comments reflected what was seen as Providence. Such reflections were particularly directed towards the effects which European world political events had had upon the missions in various European colonial spaces. Moravians were well aware of the entangled nature of their mission and of the capacity held by both colonial as well as world political events to affect their global missionary work. The editorial voice in the Periodical 79 Missions-Blatt 35, no. 1 (1871): 2. 80 For example, see: “Australien,” Misisons-Blatt 2 (1863): 23–30, footnote on page 29. 81 Evangelical Magazine 15 (1807): iii–iv, iii.

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Accounts was wont to couch such political events in benign terms, such when describing the tensions between Britain and the United States over the area known as the Mosquito Coast, in which the preface reported “Unsettled as the political circumstances of the MOSQUITO COAST have been and still are, the word of the Lord has free course and is glorified [emphasis in original].” 82 Such comments diminished the focus upon world politics in favour of the divine. In another example from 1858 following a failed attempted to establish a mission in China, the Moravians hoped to establish a new mission field in Tibet. The preface expressed the following: Into that country they may hope ere long to be able to penetrate should it please the Lord to open to European Christians the Western as well as the Eastern provinces of the Chinese Empire and to incite its ruler to give full effect to the conditions of the treaty lately concluded with the plenipotentiaries of Great Britain and France. 83

Thus European foreign politics was seen to be a matter of Providence, with Providence itself deeming to favour the British Empire. In further reflecting this theme, the Periodical Accounts noted that the “enlightened colonial policy,” the enfranchisement of slaves throughout the British world, and the increased respect granted towards the Moravian’s work in education were three factors that led to “an increased demand for Missionary exertion.” 84 By the mid-nineteenth century, the Moravian Church had expanded across all inhabited continents, with much of their work undertaken in the British Empire. For example in 1862, of 77,519 people connected spiritually to the 84 mission Moravian mission stations under British, Danish, Dutch and United States administration, more than half were British subjects. 85 The success of British international and imperial politics was itself seen by the Periodical Accounts as a sign of divine favour, and it was within such broader British nationalistic concepts of Divine grace that the Periodical Accounts placed itself. Thus, in 1861 it was stated: To Britain, our beloved native land, the divine goodness has continued to be signally displayed. Her insular position, her free constitutional monarchy, and the many civil and religious privileges that she enjoys, have been the means, in the hand of God, and through His unmerited favour, of preserving her from the revolutionary troubles, by which some nations have been convulsed, and with which others are still threatened. 86

And thus, through the explicitly nationalistic voice within the preface, the Periodical Accounts aligned itself implicitly with the international politics of Britain – inclusive of the colonial politics – as a sign of Divine grace. The Periodical Accounts were by no means the only British missionary periodical that explicitly supported the British colonial endeavour, rather reflected more general trends

82 83 84 85

“Preface (1863),” iv. “Preface,” Periodical Accounts 23 (1858): iii–xxiv, ix. “Preface,” Periodical Accounts 15 (1839): iii–xii, vi. “Table, Containing the Numerical Result of the Missionary Labours of the Church of the United Brethren, at the end of the Year 1862,” Periodical Accounts 25 (1863): xxiii–xxv. 86 “Preface,” Periodical Accounts 24 (1861): iii–xxiv, iii.

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within evangelical Protestant missionary circles. 87 Indeed, as Jeremy Best demonstrates in his article in this collection, at the turn of the twentieth century a providential nationalism was espoused by German missionaries within the within the Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift, demonstrating that missionary nationalism was a common feature of the period. During the period in question Germany was not a unified national state, nor were there any German colonies, although as Matthew Fitzpatrick has argued, colonial aspirations amongst German nationalists were evident as early as 1848. 88 That is, at this time the German Moravian Church could not look towards colonies with the same nationalistic voice that the English Moravians could. As the Missions-Blatt did not include a preface, a singular political voice of the editor is more difficult to discern. Editorial comments were, however, embedded in issues and provided a political critique. This was particularly evident after an editorial change around 1850 when the format of the periodical changed from fortnightly to monthly publication, with a higher concentration of Moravian mission-centred content included and overt reference to Bible-study texts omitted. The political voice evident from this time was, however, much less obvious than that espoused through the preface of the Periodical Accounts, and was intended only for the careful and active reader of the Missions-Blatt. For example, in the midst of an article on Australia in the June edition of the 1863 Missions-Blatt the editor noted that within Germany there had recently been many reports published in which missionaries were blamed for the extermination of different peoples, whereas in Australia the religious population saw the missions as the singular way in which Aboriginal people could be saved from their own demise. The editorial voice within the article comments on the extermination of Indigenous Australians in a broader context by noting that the genocides of the Caribs at the hands of the Spaniards, or the extermination of whole groups of peoples through Western diseases such as smallpox in North America, or venereal diseases in Australia, as well as cultural practices such as infanticide practiced amongst the Pacific Islanders were factors for the demise of indigenous groups. The article continued by stating that missionaries were not to be blamed for any of these aforementioned genocides, rather they were seen to be saviours of such peoples that stood on the edge of annihilation. 89 Thus, in the midst of an article, the Missions-Blatt aligned itself with the broader global Protestant missionary movement through criticising the effects of colonisation, and the Spanish form of colonisation in particular, and through doing so legitimised mission work as the moral counterweight of a global imperial endeavour, regardless of the empire in question. Conversely, the Periodical Accounts aligned itself strongly with Britain’s nationalistic sentiment, as the 87 For example, see: Kriel, “From Private Journal to Published Periodical,” 169–198; Anna Johnston, “British Missionary Publishing, Missionary Celebrity and Empire,” Nineteenth Century Prose 32, no. 2 (2005): 20–47. 88 Mathew Fitzpatrick, Liberal Imperialism in Germany: Expansionism and Nationalism 1848– 1884, Monographs in German History 23 (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008). 89 “Australien,” Missions-Blatt 27, no. 6 (1863): 125–130, 129.

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extracts above exemplify, and thus presented themselves as an integral part of the moral component of the British imperial endeavour – an important distinction from that of positioning of the Missions-Blatt. Although both the Missions-Blatt and the Periodical Accounts were prone to criticising the effects of colonisation, especially since civilisation was seen to have brought vices with it, the political process of British colonisation itself was not often critiqued. Without such processes of colonisation and the structures and institutions that accompanied it, the Moravian Church itself would not have had access to foreign lands or peoples to convert. Thus, comments critical of colonisation could not criticise colonial governments overtly, rather critical comments were often couched in terms which placed the blame upon the so-called heathen for themselves being so morally weak that they were able to be tempted by the vices of European civilisation. Missionaries thereby positioned themselves as the only people capable of protecting indigenous peoples from the vices of European civilisations. CONCLUSION The juxtaposition of two missionary periodicals published under the auspice of the same Church, and ones which cross-published and utilised much of the same content, has demonstrated the broader political voices that were deemed acceptable for different geopolitical situations. These factors must be kept in mind when we use missionary periodicals as source material. Moreover, the analysis of the two periodicals points to the fact that the form of a missionary periodical affected the political voice within. Within the prefaces of the Periodical Accounts, the editors aligned themselves with the moral aspects of both Moravian and British dominant narratives through explicitly mentioning both the normative Moravian narrative as well as the success of British missionary and evangelical reformers in influencing the enactment of moral reforms through parliament. As the MissionsBlatt did not include a preface, such overarching arguments could not be made, and even after the inclusion of a yearly overview from the Missionsdepartement after 1883 overtly political comments were generally avoided. Germany was neither a united national state, nor did it have colonies until the late nineteenth century, and as such the Missions-Blatt could not express imperial aspirations analogous to those in the Periodical Accounts, yet on the few occasions that overtly politically critical remarks were made about colonial rule they could deem themselves to be counterweights to the forces of imperialism. Ultimately, the differences in form and function of these periodicals both contributed to and reflected the capacity and motivation for political expression within nineteenth-century missionary periodicals.

THE ALLGEMEINE MISSIONS-ZEITSCHRIFT AND MISSIONARY NATIONALISM Science for Mission and Empire Jeremy Best In the pages of the Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift (AMZ) the leadership of Germany’s Protestant missionary movement weighed and measured their spiritual and national obligations. The AMZ stood as one of the essential components in uniting Germany’s Protestant missionary community and its authors wrote for an ecumenical audience in order to promote the interests of German mission to a wider public. The journal’s founder and editor for thirty-six years, Gustav Warneck, and his colleagues aimed to legitimise missionary enterprise to Germany’s educated and propertied middle-classes while improving the efficacy of mission itself. Furthermore, the journal would bring to its audience’s attention “culturally and religiously historical, geographic, ethnological, and similar questions” relevant to evangelical work. 1 As both a forum and a testing ground, the journal exists as a key document for identifying the goals and principles of the German missionary leadership of intellectuals and mission officials between its establishment in 1874 until 1918. In addition, it provides a unique opportunity to understand the role of missionary politics in a collaborative publication during Germany’s imperial period. As a journal designed and intended to serve all German Protestant missionaries and mission supporters, the AMZ brought together readers and contributors from the entirety of the German Protestant missionary movement. As a result, an analysis of its contents reveals important details of the common goals and viewpoints of German Protestant missionary societies. Politics in the AMZ was distinctly concerned with two questions: What was the correct theological and practical balance of universal Christian evangelism and national identity? And, how should German missionaries, in following the Christian injunction to minister to all peoples, relate to the German colonial state? The most important ideological issue for German missionary leaders was the relationship between an international Christianity that traversed all human boundaries and a nationalist loyalty to the

1

Gustav Warneck, “Dic cur hic?,” Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift [AMZ] 1 (1874), 5. German original: “[C]ultur- und religionsgeschichtliche, geographische, ethnologische und ähnliche Fragen.” All translations are the author’s unless otherwise indicated.

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German Empire. Contributors and editors would repeatedly return to this issue in the pages of the AMZ. This chapter will focus on the efforts of German missionary leaders to find the correct relationship between universalism and nationalism, and to influence their colleagues and readers to maintain that correct relationship; it will also reveal how political consensus within the AMZ shifted over time. This will be done by first describing the content of the AMZ in broad strokes to illustrate how editors sought to address the challenges of creating a national mission movement while linking that movement to an international mission ideal. Then this chapter will turn to a close reading of key representative articles on the specific relationship between Christian mission and European (German) colonialism. This approach will first demonstrate how in its very composition the AMZ served to provide a focus for German national missionary work and to forge a bond between German missions and the international world. Then it will show that influential German missionaries shared common ideas about how the relationship between German missionaries and the German colonial state should be structured to conform to the ideal of a universal missionary project. Finally, the chapter will describe how time and changing cultural and political forces began to modify the consensus amongst German missionary leaders in the years before WWI. In aggregate this will reveal the political import of the AMZ in German missionary and colonial politics. ORGANISATION AND COMPOSITION OF THE AMZ The AMZ set for itself an ambitious purpose. It would serve as the source of indepth information for the educated classes of the Kaiserreich on all matters directly and often tangentially related to Christian mission and missionaries. The AMZ cast a wide net, offering its readers material on languages of the Himalayan plateau 2 as well as discussions of the history of Christian conversion in the medieval German lands. 3 This broad reach led the AMZ to become something of a hybrid publication which mixed elements of a news-magazine, scholarly journal, and digest of mission society reports. What separated the AMZ from other missionary periodicals was its scholarly direction and broad sampling from all Protestant mission societies. On the metaphorical bookshelf of nineteenth-century German missionary publications, the majority of space was consumed with the regular reports from individual mission societies, only the Evangelisches MissionsMagazin, put out by the Basel Mission Society, attempted the same sort of broad coverage of missionary politics as the AMZ.

2 3

August H. Francke, “Die sprachlichen Verhältnisse der Himalayamission der Brüdergemeine,” AMZ 25 (1898): 439–446. [Johann F.] Iken, “Die Missionsthätigkeit des Hamburg-Bremischen Erzbistums im Mittelalter,” AMZ 19 (1892): 145–159, 221–234, 278–289, and 511–529.

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In its composition the AMZ set out to achieve three goals. First, it presented articles about the activities of German mission societies around the world, in German as well as other European colonies. By doing so the AMZ helped communicate to its readers the global character of German mission, the inextricable intertwining of German mission activities with all the colonizing and colonized peoples of the earth. Second, within this demonstration of German mission’s global character the editors and contributors to the AMZ connected its readers, who were implicit supporters of German missionary work, to the broader international missionary movement. This goal was further supplemented by the frequent articles presented by foreign contributors and about non-German Protestant mission societies. Finally, the AMZ’s focus on presenting the best scientific and scholarly work for its readers helped mark the journal as a modern, respectable publication. German missionaries came to see themselves as the most ‘scientific’ missionaries making Germany’s greatest contributions to the international mission movement. The editorial scope of the publication grew out of the AMZ’s place in its founding editor’s idealized reorganisation of Germany’s missionary culture. Gustav Warneck wished to elevate the cultural and political place of Germany’s missionary movement within German cultural life. In his view, Germany was a powerful Protestant nation that ought to be focused on the promotion of Christianity worldwide. In order to achieve this elevation of the German missionary movement, Warneck sought to federate the established mission societies of the German Empire into one national organisation; connect that organisation with the international missionary movement based in the British Isles, Scandinavia, and the United States; and mobilise the tens of millions of German Protestants to make Germany a leading missionary nation. 4 In the first several decades of its publication the AMZ went a long way to present missionary activities as independent from the German state and the German missionary movement as part of an international mission movement. The AMZ was published by C. Bertelsmann in Gütersloh, fitting nicely into Bertelsmann’s traditional role as a producer of religious works. By the end of the 1880s around 2,600 monthly copies of the journal were being published, reaching a peak of 3,000 subscribers in 1912. 5 From its inception until his death in 1910, Gustav Warneck served as chief editor. In its early years the journal also identified the theologians and missionary authorities Theodor Christlieb and Reinhold Grundemann as associate editors. In 1890, after Christlieb’s death, Franz Michael Zahn took over as associate editor, and after Zahn’s death in 1900 Charles

4

5

Hans Kasdorf, “Zu Gustav Warnecks Bedeutung für Theologie und Kirche (unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Missionskonferenzen),” in Es begann in Halle… Missionswissenschaft von Gustav Warneck bis heute, eds. Dieter Becker and Andreas Feldtkeller (Erlangen: Verlag der Ev.-Luth. Mission, 1997): 24–26. Joachim Kirchner, Das deutsche Zeitschriftenwesen: Seine Geschichte und seine Probleme, vol. 2 (Otto Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden, 1962), 278. The 1912 number appears in Sperlings Zeitschriften-Addressbuch, 1912, s. v. “Missions-Zeitschrift, Allgemeine.”

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Buchner, a member of the Moravian Church’s Missionsdirektion, took Zahn’s place. The first of the next generation of mission leadership took over on Buchner’s death in 1908 when Julius Richter became associate editor, marking the beginnings of a shift in the journal’s stance on the internationalist/nationalist axis. After Warneck’s death in 1910, Richter and Gustav Warneck’s son, Johannes Warneck, became chief co-editors of the journal. These seven men would be the guiding hands behind the journal’s content and their professional connections demonstrate the communality of the AMZ’s work. Gustav Warneck and his son Johannes both had worked with the Rhenish Mission Society, Franz Michael Zahn served as director of the North German Mission Society, Charles Buchner sat on the Missionsdirektion of the Brüdergemeine, and Julius Richter was affiliated with the Berlin Mission Society. Theodor Christlieb and Reinhold Grundemann were both noted mission theologians, Christlieb as professor of theology at the university in Bonn and, though Grundemann was not affiliated with any one particular mission society, he did found the Brandenburg Mission Conference. Contributors to the AMZ came from an equally broad sampling within Germany and other Protestant mission countries. True to Warneck’s integrative intentions, before and during WWI the AMZ maintained a geographically diverse focus. This helped declare to its readers the internationalism of German Protestant mission and the collective reach of international Protestantism. A study of the tables of contents reveals this diversity. 6 Out of nearly 500 article and book review titles analysed from the AMZ, more than half took as their area of study or reportage missionary nations in Europe and North America other than Germany. 7 This included the home activities of missions, ‘inner’ mission work like migrant mission at urban train stations and ‘reChristianisation’ efforts in working-class slums, and activities by missionaries in the colonial empires of Western powers. The category of missionaries in Western colonial empires is somewhat inexact as it includes articles and book reviews about German mission societies operating in the British Empire, for example, as well as Scottish missionary societies working amongst indigenous peoples of Germany’s East African colony. This data set overlaps with a data set termed by nineteenth-century missionaries as the ‘mission field,’ from which the distribution of geographical focus of articles and reviews of books could be discerned. Broadly speaking, and using divisions that the European missionaries favoured themselves, 8 over one-third of all articles in the data set concerned the African

6 7 8

The analysis at this time has covered issues of the AMZ published from 1877–1899 with only the issues from 1880, 1887, 1890, and 1893–1896 missing. It also includes the issues from 1915–1918. 54% of articles and book reviews with discernible geographic foci (263 out of 487). My categories are roughly analogous to those used in the Report of the 1910 World Missionary Conference. See: World Missionary Conference 1910, Report of Commissions I–VII (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1910).

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continent and 97% of those were on Sub-Saharan African mission fields. 9 The Indian sub-continent and British-dominated Ceylon accounted for almost onesixth of all articles; and articles on the modern Middle East 10 and China composed one-tenth of all identifiable regions. 11 By the late nineteenth century India remained an important area of missionary activity, Africa had emerged as a focus of mission activity since the abolition of the slave trade, and both China and the Muslim World had emerged as important areas of expanding missionary interest in the last two decades before WWI. A more surprising discovery is the amount of attention directed toward the Indonesian Archipelago and what readers of the AMZ would have known as the South Sea Islands. More than one-tenth of all articles and books reviewed are concerned with the history, natural history, societies, and missionary operations on those islands, outstripping both China and the Middle East as an area of interest. 12 The data on Africa deserve some disambiguation. The journal’s coverage of African mission matters reflected a greater interest in specifically German missionary endeavours. Consequently the vast majority of articles were split between South, East, and Central Africa which, in this analysis included the German colonies of Deutsch-Südwestafrika, Deutsch-Ostafrika, and Kamerun respectively, as well as the historically significant mission fields evangelised by German missionaries in Britain’s South African territories since the early nineteenth century. 13 In terms of specific colonial rulers the AMZ also focused on British and German colonies to the vast exclusion of other colonial territories. This should not be surprising as the other colonial powers in Africa were all Catholic and, although the Congress of Berlin had articulated a principle of religious freedom, in practice Protestants favoured working in Protestant colonial territories. 14 In addition, the focus on British and German colonies speaks to the focus of the journal on the international Protestant missionary community, French and other Catholic mission organisations only receive scant positive or neutral attention though they do appear frequently in polemical tracts. 15

9 10 11 12 13

178 out of 464 articles took Africa as their subject region, or 38.4%. Here defined as Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, and Persia. India and Ceylon had 73 articles (15.7%), the Middle East 51 (11%), and China 44 (9.5%). 56 articles (12.1%) cover topics on the Indonesian Archipelago and Oceania. 51 articles cover activities and subject matter in East Africa, 48 in South Africa, and 42 in Central Africa; compared to only 13 in West Africa. 18 articles covered the entire continent or referred to Africa non-specifically. 14 110 out of 178 articles on African topics cover German and British colonial possessions, 61.8% of all articles on Africa. 15 French missionary activities only receive explicit coverage in approximately 2.5% of all articles and book reviews (12 total). On the other hand, of the 36 articles on the Catholic Church and its activities (7% of identifiable article topics), 14 betray with their titles hostile perspectives and 3 imply it with label “Jesuit.” The Society of Jesus had long been a bugbear to German Protestants and liberals. For more on the history of anti-Catholicism in Germany during this period, see: Michael B. Gross, The War against Catholicism: Liberalism and Anti-

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Beyond the deliberately international scope of the AMZ its editors also sought to present readers with the full spectrum of content for the interested consumer of all mission-related matters. The organisation of the yearly digest copies of the AMZ provide insight into how editors and readers might have consumed the material produced by the journal’s many contributors. In the publication’s early years, Warneck organized the end-of-year table of contents into five categories: ‘Chronicle,’ which contained articles of current news and reporting; ‘Mission Gazette’ (re-titled ‘Mission Review’ in 1882), a section that compiled information from mission society publications to report on missionary activities from around the missionary globe; ‘Theoretical and Apologetic,’ contained articles on missionary methodology alongside programmatic, theological and political advocacy for mission in both the religious and secular sphere; ‘Religious History,’ wherein Warneck and the other editors intermittently placed articles on the non-Western religious practices and beliefs of the so-called ‘educated peoples’ of the Near East, South Asia, and East Asia, as interpreted by AMZ contributors; and ‘Literary’ (eventually re-titled ‘Literature Report’ in 1884, then back to ‘Literary’ for most of the 1890s, stuck with the title ‘Mission Literature’ from 1897 to 1912 before settling on the compromise ‘Mission Literary’ through WWI), which was a collection of reviews of published materials. This categorisation persisted in its general form with some modifications over the forty-six years covered here. The Historical section underwent the most frequent name and content shift sliding from ‘Chronicle’ to ‘Chronicle, Geographical and Ethnological’ then dropping the geographic designation, again expanding to the title ‘Chronicle, Statistical and Ethnological’ before finally settling just before the turn of the twentieth century on the simple title, ‘Mission Chronicle.’ With these shifts editors sought to burnish the AMZ’s intellectual credentials by utilising new scientific terms to better emphasize the universal (because they were seen as being more scientific) nature of the articles. Over time the editorial staff worked to rationalise the journal’s content with the latest issues of the journal having the clear organisation of materials into ‘Mission Chronicle’, ‘Mission Theory’, ‘Mission Literature’, and ‘Missionary Review.’ Along with the categories created by Warneck and his successors at the AMZ, it is useful to consider more critically and analytically the articles based upon their titles and a brief examination of their specific content. About one-fifth of all original or reprinted content in the AMZ concerned itself with what could be categorised as German missionary news and promotion, these articles did not deal

Catholic Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004); Ronald J. Ross, The Failure of Bismarck’s Kulturkampf: Catholicism and State Power in Imperial Germany, 1871–1887 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1998); and Helmut Walser Smith, German Nationalism and Religious Conflict: Culture, Ideology, Politics, 1870–1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).

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directly with the ‘wissenschaftliche’ purposes of the journal. 16 These articles served the interests of the German Protestant missionary community by either providing reports on the current issues of national missionary politics, or publicising the festivals and jubilees of mission societies. In other instances, these sorts of articles promoted what the journal’s editors judged the proper place of German mission and its societies in imperial society. Examples like “On Defense against the Right and the Left,” 17 “On Characteristics of the Jesuit Polemic,” 18 and “Mission in the German Parliament,” 19 demonstrated the investment of the editorial staff in religious and secular politics. At the same time the AMZ also featured regular reports on the domestic activities of German missions and the prosaic concerns of missionary societies with fundraising and mobilising human capital. 20 Significant print space was devoted to the academic goals of the AMZ. These goals were meant to bulwark and energise mission practice with the very best scientific knowledge. In the process, these articles redirected the focus from the national to the international by bringing articles from important scholars in the growing field of anthropology into the same issues of the AMZ with coverage of complex theological and religious issues. Alongside those disciplines, Warneck and his colleagues included articles on more practical questions of missionary method. By including empirical, scientific work the AMZ asserted to foreign and domestic observers its and German missionaries’ place as part of a universal movement founded on rationalistic modern methods. The 1892 issues of the AMZ offer explicit demonstration of this phenomenon. The reader who consumed the entirety of that year’s journal’s offerings would have read the serialised ethnographic and geographic reports from the missionary geographer Reinhold Grundemann on his travels through India, 21 an article on “The Bible in Mission” 22 by the eminent missiologist and North German Mission Society head Franz Michael Zahn, a discussion of South Asian music, 23 and articles on Chinese religion. 24

16 104 articles (20.1%) covered topics related to the activities of German missions from a publicity perspective. 17 “Zur Abwehr nach rechts und links,” AMZ 5 (1878): 49–69. 18 “Zur Charakteristik der jesuitischen Polemik,” AMZ 11 (1884): 219–222. 19 [Gustav Warneck], “Die Mission im deutschen Reichstage,” AMZ 16 (1889): 105–111. 20 For example, see: Inspektor von Rohden, “Geschichte des Missionslebens in Rheinland und Westfalen,” AMZ 4 (1877): 259–277 and 326–333; Th[eodor] F. Christlieb, “Über die akademischen Missions-Vereine Deutschlands,” AMZ 10 (1883): 454–461; Gustav Warneck, “Zum Jubiläumsjahr der evang. Mission,” AMZ 19 (1892): 3–4; for examples of coverage of German missionary societies in the ‘Heimat,’ the term German mission societies used to refer to their fundraising and propagandizing work in Germany. 21 R[einhold] Grundemann, “Indische Reisefrüchte I–IV,” AMZ 19 (1892): 4–20, 57–70, 160– 184 and 204–216. 22 F[ranz] M. Zahn, “Der Bibel in der Mission,” AMZ 19 (1892): 393–411. 23 J. Bruske, “Zur indischen Musik,” AMZ 19 (1892): 529–533.

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The educated reader, suitably enlightened about the respectability of missionary work could also count on the AMZ to provide him or her with information relevant to German imperial and colonial politics. The AMZ’s mixed content, ranging from the everyday to the specialised, meant that the journal was able to seriously engage with major issues of international concern journalistically. For example, as Germany’s geopolitical policy shifted to the Pacific Rim and Ottoman East, coverage in the AMZ of missionary topics in those areas expanded. Between 1897 and 1899 and 1915 and 1918, articles and reviews of books concerning the Middle East or Central Asia increased by a factor of two or more when compared with the periods between 1874 and 1897 and 1899 and 1914. 25 Articles on East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania made a significant jump in 1897 and the two following years. 26 This significantly coincided with the declaration by German Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow that Germany would henceforth pursue a global policy of German power, identified in German as Weltpolitik, and in which the German imperial navy established the protectorate in China on the Jiaozhou Bay. Together, these events signalled the implementation of an intensified expansionistic and imperialistic foreign policy by Germany’s leadership. The AMZ also took pains to deal with news items that had a particular impact on the missionary community in a timely manner and sought to provide its audience with relevant coverage of events. One of the best examples is coverage given by Warneck and his colleagues to the events in the Kingdom of Buganda in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Buganda became an area of both political and religious rivalry in the late 1880s and early 1890s. There British and German imperialists contended for influence over the indigenous elite while French Catholic and British Protestant missionaries and their politically powerful African converts vied with Muslims for authority. In 1892, as the British government began extending control over the area, the editors of the AMZ reacted with despair at the compromise being made between the British Imperial East Africa Company and the Bugandan king who represented the Catholic faction in Uganda. 27 Articles ap-

24 Charles Piton, “Der Buddhismus in China,” AMZ 19 (1892): 118–126; [Ferdinand Wilhelm] Dietrich, “Die Religionen Chinas,” AMZ 19 (1892): 419–424 and E[rnst] R. Eichler, “Die religiöse Traktatliteratur der Chinesen,” AMZ 19 (1892): 499–511. 25 Between 1897 and 1899 16.9% of all articles and book reviews concentrated on the Middle East or Central Asia (14 articles and book reviews out of 83). Between 1915 and 1918 the same category of articles and book reviews accounted for 24.7% (19 out of 77). By comparison, the remaining sample years’ articles on the Middle East and Central Asia accounted for only 8.2% (25 out of 304). 26 Between 1897 and 1899 articles on Oceania, East and Southeast Asia made up 37.3% of all articles on mission fields (31 out of 83 articles and book reviews) as compared to 27.6% of articles on mission fields over the entire sample set of 20 publication years (128 out of 464). 27 For more on the events in Uganda see: Jean-Pierre Chrétien, The Great Lakes of Africa: Two Thousand Years of History, trans. Scott Straus (New York: Zone Books, 2003), 207–211 and 224–232; for general background and for a more specific treatment of the issue see: Holger Bernt Hansen, Mission, Church and State in a Colonial Setting: Uganda, 1890–1925 (Lon-

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peared entitled: “On the Situation in Uganda,” “English News out of Uganda,” “Reports of English Missionaries on the Catastrophe in Uganda,” and “The Truth about Uganda.” 28 Warneck’s anti-Catholicism came to the fore; he published seven polemical articles accusing the Catholics of dishonesty in their reports of Catholic mission work in 1892 alone. 29 Similarly, the AMZ editorship directed its readers’ attention to Madagascar as the French finalised their control of the island, giving over space for four articles by one author 30 in 1897 on the ‘troubles’ in the new protectorate. 31 The political relevance of the AMZ continued in WWI. In 1915 the journal included a two-part article from the Orientalist and documenter of the Armenian Genocide, Johannes Lepsius, entitled “Our Alliance with Turkey.” 32 Lepsius’s article was lengthy and provided readers with extensive background and context for understanding German international relations during WWI, in particular from the missionary perspective. Lepsius told his readers that the changed politics of the region would force a new view of Islam upon missionaries in Southwest Asia. 33 This sentiment likely also explained why Julius Richter and Johannes Warneck expanded coverage of the Middle East and Ottoman Empire during the war years. In general the war revealed the ongoing efforts of the AMZ to be a relevant and contemporaneous forum in German politics and its urge to bring together international and national missionary politics. During the war, even as contact with missionaries abroad dwindled and hopes for a future German missionary presence around the world faltered, the AMZ published articles entitled “The War

28

29

30 31

32 33

don: Heinemann, 1984), 3–57; for an interesting treatment of the relationship between Christianity and African notions of honour in the Great Lakes in general and Uganda in specific see: John Iliffe, Honour in African History (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 161–180. Gustav Warneck, “Zur Lage in Uganda,” AMZ 19 (1892): 254–261; Gustav Warneck, “Englische Nachrichten aus Uganda,” AMZ 19 (1892): 377–381; Gustav Warneck, “Berichte der englischen Missionare über die Katastrophe in Uganda,” AMZ 19 (1892): 424–431; and Gustav Warneck, “Die Wahrheit über Uganda,” AMZ 19 (1892): 475–476. See: Gustav Warneck, “Gefälschte römische Missions-Berichte”; “Eine charakteristische Illustration zur Substituierungsmethode in der römischen Mission”; “Wieder eine rätselhafte katholische Missionsstatistik”; “Wieder ein Pröbchen röm. Polemik betr. Uganda”; “Noch einmal eine Probe römischer Polemik”; “Über die Zuverlässigkeit der Illustrationen von ‘Gott will es’”; “Endurteil über die kath. Zeitschrift ‘Gott will es’” in: AMZ 19 (1892). It is difficult to be absolutely certain as in the AMZ the author is only identified as “G. Kurze,” but a Guenter Kurze wrote other materials on Madagascar and other ‘exotic’ missionary locales in this period. G[uenter] Kurze, “Die Wirren in Madagaskar,” AMZ 24 (1897): 160–181; G[uenter] Kurze, “Die ‘Germania’ und die Jesuitenplage in Madagaskar,” AMZ 24 (1897): 249–256; G[uenter] Kurze, “Noch einmal die ‘Germania’ und die Jesuitenplage in Madagaskar,” AMZ 24 (1897): 403–412; G. Kurze, “Die Lage in Madagaskar,” AMZ 24 (1897): 471–476 and 564–592. Joh[annes] Lepsius, “Unsere Waffenbrüderschaft mit der Türkei,” AMZ 42 (1915): 81–92 and 144–157. Lepsius, “Unsere Waffenbrüderschaft,”157.

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as Educator,” 34 “Mission, American Democracy and War-Agitation,” 35 and a “Numerical Overview of the War’s Impact.” 36 Structurally and editorially the AMZ endeavoured to bring the world of the devout missionary and the educated middle classes of Germany together. The scope of the journal’s coverage supported efforts by the editorial staff to publish a specialised journal with broad appeal. By including articles on diverse topics, the editors created a publication that stimulated readers in support of the overall goals of the journal: to mobilise the best German science and apply it to the everyday problems of Christian mission work, to bind Germany’s mission societies together with each other and with the global Protestant mission world, and to validate German mission activity as serious work being done by serious people. The AMZ’s editors and contributors embedded within this diverse background their complex views about the relationship between universalist and particularistic values. They asserted the national vision of a unified German Protestant missionary movement by collecting articles and news reports from and about every significant German Protestant mission. By highlighting the academic side of mission writing the journal served to elevate itself and its contributors above the practical and parochial concerns of the hyper-local mission societies. The publication of news and other items of interest from other countries and non-German mission fields helped draw Germany’s Protestant missionary organisations and reading public into the international missionary movement. Finally, the high intellectual quality aspired to (and usually achieved) in the pages of the AMZ was designed to validate the respectability of Germany’s missionary organisations. Warneck and the other editors hoped to appeal to the wider circles of the German middle class beyond the Pietist and devout minority that supported mission in Germany while simultaneously earning acclaim for German missionary culture outside Germany. This grand project did not, however, always succeed. Articles frequently took on a polemical tone, as when authors attacked the British missionaries in East Africa for interfering with German mission activities, or in the unending and unremitting attacks upon Catholics. Articles like these gave readers a hint of the tension felt by German missionary leaders regarding the reconciliation of universal Christian love with nationalist and religious enmity. In addition, the considerable attention paid to the local activities of German mission societies in Germany tended to have the effect of casting readers’ gaze inward toward German mission activities. Finally, in those articles that dealt with the often testy discourse between missionaries and colonial statesmen the challenge posed to internationalism amongst missionaries by the national colonial project often boiled over and revealed that mission was not always a gloriously state-less project. 34 Johannes Warneck, “Der Krieg als Erzieher,” AMZ 42 (1915): 129–143. 35 Karl Axenfeld, “Mission, amerikanische Demokratie und Kriegshetze,” AMZ 44 (1917): 370– 375. 36 August W. Schreiber, “Zahlenmäßige Übersicht über die Kriegswirkungen,” AMZ 45 (1918): 118–121.

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INTERNATIONAL DEVOTION AGAINST NATIONAL CHARACTER Like most missionary groups worldwide, the majority of German missionary leaders supported European military power as protector and guarantor of missionary activity in the ‘savage’ corners of the world. However, the German missionary establishment worked hard rhetorically to keep the imperial state at arm’s length. This section will show that for the first forty years of its existence the AMZ offered a view of mission and nation that sought to segregate the international missionary project from any taint of state association or intervention. Explanations of the relationship between nation, empire, and Christian mission maintained the supremacy of Christian universalism over German nationalism. Scholars who have interpreted the work of the AMZ have described the journal as a piece of academic literature and done little to interpret it as a space for political communication by German Protestant missionary leaders. In fact Warneck and his colleagues built a political argument for the independence of missions upon religious and practical justifications. However, by WWI a newer generation of leaders argued for the centrality of the nation to German mission. 37 An early defence of the primacy of mission’s religious purpose came from a leader of the oldest of German missionary churches, Ernst Reichel of the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine (known in English as the Moravian Church). Germany’s new colonial empire raised important questions amongst missionaries about the relationship between the colonial church and the missionary church. In 1886, Missionsdirektor Reichel argued that in order for colonial policy to support mission, missionary leaders must protect what he believed to be “[mission’s] godly, … international, and … [politically] independent character [emphasis in the original]”. 38 Europeans brought to the colonised sphere positive and negative influences, a dichotomy that Reichel referred to as the choice between “Jesus” and “the devil.” 39 The missionary, according to Reichel, must act as the intermediary, winning over the colonised peoples to the new order while resisting national chauvinism: “Colonies serve the spread of power, the expansion and prosperity of the earthly Fatherland. Mission serves the spread of a kingdom that is not of this world,” Reichel wrote, and which advanced the power and honour Jesus. 40 From Reichel’s perspective, by maintaining complete independence and freedom of

37 Hans-Joachim Niesel, “Kolonialverwaltung und Missionen in Deutsch-Ostafrika 1890–1914” (PhD diss., Freie Universität Berlin, 1971), 289. 38 Reichel, “Was haben wir zu thun, damit die deutsche Kolonialpolitik nicht zur Schädigung, sondern zur Förderung der Mission ausschlage?”AMZ 13 (1886): 42. Emphasis in the German original: “[der Mission] göttlichen, ihren internationalen und...unabhängigen Charakter wahren,” 39 Reichel, “Was haben wir zu thun,” 40. 40 Reichel, “Was haben wir zu thun,” 42. German original: “Kolonien dienen zur Ausbreitung der Macht, des Ansehens und des Wohlstandes des irdischen Vaterlandes. Die Mission dient zur Ausbreitung eines Reiches, das nicht von dieser Welt ist ...”

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action, missionaries were able to make whatever choices necessary to ensure the success of their holy purpose and promote Christian community and not state power. 41 In 1891, the AMZ reprinted the text of a lecture given by Warneck at the Saxon Provincial Mission Conference in Halle in which he discussed the same issues Reichel had five years prior. The Saxon Mission Conference was a national organisation that drew mission leaders as well as secular colonialists from across Germany. In his lecture the AMZ’s editor informed his audience that the growing influence of mission, its growth from “child to man” meant that now the secular world sought to “influence the mission enterprise, [and] give [mission] a direction that would fundamentally alter” its project. 42 Consequently, Warneck presented a spirited defence of mission as an “apostolic” endeavour, one built on the emulation of Jesus’s instructions to his apostles and not on contemporary political concerns. 43 Warneck argued that missionaries should continue the work of Jesus and reveal God’s love through teaching and sacrifice to all peoples and not in service of the German Empire. 44 Missionary enterprise and Christian evangelisation was not dependent upon the advancement of ‘modernity.’ And, thus, Warneck argued, Christian mission did not need to submit to the pressures of colonial and economic powers because mission’s goals were not dependent upon those powers. 45 He cautioned that Jesus had not sent out his apostles with the instruction to “teach them to work” but with the instruction to “make them my followers.” 46 Warneck wished for his audience to believe, as he did, that missionaries’ first obligation was to convert indigenous peoples for the Christian church, and that conversion would, coincidentally create the hard-working communities that Warneck judged synonymous with Christian faith. 47 Any transformation of Africans, Indians, Chinese, or Pacific Islanders into valuable labour would come after their transformation into Christians, thus the benefit to the colonial project would be secondary. In the next decade many articles indirectly offered perspective on the correct relationship of mission, nation, and empire to one another. Furthermore, six articles dealt with the issue directly; all acknowledged German missionaries’ duties as Germans but trumped those duties with Christian doctrine in support of missionary internationalism. 48 One of these articles was by Franz Michael Zahn, Mis41 Reichel, “Was haben wir zu thun,” 49. 42 Warneck, “Die Aufgabe der Heidenmission und ihre Trübungen in der Gegenwart,” AMZ 18 (1891), 97–99. 43 Warneck, “Die Aufgabe der Heidenmission,” 99. 44 Warneck, “Die Aufgabe der Heidenmission,” 100–101. 45 Warneck, “Die Aufgabe der Heidenmission,” 111. 46 Warneck, “Die Aufgabe der Heidenmission,” 107. German original: “Darum sendet er [Jesus] seine Apostel nicht unter die Völker mit dem Auftrage: ‘lehret sie arbeiten’, sondern‚ ‘macht sie zu meinen Jüngern.’” 47 Warneck, “Die Aufgabe der Heidenmission,” 108. 48 See: Alexander Merensky, “Welches Interesse und welchen Anteil hat die Mission an der Erziehung der Naturvölker zur Arbeit?” AMZ 14 (1887): 148–184; [Julius?] Richter, “Die

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sionsdirektor of the North German Mission Society, and consistent opponent of ‘nationalist’ impulses. In his opinion, nationalism was an intellectual edifice built on shifting sands and mission societies should rely on sturdier ground. 49 He constructed an authoritative historical and Christian critique of nationalism. He pointed out that shifting borders, emigration, and international exchange meant that barely any people of “world historical significance” was not a “mixed Volk” and consequently attaching essential characteristics to any people would be an error. 50 “There is no special ‘German’ concept of Christianity,” Zahn wrote, “[and] nothing seems more wrong to me than taking on that [there] is in the German character an immunity to error.” 51 From a Christian perspective, Zahn reasoned, nationalism concealed an “immoral patriotism” that prevented the recognition that the goal of history was a “reunited humanity into which all difference [would] be absorbed” by Christian unity and salvation. 52 The acceptance of nationalist goals, Zahn argued, would counteract the progress of missionary activities by tying missionaries’ work to a fallacious worldview built around human difference instead of human unity. Veteran missionaries’ arguments that mission must stand outside of national politics stood for nearly thirty-five years upon a foundation of declared intellectual, theological, and spiritual superiority of mission. Warneck wrote at the height of the Boxer Rebellion that while missionaries must belong to a nation, no matter which nation it was, all missionaries shared the same charge – to evangelise the unconverted. Echoing himself in other forums, Warneck insisted that “the salvation of souls remain[ed] the soul of mission work.” 53 The pursuit of souls for Christian salvation was, to Warneck, extra-political and extra-national; it could not be constrained by mundane concerns and conflicts. He repeated Reichel’s sentiments from ten years before,

49 50 51 52 53

evangelischen besonders deutschen Missionen in den deutschen Schutzgebieten,” AMZ 21 (1894): 433–456, 501–512 and 547–555; [Gustav] Warneck, “Der französische Nationalismus und die Mission,” AMZ 14 (1887): 269–275; [Franz M.] Zahn, “Die Muttersprache in der Mission,” AMZ 22 (1895): 337–360. [Franz M.] Zahn, “Nationalität und Internationalität in der Mission,” AMZ 23 (1896): 62. Zahn, “Nationalität und Internationalität,” 49–52. Zahn, “Nationalität und Internationalität,” 59–60. German original: “Nichts scheint mir irriger, als anzunehmen, daß in dem deutschen Charakter eine Sicherheit gegen den Fehler liege.” Zahn, “Nationalität und Internationalität,” 54–55. German original: “eine wieder geeinigte Menschheit, in deren Einheit die Verschiedenheit aufgegangen sein wird.” [Gustav] Warneck, “Die christliche Mission und die überseeische Politik,” AMZ 28 (1901): 164–165. German original: “Die Rettung der Seelen bleibt immer die Seele der Missionsarbeit.”

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Warneck’s preoccupation with the tensions between German and universal Christian loyalty ignored the inherently Euro-centric definition of Christianity possessed by European missionaries. How could missionaries, with their limited vision, create Christians who were not simultaneously Teutonicised or Anglicised? Nonetheless, Warneck’s rhetoric still revealed a deep urge to separate nationalist essentialism from Christian universalism. Warneck felt that nationalist competition should be set aside to concentrate on other threats; namely, the threat that the competition between European states engendered by world trade and global exchange posed to missionary activities. Colonialism, world trade, and economic policies, he continued, brought overseas peoples little of worth, the only outcome had been “frequent brutality, violence, and avarice.” One only need, Warneck pointed out, take note of the countless wars and uprisings led by native peoples in response to the excesses of colonialism, the opium and spirit trades, appropriation of property and proletarianisation of indigenous peoples, the repression of economic independence, and the cruelty of work contracts to recognize the danger of economic modernisation upon missionised peoples. Warneck’s recognition of the effects of imperialism and globalisation upon non-Western societies was prescient. Missionaries shared in the suffering of the peoples with whom they lived and worked, Warneck asserted. In the face of these challenges, Warneck seemed to concede that missionaries did not have the power to stop this global competition for power but they could, through their “Christian faith and Christian morality,” help mitigate the effects. The more Christian missionaries forced the Christian powers to participate in the competition for markets and trade in a moral fashion, as Warneck presented it to his audience, the more non-Christian peoples would be able to participate in global trade and protect themselves from exploitation. The only force Warneck could imagine capable of a global effort designed to reform imperial capitalism would have been the international missionary movement. 55 Warneck’s analysis of the effect of world trade on mission overwhelmingly focused on the negative outcomes of trade. Warneck’s later thought seemed to indicate a mixture of pragmatism with regards to dealing with the colonial powers

54 Warneck, “Die christliche Mission und die überseeische Politik,” 169. German original: “Nicht zu Deutschen, Engländern, Franzosen oder Russen soll die Mission die Völker machen, sondern zu Christen. Ein Reich soll sie gründen, aber kein Weltreich, sondern ein Himmelreich, dessen König der Jesus ist.” 55 [Gustav] Warneck, “Die Mission im Schatten des Weltverkehrs,” AMZ 35 (1908): 12–13. Warneck’s view that even so-called ‘legitimate trade’ could threaten African peoples was shared by British missionaries like David Livingstone, William Carey, and their compatriots. Brian Stanley, The Bible and Flag: Protestant Missionaries and British Imperialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Leicester: Apollos, 1990), 71–74.

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but also a growing distaste for the impact of modern culture on Christianity. 56 As more and more German popular, political, and missionary attention was directed toward the Far East, Warneck began to share an ever growing concern over the mixing of European secular culture with Chinese, Japanese, and Indian cultures. He worried that the spread of academic works promoting “agnosticism, atheism, and materialism,” to the “half-educated” would undermine missionaries’ work. The spread of immoral ‘Christian’ Europeans, the spread of anti-Christian ideas, and the exploitative nature of global capitalism all acted as retardants to missionary growth in Warneck’s formulation. Consequently, Warneck’s solutions focused in every case on the European homeland as a secondary mission field. Ultimately, Warneck declared that the success of mission in a new era of global trade must be won on two fronts: against the growing subjugation of the non-Christian world as well as against the old enemies of heathen superstition and recalcitrance along with (European) Christian faithlessness. 57 As the expansion of global exchange encouraged greater missionary cooperation, Gustav Warneck also bemoaned the threat that globalisation and its synchronous stimulation of nationalism represented to missionary Christianity. 58 In the decade-and-a-half before WWI contributors to the AMZ continued to wrestle with the challenge of nationalism. These articles kept the focus on international politics and missionary goals with a deep concern for what the authors perceived as the growing force of global secularisation. 59 It was in the crucible of WWI that nationalism came to dominate more clearly in works of a number of Warneck’s successors. An exchange between Missionsinspektor Detlef Bracker of the Breklum Mission Society (Schleswig-Holsteinische Evangelisch-Lutherische Missionsgesellschaft) and Missionswissenschaft professor Julius Richter of the Berlin University in the first half of 1915 illustrated the continuing relevance of this debate to German missionary leaders. Both men held prominent positions in the German mission movement and both men agreed on certain basic principles. However, they differed in their emphasis of German national interest as a factor in the formulation of mission policy. Bracker championed Zahn and Warneck’s position and argued that mission with a national purpose would be a mistake. (Neither of his predecessors lived to

56 See: Warneck, “Die Mission im Schatten des Weltverkehrs,” 9. 57 Warneck, “Die Mission im Schatten des Weltverkehrs,” 16. 58 On the stimulation of nationalism posed by expanding globalization, see: Sebastian Conrad, Globalisierung und Nation im Deutschen Kaiserreich (München: C. H. Beck, 2006), esp. 7– 25; and A. G. Hopkins, ed., Globalization in World History (London: Pimlico, 2002), 6. 59 Examples of articles that dealt with the matter include: Karl Axenfeld, “Weltevangelisation und Ende,” AMZ 38 (1911): 249–260; Carl Mirbt, “Die innere Berechtigung und Kraft des Christentums zur Weltmission,” AMZ 33 (1906): 445–465; Julius Richter, “Weltfriede und Weltmission,” AMZ 41 (1914): 3–7; [Gustav] Warneck, “Die gegenwärtige Lage der deutschen evangelischen Mission,” AMZ 32 (1905): 157–176; and [Gustav] Warneck, “Die gegenwärtige Weltlage und die Weltmission,” AMZ 33 (1906): 3–19.

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interpret WWI from the missionary perspective. Zahn died in 1900 and Warneck in 1910.) Bracker cited Galatians 3:28 as proof that all Christians whatever their identity were not individuals but united. 60 Christian faith pre-empted all other aspects of human existence. It was a “supranational [hypernational]” creed that should represent “the universal in the particular.” 61 Mission must hold in balance the correct relationship between the “supranational” and the national, and primary amongst the obligations that flowed there from was a commitment to unity with all the children of God. Bracker believed the church of Germany must share in the needs and the successes of the Fatherland, but in this lurked the danger that the church would lose its spiritual power and sink into particularism. 62 Bracker argued that the missionary community must remain ever vigilant to prevent such a fall. In the end, Bracker pointed out, mission could only pursue “religious goals, it must work religiously through and through, just as much at home [in der Heimat] as in the mission field, and must be completely disinterested [selbstlos] in national relations.” According to Bracker failure to maintain this position imperilled Germany’s international missionary path. 63 To his mind, while German missionaries had certain obligations to their Fatherland, those obligations could not stand up to the higher duty of all Christians to spread the Gospel amongst non-believers and anyone who proposed otherwise endangered the evangelical project. Richter responded that Bracker’s view was outmoded and anachronistic. For Richter, the “awakening and strengthening of the national mind” across Europe was the “strongest and healthiest factor” in the nineteenth-century history of European nations. And on top of that, the “most difficult, greatest and healthiest creation [of this period] was the powerful strengthening of German national tradition [Deutschtum].” 64 Germany’s national awakening in WWI belonged “amongst the most magnificent episodes of world history”. 65 How could German missionaries, who were spiritual and racial descendants of Charlemagne and Friedrich Barbarossa, turn away from their countrymen and their national destiny, Richter wondered.

[Detlef] Bracker, “Ein nationaler Einschlag?” AMZ 42 (1915): 254–255. Bracker, “Ein nationaler Einschlag?” 255. Bracker, “Ein nationaler Einschlag?” 255. Bracker, “Ein nationaler Einschlag?” 256. German original: “Die Mission darf nur religiöse Ziele verfolgen, sie muß durch und durch religiös arbeiten, sowohl in der Heimat als auch draußen auf dem Missionfelde, und muß in nationaler Beziehung völlig selbstlos sein.” 64 Here Richter uses the term “Deutschtum”, referring to the sum of German heritage, tradition, and contemporary culture encompassed in a broadly defined German identity. 65 Richter, “Ein nationaler Einschlag im Missionsmotiv?” 302. German original: “Das Erwachen und Erstarken des nationalen Gedankens in den verschiedenen Ländern Europas ist bekanntlich wohl der stärkste und gesundeste Faktor in der europäischen Völkergeschichte Europas im 19. Jahrhundert gewesen.” 60 61 62 63

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Richter redoubled his claims with a passage from a speech he had given in January of 1915. In this remarkable speech, Richter outlined a new path for German mission. He declared that as German arms expanded Germany’s empire, Germania should keep her good German Christian heart … she should be no violent conqueror … We wish to be proud of a pious, constant Germania, our hearts should cheer her, as her pennant travels to distant seas. 66

He went on to declare German mission’s place in this future. Mission cannot confine itself to a narrow sphere; it must lead the German Volk as the “basis of [a] Christian worldview and Christian culture” for Germany’s new global reality. 67 This new global reality would be reliant upon German missionary participation to ensure that it be a moral future. Richter gave voice to the nascent synonymy between European-ness and Christianity that had long coloured missionary discourse. His usage of it in this context, to argue for the importance of specifically German Christianity, was fairly typical in the waning days of Germany’s colonial empire when the idea of national missionary work overtook older ideas of universal Christian missionary brotherhood (and sisterhood). Richter returned to the terms of Bracker’s debate, and argued that mission must adapt to the new global and political reality. Bracker’s ideas were those of an earlier period, Richter claimed, when mission was not so deeply enmeshed with politics. The expansion of mission into national politics, colonial congresses, colonial mission conferences, mission professorships, and the sponsorship by the Kaiser of a national mission aid organisation (the Evangelische Missions-Hilfe) were signs of the changed domestic circumstances for mission. 68 German mission circles which struggled to maintain a pure mission denied mission a powerful place in Germany’s future, and in any case, Richter was correct to identify the increasing nationalisation of the mission movement. Karl Axenfeld, director of the Berlin Mission Society, argued that same year that though Paul had written in Galatians that faith dissolved nationality, national ‘racial’ difference was not dissolved by faith. Christianity did not remove the Christian from his or her family and, in the same way membership in the Kingdom of God did not “dissolve or diminish the relationship between the individual and his national community [Volksgemeinschaft].” 69 The inviolability of national

66 Richter, “Ein nationaler Einschlag im Missionsmotiv?” 303. German original: “Die große, starke Germania ... soll ihr gutes, deutsches Christenherz behalten; ... sie soll kein gewalttätiger Eroberer sein ... Wir wollen auf die fromme, treue Germania stolz sein, unsere Herzen sollen ihr zujauchzen, auch wenn ihre Wimpel in fernen Meeren fahren.” 67 Richter, “Ein nationaler Einschlag im Missionsmotiv?” 303. German original: “[Die Mission] kann großzügig und kraftvoll die Grundsätze christlicher Weltanschauung und christlicher Kultur auch auf unsere neue Weltentwicklung anwenden und darin vertreten.” 68 Richter, “Ein nationaler Einschlag im Missionsmotiv?” 308. 69 Axenfeld, “Was verdankt und schuldet die deutsche Mission ihrem Vaterlande?” AMZ 24 (1915): 419. German original: “... der Geschlechtsunterschied durch den Glaubenstand nicht

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belonging so defined meant that any mission from Germany that was not a German mission denied God’s earthly design and scriptural intent. Axenfeld proclaimed that the German mission was undeniably German and that this was a good thing because, according to him, during Germany’s thousandyear history her people had developed a specific German Christianity. Axenfeld breathlessly explained that when a German missionary travelled to Africa, he brought this glorious Christianity. He brought: German Christmas! German song! Johann Sebastian Bach and Albrecht Dürer! Our wonderful German history with its … uplifting leadership, with its strong and faithful men, with all their impulses toward a life which reaches for the highest goal! ... We hardly know how much richer we are than many, many other peoples!

And, if there was a “German Christianity” there must be a “German mission.” The legacy of the Reformation demanded that German mission bend the accomplishments of German culture to lift non-Christians from spiritual lassitude to a new beginning. 70 Once again the newer generation of missionary leaders, raised in the years since the 1871 establishment of the German Empire, underlined its argument for a new missionary ethos in service to the German nation (defined not just politically but racially and spiritually) with declarations of Germany’s long Christian heritage rather than the universal message of the Bible. 71 To serve the empire, Axenfeld concluded, German missionaries’ should “seek and care for” the concerns of their Fatherland. Where German secular power reigned, German missionaries should support the goals of the administration whenever it did not conflict with missionaries’ spiritual mission. Axenfeld continued, and encouraged German missionaries to promote German interests in other powers’ colonies by instilling in their parishioners and supplicants positive feelings for Germany. 72 In essence, German missionaries should perform ‘soft diplomacy’ whenever possible. German missionaries owed to Germany their very essence and, as they could not abandon their national community, they must serve the interests of the German nation whenever possible. Axenfeld’s belief in Germany’s new and glorious future demanded that Germany’s loyal sons (and daughters) use their missionary

aufgehoben wird ... so wird auch durch die Zugehörigkeit zum Reiche Gottes die Beziehung des einzelnen zu seiner Volksgemeinschaft weder aufgehoben noch bedeutungsärmer.” 70 Axenfeld, “Was verdankt und schuldet die deutsche Mission ihrem Vaterlande?” 421–422. German original: “Das deutsche Weihnachtsfest! Das deutsche Lied! Joh. Sebastian Bach und Albrecht Dürer! Unsere wundervolle deutsche Geschichte mit ihren ... erhebenen Führungen, mit ihren starken und frommen Männern, mit all ihren Antrieben zu einem Leben, das nach den höchsten Zielen greift! ... Wir wissen ja gar nicht, wie reich wir vor vielen, vielen anderen Völkern sind!” 71 Andrew D. Evans makes a similar generational argument with regards to changes within the anthropological discipline in Germany during roughly the same period. See: Andrew D. Evans, Anthropology at War: World War I and the Science of Race in Germany (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2010), 12–13. 72 Axenfeld, “Was verdankt und schuldet die deutsche Mission ihrem Vaterlande?” 425–429.

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vocation to serve the historical and spiritual destiny ordained for Germany by the nation’s essential character. Axenfeld expounded that German missionaries owed their Fatherland for the: Ringing of its name, … its power, its science and technology, … its education, … [its] culture of industriousness, its urge for order and preparation, … its understanding of positive development and growth, but also its contemplative mind, internality and sobriety. 73

In short, German mission owed its success to the metaphysical German nation. Axenfeld and Richter had, by 1915, abandoned their forebears’ internationalism for a providential nationalism. CONCLUSION German missionaries had little trouble recognising that their work existed at the nexus of ideas about faith, empire, and nation. Scholarship on Germany’s empire has concentrated overwhelmingly upon soldiers, scientists, and civilian administrators. 74 More than just an aside in the narrative of German imperialism, missionaries made up the most organised and numerous segment of Germany’s white African population after administrators. 75 They should then be elevated in our

73 Axenfeld, “Was verdankt und schuldet die deutsche Mission ihrem Vaterlande?” 421–422. German original: “Es dient ihr [der Mission] mit allem, was es ist und hat, mit dem Klang seines Namens, mit seiner Macht ... seiner Wissenschaft und Technik, mit all seinen Bildungsmitteln, mit seiner Gewöhnung an Zucht und Fleiß, seinem Sinn für Ordnung und planvolles, gründliches Arbeiten, mit seiner Methode, seinem Verständnis für wachstumliche Entwickelung, aber auch mit seiner Gemütstiefe, Innerlichkeit und Nüchternheit ...” 74 For examples of this see: Shelley Baranowski, Nazi Empire: German Colonialism and Imperialism from Bismarck to Hitler (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Matthew Fitzpatrick, Liberal Imperialism in Germany: Expansionism and Nationalism, 1848– 1884 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008); Isabel V. Hull, Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005); Birthe Kundrus, Moderne Imperialisten: Das Kaiserreich im Spiegel seiner Kolonien (Wien: Böhlau, 2003); Deborah Neill, Networks in Tropical Medicine: Internationalism, Colonialism, and the Rise of a Medical Specialty, 1890–1930 (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012); Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, Kolonialimperialismus am Grünen Tisch: Deutsche Kolonialpolitik zwischen wirtschaftlicher Ausbeutung und “zivilisatorischen” Bemühungen (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2009); George Steinmetz, The Devil’s Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German Colonial State in Qingdao, Samoa, and Southwest Africa (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2007); Jürgen Zimmerer, Deutsche Herrschaft über Afrikaner: Staatlicher Machtanspruch und Wirklichkeit im kolonialen Namibia (Münster: LIT, 2001). One notable exception is a single chapter in Sebastian Conrad, Globalisierung und Nation im Deutschen Kaiserreich. 75 According to the Jahresbericht über die Entwickelung der Schutzgebiete in Afrika und der Südsee im Jahre 1907/08, in 1908 missionaries were behind Handwerker, Ansiedler, Kaufleute, and Beamte in the African colonies overall. In East Africa, they outnumbered all occupational groups except Ansiedler. See: Jahresbericht über die Entwickelung der Schutzgebiete

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understanding of German imperial and national processes. It follows that the eventual conclusion by German missionaries that religion ought to serve empire reflected the changing nature of German imperialism. As German missionaries came to embrace Germany’s overseas empire, their colonial agenda and developmental priorities must have increasingly influenced German colonial policy overall. The AMZ served the German missionary movement as a powerful tool for organising support for German mission activities. Its composition and content put on paper the vision that Gustav Warneck and other leaders of the German missionary movement had for the future. Warneck and his associates, both those of his generation and the later generation that disagreed with him, believed that Germany’s missionary activities carried with them important political implications. While the AMZ was established as part of an effort to unite the German mission societies into one influential national mission movement, from the beginnings this urge to bring together German missionary ideas and societies confronted the challenge of organising on a national basis while maintaining a deep connection with the internationalist and universalist principles of evangelical mission. From its organisation to the ideas of its early contributors the AMZ served to call for Germans to participate in the global missionary project with strict injunctions to avoid poisoning missionaries’ work with secular priorities. As Germany’s culture began to harbour ever stronger nationalist groups and trends the leaders of Germany’s mission community revealed themselves to be just as susceptible to these ideas as anyone else. By WWI the inversion of priorities that placed German national goals above international idealism was nearly complete. The animosity of the war finished the job and left German mission without the discursive or ideological tools that might have prevented the ultimate diminution of German mission during the 1920s and 1930s. The conflict between the internationalist and nationalist position within the AMZ demonstrates for historians the deeply political nature of German missionary print and, in this case, reveals the importance of print publications for bringing intellectuals and their audience together.

in Afrika und der Südsee im Jahre 1907/08, Beilage zum Deutschen Kolonialblatt 1909, (Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn, 1909), Anlage A, 23.

II. CREATING NATIONHOOD AND MODERNITY

NARRATIVES OF CONVERSION IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY GERMAN MISSIONARY PERIODICALS Converting Individuals, Saving the State Albert Wu

INTRODUCTION While trying to produce a profile of German missionaries’ images of Chinese Christian converts, I came to the observation that nineteenth-century German Protestant missionary periodicals were filled with tales of Christian converts, while Catholic missionary periodicals contained but few. The Berlin Mission Society (BMS), for example, printed numerous pamphlets detailing Chinese Christian conversion stories. By contrast, the Catholic Society of the Divine Word’s (SVD) missionary periodicals, such as the Kleiner Herz-Jesu-Bote, contained few stories of individual Christian converts. Instead, the Catholic missionary journal published numerous stories of European martyrs and missionaries. The individuals at the heart of the periodical are not the converted natives, but the missionaries themselves. How can we explain these differences? And what do these differences tell us about politics in missionary periodicals? Perhaps the divergent confessional devotional cultures that developed in the German lands since the eighteenth century can explain these differences. Scholars such as Lucian Hölscher have pointed out that post-Enlightenment German Protestant piety was characterised by an “individualization of belief,” with an increasing focus on the “individual as a spiritual unit, the ‘entelechy’ or ‘monad.’” 1 Catholic piety exhibited much less of this “compulsion for individual confession.” 2 To bolster his argument, Hölscher cites the statistic that Protestant autobiographies outnumbered Catholic ones by a number of roughly ten to one. When they did offer religious interpretations of their own lives, “nineteenth-century Catholic autobiographers tended to follow the Catholic lives of Saints.” 3 Catholic piety remained tied to “material religious symbols such as relics and holy pictures 1 2 3

Lucian Hölscher, “The Religious Divide: Piety in Nineteenth-Century Germany,” in Protestants, Catholics and Jews in Germany, 1800–1914, ed. Helmut Walser Smith (Oxford: Berg, 2001): 33–47, 37. Hölscher, “The Religious Divide,” 38. Hölscher, “The Religious Divide,” 37.

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… regardless of their rationality.” 4 In Hölscher’s schema, Protestants were interested in how faith intersected with the individual, while Catholics were more concerned with how faith was contextualised within the traditions and rituals of the Church. Hölscher’s analysis of Catholic piety is a continuation of ideas stemming from nineteenth-century ‘cultural Protestantism’ (Kulturprotestantismus). German Protestants who lived through the Kulturkampf, like Max Weber, perceived this persistence of saintly devotional literature as proof of Catholicism’s decidedly anti-modern stance. 5 Missionary periodicals were examples of Catholic ‘bizarre kitsch,’ with their focus on saints, martyrs, and relics. 6 For Weber, the markers of modernity were linked with the rise of the individual bourgeois subject, which he saw as missing in the historical developments of Catholicism, as well as the popular Catholicism of his time. Much of the recent scholarly work on missionary conversion narratives stands in the shadow of Weberian analysis, focusing on how these narratives are linked with Western projects of modernity. 7 As Peter van der Veer writes, the project of modernity that is crucial to the spread of colonial power over the world provides new forms of language in which subjects understand themselves and their actions. 8

In their influential study of missionary work among the Tswana in South Africa, Jean and John Comaroff argue that missionary conversion narratives should not be read as just stories of religious conversion, but as examples of a “highly complex problem of meaning and action” that “is always an element of more embracing historical transformations.” 9 For the Comaroffs, Protestant missionary narratives were key tools in the missionary project to create modern subjects and new forms of consciousness in South Africa. The tropes of conversion – choosing between good and evil, Christianity and paganism, savagery and civility – mapped precisely onto the tropes of modern progress. 10 Implicit within these arguments 4 5

Hölscher, “The Religious Divide,” 39. For more on Weber’s anti-Catholic outlook, see: Thomas Nipperdey, “Max Weber, Protestantism, and the Context of the Debate around 1900,” in Weber’s Protestant Ethic: Origins, Evidence, Contexts, eds. Hartmut Lehmann and Guenther Roth (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1987): 73–81. 6 Marjule A. Drury, “Anti-Catholicism in Germany, Britain, and the United States: A Review and Critique of Recent Scholarship,” Church History 70, no. 1 (2001): 98–131, 117. 7 For example, see: Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, vol. 1: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, vol. 2: The Dialectics of Modernity on a South African Frontier (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997); Webb Keane, Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007); J. D. Y. Peel, Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003); Peter van der Veer, ed., Conversion to Modernities: The Globalization of Christianity (New York: Routledge, 1996). 8 Peter van der Veer, “Introduction,” in Conversion to Modernities: 1–21, 6. 9 Comaroff and Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, vol. 1, 250. 10 Comaroff and Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, vol. 2, 79–80.

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are an acceptance of Weber’s thesis that Protestant religious subjectivity and individuality had direct correlations with the ascendancy of modern forms of an industrialising capitalist society. 11 Yet does the lack of the Weberian modern bourgeois subject in Catholic missionary periodicals mean that Catholics were retrograde when compared to their Protestant competitors? The image of Catholic missionaries as anti-modern certainly pervades much of the historiography of missions in China. The SVD, for example, has been described in much of the scholarship as an enemy of modern ideas of progress. Scholars such as Klaus Mühlhahn and Joseph Esherick have described SVD missionaries as “Catholic Fundamentalists,” filled with an “ultramontane, anti-modern, orthodox and neo-dogmatic” ideology. 12 Catholic missionaries have also been neglected in the literature on missionary contributions to China’s modernisation. While there have been numerous books and articles discussing how missionary schools, hospitals, and ideas helped to introduce ‘modern,’ Western institutions and identities into China, this literature focuses predominantly on the Protestant contribution, leaving out the Catholic perspective. 13 Within the field of German history, there has been a movement to reclaim Catholics of the mid- to late-nineteenth century from the “historical ghetto” that “cut most of them off from all that was modern and progressive in German life.” 14 German historians have emphasised the modern tendencies within Catholic popular and political culture. Margaret Lavinia Anderson has argued, for example, that the Catholic “quest for tradition” was a quintessentially modern enterprise that relied on industrial technologies to sustain its popular piety. 15 Jeffrey Zalar has noted that far from relegating themselves to an intellectual and cultural ‘ghetto,’

11 See: Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons (New York: Routledge, 1992). For Weber’s critique of Confucianism, which extended his ideas about the relationship between religious belief and the structures of political economy, see: Hans C. Gerth, trans., The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism (New York: Free Press, 1951). 12 Klaus Mühlhahn, Herrschaft und Widerstand in der “Musterkolonie” Kiautschou: Interaktionen zwischen China und Deutschland 1897–1914 (München: Oldenbourg, 2000), 326. See also: Joseph Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). 13 For example, see: Lin Zhiping’s edited volume “基督教與中國現代化國際學術硏討會 論文集 [Papers Collected from an International Conference on Christianity and China’s Modernization]” (Taipei: 宇宙光出版社, 1994). The book that makes the best case for Protestant Christianity’s contribution for fostering a modern sense of Chinese nationalism is Ryan Dunch, Fuzhou Protestants and the Making of a Modern China, 1857–1927 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001). 14 Helmut Walser Smith and Christopher Clark, “The Fate of Nathan,” in Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, ed. Helmut Walser Smith (Oxford: Berg, 2001): 3–29, 9. 15 Margaret L. Anderson, “Voter, Junker, Landrat, Priest: The Old Authorities and the New Franchise in Imperial Germany,” The American Historical Review 98, no. 5 (1993): 1448– 1474.

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Catholic writers and readers consistently sought to harmonise their religious faith “with the attitudes, ideals, and axioms of the dominant culture.” 16 In this chapter, I argue that German Catholic missionary periodicals in the nineteenth century also should not be read as if they existed in an intellectual or cultural ‘ghetto.’ Many similarities emerge when comparing German Protestant and Catholic missionary periodicals of the nineteenth century. Both Catholic and Protestant missionaries used their periodicals to promote their visions of how to construct a new and modern China. They viewed China as a backward place that needed Christianity in order for it to modernise. Protestant and Catholic missionaries believed that individual Chinese needed Christianity for their personal and national salvation. But the differences between the visions are also striking. German Protestants focused on converting individual Chinese to Christianity, and placed the future of Chinese Christianity firmly in the hands of the Chinese. German Catholics drew on the traditions and history of Catholic martyrdom and advanced a narrative where missionary sacrifice was the key to China’s Christian future. In this paper, I investigate the various tropes that Catholic and Protestant missionary periodicals employed to characterise individual Christians. By examining these periodicals, I hope to illuminate the different ways in which Catholics and Protestant missionaries approached the project of modernising China. I must make one quick caveat before continuing. The divergences that are mentioned here all occurred before the Boxer Uprising of 1900. After 1900, Protestant missionaries also produced numerous pamphlets lionising the ‘martyred missionaries’ who died during the Boxer Uprising. 17 Yet the BMS remained an exception. Since none of their missionaries died during the Boxer Uprising, the Berlin missionaries produced no martyrlogical literature. 18 Moreover, this chapter highlights the absence of Chinese Christian conversion narratives within Catholic missionary journals, not the existence of tales of Protestant martyrs. The existence of missionary hagiographies in both Catholic and Protestant milieus further points to the need to understand Catholic missionary work not within an “intellectual ghetto” of the nineteenth century, but within a larger arena of competing visions for the construction of a new and modern Christian world in China.

16 Jeffrey T. Zalar, “The Process of Confessional Inculturation: Catholic Reading in the ‘Long Nineteenth Century’,” in Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, ed. Helmut Walser Smith (Oxford: Berg, 2001): 121–152, 134. 17 For an example of this type of Protestant martyrlogical literature, see: Marshall Broomhall, Martyred Missionaries of the China Inland Mission, with a Record of the Perils and Sufferings of Some who Escaped (London: Morgan and Scott, 1901). 18 See: Lydia Gerber, Von Voskamps ‘heidnischem Treiben’ und Wilhelms ‘höherem China’ (Hamburg: Hamburger Sinologische Gesellschaft, 2002), 332.

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BRIEF HISTORIES OF THE BERLIN MISSION SOCIETY AND THE SOCIETY OF THE DIVINE WORD The periodicals that I investigate come from two of the most influential German mission societies in China: the pietistic Lutheran Berlin Mission Society (BMS) and the Catholic Society of the Divine Word (SVD). The BMS started its mission work in Southern China, in Guangdong, in 1885, but after 1898, with the establishment of the German leasehold at Jiaozhou Bay, expanded its work into Northern China. Before 1914, the BMS was one of the three largest German Protestant missionary societies in China. 19 The SVD entered China in 1876, and soon became the largest and most influential German Catholic missionary society in China. Its work was primarily concentrated in Northern China, and the SVD would further expand into the Western regions of Gansu and Xinjiang in the 1920s. The BMS and SVD were similar in many ways. As products of a wave of nineteenth-century enthusiasm for missions, both these societies were examples of voluntary religious organisations that were independent of state funding and support. 20 Scholars have considered both the Berlin Mission and the SVD missionaries as conservative, ‘fundamentalist’ Christians. The BMS and the SVD were representative of the conservative end of the spectrums of German Protestantism and Catholicism, and their views of traditional Chinese society were rooted in their theological outlook. It must be noted, therefore, that the periodicals examined in this paper represented the conservative spectrum of German Catholic and Protestant missionaries, and not necessarily the missionary spectrum as a whole. 21 Within Germany, the mission societies had very different relationships to the Prussian state. Founded in 1824, the Berlin Missions shared an extremely close relationship with the Prussian monarchy, came out of a conservative Pietist background that hoped to encourage a tight relationship between “throne and altar,” and saw missions as a larger Pietist project to alter popular moral and religious values for the Prussian state. 22 Arnold Janssen, a German Catholic from the Rhine region, founded the SVD in 1875 across the German border in Steyl, Holland. 19 The other two were the Rhenish Mission Society, based in Barmen, and the Basel Mission Society. The three mission societies were thus referred to as the “three Bs.” 20 Gerber, Von Voskamps, 289. 21 But as George Steinmetz has argued in his book, The Devil’s Handwriting, Germany, and Europe at large held a broadly “Sinophobic” view of China from the mid-nineteenth century until the early twentieth century. The views of Protestant conservatives and liberals were much more harmonised in the late nineteenth century, and diverged starting in the first decades of the twentieth century. See: George Steinmetz, The Devil’s Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German State in Qingdao, Samoa, and Southwest Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). 22 The best history of the Berlin Missions that covers its founding until 1924 is Julius Richter, Geschichte der Berliner Missionsgesellschaft (Berlin: Buchhandlung der Berliner evangelischen Missionsgesellschaft, 1924). For the period after 1924, see: Hellmut Lehmann, Zur Zeit und zur Unzeit: Geschichte der Berliner Mission 1918–1972 in drei Bänden, vol. 1 (Berlin: Berliner Missionswerk, 1989).

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Janssen moved his operations to Holland because of Bismarck’s Kulturkampf, which resulted in the expulsion of Catholic priests and orders from Germany. Janssen thus hoped that the seminary would become a safe haven for German priests and a training ground to prepare and send missionaries to non-Christian lands outside of Europe. Janssen also envisioned the Society as a competitor to French Catholic missionaries, who dominated the missionary landscape throughout much of East Asia. 23 From the beginning of the SVD’s foundation, the missionaries had to juggle the contradictions and struggles of being simultaneously German and Catholic, to prove to the German Empire that they were willing subjects, while also showing their allegiance to the worldwide directives of the Sacred Propagation of the Faith in Rome. Since they were independent of state funding, the periodicals and publications of the BMS and the SVD were cogs in a larger machinery to raise funds. The SVD published three different periodicals, all of which reached a wide circulation. Its monthly publications, Stadt Gottes and the Kleiner Herz-Jesu-Bote, were the most widely read popular Catholic broadsheets (Blätter) during the Kaiserreich. 24 The BMS published its monthly and yearly missions reports (Missionsberichte and Jahresberichte), and it collected its strongest material into individual popular tracts and pamphlets, published in a series called Neue Missionsschriften. For both missionary societies, the missionaries on the ground were the key figures in producing the content for the publications. Missionaries filled the periodicals with letters and reports, which included statistics of the mission fields, treatises on the ‘moral and ethical conditions’ of the missions’ field, personal reflections, and other miscellaneous accounts. It was in these pages that Protestant and Catholic missionaries presented their views of China to their respective audiences. THE LAND OF THE DAMNED SVD and BMS missionaries characterised the world in sets of binaries. The missionary periodicals were filled with juxtapositions between Christians and nonChristians, metaphors of light and darkness, good and evil, modern and traditional. The most common trope and binary that filled the pages was that of darkness and light – the Chinese lived in a state of darkness and the light of Christianity would bring them their salvation. Within the Berlin Missionaries’ periodicals and pamphlets, nineteenth-century China emerges as a place filled with ‘images of death,’ replete with misery, poverty, and injustice. Faced with such ‘darkness,’ one Berlin missionary concluded, it was the duty of “all of the children of God, and all rational humans (denkenden

23 For an overview of the SVD’s history, see: Karl J. Rivinius, Weltlicher Schutz und Mission: Das Deutsche Protektorat über die Katholische Mission von Süd-Shantung (Köln: Böhlau, 1987). See also: Mühlhahn, Herrschaft und Widerstand. 24 Mühlhahn, Herrschaft und Widerstand, 322.

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Menschen) to help alleviate such heathenish misery and suffering.” 25 Protestant missionaries used the life of a single person to illustrate the miseries and problems of China. The missionary Wilhelm Leuschner begins by describing a single “poor, young, Chinese mother,” who in her arm holds a newly born “baby daughter.” Yet, baby and mother are “caught up in superstition,” and her husband will “hate her because she will never produce a son.” 26 Through the lens of a single individual, the missionary’s views of China’s alleged poverty, sexism, and superstition come into focus. The source material of these stories came primarily from the Chinese helpers (Gehilfen) who were employed by the missionaries, either as translators, evangelists, or vicars. 27 The missionaries would produce drafts of these stories as part of their quarterly reports to the mission board. The mission board would then serialise the stories in its monthly periodical, the Berliner Missionsberichte. Starting in the 1890s, the BMS’s internal publishing house produced some of these stories as single pamphlets in the series Neue Missionsschriften. The Neue Missionsschriften contained stories and overviews from all of the Berlin Mission Society’s mission stations, with stories of African converts published next to those of Chinese. The Berlin Missions Society also produced condensed and abridged versions for children, in a series called Missionsschriften für Kinder. The stories would be titled after the individual or the social group that the individual represented, such as Antje Nielerk, das Hottentottenmädchen (Antje Nielerk, the Hottentot Girl), Der Evangelist Sung-en-phui (The Evangelist Sung-en-phui), or Ein Geschwisterpaar (A Pair of Siblings). The titles rarely used the term ‘conversion narratives’ to refer to themselves, but this is a term that I will use to characterise these stories. In almost all of these conversion narratives, the Christian convert faced at least one of the triumvirates of traditional Chinese evils: superstition, polygamy, or opium. A successful conversion entailed the renunciation of this previous life of sin or unbelief. Conversion narratives thus often began by describing the seemingly insurmountable odds that Chinese Christians faced. In a biography of the Chinese convert Li tshyung-yin, “a loyal witness in the Chinese mission,” the missionary Friedrich Hubrig begins by evoking a Chinese landscape with flowing rivers and pristine mountains, only to reveal that these places of immense natural 25 Friedrich W. Leuschner, Bilder des Todes und Bilder des Lebens aus China, Neue Missionsschriften, vol. 64 (Berlin: Buchhandlung der Berliner evangelischen Missionsgesellschaft, 1914), 8. German original: “Darum ist es die Pflicht aller Kinder Gottes, wie aller human denkenden Menschen, solchem heidnischen Elende und der heidnischen Roheit zu steuern.” 26 Leuschner, Bilder, 2. German original: “Im Aberglauben ist sie befangen … sie wird nie einen Sohn haben. Ihr Mann wird sie hassen, unter den Weibern wird sie mit Schanden genannt warden.” 27 The BMS created strict hierarchies to define the pay scale and the responsibilities of the individual assistants. Duties ranged from teaching the missionaries Chinese to working as street preachers and presiding over local congregations. The highest level that a Chinese Christian could reach was that of the “Vicar,” a graduate of the mission seminaries that the BMS missionaries established, who also performed basic pastoral duties for the local congregation. An “evangelist” was a street preacher who could explain the basic tenets of the faith, but did not have the power to perform rituals in church.

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beauty have come under the sway of “superstitious folk,” led by a “witch.” 28 In his descriptions, the Chinese landscape is dotted with temples and monasteries that were “monuments to the heathen nature” of the temples. Li was “born and raised in the ruins of these temples,” which made his eventual conversion to Christianity even more remarkable. 29 The influence of superstitious beliefs extended beyond the exteriors of the Chinese landscape and into interior lives of Chinese families. In a story of the “learned Li Syn tshoi,” the narration begins with Li being born into a “heathen family” that “lived without God and had no hope in this World. They were small people, without standing.” 30 Li’s mother “feared the heathen superstitions of evil spirits,” and even though the family had very little material wealth, she would nonetheless bring sacrifices and material gifts to Buddhist and Daoist monasteries. 31 Other than these external factors, Chinese Christians were also surrounded by numerous personal temptations. In Li Syn tshoi’s story, Li is ensnared by multiple “sins of the flesh.” 32 The first is polygamy. After taking a concubine, Li “lost all of his desire to study,” and instead became “idle and engaged in all kinds of follies.” 33 Opium smoking was the chief among these follies, followed by gambling. In his biography, Li had his first experience with opium when he was eighteen. A friend invited him to an opium den, and after seeing his friend smoke from the opium pipe, “an irresistible desire” arose in his heart, and “from that day on, [he] smoked every night.” 34 Before his conversion, the Chinese Christian was not only challenged by the superstitious ideas and beliefs of Chinese society, but he also had to battle the various individual “sins of the flesh” that trapped him. Within Protestant narratives, the individual body became a metaphor for the site of the problems and the moral evils of the nation.

28 Friedrich Hubrig, Li-tshyung-yin, ein treuer Zeuge in der chinesischen Mission, Neue Missionsschriften, vol. 57 (Berlin: Buchhandlung der Berliner evangelischen Missionsgesellschaft, 1899), 1. German original: “Das abergläubische Volk … Geistweib, Hexe.” 29 Hubrig, Li-tshyung-yin. German original: “Eine dieser Ruinen ist die Geburtsstätte und Heimat des Mannes, dessen Lebensbild hier angeführt werden soll.” 30 Carl J. Voskamp, Mitteilungen aus dem Leben des chinesischen Gelehrten Li-syn-tshoi, Neue Missionsschriften, vol. 25 (Berlin: Buchhandlung der Berliner evangelischen Missionsgesellschaft, 1885), 2. German original: “Meine Ahnen und Eltern gehörten zu den Heiden, von denen geschrieben steht: ‘sie leben ohne Gott und sind ohne Hoffnung in dieser Welt.’ Sie waren geringe Leute, ohne Ansehen.” 31 Voskamp, Mitteilungen, 3. German original: “In den sieben ersten Tagen meines Lebens behütete mich meine Mutter wie ihren Augapfel; sie fürchtete nach heidnischem Aberglauben den bösen Geist.” 32 Voskamp, Mitteilungen, 8. German original: “Fleischessünden.” 33 Voskamp, Mitteilungen, 8. German original: “Infolge der Verstrickung in die Fleischessünden hatte ich alle Lust zum Studium verloren … Ich that aber während der Abwesenheit meines Lehrers gar nichts, war müßig und trieb allerlei Thorheiten.” 34 Voskamp, Mitteilungen, 9. German original: “In meinem Herzen erwachte die Begierde, auch dieses nicht unversucht zu lassen. Er reichte mir seine Pfeife, und ich rauchte. Von da an rauchte ich jeden Abend.”

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Within the SVD’s periodicals, the Catholic missionaries also described China as a place filled with superstition, heathen pagodas, and evil spirits. The missionaries alternatively referred to China as the “stronghold of Satan,” the “Kingdom of the Devil,” “the Kingdom of Hell,” and talked about how Satan used “heathen superstition” to imprison the Chinese. 35 But within the SVD’s missionary periodicals, missionaries rarely used individual stories to illustrate their descriptions of China. Instead, when they talked about China, they emphasised its vastness and the immensity of its problems. In their initial months of publishing their missionary magazine, they answered the question of why they set China as their primary mission field, by providing a simple statistic: 555 million people. The importance of China was its population, and it was “the great country of Jesus’s hopes and pain.” 36 When describing Beijing as a place, the missionaries were less interested in its geographical and physical descriptions, but instead compared Beijing to other famous capitals of the world, such as London, Paris, and Tokyo. For the Catholic missionaries, the most important point of comparison was statistical. Beijing had more than 2.5 million inhabitants, while Paris had 1.8, and London and Tokyo close to 3.5 million. “Beijing is to Asia what Paris is to Europe,” one missionary commented. 37 While SVD missionaries saw similarities between the political functions of Beijing and Paris, the SVD missionaries more often tried to emphasise the difference and ‘otherness’ of the Chinese cultural and social landscape. SVD missionaries described China as a place filled with poverty and social distress, social squalor. In his depiction of Yanzhou, one of the major cities in Northern Shandong, the SVD missionary Georg Stenz described the city as full of beggars. 38 Stenz provided a picture of China as a place filled with robbers, dangerous for the promulgation of the gospel in China. 39 An oft-repeated trope within Catholic missionary periodicals is the lack of ‘justice’ (Gerechtigkeit) and ‘law’ (Recht) in China, and how China lacked the basic order and structure of a civilised state. Thus, Protestant and Catholic missionaries portrayed China in a similar fashion. They equally saw China as backward, filled with superstition, injustice, and poverty. Yet the ways in which they described these problems were different. Protestants tended to use the individual to illustrate the problems of the country at large, while Catholic missionaries focused on larger structural and institutional problems. These differences had very practical implications for the solutions that both proposed for the salvation of China. While both believed that conversion to Christianity would ultimately alleviate these larger issues, the two groups disagreed on the methods and paths for enacting this conversion. 35 Mühlhahn, Herrschaft und Widerstand, 331. German original: “Macht des Satans,” “Reich der Hölle,” “das Reich des Teufels,” “heidnische Aberglauben.” 36 “China, das große Land der Hoffnungen und Schmerzen Jesu,” Kleiner Herz-Jesu-Bote [KHJB] 1, no. 4 (1874): 29–30, 29. 37 “Peking, die Hauptstadt Chinas,” KHJB 1, no. 4 (1874): 30, 30. German original: “Peking ist das in Asien, was Paris in Europa ist.” 38 Georg Stenz, “Umschau in einer chinesischen Großstadt,” KHJB 23, no. 3 (1895): 19–23, 21. 39 Stenz, “Umschau in einer chinesischen Großstadt,” 21–22.

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PROTESTANT NARRATIVES OF CONVERSION In Berlin missionary periodicals, the salvation of the Chinese state could only be achieved through the conversion of single individuals. A learned local Confucian official, who previously hates or opposes Christianity, converts to Christianity after long years of dialogue with a Christian missionary. The impetus may be admiration of the courage of Christian missionaries, or the conversion of a relative to Christianity. In the process, the Christian converts give up their former sins, such as opium smoking, gambling, and polygamy. They also reject their former superstitious beliefs or beliefs in other religions such as Daoism or Buddhism. The narratives were presented in either biographical or autobiographical form. In both cases, a missionary would be either the translator or the biographer, and the missionary would often note how trustworthy or reliable the Chinese Christian had been in the service of the BMS. The moment of conversion is described with the same tropes throughout most of the conversion stories. The ignorant Chinese is rescued from “darkness,” and describes the day of conversion as “the most important day of my life.” As the Comaroffs have noted, part of the purpose of highlighting these binaries was to position the individual as a rational actor, who makes the individualist choice of moving from a previous position of ignorance or ‘evil’ into that of the ‘good.’40 The convert lived in a previous state of ignorance, sin, and ‘darkness,’ and was saved through the power of the Gospel, via the helping hands of the missionaries. While conversion is the central event that the missionaries tried to portray, the experience of conversion is less dramatic in the narratives than one would expect. There are very few tales of instantaneous, dramatic transformations in the convert’s lives. Instead, conversion stories are narrated as a process, occurring through long, protracted encounters with various Christian forces. The evangelist Sung, for example, does not convert to Christianity until his father-in-law becomes a Christian, which occurs decades after Sung’s initial encounter with Christianity. Many of the stories of conversion involve older Christians, who convert to Christianity between the ages of sixty and seventy. Moreover, the transformative power of Christianity is often undermined within the narratives themselves. Conversion does not lead to a complete transformation in the individual’s past behaviour. In one conversion narrative, a Chinese Christian admits that becoming a Christian did not cure him of his addiction to gambling and opium. The convert writes,

40 Comaroff and Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, vol. 2, 79.

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I had not yet experienced the deepest meaning of the teachings, because I continued to smoke Opium and gamble after my conversion. I also had not firmly grasped the meaning of faith, even though I had stopped praying to other gods. 41

The Confucian official Li confessed that even though he had been a Christian for four years, he still “depended on [his] parents, and desired the glories of the world.” 42 He continued, “I find that the old, sinful evils still reign in my heart. I do not do good deeds even though I desire to, and I do the evil deeds that I do not want to do.” 43 Even though the narratives were ambiguous about the effect that conversion had on individual behaviour, they made the political and social ramifications of becoming a Christian clear. Conversion to Christianity signalled a rupture in traditional Chinese familial and village relations. The Chinese Christian became ostracised, threatened or injured by his anti-Christian neighbours. Converting to Christianity pitted family members against one another, and increased tension within their local villages. 44 In the story of the convert Jü, for example, his friends try to persuade him to stop reading the Bible, as well as other ‘devil’s books’ (Teufelsbücher) of the West, arguing that all necessary wisdom lies within the Chinese classics. 45 Chinese converts were seen as traitors to traditional Chinese learning who rejected the wisdom of the ancients. The signature event within these narratives, the proof of the suffering that these Chinese Christians had to undergo, arrives with the Boxer Uprising. A central episode in the conversion narrative of the convert Jü occurs when his former students, who once revered him, threatened to kill him in a fit of anti-Christian rage inspired by the Boxers. Jü was able to persuade his former students to let him go, but the message of the incident was clear to him. God had protected him from the threat of the Boxers, and with the defeat of the Boxers, a new age was dawning for Christianity in China. 46 But ultimately, for this new age to come, Protestant missionary accounts made it clear that the people who needed to sacrifice, 41 Friedrich W. Leuschner, Das Wichtigste aus den Tagen meines Lebens. Von Tsen-fen-thau. Neue Missionsschriften, vol. 65 (Berlin: Buchhandlung der Berliner evangelischen Missionsgesellschaft, 1891), 6. German original: “In die Tiefe der Lehre war ich noch nicht eingedrungen, weil ich immer noch Opium rauchte und um Geld spielte. Mein Herz war angeregt, aber ich wandelte nicht aufrichtig vor Gott. Ich hatte auch noch nicht die feste Absicht, gläubig zu werden, aber ich hatte aufgehört, die Götzen anzubeten.” 42 Voskamp, Mitteilungen, 16. German original: “Ich hänge noch an Eltern und Elternhaus … Auch hänge ich noch an der Ehre vor der Welt.” 43 Voskamp, Mitteilungen, 16. German original: “Ich finde auch, dass das alte, böse, in den Sündenbahnen gewohnte Herz noch in mir ist, und ich weiß, dass nur der heilige Geist das unreine Feuer niederhalten kann, dass es nicht ausbreche in alter Glut. Das Gute, das ich will, das thue ich nicht, das Böse, das ich nicht will, das thue ich.” 44 Friedrich Hubrig, Der Evangelist Sung-en-phui, Neue Missionsschriften, 15 (Berlin: Buchhandlung der Berliner evangelischen Missionsgesellschaft, 1891), 14. 45 Johann A. Kunze, Von Confucius zu Christus: Eine Selbstbiographie des Jü-kang hu übersetzt von J. A. Kunze (Berlin: Buchhandlung der Berliner evangelischen Missionsgesellschaft, 1922), 22–23. 46 Kunze, Von Confucius zu Christus, 32–33.

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those who would have to take the risks, were the Chinese themselves. It was the Chinese Christians who would be ostracised from their families, who would face persecution, and who would have to rebuild the ruins left in the wake of the Boxer Uprising. CATHOLIC CONVERSION AND MARTYRDOM By contrast, Catholic missionary periodicals contained far fewer stories of Chinese converts to Catholicism and the suffering that they would have to endure for the sake of converting. Certainly, descriptions and stories of Chinese Catholic converts existed in the journals. When Catholic missionaries wrote of Chinese Catholic conversion, the narrative emphases often mirrored those of the Protestant ones. In the story of the Chinese catechist Li Chotang, for example, the Catholic missionary Anton Wewel talks about the catechist’s pious service to Catholic missions, and how he was able to persevere in his faith despite the “many attempts by his ‘false friends’ to mislead him and move him away from the faith.” 47 The Chinese Christian’s life is remarkable because it becomes a model for faithful belief in an atmosphere of adversity. 48 Like the Chinese Protestants, the Chinese Catholic’s faithful devotion to missionary work is meant to be a call to pious action (and donations) from the mission society’s readers in Germany. Yet Catholic conversion stories barely detail individual experience. Instead, the life of the Chinese Christian convert is used in Catholic missionary periodicals to illustrate the communal character of Catholic conversion. Catholic missionaries describe the conversion of whole villages and families, rather than those of individual, personal stories. For example, the missionary periodicals also contained numerous reports of First Communion classes, with descriptions of children joyfully and enthusiastically participating. 49 When compared with Protestant conversion narratives, the actors within Catholic narratives of conversion are less about the individual faithful, but more about the community and village at large. Instead, in Catholic missionary periodicals, the individuals who do manifest agency and an ability to make individual decision are the missionaries themselves. Hagiographies of Catholic martyrs, whether working in China, Vietnam, or Japan, abounded in the SVD’s missionary periodicals. 50 The ideal of martyrdom was a 47 Anton Wewel, “Einiges aus dem Leben eines christlichen Chinesen,” KHJB 25, no. 10 (1898): 78–79. German original: “… hielt er trotz vieler Zureden und Versuchungen von falschen Freunden seinen Vorsatz, in eheloser Keuschheit Gott zu dienen und machte auch kurz vor seinen Tode noch das Gelübde ewiger Jungfräulichkeit.” 48 Anton Wewel, “Einiges aus dem Leben eines christlichen Chinesen (Schluß),” KHJB 25, no. 11 (1898): 83–84. 49 Heinrich Krampe, “Erstkommunion im Heidenlande,” KHJB 23, no. 2 (1895): 12. 50 It would be misleading to say that hagiographic literature about Protestant missionaries did not exist. The BMS published pamphlets trumpeting the stories of the Protestant missionaries who pioneered the missionary work in China. See, for example: Gabriel SauberzweigSchmidt, Freuden und Leiden des Chinamissionars Hanspach (Berlin: Buchhandlung der

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central tenet of Catholic missions. Missionaries saw their personal sacrifice as a direct link to the conversion of the foreign “heathen.” The Kleiner Herz-Jesu-Bote proclaimed in its early issues that the “blood of the martyrs plants the seeds of Christianity.” 51 Two types of martyrs became mainstays in the SVD’s missionary literature. The first was the martyrs of the early Church, mostly those who had died during the era of Roman persecution. The second type was the martyrs of the nineteenth century, who had died amidst persecution from the foreign “heathen.” The SVD’s martyrlogical writing was grounded in a long history and tradition, dating back to the thirteenth century, with mendicant missionary writings in Asia and North Africa. 52 However, with the increase of missionary activity during the Counter Reformation, Catholic martyrlogical writing witnessed an increase and uptake in its popularity. 53 Similar to the early modern period, where martyrlogical literature was used to remind a fractured laity of the church’s “ancient, heroic past,” 54 martyrlogical literature in the nineteenth century about missions in the East was used to make a horizontal bond between the Eastern Church and the West. Just as the ancient martyrs had died for the sake of spreading the Gospel in the Mediterranean and Western Europe, the nineteenth-century missionaries were now dying in East Asia in order for Catholicism to spread across the globe. Martyrdom was also depicted as a pan-European experience. German missionaries suffered along with French, Belgian, Spanish, and Italian missionaries at the hands of anti-Christian sentiment across the globe. In 1897, two SVD missionaries, Richard Henle and Franz Nies, were murdered in north China by members of the “Big Sword Society,” an anti-Christian peasant group active in North China. 55 Scholars have cited Nies and Henle’s murders as the pretext for Germany to take over Jiaozhou Bay by force. News and discussion of the subsequent investigation and political fallout dominated the

51 52 53 54 55

Berliner evangelischen Missionsgesellschaft, 1893). Yet the focus of these hagiographies differed. The Catholic missionaries’ narratives focused primarily on situating the missionary work within a long tradition of Catholic missionary martyrs. Because the BMS did not have any missionaries who became martyrs in China in the nineteenth century, the BMS narratives did not glorify the missionaries as martyrs, nor did they contextualise the missionaries within this longer tradition and history of Protestant missionary work. Even though the BMS did focus on the missionaries’ sufferings and the difficulties they encountered during their careers, much of the missionary narratives highlighted the expertise and modern knowledge that the missionaries brought with them to China. The story of the BMS missionary August Hanspach, for example, concentrated on the Western medical knowledge and language instruction that the missionary brought with him to China. “Sanguis martyrum, semen Christianorum,” KHJB 6, no. 2 (1879): 11–14, 11. Brad S. Gregory, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1999), 252. Gregory, Salvation at Stake, 252. Gregory, Salvation at Stake, 313. “Zwei Opfer ihres apostolischen Berufes,” KHJB 25, no. 4 (1898): 29–32. For more on the incident, also see: Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising, 123–35 and Horst Gründer, Christliche Mission und deutscher Imperialismus: Eine politische Geschichte ihrer Beziehungen während der deutschen Kolonialzeit (1884–1914) unter besonderer Berücksichtigung Afrikas und Chinas (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1982), 276–85.

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pages of the SVD’s missionary organs. Pictures of Nies and Henle’s bloody shirt, descriptions of the wounds and the manner in which they were killed, and other gruesome explanations were included. The editors of the periodicals highlighted the personal histories of Nies and Henle. They published Nies and Henle’s letters that they wrote to their parents, in order to demonstrate their inner piety. In their letters, a sense of dread and impending doom at the rising tide of anti-Christian forces in Northern China foreshadowed their deaths. 56 Nies and Henle’s fellow missionaries, such as Georg Stenz, also wrote testimonies trumpeting the saintly qualities of the martyred missionaries. Henle and Nies were described as preternaturally gifted, pious workers for the Kingdom of God, who had withstood the temptations of secular society in order to devote their whole lives to God, and had made the ultimate sacrifice in order to serve God and to help push forward the salvation of the Chinese. 57 Pictures of saints throughout history, such as St. Blaise, who was credited with converting the Armenians, would accompany the stories of the Nies and Henle, to illustrate the link between these modern martyrs and ancient ones. Just as the ancient, Western church was built on the blood of the martyrs St. Paul and St. Peter, so would the Eastern Church be built on the blood of the future saints Henle and Nies. The SVD missionaries used the case of Henle and Nies to appeal directly to the German Empire to intervene and to protect its subjects in China. In a letter published in the Kölnische Volkszeitung, the leading Catholic newspaper of the time, Joseph Freinademetz, the SVD’s provincial superior in Shandong, called on “German officials” (amtliche deutsche Persönlichkeiten) to view the deaths of Henle and Nies as an act of “cold calculation, planning, and premeditated murder,” rather than that of a “random act of robbery and violence.” For Freinademetz and the SVD missionaries, the tales of Nies and Henle confirmed the common trope that China was a place that lacked ‘justice’ (Gerechtigkeit) and ‘law’ (Recht), where the rampant anti-Christian sentiments had grown out of control. Even before the murder of Henle and Nies, an SVD report by the missionary Anton Volpert stressed how local officials had failed in their “duties of administering justice (Gerechtigkeitspflege),” and hoped that Chinese officials would take the threat of anti-Christian sentiment seriously. 58 Freinademetz argued that the rising tide of anti-Christian violence, compounded with the Chinese provincial government’s blatant disregard of the Tianjin treaty’s provision to protect foreign missionaries, signalled a “future full of horror and terror” for Western missionaries. Freinademetz ended his report with an appeal and an implicit threat: “The local mandarins must begin to perform their

56 “Zwei Opfer ihres apostolischen Berufes,” 31. 57 Stenz would collect his writings on the subject and publish it into a biography, see: Georg M. Stenz, Life of Father Richard Henle, S. V. D., Missionary in China: Assassinated November 1, 1897, trans. Elizabeth Ruff (Techny, IL: Mission Press, S. V. D., 1921). 58 Anton Volpert, “Ein Mandarin, wie er sein soll,” KHJB 23, no. 6 (1896): 44–46.

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duties of honouring the conditions of the treaties of protecting Christian missionaries from harm.” 59 Catholic missionaries promoted the idea that the Chinese state needed to administer justice for the martyred Catholic missionaries. More importantly, the missionaries accused the Chinese imperial state of failing to provide basic protection for Western missionaries, which violated the terms of the unequal treaties China had signed after the Opium Wars. Kaiser Wilhelm II responded in kind, and within a week of the death of Henle and Nies the German navy had deployed ships to patrol the shores of Jiaozhou Bay. Less than six months later, Germany had officially secured a protectorate in North China. 60 The SVD missionary periodicals celebrated the German takeover of Jiaozhou in triumphalist terms and trumpeted the German takeover as the establishment of a ‘just’ and ‘lawful’ reign in China. 61 Bishop Johann Baptist von Anzer, perhaps the most influential person in lobbying the German Reich to intervene on the Catholic mission’s behalf, wrote that Christians could finally “experience justice” and live with the “greater freedom of practicing their religious duties.” 62 Freinademetz further related the personal story about how before the coming of the Germans, local Chinese officials would request to meet him in the middle of the night, in the dark, in fear of being seen collaborating with foreigners. With the coming of German rule, now they could meet in public, in broad daylight. 63 Germany had literally dragged the Chinese officials from darkness to light, through the force of their military intervention and their importation of German law and justice. With the backing of the German Empire, sanctified by the blood of their martyrs, the SVD believed that the salvation of the Chinese nation was now firmly on its way to completion. CONCLUSION Conservative German Protestant and Catholic missionary periodicals in the nineteenth century portrayed China as backward and aggressively anti-Christian. Yet, they differed in terms of the vision of modernity that China needed in order for it to be saved. In Catholic periodicals the European missionaries were the ones who 59 “Wer trägt die Hauptschuld an der Bluttat von Tschantjatschuang?” KHJB 25, no. 5 (1898): 38–39, 39. German original: “Die Ortsmandarine müssen wieder anfangen, ihre Pflicht zu thun, nach Bestimmung der Verträge.” 60 For more on the direct relationship between the SVD’s activities and the founding of the German protectorate, see: Klaus Mühlhahn, Herrschaft und Widerstand, as well as Joseph Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising. 61 “Genugtuung der chinesischen Regierung für die Ermordung unserer Missionare,” KHJB 25, no. 6 (1898): 43. 62 Johann Baptist von Anzer, “Brief des hochwst. Herrn Bischofs Joh. Bapt. v. Anzer,” KHJB 26, no. 3 (1898): 37–38, 37. German original: “Man läßt ihnen [den Christen] mehr Gerechtigkeit widerfahren und gibt ihnen größere Freiheit in Ausübung der religiösen Pflichten.” 63 “Genugtuung der chinesischen Regierung für die Ermordung unserer Missionare,” 43.

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were most at risk from the threats from anti-Christian sentiment, while in Protestant periodicals the Chinese converts were the ones who ultimately had to face the consequences of siding with Christianity. For conservative German Catholics, the solution to the problem of these anti-Christian outpourings was the establishment of a fair system of laws and institutions that protected religious freedoms. For conservative German Protestants, the solution was individual conversion. It needed “allies on the ground” in the form of converted Chinese villagers, local officials, and intellectuals who would not only advocate for their causes, but also carry out the tasks of further conversion. Perhaps the most obvious answer that explains these differences is one of genre. Missionary periodicals are a genre, and Catholic missionary periodicals extended a certain type of martyrological literature that dated back to the early modern period of missionary expansion. The expulsion of the Jesuit mission from China in the eighteenth century after the Rites Controversy and the subsequent martyrdom that befell the Catholic missions in China was a larger historical narrative that informed the genre of Catholic missionary writing in China. 64 For Catholics, the threat of the Chinese imperial state loomed, as it was an important and powerful force that had expelled the Catholic mission from China in the past. German Protestants, having entered China in the middle of the nineteenth century in the aftermath of the Opium Wars, saw the Chinese state at its weakest point. They thus operated under a different set of historical narratives and assumptions than those of their Catholic counterparts. 65 These historical narratives and assumptions affected the political agendas that SVD and BMS missionary periodicals tried to promote. The BMS projected an image of missionary society with a primarily a-political ‘mission.’ The purpose of the missionary society’s efforts was to create a pious Chinese Christian subject. The SVD, on the other hand, openly advocated for the creation of a modern, Christian state, which had the laws and regulations that could count it a member of the family of international nations. Within the SVD’s periodicals, the Chinese state, whether on the local or on the national level, is something that is present, and the missionaries actively engage with the Chinese state. Within Berlin Missionary’s periodicals, accounts of local life mostly show that the Protestant convert could cope with the absence of a state. The state was instead embodied in individuals, such as Confucian officials or Confucian teachers who had become Christians. Reform of the individual body became a metaphor for the salvation of the nation. It was clear that individual Chinese converts needed to rid themselves of their previous lives of superstition, opium, and gambling. But this focus on the individual also abstracted the larger political processes and conflicts that were needed to save the nation. Moral sins could be abstracted, and the focus on individual reform translated into vague and inexact political agendas. 64 There is a large literature on the Chinese Rites Controversy. One good overview is David E. Mungello, ed., The Chinese Rites Controversy: Its History and Meaning (Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 1994). 65 I am indebted to Margaret Lavinia Anderson for this insight on the importance of genre.

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Catholics, on the other hand, linked the spiritual evils of Chinese antiChristianity with the deliberate actions (and inaction) of local Chinese officials, whom they viewed as flaunting and violating the stipulations set out in the Treaty of Tianjin of 1858. China, in the SVD worldview, was a failed state, and could no longer fulfil its obligations to international ‘law’ and ‘justice.’ Catholic missionaries thus felt no qualms in lobbying for the German Empire to intervene in Chinese politics when the Chinese state had failed to meet their demands of protection. They embraced and encouraged the German Empire’s taking of Jiaozhou Bay as a leasehold. German Protestants, while enthusiastic to enter Jiaozhou Bay after the German Empire established the Jiaozhou Bay Leasehold, had little direct impact on its formation. In the case of German aims in China in the late nineteenth century, Catholic missionaries seemed much more politically savvy, aggressively interventionist, and in-tune with the agenda of the German Empire than their Protestant counterparts. 66 The differences between the BMS and the SVD stemmed as much from their different own political experiences in Germany as they did from their divergent theological traditions. The SVD’s overtly political position can partly be explained by their ambiguous relationship to the newly formed German state. Since the SVD had been created during the Kulturkampf, they understood that they needed to actively lobby for patronage from the Prussian state. Even though the Kulturkampf had officially ended by twenty years prior, the SVD’s experience in the Kulturkampf made it especially attentive to ideas about justice, law, and rights that they believed the Catholics deserved. The BMS, in many regards, expected assistance from the Prussian state. The SVD did not take this patronage for granted. The Catholic experience with the Kulturkampf made them particularly attentive to relations between the state and religious freedom. The appeals in China for international standards of laws and justice can also be read as appeals to the German state to respect the religious freedom of German Catholics in Germany. SVD missionaries knew that religious freedom was a fragile thing, and they had to cultivate good relations with the state in order to protect their religious freedom. By comparing the language and narrative tropes within Catholic and Protestant missionary periodicals, competing visions of modernity emerge from the pages. The missionaries’ visions of modernity were rooted in their respective religious traditions and ideas. Catholic missionaries grounded their ideas about 66 I am not arguing, however, that German Protestants, or Protestants overall, did not call for military intervention in China. Rather, I am arguing that the BMS, due to its conservative theological outlook, attempted to project an image of being solely interested in missionary conversion and not political encroachment. For examples of American Protestants calling for aggressive military intervention in China, see: Stuart Creighton Miller, “Ends and Means: Missionary Justification of Force in Nineteenth Century China,” in John K. Fairbank, ed., The Missionary Enterprise in China and America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), 249–282. For examples of active cooperation between the German Protestant missions and German imperial ambitions, see: Horst Gründer, Christliche Mission und deutscher Imperialismus.

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China’s future within the tradition of the saints and martyrs, while Protestant missionaries used their beliefs about individual conversion to advance their claims. German Catholic and Protestant missionaries thus promoted different agents of modernisation. German Catholics saw states as the primary agents, and targets, of modernisation. German Protestants, on the other hand, saw individuals and individual conversion as the primary agents of becoming modern. By looking at these Catholic and Protestant missionary periodicals, we can further see how certain terms of the West’s engagement with China today that are still in circulation, such as the West’s accusation of China’s lack of ‘justice,’ ‘rights,’ and ‘individualism,’ have roots in the missionary encounters of the nineteenth century.

THE LETTRES ÉDIFIANTES ET CURIEUSES The Politics of History in Different Nineteenth-Century Editions Helge Wendt French Catholic mission publications of the nineteenth century offer a wide range of narratives: Besides the histories from the mission field, or the promotion of knowledge and science, political arguments relating to the situation in France can be found. Within this chapter the prefaces of two different editions of the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses (published in 1819 and 1838), the Annales de l’Association de la Propagation de la Foi (of 1827) and the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses de la nouvelle mission du Maduré (of 1865) will be analysed in order to extract and interrelate statements on issues of political and historical value. The history of the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses began in 1702 with the inaugural publication initiated by the Jesuit Charles Le Gobien. The first edition of thirty-four volumes is a collection of letters from Jesuit missionaries, with the last volume appearing in 1780. These Lettres édifiantes can be characterised as periodicals for two reasons. First, Gobien and his collaborators intended that the edition should contain contemporary mission reports that were published regularly. Second, the character of a periodical is evident by the publisher’s desire to make the reports accessible to a larger public, with the intention to spread knowledge throughout not only French speaking countries, but also to all Jesuits and Jesuit institutions. The Lettres disseminated information and propaganda amongst a broader public to whom those letters were expected to be read or sold during or after church services. Jesuits began publishing in the early eighteenth century. In the Protestant churches, because of the disputes over how missions to ‘heathens’ should be considered, 1 mission reports were mostly published in periodicals that were not specialised in mission activities. 2 Even more so than the French ‘periodical books’ of the Lettres, the German equivalent of this French edition, the so called Neue Weltbott, originally published between 1726 and 1748 by German speaking Jesuits in quite thin booklets, was in its appearance quite similar to periodicals. In libraries, these booklets were subsequently bound to form more durable volumes, 1 2

Mariano Delgado, “Missionstheologische und anthropologische Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede zwischen Katholiken und Protestanten im Entdeckungszeitalter,” Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft 87, no. 2 (2003): 93–111. See for example the publications of the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, an organisation that worked as much in the inner mission as in the mission in colonial areas.

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which explains the different enumerations cited today. Even when those booklets did not appear consistently over time, the editors of the Neue Weltbott intended to publish a series of booklets. For the French Lettres and the German Weltbott every volume featured an introduction that focused upon major themes referred to in the subsequent accounts. The Weltbott was sent to subscribers, as was likely the case for the Lettres. Moreover, when examining the broader framework of French Catholic mission propaganda publications, the publications of the Association of the Propagation of Faith, 3 which was based in Lyon and Paris, have to be considered. Their Annales were also thin booklets, which were sold from 1827 for the price of 50 cents, later rising to 75 cents. 4 The Annales and subsequent nineteenth-century editions of the Lettres édifiantes must be examined in relation to the prior publications of missionary reports and contemporary protestant periodicals as well as to the political context in France. As will be made clearer below, the political context in France during the time-frame under consideration here saw the monarchy re-established following Napoleon’s defeat, the politics of religion between a conservative Gallicanism and ‘liberal’ ultramontanism (in which the Jesuits played an important role), 5 and a renewal of colonial politics. During the first half of the nineteenth century, five so-called new editions of the Lettres édifiantes were published in France. Table 1: An overview of the different editions of the Lettres between 1703 and 1843

3 4

5

Years

Publishers

No. of Volumes

1703–1776

36

1780/1810–11/1819 1820

Charles le Gobien, Jean Baptiste Du Halde, Louis Patouillet, Ambroise Maréchal Yves de Querbeuf ?

1808–1809 1809–1814

Abbé Montmignon ?

8 8

1829–1832

?

20

1838–1843

Louis Aimé-Martin

4

26 14

The French name is: Association de la Propagation de la Foi. In 1827, year of the first publication of the Annales, the booklet cost 50c. The price rose from 1834 on to 75c per volume. More exactly, the publication was free for members of the association. Membership amounted to 5c per week as the renewed articles of association precise in Article 3. In sum, as the Annales were published four times per year every volume came to 75c for every subscriber (Annales de l’Association de la Propagation de la foi 7 (1834), 127). The price of 75c is explicitly noted on any of the title pages. See: Bernard Reardon, Liberalism and Tradition: Aspects of Catholic Thought in NineteenthCentury France (Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press, 1975).

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Furthermore, as the Jesuits had been banned in France during the eighteenth century, the re-founded Society of the nineteenth century tried to reanimate the fervour of Father Gobien by publishing Lettres édifiantes from the mission fields. One example is the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses de la nouvelle mission du Maduré, which has a striking resemblance to a periodical, even though only two issues were printed. This chapter will discuss the cross-referential triangle of two nineteenth-century Lettres édifiantes editions, the Annales de l’Association de la Propagation de la Foi and the Lettres édifiantes de la nouvelle mission du Maduré. 1819 – STRESSING THE ROLE OF SCIENCE The first of nineteenth century’s editions of the ‘old’ Lettres édifiantes was an eight-volume edition of “strangely disfigured” letters that had lost “their naïve character and original vivacity”, as Ernest G. stated in the preface to the Louis Aimé-Martin’s re-edition of the Lettres of 1838. 6 A second version of the Lettres, which were originally published in 1780 and highly lauded, appeared in 1819. The editor of the 1780 edition was the ex-Jesuit Yves Mathurin Marie Traud de Querbeuf. 7 In the second edition the reports were ordered according to countries and world-regions, with some new reports added. It is noteworthy that this republication occurred during a period when the adepts of the company experienced difficulties for both supporting the restoration of the monarchy as well as for defending itself against anti-Jesuit propaganda. Moreover, the 1819 preface remained unchanged from the 1780 edition. Taking into account the persistent difficulties for Jesuits within political and intellectual fields, the preface played with the presence and absence of the nomination of Jesuits, as its first phrases demonstrates: The work that we publish today in a new edition does not need to be praised, as its reputation is aging by real men of letters and any person who loves the Religion and is interested in its progress. We believe as well to serve the sciences and the piety by saving – for saying it like that – from the past’s dark this precious collection. We will not expose in detail all this what it usefully contributes about Geography, Astronomy, customs, practices, the government of so many nations that before we ignored; we won’t say anything about all the things it [the collection] taught us about the arts we have almost forgotten. 8 6 7 8

Ernest G., “Préface Général,” Lettres édifiantes et curieuses 1 (1838): ix. After the dissolution of the Old Society in 1773 he lived as man of letters in Paris, but in postrevolutionary confusions he had to take refuge in Germany in 1792, where he died seven years later. Querbeuf, “Préface,” Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, écrites des missions étrangères. Nouvelle édition. Mémoires du Levant 1 (1819): iii. French original: “L’ouvrage dont nous donnons au-

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The strategy the editor followed is obvious from these quotes. He wanted the Lettres to be read as ‘simple’ scientific publications in which both a larger readership could find points of interest, and specialised geographers, astronomers, historians and politicians would be able to gain specific insight. In this edition the cornerstones of the mythic ‘Jesuit scientific mission’ were largely revealed in the form of the two Jesuits Matteo Ricci and Johann Adam Schall von Bell, astronomers and mathematicians, who lived in the seventeenth century in the Chinese imperial court. The preface of the fourteenth volume underlined their importance, as they obtained acceptance from the Chinese court thanks to their scientific knowledge and their ability to aggregate the European astronomic and geographical knowledge for Chinese purposes and to adapt it according to Chinese needs. 9 Querbeuf obviously offered the view of the possibility of gaining Chinese elites as converts in the seventeenth century by demonstrating European scientific advances before turning to the main aim of conversion. 10 This strategy of Querbeuf’s to down-play the Christian-Catholic signification of Jesuit missions to China in order to incorporate those protagonists and the whole project into the European civilising mission using European science was obviously linked to the history of the Jesuit Order’s suppression. The old society of Jesuits was dissolved in 1773 and even when Pope Pius VII re-admitted the new society in 1814, the Societatis Iesu, the Jesuits were not allowed into post-Napoleonic France until 1822. 11 Throughout the nineteenth century the Jesuits continued to be the victims of various attacks, especially in relation to their educational politics. The new edition met with a situation comparable to the first Querbeuf-edition, in which the term Jesuit was omitted and in which instead the scientific role of the Lettres was emphasised. 12 He further insinuated that the reports still contained a lot of knowledge about foreign countries, peoples and habits to be discovered, and that thus justified the re-edition of the Lettres in the new century. The prefatory statements might therefore have been related to the French discussions on the reestablishment of the new Societas. On account of this, the pubjourd’hui une nouvelle édition, n’a pas besoin de nos éloges: sa réputation est depuis longtemps établie auprès des vrais littérateurs et de toutes les personnes qui aiment la Religion et qui s’intéressent à ses progrès.” / “Nous croyons donc servir les sciences et la piété, en sauvant, pour ainsi dire, de la nuit des temps cette précieuse collection.” / “Nos n’entrerons point ici dans le détail de tout ce qu’elle présente d’observations utiles sur la géographie, sur l’astronomie, sur les mœurs, les usages, le gouvernement de tant de nations qui nous étoient [sic] auparavant inconnues; nous ne dirons rien de tout ce qu’elle nous a appris sur des arts presque ignorés parmi nous.” 9 For a recent study see: Zhang Baichun and Jürgen Renn, eds., Transformation and Transmission: Chinese Mechanical Knowledge and the Jesuit Intervention (Berlin: Max-Planck-Inst. für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 2006). 10 “Préface,” Lettres édifiantes et curieuses 14 (1819): vii–viii. 11 See: Mathieu-Mathurin Tabaraud, Du pape et des Jésuites. Ou exposé de quelques événements du pontificat de Pie VII; de la conduite des Jésuites depuis leur introduction en France jusqu'à leur expulsion, des causes de leur suppression et de celles qui s'opposent à leur rétablissement (Paris 1815); Louis Silvy, Du rétablissement des Jésuites en France (Paris 1816). 12 “Préface,” Lettres édifiantes et curieuses (1819): iv–v.

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lisher had to observe very carefully the way he transmitted Jesuit thinking. He propagated, on the one hand, new and old Jesuit positions, and on the other hand tried not to defend too openly the Jesuit cause. Another way of understanding the historical reasoning of the Lettres of 1819 is the effort to reanimate colonial politics in France, which under Napoleon and following the independence of South American nations had lost its importance. 13 Thirdly, and quite independently from the Jesuits’ cause, the Lettres played a role in Catholic dominated restoration politics in post-Napoleonic France. The preface of the 1780/1819 edition was very shrewdly dedicated to the Kings Louis XVI and Louis XVIII and declared clearly the Society’s loyalty to the (new) regime. In this sense, the 1819 edition of the Lettres might also be read in a discursive context of identity creation or selfassurance for it referred as much to national French as to European arguments of an holistic colonial project. 1838 – SUPPORT OF FRENCH COLONIALISM Louis Aimé-Martin, an important man of letters, published the second largest nineteenth-century re-edition of the Lettres, after the 1819 edition. Besides his famous Lettres à Sophie, which included the topics of natural history, philosophy and education, 14 he published the first volume of the re-edited Lettres édifiantes in 1838. He dedicated this work to René Caillié, who passed away the same year (of 1838) and who in the late 1820s became famous for having been the first Westerner to enter Timbuktu and return to Europe. 15 In his inscription Aimé-Martin combined the voyage of ‘the new Ulysses’ Caillié with those of the French missionaries into their mission fields in the Americas, India and China, but – as was the case in the re-edition of 1817 – he made no direct mention of the Jesuits nor the religious aim of the missions. The second interconnection between the Lettres and Caillié seems more politically motivated. In the introduction, Aimé-Martin congratulated René Caillié, even though the adventurer’s voyage account had been published eight years earlier: Aimé-Martin praised the “cher voyageur” as a herald of French colonial interests in inner Africa:

13 See: Denise Bouche, Histoire de la colonisation française, vol. II (Paris: Fayard, 1991). 14 Louis Aimé-Martin, Lettres à Sophie sur la physique, la chimie et l’histoire naturelle, 4 vols (Paris 1822). 15 René Caillié, Journal d'un voyage à Temboctou et à Jenné dans l'Afrique centrale. Précédé d'observations faites chez les Maures Braknas, les Nalous et d'autres peuples, pendant les années 1824, 1825, 1826, 1827, 3 vols (Paris 1830), accessed Sept. 17, 2012 http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k104969j/f2.image.r=.langDE.

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Helge Wendt The discovery of this kingdom in the desert, that ineffectively was tented by a crowd of English voyagers, who all died although they were supported by the omnipotence and the treasurers of Great Britain, this discovery, that you achieved, you, who you just accrued form our countryside, without science, without gold, and without help but with the exclusiveness of your will. The terrible end of your rivals that did not strike you down but strengthened your courage. 16

Thus, Caillié became a major figure of early imperial rivalry. In this context Aimé-Martin could place the reports of French missionaries of the eighteenth century as markers of a French entitlement to colonial expansion. After this introduction by the editor Louis Aimé-Martin himself, it was “Ernest G.”, an unknown author, who wrote the Préface Générale. Here he praised the letters of Jesuits – he mentioned them by name – as a great example of voyage literature and a source of knowledge of alien countries. He presented the motives of the Jesuits as being “full of fervour and patriotism.” 17 Again the seemingly entirety of the French colonial project was insinuated. Using this line of reasoning, he wrote in reference to the editor’s favourite theme, that of education and moralisation: … one is able to gain a complete – also summarized – idea of the great civilizing movement that the Gospel imprint in all parts of the world and of the magnificent role Europe, and over all France plays in this work of moralization and charity. 18

Subsequently G. established a sort of genealogy of French intellectuals who often refered to the older Lettres editions, or other Jesuit publications of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre or François-René de Chateaubriand. Both were, like Caillié, novelists of voyage accounts. 19 Chateaubriand was also a public supporter of the newly re-established monarchy, and particularly of Louis XVIII. In citing Chateaubriand, Ernest G. could therefore safeguard himself against suspicions of being a supporter of Jesuit anti-nationalism. Ernest G. wrote the introduction in 1838 in order to attempt an interpretation of the national and colonial character of the letters instead of its religious or edifying content. From his point of view, the Lettres were crucial for a national discourse of the colonial thinking of the former ministers Jean-Baptiste 16 Louis Aimé-Martin, “A M. René Caillié, cultivateur à Labbadèrre [sic],” Lettres édifiantes et curieuses concernant l’Asie, l'Afrique et l’Amérique, avec quelques relations nouvelles des missions, et des notes géographiques et historiques 1 (1838). French original: “La découverte de cette reine du désert, vainement tentée par une foule de voyageurs anglais, tous morts à la peine quoique soutenus par la toute-puissance et les trésors de la Grande-Bretagne; cette découverte vous l’avez faite, vous, simple enfant de nos campagnes, sans science, sans or, sans appui, et par la seule force de votre indomptable volonté. La fin terrible de vos rivaux, au lieu de vous abattre, affermissait votre courage.” 17 Ernest G., “Préface général,” Lettres 1 (1838): ix. 18 Ernest G., “Préface général,” Lettres 1 (1838): xii. French original: “… on se forme une idée complète, quoique sommaire, du grand mouvement civilisateur que l’Évangile imprime à toutes les parties du monde, et du magnifique rôle que joue l’Europe, et surtout la France, dans cette œuvre de la moralisation et de charité.” 19 He omited critical adoptions of the Lettres, amongst them the well known and ironical of Voltaire, L’histoire générale, et sur les moeurs et l’esprit des nations, depuis Charlemagne jusq’à nos jours, vol. VI (Amsterdam 1764): 357–358.

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Colbert, Anne Robert Turgot and Jean-Baptiste Gay de Martignac. The latter, even though he was as Home Secretary author of the “Ordonnances du 16 juin 1828” that forbade Jesuits from being teachers in institutes of higher education,20 wanted – as Ernest G. sketched it – to make the Lettres known to a wide range of French people: Ernest G. reported that an advisor of Charles X. asked municipal libraries to buy the whole collection in order to allow them to be read by pupils all over France. As this movement never gained strength, G. deplored in 1838 the low enthusiasm multiple town councils had demonstrated when declining the acquisition because of low funds. 21 The reports and letters of this 1838 edition were arranged according to geographical regions. Most of the letters originated from the first half of the eighteenth century although many of them are undated. On some pages footnotes were inserted to clarify the spelling of places or people. The most outstanding change of the original eighteenth-century letters seems to be that the editor inserted later and often undated reports that concerned the same region or town. These annexed reports to the letters were seemingly written later, though mostly by missionaries or friars of the Society. For example, in one case a letter addressed to Père Le Camus written in 1739 in Constantinople by a Jesuit missionary whose name is abbreviated to “P.”, was followed by an updated report about this city. 22 This compilation followed a report written in 1713 by Father Durban to the Secretary of State Security, the Marquis de Torcy, on the establishment of Jesuit missions on the Crimea and of the problems that the resident Tartars had with the Turks and Russians. The report was accompanied by a questionnaire of five points with their respective answers. Beginning with the general political situation of the Tartars, this part of the arranged texts examined the possibilities of converting the Tartars to Catholicism. Then a voyage-account of uncertain date came next, which mainly discussed the problems of the Tartars, and specifically a group called the Nogais. 23 In another case the complementary and anonymously written report was entitled “Histoire” and aimed to contextualise the previous, older letter. 24 To cite a fourth example an overview reported the “Situation actuelle de la Palestine et la Syrie” 25 that followed an extensive Jesuit travelogue through this region. 26 In order to comprehend the variations in political intentions of the different editors, it would be worth a further investigation to see how many of these annexed reports of the nineteenth-century versions were originally published in the original eighteenth-century editions of the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses. Aimé20 Ernest Sevrin, “Les ordonnances du 1828 et Mgr Clausel de Montals, évêque de Chartres,” Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France 16, no. 70 (1930): 5–22. 21 Ernest G., “Préface général,” Lettres 1 (1838): ix. 22 “P. SJ, to Le Camus SJ, Constantinople, 1739,” Lettres 1 (1838): 95–97. 23 “Duban SJ, to the Marquis fe Torcy, Bagchsaray, May 20, 1713,” Lettres 1 (1838): 97–112. The “Questionnaire,” Lettres 1 (1838): 112–113; “The voyage report”, Lettres 1 (1838): 113– 118. 24 Chabret SJ, Seyde, 25th June 1742 and “Histoire,” Lettres 1 (1838): 190–197. 25 “Situation actuelle de la Palestine et la Syrie,” Lettres 1 (1838): 287–293. 26 “Neget SJ, to Fleuriau SJ, [no place, no date],” Lettres 1 (1838): 268–287.

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Martin in 1838 intended by the rearrangement of the reports to illustrate the historical continuity of the French Jesuit’s engagement in a number of world regions. For this reason he reassembled in this first volume letters that were written from the eastern Mediterranean Levant, a region where British-French colonial antagonism became venomous. The Levant region was also referred to in the introduction to the American section of the publication. The anonymous author – maybe Aimé-Martin himself – described the Levant as a very important part of the world where different great cultures, especially the French, had left their marks over the centuries. Aimé-Martin believed that the French colonising project was unique in the sense of bringing the civilising light to savage people. He saw this in contrast to the Spaniards, who he considered as colonising by the sword, and the English, who did so by commerce. The French “principal aim was to send to America less troops than ministers of peace and to found less commercial establishments than churches.” 27 This introductory text to the American section praised the richness of the Jesuit accounts as even more lively coloured than the novels of James Cooper. 28 The ordering of the texts brought to light an evolution and historical insight by combining reports written at different times by different authors, some of whom may not even have been Jesuits. For the American chapter, the editor wished to offer a broad image of the actual state of the territories, which were independent from Spain or England or – as was the case with Canada – were under British government. Unlike the Mediterranean Levant region where the French government was actually interested in colonial expansion, the editor generally specified in the American chapter what the administrative, commercial, statistical information, and historical accounts were meant for. At the end of the chapter containing the American letters an account of the Situation actuelle de l’Amérique presented the history of the last 100 years. The independence of the United States and of most South-American nations and the remaining colonial territories of different European countries are treated, viz. In course of the last century, and even more during the last ten years the whole appearance of America has changed, from north to south. All the sciences of Europe where taken there, and all industries took root. Without any doubt the bloody wars that crossed it all along still infest some parts. But the great principles were proclaimed. And you can already discover the fundaments whereon the new social structure starts to be based on. Everywhere Christianity and Liberty are the heart of institutions; everywhere the local governments that violently substituted the paternalism of the mother country have emancipated the indigenous [People] and accepted them in the enjoyment of common rights. 29

27 “Missions d’Amérique. Avis de l’éditeur,” Lettres 1 (1838): 637. French original: “… principal soin fut d’envoyer en Amérique, moins des troupes que des ministres de paix, et de fonder moins des comptoirs que des églises.” 28 “Missions d’Amérique,” Lettres 1 (1838): 637. 29 “Situation actuelle de l’Amérique,” Lettres 1 (1838): 817. French original: “Depuis un siècle, et même depuis dix années seulement, tout a changé de face en Amérique, du nord au sud. Toutes les sciences de l’Europe y ont été portées, toutes les industries y ont pris racine. Sans doute les guerres sanglantes qui l’on parcourue tout entière la ravagent encore sur plusieurs

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Aimé-Martin defended the French value of liberté, which was part of the official discourse even under the restored monarchy. The author of the Situation acutelle de l’Amérique twice stressed the importance of abolishing the slavery of black people in United States and elsewhere. He considered their situation as inconsistent with the principles of individual liberty proclaimed in the French constitution. In this account the Jesuits were presented as a part of a colonial history of America, which, compared to the temporal expansion, were one of the religious groups that had laid the moral foundation stone of the new order. 30 The account also clearly underlined the important role of French colonialism or colonial fantasies 31 when moral questions, such as individual liberty, were at stake. The politics of history in this case was to present the Lettres as being a valuable source of political, social, historical and cultural knowledge, initiated, published and made possible by Jesuits for a broader public, inspiring subsequent voyageurs to report their knowledge following the Jesuits’ example. 1865 – DEPENDENCIES AND AUTONOMY AND THE ‘NEW SOCIETY’ Another non-French dominated geographical area in which French missionaries of the new Society worked was British India. From the southern part of Tamil Nadu, new mission letters were published in the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses de la nouvelle mission du Maduré (Lettres du Maduré). The first of two volumes of the Lettres du Maduré was published by the Jesuit Joseph Bertrand in 1865. He points out in his preface to the first volume that he clearly had hoped for a continuation of the Lettres du Maduré; however, only two edited volumes were published. Bertrand made a clear reference to the eighteenth-century original editions, when he mentioned the restriction a publication of mission letters was submitted to, “in a century that fears extended oeuvres.” 32 This comment might also be read as an allusion to other kinds of publications of his time, for example he must have been familiar with protestant periodicals as some were published in India where he worked. He continued further: “These two volumes open up a series of successive publication, being published then, when the missionaries will have provided suffi-

points. Mais de grands principes ont été proclamés, et l’on découvre déjà les bases sur lesquelles commence à s’asseoir le nouvel édifice social. Partout le christianisme et la liberté sont l’âme des institutions; partout les gouveremens [!] locaux qui se sont violemment substitués à la tutelle de la mère-patrie, ont émancipé les indigènes, et les ont admis à la jouissance du droit commun.” 30 “Situation actuelle de l’Amérique,” Lettres 1 (1838): 817–818. 31 For a German analogous example, see: Susanne Zantop, Colonial Fantasies: Conquest, Family, and Nation in Precolonial Germany, 1770–1870 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997). 32 Bertrand SJ, Lettres édifiantes et curieuses de la nouvelle mission du Maduré 1 (1865): ii. French original: “dans un siècle qui a peur des longs ouvrages.”

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cient material for a new volume.” 33 The Jesuit was not a friend of periodicals or this kind of letter-editions at all. He preferred histories that contextualised the mission reports. In his opinion edited letters could never replace copious forms of narrative works. Bertrand was aware of the difficulties a publication with this name on it presented for the new Society of Jesuits in France and in India, as the title evoked a direct link to the old society, which Protestants, and even some Catholics, considered to be a danger to public order and governmental independence. Consequently, Bertrand had to consider the fears that accompanied the new Society in this special mission field: The Jesuits worked in British territories, which in the eighteenth century were partly dominated by Portuguese and French. The new Society established itself in different so-called ‘provinces.’ 34 Each province depended upon a European province, whose task it was to furnish the colonial area with missionaries and funds. The Jesuit province of Bengal depended on the Belgian; Bombay on the German; Goa – as in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – on the Portuguese or Lusitanian province; Madurai (Maduré), whose principal was Joseph Bertrand, on the Province of Toulouse. This provided a situation in which the old colonial conflicts between France and the now dominant British might flare up again. As a Catholic order in a Protestant dominated colonial hierarchy, Jesuits were forced to show loyalty – which they did in practical mission work. Jesuits, like other Catholic missionary organisation in British India during the nineteenth century, adapted their mission work in response to governmental demands. For example, the official language taught in Indian Catholic mission-schools was either English or a vernacular one. The Jesuits submitted reports to the British colonial government and were proud to supply local administrations with former pupils of their schools. Finally, Englishspeaking Jesuit missionaries, mostly from Ireland, took over central positions in mission and church hierarchies in India. 35 Besides this collaboration with a Protestant state power and the partial critics against his own people, Joseph Bertrand could neither negate the Jesuit’s own past nor give in to the accusations against the old and new Societies in the Lettres du Maduré. He chose a way of compromise: On the one hand he revealed a certain pigheadedness when he continued to call the publication Lettres édifiantes et curieuses. On the other hand, he clearly passed criticism on the various new editions of the Lettres when he argued that various newly written letters had to remain unconsidered. Due to the various re-editions of antiquated reports the attention, as well as funds, of publishers such as Louis Aimé-Martin and of the public were already exhausted. Joseph Bertrand’s aim was to shed light on the history of the 33 Bertrand SJ, Lettres édifiantes et curieuses du Maduré 1 (1865): ii. French original: “Ces deux volumes ouvriront une série de publications successives qui paraitront en leur temps, à mesure que les lettres des missionnaires fourniront la matière d’un nouveau volume.” 34 Kenneth Ballhatchet, Caste, Class and Catholicism in India 1789–1914 (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1998). 35 See: Helge Wendt, Die missionarische Gesellschaft: Mikrostrukturen einer kolonialen Globalisierung (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2011): 226–227.

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re-installation of the new Jesuits, their work and the difficulties they experienced. For this reason his preface began with the narrative of the old Society's expulsion from the colonies by the Portuguese and its suppression by the Pope. Bertrand emphasised the history of 21 former Jesuits who could stay in India and became part of the Mission Étrangère to whom the mission work was committed. Those who were still alive in 1814 were asked by the new society’s directory to reintegrate into the re-established organisation. 36 In addition to this cooperation in colonial India, it was the publication activity of the Mission Étrangére that deserves some further remarks: After the new Querbeuf edition of the Letters in 1819, and, with a feeble Jesuit organisation in France, it was the Association of the Propagation of Faith, the famous Mission Étrangère that tried to succeed the Jesuit propaganda machinery. The relationship between the society and the French Foreign Mission merits particular investigation. Some former Jesuits found harbour in this association of world priests in French dominated territories. Consequently the Association itself borrowed some central aspects of Jesuit identity. For example, the community named Saint Francis Xavier as patron, and tried to establish a close relationship with the Pope. Beginning in 1827 it furthermore published the Annales de l’Association de la propagation de la foi (Annales) 37. The first volume was subtitled: Collection succeeding all editions of the Lettres édifiantes. 38 This publication appeared six times per annum in booklets, which were afterwards re-edited and produced in a volume containing the complete yearly issues. The numeration of each of the single publications was kept as was the introduction, the so-called ‘advertisement.’ The editors nevertheless continued to call this reprint a “Journal” that should guarantee its readers “authenticity and exactness.” 39 Each issue treated a particular world region: the Orient, America or India. The first volume alluded to the Lettres as an important work of reference and the above-mentioned re-edition of Querbeuf’s Lettres of 1818 was also mentioned. In contrast to Father Querbeuf or the later Aimé-Martin’s prefaces, the Annales preface provided a purely religious interpretation of the reports contained within the volume, and evoked the reader’s support of the mission work as well as divine mercifulness. 40 The introduction gives an impression of religious and mission zeal of Christian religious history: Let’s read the history of centuries: when the Religion is oppressed in one place, it passes anywhere else. When someone wants to suffocate it, it spreads out: one might think that it flees, but instead is does not do anything else than to disappear for a moment in order to take possession in another part of its heritage. 41

36 37 38 39 40 41

Bertrand SJ, Lettres édifiantes et curieuses du Maduré 1 (1865): 7. In English: Annuals of the Association of the Propagation of Faith. Annales de l’Association de la Propagation de la Foi 1 (1827): vi. Annales de l’Association de la Propagation de la Foi 1 (1827): v. Annales de l’Association de la Propagation de la Foi 1 (1827): vii. Annales de l’Association de la Propagation de la Foi 1 (1827): 3–4. French original: “Lisons l’histoire des siècles: on opprime la Religion dans un lieu, elle passe dans un autre: on veut

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After this quite millennialism beginning, the introduction’s historical review became more concrete and treated the history of Christianity from its dawn to the Reformation Era and the start of mission activities in Asia by Francis Xavier.42 The very brief historical overview from a religious perspective guided the reader directly to the first report written by a Jesuit of the new Society in China in 1822. The advertisements of the following issues helped to construct the Annales as a unique mission journal. Within these issues the prompt publication of letters dedicated to the association’s directory, or to relatives of the missionaries, was underlined as a virtue. Moreover the inclusion of a short ‘press review’ in the Annales demonstrated how it differed from most other French and Catholic periodicals. For example two French Catholic periodicals were mentioned: the “Quotidienne” 43 and the “Ami de la Religion et du Roi.” 44 The politics of the Annales seems to be clear: Firstly, mission activities should be interpreted in a religious manner. Neither science, nor colonial politics were to be taken into account since the Catholic mission was part of a divine history. Therefore it was the Association of world-priests, the Oeuvre de la Propagation de la Foi who took on this duty as a publisher and assumed the historical burden of the Jesuits. Secondly, the Annales was expected to supersede the Lettres and renew the knowledge Europeans could access when reading mission reports. Some of the reports published in the Lettres and its subsequent reprints dated from the seventeenth century. Instead of old reports, the Annales offered, even in this recompilation of the six issues, contemporary reports and records from different parts of the world, to which the French Church “could be considered, in a certain way, as the mother.” 45 For a Jesuit of the new Society it was, however, obvious that missionaries of other mission organisation could never fill the void the old Society of Jesuits left behind. Joseph Bertrand expressed such a sentiment in a book called La Mission

42

43 44

45

l’étouffer, et elle s’étend: on croit qu’elle fuit, et elle ne fait que disparoître [!] un moment, pour aller prendre possession d’une autre partie de son héritage.” Annales de l’Association de la Propagation de la Foi 1 (1827): 4–5. This standpoint resembles palpable modern historical writing of the theses the Roman Catholic Church sought to recompense losses of believers due to the reformation by mission activities outside Europe, see: Luke Clossey, “The Early-Modern Jesuit Missions as a Global Movement,” (2005), accessed May 24, 2011 http://repositories.cdlib. org/ucwhw/wp/3; Delgado, “Missionstheologische und anthropologische Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede”, 93–111; Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia, The World of Catholic Renewal, 1540–1770 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998): 1; Wolfgang Reinhard, Globalisierung des Christentums? (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2007): 15–16. Annales de l’Association de la Propagation de la Foi 3 (1827): 4–8. This journal was cited as one of the Catholic publications of the time of restoration, but no further information could be ascertained. The larger quotation is based on the issue dated August 18, 1824: Annales de l’Association de la Propagation de la Foi 4 (1827): 1–6. The first issue of L’Ami was published in 1814, the last one in 1862. L’Ami, that appeared twice a week, succeeded the Mélanges d’histoire et de philosophie, the Journal des Curés and the Annales catholiques and was printed in the same press (Adrien Le Clerc) where the Lettres édifiantes were published. Annales de l’Association de la Propagation de la Foi 4 (1827): 4.

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du Maduré that he published prior to the publication of the Lettres du Maduré. Even though this is not a periodical, the Notions sur l’Inde et les Missions (the subtitle given to the republished version), published in 1847, gives some indications as to his later periodical project of the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses de la nouvelle mission du Maduré that will be treated below. Bertrand referred in the introduction of his book to the original Lettres édifiantes et curieuses of 1703 as a once very important medium of information. The letters, he argued, could not narrate a history of missions, as they were very time-bounded. Therefore, all the republications missed the point: Published letters, loosely ordered by geographical criteria were not methodological history writing and could not give a sensemaking frame to the missionaries’ accounts. They were compilations, without any thread that guided readers and revealed a publisher’s intention systematically. 46 Bertrand published with his book La Mission du Maduré a text fairly independent from the form of published letters, but which included quotations from the Lettres’ published material. He cited other authors, too, and related aspects of precolonial and colonial history of “Hindustan”, the customs of its people and the religion and its history. Then he provided a broad history of missions in India, whereby the Jesuit mission history was chiefly meant. As Bertrand’s major focus in the Notions was the formation of a native clergy, he emphasised the foundation of a seminary of the Mission Étrangère. Even when certain continuities between French Jesuits and the Mission Étrangère were established after the suppression of the former, Bertrand was keen to connect both histories even tighter. For example, he referred to the founding father of the Mission Étrangère, the Jesuit Alexandre de Rhodes, who established the seminary in Paris that was expected to train missionaries in order to alter the Portuguese padroado in Asia. 47 The padroado Bertrand qualified as “despotic protection.” 48 The historical recourse to a situation some 200 years old reflected Bertrand’s perception of the nineteenth century state of Catholicism in India and provided him with an impetus to omit the history of the Portuguese mission in East Asia: the Portuguese seldom are mentioned in his account, whereas the French and (French) Jesuit contributions are highlighted. Bertrand also provided an overview of the different Christian branches in India, namely the Saint Thomas Christians, who became a major object of missionary zeal. 49 These Saint Thomas Christians were a main subject of Bertrand’s next substantial publication project, the above-mentioned Lettres édifiantes et curieuses de la nouvelle mission du Maduré. In his view the problematic situation of the Catho46 Bertrand SJ, La Mission du Maduré. La notion sur l’Inde et les Missions (Paris and Lyon 1847): ix–x. 47 For the history of the padroado, see: Charles R. Boxer, The Church Militant and Iberian Expansion, 1440–1770 (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). For the history of Portuguese missions in India, see: Ines G. Županov, Missionary Tropics: The Catholic Frontier in India, 16th–17th Centuries (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2005). 48 Bertrand SJ, La Mission du Maduré, 197. 49 Bertrand SJ, La Mission du Maduré, 308–310.

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lic mission to the Saint Thomas Christians resulted from the suppression of the former Jesuit organisation and the lax policy of the Portuguese padroado. 50 He saw these as two reasons why so many native priests lost their faith and piety, and why so many Saint Thomas Christians, previously associated with Rome, slipped back into their former structures. Bertrand was keen to prove that the situation of nineteenth-century missions was similar to 1600 when the first Jesuits arrived. In his view, the diasporic context of Catholicism and the confessional schism were the result of degradation. 51 The second argument was a typical colonial one as it argued that Roman Catholicism would be the only correct interpretation of Christianity, and that all other Christian religions were, if not completely false, at least founded on misunderstandings or a degeneration of former well-trained Catholics. A new problem arose due to the fact that Catholicism in India was itself divided into two factions. Firstly, defenders of the old Portuguese padroado insisted on the supremacy of the Portuguese crown and clergy even in those parts of India where Portugal had lost any political power. The French faction tried to enforce the position of Rome 52 and to establish new structures and hierarchies, in order to restrict the Archbishop of Goa’s powers and to reanimate the Roman mission activities. The new organisation of India, that is, that the French maintain control in Madurai and the Portuguese Jesuits in Goa, did not prevent the spreading of this schism to Madurai territories. Bertrand partly drew upon a report on this subject written by a former missionary in India, who was then the superior of the seminary of the Mission Étrangère at Paris Tesson. 53 After the foundation of the Paris’ Seminary, the admittance of Jesuits and the adaptation of the Lettres by the Annales elucidate the manifold connections between Jesuits and the Mission Étrangère that guided also to a nationalist unification aimed against the Iberian pre-eminence in the Catholic Church. By writing an Indian mission history omitting Portuguese contribution, or even more ostentatious in disavowing their role and highlighting the role of French missionaries and their loyalty to the Pope, was a quite nationalist narrative construct but also a construct of continuity from the old to the new society via the Mission Étrangère. CONCLUSION This chapter has examined the political content of four nineteenth-century publications of French Catholic periodicals all related to the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses whose own history started at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Yet, the influence the contemporary political context had on the publications and the 50 Bertrand SJ, “Introduction,” Lettres édifiantes et curieuses du Maduré 1 (1865): 1–2. 51 Bertrand SJ, “Introduction,” 21–22. 52 This might be linked to the strong radical ultramontane fraction in France, see: Austin Gough, Paris and Rome: The Gallican Church and the Ultramontane Campaign, 1848–1853 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996). 53 Bertrand SJ, “Introduction,” 21.

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frequent application of historical constructions appears to be surprising. This diagnostic can be split into three arguments: Firstly, the political context of restoration in France seems to have motivated the 1819 edition of the Lettres édifiantes et curieuse, which was originally published twenty-six years earlier by the Abbé Querbeuf. Secondly, the political steps towards re-admission of Jesuits in France and their tenuous situation afterwards seem to have played an important role in the publisher’s mind. And thirdly, an alliance between Jesuits and Mission Étrangère in cooperation with the Propagation of Faith in France and in India as an institutional and imagined continuity can be stated. Notably the publications of both institutions showed a high degree of mutual reference. The political context of France played a central role in the 1819 edition as the prefaces referred to issues like the restoration of the monarchy by dedicating the publication to the King. Likewise the naming of some intellectuals and Catholic publications in the Preface générale in the 1838 edition located the Lettres clearly in a conservative-monarchist context. But national politics dominated also the wish to partake in a national colonial movement, related to former colonial possessions or to ‘colonial figures’, such as René Caillié, and to correlate different French mission movements in order to undermine those of other countries. Here in all the four considered editions examples can be found. Obviously, these publications needed a reason to be printed and presented to a larger public. When the Querbeuf and the Aimé-Martin editions tried to silence the spiritual and theological aspects of Jesuits in order to highlight the roles of science and spread of useful knowledge, it was the Annales of the Propagation of the Faith that underlined the spiritual character of its publication. Joseph Bertrand seems mostly to have been interested in accentuating the role of French Jesuits played in history and most notably in ‘contemporary’ India. The colonial-imperial context showed some very interesting fissures of confessional and even Jesuit unity. The attacks against the Portuguese padroado were clearly linked to a French Catholicism of radical ultramontanism. This has also to be placed in the British colonial organisation in India, where Catholics were mostly looked upon disapprovingly. 54 In this context, consequently, the French Jesuits became closer to the British colonialist than to other Catholic institutions. Moreover, Bertrand expressed how much he disliked the waste of funds by publishing repeatedly the ancient versions of the Lettres instead of concentrating on new reports. Here the fissions ran between the old and the new Society, between ultramarine Mission and Catholic publishing in France, and thirdly – when the Annales are taken into account– between Jesuits and world-priests. In the prefaces of the Lettres reviewed here, native history did not play any role. What is more, every history, be it of China or of India, became part of a religious history, more precisely a history of Catholic, Jesuit and French mission. This conclusion is worthy for the prefaces here considered. This aspect changed astonishingly when the subsequent missionaries’ reports of these publications are taken into account. Here the indigenous people played an important part in their 54 Ballhatchet, Caste, Class and Catholicism in India.

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own history, in the history of mission and the imagined future mission development. Even when they were presented as dependent on Jesuits, the importance of indigenous people as autonomous actors was palpable. Without them a Jesuit mission could hardly have been successful. To omit their role largely in the prefaces reviewed here was another politic: that of colonial representation, of Eurocentric narratives and of nationalising French Jesuit mission attended to a French readership. The periodicals considered here could affect this transfer of intention by reaching a broad but appointed public in a relatively short time period of publication. Once editors became aware of these advantages they changed their publishing strategies from re-editing older works to more recently written reports. By doing so, the periodicals transmitted not only knowledge in a new immediateness, but additionally the transmitted information was of recent origin. Information could therefore influence on-going political debates in a more immediate way.

THE LUTHERAN MISSION MAGAZINE ÂÂKESIŊ IN NEW GUINEA The Indigenous Voice in a New Guinean Magazine Gabriele Richter “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Gayatri Spivak’s famous question still hits a nerve for many reasons, but an ‘indigenous’ mission magazine published by German missionaries in a German and later Australian ruled colony in the Pacific, renews this question. 1 Could this magazine have had a Subaltern voice? The Lutheran mission magazine Ââkesiŋ –which translates as “help” 2 – was first published in New Guinea in 1911, in the local language Kâte as spoken by the people of the same name on the Huon Peninsular. 3 Most of its articles were even written by Kâte speaking people from what nowadays is called Papua New Guinea. However, the journal was not initiated, edited, or published by New Guineans. The visible driving force behind it was Lutheran missionaries who originated one way or another from Germany. The German missionaries’ interest in publishing New Guinean texts was primarily to strengthen mission work, but the authors of the articles were New Guineans. Spivak’s question thus needs to be seen within this context. The question could thus be: What was the Subaltern allowed to say? As will be demonstrated within this chapter, different social-relational, religious, cultural, and political interests come to the fore, with not only German, also New Guinean interests expressed in the articles. Those interests were sometimes expressed between the lines, sometimes more bluntly. In some regards the function of the magazine is easy to explain. For the German missionaries it was another way to promote mission work and to publish stories told by Christian role models. Also, the magazine was a tool to strengthen the coherence of Christian identity amongst the Kâte speakers and those being taught Kâte as the language of mission work in a linguistically diverse region. Not all readers and not even all authors were born into Kâte speaking communities. 1 2 3

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, eds. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffith, and Helen Tiffin (London and New York: Routledge, 1995): 24–28. Willy Flierl and Hermann Strauß, eds., Kate-English-Dictionary. Pacific Linguistics (Canberra: ANU, 1977). See: Traugott Farnbacher, Gemeinde verantworten: Anfänge, Entwicklungen und Perspektiven von Gemeinde und Ämtern der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche in Papua-Neuguinea (Hamburg: LIT, 1999), 248.

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Moreover, the articles were probably also read aloud to enable non-literate New Guineans to also ‘read’ the magazine. The Lutheran missionaries in New Guinea thus decided to promote more linguistic coherence, but they wanted local languages to become common languages rather than for instance German. There were two local languages used by the German missionaries and consequently also by their local staff: Kâte and Yabim. Both languages were from the Huon Peninsula, with the former being Austronesian (Yabim) and the latter Papuan (Kâte). 4 This chapter looks only at the Kâte speaking magazine in its first years until WWI. By expanding the view a bit further and including the war years until WWII, more can be said about the New Guinean voice in the magazine. Through analysing the change in the content of the magazine over two periods of colonial governance by Germany, before WWI, and from 1914 up to Australian rule, conclusions can be drawn on what can be called the voice of the Subaltern in reference (and differentiation) to Spivak. The change of colonial government let the German missionaries ‘allow’ certain new New Guinean voices previously not expressed. On a methodological level, this chapter does not attempt to explain a different New Guinean culture, nor to ‘translate’ the text of the mission magazine as having a Subaltern voice. The aim here is to contextualize the articles written by New Guineans within the larger German missionary project of publishing the periodical Ââkesiŋ. 5 GERMAN LUTHERAN MISSIONARIES IN NEW GUINEA The German Lutheran missionaries who established Ââkesiŋ in the German colony of ‘German New Guinea’ came with the Franconian Neuendettelsau mission in Germany. In 1849 their society, the ‘Gesellschaft für Innere und Äußere Mission im Sinne der lutherischen Kirche,’ was founded as a decisively confessional and church oriented society which also attracted those Christians influenced by Pietists like Philipp Jacob Spener. Before undertaking mission work to indigenous people, the missionaries were sent out to serve diaspora Lutherans from Germany, who had often fled Germany due to the politically forced union between the Lutheran and the Reformed churches. One of the missionaries to Australia was Pastor Johann Flierl, who after some time amongst the Indigenous inhabitants of Australia aimed at working among New Guineans, when New Guinea came under German influence. From 1886 onwards, the Lutheran missionaries had their base near the harbour town of Finschhafen, and continued to maintain this base even after 1892 when the German colonial government moved its political centre elsewhere in New Guinea.

4 5

Ron Asher and Christopher Moseley, Atlas of World’s Languages, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2007). Jay Maggio, “‘Can the Subaltern Be Heard?’: Political Theory, Translation, Representation, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak,” Alternatives 32 (2007): 434–435.

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German colonial rule in New Guinea lasted until WWI when Australia occupied it. Despite all the difficulties associated with war, the Ââkesiŋ continued to appear in Australian ruled ‘New Guinea.’ 6 When the war ended, German missionaries could stay on, but new ones were not allowed into the country until Germany signed the League of Nations. As a consequence, German missionaries could again come to New Guinea to work for the Lutheran mission there which was by then officially no longer a German mission society. The trouble for Australian government officials was that the German missionaries were not only a reminder of former German colonial rule, but they were also considered with suspicion. The trouble for German missionaries was that they were used to a different form of colonial rule, and compared the Australian rule to the German rule whenever something was not agreeable to the missionaries. This also had an effect on the mission periodical. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF ÂÂKESIŊ The Lutheran mission in New Guinea had a local printing press that besides the regular papers published mainly Bible translations, pamphlets, and linguistic works; the printing press was in Logaweng near the coast. 7 In 1909 (or possibly 1905) 8 the first of two regular papers was published by the Lutherans. Entitled Yain nayam/Jaingngajam, 9 this first paper was published in the Yabim language, which is the language spoken in Logaweng which, from 1907 on, was the place where the ‘helpers’ of the Lutheran mission were trained. 10 In 1910, it was made a regular publication, and from an initial circulation of 350 copies in 1907 was increased to 650 copies in 1910. 11 6

In Germany, the periodical can be found in the archives of the mission archives of Neuendettelsau/Franconia, Germany (today: Mission EineWelt, Neuendettelsau; abbreviated here as MEW), in Australia it is filed in the National Library of Australia [NLA]: 1915 (–1) – 1935 (–11), 1936 (–1) –1939 (–12); 1949 (1) –1964 (–12). 7 Examples of this printing material include publications such as: Karl Panzer, Garagab egerenon Anutu imuam en azob egereneran: garafu wampar apapir en asingiseran (Gabmazung/Logaweng: Neuendettelsauer-Missionsdruckerei, 1917); Georg Pilhofer, Die Geschichte der Neuendettelsauer Mission in Neuguinea, vol. 3: Die Mission zwischen den beiden Weltkriegen mit einem Überblick über die neue Zeit (Neuendettelsau: Evang.-Luth. Missionsanstalt Neuendettelsau, 1963), 68–72. 8 Georg Bamler, “Bericht von der Druckerei auf Logaweng für 1910 [Report on the Print Office at Logaweng],” Manuscript [MS], 1910, interim no. 7.205, PNG, 51/41 (folder name: “Druckerei und Verlag, Kristen Pres. Inc.,” interim no. 7.205), MEW (Neuendettelsau). There are also two copies of “Yain nayam” on which the year 1905 is written, but one printed number is hard to decipher and the other is handwritten. It is likely that these numbers are not correct. 9 “Jaen Najam” means “Good News” according to J. F. Streicher, Jabem-English-Dictionary (1917 revision, Canberra: ANU, 1982), 195. The Yabim paper was entitled “Jaingngajam.” 10 Pilhofer, Die Geschichte der Neuendettelsauer Mission in Neuguinea, vol. 3, 43–46. 11 The numbers of copies appear at the front of each issue.

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The Kâte publication was meant to duplicate the Yabim publication. Both its content as well as its form were similar. Except for the earliest issues, the authors of this publication were mostly indigenous New Guinean missionaries, who were called ‘helpers’ (‘Gehilfen’) by the German Lutherans, but in retrospective should rather be described as New Guinean missionaries rather than just ‘helpers’; as much as the missionaries of German descent, they headed mission stations and independently taught their own version of Christianity to the people in their mission areas. Additionally, from the perspective of the mission publication Ââkesiŋ, it is appropriate to use the term ‘missionaries’ for the ‘helpers,’ because in the publications the authors called themselves ‘missionaries,’ and referred also to their own mission stations and their pioneering work – just as the German missionaries did in their own texts.12 Ââkesiŋ was first published in 1911, the year in which the first twelve New Guinean men went into mission work themselves. 13 From the initial number of 350 copies per issue, the circulation went up steadily. 14 In 1912, Ââkesiŋ had 400 copies per issue, in 1913, around 1000 copies were distributed for each magazine and the numbers kept on growing until WW1. 15 Again in the 1920s and 1930s, the numbers went up. 16 With WWII the paper ceased to exist.17 After the war, in 1948, the first issues were published now with an English addition by the USAmerican Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea, John Kuder. Kuder introduced this additional paper by calling it ‘friend.’ Apparently, the word ‘helper’ became less adequate. Additionally, there were some regular 12 On the use of ‘missionary’ for a ‘helper’ within Ââkesiŋ for instance: Fuanalec, “Sâqocnele bâzi nana,” Ââkesiŋ, June (1932): 24. Keyßer translates the title as: “Heidnischer Unverstand,” in: Christian Keyßer, “Skizzen Ââkesiŋ, IIII (sic!), 1931–34,” (no folder number or name), MEW (Neuendettelsau). 13 Christian Keyßer, Anutu im Papualande (Kassel: Bärenreiter-Verlag, 1929), 100–101. 14 Missionaries involved in the discussions included at least Zwanzger, Panzer, L. Flierl, Schnabel, Pilhofer, and Wacke. See: Andreas Zwanzger, “Protokoll der Kaidistriktkonferenz vom 12.–13. September 1910 zu Heldsbach [Minutes of the Kai District Conference 12th to 13th of September 1910 at Heldsbach]” interim no. 7.128, MEW (Neuendettelsau). 15 During 1918 and 1919, the Ââkesiŋ was published even bimonthly. During the 1920s, less and less paper was available in New Guinea and the numbers of Ââkesiŋ and Jaingngajam went down. The lower number of copies does not represent the interest in the papers. In 1921, more readers ordered than in 1920, but fewer copies were printed. See: Hermann Boettger, “Jahresbericht über die Missionsdruckerei auf Logaweng pro 1920 von Missionar Hermann Boettger [Annual Report on the Mission Print Office at Logaweng for 1920 by Missionary Hermann Boettger],” Copy 13.12.21.Pf., interim no. 7.205, PNG, 51/41 (folder name: “Druckerei und Verlag, Kristen Pres. Inc.,” interim no. 7.205), MEW (Neuendettelsau). 16 In 1930, 1680 copies of the Ââkesiŋ were printed, in 1938, 2022 copies; the Yabim paper had 1700 copies; see: Hermann Boettger, “Report, 31-12-1930,” (4 p.) interim no. 7.205, PNG, 51/41 (folder name: “Druckerei und Verlag, Kristen Pres. Inc.,” interim no. 7.205), MEW (Neuendettelsau); Jaingngajam with 2487 copies; Hermann Boettger, “Report, 31-12-1938,” interim no. 7.205, PNG, 51/41 (folder name: “Druckerei und Verlag, Kristen Pres. Inc.,” interim no. 7.205), MEW (Neuendettelsau). 17 From January to July 1939, the publication consisted only of one folded page until it was not published anymore, see: Ââkesiŋ, September (1948): 6.

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pages in the lingua franca of northern Papua New Guinea, Tok Pisin. Usually the publication didn’t include any images. The first issue with an image was the June edition in 1936. Pictures of Johann Flierl (senior) and the first Christians in New Guinea were shown. Most pictures, however, in the publication were pictures portraying German missionaries. The magazine apparently ceased publication after 1964. The first issue of Ââkesiŋ was significantly different from the later ones. It was printed and written by Georg Pilhofer in 1911. Georg Pilhofer (1881–1973) taught at Heldsbach until 1939 and was Senior Johann Flierl’s son-in-law. 18 He had arrived New Guinea in 1905 and was specialized in the Kâte language. Pilhofer soon became the teacher of the Kâte ‘helpers’ and was the head of the ‘Kâte Helpers Teachers’ School’ in Heldsbach, where Ââkesiŋ was published. Teaching in Neuendettelsau at the mission seminary after WWII and writing the most cited three volume history of the Finschhafen/Neuendettelsau mission in New Guinea, his personal influence and many writings ensured that his understanding of the Lutheran New Guinea mission’s history shaped generations of missionaries and scholars, especially missiologists, in Germany. 19 In the first volume, all articles were in Kâte except for one which was in German, which was a note to his German speaking colleagues urging them to ensure that enough articles would be submitted. Pilhofer explains that for the first issues there had not been enough writers so far. He pointed out that at the conference of the German missionaries, they all had agreed upon writing the texts themselves. And as with its role model, the Yabim publication, the immediate issues following were only occasionally filled with articles from New Guineans. Bit by bit, the New Guinean writers contributed more and more of their own texts and, according to Pilhofer, he was especially interested in news by ‘helpers’ who worked alone on their own mission stations. Christians, he intended, should contribute with their own articles to the success of the paper. 20 In those early years, his colleague Christian Keyßer also published many articles in the Ââkesiŋ and from January 1915 on became the editor replacing Pilhofer until Keyßer left.

18 E. A. Jericho, Seedtime and Harvest in New Guinea (Brisbane: New Guinea Mission Board, UELCA, 1961), 130; Pilhofer, Die Geschichte der Neuendettelsauer Mission in Neuguinea, vol. 3, 54. 19 Pilhofer, Die Geschichte der Neuendettelsauer Mission in Neuguinea, vol. 3, 1961–1963; See: Philipp Hauenstein, Fremdheit als Charisma (Erlangen: Erlanger Verlag für Mission und Ökumene, 1999), 112. 20 “Protokoll der Kaidistriktskonferenz 1911 zu Sattelberg 28. VIII. / 1. IX. 1911, [Minutes of the Kai District Conference 1911 at Sattelberg 28th of August–1st of September 1911],” interim no. 7.128, MEW (Neuendettelsau).

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CHRISTIAN KEYßER’S SUMMARIES Both Ââkesiŋ as well as Yain nayam/Jaingngajam are in languages that I do not speak. Overall, I have depended on my own observations on the two publications when it came to numbers, names, and places. 21 Some of the articles which are discussed below in more detail I have been able to read with the linguistic help of a former missionary from Neuendettelsau (Herwig Wagner) as well as a linguist from Switzerland (Edgar Suter). However, my main source is seven notebooks written by the Lutheran missionary Christian Keyßer (1877–1961) which summarizes all of the periodical’s issues until his death in the 1960s. Christian Keyßer came to New Guinea in 1899, leaving in March 1920. For 21 years his base was Sattelberg, the Kâte congregation that was established by his elder Johann Flierl. Although in conflict with Flierl, Keyßer nevertheless managed to become one of the most prominent German missionaries working in New Guinea amongst mission circles in New Guinea and beyond. 22 Although Flierl was critical of Keyßer’s approach to mission work, Keyßer was lucky in finding an influential supporter in Karl Steck, who was the visiting Neuendettelsau director of mission. In 1914– 1915, when Steck visited New Guinea, he praised Keyßer’s work as creating a more authentic Christianity. 23 Some call Keyßer the “intuitive predecessor to the so-called contextual theology” 24 because Keyßer advocated what a younger colleague called “tribe proselytism.” 25 The large baptism movements later were interpreted as a proof for the success of this approach to mission. Keyßer’s approach to mission work has often been seen as the “great breakthrough” for the Lutheran mission in New Guinea and called a “boldly innovative” approach. 26 This approach has been much more critically characterised by the Dutch theologian Hoekendijk. To Hoekendijk, Keyßer’s ideas were born in the eighteenth century Romantic Era that eventually built the basis for National Socialistic thoughts. As Hoekendijk has pointed out, Keyßer’s approach centred 21 Seven handwritten notebooks; the handwriting indicates that Christian Keyßer was its author until his death in 1961 (December 14); issues starting in 1962 were filed together with the notebooks; Keyßer, Ââkesiŋ, Kate-District, Kirchenbl., 1911–1939, 3 booklets (no folder name or number), MEW (Neuendettelsau). 22 Jürgen Stadler, Die Missionspraxis Christian Keyßers in Neuguinea 1899–1920 (Nürnberg: VTR, 2006), 113–114 and 134–136. This book includes references to extensive literature on Christian Keyßer. 23 See: Theodor Ahrens, “Lutherische Kreolität: Lutherische Mission und andere Kulturen,” in Luther zwischen den Kulturen: Zeitgenossenschaft – Weltwirkung (Tübingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2004):421–454, 436–437; Steck called Keyßer more “real,” while Keyßer himself used the expression of more “natürlich.” Karl Steck, “Gedanken zu Bibelworten als Morgenund Abendandachten geboten bei der Heldsbach Hauptkonferenz. 10.–20. Januar 1915,” MS, 1915, (no interim no.), PNG, 50/1, MEW (Neuendettelsau); see: Farnbacher, Gemeinde verantworten, 214–217. 24 Herwig Wagner, “Christian Keyßer,” BBKL 3 (1992), 1447–1453, 1448; transl. G. Richter. 25 Georg Vicedom, Actio Dei: Mission und Reich Gottes (München: Kaiser, 1975), 387. 26 John Garrett, Footsteps in the Sea: Christianity in Oceania to World War II, vol. 2 (Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies and Geneva: WCC, 1992), 7.

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around the assumption that a people (‘Volk’) would be a collective without many individual choices and to him it was not a surprise that Keyßer ended up as a strong supporter of the Nazis in Germany. 27 Combined with a neo-Lutheran emphasis on the peoples’ church, Keyßer stressed a mission strategy that did not address individuals but collective entities. 28 Recently, Jürgen Stadler has offered a much more nuanced and differentiated study relying on many sources so far not discussed where he differentiates between different phases of Keyßer’s work and publications. Stadler shows how, for instance, how Keyßer’s publications after 1920 were shaped by a kind of nostalgic view of his previous work. What has not yet been undertaken is a gender study analysis on Keyßer’s work and how he fostered a male image of the missionary. Keyßer’s summary of the mission magazine is not an unproblematic source, nor is it a literal translation. Moreover, Keyßer often only comments on the articles, so some of the time only a very close look at the original can indicate if something is Keyßer’s voice or not. Additionally, not all articles are mentioned and summarized – for instance, if the articles were by Keyßer himself, 29 or (very rarely) for unknown reasons. 30 Relying on Keyßer’s texts means relying on second-hand information which might have been misrepresented, if not manipulated. Nevertheless, I was able to compare a literal translation of the text with Keyßer’s summary and was able to ascertain that it was indeed a plain summary of some details. 31 With some caution it can be said that Keyßer’s summary appears as often simply translated large parts. He used this booklet of summaries for his own purpose and as a tool rather than a text for others. The purpose of his summary appears to have been to look for texts that could be used in German publications or correspondence. What is also helpful is that some of the times, his personal opinion is often recognizable in the text by phrases that he added at the end or the side. Further into this chapter I will talk about some biases in the translation.

27 Johannes Christiaan Hoekendijk, Kirche und Volk in der deutschen Missionswissenschaft (München: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1967 [1948 dissertation]), 189; see: Werner Ustorf, Sailing on the Next Tide: Mission, Missiology, and the Third Reich, Studies in the Intercultural History of Christianity (Frankfurt am Main and New York: Lang, 2000). 28 Hoekendijk, Kirche und Volk in der deutschen Missionswissenschaft, 177–189. 29 Christian Keyßer, “O âgofâcnane! Leitspass,” Ââkesiŋ, July (1920): 12. It is an article that Keyßer wrote after he had left New Guinea to Australia and before he could go to Germany in 1921; another not translated article, in 1928: Christian Keyßer, “Qaqazu Keysser (Kaisa) ele dâŋbinaŋ,” Ââkesiŋ, August (1928): 29; See: Keyßer, “Skizzen Ââkesiŋ, II, 1923–30 [Draft Ââkesiŋ, II, 1923–30],” (no folder number or name), MEW (Neuendettelsau). 30 For example, Keyßer did not mention an article by Iqicnuc (from Heldsbach) in Ââkesiŋ, January (1920): 1; see: Christian Keyßer, “Skizzen Ââkesiŋ, II, 1923–30 [Draft Ââkesiŋ, II, 1923–30],” (no folder number or name), MEW (Neuendettelsau). 31 Edgar Suter, e-mail to Gabriele Richter, May 6, 2009; Herwig Wagner, personal communication, May 25, 2009, Neuendettelsau.

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THE VOICE OF NEW GUINEANS Spivak’s question “Can the Subaltern Speak?” is based on her doubts that the oppressed at the imperial margins can speak for themselves. Coming from a Marxist background, her frame of reference is that the oppressed can and need to speak for themselves, but to Spivak the colonial situation complicates matters significantly. In looking at the example of the Lutheran mission in New Guinea, one could follow Spivak in saying that colonialism primarily shaped the situation and prevented the oppressed, that is, the Subaltern, from speaking out. However, if one were to follow this line of argument, then the equation would only involve the colonial government and colonialism in general. Mission would, consequently, be either a force aligning with colonialism or perhaps a force that helped the oppressed fight against the pressures of colonialism. Regardless of how the relationship between mission and colonialism in New Guinea is defined, the argument here is different. Mission is considered here simply as another distinct force within the New Guinean context that not only put political and economic pressures on the New Guinean population within the colonial context, but also cultural and religious pressure. As already mentioned, Ââkesiŋ was edited and published by Lutheran missionaries of German descent. Without the German missionaries’ resources, the periodical would not have been possible. This is particularly true of the war period, when the biggest obstacle was a shortage of paper. The printery and the resources weren’t owned by the Kâte-speaking New Guineans. Never did New Guineans become editors, at least not officially. To put it in an image, the stage was entirely set by German missionaries, and the New Guinean ‘helpers’ were not the producers of the show. In many case, it can even be assumed that the ‘helpers’ did not even know when they went on stage. It is highly likely that the German missionaries simply copied parts of ‘helpers’ letters addressed to them and published them without their consent. 32 At least this was also the practice with the letters that German missionaries sent back to in Neuendettelsau in Germany. These missionaries sometimes might have been surprised and not always happy about the publication of their letters back to the home institution. Yet the German missionaries also had to expect that their annual letters to the mission society would be published in the mission publications. It remains uncertain if New Guineans’ gave their consent to have the letters published. In its first issue, the Ââkesiŋ magazine was described by Georg Pilhofer in 1911 as a paper that relied on the cooperation of the ‘brothers.’ 33 In the German language, he reminded them that they owed him articles that they all agreed to write, when they discussed the paper at the mission conference, but the paper

32 See: Keyßer, Anutu im Papualande, 232. 33 Georg Pilhofer, “Ââkesiŋ,” Ââkesiŋ, January (1911): 4.

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should not only have an earnest part. He used non-German expressions such as fuŋne (background) 34, miti (Christian faith/life), 35 in stating: Perhaps in this way, the paper may bring too much fuŋne (‘background‘) and thus becomes too stiff and dry. I think that it should have two parts: one instructing and one entertaining. And for the latter part, please also give me longer or shorter articles. Events at journeys. Observations and experiences in counselling and many more things (You know better what can be used!) would be material enough. Then you can let me know about announcement of scheduled baptism celebrations. Moreover I am thankful, if you send me notes from mission and other papers that could be interesting for the black and that you think I might not have received them as well. But finally, it would be nice, if natives with the required capability of writing and expressing would write something from time to time. Mostly I think of reports from the helpers at the outposts, but not only them. Who has a good thought, can write it. Images from the environment useful for illustrating aspects of the miti (‘Christian faith‘) or the Christian life. Comparisons between the past and the present. Of the natives I ask all of this with adding their names through your hands.” 36

Thus, missionary Pilhofer started the initiative for the periodical. He wanted to publish a paper that was true to the mission project and thus in a way very serious, but knowing its potential readers, a paper with only instructing parts would be very unattractive. Something entertaining and serious was his goal. Apparently he did not expect too many articles from New Guinean writers, but counted on his German colleagues to provide him with material, of course also with practical information such as days of baptisms. He allowed, however, his colleagues to see what kind of texts would be available. It is this remark that is most important to highlight here, because it shows where and why the publication took a different turn than Pilhofer expected. He expected first and foremost articles from his colleagues, but then also wanted to allow the paper to grow into its own form. Very 34 This means: “rootstock, beginning, background, kind, cause, reason, motive, also s.th. gigantic” See: Flierl and Strauß, eds., Kate-English-Dictionary, 95. 35 Miti translation: “s.th. new, impressive, done with great skill (e.g. pig festivals and religious ceremonies), now the Christian faith and life is referred to as ‘miti’”. See: Flierl and Strauss, eds., Kate-English-Dictionary, 212. 36 Georg Pilhofer, “Ââkesiŋ,” Ââkesiŋ, January (1911): 4. German original: “Das Blatt möchte vielleicht auf diese Weise zu viel fuŋne bringen und daher zu steif und trocken werden. Ich meine es sollte 2 Teile bekommen: einen belehrenden und einen unterhaltenden. Und für den letzten Teil möchtet Ihr mir auch längere oder kürzere Artikel zukommen lassen. Vorkommnisse auf Reisen. Beobachtung und Erfahrungen in der Seelsorge und noch viele andere (Ihr wisst es schon selber, was sich alles dazu eignet!) würde Stoff genug bieten. Dann möchtet Ihr mir Mitteilung machen über Ausschreibung von Terminen zu den Tauffesten. Ebenso bin ich dankbar, wen (sic!) Ihr mir Notizen aus Miss (sic!) u. sonstigen Blättern schickt, die für die Schwarzen von Interesse sind u. wovon Ihr annehmen könnt, dass sie mir nicht zu Gesichte kommen werden. Aber schliesslich wäre es auch schön, wenn Eingeborene, welche die nötige Fertigkeit im Schreiben und Ausdruck haben, ab und zu etwas schreiben würden. Ich denke da vor allem an Mitteilungen von den auf Aussenposten stehenden Gehilfen, aber nicht an sie allein. Wer einen guten Gedanken hat, der mag ihn schreiben. Bilder aus ihrer Umgebung, die zur Illustration irgend einer Seite des miti oder des christl. Lebens dienen. Vergleiche zwischen Einst u. Jetzt. Von den Eingeborenen erbitte ich mir alles unter Beifügung ihres Namens durch Eure Hände.”

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quickly, this is what happened and the texts sent via the German missionaries and then being published reflected one important difference: The articles providing a seriously educational and an entertaining aspect of mission work were all provided by the New Guinean writers. Pilhofer’s expectation that the writings from the New Guineans would reflect more the entertaining part rather than some eclectic aspects of Christian faith and life did not eventuate. The New Guinean writers understood the idea of the mission paper and implemented it fully. The names of the New Guinean authors appearing in Ââkesiŋ are often still well-known names within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea (ELCPNG). 37 Halinkec from Tobou, Ehecjupe from Wosâehicne, Zulenalec from Qembung, Aki[c]kepe from Waleo, Gapecnuoc from Qelahaluc and others are still considered to be the New Guinean forefathers of the mission work in New Guinea. 38 They were mostly involved in the mission work at the periphery of the mission area and were thus ‘pioneers’ in their own regards, becoming ‘pioneers’ of publishing about their mission work. The publication indicates a shift in the mission work that is also discernible in mission diaries. The New Guinean authors were often those who turned into equal partners of the mission at the periphery of mission itself. They had their own mission stations, and corresponded with Germans and New Guineans via letters, such as the example of Zulenalec corresponding with Christian Keyßer even after Keyßer left for Germany. 39 At first glance the periodical gives the impression that all articles written by New Guineans were similar to German missionary writings. The articles were about events and experiences ending on a pious note confirming that God had saved them, or giving advice on how a Christian should deal with various situations and aspects of life, such as: at school; between war parties; marriage; praying; confessing; feasting; during times of illness; educating; and food. The topics reflected both the ethics of the German missionaries, for example monogamy, as well as their pastoral concerns to strengthen Christian life in New Guinea. One should behave well against others, be pious in life-style, and true to the missionaries’ theology, that is, to God. If violence was a part of the equation of New Guinean mission work then the New Guineans could, in Spivakian sense, be called economically or politically oppressed. If they could also be said to be oppressed culturally or religiously then the texts are biased in favour of the oppressors and do not allow the Subaltern to seek freedom from oppression. But if a voice is calling for freedom, then there would be, in a Spivakian sense, a Subaltern voice. Is there a Subaltern voice in the text? And if there is none, is this, in a Spivakian sense, simply a confirmation that the imperial project does not allow the Subaltern to speak and not even be con37 See: Herwig Wagner and Reiner Hermann, eds., The Lutheran Church in Papua New Guinea: The First Hundred Years 1886–1986 (Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1986). 38 Wilhelm Fugmann, A Cloud of Witnesses (Hebrews 12:1): Stories of our Leaders and Fathers in Christ (Treuchlingen: Walter H. Keller, 2000). 39 Wilhelm Bergmann, Vierzig Jahre in Neuguinea, vol. 1: Von Elternhaus und Jugendzeit bis Einleben in Neuguinea und erste Reise (Mutdapilly: self-print, n.d.), 115.

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scious of oppression? Spivak is right to assume that the colonial situation, and, as I argue, also the missionizing situation, complicate matters significantly. But the question about what type of Subaltern voice one should, or – just to prove her point – should not, expect in a mission periodical, is not the point that represents the complexity and makes it plausible and understandable. As much as the New Guinean writers were also a product of mission schooling and general colonial influence, they were also stepping into the footsteps of the German missionaries. The first aspect that indicated this was when the missionary periodical became a bridge to the periphery of mission work within New Guinea, regardless of how fragile or fragmented this bridge was. In the articles authored by New Guineans one can read their experiences of encountering new territory. Just like their German colleagues, they too were engaged in botanic, geographic, and ethnographic note taking. They wrote about the different places and thus their own dislocation, they encountered insects and poisonous plants and expressed their wonder about this all. Just like Europeans, who wrote back from their journeys, they also wrote back. The texts were also shaped by curiosity. There are descriptions of what the sea looks like and what creatures live in it; question of whether stones grow is discussed; and, malaria is explained from the continental medical understanding. 40 Many texts thus resemble the reports by German missionaries in both worldly as well as religious topics. For example, New Guinean writers used the term ‘heathens’ just like the continental missionaries. 41 They also wrote about topics such as cannibalism and other practices in a similar style to German missionaries. The New Guineans, just like the Germans, also repeated stories of hardship and Christian endurance in suffering. The periodical acted as a bridge to connect those on the periphery of the mission with the main station, just as the mission periodicals published in Germany bridged the divide between the German missionaries in New Guinea and their sending communities. Ââkesiŋ was, however, a cultural bridge for a similar audience and as such general features of New Guinean life did not need to be explained. For instance, the exchanging of goods was a common feature in New Guinea at the beginnings of the German intrusion, as too was the great cultural and religious diversity. There were, however, other topics that would have been much more likely to have interested New Guineans, for instance, the description that Zou from Rabaul, a former student of Keyßer, gave of his visit to Sydney. In February 1922, an article describing Zou’s observations of Sydney was published in Ââkesiŋ. The reader does not learn why Zou was able to go on this journey. It is plausible that it was a journey for the mission society. 42 Zou observed that there 40 For example, see: Zou: “Sidni hae honep,” Ââkesiŋ, January (1922): 6; Keyßer, “Skizzen Ââkesiŋ, I, 1918–23 [Draft Ââkesiŋ, I, 1918–23],” (no folder number or name), MEW (Neuendettelsau). 41 For example, see the topic of the Komba people in various articles in the 1928 issues of Ââkesiŋ. 42 Zou: “Sidni hae honep” Ââkesiŋ, January (1922): 6; Keyßer, “Skizzen Ââkesiŋ, I, 1918–23 [Draft Ââkesiŋ, I, 1918–23],” (no folder number or name), MEW (Neuendettelsau); included

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were very many stone houses, and as so many people living together at one place, he would have got lost without the help of whites. Zou was surprised that the names of the owners were placed in front of the houses, and that the speed of the railways was like that of a bird. Sydney, he wrote, gave him an idea of heaven, demonstrating how in New Guinea the Christian message was mixed with very materialistic hopes and dreams. 43 The article by Zou informed the readers about the world outside of New Guinea, as well as his perception of it. Another rare insight that the periodical can provide us is into women’s experiences. In reading Keyßer’s summary of Ââkesiŋ up until the Second World War, it appears that articles written by women were only published twice. In 1918, Christian Keyßer in his short overview and list of contents mentioned that “a girl wrote for the first time.” 44 In the published version the name given was “Bâtâmilec from Wal.” Keyßer’s notes explain that ‘Wal’ referred to the mission station Wareo/Waleo. He subsequently wrote “girl from …” when he referred to female writers, although in the published version the names were given. He, however, never wrote ‘boy’ instead of the man’s name with regards to the other articles. Whether they were really ‘girls’ or rather ‘women’ is thus not clear. Sometimes, it is possible that the authors were indeed girls from the mission school, but sometimes it is possible they were women. The first article from a female writer, to give an example, was on the question of forced marriage and whether the ‘supervisors’ should not allow such practices. This article was exceptional, because it took sixteen years before the next article would be published. In July 1934, Gomic from Sattelberg complained that she, as well as other ‘kitchen maids’ (‘Küchenmädchen’), would be unwilling to listen (implying: to the missionary’s wife) and to work. Gomic advised others on the different stations to practice more discipline and to behave better. 45 In this case, the article echoes the discourse of German missionary wives. 46 The German missionaries were the filter and what found their consent was published. As the two articles from women indicate, articles were most likely to be published if they fitted into the range of missionaries’ positions. One such a position was the German missionaries’ constant warnings about the dangers of sin and seduction. In terms of Mary Louise Pratt, 47 the New Guineans gave themselves slightly different roles than what the German missionaries did in

43 44 45 46 47

a brief additional note indicating that Zou died in 1924 because the Australian ship ‘Sumatra’ sank. Zou, “Sidni hae honep,” Ââkesiŋ, January (1922): 6. Keyßer, “Skizzen Ââkesiŋ, I, 1918–23 [Draft Ââkesiŋ, I, 1918–23],”(no folder number or name), MEW (Neuendettelsau). Gomic, “Qaŋqaŋ pepecne eejale,” Ââkesiŋ, July (1934): 18; Keyßer, “Skizzen Ââkesiŋ, IIII (sic!), 1931–34, 54–55”, Ââkesiŋ, Kate-District, Kirchenbl., 1911–1939, (no folder number, no page number), MEW (Neuendettelsau). An example is the fictional conversations of a missionary’s wife with girls in a household. See: Christian Keyßer, Papuamädchen: Eine Aufführung aus dem Missionsleben (Neuendettelsau: Buchhandlung der Diakonissenanstalt, 1931). Mary L. Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London and New York: Routledge, 1992).

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their own respective texts–role they were allowed to have. While German missionaries could mention in an abstracted way the many possible temptations that their outpost positions could harbour as well as presenting their defeat of the temptations as a success story, the New Guinean missionaries would go into details avoiding abstract terms. Mostly, they presented success as not falling prey to the seduction of a woman or the urge to steal. The stories were told with details such as place names, how many times the woman approached them, and how they did not follow her call to sleep with her. In contrast, the German missionaries would write about such advances as annoying incidents whenever they entered an area, implying that they were not even considering sleeping with any New Guinean woman (which did, however, happen, although the consequences for the missionary were harsh if it was made public). 48 Such comments from New Guinean writers were, of course, similar to the above mentioned advice on how to lead a Christian life. In Ââkesiŋ, New Guinean men tell how they did not follow their urge to ‘sin’ which according to the German missionaries was mostly sexuality outside of marriage. Why did they divulge such personal details? Where they really writing for publication? To answer this question, a thorough reading of all available letters written to German missionaries needs to be compared to the Ââkesiŋ to find out, whether perhaps all of these texts were not previously addressed to German missionaries and not intended as publications. Perhaps, however, the answer lies in Pilhofer’s desire to publish a paper that was true to the mission project and thus in a way very serious, but was also entertaining for the intended audience of Kâte-speaking people. CRITIQUING COLONIAL POLITICS WITHIN ÂÂKESIŊ Ââkesiŋ contains few critical comments or examples of resistance. Of course, criticism or pity for the as yet not-converted ‘heathens’ is common in the articles. However, criticism of the German missionaries or colonial agents is a different matter. Is that also hidden in the periodical? Here only looking at the paper during the 1920s and 1930s helps to understand what kind of different voices were allowed, when the colonial situation changed. Criticism of colonial rule can be found in the missionary periodical, but it is not criticism of German colonial rule. From the late 1920s on, the Kâte publication expressed opposition to the Australian rule in New Guinea. Some examples of this critique presented below, all focus on questioning Australian judgment. The first example is an article about someone working for the Australian colonial force. 49 In 1927, Maigao from Waleo was reported to be working for the police. He had to carry goods to a po48 Hans Fischer, Randfiguren der Ethnologie: Gelehrte und Amateure, Schwindler und Phantasten (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 2003), 91–113. 49 Maigao, “Salamâwâ haeo Kiale gie bambeŋ,” Ââkesiŋ, November (1927): 42; Keyßer, “Skizzen Ââkesiŋ, II, 1923–30 [Draft Ââkesiŋ, II, 1923–30],” (no folder number or name), MEW (Neuendettelsau).

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lice post called Kaindiŋ, which was located near a gold field and the station of an Australian police man. Maigao’s article describes the heavy loads he had to carry, which implied that it was very hard work. Much pressure was applied on all of the carriers by the policemen, one of whom was white with another two to three “black policemen” (“schwarze Polizisten”). Maigao witnessed how the policemen killed people for no given reasons. And he described how the corpses were disposed of adding a vivid description of the corpses’ smell. Even worse, Maigao wrote how the police forced the carriers to continue their work, even if they had no energy anymore, until they died. 50 In this article the full brutal force of colonial rule comes to fore. The carriers cannot intervene and have to contribute to what appears to be unjustified killings, when they are made to watch passively, follow the orders of the policemen, and eventually even risking their own lives in the process. The policemen’s goal of reaching a destination in the gold fields is given to understand the means of even sacrificing human lives. Here the colonial agents, both the New Guineans as well as the Australian, appear as the oppressor while the oppressed are the local people as well as those employed by the policemen, such as Maigao. The second example details the general behaviour of Australian colonial agents towards New Guineans. 51 In 1930, ‘helper’ Gapecnuoc 52 reports that he passed by an Australian field officer. 53 The officer wanted to take Gapecnuoc to prison simply because Gapecnuoc did not greet him by raising his hat. The story is titled, as Keyßer translates, as “keeping the hat on”. The article gives evidence of colonial arrogance. The field officer was not only upset about someone not greeting him, but also about someone apparently with a mission background not greeting him. The officer might have known that the person in front of him was working for the Lutheran which Gapecnuoc could have proven by showing him some identification, 54 but moreover, Gapecnuoc was dressed with a European textile cloth around his waist, maybe even a vest or shirt, and certainly with a hat. In other words, the government agent here was upset about someone who was already climbing up the social ladder in the colony and wanted this person to feel obliged to greet him, which suggest both racial notions as well as reservations against the group of Lutheran missionaries on the part of the Australian. The particulars of greeting with a hat, seen against the background of German criticism of Australians, indicate even more that the Australians did not give (as supposedly

50 Maigao, “Salamâwâ haeo Kiale gie bambeŋ,” Ââkesiŋ, November (1927): 42; Keyßer, “Skizzen Ââkesiŋ, II, 1923–30 [Draft Ââkesiŋ, II, 1923–30],” (no folder number or name), MEW (Neuendettelsau). 51 Gapecnuoc Ngizaki, “Du-ŋlo juju ilec dâŋ,” (trans. Keyßer: “Vom Hutaufbehalten”) Ââkesiŋ, May (1930): 19; See: Keyßer, “Skizzen Ââkesiŋ, II, 1923–30 [Draft Ââkesiŋ, II, 1923–30],” (no folder number or name), MEW (Neuendettelsau). 52 Spoken: Gapenuo 53 Pilhofer calls Gapecnuoc Ngizaki: “führender Evangelist” (“leading evangelist”); Pilhofer, Die Geschichte der Neuendettelsauer Mission in Neuguinea, vol. 3, 223, n.622. 54 See: Bergmann, Vierzig Jahre in Neuguinea, 4.

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Germans did) clear rules, and moreover applied them indiscriminately just for the sake of stressing their authority. These articles were not written by German missionaries within the context of Australian colonial rule. They simply could not have afforded to get into conflict with the Australian rulers. It would, however, have been different if these were the words of local people. After all, their words could pass (as would be said today) as authentic voices of the local population opposing Australian colonial rule. The same line of criticism is followed from 1929 on, when a new topic was introduced into Ââkesiŋ. Young men described how they had been accused of crimes that they did not commit and for which they were imprisoned by Australian government officers. Each time they said something to the officer, the answer was that they were lying. 55 Keyßer’s comments show that these articles interested him greatly. On an article in a 1933 issue dealing with the imprisonment of six Bundebaza men for the murder of six Kundana people, Keyßer comments that this is “crazy” (“verrückt”). He accused the Australian jurisdiction, that it is a “europäische Gerichtsbarkeit”, of being less intelligent than the German – implying that German court was superior to European. 56 These articles seem to imply that New Guineans preferred German colonial rule. However, I do not draw this conclusion here, because it is not clear if a different order of colonial rule (that is, first Australian, then German) would have given the same idea that the first German colonial rule was better than the current one. The important question as to why all of a sudden New Guineans were allowed to utter negative statements about the colonial rule needs to be asked. What the examples demonstrate is that the German missionaries not only allowed the New Guinean colleagues to criticize the other nation’s colonial rule in general, but that they also published this criticism. Many German missionaries agreed with the New Guineans in criticising Australian rule, but the lack of any criticism of German colonial rule in the same periodical suggests that the same missionaries would have been much more careful in supporting anti-colonial opposition in a different German colonial setting. One element to suggest a general openness to criticism would be supported by criticism of the German missionaries. Is there such a criticism? Did the German missionaries allow the New Guinean writers to oppose aspects of mission work or even mission work itself? There are examples of articles, but those articles only express criticism of mission strategy and not of mission itself. For instance, in a 1920 comment on an earlier article, a writer by the name of Membuŋ reacted to another earlier article in which reasons for deciding to engage in mission work

55 See: Keyßer, “Skizzen Ââkesiŋ, I, 1918–23 [Draft Ââkesiŋ, I, 1918–23],” (no folder number or name), MEW (Neuendettelsau); this was on an article by Bazakiec in Ââkesiŋ, January (1920): 2–4. 56 Keyßer’s handwritten notes in the journal. See: Ââkesiŋ May (1933): 18; see also: Keyßer, “Skizzen Ââkesiŋ, IIII (sic!), 1931–34, 54–55 [Draft Ââkesiŋ, IIII (sic!), 1931–34, 54–55],” (no folder number or name), MEW (Neuendettelsau).

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were given. 57 Membuŋ disagreed with the earlier article and suggests that the reason for engaging in missionary work were different. The initial article argued that an individual would be led to missionary work through the pressure of one’s conscience. The pressure would not be put on someone by a group of friends, elders, or teachers. The elders in particular would be from the individual’s own ethnic group, while teachers were most often people from other ethnic groups who were sent to teach the Gospel. Membuŋ’s article opposed this practice, but of course did not suggest that no further mission work should be undertaken, but rather that the pressured mission worker would do the job on false premises. He would not make a good worker. The motivation to do mission work should come from somewhere else. These were brave words in a context witnessing pressure as well as the fear from those people refusing to go with the mission enterprise, but these words do not question mission itself. They appeared, however, on the same page as the earlier mentioned German missionaries’ hopes for an authentic Christianity in New Guinea. So the statement against any pressure and in this sense oppression was at the same time a call for a successful mission system that would come to the same results without any pressure. Implicitly, however, this article does indicate the massive pressure that was put on young men to join the mission work, especially in those years when new areas like the Highlands became so-called mission fields, and when other options like working on the gold fields or for the police competed with the mission. If there is doubt that joining the mission staff was only voluntarily, then this article at least indicates that New Guineans were conscious of pressures put on them and could express them, if they, simultaneously, did not question the mission enterprise. A second example demonstrates that criticism of mission work was only published under certain circumstances. A year later than the previous article, in 1921, the congregation of Sattelberg complained to the white missionaries that they were not consulted when Georg Pilhofer was sent to Australia. In a seemingly translated note, the congregation wrote that Pilhofer should not go and that the “brown” people should have been informed earlier: “You decide and we get to know it later and are shocked. We do not agree to this.” 58 What seems to question German missionaries’ decisions, in fact, can also express two different possible positions. On the one hand, there might have been also German missionaries (including Pilhofer) who did not agree to this. On the other hand, the article conveys the message that the Sattelberg congregation was very attached to Pilhofer and wanted him to stay or to return. The article also served as evidence that the Sattelberg congregation was still not coming to terms with the fact that Christian 57 Membuŋ, “Mitikiŋaŋte dâŋ lisiekac,” Ââkesiŋ, December (1920): 4; Keyßer, “Skizzen Ââkesiŋ, I, 1918–23,” Ââkesiŋ, Kate-District, Kirchenbl., 1911–1939, (no folder number or page number), MEW (Neuendettelsau). 58 Soŋaŋ, “Motecte dâŋ,” Ââkesiŋ, May (1920): 19–20; Keyßer, “Skizzen Ââkesiŋ, I, 1918–23 [Draft Ââkesiŋ, I, 1918–23],” (no folder number or name), MEW (Neuendettelsau). Also letters from missionaries (Georg Pilhofer/Tanunda and Leonhard Flierl/Rabaul) were published in Ââkesiŋ, June (1922): 21–23. German original: “Ihr entscheidet und wir erfahren es dann später und sind entsetzt. Wir stimmen dem nicht zu.”

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Keyßer was not allowed to return to New Guinea after his holiday in Germany due to a decision of the Australian administration. 59 The congregation did not anticipate this and it appears it did not really trust Pilhofer’s assurances that he would return and certainly did not trust the Australian administration. In other words, any negative comment about mission work did not question mission work itself and was an implicit support of the German missionaries’ approach and efforts. However, these negative positions were available which suggest that a different socio-economic situation might have brought forth much more criticism. CONCLUSION Ââkesiŋ must be seen as a part of a larger mission enterprise and as a result of, primarily, German missionaries working to this goal. The magazine was initiated and made possible by the German missionaries’ efforts and funds. Yet, the articles were written almost entirely by New Guineans which was not expected at first, as Georg Pilhofer’s text in the first issue indicates. The New Guineans involved in the mission project, however, understood well the assigned purpose of writing and they wrote texts that the German missionaries found acceptable for publishing. An altered colonial rule (Australian instead of German) as well as inner dynamics of mission even allowed for some kind of criticism, but the criticism was never directed against the mission or even colonial rule in general, with the periodical implying that German colonialism was preferable. The articles do not show the voice of the Subaltern, especially not in a Spivakian sense. 60 The periodical, however, should not be read as a megaphone for the German missionaries positions alone. While the New Guineans were supposed to write in support of the mission project, they also had their own intentions and agendas which sometimes could go hand-in-hand with the intentions of the German missionaries. As the example of Gapecnuoc demonstrates, he was able to obtain revenge of sorts for the injustice of the Australian colonial agent who treated him without respect. The missionary periodical gave him the opportunity to make his point publicly. It is important to note that there are New Guineans eye witnesses who wrote about Australian and New Guinean colonial officers killing civilians and even more so mistreating carriers in a way that led to their death. Contemporary Papua New Guinean writing about colonial rule goes way back to this tradition of collecting and writing Papua New Guinean history. Contemporary studies like August Kituai’s account and analysis of Papua and New Guinean policemen, 61 for instance, is deeply rooted in this tradition of history writing. Even more 59 Wilhelm Fugmann, ed., Christian Keyßer: Bürger zweier Welten, (Neuhausen-Stuttgart: Hänssler, 1985), 161–165. 60 See: David Huddart, Postcolonial Theory and Autobiography (London and New York: Routledge, 2008), 131. 61 August Kituai, My Gun, My Brother: The World of the Papua New Guinea Colonial Police; 1920–1960 Pacific Islands Monograph Series, 15 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998).

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so this periodical as well as its sister, the Yabim publication mentioned earlier, would be worth being translated and published within Papua New Guinea so that the stories become available to communities that are not aware of parts of their history being recorded in those texts. It is strange to find the magazine hidden in the back of a roof storage space in Neuendettelsau mission archives instead of being accessible to people involved. Above all, however, the periodical is an important source for studying the lives and work of those New Guinean missionaries who had their own unique perspectives on the mission work.

III. CONSTRUCTING MISSIONARY POLITICS

THE IMAGE OF ISLAM IN GERMAN MISSIONARY PERIODICALS, 1870-19301 A ‘Green Peril’ in Africa? Armin Owzar Europe’s ‘long nineteenth century’ can be and actually has been described as a century of culture wars being motivated by religious differences. 2 And indeed, there have been manifold conflicts in most parts of Southern, Western and Central Europe carried out in the name of God, shattering political systems and societies. Such ideological conflicts occurred between secular Liberals on the one hand, ultramontane or Protestant fundamentalists on the other hand; or were the product of social conflicts between ordinary Catholics, Lutherans or Calvinists; as well as being caused by political conflicts over state duties between representatives of the administration and the churches. Due to numerous confessional, regional and political peculiarities, Europe’s national societies faced different front-lines. However, regardless of these differences, all religious conflicts shared three commonalities. Firstly, all conflicts were carried out with a similar earnestness and fervour on all sides. Secondly, all of these conflicts facilitated a fragmentation of society. And thirdly, all denominations involved crossed national borderlines and intensified the construction of a network based on transnational communication and cooperation. By around the 1890s, many of Europe’s so-called culture wars seemed to lose some of their earlier explosiveness, with some of them fading out into a kind of unspoken armistice. In France, for example, many Integralists learned to benefit from the advantages arising from a strict separation of church and state. 3 Meanwhile, bidenominational countries like Germany became almost peaceful. After the mid1880s, not only had state-church conflict become defused in Germany, but also the aggressiveness with which both the ideological camps and the denominational 1 2

3

My thanks go to the Cluster of Excellence for Religion and Politics in Pre-Modern and Modern Cultures at University of Münster and to the editors of this volume, Hanna Acke and Felicity Jensz (both Münster). For example, see: Christopher Clark and Wolfram Kaiser eds. Culture Wars: SecularCatholic Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). According to Olaf Blaschke, it might be even legitimate to characterise the nineteenth century as a “second confessional age”. See: Olaf Blaschke, “Das 19. Jahrhundert: Ein Zweites Konfessionelles Zeitalter?“ Geschichte und Gesellschaft 26 (2000): 38–75. Karl-Egon Lönne, Politischer Katholizimus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986), 202.

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‘managers’ had been fighting each other significantly decreased. Probably neither Catholic nor orthodox Lutheran nor Calvinist ideologues may have believed in the possibility of a religious homogenisation of their societies through the work done by their inner missions. Instead they developed a strategy of defence and focused on the stabilisation of their very own ‘milieus’. 4 It seems that it was only within one of Germany’s professional religious groups that actions were significantly differently: the overseas missionaries and their mentors in the metropoles, the missiologists. Both sub-groups continued to fight each other in words. Since the overwhelming majority of the population in Germany’s African and Asian colonies was non-Christians, notably Buddhists, Muslims or Animists, the overseas territories were generally more than ever considered to be new battleground. In those so-called ‘Schutzgebiete’, which had come under German influence since the 1880s, 5 all denominations and confessions tried to extend their spheres of influence in an unusually aggressive way. All different kinds of actors participated in these ‘culture wars’: in particular the churches and the missionaries on the one hand, and, on the other, secular representatives of the colonial government or anti-religious politicians in the metropoles who tried to curb the churches’ influence. Still the most aggressive enemies of Catholic or Protestant missions were found in other denominations. However, since the beginning of the twentieth century a new rival was increasingly noticed: Islam, which had begun to spread in South East Asia as well as in Western and Eastern Africa. According to the Indian Evangelical Review in 1901, this religion had to be regarded as “the only faith which deserves to be called a rival to Christianity for the supremacy of the world.” 6 Given the diversity and multitude of rivalling groups, the question arises as to how the various protagonists – the missiologists and the missionaries, the Christian politicians and the representatives of the colonial government, as well as the different native groups and their colonial brokers – dealt with these interdenominational and interreligious conflicts. To what extent did the old conflicts change under the perceived threat of Islamisiation? Which measures were taken, which arguments and stereotypes were used to handle this new conflicting constellation? Were there any differences among the participants in the way in which they han4 5

6

Armin Owzar, “Ein Kampf der Kulturen? Intrakonfessionelle Auseinandersetzungen und interkonfessionelle Konflikte im deutschen Kaiserreich,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 116 (2005): 354–377. For an overview of the history of German colonialism, see: Horst Gründer, Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien, 5th ed. (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2004); Dirk van Laak, Über alles in der Welt: Deutscher Imperialismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (München: C. H. Beck, 2005); Winfried Speitkamp, Deutsche Kolonialgeschichte (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2005). Indian Evangelical Review (1901), 333, quoted in: Julius Richter, “Die Propaganda des Islam als Wegbestreiterin der modernen Mission,” in Missionswissenschaftliche Studien: Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag des Herrn Prof. D. Dr. Gustav Warneck, eds. K[arl] Axenfeld et al. (Berlin: Martin Warneck, 1904): 129–185, 185. See also: Samuel M. Zwemer, Der Islam: Eine Herausforderung an den Glauben: Studien über die mohammedanische Religion und die Nöte der mohammedanischen Welt vom Standpunkt der christlichen Missionen, trans. Elisabeth Groeben (Kassel: J. G. Oncken, 1909).

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dled the conflicts, or were there significant differences between Catholics, Lutherans and Evangelicals? Did they make a difference between radical Islamists or non-political believers in Allah? More generally, the question arises as to whether, and how, religious arguments and discourses were transformed? One may thus ask whether the increasing mobilisation of independence movements led to a politicisation of religiosity in peripheral societies. Little attention has been paid to many of those subjects, especially to the impact that those inner-colonial conflicts may have had on metropolitan societies in Western and Central Europe. What happened to the older rivalries among the Christian denominations from the moment from which the upcoming of Islam was perceived of as a new danger for the overseas missionary movements? Also of interest might be the question of how post-colonial societies may have been shaped in the aftermath of interdenominational and interreligious rivalries. It might be interesting to consider any European variant of colonialism, French as well as British or Dutch colonialism, with regard to how the Islamic question became discussed. As a case study I have chosen German Colonialism since the effects of anti-Islam on Germany’s tri-denominational society were certainly higher than on secularised or religious homogenous societies. In this context the alleged Islamisation of German East Africa (DOA) played a significant role. Though the majority of the colony’s population were so-called ‘heathens’ (round 95 per cent), the proportion of the population which was Muslim was nowhere else as high as it was there (4 per cent), whereas the percentage of Christians was small (around 0.8 per cent were Catholics, around 0.2 per Cent were Protestants). 7 This was certainly the reason why German East Africa was regarded as the centre of Muslim expansion.8 Though Germany lost all of her colonies in 1919, it might be challenging to ask for longue durée aspects and the consequences of a possible anti-Islamic discourse for the successive century. However, I will limit my analysis to the years between 1870 and 1930 since within this time frame we see both a radical switch 7

8

Claudia Lederer, Die rechtliche Stellung der Muslime innerhalb des Kolonialrechtssystems im ehemaligen Schutzgebiet Deutsch-Ostafrika, Ethno-Islamica 6 (Würzburg Ergon, 1994), 157; Speitkamp, Deutsche Kolonialgeschichte, 96; Paul Rohrbach, “Die Mission in den deutschen Kolonien,” in Das deutsche Kolonialbuch, ed. Hans Zache (Berlin and Leipzig: Andermann, 1925): 179–185, 182. Martin Klamroth, Der Islam in Deutschostafrika (Berlin: Evangelische Missionsgesellschaft, 1912) and Osty, “Islamitische Missionare!” Usambara-Post. Unabhängiges Organ für die wirtschaftlichen Interessen von Deutsch-Ostafrika und “Küstenbote vom Norden” 9, no. 18 (7 May 1910): 1–2. For the Islamisation of Africa and the Africanisation of Islam, see: David Robinson, Muslim Societies in African History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 275–279. For the rivalling spread of Islam and Christianity, see also: Viera Pawlikowá-Vilhanová, “Crescent or Cross? Islam and Christian Missions in NineteenthCentury East and Central Africa,” in Mission und Gewalt: Der Umgang christlicher Missionen mit Gewalt und die Ausbreitung des Christentums in Afrika und Asien in der Zeit von 1792 bis 1918/19, eds. Ulrich van der Heyden and Jürgen Becher (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2000): 79–95. For the Islamisation of Tanzania, see: Felicitas Becker, Becoming Muslim in Mainland Tanzania, 1890–2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

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from interdenominational to interreligious and the back to interdenominational rivalry, as well as a significant change in the attitudes and stereotypes towards Islam finally leading into a new dimension of Islamophobia. The fields on which this aggressive and conflict-generating rivalry was being carried out were manifold. It notably focused on economic affairs, school and language politics. 9 No matter which field was touched, the local antagonists drew on a reservoir of arguments being prepared by the protagonists of the missionary movement, notably by missiologists and Orientalists, with these arguments popularised by politicians and journalists. Especially when it comes to an analysis of stereotypes, all kind of discursive documents including speeches on conferences and in the parliament, letters, books and brochures may be of interest as well as missionary periodicals. 10 However here, missionary periodicals can be seen as the most important genre of primary sources for three reasons. The first reason is a methodological one: Periodicals enable us to draw comparisons both synchronically and diachronically. We may compare periodicals from all denominations and all imperialistic nations with all kinds of addressees; and this very often over a time span of several decades. In addition to such an approach, missionary periodicals give us an insight into the transnational process of image-making. Since numerous articles were often translated into German, English or French, we learn more about the increasing transnational relations in Europe at the turn of the century. 11 Finally, missionary periodicals did not only serve their readers with information; they were also contributing to a proper dynamic of interdenominational cooperation based on Islamophobia. In light of the multitude of relevant missionary periodicals it seems inevitable to select some of them. This is why special attention will be paid to the Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift and the Annalen der Verbreitung des Glaubens. 12 The latter Johanna Eggert, Missionsschule und sozialer Wandel in Ostafrika: Der Beitrag der deutschen evangelischen Missionsgesellschaften zur Entwicklung des Schulwesens in Tanganyika 1891– 1939 (Bielefeld: Bertelsmann, 1970); Franz Ansprenger, “Schulpolitik in Deutsch-Ostafrika,” in Studien zur Geschichte des deutschen Kolonialismus in Afrika: Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag von Peter Sebald, eds. Peter Heine and Ulrich van der Heyden (Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus, 1995): 59–93. 10 For the missionary periodicals’ value as a historical source of images of the non-European, see also: Terry Barringer, “What Mrs Jellyby Might have Read. Missionary Periodicals: A Neglected Source,” Victorian Periodicals Review 37, no. 4 (2004): 46–74, 46. 11 For the transnational character of missionary periodicals and their national functions, see: Felicity Jensz, “Firewood, Fakirs and Flags: The Construction of the Non-Western ‘Other’ in a Nineteenth Century Transnational Children’s Missionary Periodical,” Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Religions- und Kulturgeschichte 105 (2011): 167–191. 12 Another missionary periodical to be considered is the Evangelisches Missions-Magazin, the oldest missionary periodical in the German language. Although published by the Pietisticinfluenced Basel mission, this periodical also addressed all Protestant denominations. It was founded in 1816 (under the title Magazin für die neueste Geschichte der protestantischen (since 1818: evangelischen) Missions- und Bibelgesellschaften) and was renamed Evangelisches Missions-Magazin in 1857 (see: [Carl] Mirbt, “Evangelische Missionszeitschriften,” in Deutsches Kolonial-Lexikon, vol. 2, ed. Heinrich Schnee, Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1920): 581–582). 9

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was published in Strasbourg and in Einsiedeln, Switzerland, and was probably the most generally read of the 29 Catholic missionary periodicals (including 26 for adults and three for children). This is valid too for the AMZ (its full name was Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift. Monatshefte für geschichtliche und theoretische Missionskunde) which was one of those four German-language missionary periodicals addressed to all Protestant readers dealing with a broad range of Protestant missionary societies. More so than most speeches being held at conferences or books printed in small editions, those two periodicals reached wide readerships – especially as both addressed not only to theologians and clerics but notably to well-educated and propertied middle-class readers being interested in history, anthropology, geography, culture and religion. Especially the AMZ was supposed to be a forum for discussion to explain or to legitimise the different approaches within the missionary movement that were simultaneously discussed with scholars, politicians and administrators on colonial conferences. 13 So, they fulfilled three central functions: as funding tools, as propaganda tools and as media of selfassurance. 14 The AMZ’s first number was published in 1874 edited by Gustav Warneck (1834-1910), the protagonist of Protestant missiology. From 1910, it was published by Julius Richter (1862-1940) and Johannes Warneck (1867-1944, Gustav Warneck’s son). 15 Due to the different impetus those two generations of publishers had, it seems to be in particular suited for an analysis of anti-Catholic and anti-Islamic stereotypes within the Protestant missionary movement. In my following remarks I would like to firstly focus on interdenominational conflicts between Catholics and Protestants. In a second step I will deal with interreligious and state versus church conflicts by paying special attention to the different ways in which Christian missionaries and missiologists have treated Islam as the upcoming rival. In a third step, I will examine how this conflict affected metropolitan societies in Central Europe. INTERDENOMINATIONAL CONFLICTS Islamophobia was not a new phenomenon of the nineteenth century. Its origins date back to the Islamisation of the Mediterranean world in the seventh and eighth centuries, to the Crusades and the Turkish wars in the Balkan. 16 However in the age of High Imperialism, Islam became perceived as a concrete threat in a different, unexpected and unforeseen way. Although the Mahdi revolt in Sudan and the Arab uprising in German East Africa could be seen as regional religious move13 See also: Jeremy Best’s chapter on the AMZ in the present edition. 14 See also: Felicity Jensz, “Origins of Missionary Periodicals: Form and Function of Three Moravian Publications,” Journal of Religious History 36, no. 2 (2012): 234–255, 254. 15 [Joseph] Schmidlin, “Katholische Missionszeitschriften,” in Deutsches Kolonial-Lexikon, ed. Heinrich Schnee (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1920), 582. 16 For the history of Christian anti-Islamic polemic and the survival of mediaeval concepts, see: Norman Daniel, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oneworld, 1993).

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ments challenging the British or German rule in Africa, Germany’s public opinion paid much less attention to the phenomenon of political Islam than Great Britain’s periodicals. For the British public, the spread of Islam was reflected in an increasing number of publications critical of Islam. Although some relevant books and articles were translated into German or French, 17 in the late 1890s most articles were still addressed predominantly to British readers. At this time, interdenominational rivalry within Germany was still the most important driving force for both Protestant and the Catholic missionaries. Especially Protestantism – adherents to which included many reputable missiologists – was afraid of losing its majority status in Germany’s colonies and of being surpassed by the Catholics’ missionary work. At the height of the Kulturkampf, the Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift published an article in several parts on the Roman Catholic Gentile mission wherein among other things the Jesuits were blamed for welcoming any chance that would damage the Protestants’ missionary work. 18 But even when the German culture war was abating, the rivalry would persist. Continuously, Gustav Warneck, the founder of Protestant missiology in Germany, criticised the Catholics and blamed them for preparing a ‘holy war’ against the Protestant missionary work 19 – funded inter alia by the French administration. 20 In response, some Catholic authors used to denounce their Protestant rivals in a similar way. The Catholic convert and first inspector of Catholic Schools in Great Britain, Thomas William Marshall, for example, blamed Protestant missionaries for transforming ‘heathens’ into atheists. 21 This was not only a debate which was carried out in metropolitan books, brochures, and articles, there was also a rivalry taking place in the periphery: in Samoa as well as in Togo, German South-West Africa, and German East Africa. 22 Exemplary of the Catholic response is a report 17 For example, see: John Mühleisen Arnold, Der Islam nach Geschichte, Charakter und Beziehung zum Christenthum [= Ishmael, or the Bible and Koran] (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1878). 18 Petri, “Rundschau über die römisch-katholische Heiden-Mission der Gegenwart. Mit einigen Notizen über ihre Vergangenheit,” AMZ 2 (1875): 241–256, 396–414 and 494–504. See also: Petri’s article on the mission to the Gentiles published one year later, in which he stated to have emphasised the darker sides of Jesuitism; A. Petri, “Die Jesuiten in der HeidenMission,” AMZ 4 (1877): 164–172, 193–208, 483–494 and 543–550. 19 Gustav Warneck, Der gegenwärtige Romanismus im Lichte seiner Heidenmission, vol. 1: Die römische Feindschaft wider die evangelische Kirche Flugschriften des Evangelischen Bundes 14, II. Serie, 2 (Halle: Eugen Strien, 1888), 1, 3. See also: Gustav Warneck, Protestantische Beleuchtung der römischen Angriffe auf die evangelische Heidenmission: Ein Beitrag zur Charakteristik ultramontaner Geschichtsschreibung, vol. 1 (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1884). 20 [Gustav] W[arne]ck, “Römisch-katholische Missionsbeiträge pro 1885,” AMZ 14 (1887): 143–144, 144. 21 Thomas William M. Marshall, Die christlichen Missionen, ihre Sendboten, ihre Methoden und ihre Erfolge, vol. 3 (Mainz: Georg Joseph Manz, 1863), 495. 22 Horst Gründer, “Kulturkampf in Übersee: Katholische Mission und deutscher Kolonialstaat in Togo und Samoa,” in Die Verschränkung von Innen-, Konfessions- und Kolonialpolitik im Deutschen Reich vor 1914, ed. Johannes Horstmann (Schwerte: Katholische Akademie Schwerte, 1987): 111–130; Frank Becker, “Die ‘Bastardheime’ der Mission: Zum Status der Mischlinge in der kolonialen Gesellschaft Deutsch-Südwestafrikas,” in Rassenmischehen – Mischlinge – Rassentrennung: Zur Politik der Rasse im deutschen Kolonialreich Beiträge zur

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by H. P. Le Roy, missionary of the congregation of the Holy Spirit and Holy Heart of Maria, published in the Catholic Annalen der Verbreitung des Glaubens in 1886 on the Apostolic Vicariate of Zanzibar, an archipelago off the Tanganyika coast whose hinterland had become under the control of the German East Africa Company one year before. Though Zanzibar was then a sultanate being ruled by an Arab elite that non-officially still tolerated slave trade, Le Roy focused first and foremost, and with a critical undertone, on the “Protestant sects” on the archipelago and their expansion in Tanganyika – whereas the Muslim Sultan Seyd Bargash was even explicitly praised for supporting the Catholic prelate. 23 INTERRELIGIOUS CONFLICTS At the turn of the century, this interdenominational competition clearly lost significance. German missionaries, missiologists as well as Christian politicians of all denominations became aware of Islam as being a – if not the – new rival. This diagnosis was first adopted by German missiologists such as Julius Richter, one of Warneck’s most influential disciples. In contrast to his anti-Catholic teacher who disapproved of any form of proselytisation of Muslims,24 Richter focused on the ubiquitous threat of Islamisation. 25 In light of the small percentage of Muslims compared to the colony’s total population, this fear did not seem to be justified. However, due to the privileged status many Muslims were granted by the government, it was not completely unfounded. This was also the reason why the conflict was only seldom directly carried out between Christians and Muslims or their exponents. Some protagonists of the missionary movement even recognised that the Muslims would generally have a friendly and peaceful attitude towards the Gentile mission.26 Primarily, the perception of an impending Islamisation had an impact on state-church relations. Though there used to be an alliance between the missions and the state, 27 most missionaries and missiologists held the colonial governments responsible for the spread of Islam and blamed them for a preferred

23 24 25 26 27

Europäischen Überseegeschichte 90, ed. Frank Becker (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2004): 184– 219; Rainer Tetzlaff, “Die Mission im Spannungsfeld zwischen kolonialer Herrschaftssicherung und Zivilisierungsanspruch in Deutsch-Ostafrika,” Imperialismus und Kolonialmission: Kaiserliches Deutschland und koloniales Imperium, ed. Klaus J. Bade, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1984): 189–204, 190–191. Letter from December 2, 1885 by H. P. Le Roy, quoted in Annalen der Verbreitung des Glaubens 54 (1886): 187–198, 188–189 and 198. Gustav Warneck, “Die neuen deutschen Missionsunternehmungen: Ernste Bedenken, den Freunden derselben zur Prüfung vorgelegt,” AMZ 28 (1901): 180–187. Richter, “Die Propaganda des Islam,” passim. For example, see: Karl Meinhof, “Mission und Islam in Ostafrika,” Evangelisches MissionsMagazin 52 (1908): 1–16, 6. Horst Gründer, “Koloniale Mission und kirchenpolitische Entwicklung im Deutschen Reich,” in Christliche Heilsbotschaft und weltliche Macht: Studien zum Verhältnis von Mission und Kolonialismus. Gesammelte Aufsätze, Europa-Übersee. Historische Studien 14, eds. FranzJoseph Post, Thomas Küster, and Clemens Sorgenfrey (Münster: LIT, 2004): 209–226, 219.

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recruitment of Muslims. Indeed, since the early days of Western Africa’s colonisation, French government officials had shown “special consideration for Muslims as people of a higher civilisation.” They “not only confirmed Muslim chiefs over pagan communities but gave them greater authority, set up Islamic law courts and employed them in subordinate administrative positions.” 28 In many British colonies, such as India or Malaysia, Muslims were highly respected as partners of the indirect rule and watchdogs of local hierarchical societies. 29 The German administration also was dependent both on the integration as well as the collaboration of Muslims in order to stabilise its power. It urgently needed the support of the indigenous functional elites and wanted them to work as teachers, soldiers, and employees in the colonial administration. Without their support the Germans felt unable to rule their colonies, both in Western and in Eastern Africa. Most members of the local elites in these places belonged to the Islamic communities 30 – and this was the reason why the German government not only preferred to recruit Muslims, but also often helped them to get a better education, or to improve their qualifications. For this purpose, the government in East Africa had established several schools of its own in Dar es Salaam and Tanga for the purpose of training local Africans – virtually all Muslims – to perform lower level technical and commercial functions. 31

Due to the preference given to local Muslims, Islam became attractive for nonIslamic natives too. Being a member of the Islamic community was understood as an investment in the future: it seemed to promise the accumulation of both economic and symbolic capital. 32 That in turn, would alarm the missionaries as well as the missiologists who were afraid of losing ground among the local inhabitants. 33 In order to prevent Islam from spreading, they took several measures to push back Islam especially in German East Africa.

28 J. Spencer Trimingham, A History of Islam in West Africa, 2nd ed. (London, Glasgow, and New York: Oxford University Publications, 1963), 226. For the British rule in East Africa, see also: J. Spencer Trimingham, Islam in East Africa (Oxford: Clarendon, 1964), 27. 29 Jürgen Osterhammel, Kolonialismus: Geschichte – Formen – Folgen, 4th ed. (München: C.H. Beck, 2003), 105. 30 Klaus Fiedler, Christentum und afrikanische Kultur: Konservative deutsche Missionare in Tanzania, 1900-1940, Missionswissenschaftliche Forschungen, 16 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1983), 39; Michael Pesek, Koloniale Herrschaft in Deutsch-Ostafrika: Expeditionen, Militär und Verwaltung seit 1880 (Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus, 2005), 300–324; Michael Pesek, Das Ende eines Kolonialreiches: Ostafrika im Ersten Weltkrieg (Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus, 2010), 283–284; Stefanie Michels, Schwarze deutsche Kolonialsoldaten: Mehrdeutige Repräsentationsräume und früher Kosmopolitismus in Afrika (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2009). 31 Ralph A. Austen, Northwest Tanzania under German and British Rule: Colonial Policy and Tribal Politics, 1889-1939 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1968), 69. 32 Horst Gründer, Christliche Mission und deutscher Imperialismus: Eine politische Geschichte ihrer Beziehungen während der deutschen Kolonialzeit (1884–1914) unter besonderer Berücksichtigung Afrikas und Chinas (Paderborn: Schöningh 1982), 234. 33 See: Eggert, Missionsschule, 69.

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Directly on site, Christian missionaries tried to prevent the Islamic communities from extending by intensifying their engagement in evangelisation of the hinterland. In particular they confronted the colonial government with generalising remarks on the fatal consequences of Islamisation. Permanently, German missiologists now criticised the government for “lending support to Islam.” 34 Some missionaries did not even shy away from accusing the German government of being a fighter against the Christian culture. A prime example of this is a letter written in November 1900 by Bishop Allgeyer, an adherent of the Holy Ghost Fathers. 35 In numerous articles, other authors demanded favours to be given to Christian natives – a request that became adopted by Catholic parliamentarians and for the most part Protestant Conservative politicians who filed a claim in the German Reichstag. It was already in the year 1900 that the Catholic Centre Party carried through an amendment insisting that the Protectorate administration make specific efforts to recruit civil servants among Christians, to restrict the coastal schools to Muslims, and to establish new government inland schools with mission trainees as teachers. 36

Those deputies were supported by the Conservatives being for the most part Protestants. The Christian politicians’ and the missionaries’ demands were opposed by the Liberals as well as by the Social Democrats who refused any Christian influence on politics and thus consequently defended the government’s neutral position in personnel policies. Ultimately the demands were rejected by the colonial government. It was Dr. Ludwig Heinke, the Secretary for School and Mission Affairs in Dar es Salaam, who defended this decision in a letter from April 23, 1900 addressed to the Colonial Section of German Foreign Office. According to him, the interest of the government consisted “in the first place in the quick training of suitable cheap labor.” This might best be achieved by selecting the sons of the African elite. For Heinke, mission graduates were inevitably excluded from such desirable categories: “Only seldom do the sons of chiefs and the children of influential families partake in missionary education” whereas the graduates from mission schools rarely proved themselves sufficiently qualified for government service and could never be relied upon for total loyalty. 37 In order to counter this argument and to change the government’s personnel policy, the missionaries intensified their engagement in school matters hoping that this would help to push back Islam from German schools and from German ad34 Austen, Northwest Tanzania under German and British Rule, 69. 35 Bishop Allgeyer in a letter to Franz Karl Hespers, speaker of the Catholic mission, dated 30 November 1900, quoted by Hans-Joachim Niesel, Kolonialverwaltung und Missionen in Deutsch-Ostafrika 1890–1914 (Berlin: PhD diss. Freie Universität Berlin, 1971), 302. 36 Austen, Northwest Tanzania under German and British Rule, 69. For a documentation of this debate in the 147th session on 13 February 1900, see: Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstags. X. Legislaturperiode. I. Session. 1889/1900, vol. 5: Von der 132. Sitzung am 22. Januar 1900 zur 161. Sitzung am 7. März 1900 (Berlin: Julius Springer, 1900), 4080–4085. 37 Heinke, quoted in Austen, Northwest Tanzania under German and British Rule, 70.

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ministration. First of all, the Christian missiologists tried to fight the spread of Swahili since the Arabicised-Bantu coastal lingua franca was regarded as a medium of Islamisation. For a few years, many Protestant missionaries refused to teach Swahili and endeavoured to convince the government to give preferential treatment to those schools teaching in German. 38 Second, the missions did everything to reinforce the expansion of their own school system. As early as 1911 the schools led by the government were outnumbered. According to an (unfortunately incomplete) report prepared by the German Colonial Institute on a basis of 2,000 printed questionnaires in 1911, only 8.3 per cent of all schools in DOA were still in the hands of the government. More than one third (37.9 per cent) of the work done in education was undertaken by the Roman Catholic Missions, while more than half (53.8 per cent) of the work was provided by the Protestant missions. Regarding the percentage of students educated in these three types of schools the differences become even more significant. Only 6.5 per cent of the pupils went to governmental schools, but 48.1 per cent went to Roman Catholic mission schools and 45.4 to Protestant mission schools. 39 Although the German colonial government appreciated the mission schools’ contribution to stabilising authority as they were teaching specific norms of behaviour, such as discipline and obedience, it did not give up recruiting mainly from the Muslim population. 40 This might be the reason why the missiologists developed a new discursive strategy to finally persuade the administration to change their personnel policies and to favour autochthonous Christians. They put their arguments forward at missionary or colonial conferences as well as in the German parliament. Hundreds of relevant articles were published in newspapers, books and missionary periodicals of both denominations. 41 Originally, most of those relevant articles combined various arguments including anti-Islamic, religious, moral, and economic ones. For all of them, there 38 For a critical comment by a contemporary protagonist of the Protestant missionary system, see: [Karl] Axenfeld, “Die Sprachenfrage in Ostafrika vom Standpunkt der Mission aus betrachtet,” AMZ 35 (1908): 561–573. See also: Armin Owzar, “Swahili oder Deutsch? Zur Sprach- und Religionspolitik in Deutsch-Ostafrika,” in Sprachgrenzen – Sprachkontakte – kulturelle Vermittler. Kommunikation zwischen Europäern und Außereuropäern 16.–20. Jahrhundert, Beiträge zur europäischen Überseegeschichte 97, eds. Mark Häberlein and Alexander Keese (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2010): 281–303. 39 Data by Martin Schlunk, Die Schulen für Eingeborene in den deutschen Schutzgebieten, Abhandlungen des Hamburgischen Kolonialinstituts 18 (Hamburg: Friedrichsen & Co., 1914), 248–249. See also: George Hornsby, “German Educational Achievement in East Africa,” Tanganyika Notes and Records 62 (1964): 83–90, 87. 40 Tetzlaff, “Die Mission,” 198–199. 41 Armin Owzar, “Loyale Vasallen oder islamistische Aufrührer? Moslems in DeutschOstafrika,” in Kolonialismus hierzulande: Eine Spurensuche in Deutschland, eds. Ulrich van der Heyden and Joachim Zeller (Erfurt: Sutton, 2007): 234–239; Rebekka Habermas, “Islam Debates Around 1900: Colonies in Africa, Muslims in Berlin, and the Role of Missionaries and Orientalists,” in Migration and Religion: Christian Transatlantic Missions, Islamic Migration to Germany Chloe – Beihefte zum Daphnis 46, ed. Barbara Becker-Cantarino (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2012): 123–154.

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was a clash of three civilisations based on a clear hierarchy with Christians at the top, monotheistic Muslims in the middle and ‘heathens’ at the bottom. AntiIslamic criticism focused first and foremost on Mohammed who was considered being first a fanatic, and then a cheater, who was finally believed to be a prophet. 42 At least, the oriental version of Islam was respected as a monotheistic world religion containing some truth (“Wahrheitsmomente” 43) albeit it was considered as being only a primitive form of monotheism – whereas its African variant was denounced as nothing but a pseudo-Islamic variant of paganism. 44 However, after 1900 most authors became increasingly aware that any argument based on the idea of a Christian supremacy might be useless if not even have a contrary effect since it would inevitably provoke the governmental principle of neutrality with regard to religious matters. 45 Indeed, the self-conception of the Western state was based on the idea of a neutral authority. Theoretically, the administrations were not supposed to favour any religion. In reality, religion played an important role in personnel policy, and very often it made a difference if someone was a Protestant, Catholic, or a Jew. Basically, adherents of the Protestant denominations were preferred, whereas Catholics and Jews were particularly disadvantaged. 46 Nevertheless, the liberal ideal of neutrality in religious matters was – at least officially – broadly accepted in recruitment policy. It was also accepted in regard to the Muslim population in the periphery. 47 Moral and cultural motifs were employed to prevent the government from recruiting Muslims. Originally, the motive to abolish polygamy and to fight slavery – a practice which Islamic Arabs were seen to be responsible for – had been a central argument not only to legitimise the missionaries’ engagement in Africa 48 but also to justify colonial expansionism. 49 There was no doubt about most missiologists’ deep contempt for Islam which was considered as being morally as well as culturally inferior to Christianity. 50 Some missiologists, such as Carl Mirbt,

42 For example, see: M. Lütke, “Zur Geschichte Mohammeds des Propheten und des Islâm,” AMZ 2 (1875): 5–19 and 66–81, especially 19; M. Lüttke, “Mohámed und der Islâm,” AMZ 3 (1876): 3–14, 59–77 and 113–128; AMZ 4 (1876): 231–259, 289–303, 369–378; AMZ 5 (1878): 11–28, 69–90. 43 M. Lütke, “Zur Geschichte Mohammeds,” 5. 44 For example, see: Martin Klamroth, “Ostafrikanischer Islam,” AMZ 37 (1910): 477–493, 536–546, 486. 45 Carl Mirbt, Mission und Kolonialpolitik in den deutschen Schutzgebieten (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1910), 260. 46 Martin Baumeister, Parität und katholische Inferiorität: Untersuchungen zur Stellung des Katholizismus im Deutschen Kaiserreich Politik- und Kommunikationswissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Görres-Gesellschaft 3 (Paderborn et al.: Schöningh, 1987). 47 Michael Singleton, “Muslims, Missionaries and the Millennium in Upcountry Tanzania,” Cultures et développement 9 (1977): 247–314, 278. 48 For example, see: Al. Michelsen, “Der Sklavenhandel Ostafrica’s,” AMZ 2 (1875): 19–30, 518–527, 557–569, especially 20; AMZ 3 (1876): 335–348, 383–392, 535–550. 49 Gründer, Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien, 87. 50 Klamroth, “Ostafrikanischer Islam,” 492–493, 543.

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even argued that there was a connection between slavery and polygamy. 51 However, for most German bureaucrats this argument was no longer valid. As the Quran prescribed temperance and daily ablutions, Muslims were perceived as being sober, clean and disciplined. 52 They were also granted a higher economic rationale, in places such as Western Africa. 53 Thus, the missiologists’ strategy to present Muslims as an unproductive people failed. 54 The failure of the missiologists’ arguments may explain why religious and moral arguments increasingly lost importance while political aspects became much more important. Already in November 1900, Bishop Allgeyer had stated that a Muslim could never be a loyal subject of a Christian state. All larger uprisings that had taken place in DOA were seen to have been instigated and performed by ‘Mohammedans’. 55 From the Maji-Maji uprising in 1905, missionary periodicals began to describe Muslims mostly as a group of fanatical enemies of Germany’s colonial government 56 – despite the fact that only a few Muslims and Christians had joined the rebels. After all, this insurrection was “essentially directed against the modernising elements in Tanzanian society”, against the Germans as well as against their collaborators, the Indians and the Muslim Arabs. 57 Initially, the German government ignored these warnings and most German representatives denied the idea of a ‘Green Peril’. The first and most influential proponent of this train of thought was Governor Adolf von Götzen (1901-1906), who consequently denied the existence of an ‘Arab danger’. 58 Increasingly, however, political arguments voiced at conferences and in missionary periodicals seem to have achieved a certain effect, since the government found itself compelled to respond to the reproaches and to stress their anti-Islamic engagement, especially in school affairs. 59 This seems to have encouraged the missiologists who were 51 Mirbt, Mission und Kolonialpolitik in den deutschen Schutzgebieten, 261–262. 52 Heinrich Schnee, Deutsch-Ostafrika im Weltkriege: Wie wir lebten und kämpften (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1919), 135. 53 Arthur J. Knoll, “Die Norddeutsche Missionsgesellschaft in Togo 1890-1914,” Imperialismus und Kolonialmission: Kaiserliches Deutschland und koloniales Imperium, ed. Klaus J. Bade 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner 1984): 165–188, 184. 54 Mirbt, Mission und Kolonialpolitik in den deutschen Schutzgebieten, 262. 55 Bishop Allgeyer’s letter to Hespers, dating from 30 November 1900, quoted in Niesel, Kolonialverwaltung und Missionen in Deutsch-Ostafrika 1890–1914, 302. 56 For example, see: Klamroth, “Ostafrikanischer Islam,” 542. 57 L. H. Gann and Peter Duignan, The Rulers of German Africa 1894–1914 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977), 121. 58 Andreas Osterhaus, Europäischer Terraingewinn in Schwarzafrika: Das Verhältnis von Presse und Verwaltung in sechs Kolonien Deutschlands, Frankreichs und Großbritanniens von 1894 bis 1941 Europäische Hochschulschriften 411 (Frankfurt am Main et al.: Peter Lang, 1990), 195–196. 59 For example, see the report of the government of DOA sent to the Kolonialabteilung des Auswärtigen Amtes (1906) in: Christel Adick and Wolfgang Mehnert in collaboration with Thea Christiana, Deutsche Missions- und Kolonialpädagogik in Dokumenten: Eine kommentierte Quellensammlung aus den Afrikabeständen deutschsprachiger Archive 1884–1914, Historisch-vergleichende Sozialisations- und Bildungsforschung (Frankfurt am Main and London: Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation, 2001), 89–96.

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tirelessly popularising their arguments in numerous articles and books, as well as in speeches being held at mission and colonial conferences or in the German parliament. 60 Three years after the Maji-Maji uprising in the DOA and one year after a Mahdi-revolt in the Sudan a new peak was reached in the missionaries’ Islamophobia with the so-called Mecca Letters, which contained a vision in which Mohammed had instructed the Sheik to warn all Muslims that judgment day was approaching. 61 It seemed that they had been written by Sheik Ahmad, Keeper of the Prophet's tomb, and had been circulating all over German East Africa. 62 This falsified document gave another occasion to stress the concept of an Islamic conspiracy against the Colonial government. It is still not clear how many copies of the Mecca Letters circulated in the DOA and whether they contributed to a noteworthy mobilisation of anti-colonial protest with reference to Islamic fundamentalism. However, one has to differentiate between a non-political majority of Swahili Muslims belonging to the orthodox establishment and a minority of dissidents belonging to local Islamic brotherhoods such as the dhikiris. 63 Consequently, Carl Heinrich Becker, who was one of Germany’s leading Orientalists (and who did not generally deny the threat emanating from local Muslim movements), did not see a reason to consider Islam as a danger for the European civilisation in general and the German colonial rule in German East Africa in particular. 64 Also most 60 See the reports by Julius Richter and Jos. Froberger and the following debate, documented in: Verhandlungen des Deutschen Kolonialkongresses 1905 zu Berlin am 5, 6. und 7. Oktober 1905, ed. the Redaktionsausschuß (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1906), 510–538; see the reports by Karl Axenfeld, Carl Heinrich Becker and Hubert Hansen and the following debate documented in: Verhandlungen des Deutschen Kolonialkongresses 1910 zu Berlin am 6., 7. und 8. Oktober 1910, ed. the Redaktionsausschuß (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1910), 629–673. See also Matthias Erzberger’s speech in the German Reichstag on March 13, 1906 in: Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstags. XI. Legislaturperiode. II. Session. 1905/1906. Erster Sessionsabschnitt vom 28. November bis zur Vertagung der Session am 28. Mai 1906, vol. 3: Von der 59. Sitzung am 7. März bis zur 87. Sitzung am 25. April 1906 (Berlin: Julius Springer, 1906), 1974–1981. 61 Translation from Arabic by B. G. Martin, quoted by John Iliffe, Tanganyika under German Rule 1905–1912 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 190. The original is quoted by Carl Heinrich Becker, “Materialien zur Kenntnis des Islam in Deutsch-Ostafrika,” Der Islam: Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur des islamischen Orients 2 (1911): 1–48, 43–44. 62 For the Mecca Letters affair, see: Michael Pesek, “Kreuz oder Halbmond: Die deutsche Kolonialpolitik zwischen Pragmatismus und Paranoia in Deutsch-Ostafrika 1908–1914,” in Mission und Gewalt: Der Umgang christlicher Missionen mit Gewalt und die Ausbreitung des Christentums in Afrika und Asien in der Zeit von 1792 bis 1918/19, eds. Ulrich van der Heyden and Jürgen Becher (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2000): 97–112. 63 Michael Pesek, “Islam und Politik in Deutsch-Ostafrika, 1905–1919,” in Alles unter Kontrolle: Disziplinierungsverfahren im kolonialen Tanzania (1905–1919), eds. Albert Wirz, Katrin Bromber and Andreas Eckert (Hamburg: Rüdiger Köppe, 2003): 99–140. 64 Carl Heinrich Becker, “Ist der Islam eine Gefahr für unsere Kolonien?” Koloniale Rundschau: Monatsschrift für die Interessen unserer Schutzgebiete und ihrer Bewohner (1909): 266–293, especially 285. For the relevance of Becker’s publications with regard to the Islamic question in Africa, see: Suzanne L. Marchand, German Orientalism in the Age of Em-

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German bureaucrats did not see any danger in African Islam. In 1911, Albrecht von Rechenberg claimed, that “a Muslim colony ... would be easier to rule than a population of African Christians.” 65 His successor, Dr. Heinrich Schnee, also followed this line of thought, and emphasised after WWI that only some Christian missionaries had regarded Islam as a fanatical and dangerous religion and the askari, most of them Muslims, would have been loyal vassals. 66 Nonetheless, the German government had become sensitised to the so-called Islamic threat. Bureaucrats were no longer allowed to ignore the missiologists’ warnings and they saw themselves forced to take some suitable measures to fight against Islam. 67 In a circular letter from 1909, von Rechenberg advised his subordinates “to ‘drive a wedge’ between ‘… pious Muslims’ and ‘Islamic agitators’ who were only waiting for trouble to break out so that they could take advantage of it.” 68 Also Governor Schnee, who basically did not sympathise with the missionaries’ commitment and believed in the askaris’ loyalty, saw himself forced to turn in and to take suitable measures to fight against Islam. 69 In this way, the missionaries and missiologists had been quite successful with their speeches and publications in creating an atmosphere full of suspicion against Muslims and Islam. INTERDENOMINATIONAL COOPERATION This strategy was the result of interdenominational concurrence being based on international forms of cooperation. The German missionaries and missiologists studied the relevant journals written in English 70 and contacted their colleagues from other countries. 71 They participated in international conferences and contributed their papers to editions published in English. 72 Some books, like one of Sam-

65 66

67 68 69 70 71 72

pire: Religion, Race, and Scholarship (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 365– 367. Rechenberg in a letter to the Reichskolonialamt from 2 November 1911, quoted in Iliffe, Tanganyika under German Rule 1905–1912, 199. Heinrich Schnee, Deutsch-Ostafrika im Weltkriege, 135. It is, however, possible that Schnee may have glossed over the loyalty of the Islamic Askari during WWI. See: Detlev Bald, Deutsch-Ostafrika 1900–1914: Eine Studie über Verwaltung, Interessengruppen und wirtschaftliche Erschließung Afrika-Studien 54 (München: Weltforum, 1970), 26. Niesel, Kolonialverwaltung und Missionen in Deutsch Ostafrika 1890–1914, 307–310. B. G. Martin, “Muslim Politics and Resistance to Colonial Rule: Shaykh Uways B. Muhammad Al-Barawi and the Qadiriya Brotherhood in East Africa,” The Journal of African History 10 (1969): 471–486, 479. Schnee, Deutsch-Ostafrika im Weltkriege, 136. Richter, “Die Propaganda des Islam,” passim. Marcia Wright, German Missions in Tanganyika 1891–1941: Lutherans and Moravians in the Southern Highlands (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 124. The Mohammedan Word of Today, being papers read at the First Missionary Conference on behalf of the Mohammedan World held at Cairo, April 4th–9th, 1906, ed. S[amuel] M. Zwemer, E. M. Wherry and James L. Barton (New York at al.: Fleming H. Revell, 1906); see also: Islam and Missions, being papers read at the Second Missionary Conference on behalf

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uel Zwemer’s publications on Islam, 73 were translated and reached the German public at large. Similar to their German counterparts, there were also many Islamrelevant articles published in English missionary periodicals. For example, in its first issue published in 1912, the International Review of Missions focused among other topics on The Vital Forces of Christianity and Islam, with articles written by missionaries and scholars from Great Britain (William Henry Temple Gairdner, Stewart Crawford), the USA (W. A. Shedd) and Germany (Gottfried Simon, Diedrich Hermann Westermann). 74 The politicisation of the anti-Islamic discourse took thus place all over the Western world. German missionaries and politicians as well as British, French and American authors tried to convince their governments to support the mission movement and to join their international front against Islam. If one compares Catholic and Protestant articles in missionary periodicals, books and brochures, one becomes aware that there were some significant differences. Protestants were obviously more committed and attached greater importance to the so-called Islamic question than Catholics. An analysis of the missiologists’ publications makes clear that most of the relevant literature was written by Protestant authors – perhaps because the Muslims outnumbered Protestants already in the first decade of the twentieth century. In 1907, for example, it was purported that there were globally only 165 million Protestants, compared to 175 million Muslims.75 Catholics were not only more restricted in their output on Islam relevant publications, they were also more careful in their judgments on Islam. Normally, Catholic authors criticised the colonial government’s preferential treatment of Muslims and they advised against the (alleged) resulting infiltration Islamic elements. However, the Protestants did not confine themselves to only warning against Islamisation, particular within Eastern Africa; they also did not refrain from denouncing Islam as an inferior religion. This difference may have resulted from the varying experiences of Catholics and Protestants in Germany during the Kulturkampf. Maybe the memory of the political and the religious persecution in the 1870s and early 1880s had made many German Catholics more cautious in their opinions about other minorities. Another significant difference between Catholics and Protestants concerns tendencies towards overt or subtle racial discrimination. Reading the publications of both denominations, one encounters ethnic stereotypes and sometimes even of the Mohammedan World at Lucknow, January 23–28, 1911, eds. E. M. Wherry, S[amuel] M. Zwemer and C. G. Mylrea (New York at al.: Fleming H. Revell, 1911). 73 Zwemer, Der Islam. 74 W[illiam] H[enry] T[emple] Gairdner, “The Vital Forces of Christianity and Islam,” The International Review of Missions [IRM] 1 (1912): 44–61; W. A. Shedd, “The Vital Forces of Christianity and Islam. II,” IRM 1 (1912): 279–294; Gottfried Simon,“The Vital Forces of Christianity and Islam. III,” IRM 1 (1912): 452–473; Stewart Crawford “The Vital Forces of Christianity and Islam. IV,” IRM 1 (1912): 601–617; [Diedrich Hermann] Westermann, “Islam in the West and Central Sudan,” IRM 1 (1912): 618–653. 75 Gustav Warneck, Die Mission in der Schule: Ein Handbuch für den Lehrer (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1907), 122.

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racist arguments which describe anthropological differences between Africans and Europeans. Though many of the missionaries and the missiologists advocated for more respect and reverence for non-Christian and non-white cultures, 76 many of them regarded the African ‘heathens’ in the hinterland more or less as a plaything of two civilisations, the Muslim and the Christian one. They were considered as being child-like if not primitive people of an inferior society and culture. Some of them even argued that the presumed inferiority of the Africans would be one reason for the successful Islamisation of Africa. Because of its primitiveness, Islam would be much more attractive than the more demanding Christian faith. 77 Some Protestants, however, were followers of a more modern and thus biologically based variant of racism. Adopting the idea of superiority of the so-called Aryans, they made a difference between the Semitic Arabs and the Indo-European Iranians whom they attested as being a superior group inside the Islamic world. 78 Other authors tried to organise East Africa’s autochthonous people into a racial hierarchy. A prominent case is Carl Meinhof, an internationally widely accepted linguist, one of the first with a specialisation in African languages. In an article on mission and Islam in East Africa published in the Evangelisches MissionsMagazin in 1908, Meinhof differentiated between Arabic, Hamitic and Bantu Muslims to each of whom he ascribed different cultural and mental characters. According to him, the alleged primitive Bantu people did not have a disposition to fanaticism – however, they were weak enough to become instrumentalised by energetic Arabs and Hamites for political reasons, in the course of an “Africa to the African” campaign. 79 Meinhof was not just a single voice in this context, he was a protagonist in Protestant mission affairs. His hypothesis about the existence of both Hamitic languages and races had not only a significant impact on linguistics as well as on race theory but also on German nationalism and the Protestant missionary movement. 80 However, Meinhof’s specific form of racism based on theology and sciences was much more popular among Protestant than Catholic missionaries. Maybe the reason for this difference lies in the different relations to modernism. After all, German Catholics were, due to their traditional anti-modernism, less touched by modern racism including anti-Semitism in its biological

76 For a complex analysis of the Protestant missionaries’ images of Africans, see: Thorsten Altena, “Ein Häuflein Christen mitten in der Heidenwelt des dunklen Erdteils”: Zum Selbstund Fremdverständnis protestantischer Missionare im kolonialen Afrika 1884–1918 Internationale Hochschulschriften 395 (Münster et al.: Waxmann, 2003), 104–191. 77 Amadou Booker Sadji, Das Bild des Negro-Afrikaners in der Deutschen Kolonialliteratur (1884–1945): Ein Beitrag zur literarischen Imagologie Schwarzafrikas, Beiträge zur Kulturanthropologie (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1985), 99. 78 Richter, “Die Propaganda des Islam,” 167. 79 Meinhof, “Mission und Islam,” passim. 80 See also: Sara Pugach, “Images of Race and Redemption: The Protestant Missionary Contribution to Carl Meinhof’s Zeitschrift für Kolonialsprachen,” Le Fait Missionaire: Social Sciences and Missions 15 (December 2004): 59–96.

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variant – whereas Protestants were much more open for new tendencies, including modern racist thoughts. 81 However, in one point – and this seems to be crucial – they were in agreement and had common interests as well as common strategies. Both denominations replaced traditional arguments with political ones. The more the government intensified its collaboration with the Muslim elites, the more radical the missionaries became in their sentence of the Islamic threat. This politicisation was much more effective as it was now forced by a coalition formed by Protestants and Catholics. For the very first time, Catholic dignitaries began to appreciate the Protestants’ politics of conversion and vice versa. In his programmatic article on Deutsche Kolonialpolitik und katholische Heidenmission published in 1912, Joseph Schmidlin, the protagonist of Catholic missiology, explicitly referred to his Protestant counterpart Carl Mirbt. Consequently, Schmidlin shared his anti-Islamic arguments and maintained a critical distance from Orientalist Becker by warning against the political role of East-African Islam and criticising confessional contrasts. 82 Schmidlin being born in Kleinlandau in 1876 was not the only Alsatian Catholic supporting an interdenominational co-operation. Many missionaries from Alsace too, left their anti-Protestant and anti-German resentments behind and supported supra-denominational initiatives. Even the Pope gave up his antiProtestant strategy. According to the German Bishop Spreiter, Leo XIII conceded during an audience in 1909 that it would be much better for the ‘heathens’ to became Protestants rather than Muslims. 83 From the Protestant side, prominent voices, such as Erich Schultze, considered the Catholic mission as a new ally. Schultze published a brochure in 1913 on the dangers of Islamisation in Eastern Africa, in which he called the 43,000 Catholics living there a “valuable bulwark against Islam.” 84 Both, Catholic and Protestants finally started an interdenominational initiative in 1913, the so-called Kaiserspende, which was supposed to support German colonialism. If one considers that the interdenominational conflict between missionaries and missiologists had originally been carried out in an extreme intransigent way, more than in any other field, then one gets an idea not only about the dramatic change that had taken place within a decade, but also about its potential effects on German society. Based on the common perception of Islam as a threat, the Catholics and the Protestant missionaries and missiologists had become collaborators within only a few years – what could have made them become protagonists of 81 Olaf Blaschke, Katholizismus und Antisemitismus im Deutschen Kaiserreich, Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft 122, 2nd edition (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999). 82 [Joseph] Schmidlin, “Deutsche Kolonialpolitik und katholische Heidenmission,” Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft 2 (1912): 25–49, 25, 45, 47. 83 Niesel, Kolonialverwaltung und Missionen in Deutsch-Ostafrika 1890–1914, 306. 84 Erich Schultze, Soll Deutsch-Ostafrika christlich oder mohammedanisch werden? Eine Frage an das deutsche Volk; zugleich ein Wort der Aufklärung über die Gefahr der Islamisierung unserer größten Kolonie und den einzigen Weg zu ihrer Rettung (Berlin: Berliner Evangelische Missionsgesellschaft, 1913), 48. German original: “ein wertvolles Bollwerk gegen den Islam.”

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interdenominational cooperation in the near future. After 1919, however, political arguments lost their function in anti-Islamic discourse and thus almost vanished. Even if the stereotype of Muslims as fanatical believers persisted, most of the relevant articles in missionary periodicals, brochures or books did not deal with Islam as a political threat anymore and focused once more on theological differences. This can be demonstrated by a comparison of the publications written by Gottfried Simon, a Protestant missionary of the Rhineland. In an article on the Rheinish mission and Islam, published in EMM in 1908, Simon denounced Islam as a religious community of political fanatics brutally fighting as well as creeping secretly like an epidemic. 85 Six years later, he solidified his horror scenario. In his study on Islam und Christentum im Kampf um die Eroberung der animistischen Heidenwelt, published in 1914, he warned of a Pan-Islamic movement and the danger of a holy war being prepared against the European colonial powers. 86 But in his work on Der Islam und die christliche Verkündigung, published six years later, Simon focused on the theological differences between both religions: the question of Revelation, the belief in God, the role of Mohammed as an intercessor, the eschatology and the mission of the Christian preaching. 87 Meanwhile – and this may not come as a surprise - interdenominational rivalry was revitalised to once again become a major issue.

85 Gottfried Simon, “Die Rheinische Mission und der Islam,” Evangelisches Missions-Magazin 52 (1908): 58–76, 61, 65. German original: “heimlich schleichende Seuche.” 86 Gottfried Simon, Islam und Christentum im Kampf um die Eroberung der animistischen Heidenwelt: Beobachtungen aus der Mohammedanermission in Niederländisch-Indien (Berlin: Martin Warneck, 1914), 29–30. 87 Gottfried Simon, Der Islam und die christliche Verkündigung: Eine missionarische Untersuchung (Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1920).

THE LONDON SOCIETY AND ITS MISSIONS TO THE POLISH JEWS, 1821–18551 The Gospel and Politics Agnieszka Jagodzińska The Evangelical revival and millennial expectations in Great Britain resulted in its increasing interest in evangelisation of the ‘pagan’ world at the end of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The attention of various Christian denominations was turned to missionary fields, giving rise to various missionary societies seeking conversion of ‘heathens’ living in the vast British Empire, or even beyond its borders. Among those most important were the London Missionary Society, the Religious Tract Society, and the British and Foreign Bible Society – each of them having a specific profile of activity. Although the British pan-evangelical efforts focused by and large on ‘pagans’ who constituted the most numerous target group, they did not exclude ‘infidels’, that is those were aware of Christianity but rejected it. Jews enjoyed a special, ambiguous status within this second group. On one hand, they were perceived through the prism of anti-Judaic religious phobias and resentments of the previous centuries. On the other, however, both Anglicans and Dissenters were fascinated by the notion of their being ‘halfChristians’ who shared the same “Old Testament Faith.” 2 Millennialists generally agreed that successful evangelisation should hasten the Second Coming of Christ. They disagreed, however, whether or not a priority should be given to the Jewish people. The outcome of this interest in Jewish conversion was finally embodied in a separate missionary society called ‘The London Society for Promoting Christianity among Jews’ (that will be further abbreviated to the London Society or the Society), established in 1809. Within its framework, representatives of the English nation who felt chosen by history to evangelise

1

2

I am grateful to Church’s Ministry among Jewish People (formerly The London Society for Promoting Christianity among Jews) for granting me permission to use their archive (The papers of the Church’s Ministry among the Jews) deposited at the Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford (further abbreviated to: CMJ). R. H. Martin, “United Conversionist Activities Among the Jews in Great Britain 1795–1815: Pan-Evangelism and the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews,” Church History 46, no. 4 (1977): 437–452, 441.

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“God’s chosen people”, undertook a wide range of activities aimed at bringing Jews towards Christianity. 3 Although the London Society was based in England, its missions reached Jewish communities in various places around the globe. The Polish lands, a region with the largest Jewish population in the nineteenth century, immediately became a natural destination of the London missionaries. The efforts of the Society to evangelise Polish Jews was well reflected in its numerous missionary periodicals. These periodicals were a powerful element in the missionary and fundraising schemes developed by the Society. They reported on progress of the missionary labour among the Jewish people, and encouraged their readers to continue their spiritual and financial support for this cause. This chapter analyses reports written by missionaries working among the Polish Jews and published in the periodicals of the London Society. I intend to discuss the political and religious tensions that surrounded English missions to the Polish Jews. By politics, I understand here diplomacy, power-play and high-level interactions between various Jewish, Polish, Russian and British – civil and religious – authorities, aimed at realising their goals. I investigate the policy of the London Society concerning relation to and presentation of political affairs in missionary periodicals. The questions which I wish to answer through this analysis are: How did this missionary society define politics? Did the Society and its missionaries perceive themselves as political agents or subjects? How did they combine religious messages with functioning in the highly politicised world? I will also demonstrate how understanding of politics in British missionary periodicals can be enriched through contrasting them with other sources; here with archival material that preserve testimonies of the representatives of the Jewish, Polish and Russian side. Before I proceed to this analysis – and in order to set my discussion in the context – I will introduce the reader to the subject of the English missions to the Polish Jews. This introduction is intended especially for those who are neither acquainted with Polish, nor with Jewish studies. It presents a brief explanation of the historical and political setting of the missions, crucial for understanding of the further analysis. HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL CONTEXT OF THE ‘JEWISH MISSIONS’ Soon after its foundation in 1809, the missions of The London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews crossed the English borders, reaching Jewish communities in various lands both within and outside the British Empire. From the earliest years of the missions to the Jews carried out abroad, the Society took special interest in the Polish lands and their Jewish populations, noticing that “no 3

The role which the idea of Jewish conversion played in Protestant England is brilliantly discussed in: Michael Ragussis, Figures of Conversion: ‘The Jewish Question’ and English National Identity (Durham, North Carolina and London, 1995).

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country presents a more interesting field of labour for a Missionary to the Jews than this.” 4 The Jewish population in Poland was attractive to the Society both in terms of its size and spiritual conditions that were reported to be “ripe for an evangelising effort”, as one of the Society’s historians described it. 5 However, due to the complex situation of the Polish lands in the nineteenth century, the Society had to undertake special measures in order to establish missionary framework in this territory. Missions among the Polish Jews differed not only from those carried out by the Society in the British colonial spaces, but also from the rest of European cases. Its unique character was strongly determined by the specific political and religious context of the Polish lands in this time. At the end of the eighteenth century, the vast Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ceased to exist and its territory was partitioned by Prussia, Russia and Austria. Consequently, Jews inhabiting these lands became subjects of these three partitioning powers. In the early nineteenth century, parts of Poland regained their independence (or semi-independence), when – with the support of Napoleonic France – the short lived Duchy of Warsaw (1807–1815) was created. However, after Napoleon lost what he called ‘a second Polish’ war with Russia, the Duchy was divided again and transformed into the Kingdom of Poland, known also as the Congress Kingdom. Politically the Kingdom lay in the Russian sphere of influence. Marcin Wodziński describes it as a: ‘semi-independent entity’ ruled by independent organs of state, with its own territory, and its own emblems and borders, in which its inhabitants had Polish, not Russian citizenship, as well as wide-ranging freedoms. 6

These freedoms proved, however, to be short-lived. Russia thwarted Polish struggle for independence that peaked in two national uprisings (the November Uprising, 1830–31, and the January Uprising, 1863–64). After each of these uprisings, the autonomy of the Kingdom was subjected to further limitations. In order to operate in this territory under such circumstances, the London Society had to secure permission of the Tsar, who was the constitutional king of Poland. Upon his visit to continental Europe in 1817–18, Lewis Way had a private audience with Tsar Alexander I, and during this meeting convinced him to support the Society. Although missions to the Polish Jews were able to proceed the Tsar’s permission was limited to the territory of the Kingdom of Poland. The Russian Empire, including the Pale of Settlement (Polish partitioned lands that were incorporated to the Empire), remained closed to the London Society. In fact, the Tsar preferred to wait until the results of the missions in Poland were visible, before extending his permission for the whole Empire. In this way, the Kingdom of Po4 5 6

“Poland,” Jewish Records 40 (1829), 1; CMJ, e.24. William T. Gidney, The History of the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews: From 1809 to 1908 (London: London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews, 1908), 58. Marcin Wodziński, Haskalah and Hasidisim in the Kingdom of Poland: A History of Conflict (Oxford and Portland, Oregon: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2005), 35. For more detailed information on the character of the Kingdom of Poland, see particularly: 34–39.

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land became a test for the English project of Jewish conversion. Also, as Raphael Mahler has suggested, the Tsar admitted Protestant missionaries to Catholic Poland following the rule of divide et impera. The expected religious controversy that the missions would cause was deemed to be helpful in weakening the position of the predominantly Catholic majority in the country that the Tsar tried to subjugate. 7 Although permitted by the Tsar to operate in the semi-sovereign Kingdom, the Society still had to answer to the Polish, and not Russian, state administration and to present it with regular reports on the activity of its agents. The Polish government had decided that the representatives of the London Society were to be officially subordinated to the Evangelical Church of Poland, although none of the two parties was satisfied with this solution. The situation of the London missions in this territory constituted quite a paradox: the Anglican Church, which due to the British colonial politics became one of the world’s most important Christian denominations, had never been officially acknowledged in the Kingdom of Poland and enjoyed status of a merely tolerated religion. Moreover, not being Polish citizens, the Society’s missionaries could not keep the baptism records which would be officially recognised by the state. The practical consequence of this situation was that the Society was compelled by the law to have their converts baptised in the local Lutheran Church. This, of course, led to numerous conflicts that particularly intensified in the early twentieth century. The first station of the London Society in the Kingdom of Poland was opened in 1821 in Warsaw. The missions were carried out generally in two modes: one stationary and the other travelling. Missionary journeys were undertaken a few times a year. The Society expected its agents to visit towns and villages inhabited by the Jewish population and engage there in preaching, religious disputes and circulation of missionary literature. Missionaries operated in this territory until the Crimean War (1853–1856), when due to the political conflict between Russia and Great Britain, they were expelled in 1855. Their missions re-opened only 20 years later and continued until the Holocaust. This chapter focuses on the first period of their activity in Poland, reflected in missionary periodicals and other sources. PERIODICALS OF THE LONDON SOCIETY Religious magazines emerged in Britain in 1760 and for over a century they remained the dominant type of publication. The reduction of the controversial duties imposed on English newspapers in the eighteenth century – known as ‘taxes on knowledge’ or ‘stamp taxes’ – in 1836 and their complete abolition in 1855, contributed to the unprecedented expansion of journalism. This influenced also mis7

Raphael Mahler, “Ha-medinyiut klapei ha-misionerim be-Polin ha-kongresait bi-tekufat ‘haberit ha-kedoshah,’” [The policy towards the missionaries in the Congress Poland in the period of ‘The Holy Alliance’],” in Sefer shiloh, ed. Michael Handel (Tel Aviv: Department of Education and Culture, Municipality of Tel Aviv, 1960): 169–181, 170.

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sionary press which “flooded Britain with morally improving texts in the nineteenth century”, and “it retained this dominance until the mid-nineteenth century when it was succeeded by the temperance press.” 8 As Joseph Altholtz has pointed out, nearly all of the religious and philanthropic organisations came to issue their own publications, even if they were only Reports or Proceedings that appeared once a year. 9 In January 1813, the Society begun to publish monthly The Jewish Repository that after three years evolved into The Jewish Expositor and Friend of Israel (also monthly), which was continued until June 1831. In January 1830, the Society issued a new periodical titled Monthly Intelligence (1830–1834) whose title changed later to Jewish Intelligence (1835–1865?).10 After publication of The Jewish Expositor ceased, this intelligence simply replaced it and overtook its readership. From quite a few titles offered by the Society to its supporters, it is worthwhile to mention yet another one – Jewish Records (1818–84?) that contained mainly financial and missionary reports. In the later period, this periodical began to be printed more frequently – monthly or quarterly, which may indicate growing interest in reports on missionary work. Over the time the British scene of so-called ‘Jewish missions’ diversified and there appeared periodicals addressed to more specific audiences, such as children, women or Jewish converts. 11 Generally, periodicals of the Society had three main goals: first of all, to promote Christian interest in evangelising Jews all over the world; secondly, to encourage Christian support – both spiritual and financial – for this cause; and, thirdly, to present the missionary intelligence and reports on financial operations of the Society. As Jeffery Cox has observed, “the missionary societies appear to have regarded their periodicals as instruments of propaganda rather than source of income.” 12 The London Society was no exception in this aspect. But it cannot be denied that the propaganda disseminated in its periodicals was a powerful element of the fund-raising scheme of the Society and thus contributed to its income. Cox suggests also that the majority of people in nineteenth-century Britain,

Laurel Brake, Marysa Demoor and Margaret Beetham, eds., Dictionary of NineteenthCentury Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland (London: British Library London, 2009), 419, 454. The quotation is from page 419. For more on the history of the British press in the nineteenth century, see: J. O. Baylen, “The British Press, 1861–1918,” in The Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422–1992, ed. Dennis Griffiths (London: Macmillan, 1992): 33–46; and Lucy Brown, “The British Press, 1800–1860,” in The Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422–1992, ed. Dennis Griffiths (London: Macmillan, 1992): 24–32. 9 Josef L. Altholtz, The Religious Press in Britain, 1760–1900 (New York and London: Greenwood, 1989), 19. 10 Gidney, The History of the London Society, 40, 57. 11 For a more detailed discussion on the form and function of the Society’s periodicals, see my article: “‘For Zion’s Sake I Will Not Rest’: The London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews and Its Nineteenth–Century Missionary Periodicals,” Church History 82, no. 2 (2013): 381–387. 12 Jeffery Cox, The British Missionary Enterprise since 1700 (New York and London: Routledge, 2010), 115. 8

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For advocates of the Jewish conversion in Britain, periodicals of the Society not only constituted the source of knowledge about Jewish communities scattered around the world but also interpreted Jewish history, tradition and customs according to their Evangelical and millennial expectations. MISSIONARY PERIODICALS AND POLITICS How did the periodicals of the London Society refer to the social and religious milieu of ‘Jewish missions’ in the Kingdom of Poland? To what extent did reports written by the Society’s missionaries and published in its press reflect the political reality of the nineteenth-century Poland? Did they comment on tensions between various social, religious and political bodies connected to the missions and, if so, how? In order to understand how the analysis of missionary reports can contribute to answering these questions, one needs to investigate first the general rules of the London Society that provided guidelines for writing these reports. According to the official policy of the London Society, missionaries were expected to refrain from any engagement in local politics or religious controversies. Also their reports were required to be free from any possible political references, as the General Instructions for the missionaries clearly stated. 14 Agents of the Society had to: Abstain from the all interference with politics; pay respect to the powers that be; do more; evince by your conduct that you feel grateful for the protection afforded you by the civil powers (...). Avoid also, all remarks upon present political events, and upon any local customs which may appear singular. 15

These precautions were to eliminate the risk of interrupting or even of suspending missions due to conduct of the Society’s agents that might have been considered improper or – to use a modern term – ‘politically incorrect.’ The London Society advised its agents to keep a diary or a travelogue that would help them to prepare detailed reports every month. Although such personal diaries have not been preserved for the period under the study, we do have reports based on them that were sent to the missionary headquarter in London, and also to the local authorities in the Polish case. The Society claimed these diaries, and reports based on them, as its own propriety, and had their excerpts published in its periodicals and other publications. In their communication with the Society, missionaries were required not to hide anything unpleasant, or difficult, but “not to 13 Cox, The British Missionary Enterprise, 114. 14 General Instructions by the Committee of the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews to Their Missionaries (London: London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews, 1824), 20; CMJ e.3. 15 General Instructions, 14; CMJ e.3.

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exaggerate appearances” either. 16 Although missionaries tried to follow these guidelines, one can notice differences between reports written by various agents that are dependent upon individual personality, character, or style of expression. Generally, they reported on their encounters with Jews, the course of religious disputes, their setting, chief speakers and arguments used and on the distribution of Bibles and pamphlets. They also related their journeys, encounters with the local Christian communities, challenges, and results and failures of missionary work. Contrary to Cox’s descriptions of subjects absent from missionary intelligence, 17 we do find accounts of failures in the reports of the London Society’s agents. We can quite often read how missionaries met with mockery, derision, and physical or verbal aggression, or simply with complete indifference. In such cases, however, they habitually added a appropriate comment that helped to turn ‘failures’ into ‘challenges,’ or which made a desired missionary success dependant on ‘the will of God.’ These accounts of failures did not necessarily have a negative effect on readers’ enthusiasm for the missionary cause. Quite the contrary, they could – if presented with an appropriate missionary’s or editor’s explanation – stimulate more efforts to support the Society, clearly being in the need of this support both in financial and spiritual terms. From 1834, reports on the missions in the Kingdom of Poland had to go a long way before they reached their addressee in London. First, missionaries had to submit reports to their local religious supervising body in the Kingdom, namely the Consistory of the Evangelical Church. Then the Consistory sent them – with its opinion attached – to the Ministry (at that time called ‘Governmental Commission’) of Internal and Religious Affairs. Such a bureaucratic network was to ensure control over the missions, both on the religious and political levels. It is quite obvious that such intelligence had to be written carefully in order not to provoke any controversy around the London missions and not to threaten their continuity. It is important to emphasise at this point that although permitted to operate by the Tsar and tolerated by the Polish government, the missions were not particularly popular in the Kingdom, neither among the Catholic nor Protestant, let alone Jewish, society. Therefore one could rightly suspect that these reports had to be selfcensored before they were submitted to the official authorities. In other words, they had to prove that they complied with the Society’s policy of restraining from any political involvement. One may also imagine that a text published in periodicals might differ from what was actually submitted to the officials in the Kingdom of Poland. For example, we could expect the editors of the Jewish Intelligence or the Jewish Records to comment more freely on the political situation in Poland. In the first half of the nineteenth century, however, this proved not to be the case. 18 If we compare what 16 General Instructions, 19–20; CMJ e.3. 17 Cox, The British Missionary Enterprise, 116. 18 For the period under the study here, we can only compare copies of reports preserved in the Polish archive with what was published in the missionary press in England. In this chapter, I base my argument on a sample material selected from both these sources. However, in order

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was submitted to the Consistory and to the Ministry with the intelligence that was actually published in the periodicals, it is quite surprising to discover that the periodical’s editors did not take the liberty to introduce either any serious discussion of the political context of the missions, or even any mere references to it. Specially, if we take into consideration that the Polish authorities (whether religious or state) did not enforce any external censorship on missionary reports. The most striking manifestation of this editorial policy is visible in issues of the Monthly Intelligence published in 1831 – in the politically turbulent time of the November Uprising, a Polish revolt against the Russian regime that broke out in last days of November 1830, and that lasted almost a year. In this period, both the missionary work of the agents stationed in the Kingdom of Poland and communication with them was seriously disrupted. Those letters which nevertheless reached England were presented to the readers without any political commentary. Let us have a look at a few examples of what was written. First of all, the missionaries avoided any discussion of the political situation, assuming instead that their readers were already acquainted with the latest news from other sources. For example, Richard Smith wrote from Warsaw on the 13th of December, 1830: “You will have some idea how matters are and have been here from the public papers,” 19 while Ludwig Hoff reported from Lublin on the 8th of January, 1831: “You, no doubt, are aware of what has happened in the country…” 20 Moreover, Hoff emphasises: As ministers of the gospel of Christ we have always endeavoured not to interfere with political concerns, and so we do still, being ‘subject to principalities and powers, and obeying magistrates’. Titus 3:1. 21

Moreover, we see that also editors were quite reluctant in passing any political opinion or judgment. The Jewish Records, which focused more on missionary reports than the other periodicals of the London Society, provide more information on the uprising, but again the commentary is missing. For example, in a report by Ferdinand Wilhelm Becker from Warsaw, we read: You can easily imagine what we felt at the first report of the revolution, when at the same time the city was on fire. We were, however, in greater danger the second evening, when mob[s] committed many excesses.

Then a description of social unrest follows and Becker’s account ends with religious message, typical for a missionary report: “the word of God and prayer were our weapons, wherewith the Lord strengthened and comforted us, for which his

to have a more general picture concerning the editing policy of the Society’s periodicals, more detailed and broader comparative studies of these sources are needed. 19 “Warsaw: Recent Accounts from the Missionaries,” Monthly Intelligence, 2 (1831), 25. 20 “Lublin: Late Accounts from the Missionaries,” Monthly Intelligence, 3 (1831), 43–44, 43. 21 “Lublin,” 43.

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holy name be blessed and praised for ever.” The missionary declared also that he and his fellows were offering “prayers for the good of the country.” 22 In relation to this, the Jewish Records published a special resolution in 1831 in which the Society offered spiritual support for those missionaries “who for some months have been prosecuting their work of mercy in the midst of war and bloodshed” and called upon adherents of the Society: to express their Christian sympathy with those Missionaries of the Society who, in the present eventful times, have been placed in circumstances of difficulty or danger; and earnestly to commend them, and their labours, to the prayers of all who seek the salvation of Israel. 23

No further explanation or comments on the political situation were offered to the reader. A similar situation occurred in the mid-1850s when, due to the Crimean War and the diplomatic crisis between Britain and Russia, missionaries were expelled from Poland. It is interesting to note how the Jewish Intelligence commented on that fact in 1860: It could not be reasonably expected while that war was being carried on, that an English mission, however peaceful its object, would be tolerated in the very heart of the Russian Empire. 24

Here the editors allowed themselves, however, to express their regret and dissatisfaction because of the termination of missions in Poland. They also complained about the general indifference of Christians in the Kingdom of Poland towards the missions to the Jews: Little did the rulers and people of that land know the prolific seed of blessing which the providence of the God of Israel had deposited in the midst of them, in fixing in Warsaw a Christian mission to the Jewish people. Had they fostered it, innumerable sheaves of golden grain, in shape of national prosperity, social blessing and religious advancement would by this time have stood thickly through the land… 25

On this occasion, editors compare “indifferent” Poland and Russia with England which, contrary to their example, “in many thousands of her sons, has appreciated the privilege of blessing the Jew.” 26 What was the reason for the fact that generally both missionaries in their reports and the Society in their periodicals, avoided an open discussion of politics? The possibility existed that periodicals could have reached the Polish authorities and, again, the need of self-censorship was one of the issues that needs to be considered here. This lack of political commentary provides us with quite valuable information on the strategy that the Society applied to ensure the continuity of its missions in Poland. Some of the above excerpts also indicate that the Society 22 All the three quotations from Becker’s report mentioned above: “Warsaw,” Jewish Records, 45 (1831), 2–3, 2; CMJ e.24. 23 “Annual Report,” Jewish Records, 46 (1831), 1; CMJ e.24. 24 “Chapters on Our Missions – Chapter XVII,” Jewish Intelligence, 12 (1860), 377–383, 380. 25 “Chapters on Our Missions,” 380. 26 “Chapters on Our Missions,” 383.

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could not openly express its opinion of the situation, rather expected its readers to obtain information from other sources. There are also other factors that determined the shape and contents of missionary reports. The most important one was the Society’s world-view which was organised according to a spiritual and not a political perspective. In other words, missionaries perceived the reality around them through religious lenses. Naturally, in order to fulfil its religious mission, the London Society had to interact with the highly politicised world around it, and it had to comply with its rules. As I will demonstrate further, while the Committee of the Society would assume a role of being (when necessary) a political agent, missionaries were supposed to stay focused on their field work, and were exempted from worrying about ‘the worldly matters’ such as engaging in the high-level politics. However, it could, and did, happen, that missionaries themselves became subjects of political interactions and their role in some controversies was truly explosive. CONTROVERSY AROUND THE MISSIONS IN POLAND The periodicals of the London Society tended to refrain from discussing and commenting on contemporary high-level political affairs and, as I demonstrated above, they had a reason to do so. This does not mean, however, that there was nothing to comment on. The limitations of the self-censored reports can be overcome if we compare and contrast them with other sources, for example with archival material. The material found in Polish archives proves that English missions in this territory were a cause of political and religious controversy that lasted for decades. It concerned the presence of foreign missionary societies in the Polish lands, their interactions with the local Christian and Jewish communities, and the very project of “promoting Christianity among the Jews.” The sides engaged in this controversy were numerous and here I will name just the most important actors, being: (1) Tsar Alexander I, later succeeded by Nicolas I, and their brother – Grand Duke Constantine who was made the commander-in-chief of the Kingdom of Poland, and who asserted a great influence on the local politics; (2) the Namiestnik (viceroy) of the Kingdom who by the Tsar’s decree had to offer protection to the missionaries; (3) the Ministry (called the Governmental Commission at that time) of Internal and Religious Affairs, which controlled the missions at the state level and which mediated between the deputy and the lower bodies; (4) the Evangelical Consistory, which directly supervised the missionaries, reported to the government about them, and at the same time was quite negatively biased towards them; (5) representatives of the Jewish community, who defended themselves against the missionary zeal; (6) the Catholic bishops and clergy, who objected to the teaching of the Anglican Church spread

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by missionaries; (7) The Committee of the London Society based in London; and, finally (8) the German and “English” missionaries working for the Society. 27 Although the character and continuity of missions in the Kingdom of Poland were the official cause of this controversy, it seems that sometimes in this multisided conflict, the ‘Jewish missions’ were only an excuse to exercise a more complex power-play. The bodies involved in it tried to create inner alliances between themselves in order to achieve their goals. Referring to archival material, Raphael Mahler has revealed how complex this network of inner relations and actions could be. 28 It is interesting that customary enemies and allies could have been redefined according to needs of the changing situation. Sometimes the archival data reveals quite surprising choices of ‘allies.’ For example, the governmental censors of Hebrew books, whose duty was to make sure that publications distributed among the Jews in the Kingdom of Poland complied with the censorship requirements, accused missionaries of circulating among Jews anti-Catholic and anti-Orthodox literature. 29 Of course, in the predominantly Catholic country whose official ruler was an Orthodox Christian, such arguments were more likely to be used against missionaries than any complaint issued by the Jewish communities concerning the violation of their religious convictions. Especially active in protecting the Jewish community from missionary influence were two Jewish censors, Jakub Tugendhold and Abraham Stern, who also tried to stop the circulation of publications of the Society in the Kingdom. Furthermore, as Raphael Mahler has suggested, Jews also tried to bribe the state officials in order to get rid of missionaries. 30 Some of these unexpected alliances, which came into being in response to the missions, are also mentioned in missionary reports. We learn from these reports that various sectors of the Jewish community in the Kingdom of Poland reacted to the agents of the Society in different ways, but one may say with no exaggeration that generally (and naturally) Jews were adverse to the missions. This did not, however, prevent them from ‘using’ missions – whenever possible – to win in internal Jewish religious or political conflicts. It is well-illustrated by the case of a mitnaged (‘opponent of Hassidism’), who brought a Hassid to dispute with missionaries and enjoyed it when the latter was reportedly defeated by them in a dis27 As the archival material demonstrates sometimes “the English missionaries,” as they were referred to in Poland, turned out to be only nominally English. For example, in 1834 the majority of them (six of eight) were German. See: A statement by Richard Smith, 28 March 1834, Centralne Władze Wyznaniowe [Central Religious Authorities] (further abbreviated to: CWW) no. 1454, Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych w Warszawie [The Main Archive of the Old Records in Warsaw] (further abbreviated to: AGAD), fo. 241. 28 Mahler, “Ha-medinyiut klapei ha-misionerim be-Polin,” 171. 29 Komisja Rządowa Spraw Wewnętrznych, Duchowych i Oświecenia Publicznego [Governmental Commission of the Internal and Religious Affairs, and of the Public Enlightenment] (this and other names of this Ministry will be further abbreviated to: KRSW) to Generalny Konsystorz Wyznań Ewangelickich [General Consistory of the Evangelical Denominations] (further abbreviated to: GKWE), 29April/ 11 May 1838, CWW 1455, AGAD, fos. 298–307. 30 Mahler, “Ha-medinyiut klapei ha-misionerim be-Polin,” 171.

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pute. 31 In another case, in a dispute concerning the superiority of studying the Bible over studying the Talmud, a Jew supported missionaries arguing that Jews indeed should study the Old Testament. In his opinion, this knowledge of the Bible – mastered in disputes with the English missionaries – could prove useful in refuting the arguments of Catholic priests who travelled through the country seeking Jewish conversions. 32 In this way, the experience acquired through contacts with one converting power, which threatened the Jewish community, could be used to win over another one. Another example of surprising alliances was a unified line of defence against missions employed by the local Christian communities of various denominations. The Evangelical Consistory, the body made responsible for direct supervision of the missionaries in the Kingdom quite against its will, was generally adverse, if not hostile, to the Anglican missions. The Consistory treated the agents of the Society as cuckoo’s eggs in their nest and used any opportunity to rid themselves of their responsibilities towards them. It often submitted denunciations to the government, which requested the termination of missions and the expulsion of missionaries from the country. One of their objections against agents of the Society was that instead of their main duty of evangelising the Jews, they preached among the Christian communities, and thus they overstepped their rights. 33 This fear that missionaries may “sow the seeds of [religious] separatism” and inspire formation of “mystical sects,” 34 was shared by the leaders of Evangelical and Catholic communities alike. The Catholic bishops added their own accusations to the Protestant communities’ complaints, specifically, that missionaries promoted “false teaching” and spread anti-Catholic propaganda. 35 Although the purpose of the missions was to convert Jews and not to engage in polemics with the local Catholics, it could – and did – happen that conflicts arose when missionaries commented on differences between the Catholic Church and Protestant Churches concerning, for example, the pope, the concept of purgatory, cult of saints, or mass and sacraments. In the matter of popular celebration of religious images in Poland, missionaries tended to share a rather Jewish anti-iconic approach rather than a Christian (Catholic) one. A further controversy surrounded the Societies’ publications for Jewish communities, whether in England, or in Poland. Tracts and cheap Bibles published in 31 Missionary reports by Sigismund Deutsch and Ian Waschitschek sent by Ferdinand Wilhelm Becker to William Ayerst, 31 August 1846, CWW 1457, AGAD, fo. 508. 32 “Poland: Letter and Journal of the Rev. W. F. Becker,” Jewish Expositor and Friend of Israel, 11 (1826), 190–194, 192. 33 GKWE to KRSW, 19 November/ 1 December 1842, CWW 1456, AGAD, fos. 589–594. 34 GKWE to KRSW, 2/14 February 1842, CWW 1456, AGAD, fo. 54, Polish original: “rzucali nasiona separatyzmu na wzór rozlicznych sekt angielskich separatystów, mistyków i niemieckich pietystów, które wiele nieszczęścia religii chrześcijańskiej przyniosły i przynoszą.” 35 Zarząd Okręgu Naukowego Warszawskiego [Administration of the Warsaw Educational District] to KRSW, 25 November/7 December 1842, CWW 1456, AGAD, fos. 453–455.

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languages accessible to the Jews (in Hebrew and Yiddish, but also in German and – especially in the later period – in Polish) and distributed among them, were an important missionary tool. It did happen, however, that upon the request of local Christians (again, both Protestant and Catholics), the missionaries gave or sold ‘Jewish books’ to them. It was also not uncommon to have these books and pamphlets re-sold to Christians by Jews. 36 However, as the publications of the Society had anti-Catholic stigma attached to them, they provoked fervent reactions from the lower and higher Catholic clergy. In 1849, the Warsaw bishop found distribution of such missionary publications in Warsaw so alarming that he decided to issue a complaint against the Society to the government. 37 Such controversies made the Society’s Committee in London take special precautions to prevent their recurrence. The Committee understood that such problems could pose a real threat to the missionary labour. Thus it had to make sure that missions to the Jews were indeed carried out amongst them, and that missionaries, even if discouraged by their constant failure in converting Jews, would not stray off to target other groups. The steps taken by the Committee to ensure this can be detected in another version of the already mentioned General Instructions (this time from 1850) in which the Society seemed to respond to the practical problems experienced by missionaries in the first decades of their work. It reminded them to struggle against “the feeling of impatience and disappointment,” and not to engage in other types of work when nothing seemed to be happening in the missionary field. 38 Despite all these controversies, accusations, and denunciations submitted to the Polish government by the Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic sides of the conflict, missionaries continued their labour until 1855. As they had secured the Tsar’s permission to operate in the Kingdom of Poland, the Polish government had to offer them protection and could not remove them from the country without a serious political reason. The situation changed when the Crimean War broke out, bringing the two Empires – Russian and British – into conflict. What is interesting, however, is the fact that it was not a tsar who initiated the termination of the missions. The initiative actually came out from the Polish government who suggested to the viceroy to close down the mission. 39

36 The fate of Bibles distributed by Christian missionaries among the Jews, is interestingly reconstructed by Adam Mendelsohn in his article “Trading in Torah: Bootleg Bibles and Secondhand Scripture in the Age of European Imperialism.” In The Economy in Jewish History: New Perspectives on the Interrelationship between Ethnicity and Economic Life, eds. Sarah Wobick and Gideon Reuveni (New York: Berghahn, 2011): 187–201. 37 The Suffragan Bishop Antoni Melchior Fijałkowski, the Administrator of the Warsaw Bishopric to KRSW, 20 September/ 2 October 1849, CWW 1458, AGAD, fos. 255–257. 38 General Instructions by the Committee of the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews to Their Missionaries, (London: London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews, 1850), 13–16; CMJ e.4. 39 KRSW to the Viceroy of the Kingdom (Ivan Paskevic), 24 April/ 2 May 1854, CWW 1458, AGAD, fos. 635–638.

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All this brings us closer to the definition of the missionary understanding of politics and its role. The Society treated politics as a tool necessary to realising its religious goals. However, diplomatic negotiations, official correspondence, unofficial leverages, and all other dealings with civil powers who could rule the fate of missions, were entrusted only to the Society’s Committee. Its missionaries, on the other hand, were expected not only to refrain from writing about politics in their reports, but also to avoid any form of political agency. Their self-determination was partly suspended and subordinated to the decisions of the Society. It was the Committee who decided on the destinations, duration, and terms of their missionary labour. This does not mean that missionaries themselves were unaware of the political aspect of the missions – indeed, they were aware and they had to comply with the local political conditions. The missionary definition of politics, however, was relative, and their understanding of what was political, and what was not, was selective. It is quite a paradox that when it came to their dealings with Jews, which had political implications, missionaries refused to acknowledge them in terms of politics. They perceived these interactions through the lenses of a religious and not secular metahistory, and legitimised them accordingly. Their religious interpretation of the social and political foment caused by the ‘Jewish conversion project,’ automatically placed the conflict out of the political framework for them. Thus, it is interesting that these low-level interactions, which were not understood by missionaries as political, found their way into missionary reports, and later into the periodicals of the Society. CONCLUSION The missionary periodicals discussed in this chapter present the ideas and stories hidden behind the official conversion statistics. 40 Their role and nature, however, can be ambiguous. On one hand, these periodicals themselves were a political tool that helped the Society build its position and carry out its missions for many decades, while on the other they tended to avoid engagement in the discussion of high-level politics. To a certain degree, the reason for officially restraining from discussing the issues of the ‘worldly powers’ can be explained by the general policy of the Society. The moderation in the matter of politics manifested itself in missionary reports and in avoiding acts that would provide provocation to the local political and religious authorities on whom the fate of the missions in noncolonial spaces depended. It was, however, not only a strategy of securing the undisturbed missionary labour, for, as I argued, it was also a product of a certain way of viewing and understanding of the reality. The missionary understanding of politics did not prevent them, however, from including in their reports accounts of local, low-level 40 By 1855 the London missionaries claimed to convert 361 Polish Jews. See: Gidney, The History of the London Society, 57.

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political interplays, which the periodicals of the Society presented later to their readers. Such refusal to interpret dealings with Jews in political terms was an outcome of the specific theological approach which the Society developed towards ‘God’s peculiar people.’ In the equation between politics and the gospel, missionaries definitely gave a priority to the latter. This meant that although they were aware of political interactions of the Society with various bodies and needed to respect civil powers, they preferred to interpret the world around them in religious terms. In other words, they tried to “render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Mathew 22:21), but they would not pay to ‘Ceasar’ more attention than it was necessary. Furthermore, the discussion of what may have been termed as ‘politics’ in reports from other parts of the globe from the same period (where such auto-censorship in the matter of politics was not necessitated) did not play a larger, or more important, role than in Polish reports. 41 Although the London Society’s missionaries tended not to discuss politics, their silence in this matter – as I have shown – can be also informative, as it helps us to reconstruct the missionary worldview. In the case of the missions to the Polish Jews, the archival sources make up for what missionary periodicals ignored. These sources help us to reconstruct the political and religious controversies surrounding the missions, showing how explosive the role of the missionaries in the Kingdom of Poland was, and the degree of religious, social and political tension it involved. This leads us to the simple conclusion that no historical source is perfect when it remains in isolation. Only when studied together and supplementing each other can periodicals, archival materials, and other sources contribute to our understanding of this little known chapter in the history of the Christian missions.

41 See the missionary intelligence from Europe and Asia published in the periodicals of the London Society mentioned in the article.

IV. MISSIONARY DISCOURSES

DISCOURSES OF LABOUR, RELIGION AND RACE IN THE AUSTRALASIAN METHODIST MISSIONARY REVIEW 1 The ‘Indian Coolie Mission’ in Fiji Amelia Bonea This paper examines the ways in which Australian Methodist missionaries perceived Indian indentured labour migrants in colonial Fiji, focusing specifically on discourse which circulated in the pages of the Australasian Methodist Missionary Review (AMMR). Using a selection of articles published between 1892 and 1920, I identify and discuss two rhetorical themes – the ‘dangerous coolie’ and the ‘heathen’ Indian – and argue that they were instrumental in promoting an ‘ideology of difference’ between Fijians and Indians. Unlike other types of missionary publications, the AMMR functioned much like a newspaper which supplied the reading public in Australia and abroad with regular and timely information about the overseas missions of the Australasian Methodist Church. The periodical’s informative function was complemented by its pedagogical and proselytising role, since the news items and human interest stories published legitimised the regular appeals for human and financial support of the missionary cause. In this context, the publication of oppositional accounts, which identified Indians with the ‘dangerous aliens’ and Fijians with the endangered, ‘dying race,’ not only aimed to protect the Christianised Fijian population from the undesirable influence of a predominantly non-Christian migrant group, but also lent immediacy and poignancy to the Mission’s appeals for support. THE AUSTRALASIAN METHODIST MISSIONARY REVIEW The AMMR, also known as the Methodist Missionary Review or the Missionary Review, was the official organ of the Australasian Methodist Missionary Society, a Wesleyan religious organisation which undertook extensive evangelising work in the South Pacific, Australia and New Zealand during the nineteenth century. The AMMR began publication in Sydney in 1891 and enjoyed a relatively long life until its demise in 1977. A notice published in the Sydney-based newspaper 1

I wish to thank Hanna Acke, Antje Flüchter, Felicity Jensz, Dominik Schieder and Matt Tomlinson, as well as the participants of the Workshop “Politics within Nineteenth-Century Missionary Periodicals” held in Münster in December 2010, for their generous comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Needless to say, any errors are my own.

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the Australian Town and Country Journal on February 21, 1891, anticipated the new publishing venture of the Methodist Church as a “new series of [illustrated] missionary notices,” edited by the General Secretary of the Mission, the Reverend George Brown. 2 Brown acted as editor of the AMMR until his retirement in 1908 and was succeeded in the editorial and secretarial chair by the Reverend B. Danks who, like his more famous predecessor, was known for his extensive missionary work in New Britain. 3 The AMMR was a monthly publication registered as a newspaper. Following the tradition of Victorian ‘penny magazines’ of a religious orientation, it disseminated information about the overseas work of Australian Methodist missionaries and was sold for one penny per copy, but distributed for free to those readers who had subscribed at least 10s. to the Mission funds.4 The accessible price attracted subscribers across Australia – especially in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia – as well as the various mission fields. 5 Of particular significance was the activity of the so-called “agents for the Missionary Review,” who operated both at home and abroad and were entrusted with the task of “work[ing] up the circulation of this Review, and thus help[ing] to create and maintain interest in our Mission work.” 6 As Matt Tomlinson has pointed out, the “textual circulation” of missionary experiences was essential to the creation of a “Christian public of appreciative readers back home.” 7 In the same time, the dissemination of relevant print matter was regarded as an important avenue of religious service, particularly well-suited to young Methodists: “Our young people cannot serve our Society better than by adding to their faithful prayers loving efforts to circulate Missionary information among our people.” 8 In 1894, the daughter of the Reverend William W. Lindsay of Navuloa, Fiji, was hailed as the most successful agent for the AMMR, with a total of thirty subscribers. 9 The AMMR published a wide variety of content and was well integrated into the newspaper circuit of nineteenth-century Australia. Together with news items and regular updates of missionary work, feature stories, translations, advertisements, acknowledgements of subscriptions and appeals for donations, the AMMR also clipped articles from newspapers such as the Brisbane Courier and the Mel2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9

Australian Town and Country Journal [ATCJ] (February 21, 1891): 9. “Ourselves,” Australasian Methodist Missionary Review [AMMR] 17, no. 9 (1908): 2. Rev. John W. Burton, whose name appears in the present article in connection with the Indian Mission in Fiji, also acted as General Secretary and editor of the AMMR, albeit during a later period (1925–1945). See: Australian Dictionary of Biography, s. v. “Burton, John Wear,” accessed March 28, 2011, http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A070501b.htm. James Colwell, The Illustrated History of Methodism. Australia: 1812 to 1855. New South Wales and Polynesia: 1856 to 1902 (Sydney: William Brooks and Co., 1904), 492. “Subscriptions Received,” AMMR 11, no. 10 (1902): 12; “Subscriptions Received,” AMMR 14, no. 12 (1905): 8. “Agents for the Missionary Review,” AMMR 3, no. 9 (1894): 12. Matt Tomlinson, “Publicity, Privacy and ‘Happy Deaths’ in Fiji,” American Ethnologist 34 (2007): 712. “Agents for the Missionary Review,” 12. “Agents for the Missionary Review,” 12.

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bourne Spectator. Furthermore, the periodical’s reach extended well beyond its regular subscribers and occasional purchasers, since its own correspondence was frequently summarised or clipped by other Australian newspapers. For example, the Australian Town and Country Journal, in its ‘News of the Churches’ section, contained regular extracts of news originally published in the AMMR and received from missionaries stationed in Fiji, Samoa or New Britain. Bigger newspapers such as the Sydney Morning Herald and The Argus also drew on the AMMR for information on a variety of topics related to Fiji, such as the importation of ‘Indian coolies’ or the infamous “slang-whanging match[es]” between Methodists and Roman Catholics, often conducted through the medium of the Fiji Times and the AMMR. 10 This suggests that the information disseminated via the AMMR reached a relatively wide audience both in Australia and its mission fields. Furthermore, through its detailed ethnographic accounts of various Pacific Islands and their people, the AMMR was one of the main sources of information and knowledge about these places for the Australian public. Unlike books or pamphlets, the material published in the AMMR reached readers in a timely manner, via regular mails, in the form of letters, reports and extracts from the journals missionaries were required to keep in the field. Following nineteenth-century conventions of English-language journalism, this material was edited and published in the AMMR under suggestive geographical or topical headings, such as ‘Fiji District,’ ‘New Britain,’ ‘Tonga,’ ‘Fijians in Debate,’ ‘The Bible in the World.’ In short, the AMMR was envisaged both as a vehicle for disseminating information and as an “inspiration” to its readers, 11 an instrument for proselytising and educating by means of which the Mission attempted to instil a certain religious feeling among its audience. Its significance was all the more accentuated in a challenging field like Fiji, where only a strong rhetorical campaign could compensate for the lack of tangible missionising results among the Indian population. In this context, the examination of the Methodist discourse about Fiji Indians offers valuable insights into the complex functions of missionary periodicals and highlights their special position among missionary genres. As this paper will show, through publication in the pages of the AMMR, oppositional representations of Fijians and Indians became important arsenal in a sustained missionary campaign for human and financial support. The following sections explore the content and meaning of these representations, beginning with the ‘dangerous coolie’ and continuing with the ‘heathen’ Indian. The discussion focuses on articles published between 1892, the first year for which I was able to identify references to the Indian work in Fiji, and 1920, the year when the last indenture contracts of the Indian labourers were cancelled. Before we turn to the 10 See, for example: ATCJ (June 16, 1894); ATCJ (May 18, 1895); ATCJ (September 21, 1895); ATCJ (August 20, 1898); Sydney Morning Herald (April 9, 1910); The Argus (May 24, 1893); “Indian Coolies for Fiji,” Launceston Examiner (May 21, 1894). On rivalries between Methodists and Roman Catholics in Fiji, see also: A. W. Thornley, “‘Heretics’ and ‘Papists’: Wesleyan-Roman Catholic Rivalry in Fiji, 1844–1903,” Journal of Religious History 10 (1979): 294–312. 11 James Colwell, ed., A Century in the Pacific (London: Charles H. Kelly, 1914), 263.

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discussion of these two missionary tropes, however, let us provide a short overview of the history of Methodist work with the Indians in the Fiji Islands. METHODIST MISSIONARY ACTIVITY AMONG INDIAN LABOURERS IN FIJI The first Methodist missionaries to settle in the South Pacific islands of Fiji were two Wesleyans from Britain, William Cross and David Cargill, who arrived via Tonga with a small missionary party in 1835. As nineteenth- and twentiethcentury missionary accounts were fond of emphasising, Cross and Cargill began their evangelising work among an indigenous Fijian population which had to be rescued not only from “heathenism,” but also from “the horrors of cannibalism, widow strangling and infanticide.” 12 By 1879, the year when the first batch of indentured labourers from South Asia arrived to work on the plantations of the newly-established British colony, the overwhelming majority of indigenous Fijians had already been converted to Christianity. 13 The indentured labourers from South Asia posed a new and, as time would prove, insurmountable challenge to the Methodist Mission. The labourers came from a mosaic of regional, social and linguistic backgrounds and were predominantly non-Christian. Judging by the amount of early Methodist references to Indian migrants, it would seem that during the first few years of the indentured labour system the Mission showed little interest in them, immersed as it was in the consolidation of its evangelical work among the Fijian population. By 1884, however, the missionaries were showing signs of concern about the increasing ‘heathen danger’ in Fiji; in 1897, after a couple of sporadic and unsuccessful attempts to preach to the Indian population, the Mission Board resolved to send Hannah Dudley to Fiji as a missionary sister associated with the new ‘Indian Coolie Mission.’ Originally from Morpeth, New South Wales, Dudley engaged in evangelical, educational and social work and is still fondly remembered in missionary accounts as the “Honoured Mother” (Mataji) of the Indian community. 14 At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Fiji District Synod decided to separate formally the Indian and Fijian works by organising a distinct Indian Mis-

12 John W. Burton, The First Century of Missionary Adventure, 1855–1955 (Sydney: Methodist Overseas Missions, 1955), 21. From 1855 onward, Methodist Missions in the Pacific came under the control of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australasia, commonly known as the Methodist Church of Australasia after 1902. The Mission Board in Sydney was the body directly in charge of these Missions. The area under supervision was divided into Districts (with Fiji being one of them), which were further subdivided into Circuits. A Chairman and Superintendent were in charge of each District and Circuit, respectively. 13 Fiji became a British colony in 1874. 14 See: Morven Sidal, Hannah Dudley: Hamari Maa, Honoured Mother, Educator, and Missioner to the Indentured Indians of Fiji, 1864–1931 (Suva, Fiji: Pacific Theological College, 1997).

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sion. 15 This significant development in the history of Methodist missionary activity among Fiji Indians not only reflected the Mission’s perception of Fijians and Indians as two populations that required distinct missionising approaches, but also mirrored the official colonial policy which promoted the social and physical separation of these ethnic groups. Unlike the indigenous Fijians who were known for their ‘communal’ village lifestyle, Indian labourers were dispersed among the colony’s various plantations; missionary work among them proved difficult and unrewarding. 16 The Mission attempted to overcome this problem by establishing station centres in areas known for their high concentration of indentured labourers. With the notable exception of Hannah Dudley’s work among the ‘free’ immigrants settled in and around the capital Suva, this course of action was adopted in the case of the Rewa River area and Lautoka, where missionaries John Wear Burton (1902–1910) and Cyril Bavin (1901–1916) were stationed, respectively. 17 Despite its gradual expansion over the next decades – the number of Indian converts rose to approximately 1,300 by the 1960s 18 – the Indian Mission never achieved the degree of success of its Fijian counterpart, a fact which effectively reinforced the sense of Indian difference among missionaries and the public alike. It is safe to say, therefore, that the ‘Coolie Mission,’ refashioned into an ‘Indian Mission’ at the beginning of the twentieth century and later into an Indian Division of the Methodist Church, left its most significant mark in the fields of education and social work, in particular through the establishment of schools and orphanages. The Dudley High School and the Dilkusha Children’s Home, both located in the Suva area, testify to the enduring legacy of this aspect of missionary work. During the twentieth century, following the indigenisation of the Methodist Church in Fiji, Fijian Indians also came to play an increasing role in the administration of their Church. Despite its constant emphasis on the equalitarian nature of Christianity, the Methodist Church left an indelible mark on the fabric of Fiji’s society by promoting an ideology of difference between its main population groups, which was disseminated both through its practices and discourses, as the next sections will show.

15 A. W. Thornley, The Methodist Mission and the Indians in Fiji, 1900 to 1920 (M.A. thesis, University of Auckland, 1973), 17. 16 There were only 70 Indian Methodists in Fiji according to the 1921 Population Census, which represented a mere 0.1 percent of the total Indian population and less than 10 percent of Christian Indians in Fiji. See: John Garrett, Where Nets Were Cast: Christianity in Oceania since World War II (Suva, Fiji: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, 1997), 243. 17 Harold A. Wood, Overseas Missions of the Australian Methodist Church, vol. III: Fiji-Indian and Rotuma (Melbourne: Aldersgate Press, 1978), 19–26. 18 Garrett, Where Nets Were Cast, 243.

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MISSIONARY LANGUAGE: ‘COOLIE’ AND ITS CHANGING USAGE One of the first things we notice about the discourse which circulated in the pages of the AMMR, as well as other Methodist literature in the form of pamphlets, reports and books, are the frequent references to Indian ‘coolies,’ particularly in accounts prior to 1902. The texts provide the reader with abundant information about the ‘Indian Coolie Mission,’ ‘Coolie immigration,’ and ‘Coolie women and children,’ and speak in anxious terms about the ‘great spiritual destitution’ of the coolies and ‘their unpleasant record for crime.’ What were the meanings of such representations of Indian migrants and how did they change during the period under analysis? How were Indian ‘coolies’ perceived in relation to the indigenous Fijian population? To answer these questions, we must begin by pointing out that Methodist missionaries were by no means the only Europeans in Fiji who showed preoccupation with Indian ‘coolies’ at the end of the nineteenth century, nor was the usage of this term restricted to Fiji. Although the etymology of the word ‘coolie’ remains debated, most contemporary scholars agree that it probably derives from the Tamil word kūli which means “hire” or “payment for occasional menial work.” 19 In the context of the British Empire, ‘coolie’ was a common name for the indentured labourers from South Asia who, in exchange for wages and free passage, worked on colonial plantations for various contractual periods. By 1879, the year when indentured labour migration to Fiji began, Indian ‘coolies’ were a common presence in colonies such as Mauritius, Trinidad, British Guiana or Natal. According to Harold Wood, the term ‘coolie’ entered the language of the Australasian Methodist Church via the Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR), the main employer of Indian indentured labour in Fiji. 20 This is a likely scenario, since the CSR was an Australian venture, but it was probably not the only way in which Methodist missionaries in Fiji became accustomed with the term. The CSR began to build its first mills in Fiji in 1881, 21 by which time references to ‘coolies’ were already a common occurrence in official colonial discourse. In 1875, for instance, Fiji’s first Governor and the man who eventually introduced the indentured labour system, Sir Arthur Gordon, argued in front of the European planters gathered at Levuka that Indian ‘coolies’ should gradually replace the Pacific Islander labourers previously employed on Fiji’s plantations. 22 Such official statements, often part of early debates between colonial administrators and planters regarding the suitability of Indian indentured labour migration for Fiji, must have also played an important role in familiarising missionaries with perceptions of the ‘coolie’ in colonial labour relations. 19 “Coolie,” Oxford English Dictionary, accessed November 24, 2011. http://www.oed.com/ view/Entry/40991?redirectedFrom=coolie#eid. 20 Wood, Overseas Missions, 19. 21 Deryck Scarr, Fiji: A Short History (Sydney and London: George Allen & Unwin, 1984), 81; K. Gillion, Fiji’s Indian Migrants: A History to the End of Indenture in 1920 (Melbourne and New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), 69–70. 22 Fiji Times (September 4, 1875), quoted in Wood, Overseas Missions, 2.

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Strictly speaking then, the ‘coolie’ of Methodist missionary discourse was an indentured labourer. However, particularly in texts published before 1902, Methodist missionaries also used this term to describe Indians whose indenture contracts had expired, that is, ‘free’ Indians. For example, an article published in the AMMR in July 1897 conflated all Indians in the islands with ‘coolies’ when it wrote that, To-day we have in Fiji something like ten thousand Coolies, of whom three thousand only are females. The great majority of these people are labourers on the numerous sugar plantations, and since the year 1879 have been imported in increasing numbers from the north-west provinces of India. They are nearly all heathen and a large percentage of them are of the lowest morality – the very dregs, in fact, of the Indian people. After five years of indentured service on the sugar plantations, many of them elect to remain in Fiji. There are, therefore, nearly five thousand free coolies in the country to-day. 23 (Emphases added)

This article was published shortly after Hannah Dudley’s appointment as the first missionary sister to the Indians in Fiji. Its aim was to provide readers with an insight into the challenges of her forthcoming work in the islands, where she eventually arrived in September 1897 and remained until 1913. It is interesting to note that similar language was employed in later accounts of Dudley’s work in Fiji, despite the fact that her activity was confined to the settlements in the Suva area inhabited by ‘free’ Indians. In a similar vein to Protestant missionary activity in India, Dudley’s work among the ‘free’ Indians in Fiji developed along three lines of activity – evangelisation, education and social work – and included the opening of a small school, evening classes for young men, Sunday services, regular home visits and taking care of orphaned children. 24 Yet, in Methodist discourse this work was brought together with other missionary activities among indentured labourers under the label ‘Coolie Mission’ and described as work “amongst the Coolie women and children.” 25 As I have previously suggested, the conflation of ‘free’ Indians with ‘coolies’ was not peculiar to missionary literature – it is also found in official texts of the period – nor was it restricted to the geographical confines of Fiji. In his study of identity formation among Indian labourers in the West Indies, Prabhu Mohapatra wrote that: “The primary identity of Indian immigrants in the plantation setting remained that of ‘Coolie,’ nominally meaning an unskilled labourer, but in fact a pejorative appellation for all Indians.” 26 The year 1902 represents a turning point in the Methodist missionary discourse about indentured labourers: from that moment onwards, missionaries rarely used the term ‘coolie’ as an alternative for ‘free’ Indians. In his study of the Indian Mission in Fiji, A.W. Thornley argued that “By 1913 a distinction had been made between ‘coolies,’ referring to indentured Indians, and the greater number of 23 24 25 26

“Our Indian Coolie Mission in Fiji,” AMMR 7, no. 3 (1897): 3. Sidal, Hannah Dudley, 34–57. “Our Indian Coolie Mission in Fiji,” AMMR 7, no. 4 (1897): 3. Prabhu Mohapatra, “The Politics of Representation in the Indian Labour Diaspora: West Indies, 1880–1920,” accessed November 14, 2010. http://www.indialabourarchives.org /publications/prabhu2.htm.

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‘free’ Indians.” 27 However, the analysis of the AMMR and other missionary texts published during the period 1890–1920 indicates that, as early as 1902, most missionaries made a conscious effort to differentiate between ‘coolies’ and ‘free’ Indians. The following examples illustrate this point well: The free Indians and the ‘coolies’ from the Company’s ‘lines’ turned out in great force to see the ‘Padre Sahib’s’ new church. 28 Most of the children present came from the homes of ‘free’ Indians, but there were also a few from the coolie lines … 29

Furthermore, after 1902 a decrease in the number of overall references to Indian ‘coolies’ in missionary literature is also visible. Instead of the usual “Coolie population of Fiji” found in pre-1902 texts, the AMMR now provided the reader with information about the “Indian population in Fiji” or the “Hindustani population of Fiji.” The term was also discarded from various reports on missionary activity in Fiji, such as the Report of the Commission Appointed by the New South Wales Conference of the Methodist Church of Australasia to Inquire into the State of Public Affairs in Fiji (1903). Finally, the Methodist missionary work among the indentured and ‘free’ Indians in Fiji, indiscriminately referred to as the “Coolie Mission” or the “Indian Coolie Mission” in missionary literature prior to 1902, was now described as the “Indian Work” or the “Indian Mission.” 30 These developments were the result of a 1902 letter sent by the Reverend A. J. Small, Chairman of the Fiji District, to the Reverend George Brown, in which the former argued against the use of the term ‘coolie’ in missionary literature on the grounds that it was offensive to Indians. 31 Although the term did not disappear completely from missionary discourse after this year, generally speaking, the missionaries followed Small’s advice and attempted to avoid it. This change in language is particularly telling if we remember that it was only in 1915, in the middle of Indian nationalist agitation against the indentured labour system, that the Fiji Government prohibited the use of this term by its officials. 32 The next section will take a closer look at the assumptions which underlined the representation of Indians as ‘coolies’ in missionary discourse and the ways in which this image facilitated the description of Indians and Fijians as different and opposing ‘races.’

Thornley, The Methodist Mission, 54–55. R. Piper, “Indian Work at Navua, Fiji,” AMMR 17, no. 9 (1908): 3. John G. Wheen, “India in Fiji,” AMMR 20, no. 3 (1910): 13. See, for example: J. W. Burton, “Our Indian Work,” AMMR 14, no. 12 (1905): 6; John G. Wheen, “India in Fiji,” AMMR 20, no. 3 (1910): 13. 31 Thornley, The Methodist Mission, 54–55; Wood, Overseas Missions, 19. 32 Wood, Overseas Missions, 38.

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THE ‘DANGEROUS’ INDIAN COOLIE The Reverend Small was right to point out that the appellation ‘coolie’ was perceived by many Indians as offensive, a fact clearly demonstrated by the way in which the term was contested by some of their leaders. At the end of the nineteenth century, for example, Mahatma Gandhi and other Indians in Natal frequently protested against the practice of using this word when referring to the Indian merchants in this colony: “The better-class Indians feel and see there is a difference between the raw coolie and themselves.” 33 While Gandhi’s comments are also illustrative of perceived differences of class and caste within Indian society itself, it is important to note that in Fiji indentured labourers did not describe themselves as ‘coolies,’ but used the more neutral term girmitiyas (from the English ‘agreement’), a direct reference to the contract they had signed before leaving India. But what exactly made the ‘coolie’ label offensive to Indians in Fiji? In one of his insightful works on the history of Fiji Indians, John Kelly has drawn attention to the highly racialised image of the Indian ‘coolie’ and the asymmetrical nature of the contract of indentured labour migration: Most of the Indians recruited for indenture were looking for work, for wages, when recruited. Nevertheless, the ‘coolie’ in the colonial imagination was different from a ‘labourer’ in political-economic theory. A ‘coolie’ was a different type of human being than a ‘European.’ The ‘coolie’ was suited to a particular kind of labour and life by race: by physical, mental and emotional characteristics, characteristics determined (some thought) by the action of the tropical environment over vast time. Thus his identity and substance as an individual were not shaped by his capitalist transactions – he did not relate to his employers primarily as a seller of labour, relating to a buyer of labour. Rather, his suitability for tropical labour was determined by his racial nature. 34

Most of the racial characteristics Kelly alludes to were negative. As Marina Carter and Khal Torabully showed in their anthology of the Indian labour diaspora, in various colonies of the British Empire ‘coolies’ were commonly seen as “parias [sic], the refuse of Indian society,” bearers of diseases, impudent, immoral (in particular women), escaped convicts, wife murderers and fatalists, whilst in Mauritius they were even thought to be involved in “thuggee.” 35 Such negative images of the Indian ‘coolie’ were constant themes in official and Methodist missionary discourse in colonial Fiji as well. But for the Reverend Burton, whose publications usually presented a more nuanced picture of the Indian ‘coolies,’ Methodist missionaries did not question whether labourers in Fiji were indeed “the very dregs … of the Indian people.” 36 In fact, the myth of the Indians’ low social origins was so widespread and durable in Fiji that it was 33 M. K. Gandhi, quoted in Marina Carter and Khal Torabully, Coolitude: An Anthology of the Indian Labour Diaspora (London: Anthem Press, 2002), 118. 34 John Kelly, “‘Coolie’ as a Labour Commodity: Race, Sex, and European Dignity in Colonial Fiji,” Journal of Peasant Studies 19 (1992): 246–267, 253. 35 Carter and Torabully, Coolitude, 45–76. A “thug” was a member of an organisation of robbers and assassins in colonial India. 36 “Our Indian Coolie Mission in Fiji,” AMMR 7, no. 3 (1897): 3.

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taught as a fact until the 1980s, when scholars sought to rehabilitate this negative image by producing evidence which testified to the diverse social backgrounds of these migrants. 37 Representations of Indian ‘coolies’ as low-caste were linked to their frequent depictions as ‘criminal’ and ‘immoral’ in late nineteenth-century issues of the AMMR: Some people say that there are only two classes of Indian coolies, viz. those in gaol and those who ought to be there. However, we hope and pray for the evangelization of these people. 38 The great bulk of these people are heathen, while a large percentage of them (as the law courts are constantly proving) are both immoral and criminal. 39

The above examples suggest two interrelated points: firstly, Methodist missionary perceptions of Indian ‘coolies’ were legitimised by drawing on official sources or an anonymous public opinion which endorsed the allegedly general view that these labourers were criminal and immoral. Secondly, criminality and immorality were regarded as inherent or racial characteristics of all Indian ‘coolies.’ As Jeffrey Cox has pointed out in a different context: “This technique of defamatory synecdoche, of taking one or a small number of characteristics of a foreign culture and using it as a representative of the whole, is a recurring theme in [British] missionary rhetoric.” 40 The “defamatory synecdoche” was also central to Methodist representations of Indians in Fiji. Almost without exception, missionaries in Fiji treat violence and criminality as a racial, not a societal problem, which afflicted all (as opposed to some) of the Indian labourers. As a result, missionary texts are characterised by a conspicuous lack of interest in examining the possible connections between the high crime rates among Indian labourers and the harsh reality of the indentured labour system, where discipline was enforced through coercive measures. Missionary accounts choose to overlook the fact that a great number of the ‘criminal’ coolies had been convicted for labour offences, such as “nonperformance of tasks,” “unlawful absence from work,” “want of ordinary diligence,” desertion and “committing nuisance,” all offences punishable by fine or imprisonment. As Brij Lal has pointed out, the number of complaints against the indentured labourers was particularly high during the 1890s and the average conviction rate was eighty percent. 41

37 John Kelly, A Politics of Virtue: Hinduism, Sexuality, and Countercolonial Discourse in Fiji (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1991), 29. In this connection, see also: Brij V. Lal’s extensive work on the history of Fiji Indians, in particular his first book on the topic, Girmitiyas: The Origins of the Fiji Indians (1983; reprint Lautoka, Fiji: Fiji Institute of Applied Studies, 2004). 38 AMMR 2, no. 6 (1892): 2. 39 H. Worrall, “Mission Work among the Indian Coolies in Fiji,” AMMR 3, no. 9 (1894): 10. 40 Jeffrey Cox, The British Missionary Enterprise since 1700 (New York and London: Routledge, 2008), 118. 41 Brij V. Lal, “Murmurs of Dissent,” in Chalo Jahaji: On A Journey through Indenture in Fiji, ed. Brij V. Lal (Suva, Fiji and Canberra: Fiji Museum and Australian National University, 2000): 167–194, 184–189.

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The missionary discourse examined transposed a widespread Victorian ideology of class onto the social fabric of the indentured labourers. This process was facilitated by the juxtaposition of two different categories of social organisation, namely class and caste. As I have previously suggested, the indentured migrants of missionary discourse were represented overwhelmingly as low-caste, despite the fact that most of them hailed from agricultural and artisan backgrounds. The equation of low caste with low class allowed missionaries to draw on Victorian perceptions of crime in their discussion of ‘coolies,’ by establishing a direct causal connection between the low social status of these labourers and their alleged criminality. The criminalisation of the poor in Britain was a phenomenon already visible in the early modern period, but fear of the lower classes was accentuated during the early nineteenth-century, a period characterised by political instability and the fast development of cities. 42 The ‘respectable’ Victorian society constantly denied the relationship between crime and poverty, explaining criminality in terms of class and, especially towards the end of the nineteenth century, biology. Thus, the ‘criminal class’ in Britain was usually identified with the poorer sections of the urban working class and with casual labourers in particular. 43 In this context, it is hardly surprising that Indian ‘coolies’ were perceived in a similar fashion, since many of these potential migrants had also been occasional labourers looking for work in India’s towns when they were recruited for Fiji. Furthermore, the parallel with Victorian perceptions of the low classes can be extended to the field of gender as well. In a similar vein with women offenders transported to Australia during the early nineteenth century, who were often stigmatised as prostitutes, ‘coolie’ women in Fiji were usually described by Methodist missionaries in Fiji as dangerously loose and immoral. This image found favour in later descriptions of the indenture period as well. For example, in his 1970 biographical account of his career as a plantation overseer in Fiji, the Australian Water Gill suggestively described his former Indian mistress as being as “joyously amoral as a doe rabbit.” 44 The alleged criminality of the Indian ‘coolies’ was used by Methodist missionaries to portray them as a threat to the indigenous Fijians, since the discussion of crime rates among Indians was almost always accompanied by references to the ‘evil’ influence they had on the Fijian population:

42 For more on Victorian perceptions of crime and their connections to the urban environment, see: Drew D. Gray, London’s Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City (London: Continuum, 2010). 43 Clive Emsley, Crime and Society in England, 1750–1900 (London and New York: Longman, 1996), 56–91, 168–177; Thomas R. Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 122–125. 44 Walter Gill, Turn North-East at the Tombstone (Adelaide: Rigby Limited, 1970), 73.

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The constant emphasis on the growing numbers of Indian ‘coolies’ in Fiji suggests that Indians were perceived not only as a moral, but also as a physical threat to Fijians. Rapid population growth was certainly the main concern which agitated the missionary mind, but other potential threats, such as the diseases introduced by the new population group, were identified as early as 1894. 46 The missionary obsession with the “rapidly increasing horde of Asiatics” in Fiji and their alleged threat to the indigenous Fijian population must be seen in the context of widespread anti-Asian sentiment in Australia, as well as turn of the century missionary concerns about the dying-out of the Fijian ‘race.’ As the Reverend Burton wrote, The Orientalization of the Pacific is no mere catch-phrase invented to denote a negligible migratory movement on the part of certain Asiatic peoples; it represents, on the contrary, a factor in human history which needs no seer to descry as significant and portentous … The oncesavage races indigenous to these lands [Fiji] are silently and swiftly passing away … Other races, more alert and vigorous [Indians], will surely people these shores and till these fields. 47

Throughout the nineteenth century, the exclusion of non-white immigrants and the proclamation of white supremacy were common phenomena in countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States. 48 In Australia, such discriminatory policies against Asian immigrants had their origins in the gold-rush of the 1850s, which spurred anti-Chinese feelings among the white population of that country. It was believed that increased Chinese (and, for that matter, Asian) immigration would lead to ‘racial contamination’ and the eventual assimilation of the white population. The result was the crystallisation of a White Australia sentiment which culminated in the introduction of the 1901 Immigration Restriction Bill that efficiently prevented non-European migration to Australia by introducing a mandatory dictation test. 49 The terminology used by Methodist missionaries with regard to Indian ‘coolies’ in Fiji replicated to a great extent the language used in 45 “Our Indian Coolie Mission in Fiji,” AMMR 7, no. 3 (1897): 3. 46 H. Worrall, “Mission Work among the Indian Coolies in Fiji,” AMMR 3, no. 9 (1894): 11. 47 John W. Burton, Our Indian Work in Fiji (Suva, Fiji: Methodist Mission Press, 1909), 7. See also: John G. Wheen, “India in Fiji,” AMMR 20, no. 3 (1910): 10–11, especially his comments about the “Indian invasion” and “the Asiatic problem which now confronts and perplexes our Missionary Society in the islands.” 48 There is a rich literature documenting the exclusion of Asian immigrants from these countries and the fear of the so-called ‘yellow peril.’ See, for example: A. Gyory, Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act (University of North Carolina Press, 1998); Charles A. Price, The Great White Walls Are Built: Restrictive Immigration to North America and Australia, 1836–1888 (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1974). 49 H. I. London, Non-White Immigration and the “White Australia” Policy (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1970), 3–18.

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Australia with regard to Chinese immigrants. Thus, if white Australians feared the ‘yellow hordes,’ Methodist missionaries feared the ‘horde of Asiatics’ or the ‘horde of Indian workers.’ In both cases, the use of such language aimed to create a strong impression on the public opinion by channelling its attention towards the increasing number of migrants. In the same time, the emigration of Indian ‘coolies’ to Fiji increased missionary fears about the imminent disappearance of the Fijian ‘race.’ This ‘dying race’ trope, frequently used in Australia in regard to the Aboriginal population, was an integral part of Methodist discourse as well. 50 Missionary concerns about the future of the Fijian ‘race’ grew as they came to realise, during the 1880s, that in addition to an increase in Indian migration to Fiji, many of the newcomers chose to settle in the islands upon the expiration of their contracts. From the perspective of the Methodist Church, this was not only a matter of racial survival but, significantly, a matter of survival of the Christian Church in Fiji. In this context, there was ample scope for representing the two groups as antithetical, both on physical and cultural levels. The romanticised image of the Christianised Fijian who was “simple-minded,” “easy-going,” “happy” and “lazy,” was pitched against the image of the non-Christian Indian who appeared in missionary discourse as dangerously “ubiquitous,” “cunning,” “thrifty,” “keen,” “industrious,” “frugal” and “restless.” 51 As Thornley points out, it was ironic that Methodist missionaries perceived Indians as a threat to indigenous Fijians, since in official circles the introduction of the system of indentured labour migration to Fiji had often been motivated by a desire to protect the Fijian ‘race,’ whose numbers had severely dwindled due to a measles epidemic in 1875. 52 Governor Arthur Gordon, in particular, expressed his determination to ‘save’ the indigenous Fijians from sharing the fate of the Australian Aborigines. 53 Thus, the analysis of missionary discourse also illustrates the paradoxical position Methodist missionaries occupied in the colonial order of turn-of-the-century Fiji. Despite their frequent complaints about ‘dangerous Indian coolies,’ vented through the medium of the AMMR, during the first twentyfive years of indentured labour migration, most missionaries refrained from criticising the indenture system and proved reluctant to address this issue even at the 50 See, for example: J. W. Burton, “Our Indian Work,” AMMR 14, no. 12 (1905): 6–7. Numerous articles published in the Australian and New Zealand press at the beginning of the twentieth century also illustrate the extent of Methodist obsession with the future of the Fijian ‘race.’ See, for example: The Argus (March 8, 1911); Henry Worrall, “A White Pacific,” Poverty Bay Herald (July 17, 1912), in which Worrall argues that: “… in Fiji the Indian is the coming man. Already there are fifty thousand Hindus in the Fiji group, and only 4000 Europeans. The native Fijian need scarcely be taken into account, as his race is rapidly dying out.” 51 See, for example: H. Worrall, “Missionary Work among the Indian Coolies in Fiji,” AMMR 3, no. 9 (1894): 10–11; J. W. Burton, “The Indian Work in Fiji: First Impressions,” AMMR 12, no. 5 (1902): 6–7; J. W. Burton, “The New Fiji,” AMMR 16, no. 2 (1906): 5; but also: John W. Burton, The Fiji of To-Day (London: Charles H. Kelly, 1910), which contains extensive passages about the Fijian’s inability to compete with the Indian, for example: 183, 219, 288. 52 Thornley, The Methodist Mission, 4. 53 Gillion, Fiji’s Indian Migrants, 5.

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beginning of the twentieth century. One possible exception to this rule was the Reverend Burton. Although by no means free of racial prejudice, Burton nevertheless exposed the injustices of the indenture system and contested some of the common myths which surrounded Indian migration to Fiji. According to him, most ‘coolies’ were not “pariahs” and criminals, but “simple country people” hailing from an agricultural background, and some were even “intellectual, highspirited men, of good caste and refinement”. 54 Such exceptions notwithstanding, the discourse which circulated in the pages of the AMMR during the period examined emphasised the fact that Indian immigration endangered the physical and moral well-being of indigenous Fijians. What Methodist missionaries seemed to fear most were the implications of this process of population change in Fiji – the fact that the colony might become ‘heathen’ again. So dreaded was this prospect that whenever the Methodist Mission discussed missionary work among the Indians in Fiji during the 1880s and 1890s, the conversion of Indians as an incentive for beginning the work always appeared less important than the main aim of saving the Fijians and the Fijian work. “THESE HEATHEN INDIANS IN OUR MIDST” In this section, attention turns to the other central trope of missionary discourse which features prominently in the pages of the AMMR, namely the ‘heathenism’ of the Indian population. Apart from raising awareness of the alleged moral and physical ‘threat’ which confronted the Fijian ‘race,’ the discursive missionary practices also appealed to readers in Australia and other missionary fields in an attempt to gather support for missionary work. The missionaries associated with the Indian work in Fiji constantly complained of the lack of staff and were particularly interested in recruiting individuals who fulfilled the requirements of a highly challenging mission field. Knowledge of an Indian language and previous experience of missionary work in India were particularly desirable. 55 In his account of Methodist work in Fiji, Thornley even suggests that the Mission’s modest impact on Indians was partly attributable to the fact that the territorial expansion of the Indian Mission was not matched by the provision of adequate numbers of personnel. 56 In 1914, the Reverend Cyril Bavin summarised cogently the dilemma which faced the Indian Mission in Fiji:

54 Burton, Fiji of To-Day, 277–285. 55 Hannah Dudley, John Burton, and Cyril Bavin had all spent various periods of time in India. For an insight into the various difficulties encountered by missionaries preaching to Indians in Fiji, see: R. Piper, “Indian Work at Navua, Fiji,” AMMR 17, no. 9 (1908): 3–4. Piper claimed that missionaries might need to learn Telugu in order to cater to the “Madrasis” from southern India. 56 Thornley, The Methodist Mission, 26.

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It has been frequently said that the sternest problem facing the Christian Church of Australasia, in regard to this influx of heathenism into Christian Fiji, is: ‘How shall we preserve the Christian Fijian from the contaminating influence of this cynical heathen [Indian immigrant]?’ We say it is rather: ‘How shall we persuade these benighted children of the AllFather to follow Him whose Spirit has wrought such a miraculous change in the life and character of what was once the most degraded and cannibalistic race of men upon the face of the earth?’ 57

Bavin, who had been working among the Indians since 1901, was pointing to the ambivalent rationale underlying the Indian work in Fiji: was this a work to save the Christian Fijian from the ‘heathen’ Indian or was it a work to save Indians in Fiji from their own ‘heathenism’? Many missionaries claimed that the two motivations were equally important. In reality, the argument that ‘Christian Fiji’ needed protection from the ‘influx of heathenism’ was always so strong in turnof-the-century Methodist accounts that it usually obscured discussions about the spiritual needs of the Indian population. As Bavin’s words suggest, regardless of how missionaries motivated their project, the evangelisation of the Indians was always predicated upon the binary opposition with Fiji’s other main population group, the Fijians. This meant that, within Methodist missionary discourse, Fijians were to be constantly represented as ‘natives’ and former cannibals-turnedChristians, while Indians were the non-Christian, ‘heathen aliens.’ Like other texts stemming from the pen of his contemporary colleagues, the Reverend Burton’s contributions to the AMMR also described the religious landscape in turn-of-the-century Fiji in an alarmist language: Heathenism smiles malevolently at the seeming coming defeat of Christianity in Fiji. The haughty, treacherous Mohammedan, the subtle, mild Hindu, hope to possess the land of the newly-Christianized Fijian. Will they succeed? 58

Burton’s anxieties were echoed by the reports produced by the Methodist Missionary Society, in which frequent references to the ‘heathen coolies,’ ‘heathen population’ or ‘heathen Indians’ in Fiji were almost always linked to the idea of an imminent Indian ‘threat’ to the Christian Fijians, as the following example illustrates: We report that there are now in Fiji about 15,000 heathen Indians, and several thousands more are immediately expected; that these people are already doing serious injury to our work [in Fiji], and that there is an urgent necessity for increasing our staff and extending our work amongst them, as the efforts now being made by our Church are utterly inadequate. 59

The depiction of Fijians and Indians in Methodist discourse was strongly influenced by nineteenth-century social evolutionary theories of race. As Thomas McCarthy has pointed out, in social Darwinism “race relations [were] figured as similar to the relations between children and adults,” with Caucasians placed at 57 Cyril Bavin, “The Indian in Fiji”, in A Century in the Pacific, ed. James Colwell (Sydney: William H. Beale, 1914): 177–197, 177. 58 J. W. Burton, “The New Fiji,” AMMR 16, no. 2 (1906): 5. 59 Report of Deputation Appointed by Board of Missions to Visit Fiji (Sydney: W. A. Pepperday and Co., 1900), 8.

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the apex of human evolution and thus shouldering the ‘burden’ to civilise the ‘inferior’ races. 60 The Fijian before his conversion to Christianity was described as one of the ‘primitive’ races and appeared in missionary discourse as ‘bad’ and ‘savage,’ but nonetheless ‘simple-minded’ and ‘innocent.’ He was, as the Reverend Burton put it, like a ‘child.’ According to Ashis Nandy, this relation between primitivism and childhood, so frequently used in British colonial discourse, had its roots in seventeenth-century Europe, when a new concept of childhood emerged. The child, which had been previously regarded as a ‘smaller version of the adult,’ was now increasingly seen as ‘an inferior version’ and needed to be improved through education during childhood. 61 This ideology, combined with Protestant ideas about “the responsibility of the adult to ‘save’ the child from a state of unrepentant, reprobate sinfulness,” was then used to describe ‘primitive’ people as ‘childlike.’ 62 As far as Fijians were concerned, the ‘childlike’ state in which Methodist missionaries considered them to be before conversion to Christianity meant that, although they were ‘savage’ and ‘primitive,’ they could be reformed. To borrow Nandy’s categories, Fijians were “corrigible,” “innocent,” “ignorant but willing to learn” and “loyal.” 63 From a strictly religious point of view, this also meant that Fijians did not contest – or rather, as missionaries would have us believe, did not have the intellectual ability to contest – the Christian message disseminated by Methodist missionaries. As Burton claimed: “There was a strong moral resistance to the message, but no mental opposition.” 64 However, the situation was different with regard to the Indian population. In a similar vein to colonial administrators and missionaries in India who had praised the country’s past civilisation, especially its philosophy, literature and architecture, Methodist missionaries in Fiji also did not dismiss these Indian achievements. But this recognition of past Indian merits was always punctuated in missionary accounts by a reiteration of the idea that Fijians and Indians were different in this respect as well, since the former had failed, in the missionary view, to create a civilisation prior to their contact with the Europeans. Most importantly and again, unlike the Indians, Fijians did not possess an organised religious system akin to Hinduism or Islam which, false though they might have been, provided Indians with efficient tools to question and counteract Christianity. In other words, although Indians were by no means regarded as the equals of Europeans, they certainly were not considered ‘children,’ as Fijians had been be60 Thomas McCarthy, Race, Empire, and the Idea of Human Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 76. 61 As Hugh Cunningham has pointed out, print in the form of conduct books, catechisms and, I would add, periodicals, came to play a crucial role in “child-rearing in the Protestant mode.” See: Hugh Cunningham, Children and Childhood in Western Society since 1500 (Harlow, UK: Pearson Longman, 2005), 49. 62 Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983), 14–15. 63 Nandy, The Intimate Enemy, 16. 64 Burton, Our Indian Work, 36.

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fore their conversion to Christianity. In fact, to borrow again Nandy’s terms, the Indian of Methodist missionary discourse was in a ‘childish’ state: ‘ignorant but unwilling to learn,’ ‘sinful,’ ‘unpredictably violent’ (or criminal, as previously discussed), ‘disloyal’ and ‘ungrateful.’ In this state, he was not ‘corrigible’ – he could be repressed, but not reformed like the Fijian had been. CONCLUSION Of the many European voices that described the Indians in Fiji, this paper has focused on the voices of Australian Methodist missionaries who wrote about the Indian work in Fiji at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. The aim has been to understand how one missionary periodical, the AMMR, mediated representations of Indian migrants, especially in relation to the indigenous Fijian population. The period 1890–1920 coincided roughly with the first phase of Indian settlement in the Fiji Islands. It was, in many ways, a formative stage in the history of the country, when the foundations of the Indo-Fijian community were established and the relationships between the main population groups were defined. Furthermore, this was also an important period in the history of the Indian Mission in Fiji. Due to limited government interest in the education of the new migrants, the Mission acted as the main provider of education to Indians. In the long term, this would prove to be the most successful site of interaction between Indians and Methodist missionaries, for evangelisation did not yield the expected results. Reading the AMMR, one becomes witness to the constant struggle to overcome the ubiquitous feeling that Indians, in India as elsewhere, were in fact beyond the reach of missionary zeal. But if the Indians represented a less encouraging example of the fruits of missionary labour, indigenous Fijians were the exact opposite: the Christianising work which had begun in 1835 was practically completed by the time Fiji became a British colony in 1874. Missionary protectionism towards the Fijians translated, therefore, into the task of protecting Christian Fiji firstly, from the excesses and vices of other Christians, such as the colonial administrators and planters of European origin, and secondly, from the undesirable influence of a predominantly non-Christian group, the Indians. In this context, the AMMR served as a convenient tool for the dissemination of news and views to a public of potential supporters at home and in the mission fields. Unlike other types of publications, the AMMR offered information on a regular and timely basis and thus lent momentum to appeals for human and financial support. As this paper has shown, oppositional representations of Fijians and Indians were crucial to the missionary discourse which circulated through the AMMR. In particular, the tropes of the ‘dangerous coolie’ and the ‘heathen Indian’ enabled missionaries to draw comparisons between the two groups and represent the new migrants as a moral and physical ‘threat’ to the indigenous population. Missionary descriptions of Indian ‘coolies’ frequently included references to the alleged immoral nature of these labourers and warned about their increasing num-

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bers in Fiji. This justified the claim that indigenous Fijians were a ‘dying race’ and identified Indians with the assertive, ‘dangerous aliens.’ In a similar vein, missionary representations of Indians as ‘heathen’ opposed Indians and Fijians on the basis of their religious beliefs and promoted racial hierarchies on the basis of past ‘civilisational’ achievements. Many of the antithetical images mentioned in this paper – Fijians as lazy, happy, easy-going, and Indians as frugal, cunning, pushy and thrifty – can still be encountered in Fiji today. In fact, as Hermann and Kempf have argued: relations between ethnic Fijians … and Fiji Indians … are predicated on oppositional identity constructions … constituted and consolidated by colonial discourses and practices. 65

This paper has attempted to show how the Methodist Mission’s periodical, the AMMR, effectively contributed to the dissemination and cementation of such ideas among its readers at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. The AMMR was undoubtedly an instrument of religious propaganda; as such, it was part of an expanding circuit of print which, by the beginning of the twentieth century, included books, pamphlets, and missionary reports. What set the AMMR apart, however, was its ability to appeal to the public on a regular and timely manner. Through the practice of news and article clipping, the missionary message was ‘recycled,’ to use Anna Johnston’s expression, and managed to pervade the pages of other Australian newspapers as well. 66 The AMMR was, therefore, the most immediate form of printed communication available to Australian missionaries at the turn-of-the-century in their efforts to reach out to their (potential) public.

65 Elfriede Hermann and Wolfgang Kempf, “Introduction to Relations in Multicultural Fiji: The Dynamics of Articulations, Transformations and Positionings,” Oceania 75 (2005): 309–324, 311. 66 Anna Johnston, Missionary Writing and Empire, 1800–1860 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003), 32.

PROTESTANT MISSIONARY PERIODICALS DEBATE THE BOXER WAR, 1900–1901 Martyrdom, Solidarity, and Justification Thoralf Klein The Boxer War of 1900–1901 constituted an unprecedented crisis in the history of both ‘Western’ imperialism and Christian missions in China in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For many contemporary observers, it seemed to threaten the ‘Western’ presence in China altogether – although this claim was probably exaggerated – yet by the same token, mission work in North China, where the Boxer movement concentrated, was severely disrupted, with around 250 missionaries and at least several thousands of Chinese Christians killed, mission stations and chapels burned and abandoned, and Christian homes looted or destroyed. At the same time, the Boxer War also exposed the uneasy relationship between Christian missions and imperialism. It had been triggered by the Boxers, a popular religious and social movements that had emerged amidst social and ecological tensions in the border districts of the Northern Chinese provinces of Shandong and Zhili. The Boxers held the foreigners responsible for the misfortunes befalling China and called for their extermination. However, the movement also arose out of conflicts between local communities and against the backdrop of a high degree of local violence endemic in rural China. 1 For this reason, Boxer groups began by attacking Chinese Christians in 1898 and through 1899, took on foreign missionaries at the turn of 1900 and expanded the scope of their attacks to encompass all ‘Westerners’ and all things foreign in the spring and summer of 1900. Mismanagement of the crisis by both the Imperial Chinese government and the representatives of the ‘Western’ powers led first to a diplomatic crisis and then, in June 1900, to an outright, if undeclared war. A combination of Chinese Imperial regular troops and Boxer militia besieged the Legations Quarter in Beijing (where many missionaries and Chinese Christians had found shelter) as well as the foreign enclave, the so-called ‘concessions’, in the port city of Tianjin. Both communities were relieved by a multinational intervention army organised by the governments of eight powers (in alphabetical order: Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States), which defeated the Chinese regular forces, organised punitive expeditions against Boxer

1

A good discussion of this point is in R. G. Tiedemann, “Boxers, Christians and the Culture of Violence in North China,” Journal of Peasant Studies 25 (1998): 150–160.

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villages and ultimately forced a peace settlement from the Beijing government – the so-called Boxer Protocol, signed on 7 September 1901. 2 In my paper I will examine the discourse on these events in a number of Protestant missionary periodicals, giving special emphasis to the specific ways in which this discourse differed from the political-military one as it emerged, among others, from daily newspapers and secular-oriented periodicals. To achieve a sufficient breadth of analysis, I have decided to focus on a cross-section of five periodicals that allow for a variety of perspectives: They represent different nationalities (two from Germany, one from England, one from the USA and one ‘international’) as well as different denominations; some were attached to particular mission societies, while others were independent; some had immediate interests in areas of Boxer activity and had links with missionaries in the war zone, while others were mere observers. The first three periodicals were typical ‘society publications’ (to coin a term), designed to keep supporters abreast of a particular mission society’s achievements and drawbacks, to stimulate fund-raising and – an important though easily overlooked aspect – to further the cause through common prayer. The Mission Field was published by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), one of the oldest Protestant mission societies (founded in 1701) and with a strict orientation towards the Church of England. 3 The Missionary Herald appeared under the auspices of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), an interdenominational, rather liberal and decentralised organised society, whose highly educated missionaries raised their own funds and enjoyed considerable influence on the society’s decision-making. 4 The China-Bote was the mouthpiece of the German Alliance Mission, one of several smaller societies across Europe affiliated with the China Inland Mission (CIM). 5 This society had been founded in England by the charismatic Hudson Taylor (1832–1905), and was the only European mission society to have moved its headquarters to China. Owing to its cooperation with non-British societies, the CIM was widely viewed as an “international” 6 society at the time; it was also interdenominational. As a so-called “faith mission,” it rarely solicited funds, its missionaries rather placing their faith in God’s hands for support. It aimed at the provinces in the Chinese interior which 2

3 4 5 6

For an overview of the events see: Paul A. Cohen, History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience and Myth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); Joseph W. Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987); Xiang Lanxin, The Origins of the Boxer War: A Multinational Study (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003). See: Daniel O’Connor et al., Three Centuries of Mission: The United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 1701–2000 (London: Continuum, 2000). Janet E. Heininger, “Private Positions Versus Public Policy: Chinese Devolution and the American Experience in East Asia,” Diplomatic History 6 (1982): 287–302. For the CIM see now: Alvyn J. Austin, China’s Millions: The China Inland Mission and Late Qing Society, 1832–1905 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007); for the German Alliance Mission see: Austin, China’s Millions, 319. “Missions in China,” Missionary Herald 96 (1900), 96–97, 97.

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had been largely unclaimed by mission societies, expected its missionaries to adopt Chinese dress, and became the single largest mission organisation in China by the early twentieth century. The unassuming posture of the CIM was also reflected in the unadorned and simple language of the China-Bote, which suggests a readership with a rather modest social and educational background. The other two were periodicals that recorded the progress of missionary work in China or worldwide. The Chinese Recorder, the leading mission periodical in the Chinese field, appeared with the American Presbyterian Press in Shanghai. Its contributions were written by and for missionaries, and discussed mainly strategic, educational and linguistic issues. 7 Nothing symbolises the professionalism of the Recorder better than its use of Chinese characters, which were of interest only for readers with the necessary language skills. An otherwise English-language publication, it was at the same time ‘international’ and interdenominational in that it provided a forum for authors from different countries and with different affiliatons; up to WWI, German missionaries (usually counted among the Lutherans in China) were among the contributors. In almost all these aspects, Die evangelischen Missionen was diametrically opposed to the Chinese Recorder. Its editor was Julius Richter (1862–1940), then a pastor in Brandenburg and later professor of Mission Studies in Berlin. 8 Richter had close ties with mission circles and in 1900 became a member of the directorial board of the Berlin Mission. Despite his missionary connection, the magazine demonstrated no denominational preferences (although I will return to one exception later in this essay). As its subtitle, Illustriertes Familienblatt suggests, the periodical targeted families and seems to have been aimed at a mixed, but largely middle-brow readership. These periodicals, all of which appeared monthly, not only differed with regard to language, nationality, editorship, contributors and denominational ties, but they were also affected to varying degrees by the Boxer outbreak: Both the SPG and the American Board were active in the geographical areas of Boxer outbreak and hence suffered directly, thus both The Mission Field and the Herald expressed immediate interest in the Boxer War. The case of the China-Bote was more complicated: Although the China Inland Mission experienced the greatest loss of missionaries at the hands of Boxers and Imperial Chinese officials, the German Alliance Mission was active in South China, beyond the range of Boxer activity. It therefore occupied a middle ground between direct involvement and mere observation. With its ties to the mission community in China, the Chinese Recorder, with headquarters in Shanghai, provided a forum for those missionaries and societies involved in the events. In contrast, Die evangelischen Missionen took the posture of an observer. Despite the differences, however, all these periodicals shared a common rhetoric and discourse. 7 8

Kathleen L. Lodwick, “Hainan for the Homefolk: Images of the Island in the Missionary and Secular Press,” in United States Attitudes and Policies Toward China: The Impact of American Missionaries, ed. Patricia Neils (Armonk, NY: Sharpe 1990): 97–110. Karl Rennstich, “Richter, Julius,” in Biographisch-bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, vol. 8 (Herzberg: Bautz, 1994): 251–252.

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In analyzing the coverage of the Boxer War by these periodicals, I will address three aspects: first, the question of martyrdom and deliverance and its wider implications for the relationship between politics and salvation history; second, the attitude of missions towards Chinese in general and Chinese Christians in particular; and third, the debate about the responsibility of Christian missions for the outbreak of the Boxer disturbances. On the basis of James Carey’s theory of communication as ritual, 9 I will draw some general conclusions as to the role of politics – understood here as secular governmental ideologies, projects and actions – in the missionary periodicals’ discussions of the Boxer War. MARTYRDOM AND DELIVERANCE In general and with few exceptions, both decision-makers and the wider public in the ‘West’, viewed the Boxer War as a struggle between modern ‘Western’ civilisation and Chinese barbarism. Discourses on civilisation often referred to Christian principles; for example, the German Kaiser Wilhelm II. (1859–1940), in his infamous ‘Hun Speech’, declared the Chinese civilisation inferior because it was ‘not based on Christianity.’ 10 However, the Christian element was rather seldom present in the political justification of intervention in China. Missionary periodicals, on the other hand, took a radically different approach. What was important for them was not so much to explain and comment the import of events in China per se, but rather their significance for mission work and hence for the salvation of mankind. This is why martyrdom is a thread that runs through all the publications analyzed here (and indeed many others). The elevated position of martyrdom in the missionary discourse on the Boxer War was not created in retrospect, after the missions had taken stock of the death toll. Already after the first missionary, a member of the SPG named Sidney Brooks (1875–1899), had been killed on New Year’s Eve, 1899, the Mission Field printed a letter by one of his colleagues stating that “we cannot deny the martyr’s name for him.” A German translation of the same letter appeared in Die evangelischen Missionen soon afterwards, creating an impression of transnational solidarity that was quite typical of nineteenth-century Protestant missions. 11 For missionary periodicals commenting on the Boxer War, the concept of martyrdom was ‘pre-mediated’ in two ways. Since Christian missions had established themselves in the interior of China in the 1860s, missionaries had closely monitored anti-Christian disturbances at the James W. Carey, Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society (Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman, 1989). 10 Bernd Sösemann, “Die sogenannte Hunnenrede Wilhelms II: Textkritische und interpretatorische Bemerkungen zur Ansprache des Kaisers vom 27. Juli 1900 in Bremerhaven,” Historische Zeitschrift 222 (1976): 342–358, 350. 11 H. Mathews, “Sidney Brooks’ Martyrdom,” The Mission Field 45 (1900): 167–170, 170; “Die Unruhen in der Schantung-Provinz und die Ermordung des Missionars Sidney Brooks: Aus einem Briefe des Missionars H. Matheus [!] in Ping-yin,” Die evangelischen Missionen 6 (1900): 154–156, 156. 9

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local level, where missionaries had occasionally lost their lives, and their correspondence found its way into missionary periodicals as well as book-length publications. 12 More importantly, especially in an Anglo-Saxon context, there existed a discourse on martyrdom whose genealogy reaches back to the mid-sixteenth century. In 1563, John Fox (or Foxe, 1517–1587) published the English version of his Acts and Monuments, commonly known as Fox(e)’s Book of Martyrs, a Protestant account of persecutions from the times of the Apostles to the England of his day. Beginning in Fox’s later years, additional material had been added (although later editions were mostly abridged), and Fox’s narrative was continued into the early nineteenth century. 13 In German Protestantism (and possibly other parts of continental Europe) the tradition of martyrdom may have been less strong, but was not unfamiliar either. 14 In either context, the discourse of Protestant missionaries was markedly different from their Catholic counterparts, who rejoiced in opportunities of laying down their lives as a symbol of spiritual purity and a token of God’s grace. 15 Protestant missionaries did not strive to become martyrs, in part because they had women and children to protect. For Protestant missionary periodicals, martyrdom 12 For example during the unrest of 1892; see, for example: “Thrilling Experience of Rev. J. Parker – His Escape from the Rebels,” Chinese Recorder 33 (1892), 112–119; The AntiForeign Riots in China 1891: With an Appendix (Shanghai: North China Herald Office, 1892). Although the latter publication appeared under the auspices of a leading English treaty-port newspaper, its contributors were for the most part missionaries – an indication that at least in China the difference between mission and secular presses was not absolute. 13 I have used the following adaptation: John Fox and Charles A. Goodrich, The Book of Martyrs or, A History of the Lives, Sufferings and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive as well as Protestant Martyrs: From the Commencement of Christianity to the Latest Periods of Pagan and Popish Persecution (New York: Reed, 1831). For the influence of the book see: Elizabeth Evenden and Thomas S. Freeman, Religion and the Book: The Making of Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 320–347; John N. King, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and Early Modern Print Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 244–320; Peter Nockles, “The Nineteenth Century Reception,” in John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments online, accessed March 28, 2012, http://www.johnfoxe.org/index.php?realm =more&gototype=modern&type=essay&book=essay9. For the importance of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs in shaping the discourse on the Boxer War, see: James L. Hevia, English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), 290–291; Roger R. Thompson, “Reporting the Taiyuan Massacre: Culture and Politics in the China War of 1900,” in The Boxers, China, and the World, eds. Robert Bickers and R. G. Tiedemann (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007): 65–92, 66–67. 14 See: Bernhard Rogge, Das Evangelium in der Verfolgung: Bilder aus den Zeiten der Gegenreformation (Cologne: Wulfers, 1912), v. Rogge, a former court preacher, had been asked by the publisher to write a history of Protestant martyrdom, which he declined; however, he decided to respond by writing a history of the persecution of Protestantism in the period of Counter-Reformation. 15 Klaus Mühlhahn, Herrschaft und Widerstand in der “Musterkolonie” Kiautschou: Interaktionen zwischen China und Deutschland, 1897–1914 (München: Oldenbourg, 2000), 327–331; for an eighteenth-century example referring to China see: Walter Demel, Als Fremde in China: Das Reich der Mitte im Spiegel frühneuzeitlicher europäischer Reiseberichte (München: Oldenbourg, 1992), 235–236.

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was important because it evoked the concept of a unified history of salvation, connecting what was transpiring in China with earlier stages of church history and ultimately with biblical history. 16 Comparisons between the situation of missionaries in China and the church under “Decius and Dioclesian” by the Missionary Herald, the Chinese Recorder and Die evangelischen Missionen were written in retrospect, after the success of the Allied military intervention. 17 But as early as February 1900 (and without direct reference to the Boxers), the Herald had stated what was to become a kind of leitmotif: “Now, as always, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” 18 Martyrdom hence contained a script for the future and thus substantiated the typical missionary rhetoric of displaying optimism in times of crisis in guaranteeing a bright future for the evangelisation of China. To some extent, missionary periodicals adopted this ostentatiously confident posture in order not to let drawbacks discourage the missions’ supporters (and potential donors). But at a deeper level, the same also applies to missionaries’ correspondence with their directory boards at home. 19 By the same token, tales of atrocities committed against missionaries were also mitigated by an emphasis on the calmness and confidence with which the victims had accepted their fate. Aside from being an end in itself, this also justified the decision of the home boards not to give up the mission field.20 Last but not least, martyrdom found its counterpoint in innumerable accounts of miraculous rescue from the Boxers that testified to divine intervention in human history. Part of these came from missionaries with regard to those missionaries who had fled the countryside for Beijing, only to become holed up during the siege of the Legations Quarter. 21 That some of these were in the service of SPG or ABCFM made such stories readily available, and indeed both the Herald and the Mission Field followed the state of affairs with almost the same anxiety as the secular press, albeit with far less sensationalism, of which the Herald published a

16 Thoralf Klein, “Weltgeschichte, Heilsgeschichte: Umwälzungen in China als Folie missionarischer Geschichtskonstruktionen, 1900–1912,” Comparativ 19, no. 5 (2009): 50–65, 58. 17 Judson Smith, “China, the Situation and the Outlook,” Missionary Herald 96 (1900): 462–69, 464; see: “The Missionaries in China,” Chinese Recorder 32 (1901): 27–30, 28; Paul Richter, “Die Märtyrer der evangelischen Mission in China 1900,” Die evangelischen Missionen 7 (1901): 97–106, 101. 18 “Sunshine after clouds,” Missionary Herald 96, no. 2 (1900): 45. That this short article followed two equally short notices on Boxer disturbances is without doubt significant, but its immediate reference was to occurrences in the South Chinese province of Fujian. 19 In my work on the German-Swiss Basel Mission in China, this has emerged as a recurring pattern; see: Thoralf Klein, Die Basler Mission in der Provinz Guangdong (Südchina), 1859– 1931: Akkulturationsprozesse und kulturelle Grenzziehungen zwischen Missionaren, chinesischen Christen und lokaler Gesellschaft (München: Iudicium, 2002), 42. 20 See, for example: “The Society’s Grants for 1902,” The Mission Field 46 (1901): 216–217. 21 Arthur H. Smith, “The Hand of God in the Siege of Peking,” Chinese Recorder 32 (1901): 83–88. This is the printed version of a speech made on the occasion of a thanksgiving service in Beijing in August 1900.

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scathing critique. 22 Similar and often more personalised stories also came from other parts of North China. Missionary periodicals thus created a complex fabric of stories about anxiety, ordeal, death and deliverance, underpinned by the dialectics of martyrdom and miraculous rescue. This still left room for the inclusion of ‘high’ politics. In all cases, the missionary periodicals under discussion here presented no clear-cut distinction between matters religious and matters political. Examples of such absence consisted, at a very basic level, in reprinting documents related to the war, in providing short biographies of Chinese leaders, or in discussing Court politics in Beijing in rather simple terms. This was a publication strategy pursued by the intellectually modest China-Bote, although the more sophisticated Chinese Recorder also chronicled the Boxer crisis. 23 At another level, political and religious conflicts became intertwined. It is interesting to see, for example, that Richter’s journal, despite reprinting the article about the martyrdom of the SPG missionary Brooks, was at the same time very critical of what it perceived as the SPG’s “Anglocatholicism” – a concept that, in Richter’s view, propagated the “spiritual expansion of the [British] empire,” but in fact only led to injustice and prejudice. 24 And as if to confirm Richter’s suspicions, some time later The Mission Field published the following resolution of the SPG’s monthly meeting: It is fairly certain that the native [Chinese] church will be a strong Church headed by capable native Bishops who will glory in Catholic antiquity. The English and the English Church must have a greater influence over them than any other form of Christianity. 25

At issue here was both the question of Anglican theology (was it Protestant at all?) and imperial rivalry between Britain and Germany. Missionaries of the American Board, for their part, analyzed at length the political development in China, both in the Herald and the Chinese Recorder, and like the SPG they were largely supportive of their government’s political and military representatives (and more critical of those of other countries). 26 Typically, 22 “The Outbreak in China,” Missionary Herald 96 (1900), 308–309. 23 For example “Ein Unglückstag für China,” China-Bote 9, no. 11 (1901): 85–86; “Soldatenbrief aus China,” China-Bote 9 (1901): 86–87; “Li-hung-tschang,” China-Bote 10, no. 5 (1901): 42; “Yuan-Schi-kai,” China-Bote 10 (1901): 42–43; “Diary of Events in the Far East,” Chinese Recorder 31 (1900): 377–378. 24 “Imperialismus und Kirche in England,” Die evangelischen Missionen 7 (1901): 234. 25 “The Monthly Meeting,” The Mission Field 47 (1902): 199. See also the remarks made at a meeting held on 22 November 1900 in Exeter Hall as cited in The Mission Field 46 (1901): 36. 26 See: H. Mathews, “Sidney Brooks’ Martyrdom,” The Mission Field 45 (1900): 167–170, 170. Mathews argued that the death of Brooks had been beneficial to missions in China in forcing the ‘Western’ diplomats to adopt measures to protect the missionaries. This passage was also reprinted in Die Evangelischen Missionen. The Herald began to trace developments early on, see: “A New Decree,” Missionary Herald 95 (1899): 338–339. For its political attitude see, among others: Judson Smith, “The Situation in North China,” Missionary Herald 96 (1900): 188–190, 189–190; Arthur H. Smith, “The Situation at Peking During the Last of May,” Missionary Herald 96 (1900): 310–312, 311. See also: “Japan and ‘Interference’,” Missionary

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political comments were not isolated from nor necessarily at odds with religious ones. Writing in the Herald, the secretary of the American Board, Judson Smith (1837–1906), attempted to reconcile the Christian and secular-progressive worldviews by envisioning a future that “will reveal a new China, facing progress and learning and Western arts and the Christian faith; and that will be a new world, with a glorious destiny before it.” 27 In another article, however, Smith and his associate James L. Barton (1855-1936) juxtaposed the religious and political spheres, implying a hierarchy between the two: [T]he outcome [of the Boxer War, T.K.] will be, not the heightened power of Russia or Germany, not the greater glory of England or America, but the deliverance and evangelisation of China’s millions, the prevalence of the Kingdom of God in all that populous Oriental world. 28

This was another example of how discussion of matters political was framed by the ultimate goal of China’s salvation. 29 Both martyrdom and deliverance were tokens of the ultimate purpose of mission work, which was other-worldly. MISSIONARIES AND CHINESE CHRISTIANS In an article published in 1992, James Hevia argued that missionary publications in the wake of the Boxer War were part and parcel of the overall Western discourse, and that missionaries were in favour of the symbolic punishment of China for its alleged wrongdoings. On the basis of the discourse on ‘Western civilisation’ versus Chinese ‘barbarism’, missionaries thus contributed to the ‘Othering’ of the Chinese. 30 Although the argument is compelling as far as it goes, Hevia does not take missionary periodicals into account, which may be responsible for his excluding from analysis of the ways by which one important strand within missionary discourse undercut the binary opposition between Chinese and ‘Westerners’: the demonstration of solidarity with Chinese Christians. For most missionaries, the Boxers were “fiends in human shape,” to use a phrase by the missionary William Ament (1851–1909) published in the Herald.31 This left little room for a nuanced treatment of the movement. Yet the China-Bote published the account of a group of CIM missionaries’ encounters with Boxer

27 28 29 30 31

Herald 96 (1900): 385, which argued that ‘Western’ interference and Christianity had been beneficial to Japan, although that country had initially rejected them. Judson Smith, “China, the Situation and the Outlook,” Missionary Herald 96, no. 11 (1900): 462–649, 462–463. Judson Smith and James L. Barton, “Annual Survey of the Work of the American Board, 1899–1900,” Missionary Herald 96, no.11 (1900): 448–461, 452. A clear indication of this is the summary of the final agreement between China and the powers in September 1901 – the so-called ‘Boxer Protocol’ – in “Der Friedensvertrag,” ChinaBote 10, no. 5 (1901): 43–44. James L. Hevia, “Leaving a Brand on China: Missionary Discourse in the Wake of the Boxer Uprising,” Modern China 18 (1992): 304–332. “Letters from the Mission: North China Mission,” Missionary Herald 96, no. 9 (1900): 361– 363, 361.

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groups who not only expressed human sentiments, but repeatedly spared their lives, although – it was alleged – for rather selfish motives. 32 Descriptions such as these were not meant to exonerate the Boxers, rather, they supported an argument occasionally put forward that only a minority of the Chinese were opposed to Christian missions. A Miss Hartwell, for example, was quoted in the Herald as writing that it was not “the population at large” that was intent on killing foreigners, but “the evil elements, the many roughs who would rise and murder and loot their own people at any time, except as restrained by the authorities.” 33 The China-Bote translated an article by the renowned American missionary William Alexander Parsons Martin (1827–1916) to the effect that not the Chinese, but the Manchus who ruled them were responsible for the Boxer movement. 34 And Julius Richter argued in Die evangelischen Missionen that the Boxers were not a spontaneous popular movement, but had been instigated by Chinese magistrates. 35 This reasoning led one missionary faction to advocate for the punishment of the Chinese government and officialdom, although mission bodies seem to have been divided on this issue. 36 More importantly, the same reasoning provided an encouragement to resume evangelistic work, as the missionaries were not hated by everybody; likewise, it also lent itself to justification of the missionary enterprise, which I will address in the last section of this chapter. More importantly, the way that the missionaries wrote about Chinese Christians created an element of transcultural solidarity. Missionaries praised the steadfastness and patient suffering of the converts. The Chinese Recorder, for example, published a letter by the American Presbyterian Mission in West Persia stating that: We have remembered, too, our beloved Chinese brothers and sisters in Christ, to whom the baptism of fire and blood has come so soon after the in baptism with water. We rejoice with you in the steadfastness of their faith and love, and believe that their witness in enduring even unto death has proclaimed the gospel of Christ more effectually than could have been done by word. 37

Picking up on the theme of martyrdom, the veteran missionary Griffith John (1831–1912) echoed this language in stating that: The converts in China have been getting their baptism of fire, and they have stood the test. […] As the result of this fiery trial, we have in China to-day a purer, stronger, nobler church 32 “Abenteuer mit Boxern,” China-Bote 9 (1901): 74–76; 83–85. Interestingly, Paul Cohen has recently argued for a perspective that humanises the Boxers. See: Paul A. Cohen, “Humanizing the Boxers,” in The Boxers, China, and the World, eds. Robert Bickers and R. G. Tiedemann (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007): 179–197. 33 “From Foochow,” Missionary Herald 96 (1900): 429. Though this letter was not sent from a more peaceful area in Southeast China, the argument is echoed by missionaries reporting from the hotbeds of Boxer activity. 34 “China und die Boxer,” China-Bote 9, no. 6 (1901): 45–46. 35 “Zur Lage in China,” Die evangelischen Missionen 8 (1902): 130–134, 130. 36 Arthur J. Brown, “Future Missionary Policy in China: A Notable Conference of Mission Secretaries,” Chinese Recorder 32 (1901): 398–405, 403. 37 “Letter of Sympathy,” Chinese Recorder 32 (1901): 94.

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Missionary periodicals also pointed out the heavy losses of life and property that had incurred. Of the sample under discussion here, the Missionary Herald was the one that went furthest in drawing practical consequences, calling for relief work among the Christians and reporting on fundraising activities for this purpose.39 This perspective could be broadened, as both the Herald and the China-Bote alerted their readers that the famine that had been a cause of the Boxer movement in the first place continued even after the movements’ suppression. 40 The treatment of Chinese Christians must nevertheless be qualified with a few caveats. First, it became more critical after the missionaries had begun to reoccupy their stations, only to discover that many Christians, contrary to what was expected of them, had indeed renounced their faith, if only in order to survive.41 Second, it must be noted that it was the missionaries who established the standards by which to judge the Chinese Christians. This reflected the patronising attitudes and the ultimately colonial character of Christian missions at the time.42 And finally, Catholic Christians were clearly excluded. Especially in the early phase, attacks on Catholic missions were carefully recorded in order to underline the Boxer threat – and, interestingly, Catholics were more often reported as having been killed than Protestants, which implied what was also sometimes made explicit: that the Boxers hated Catholics more. 43 This last point was also an element in the defensive strategy to which I now turn. DEFENDING MISSIONS AGAINST THEIR CRITICS The relief of the Beijing Legations quarter marked a remarkable shift in the international press coverage: Initially, the media had focused on the peril of the besieged ‘Westerners’ and on the legitimising the military intervention on their be38 “Dr. Griffith John’s Address at the Annual Meeting of the Central China Religious Tract Society: Hankow, 11th January, 1901,” Chinese Recorder 32 (1901): 128–129. 39 “Aid for Sufferers in China,” Missionary Herald 96, no. 10 (1900): 384; “A Week of Prayer for China,” Missionary Herald 96, no. 11 (1900): 428; “Gifts from Hawaii,” Missionary Herald 96, no. 11 (1900): 426. 40 “Famine in China,” Missionary Herald 96, no. 9 (1900): 344; “Notstand in Nordchina,” China-Bote 9, no. 11 (1901): 87. 41 Frederick Jones, “After the Troubles in North China: An Account of the Shantung Missions,” The Mission Field 47 (1902): 217–220, 218; “Zur Lage in China: Die evangelische Mission in Schantung,” Die evangelischen Missionen 7 (1901): 181–186, 183. 42 For the colonial character of missions in general and in China see now: Thoralf Klein, “The ‘Other’ German Colonialism: Power, Conflict, and Resistance in a German-speaking Mission in China, c. 1850–1920”, in: Asian and African Responses to German Colonialism, eds. Nina Berman, Klaus Mühlhahn and Patrice Nganang (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, forthcoming). 43 “Letters from the Missions. North China Mission,” Missionary Herald 96 (1900): 361–363, 362.

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half. With that danger removed, they gradually took notice of shortcomings on the ‘Western’ side – such as the atrocities committed by the intervention forces – and they began to reflect on what had made the crisis possible in the first place. As the Boxers had initially attacked missionaries and only later broadened their enemy image to include ‘Westerners’ and ‘Western’ civilisation in general, many commentators began to hold Christian missions responsible for the outbreak of hostilities. With their intellectual limitations, their ignorance of Chinese customs, their insensitivity to Chinese sensibilities, and their aggressive attacks on Chinese culture, missionaries were said to have constituted the single most important factor in the emergence of the Boxer movement. If it had not been for the missions, the argument went, ‘Western’ interests in China would not have been put in jeopardy. Quite obviously, missionary periodicals could not ignore such charges, and indeed went to great lengths to refute them. They were, however, no sites for critical debate or public intervention. To reach a wider public, missionaries resorted to publishing articles in secular journals, or to writing pamphlets, with their access to media channels outside missionary periodicals always dependent on their status in society at large (which was arguably greatest in the U.S.). 44 Refutations in missionary periodicals were rather intended to immunise the supporters of the mission against critical reports they were likely to have read elsewhere. Indicative of this is the fact that the denunciations were often referred to rather vaguely and anonymously, and attributed to the hostile, secular press, which the China-Bote regarded as having become a “great power, which intelligent people in our days do not dispute,” implying that its readers might have been exposed to the influence of newspapers and magazines. 45 Only a few outstanding critics, such as the British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury (1830–1903), and the famous American writer Mark Twain (1835-1910), were ever (although not always) mentioned by name. 46 44 For the general impact of American missionaries on U.S. society, see: Patricia Neils, “Introduction,” in: United States Attitudes and Policies Toward China: The Impact of American Missionaries, ed. Patricia Neils (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1990): 3-22, 10–11; although her argument prioritises missionary periodicals. In the context of 1900, German missionaries seem to have found it more difficult to get access to the publication outlets used by their critics, so they had to resort to publish their refutations in the form of pamphlets. See: Ernst Miescher, Die Mission, die Urheberin von Wirren (Basel: Verlag der Missionsbuchhandlung, 1901), 6– 8; Gustav Warneck, Die chinesische Mission im Gerichte der deutschen Zeitungspresse (Berlin: Martin Warneck, 1900). 45 “Gottes Wort bleibet,” China-Bote 9, no. 2 (1900): 14–15, 15; see also: “China at the Front,” Missionary Herald 96, no. 10 (1900): 388; Clement J. R. Allen, “A Layman’s Defence of Missions in China,” The Mission Field 46 (1901): 24–28, 24. Allen was a former British consul at Fuzhou. 46 For Mark Twain, see: “Editorial Comment,” Chinese Recorder 32 (1901): 368–371, 369. For Lord Salisbury, see: Arthur J. Brown, “Future Missionary Policy in China: A Notable Conference of Mission Secretaries,” Chinese Recorder 32 (1901): 398–405, 402; “Who is Responsible?” Missionary Herald 96, no. 10 (1900): 384; see: Allen, “A Layman’s Defence”, 24. Allen, in line with the Field’s support of the government, was quick to point out that Salisbury had been properly misunderstood. A similarly careful interpretation of Salisbury, in

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More important than listing the charges levelled against missions were the strategies of refuting them, of which there were several. First, the missionary periodicals discussed here argued that it was not ‘Western’ religion, but ‘Western’ civilisation that had been the target of the Boxer onslaught, leaving open the question of whether Christianity was or was not part of that civilisation. 47 Second, the authors of various contributions argued that missionaries were not only wellversed in Chinese culture; but further that missionaries had in fact made crucially important contributions to knowledge about China, and it was rather their critics who were ignorant of the situation of Christian missions.48 In attempting to turn the tables on the critics, the Chinese Recorder went so far as to deny any difference of opinion between ‘Western’ merchants and missionaries regarding the way China should be treated, denying that missionaries (notwithstanding a few exceptions) had called for revenge on China – a catchphrase that was used not infrequently in the secular press. 49 Third, periodicals used the Catholics as scapegoats, arguing that the criticism applied to them and not to the Protestants. As the Herald argued, Catholic missionaries had successfully demanded direct access to the Chinese magistrates and had been placed on equal footing with them, which gave them a power that Protestant mission societies – not only those of the American Board – had renounced. 50 Pointing to the Catholics not only deflected criticisms from outside mission circles, it even structured how the relationship of missionaries was discussed in internal debates. This made it difficult for Protestant missionaries to acknowledge their own problematic role as local power brokers supported by the unequal treaties, creating a blind spot in Protestant discourse. 51 Finally, missionaries lamented the atrocities committed by the Allied troops in China, even against Chinese Christians. 52 To bolster their defence, some missionary periodicals also cited diplomats’ and other laypeople’s interventions in favour of

47 48 49

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particular of his speech on the occasion on the 200th anniversary of the SPG, can be found in Miescher, Die Mission, die Urheberin von Wirren, 6. “The Hostility of the Chinese,” Missionary Herald 96, no. 8 (1900): 302; “Why the Chinese Are Aroused,” Missionary Herald 96, no. 9 (1900): 347. C. Maus, “Zur Abwehr,” China-Bote 9, no. 2 (1900): 14; “Die evangelische Mission und ihre Ankläger,” China-Bote 9, no. 10 (1901): 76. “Editorial Comment,” Chinese Recorder 32 (1901): 98–101, 99–100. The German Emperor exhorted his soldiers to “avenge” the death of the German minister and other ‘Westerners’, see: Sösemann, Die sogenannte Hunnenrede, 350; The London Times, July 17, 1900, 9, which spoke of a “righteous cry for vengeance.” “Roman Catholics in China,” Missionary Herald 96, no. 11 (1900): 432. This explanation was used as early as April 1900. See: “The Riots in North China,” Missionary Herald 96 (1900): 131. See also: Wm. Ashmore, “The ‘Missionary Question’,” Chinese Recorder 32 (1901): 484–492, 488–489. A good example is Jacob Speicher, “The Relation of the Missionary to the Magistrates,” Chinese Recorder 32 (1901): 391–398. For a good discussion of the problem as a whole see: Joseph Tse-hei Lee, The Bible and the Gun: Christianity in South China, 1860–1900 (New York: Routledge, 2003). “Zur Lage in China,” Die evangelischen Missionen 8 (1902): 130–134, 131.

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Christian missions in China, making it clear that support existed in society at large. 53 Nonetheless, missionary periodicals probably had their critics in mind when they reported on the most profoundly political question that mission societies faced in the wake of the Boxer War, namely whether or not they should accept indemnities for incurred damages. Most of the missionary periodicals simply stated that they would not demand any compensation for destroyed property of the missions and not even for the private property of the missionaries. Citing the China Inland Mission as an example, both Die evangelischen Missionen and China-Bote reported how such practical examples of loving one’s neighbour earned missionaries the favour of some Chinese officials, who commended publicly the way that the foreign preachers lived up to Christian standards. 54 However, the material losses of the Christians were a different matter, and most journals once again evoked their plight as a justification for demanding indemnities, describing in detail how missionaries secured the help of local officials to negotiate settlements. It was what he perceived to be extortions on the part of the missionaries – partly on the basis of distorted information – that prompted Mark Twain to publish his famous article “To the person sitting in darkness” in the North American Review, in which he delivered a scathing critique not only of Christian missions, but of American imperialism in general. 55 With regard to Christian missions, he particularly criticised acts of ‘looting’ by the AMCFM missionary William Ament, a charge that the Missionary Herald and the Chinese Recorder promptly denied. 56 53 For example: “The Diplomatists Concerning Missionaries in China,” Missionary Herald 96 (1900): 395–398; “Notes of the Month,” The Mission Field 47 (1902): 31–32; Allen, “A Layman’s Defence.” 54 Julius Richter, “Zur Lage in China,” Die evangelischen Missionen 8 (1902): 130–134, 132– 133; “Entschädigungsfrage d. China-Inland-Mission,” China-Bote 10, no. 7 (1902): 55. 55 This debate appeared in purely secular periodicals. For background information see: Larry Clinton Thompson, William Scott Ament and the Boxer Rebellion: Heroism, Hubris and the “Ideal Missionary” (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2009), 205–214. Mark Twain’s initial intervention referred to an article in the New York Sun quoting from an interview with ABCFM missionary William Ament. See: Mark Twain, “To the Person Sitting in Darkness,” North American Review 122 (1901): 161–176; Mark Twain, “To my Missionary Critics,” North American Review 122 (1901): 520–534. The same magazine published a rejoinder by ABCFM’s Judson Smith, “Missionaries and their Critics,” North American Review 122 (1901): 724–733. For further refutations in secular publications see: Gilbert Reid, “The Ethics of Loot,” Forum 31 (1901): 581–586; Gilbert Reid, “The Ethics of the Last China War,” Forum 32 (1901): 446–455. 56 Mark Twain, “To the person sitting in darkness”, 162–164; the term “looting” appears on page 163. For the reply see: “Looting by Missionaries,” Missionary Herald 97 (1901): 46, characteristically without mentioning Mark Twain’s name. By contrast, W. E. Smith, “Missionaries on Their Defence,” Chinese Recorder 32 (1901): 371–374, 372, makes direct reference to the debate initiated by Mark Twain. This article is an interesting example of intermediality, as it was obviously reprinted from the Shanghai Mercury, which in turn obtained it from its original source, an editorial comment in the North China Daily News. The text itself quotes a letter by renowned English-speaking missionaries in China. This intermedial flow

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Characteristically, the Chinese Recorder featured a lengthy debate on the issue of indemnities, with the majority of the missionaries arguing in favour of compensation and justifying their position by a complex mixture of legal, political, economic and cultural considerations. One of the discussants, a Reverend Chalfant, gave the following reasons for advocating indemnities: the duty to uphold national honour and dignity, the principle of justice to the sufferer, the principle of justice of the investor (by which he meant the supporters of Protestant missions), the guarantee against recurrence of the offence (an argument that recurs prominently in other contributions to the debate), the responsibility of the Chinese central government for the atrocities, and finally the anti-foreign (and not antimissionary) character of the Boxer movement. 57 Devello Z. Sheffield (1841– 1913) of the ABCFM argued that Christian missions in China required the protection of their respective home governments. He not only pointed to China’s treaty obligations, but also to the Christian rootedness in religious freedom, claiming that “the missionary is operating within the limits of his natural rights and is entitled to receive protection in their exercise from his government.” 58 Politics was thus placed at the service of evangelisation. The only opponent was Bishop George Evans Moule (1828–1912) of the Church Missionary Society, who argued that although international law provided for the demand and acceptance of indemnities, missionary policy (!) and humanitarian considerations suggested a different course of action, one that aimed at winning favour from the local population. 59 It almost goes without saying that such debates, with their complex arguments and their recourse to legal, political and cultural discourses had no place in those missionary periodicals designed for communications between mission societies and their constituencies, as they might have weakened support from the home bases. In fact, the ‘society periodicals’ in particular refrained from portraying missionaries as political actors in their own right. Thus only Die evangelischen Missionen reported on the resolution of a meeting of several hundred missionaries in Shanghai in September 1901, which demanded not only the guarantee of the rights of both missionaries and Chinese Christians and the punishment of murderers, but also the reinstatement of the Guangxu emperor (who had been placed under house arrest in 1898 by his great-aunt, the Empress dowager and de facto ruler Cixi) on the throne. This was a political demand which had earlier contributed to

points to a relationship (and solidarity) between mission and non-mission publications that may have been greater in China than in the missionaries’ home countries. 57 F. H. Chalfant, “An Argument for Indemnity,” Chinese Recorder 31 (1900): 540–542. 58 D. Z. Sheffield, “Christian Missions in China Should Be Protected by Western Nations,” Chinese Recorder 31 (1900): 544–547, 547. The other advocates of indemnity were G. A. Stuart, “The Demand for Indemnity,” Chinese Recorder 31 (1900): 543–544; P. D. Bergen, “Remarks on the Subject of Securing Indemnity for Losses in Connection with Mission Work,” Chinese Recorder 31 (1900): 548–550. 59 Bishop Moule, “Should Missionary Societies Claim Indemnities,” Chinese Recorder 31 (1900): 537–540.

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the escalation of the Boxer crisis in 1900 in the first place. 60 On the other hand, the restraint of most periodicals under discussion here may reflect the caution exercised by leaders of mission societies, which in turn impacted on those missionary periodicals that could afford a more open discussion of political matters. Characteristically, the Chinese Recorder reported on an interdenominational conference of mission secretaries in New York which had debated, among other topics, the relationship of Protestant missions vis-à-vis their governments. According to the report, several boards had been asked by their missionaries in China to protest against the proposed evacuation of Beijing by the Allied occupation troops and the return to power of the Empress Dowager, who was widely held responsible for the outbreak of the war and had fled Beijing for the safety of Northwest China. However, the conference unanimously declined to make such an appeal, although, [s]ome of its members had decided convictions as to what the governments ought to do; but they held that it was not proper for missionary workers, as such, to proffer unasked advice to the government in a matter so distinctly within its sphere, nor were they willing to go on record as saying that an armed force is necessary to missionary interests anywhere. 61

On the one hand, this statement suggests a separation of the political and religious spheres. On the other hand, there is a distinction here between political opinion, which is said to be permissible for mission societies, and political action, which clearly is not. The limitations proposed for missionary involvement in political decision-making imply again that while missionary periodicals did not abstain from politics altogether, what mattered was the Christian framework into which political issues could be integrated. CONCLUSION In his cultural theory of communication, James Carey has distanced himself from a conventional understanding that focuses on the transmission of information. Instead, he has put forward a ritual approach that views communication not as “imparting information but [as] the representation of shared beliefs” that manifests itself in “the construction and maintenance of an ordered, meaningful cultural world that can serve as a control and container for human action.” 62 Carey goes on to write: 60 “Neuste Nachrichten,” Die evangelischen Missionen 7 (1901): 24. For the original document see: “Resolutions adopted at an International Meeting of over 400 Missionaries, representing some 20 Societies, held in Shanghae, September 7, 1900,” in British Documents on Foreign Affairs. Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print. Part I, Series E: Asia, 1860–1914, ed. Ian Nish (Frederick, Md: University Publications of America, 1993): 238–239. See also the time lag. The “latest news” from China were almost half a year old. 61 Arthur J. Brown, “Future Missionary Policy in China: A Notable Conference of Mission Secretaries,” Chinese Recorder 32 (1901): 398–405, 403. 62 Carey, Communication as Culture, 18.

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Thoralf Klein News reading, and writing, is a ritual act and moreover a dramatic one. What is arrayed before the reader is not pure information but a portrayal of the contending forces in the world. Moreover, as readers make their way through the paper, they engage in a continual shift of roles or of dramatic focus. ... The model here is not that of information acquisition, though such acquisition occurs, but of dramatic action in which the reader joins a world of contending forces as an observer at a play. We do not encounter questions about the effect or functions of messages as such, but the role of presentation and involvement in the structuring of the reader’s life and time. We recognise, as with religious rituals, that news changes little and yet is intrinsically satisfying; it performs few functions yet is habitually consumed. Newspapers do not operate as a source of effects or functions but as dramatically satisfying, which is not to say pleasing, presentations of what the world at root is. ... Under a ritual view, then, news is not information but drama. 63

If Carey attributes a (quasi-)religious dimension to the secular press – he emphasises the common roots of the terms ‘commonness’, ‘communion’, ‘community’ and ‘communication’ and speaks of newspaper reading as of “attending a mass”64 – the case should be even clearer in the case of missionary periodicals. These were part of the concerted communication strategy of missionaries and their societies to keep in touch with their home constituencies, on whose contributions their work depended and who demanded to be kept abreast of developments in the mission field. 65 There existed thus a link between religion and reporting on the mission field that was not metaphorical, but real. Missionary periodicals thus reflect and even dramatise – in Carey’s sense – the fundamental conflicts that missionaries and their supporters saw active in the world: the struggle between the dichotomies of forces of ‘darkness’ and ‘light’, God and Satan, Christianity and paganism and/or modern atheism. Politics is covered within this framework. Rather than being interesting per se, it is a means to an end, and the question is always to what extent it furthers the Kingdom of God. This explains the unique way that missionary periodicals, notwithstanding their different degrees of political understanding, covered the Boxer War as opposed to most other media. To begin with, martyrdom became a central element of missionary discourse right from the beginning (and not necessarily posthumously), both legitimising the past efforts as well the present sacrifice and guaranteeing a brighter future. With regard to the latter, it became possible to reconcile the secular – in the widest sense political – with the ultimate goal of salvation in conjuring up a rejuvenated China that would be progressive and ‘Western’ as well as Christian. Although some missionary periodicals were openly supportive of their respective national governments (and sometimes critical of other nations and their policies), missionary periodicals generally privileged the Kingdom of God over secular interests. 63 Carey, Communication as Culture, 20–21. 64 Carey, Communication as Culture, 18, 20. 65 Lodwick, “Hainan for the Homefolk”, 97; Lawrence D. Kessler, “‘Hands Across the Sea’: Foreign Missions and Home Support,” in United States Attitudes and Policies Toward China: The Impact of American Missionaries, ed. Patricia Neils (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1990): 78– 96.

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Second, missionary dichotomised thinking could easily merge with a political discourse that postulated the struggle of an isolated China that had relapsed into ‘barbarism.’ And there is no doubt that missionaries’ political interventions built on and contributed to this binarism. 66 But they took place outside missionary periodicals. In their ‘internal’ coverage, missionaries again emphasised the dichotomy between Christianity and paganism. The ideational solidarity of missionaries (including their societies and, it was inferred, their supporters) could be used for practical ends, in particular to raise funds for Christians in need. There was probably also some strategic thinking behind the way the suffering of Chinese Christians in 1900 was portrayed in the missionary periodicals. The growing criticism of the Chinese Christians’ conduct during the persecution is thus due to two reasons: As the missionaries returned to their stations, they received more reliable information; moreover, as the storm had passed, the concern for Christians and hence the emphasis on Christian suffering and uprightness dwindled. The withering away of this discursive pattern made other aspects once again both ‘articulable’ and ‘visible’. 67 On the other hand, missionary discourse on Christians was generally complex. Depending on the situation, missionary reports and publications could either elaborate on the contrast between ‘good’ Christians and ‘bad’ ‘heathens’, distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Christians or portray all Christians as deficient, pointing to their entanglement with their native culture. 68 Against this backdrop, politics could come to be viewed as a disturbing influence. From the missionary point of view, the debate on the conduct of missionaries and their responsibility for the outbreak of the war was forced on the mission from the outside. The Missionary Herald, for example, spoke of an “assault upon missionary work.” 69 Critics of evangelisation in China, the argument went, acted out of either ignorance or ill-will. This is reflected in missionary periodicals, with the obvious aim to immunise the missionary constituencies at home against information received through other media. To this end, other binarisms could be activated. In addition to the contrast between the missions and their discontents, the Protestants sought to exploit the divide separating them from the Catholics. That politics was thus an integral part of missionary periodicals’ coverage of the Boxer War will come as no surprise. However, politics was always refracted through the prism of a specific Christian worldview that invariably prioritised the sacred over the secular. The former referred to the Kingdom of God, the latter to the affairs of men, which were to be judged by the extent to which they furthered the spread of the Gospel. This made it possible for some mission societies and 66 See: Hevia, “Leaving a Brand on China.” 67 For the complex relationship between the articulable and the visible see: Gilles Deleuze, Foucault, trans. Séan Hand (London: Continuum, 2006), 43–57 and passim. 68 See: Thoralf Klein, “The Basel Mission as a Transcultural Organization: Photographs of Chinese Christians and the Problem of Agency,” in Getting Pictures Right: Context and Interpretation, ed. Michael Albrecht et al. (Köln: Köppe, 2004): 39–56, 40. For a contemporary differentiation, albeit one that employs different criteria, see: F. Ohlinger, “Our Three Classes of Converts”, Chinese Recorder 32 (1901): 352–356. 69 “China at the Front,” Missionary Herald 96 (1900): 388.

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their periodicals to seem to lend their support to the respective national governments. Nevertheless, the relationship between missionaries on the one hand and policy-makers as well as some influential opinion shapers on the other hand was always fragile. Although mission and imperialism were linked through an elective affinity, their relationship was and remained complex.

SWEDISH MEDICAL MISSIONARY NARRATIVES IN THE MISSIONSTIDING Mission, Medicine and the Endeavour for Change Malin Gregersen

“… I asked myself, what could we who can see do for our doubly blind brothers out there?” 1

This question was raised in the Swedish missionary periodical Missionstidning in 1907. The anonymous author, “A friend of the blind”, argued for the need to build a Swedish hospital in South India, as part of the work of the Church of Sweden Mission (Svenska kyrkans mission, hereafter CSM). If hospitals are necessary at home, the author argues, then how essential are they not in India, where people rub “sick eyes with ginger or pulverised brick”? 2 Medical care had been a natural part of the Protestant mission for a long time, but in the late nineteenth century it became an important area of work. The first question raised above takes a double stand; it focuses on the twofold nature of the medical mission to cure sick souls in sick bodies. Medical missionaries perceived their task as one of making both physical and spiritual difference. But the second quotation draws attention to yet another matter. The effort to ‘open the eyes’ of Indian people was seen as a fight against superstition and ignorance. Bodily treatment was not the sole aim of the medical missionary work; education was viewed as an equally important means to change behaviours and practices. The questions both focus on change: the possibilities of changing the individual and of changing society. The idea of a ‘double cure’, of treating sick souls in sick bodies as a missionary vocation was seen by many as an effective and powerful way of spreading the gospel and of changing people’s lives – and a way that gained increased support amongst Christian missionaries by the end of the long nineteenth century. 3 This was also valid for the

1 2 3

En de blindas vän, “Till de seende [To the seeing],” Missionstidningen 32, no. 2 (1907): 30– 31, 31. Swedish original: “… jag frågade mig: hvad kunna vi seende göra för våra i dubbel måtto blinda bröder där ute?” [original emphais]. En de blindas vän, “Till de seende,” 131. Rosemary Fitzgerald, “A ‘Peculiar and Exceptional Measure’: The Call for Women Medical Missionaries for India in the Later Nineteenth Century,” in Missionary Encounters: Sources and Issues, eds. Robert A. Bickers and Rosemary Seton (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996): 174–198, 175; Rosemary Fitzgerald, “‘Clinical Christianity’: The Emergence of Medical Work as a Missionary Strategy in Colonial India, 1800–1914,” in Health, Medicine and Em-

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Nordic countries. One of the most active advocates, a Danish doctor named Christian Frimodt-Møller who worked as a medical missionary in South India, stressed the need not only to preach the gospel but also to practise it. If Jesus was a doctor himself – he relieved people from illness and bodily misery – why then should missionaries not work to make people’s lives easier? 4 Christian missionaries were driven by the ambition not only to convert people to the Christian faith, but also, and maybe even more specifically so, to shape the people whom they worked with, according to their own norms and morals. One of the most central notions for the Swedish missionaries was the idea of change. Much emphasis was placed on teaching hygiene, order and character, as well as domestic and professional skills.5 This project of change can be defined as political. As noted in the introduction to this volume, the word ‘political’ can be used to mean formal or informal ways in which one group or individual exercises authority over another individual or group of people. 6 Since politics concern society and ideas about what social life could and should be, I wish to discuss politics as the intention to exercise authority over others, a kind of informal political ambition. Missionary projects and ambitions can thus be considered political in the sense that they are permeated with the intention to change the encountered society and the people who live within it. It can certainly be discussed to what extent the political ambitions of the missionaries were actually implemented, but here I focus on the ways in which missionaries narrated the mission and legitimised it to their supporters in the home country. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss how the medical mission was introduced as a strategy of change in the CSM at the end of the nineteenth century. I explore how it was represented as a political project within the missionary periodical Missionstidning7 (hereafter MT), the main organ of the CSM, during the period from its foundation in 1876 until the establishment of a Swedish mission hospital in Tirupattur, South India, in 1909. Elsewhere I have discussed the medical mission narratives over a wider period, 1909–1950; but this article shifts back to when medicine was introduced within the CSM as a mission strategy and acquired its initial form. 8

4 5

6 7 8

pire: Perspectives on Colonial India, eds. Biswamoy Pati and Mark Harrison (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2001): 88–136, 121–122. Fredrik Kugelberg and Christian Frimodt Møller, “Från vårt indiska missionsfält: Läkarekongressen i Bombay [From our Indian mission field: The medical congress in Bombay],” MT 34, no. 18 (1909): 298–302. Malin Gregersen, Fostrande förpliktelser: Representationer av ett missionsuppdrag i Sydindien under 1900-talets första hälft [Fostering obligations: Representations of a mission task in South India during the first half of the nineteenth century] (PhD diss., Lunds universitet, 2010); Malin Gregersen, “Fostering Obligations: Representations from South India,” Swedish Missiological Themes 94, no. 4 (2010): 407–423. See: Jensz and Acke in this volume, 9–10. In August 1915 the society changed its name to Svenska Kyrkans Missionstidning. See: Gregersen, Fostrande förpliktelser; Gregersen, “Fostering Obligations.”

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The texts on the medical mission published in the MT between 1876 and 1910 were of two kinds. Firstly there were texts on medical mission principles published before such work had been practically introduced to the CSM; secondly there were letters and articles from missionary workers after such work had been initiated. The two main parts of this paper, after the introduction, follow this division. The first explores how medical missionary principles were introduced in the MT, mainly focusing on the first category of texts. The second part introduces the medical missionary work in India and then offers a close reading of texts about the medical work in South India after its initiation in 1905. These texts, belonging to the second category, have been analysed with regard to how the medical work was represented in terms of a political project of change. MISSIONSTIDNING AND MISSIONARY PERIODICALS The CSM was a church mission with strong ties to the Church of Sweden. Founded in 1874, its main missionary establishments were in India and South Africa, spreading to other regions during the twentieth century. The first issue of the MT was published two years after the mission’s foundation. Initially, it was published with monthly issues around 25 pages long, which in the mid 1890s was increased to bi-monthly, slightly shorter volumes. Each number consisted both of essays of general concern to the mission project and of reports from the missionary work of particular mission stations. There were also poems, psalms or obituaries, as well as notices and reports from the mission board and stations. Some texts were republished from other missionary organisations’ periodicals, mostly German and Swedish. In the 1880s and 1890s the periodical became more popular in style with illustrations, an increased amount of letters and a wider number of missionaries contributing texts. 9 Like many missionaries, the Swedes were diligent writers, producing letters, books, pamphlets, personal diaries, articles, psalms and translations. 10 Texts were the main means of communication between missionaries working abroad and missionary supporters in the sending country. In order to maintain support, financially as well as socially, they were dependent on written communication. The MT was widely read and spread amongst missionaries, members of the mission organisation and others interested in the cause of the mission. 11 Arvid Bäfverfeldt, “Vår mission genom sjuttiofem år [Our mission over seventy-five years],” in Svenska kyrkans mission sjuttiofem år [The Church of Sweden Mission seventy-five years], ed. Svenska kyrkans missionsstyrelse (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1949), 22. Missionaries were expected to contribute articles every year. 10 Anna Johnston, Missionary Writing and Empire, 1800–1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 3. 11 The number of subscribers was initially small, but grew steadily and rose from 2,200 in 1893 to 13,000 in 1900. In the 1940s the total number was around 37,000. The total reach was much wider, since the issues were shared by more than one person. Bäfverfeldt, “Vår mission genom sjuttiofem år,” 22. 9

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Being part of a larger organisational web, such texts were constructed according to certain ideals, explicit or implicit, shaped by the common discourses of readers, authors and editorial board on what was perceived as relevant, acceptable and suitable. As Anna Johnston argues in her book Missionary Writing and Empire 1800–1860 (2003), periodicals were forums approved by the missionary board, and as such they can be understood as providing a more ‘official’ view than, for example, letters. 12 I agree with Johnston on this, but it is also important to stress the ambivalent nature of the missionary corpus. Often, readers were friends and family of the missionaries, or part of common networks. Interesting overlaps, continuities and fractures can therefore be observed, where letter excerpts, reports, translations or texts written for other periodicals were republished in the MT or cross-published in different publications. Periodicals can therefore be seen as a dialogic source, showing traces of both missionary board and private correspondence. The result is a mixture of personal accounts of everyday work and encounters, individual interpretations of general issues concerning the mission and fundamental arguments and reports, allowing for ambiguities in this official and sanctioned narrative of the mission. The different missionary sub-genres had one thing in common; they were part of a continuous communication with people in the sending country. They functioned both as a fund-raising forum for the missionary enterprise and as a forum for maintaining social contact between friends and missionaries. 13 The narratives were written to create and mediate legitimacy for the work, but they were also important for bridging the geographical distance between missionaries and supporters. In these narratives, readers were given a chance to understand a world of difference, to grasp what the mission had achieved and what had to be accomplished in the future. The missionaries thus had to prove themselves worthy, not only of their readers’ continued interest and prayers, but also of their financial support. In the periodical articles missionaries provided narratives stressing the successes and failures, legitimising their presence as well as motivating donors to collect and send more money for the missionary projects. THE MEDICAL MISSION INTRODUCED: EARLY TEXTS IN MISSIONSTIDNING For the first decades, medical care was not an official part of the mission work in the CSM, even though some missionaries were given additional medical training 12 Johnston, Missionary Writing, 6. 13 Sewing groups were an important part of congregational life and the mission was heavily dependent on their support. These groups consisted of women who met to sew and listen to readings from the MT and missionary literature or sometimes to talks by visiting missionaries. The produce was then sold at bazaars or send to the missionaries, and many corresponded with individual missionaries, thus maintaining both social and financial bonds with the mission stations abroad. Cecilia Wejryd, Svenska kyrkans syföreningar 1844–2003 [The sewing associations of the Church of Sweden] (Stockholm: Verbum, 2005), 102–118.

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from the mid 1890s to meet demands in the field. The initiative to include medical work did not come from the mission board, however, but from the Baroness Hedvig Posse who worked as a missionary in South Africa and in 1895 offered to finance and lead the construction of a mission hospital in Dundee. The offer was accepted and by the turn of the century the hospital, Betania, became more closely attached to the mission, although with no Swedish medical staff. 14 The plans to send the first CSM medical missionary took shape a few years later with the employment of Doctor Fredrik Kugelberg, who later founded the hospital in Tirupattur. There were also a few nurses and deaconesses employed by the CSM, who practised their skills in small dispensaries and in people’s homes. 15 During the first twenty years only two texts about the medical mission were published in the MT, both of which were translations. The first was an overview of the medical mission, “Om läkare-mission [On medical mission]” written by John Miller Strachan, 16 and the second a shorter text on the medical mission of East India, freely translated by the editorial board from the Calwer Missionsblatt [Calwer Missionary Gazette]. 17 How did these two texts introduce medical work as a missionary strategy to the readers of the MT? The first article on the medical mission, published over two issues in 1883, is an 18-page text on the principles of medical missionary work. Since the text was translated it was not directly aimed at the Swedish mission, nor was it followed by any comments on whether this could or should be implemented in the Swedish work. Strachan starts by giving a summary of the miracles of Christ, concluding that two thirds of them were faith-healing miracles. Discussing the teachings of Christ, he states that the relief of suffering was a central means of spreading the Gospel. If faith-healing and the relief of suffering were more important for Jesus than showing the omnipotence of God, the author argues, then the medical mission must be much more acknowledged. The author then discusses the use of 14 Karin Sarja, “The Missionary Career of Baroness Hedvig Posse 1887–1913,” in Gender, Race and Religion: Nordic Missions 1860–1940, ed. Inger Marie Okkenhaug (Uppsala: Studia Missionalia Svecana, 2003): 103–135. 15 Tore Furberg, Kyrka och mission i Sverige 1868–1901: Svenska Kyrkans Missions tillkomst och första verksamhetstid [Church and mission in Sweden 1868–1901: The advent and first time of activities of Church of Sweden Mission] (Uppsala: Svenska Institutet för Missionsforskning, 1962), 394–395. For information on the medical practices of other Swedish mission organisations of that time, see: Gregersen, Fostrande förpliktelser, 51, n. 106. 16 John Miller Strachan, “Om läkare-mission [On medical mission],” MT 8, no. 6 (1883): 122– 132; John Miller Strachan, “Om läkare-mission [On medical mission],” MT 8, no. 7 (1883): 145–151. Even though the original forum of publication is not mentioned, it is likely that this text was produced for another audience and then translated for publication in the MT. Strachan was bishop of Rangoon 1882–1903, and had published in 1882 a book entitled, From East to West, or Glances at the Church’s work in distant lands. For more on Strachan see: Stephen Myint Oo Than, “Time Line of The Anglican in Myanmar Church of the Province of Myanmar (Burma) 1825-2001,” accessed August 2012, http://www.ttc.edu.sg/csca/rart_doc/ ang/my-ang-tl.html. 17 “Läkaremissionen i Ostindien fritt efter Calwer Missionsblatt [The medical mission in East India freely based on Calwer Missionary Gazette],” MT 11, no. 10 (1886): 242–243.

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medicine within the mission work: the missionaries’ needs in times of illness and accidents, the use of the medical mission to break new ground for the preaching of the Gospel and the medical missions as a means of conversion to Christianity. 18 In the last part of his article, Strachan meets the objections to the medical mission, discussing ways in which the medical mission should be carried out. 19 What did Strachan think was the purpose of the medical mission? He writes: We have seen that Christ confirmed his Gospel for the unbelieving Jews through the healing of the sick; that he ordered and made his disciples skilled to perform the same: that experience … shows that it is feasible; that persons of high rank … testify to its worth, and that there is no objection of value to raise against it, and we are obliged to reach the conclusion that such a means not only deserves, but demands encouragement. 20

Strachan stresses the role of medicine within the mission as a tool for evangelisation: to break new ground and to facilitate the work of the ordained missionaries. A similar standpoint is taken in the second text from the first period of the MT, on the medical mission of East India: “… everywhere the medical missionary is a welcome pioneer and a good help for the real missionary, occupied with the preaching of the Word.” 21 Around this period, there was an ongoing debate concerning the relation between medicine and mission: was medicine to be perceived as a tool for evangelisation, to break new ground for the ‘real’ missionaries? Or was it to be seen as a means on its own, medical missionaries following in the footsteps of Christ in an act of compassion? 22 Both of these early texts show support for the first interpretation. In 1909, more than twenty years later, Christian Frimodt-Møller, a Danish medical missionary in South India, debated this issue with a Danish pastor in the Nordic missionary periodical Nordisk Missions-Tidskrift. For him, the medical mission was a missionary vocation in its own right, not only a tool. 23 In this he was inspired by an Anglo-American tradition where such work had a more accen18 Strachan, “Om läkare-mission,” 122–132. 19 Strachan, “Om läkare-mission,” 145–151. 20 Strachan, “Om läkare-mission,” 146. Swedish original: “Vi hafva sett, att Kristus för de otrogna Judarna bekräftade sitt evangelium genom botande af sjuka; att han befalte och gjorde sina lärljungar skicklige att utföra det samma: att erfarenheten … visar, att det är utförbart; att användandet af läkarekonsten mildrar motståndet, ja, förer till verklig omvändelse; att personer af hög officiell rang … betyga dess värde, och att det ej finnes någon invändning af betydelse att sätta emot den, och vi nödgas till den slutsatsen, att ett sådant medel ej blott förtjenar, utan fordrar uppmuntran.” 21 “Läkaremissionen i Ostindien,” 242–243. Swedish original: “… öfverallt är läkaremissionären en välkommen banbrytare och en god hjälp för den egentlige, med ordets predikan sysselsatte missionären [emphasis added].” 22 Ruth Compton Brouwer, Modern Women Modernizing Men: The Changing Missions of Three Professional Women in Asia and Africa, 1902–69 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002), 38–39. 23 Christian Frimodt-Møller, “Vor Lægemission i Sydindien [Our Medical Mission in South India],” Nordisk Missions-Tidskrift 11, no. 3 (1909): 145–161, 145–148; Fr[ederik Christian Georg] Schepelern, “Lægemission: Inledning til en Forhandling i akademisk Missionskreds den 13. Oktober 1908 [The Medical Mission: Introduction to a Negotiation in the Academic Missionary Order 13 October 1908],” Nordisk Missions-Tidskrift 10, no. 5 (1908): 249–257.

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tuated role. Initially many within the Lutheran Church were sceptical about this new type of mission, seeing in it a risk of blurring the boundaries between spiritual and physical work. But gradually the view took hold that since Christ was both a spiritual and physical ‘doctor’, medical care as well as preaching had to be seen as central parts of the missionary work. 24 Reasons for this shift can be found in changes taking place in the late nineteenth century, in the progress of medical science and in the Protestant turn towards a more socially and practically oriented Christianity. 25 When the medical mission entered the CSM, other Protestant missions, mostly British and American, had already been practising it for almost half a century. In the later decades of the nineteenth century it became increasingly common; the number of professionally trained Protestant medical missionaries rose from only seven in 1885 to 680 by the 1890s. 26 Thus, the second half of the long nineteenth century saw the medical mission going from unrecognised to widespread. Being part of the struggle to find alternative methods to spread the Gospel, medical mission strategies gained increasing support. This was seen as a way of gaining access, of ‘opening up’ new areas for the mission, where people were more welcoming to doctors than preachers. 27 In both texts examined here the medical mission was presented as a means of breaking new ground for the mission. In “Läkaremissionen i Ostindien”, the author suggests that the medical mission could make people overcome caste prejudices, and give access to the homes of women in seclusion. 28 Strachan takes a similar stand with the help of examples of missionary doctors making their way into secluded areas of Kurdistan, into the homes of Muslims and high-caste Hindus. 29 Where ordained missionaries were turned away, medical missionaries could force their doors open. Strachan rejects a critical objection to this method as dishonest in taking advantage of the poor and sick, basing this on personal experience. 30 But the critique raises an important question: the medical mission as an ambition to exercise authority over others. In these texts, where medicine as a mission strategy was introduced to MT readers, it was valued as a method making people otherwise hostile to Christianity both metaphorically and literally open up their doors. The compassionate endeavour to reduce suffering through medical care is intertwined with the ambition to make people susceptible to Christianity,

24 Furberg, Kyrka och mission i Sverige, 219–220. 25 Fitzgerald, “Clinical Christianity,” 122–123. 26 David Hardiman, “Healing Bodies, Saving Souls”: Medical Missions in Asia and Africa (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006), 16. For an overview of the medical practices of other denominations, see: 22–25. 27 Fitzgerald, “Clinical Christianity,” 99, 111, 113; Elin Nordin, “Sjukvård i Indien [Medical care in India],” MT 30, no. 20 (1905): 322–328; Elin Nordin, “Sjukvård i Indien [Medical care in India],” MT 30, no. 21(1905): 337–340. 28 “Läkaremissionen i Ostindien,” 242. 29 Strachan, “Om läkare-mission,” 127. 30 Strachan, “Om läkare-mission,” 146.

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thus expressing ambitions of authority within a discourse of voluntarily seeking help from the missionaries. These two articles were published before any formal medical work was carried out within the CSM. The medical mission was introduced to the readers as a possibility for the future, indicating promises of reaching more people with the Gospel as well as easing the burden for missionaries in times of illness. It was not until several years later, around 1900, that such principles turned into reality. Going from principle to practice of course resulted in changed ways of narrating the possibilities of medicine within the missionary enterprise. Later texts on medical work within the mission periodical consist of accounts written by CSM missionaries themselves. In these accounts it is the latter view of the mission that is visible, adjusted to the practicalities of day-to-day work at the hospital or clinic. Below we shall see how this standpoint was adjusted to the everyday work in one of these regions, India. REPRESENTATIONS FROM SOUTH INDIA Turning to the second part of the analysis, a distinct shift in the prevalence of articles about the medical mission can be noted. When the first twenty-five years saw only two articles about the medical mission, the amount multiplied from 1900 onwards. Between 1900 and 1902 there were a few letters published by the missionaries in Dundee, who worked at the hospital Betania. 31 The initiation of medical work in South India in 1905, however, started a steady flow of texts on the medical mission. From 1906 to 1910 some 30 letters and articles about the medical mission work there were published in the MT. The Swedish missionaries financed by the CSM were initially sent to South India through a German Lutheran mission organisation, the EvangelischLutherische Mission zu Leipzig (ELML). The Swedish bonds to the Leipzig mission were however loosened little by little, and in the early twentieth century the CSM took charge of its own mission stations. It was not until 1914 that a formal agreement was reached, and the Swedish mission in India was fully recognised as a separate mission. 32 Three of the CSM mission stations were founded before 1900, and one each in 1903 and 1908. Over the following decades another ten 31 The letters were written by missionary workers Hedwig Posse, Hilda Swensson and Gustawa Persson, from 1899 until 1902, describing the work at the hospital Betania in Dundee, South Africa. These letters are, however, not considered in this analysis. 32 On the history of CSM in India, see: Furberg, Kyrka och mission i Sverige 1868–1901. The CSM itself has published several books on the mission history, see, for example: Herman Sandegren, Svensk mission och indisk kyrka: Historisk skildring av svenska kyrkans arbete i Sydindien [Swedish mission and Indian church: Historical depiction of the work of the Swedish church in South India] (Stockholm: Svenska Kyrkans Diakonistyrelses Bokförlag, 1924); Carl Gustav Diehl, Arvet från Tranquebar: Kyrka och miljö i södra Indien [The Tranquebar legacy: Church and environment in South India] (Stockholm: Verbum, 1974); Bäfverfeldt, “Vår mission genom sjuttiofem år”, 73–75.

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stations were added to the mission field, some as a result of agreements with the ELML, some newly established. 33 Between its foundation and the mid twentieth century, almost four hundred missionaries, both men and women, were employed by the CSM. Of them about one fourth came to India, together with a considerable number of missionary wives who often contributed widely to the mission work.34 In the first half of the twentieth century, Tamil Christians expressed demands for increased influence over the congregations and schools which they were part of. As a result the ‘Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church’ was founded in 1919, dividing responsibilities for congregational work between missionaries and Tamil Christians. Thirty years later, when India had won its independence from Britain, the CSM handed over the formal responsibility for stations and institutions to the Tamil church, in which Swedish missionaries and Tamil Christians operated schools, churches and dispensaries. 35 In 1905, Doctor Fredrik Kugelberg and his wife, the nurse Eva Kugelberg, arrived on Indian soil for the first time. Fredrik Kugelberg was the first to be employed by the CSM for medical missionary work in Madras presidency, what is now Tamil Nadu. After a few months in Madura (Madurai), they moved on to the small town of Patukota, where they kept a small clinic. A few years later, the mission purchased a piece of land in the town of Tirupattur, northeast of the district capital of Madura. In 1909, they moved in and started their work to establish a new hospital, which grew and prospered over time. Initially, the compound consisted of only a few buildings, but gradually the hospital area grew and forty years later it consisted of clinics, operating rooms, wards and corridors, lodgings for staff and missionaries, premises for cooking, machine halls and workshops. Additionally there was a hospital park, a chapel and a church, a primary school, a nursing school and a school for the blind. In 1948, the staff consisted of 84 employees, amongst whom six were Swedes. 36 Fredrik and Eva Kugelberg became frequent writers for the MT. As the head doctor, Fredrik Kugelberg took a special interest in and responsibility for presenting their work to MT readers. As we have seen, texts about the medical work of the mission did exist before the couple came to work in India, but with their arrival such descriptions were explicitly named ‘medical mission’. They were con33 Svenska Kyrkans Missionsstyrelses Årsbok 1950 (Uppsala, 1950), 168–170. 34 “Svenska kyrkans missionärer 1874–1949 [The missionaries of the Swedish Church 1874– 1949],” Appendix, in Svenska kyrkans mission sjuttiofem år, ed. Svenska kyrkans missionsstyrelse (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1949): 501–517. 35 Diehl, Arvet från Tranquebar, 50–52; Arvid Bäfverfeldt, “Kyrka och mission i Indien: Den nya konstitutionen [Church and mission in India: The new constitution],” in Svenska Kyrkans Missionsstyrelses Årsbok 1950 (Uppsala: Svenska kyrkans missionsstyrelse [Church of Sweden Mission Board], 1950), 10. 36 Fredrik Ysander, “Årsberättelse från Tirupattur lasarett för år 1948, Bilaga B Ekonomisk redogörelse [Yearly report from Tirupattur hospital for the year 1948, Appendix B Economical review]”, Tirupattur 1949, Årsrapporter 1943–1947 [Tirupattur 1949, Yearly reports 1943–1947], Svenska kyrkans mission i Indien arkiv [Church of Sweden mission in India archive], K5:9–10, Svenska kyrkans arkiv i Uppsala [Church of Sweden archives in Uppsala].

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cerned with the everyday work at the clinic in Patukota and later, from 1909, at the hospital of Tirupattur. Two thirds of the texts were written by Fredrik Kugelberg. The narratives contained experiences from day-to-day practice at the mission station, encounters with patients, relations with the Indian co-workers and the goals of the medical mission on a larger scale. I have identified three general themes in these texts. Firstly, several of the texts refer to the patients in relation to caste and social categorisation, raising questions of inequality and Indian social norms. Secondly, texts contain narratives about the patients with a focus on their illness and recovery. Thirdly, several texts focus on the co-workers and their personalities, as well as their role in the future work of the mission. The following analysis will take these three themes as a starting point for a discussion of how the medical missionary work was represented as a political project of change in the missionary periodical. CASTE: CRITIQUE AND COMPROMISES Social injustice was an issue that engaged missionaries in different Christian missions, and they often sided with the poor. In narratives from India the commitment generally took the form of a critique against the caste system, an issue that engaged Protestant missionaries in India. 37 When Kugelberg writes about matters of caste, he does not discuss the fundamental principles, but illustrates the system with the aid of anecdotes, a technique often used by missionaries to vitalise their narratives. In one of his first accounts from the clinic in Patukota, he describes how patients placed themselves according to caste order in the waiting room, despite being given tickets (and being served) according to their order of arrival. One high-caste woman, who was initially critical of the new order, eventually accepted it as a new custom, comparing it to the British railway ticket queue system – which had to be accepted in order to get a ticket. 38 Using this example, Kugelberg illustrates how they worked against caste customs in their day-to-day work by undermining unequal treatment, and how their efforts slowly bore fruit. The question of cooking at the hospital was another matter that exposed the issue of caste practices. Many of the patients would not eat food cooked by the Christian staff, believing their food would then become polluted. In order to meet the different demands of the patients, responsibilities for cooking was handed over to the patients themselves and their relatives. This way of handling the issue can be perceived as giving in to what was called “caste prejudices”, but Kugelberg choose to interpret it as a way of saving the hospital extra work (cooking) whilst 37 Geoffrey Oddie, “Missionaries as Social Commentators: The Indian Case,” in Missionary Encounters: Sources and Issues, eds. Robert A Bickers and Rosemary Seton (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996): 197–210, 200; Gunnel Cederlöf, “The Politics of Caste and Conversion: Conflict among Protestant Missions in Mid-Nineteenth Century India,” Swedish Missiological Themes 88, no. 1 (2000): 131–157. 38 Fredrik Kugelberg, “Från vårt indiska missionsfält: Arbetet bland de sjuka [From our Indian mission field: The work amongst the sick],” MT 32, no. 9 (1907): 170–175, 171.

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keeping the patients happy. 39 If the patients were forced to accept food cooked by Christians, people would prefer not to come. To explain the attitudes towards eating and drinking for the benefit of Swedish readers, Kugelberg tells the story of how a Christian man, trying to help a Hindu man left hungry and thirsty, was turned away. Accepting food and drink from a Christian, Kugelberg explains, would make this man lose his caste. “And what it means to lose one’s caste in India,” he states, “can hardly be grasped at home; it means a lot more than ‘losing one’s civic rights’.” 40 This way of handling the issue indicates a strategy of gradually changing people’s minds rather than forcing them to change ways through prohibitions. The overcoming of caste, in Kugelberg’s view, can thus be perceived as an important part of the mission work, not through forcing people to renounce their caste but by influencing them into new behavioural patterns as well as implanting new priorities in people’s minds. When criticising the strong power of caste and family, Kugelberg likens the mission work to hammering on a granite rock; were the first ten blows, which did not seem to have any effect, to no purpose? No, he states: we know that they did the unseen work underneath the surface, that little by little separated the small pieces from each other, and that, when it was done by strong men’s arms, a child’s hand could have been enough to give the last, separating blow. This is roughly what I think mission work is like out here. 41

The quotation very clearly shows a political aspiration to overcome caste not by force but by persistent work. This way of representing missionary attitudes towards caste can be read against the mid-nineteenth-century debates on caste and Christianity that engaged missionary societies in India, as to whether caste was to be seen as a social or religious practice. Protestant missionaries generally agreed that caste preferences and practices were to be opposed. Some of them, however, argued that caste was to be seen as a civic institution and that converts should not be forced to renounce their caste, thus allowing caste distinctions to be maintained. Such was the position of most Evangelical Lutheran missionaries, including the ELML, but not all of the Swedish missionaries. This debate created a controversy which Swedish historian Gunnel Cederlöf has described as both a power struggle and a struggle over souls. 42 Traces of this controversy can still be noted in texts from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Reverend Harald Frykholm of the 39 Fredrik Kugelberg, “Ett och annat från sjukhuset i Patukota [One thing and another from the hospital in Patukota],” MT 33, no. 22 (1908): 394–399, 397–398. 40 Kugelberg, “Ett och annat från sjukhuset i Patukota,” 397. 41 Fredrik Kugelberg, “Vår läkarmission under 1908. Årsberättelse [Our medical mission during 1908. Annual report];” MT 34, no. 15–16 (1909): 266–271, 271. Swedish original: “vi veta, att just de gjorde det osynliga arbetet i det inre att undan för undan skilja smådelarna från hvarandra, och att, när det väl var gjordt af kraftiga mannaarmar, kunde en barnhand vara nog för att ge det sista, åtskiljande slaget. Så ungefär menar jag, att det är med missionsarbetet härute.” 42 Cederlöf, “The Politics of Caste and Conversion,” 131, 134, 151.

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CMS, working at the time at the Patukota mission station, criticised Lutheran tolerance of caste practices in an article in the MT from 1909. 43 The different viewpoints clearly show how intricate this question was. Kugelberg’s example indicates, on the one hand, that the patients’ caste practices were, if not accepted, at least tolerated, and on the other hand how caste barriers were broken in the waiting room – everyone was supposed to wait in line regardless of caste belonging, and had to comply with this in order to be treated. This partly echoes the fiftyyear-older views of the Swedish missionary Anders Blomstrand, “to go slow and never to use force or enticement to make the Christians overcome caste barriers.” 44 A study of the development of “clinical Christianity” during the long nineteenth century by Rosemary Fitzgerald suggests that such a view was prevalent amongst medical missionaries. An important goal for medical care was to gain people’s trust, to make them come to the hospitals in times of illness and injury. As a result, she suggests, the medical missions were “making concessions to local feelings on matters such as gender, caste, class and communal differences.” 45 This is not to say that caste as practice was in any way encouraged or approved of as an institution. When discussing the food practices in the above example, Kugelberg forcefully criticises the mind-set of people as seeming to equal “medieval superstition and semi-darkness, with its mechanical and demonic ruling of the destinies of human souls.” 46 Representing social categorisation as typically Indian, the medical narratives in the MT establish the view of Indians as bound by tradition and, by fatalistically obeying religious laws, failing to appreciate the equality of human beings. Change was in sight, however, since more and more people were visiting the Christian hospitals. The missionaries’ efforts to accomplish change are portrayed as a slow but steady work against tenacious traditions, demanding gentleness, and patience rather than prohibitions. THE PATIENT NARRATIVE Not surprisingly, the patient is a recurrent figure in the texts depicting medical work. The first five years of practice in Patukota and Tirupattur resulted in several stories of patients recovering under the care of the doctor and his assistants. Many of these stories display a similar narrative structure. 47 In her first year in India, Eva Kugelberg told her readers of two young boys at the compound of Madura who had their eyes destroyed by their mothers’ care. The first boy’s sore eyes were rubbed with crushed brick, his eyesight ruined forever. On learning of his 43 Harald Frykholm, “Årsberättelse för 1908: Ett vandringsår [Annual report for 1908: A year of wandering],” MT 34, no. 15–16 (1909): 262–266. 44 Cederlöf, “The Politics of Caste and Conversion,” 148. 45 Fitzgerald, “Clinical Christianity,” 130. 46 Kugelberg, “Ett och annat från sjukhuset i Patukora,” 397. Swedish original: “medeltidens vidskepelse och halfmörker, med det mekaniska och demoniska regerande människosjälarnas öden.” 47 For examples from later years, see: Gregersen, Fostrande förpliktelser, 67–87.

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fate from the doctor, the Christian boy answered, “Maybe if I had the sight of my eyes, I would have been more tempted to sin; now I will just look up to the heavenly light.” 48 The mother of the second boy rubbed her son’s eyes with ginger, but Fredrik Kugelberg saved his sight at the last minute. 49 Both narratives start by telling the reader about the original, banal illness, the ensuing treatment by Indian practices or practitioners, doing more harm than good, and the arrival at the hospital. Both narratives depict victory over Hindu tradition: the first boy demonstrating a Christian mind and the second boy the success of Western medicine over what was perceived as unscientific treatment. The stories can be read as a way of communication between missionaries and readers, following a dramaturgic structure that anchors the patient in a larger context, contrasting indigenous practices to those of the hospital. If we return briefly to the introductory quotation in this chapter, written by “A friend of the blind”, we remember that it noted the need for a missionary hospital in India. To strengthen its argument, the author referred to the necessity to defeat practices such as treating eye problems with crushed brick and ginger, most likely referring to the narrative of Eva Kugelberg published the year before. 50 In 1908, Fredrik Kugelberg wrote a text about a few patients. One of them was a woman who had pains from a thorn in her foot and had been treated, according to Kugelberg, with “some kind of corrosive stuff, which furthermore was applied almost boiling hot.” 51 The treatment generated a palm-sized wound that spread up the leg. After the abscess had been opened she was now, Kugelberg writes, recovering nicely and looked like a different person from when she first arrived. 52 The story follows a similar structure to previous examples: the original event, the subsequent indigenous medical treatment, the disastrous outcome, the treatment by the missionary doctor and the recovery. A slightly different example of a patient narrative can be found in a text from 1907, where the readers learn of a boy with an abdominal injury. The boy was selling cans of soda when one of them exploded in the sun, leaving him with a large wound in his belly. He was treated at the hospital and slowly cured. In this story, the boy was not initially treated with the help of indigenous rituals, but came directly to the hospital. Rather, the narrative tells about another kind of shift. The friends of the boy, previously hostile to the mission, now turned into affec-

48 Eva Kugelberg, “Vår läkaremission [Our medical mission],” MT 31, no. 3(1906): 45. Swedish original: “kanske om jag fått min ögons ljus, skulle jag blifvit mera frestad till synd; nu vill jag bara blicka upp mot det himmelska ljuset”. 49 Eva Kugelberg, “Vår läkaremission”. 50 En de blindas vän, “Till de seende,” 31. 51 Fredrik Kugelberg, “Från vårt indiska missionsfält: Från sjukhuset i Patukota [From our Indian mission field: From the hospital in Patukota],” MT 33, no. 6 (1908): 101–106, 105. Swedish original: “någon frätande smörja, som dessutom pålades nästan kokande het.” For another example see: Ester Peterson, “Berättelse om en liten patient på sjukhuset i Patukota [A story about a little patient at the hospital in Patukota],” MT 34, no. 4 (1909): 63–68. 52 Kugelberg, “Från sjukhuset i Patukota,” [1908], 105.

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tionate carers, not only treating their friend, but also showing considerable interest in the New Testament. 53 Apart from the first boy, who lived at the mission compound, the patients discussed here turned to the hospital as a last resort or by chance. While being given bodily treatment their minds were exposed to the Gospel. This creates narratives where medical and religious aspects of work are intertwined. One often-used example was that of making people see through eye surgery – as in the quotes discussed above, or when Fredrik Kugelberg comments on a treatment of a patient: … even for us it had been a time of preparation with prayers to the great Doctor, that he would bless our undertaking and give our patient, who was a heathen, not only the light of the eye but also the light of the soul. 54

As Kugelberg was an eye surgeon, he treated many patients with eye problems. Narratives of eye treatments could be used as illustrations of the ‘double cure’ discussed above, where the ‘opening’ of the person’s eyes was described as double, curing both physical and spiritual blindness. The examples discussed follow two main structures, the first mainly depicting the relation between traditional and modern medicine and the second focusing more on the conversion of the patient to Christianity. Thus, they demonstrate a perceived need for the mission work by providing people with alternatives to indigenous medical practices as well as a way of awakening interest in Christianity through medical mission work. There are no explicit comments on the intertextualities in these narratives; rather they indicate a common idea of the patient’s being part of a wider structure of illness and health within Indian society and in relation to the missionary practice. CO-WORKERS AND THE FUTURE OF INDIA Along with the missionaries another group of people was crucial for carrying out missionary work: the native Indians employed as assistants, nurses, bible women and teachers in schools, nurseries and hospitals. In these early accounts of the medical mission, Indian co-workers were given an important role. “To an incredible extent,” writes Fredrik Kugelberg, “it depends on them whether the Christian name is to be highly regarded or abused amongst the outsiders.” 55 In an article from the following year he stresses the difficulty of finding reliable and honest

53 Fredrik Kugelberg, “Från vårt indiska missionsfält: Från sjukhuset i Patukota [From our Indian mission field: From the hospital in Patukota],” MT 32, no. 21 (1907): 375–382, 380–381. 54 Fredrik Kugelberg, “‘Ögongubben’: Den förste starrpatienten [‘The eye man’: The first cataract patient],” MT 31, no. 19 (1906): 317–321, 319. Swedish original: “… att det äfven för oss hade varit en tid af förberedelse med bön till den store läkaren, att han ville välsigna vårt företag och skänka vår patient, som var hedning, ej blott ögats utan äfven själens ljus.” 55 Kugelberg, “Från sjukhuset i Patukota [1908],” 103. Swedish original: “På dem beror otroligt mycket, om det kristna namnet skall bli högaktadt eller smädadt bland de utomstående.”

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helpers. 56 The processes of giving unsuitable employees notice as well as finding new ones to replace them engaged Kugelberg; in the annual report from 1908 he states that he has repeatedly highlighted the problem of finding suitable – and trustworthy – recruits. 57 In one of his first texts from India, he reports from a medical missionary conference at Kodaikanal that the question of finding employees for the medical mission, trained in medicine but with a Christian spirit suitable for mission work, was one of the most important issues discussed. 58 A few of the co-workers turned into beloved colleagues and friends. Pakiam, a bible woman, James, Anandam and Kristina, assistant workers, and Rasendiram, a pastor candidate, were all praised for their truthfulness, their willingness to do practical work, their cheerfulness, trustworthiness and zeal. 59 Fredrik Kugelberg writes about Pakiam’s love of practical work and about the transformation of Kristina who initially found the work very humiliating, with caste and personality given as reasons, but how the caste identity faded away and she eventually, more than most, worked conscientiously and rigorously. 60 Presenting the eagerness and trustworthiness of these people as unusual in turn reinforced the (counter-)image of the Indian as lazy, unwilling and unreliable. A related question was that of handing over responsibility to the native coworkers. At a later stage in the history of the CSM in India, demands for greater autonomy amongst Indian Christian and staff grew. 61 How much independence were Indian staff members believed to be capable of handling? What was the missionary’s role in the process of individual development? Such questions were related to issues concerning the role of the Christian mission for the future India. In the first decade of the twentieth century, however, such questions were not often addressed in the Swedish medical missionary narratives. They were mostly present in indirect statements about personality and suitability, like those mentioned 56 Kugelberg, “Vår läkarmission under 1908,” 268. 57 Kugelberg “Vår läkarmission under 1908,” 268. For other examples, see: Kugelberg, “Från sjukhuset i Patukota [1907],” 377; Fredrik Kugelberg, “Från vårt indiska missionsfält: Vår läkarmission under 1909. Årsberättelse [From our Indian mission field: Our medical mission during 1909. Annual report],” MT 35, no. 20 (1910): 338–344, 343. 58 Fredrik Kugelberg, “Från vårt indiska missionsfält: Till ‘Kodi’ på läkaremissionärskonferen [From our Indian mission field: To ‘Kodi’ on medical missionary conference],” MT 31, no. 17(1906): 289–292, 290. For another example of the importance of personal character, see: Kugelberg, “Från sjukhuset i Patukota [1907],” 377. Kodaikanal is a hill station in present Tamil Nadu where many Christian missionaries of different nationalities, working in the Madras presidency, met during the hot season. 59 Kugelberg, “Från sjukhuset i Patukota [1907],” 375–376; Kugelberg, “Arbetet bland de sjuka,” 172; Fredrik Kugelberg, “Från vårt indiska missionsfält: Sjukhuset i Tirupatur [From our Indian mission field: The hospital in Tirupatur],” MT 35, no. 6 (1910): 23–28. 60 On Pakiam see: Fredrik Kugelberg, “Från sjukhuset i Patukota [1907],” 375-6. On Kristina see: Fredrik Kugelberg, “Sjukhuset i Tirupatur,” 25. 61 Within the CSM questions of autonomy and relations to the Tamil Lutherans were discussed throughout the first half of the twentieth century. In 1926, it was officially stated that the goal for all missionary work was to work for an independent and stable Indian church. See: Bäfverfeldt, “Kyrka och mission i Indien: Den nya konstitutionen,” 10.

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above. That it was an issue provoking debate can be observed in a report from a medical conference in Bombay (Mumbai). An example was given stating that a medical missionary left the care of the hospital to a native doctor during furlough, but on return found the mission in decay. 62 This can be compared to the discussions during later periods, when Indian doctors took charge of Tirupattur on Fredrik Kugelberg’s leave, and were praised very highly for their work. 63 The Reverend Harald Frykholm, working as missionary pastor in Tirupattur, however, dismisses calls for independence, referring to the political influence of the highcaste groups: The high castes’ power to hold the lower peoples in serfdom and ignorance is still remarkably strong. And still there are calls here for independence for Indians, and the democrats in England join in the call! I prefer not to think about what chaos would ensue here if England were now to take its strong and generally fair hand from ruling the people of India. 64

Frykholm’s statement from 1911 takes a very strong stand for the colonial power. Such a direct political statement in support of British governance was rather unusual in the CSM medical missionary accounts, and missionaries were expected to keep a low profile in political matters to avoid provoking both the indigenous population and the British power. Still, support for British rule was strong; willingness to adhere to indigenous demands for influence did however grow stronger over the years. 65 The attention given to the character of the Indian co-workers can be understood in relation to the wider goals of the mission: to spread the Gospel and to prepare the ground for a future Christian India. The co-workers were important tools in the endeavour to permeate India with Christian influences and to generate willingness for change amongst India’s people. The medical missionaries’ vocation was to spread the words of Christ and to defeat bodily suffering with Christian compassion and medical expertise. The ambition to establish a hospital and to share knowledge with others was therefore part of a larger project to change people’s way of thinking and living. Representations of the process of influencing others often took the form of organic metaphors – such as planting a seed or harvesting. Metaphors like these were often used in the periodical’s articles to describe how the goals of the mission were to be accomplished on a wider scale. Likening the work to a piece of sourdough that makes the whole dough sour was another often-used metaphor 62 Kugelberg, “Läkarekongressen i Bombay,” 301. 63 Gregersen, Fostrande förpliktelser, 196–197. 64 Harald Frykholm, “Missionsarbetet i Tirupatur 1910 [The mission work in Tirupatur],” MT 36, no. 10 (1911): 154–158, 155–156. Swedish original: “Högkasternas makt att hålla det lägre folket nere i träldom och okunnighet är ännu häpnadsväckande stor. Och ändå ropas här på själfstyrelse för indierna, och demokraterna i England instämma i ropet! Jag vill ej tänka på, hvilket kaos här skulle inträda, ifall England nu toge sin starka och i det stora hela rättvisa hand från ledningen af Indiens folk.” 65 Ester Peterson, “Något om Indiens ungdom [Something on India’s youth],” Bilder och brev: Meddelanden från Svenska kyrkans mission [Images and letters: Notifications from the Church of Sweden Mission] appendix to MT 4, no. 1 (1925): 4–10, 5.

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depicting the persistent and steady work. 66 Such parables are allusions to the Bible, 67 strongly rooting the rhetoric of advances and setbacks within a Christian framework. Even though growth was slow and recurring impediments were expected, such metaphors indicated that goals were to be fulfilled in the long run. Dreams of a gradual but steady spread of Christianity all over India are revealed in the following quotation from Kugelberg, where he describes the belief “that India, when its preparation time comes to an end, perhaps as in no other country will be the arena for a mass movement in the direction towards Christianity.” 68 The organic metaphors of a work slowly permeating the country are founded on a perception of the missionaries’ roles as catalysts. They were not in India to stay indefinitely but to give impulses and then leave. The goal of a Christian India was thereby situated in the future; a future where hospital and congregation work was done by Indian Christians, making Swedish forces superfluous. Need for Swedish missionaries in the present, on the contrary, was represented as urgent. In her text on medicine in India Elin Nordin defines three major needs for the future Swedish medical mission: a hospital, Swedish nurses and a female doctor. 69 Soon Kugelberg joined her call and urgently requested both a Swedish nurse and a female doctor to meet demands in India. 70 Twenty years later the Swedish nurses eagerly discussed the arrangements for an Indian nurse school in Tirupattur – but at this earlier stage no such suggestions were yet raised. This analysis has focused on the representations of the relationship between the Swedish mission workers and their Indian co-workers. The ideal future was one of an India where Christianity and Christian morals had spread to the whole continent. In this process the co-workers were given an important role, and the missionaries were just seen as catalysts. Narratives of co-workers focus on their willingness to work, their trustworthiness and their zeal, presenting them as important for the future success of the medical mission. The missionaries in these earlier texts play a more accentuated role than in later accounts where the question of autonomy is emphasised much more. 71 The goal of a Christian India, where morals and science followed the missionaries’ standards, was thus placed in the future, while the present was more focused on the missionary presence and the need for their work.

66 For example, see: Kugelberg, “Arbetet bland de sjuka,” 174; Frykholm, “Årsberättelse för 1908: Ett vandringsår,” 263; Fredrik Kugelberg, “Ett tack från sjukhuset i Tirupattur [Thanks from the hospital in Tirupattur],” MT 35, no. 6 (1910): 91–93, 93. 67 For example, see: Matt 13:31–33, Luk 13:15–21, Mark 4:30–32. 68 Fredrik Kugelberg, “Vår läkarmission under 1908,” 271. Swedish original: “Att just Indien, när dess förberedelsetid är till ända, skall bli skådeplatsen för en massrörelse i riktning mot kristendomen som i kanske intet annat land.” See also: Eva Kugelberg, “Stundom att rädda de arma [Sometimes to save the poor],” MT 31, no. 13–14 (1906): 228–231, 230. 69 Nordin, “Sjukvård i Indien,” 340. 70 Kugelberg, “Från sjukhuset i Patukota,” [1907], 377–378; Kugelberg, “Sjukhuset i Tirupatur,” 27. 71 Gregersen, Fostrande förpliktelser, 235–239.

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MEDICAL MISSION, MISSIONARY PERIODICALS AND STRATEGIES OF CHANGE The purpose of this chapter has been to discuss the introduction of the medical mission project to the CSM and how it was seen as a strategy of change at the end of the nineteenth century. The focus has been on the representations of medical missionary narratives aimed at a home audience who in turn provided the missionaries with both social and financial support. Narratives of medical mission work introduced a domain that gained increasing support during the latter part of the nineteenth century. First introduced to the MT readers in the 1880s, it did not become formally established until twenty years later. However, by the end of the long nineteenth century the presence of the medical mission in the MT had intensified and the medical work in South India gained increased support. Through time, the resources available and the number of Swedish nurses and doctors increased, and the move from a small clinic in a rented building to a properly equipped larger hospital compound allowed for considerable growth. In the long run this introduced a shift towards a more professionalised medical work that can be seen in other medical missions as well. 72 The turn of the century bore with it a change towards a more socially focused mission where the medical mission came to play an important part. Social work also stands at the heart of the narratives from the medical mission, engaging readers in the destinies of individual patients and their path towards Christianity. The slow and steady work to open up people towards a Christian lifestyle and against established religious and medical practices was part of a narrative placing the readers and the missionaries at the beginning of the work to change the future Indian society. In the MT the missionaries had the privilege of formulation. Their accounts are permeated with evaluations of customs and character, building narrative structures of ideals that were presented to the readers. Seeing politics as the intention to exercise authority over others, I read the missionaries’ project of representing their work amongst Indian ‘Others’ to readers in Sweden as expressions of political ambition. In the MT, the Tamil people of Patukota and Tirupattur, the patients and co-workers, became rhetorical figures in a project of communication. Depicting the suffering and the need, as well as the small victories and the good examples, they shortened the distance between author and reader, made the distant landscape come alive and the project seem crucial. The articles provided readers with images of a foreign country; images shaped by the missionaries’ world views and will to share their knowledge, their faith and their morals with others and thus making the world a better place by their standards. With the outspoken ambitions of redefining the Indian person as a subject and India as political and religious system, the texts can be read as political exercises. But the exercise of authority in the periodical must also be read in relation to the life lived at the mission station. The need to give in to caste practices, observed above, becomes a reminder that the everyday work on the mission station 72 Hardiman, “Healing Bodies, Saving Souls,” 16–17.

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was a constant negotiation. Fredrik Kugelberg criticised the caste system as a social system but he and his colleagues, in tune with what was done at other medical mission stations, compromised their own principles in order not turn people away. At the same time the views on social categorisation exposed a critical view of Indian social and religious customs. Such a critique is likewise present in the narratives of individual patients and their fates. The ‘strange’ ‘Other’ was presented to the reader as part of an anonymous mass: in the waiting room, in the streets, as critics of the mission or as superstitious practitioners of religious or medical traditions. Groups of ‘Others’ were used to illustrate a need for change and for continued mission work. In contrast, individual patients and co-workers were often used as good examples illustrating the possibilities of change. Accounts of treated patients communicate a political ambition to change people with the help of medicine and Christianity intertwined, striving to make people willing to change and thereby underlining a discourse of individualism and voluntariness. They were also given a lead role in the project of changing India: patients in narratives illustrated the victory of the individual over Hindu traditions, and co-workers were key figures in the narratives of a future India permeated by Christianity and Western medicine. They can thus be read as symbols of change of both the individual and the country. As such, they make up an important part of the missionary periodical narrative in which the necessity of the missionary endeavour is firmly established. Through the widely read periodicals, such ideals and goals were spread and embraced amongst the larger missionary society.

MISSIONARY PERIODICALS AS A GENRE 1 Models of Writing, Horizons of Expectation Hanna Acke The medium of missionary periodicals, especially their political function, is the subject matter of this volume. In this article I argue that it is helpful to use genre as an analytical category to examine the form and function of this type of publication. In doing so, I draw mostly on Tzvetan Todorov’s Genres in Discourse. 2 Although he is interested in literary genres in particular, Todorov makes some general claims about how genres can be understood. He suggests that they necessarily have two components, one discursive and one historical. The discursive component refers to the “recurrence of certain discursive properties” 3 which make up a distinct genre. With the notion of the historical, he stresses that these properties need to be institutionalised to form a genre, and that a genre also has to be recognised as such. All individual texts are then produced and perceived in relation to the norms the institutionalisation of the genre has established. Therefore, genres “function as ‘horizons of expectation’ for readers as well as ‘models of writing’ for authors.” 4 However, this does not imply that all texts belonging to a genre necessarily confirm to all its norms: The fact that a work ‘disobeys’ its genre does not mean that the genre does not exist. It is tempting to say ‘quite the contrary,’ for two reasons. First because, in order to exist as such, the transgression requires a law – precisely the one that is to be violated. We might go even further and observe that the norm becomes visible – comes into existence – owing only to its transgression. 5

Utilising John Frow’s catalogue of structural dimensions of genre I would like to argue that Todorov’s discursive properties of genre can be analysed on three different levels: on the level of formal organisation; on the level of rhetorical structure; and, on the level of thematic content. These are not mutually exclusive cate-

1 2 3 4 5

I would like to thank Levke Harders, Felicity Jensz, Katharina Pohl and Charlotta Seiler Brylla for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter. Tzvetan Todorov, Genres in Discourse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). The following paragraph refers to pages 14–19 especially. Todorov, Genres in Discourse, 17. Todorov, Genres in Discourse, 18. Todorov, Genres in Discourse, 14.

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gories, as Frow also stresses, 6 but should rather be seen as analytical categorisations enabling an investigation of the properties of a certain genre. Based on this understanding of genre, I will describe discursive properties on each of these structural levels using the example of the periodical Missionsförbundet, which was the main publication of the Swedish evangelical missionary society and later independent church Svenska Missionsförbundet [Swedish Missionary Covenant]. 7 The period that I have chosen for analysis starts with the publication’s founding in 1883 and lasts approximately until the beginning of WWI. I will examine how the recurrence of formal, rhetorical and thematic properties in the periodical influenced its various functions. That is, what effects might have followed from certain discursive properties of this missionary periodical. FORMAL PROPERTIES OF THE MISSIONARY PERIODICAL MISSIONSFÖRBUNDET Formal organisation, as the term suggests, is used by Frow to describe the formal properties of genres. For written genres, he mentions among others layout, grammar, length of texts, textual cohesion and stylistic choices. 8 For the missionary periodical I have distinguished properties such as periodicity, format and size, layout and fonts, use of a masthead, printed form, use of pictures, and types and lengths of articles that make up the generic character on the level of formal organisation. The property of periodicity, working in tandem with some of the other formal features of missionary journals, can be seen as generating certain functions, and thus, I have chosen to use this property as a starting point in this section. Within this volume all authors have used periodical materials in their analyses; Wendt, for example, discusses the property of periodicity as a means in making the publication accessible to a larger public. Missionsförbundet 9 was also issued periodically: during the nineteenth century the frequency of publication was monthly (from January 1883 to November 1889), and later fortnightly (from December 1889 to December 1918, when it was

6 7

8 9

John Frow, Genre (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), 74–76. In 2003 Svenska Missionsförbundet changed its name to Svenska Missionskyrka [Mission Covenant Church of Sweden], see: Svenska Missionskyrkan: “Årtal i Svenska Missionskyrkans historia [Dates in the History of the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden],” accessed January 12, 1012, http://www.missionskyrkan.se/Svenska-Missionskyrkan/Missions kyrkan/Historik/Artal-i-var-historia/. In 2012 it fused with the Swedish Baptist Union and the Swedish Methodist Church, see: “Gemensam Framtid,” accessed August 30, 2012. http:// gemensamframtid.se/. Frow, Genre, 74. During the first three years of its publication from 1883 to 1885 it was called Svenska Missionsförbundet.

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changed to weekly). 10 Even though the frequency of publication was changed twice in the course of thirty years, periodicity can be identified as a formal property of this publication. Publishing Missionsförbundet periodically, that is, regularly and frequently, made it possible for the journal to also exhibit another feature: currency. In media theory, currency refers to the fact that papers are expected to cover recent events in their reporting. 11 That is why currency is closely related to periodicity: A single publication like a book can surely cover one recent event, but it takes a periodical to cover recent events in the plural. Although it could sometimes take up to three months from the time of writing for a letter from a missionary to be published in Missionsförbundet, the periodical actually met the criterion of currency. The missionary news from Congo and China simply took several months to reach its destination in Sweden. According to its first editorial, the periodical Missionsförbundet was founded “to provide the friends of the mission with the possibility of following the activities of the Covenant more closely.” 12 That is, currency was an explicit goal. In this editorial, the board also chose to call their publication ‘tidning’ [(news)paper] rather than ‘tidskrift’ [journal or magazine]. This might have been a way of underlining their ambitions to provide reliable and current reports on their own as well as other organisation’s foreign missions. Using generic features of newspapers allowed the society’s journal to be taken seriously as a trustworthy and authoritative source of knowledge. Apart from being closely connected to the feature of currency, periodicity of publication provides a print product with a number of possible effects, one of which is that a publication is easily recognisable when there is a high continuity in regard to format and layout. As I will expand on below, being recognisable is likely to affect feelings of stability, reliability, recognition, familiarity, and even of trust and emotional attachment towards the publication in readers. From its founding in 1883 until the end of 1894 the periodical was published in exactly the same format. The paper had the size of a book or a small pamphlet and the usual number of pages for each issue was 12. In preparation for a change of format from book- to newspaper-size from January 1895 onwards, the final issue of 1894 included an announcement of the proposed changes on its first page explicitly intended to prepare the readers. 13 The fact that the editor saw it as necessary to announce a change on this level shows that stability in regard to format was highly cherished, because it made the periodical recognisable and familiar, 10 Missionsförbundet was issued until 1939 when it merged with the societies’ journal for young people Ungdomsvännen [Friend of the Young] to become Svensk Veckotidning [Swedish Weekly Paper]. 11 Michael Schaffrath, “Zeitung,” in Grundwissen Medien, ed. Werner Faulstich, 5th ed. (München: Wilhelm Fink, 2004): 484–506, 483. 12 Redaktionen, “Anmälan [Announcement],” Svenska Missionsförbundet 1, no. 1 (1883): 1–2, 1. Swedish original: “…bereda missionsvännerna tillfälle att närmare följa förbundets verksamhet.” Note: All translations from Swedish included in this chapter are mine. 13 E[rik] J. Ekman, “Anmälan [Announcement],” Missionsförbundet 12, no. 24 (1894): 1.

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and thereby also trustworthy. This might also have been a reason why the new format was not popular – after only one year it was changed again to a considerably smaller size. 14 Of at least equal importance in serving the aims of being recognisable as well as of providing stability and familiarity, was the publication’s masthead, known also as its nameplate. 15 Even though the masthead of Missionsförbundet was always changed along with the format, and also modified independently a number of times, it nevertheless evoked stability. During the 32 years under examination (from 1883 to 1914), the masthead was changed a total of six times. Except for the period around 1895 when the format was altered twice within little more than a year, it remained constant for three to nine consecutive years. Furthermore, even when changes were made, there were usually also continuities, so that the periodical would immediately be recognised evoking a feeling of familiarity. For example, when a new masthead was inserted in Missionsförbundet in January 1905 after nine years of continuity, it incorporated many features of its predecessor.

Figure 1: Masthead of the periodical Missionsförbundet from 1896 to 1904. Photo courtesy: Archive of Svenska Missionskyrkan.

14 The editors did nevertheless not return to book size, which I interpret as a sign that they wanted to stress the newspaper-like character of the publication and thereby emphasise its seriousness and reliability. 15 By having a masthead the publication also made references to newspapers rather than books.

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Figure 2: Masthead of the periodical Missionsförbundet from 1905 to 1910. Photo courtesy: Archive of Svenska Missionskyrkan.

To begin with, the layout of the title page stayed the same with the masthead taking up the upper third of the page. Moreover, the layout within the masthead was hardly altered. Before and after 1905 it consisted of three images, a circular one in the centre and two rectangular ones on both sides. One difference was that two torches, denoting the light of Christianity that will be dealt with in detail below, were added in the later version, framing the images on both sides. However, even though the images were clearly changed, their motifs remained the same. The round images show a cross that is radiating light surrounded by four kneeling figures praying and either looking up to the cross or bowing their heads. One of the figures is Jesus Christ; the other three symbolise the three main ‘mission fields’ of the society: Congo, China and what the missionaries called East Turkestan, which today is the Xinjiang province of China. Only minor details were changed. The image on the left in both versions shows people walking towards a building, yet while the older masthead clearly depicts a Swedish scene with a mission house, the newer one represents a Congolese scene with a church. Thus, even though the changes in this image are striking, the theme nevertheless remains constant: Christians on their way to a religious service or some other form of religious meeting. By changing the geographical location while depicting the same scene, the new image not only provided continuity across time, but also across space. This indicated the society’s conviction of the global validity of their missionary ideals and their Evangelical Christian way of life. The third image, located on the right side of the page, shows a white missionary preaching to a group of black people gathered around him. Only minor changes in the perspective have been made, and the sea in the background of the earlier masthead has disappeared, probably to ease the identification of the image with the society’s own mission field in inland

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Congo. All in all, the continuities in the images are striking, rendering them familiar in spite of their redesign. 16 The change of masthead can be interpreted as an attempt by the editorial board to modernise the external appearance of the publication, and to adapt it to contemporary preferences. Obviously, they were well aware that this aspect influenced whether their publication would have been perceived of as a reliable source of knowledge. Periodicity also allowed the editors to include serialised stories or accounts, published in several subsequent issues of the journal. While these provided the editors with the opportunity of publishing longer articles than the length of the periodical would have normally permitted, they also had the effect of keeping the readers interested, attaching them to the periodical and its themes as they had to wait for the next issue to be able to read more or when they recognised familiar subjects in the articles. The first and second issues of Missionsförbundet had already included a serialised account on the “Mission among the Kabyle people.” 17 The letters of the missionaries that will be dealt with in detail below were also in a sense serial, because letters by the same missionaries were often published over a period of years or even decades. 18 The periodical form of the publication enabled readers to develop a close relationship with the missionaries through these letters, following their accounts on a regular basis. The missionaries and their deeds described could function as role models for the readers. To sum up: Periodicity made it possible for missionary journals to induce features like currency, reliability, stability and familiarity, thereby evoking interest as well as emotional attachment in readers. RHETORICAL PROPERTIES OF THE MISSIONARY PERIODICAL MISSIONSFÖRBUNDET Within the second level, that of rhetorical structure, Frow refers to the organisation of the textual relations between senders and receivers, or, in other words, the situation of address. Here he mentions immediate and mediated relations between senders and receivers, different modalities of speech acts such as necessity, possibility, knowledge or belief, obligation, permission and desire, as well as the degree of formality. 19

16 The continuities between these images are especially striking when compared to the subsequent change that was made in the design of the title page in 1911, when an angel playing a trumpet adorned the cover of the journal. 17 “Missionen bland kabylerna [Part 1],” Svenska Missionsförbundet 1, no. 1 (1883): 13–16; “Missionen bland kabylerna [Part 2],” Svenska Missionsförbundet 1, no. 2 (1883): 20–22. 18 Generally, exchanges of letters can be seen as a periodical form of writing although they lack the regularity of periodicals. 19 Frow, Genre, 74–75.

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Authors of missionary periodicals made use of both immediate as well as mediated relations with receivers. Especially when addressing their readers as the ‘friends of the mission’ or when appealing to them to pray for the missionaries or to give money for the cause of the mission, they evoked a very immediate as opposed to mediated relationship. This was obviously a common strategy and can be identified as a generic property of missionary periodicals, as other articles in this volume have shown. Gregersen refers to the address as ‘friends of the mission’ and Jagodzińska and Wu mention the functions of the periodicals as fund-raising tools, in which the readers were asked to donate money as well as to support the cause of the mission through prayer. Mediated relations to the readers were created when letters were not addressed directly to the ‘friends of the mission’ but to the secretary of the society or to family members, when the content of letters was summarised by the editors, or when articles were included from other publications or speeches were reported. The creation of relationships to readers was not just a tactic targeting a European readership, rather, as Richter has demonstrated in her paper on the Papua New Guinean periodical Ââkesiŋ, indigenous converts also evoked mediated and immediate relations through the use of common language and referral to culturally specific backgrounds. For this article I have chosen to analyse in detail the printed letters of missionaries, which were a regular feature of missionary periodicals. Through their often immediate forms of address, letters manifest a special significance for the function of missionary periodicals. Journals analysed by Richter, Klein, Morrison and Wu in this collection contained letters as the main, or an important, type of article. The Lettres édifiantes et curieuses that serve as source material in Wendt’s article even carried the word ‘letter’ in their titles. During the period under observation, letters were the main type of text published in Missionsförbundet. Every issue included at least one or two, but sometimes up to six letters by missionaries from the ‘foreign mission fields’ addressed either directly to the readers as ‘dear friends of the mission’ or to the secretary of the society. The missionaries were expected to write letters to the society regularly as a means of accounting for their work on the mission field. 20 Face-to-face communication, such as furloughs and visitations, was rare, and thus writing letters was one of the most important direct means of communication between the missionaries and the society. 21 Considering that the society in Sweden received many letters every month, including these in the periodical was a very efficient way of informing the readers on the advances and setbacks in spreading the Gospel in the mission fields. The handwritten letters were typeset and at times edited

20 Hilma Börjeson, “Wuchang d. 8 juni 1895,” Missionsförbundet 13, no. 16 (1895): 123–124, 123. 21 Every couple of years the missionaries travelled to Sweden on furlough, where they went on tour to share their experiences in ‘the mission field’ with people in the local congregations. A couple of times, delegates from the missionary society also undertook travels to the mission field to inspect the society’s progress in spreading the Gospel.

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to be integrated into Missionsförbundet. 22 Besides filling the pages of the periodical, letters fulfilled two main functions. Firstly, the contents were seen as authentic by the readers and thereby the publication was perceived as an authoritative source of knowledge on the people and societies in the respective areas. Secondly, as mentioned above, it created an emotional attachment in the readers towards the periodical and especially towards those missionaries who wrote letters on a regular basis. This was not a one-sided process: writing letters to be published on a regular basis also created a form of belonging on the part of the respective missionaries. 23 Thereby, missionary periodicals, and especially their use of missionary letters, re/invented the respective missionary society as well as the broader faction of awakened Christians as an ‘imagined community.’ 24 Letters generally display features that grant them a very high degree of authenticity. 25 I am interested in which features of the missionary correspondence can be seen as typical for letters in general and which are more unusual. All letters printed in the periodical began with the name of the place where the respective missionary was located (usually a mission station, but in cases of missionaries on travel also other towns or villages) followed by the date when they were written. At the beginning of the main body of a letter there was some kind of greeting phrase, and it always ended with regards and wishes followed by the name of the writer. 26 An element that was not generally included in many other letters, but that was usually integrated in the missionaries’ writings, was a quote from the Bible, positioned right beneath the location and date. Further formal features marking the edited missionary letters as a special form of correspondence are located on different levels: After the practice of printing missionaries’ letters in Missionsförbundet had become a well-established custom, the missionaries started to address their letters directly to the ‘friends of the mission’. Instead of being an official communication between each missionary and the society’s secretary, or a private form of exchange between two (or more) people, this form of writing by one individual was directed to a theoretically unlimited number of people, united only 22 Jensz’ chapter in this volume considers the process of editing missionary writing in detail. 23 On the mutuality of the relationship between authors and readers of autobiographical forms of writing see: Philippe Lejeune, Der autobiographische Pakt (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1994). 24 For the concept of imagined communities see: Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd ed. (London and New York: Verso, 1991). 25 For definitions of the genre of the letter see, for example: Amanda Gilroy and W. M. Verhoeven, “Introduction,” Prose Studies 19, no. 2 (1996): 121–126; Erika Krauße, “Vorbemerkung: Der Brief als wissenschaftshistorische Quelle,” in Der Brief als wissenschaftshistorische Quelle, ed. Erika Krauße, (Berlin: VWB-Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung, 2005): 1–28, 9–10; Reinhard M. G. Nickisch, Brief (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1991), 9–12; and Walter Uka, “Brief,” in Grundwissen Medien, ed. Werner Faulstich, 5th ed. (München: Wilhelm Fink, 2004): 110–128, 110. 26 Almost all letters have one author only, with exceptions including thank-you letters after Christmas.

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through the fact that they supported the missionary society morally and/or financially. Even though the missionaries also received letters from Sweden (by the society’s officials and also by individual ‘friends of the mission’) this correspondence – as published in the periodical – was less of an exchange and more of a one-sided form of accounting. Missionary correspondence, especially in its published form, thus differed significantly both from official writing as well as from private handwritten letters. 27 These tended to be directed towards individuals, even though they were often less private in nineteenth-century Sweden than nowadays, through for example the practice of having them read aloud at family gatherings. 28 The simple fact that the letters existed in more than one copy because they were printed enhanced this even further. Nevertheless, edited and printed missionary letters displayed many features of the genre of the letter as defined in research. By keeping to its original form instead of, for example, presenting summarised accounts from various letters, the editors of the missionary periodical could retain the feeling of immediacy that came with these kinds of texts. Reading the missionaries’ greeting phrases, wishes and appeals directly addressed to them as well as the depictions of life and work in the mission field was the closest that the ‘friends of the mission’ could come to, as well as the only way to experience, these regions far away from their home. Through this seemingly immediate form of writing the distance between the supporters in Sweden and the missionaries working among the so-called ‘heathen populations’ in other parts of the world could be overcome. Janet Gurkin Altman has described this function of letters as connectors between two distant points with the metaphor of the bridge between the sender and the receiver. 29 The letters thus covered the distance between missionary in Africa or Asia and ‘friend of the mission’ in Sweden, creating feelings of immediacy, closeness, understanding, compassion and familiarity. Missionaries were the society’s eye-witnesses in the field, a status that they were well aware of, even after returning to Sweden. They were the only ones who had actually seen, heard and experienced the situation in the mission fields. Being eye-witnesses was a recurrent theme in their writings, with its significance further reinforced through reiteration. For example, in a letter from Congo from 1901 the missionary Albert Holm writes to the ‘friends of the mission’: “It is a pity though that you cannot see what we saw, and hear what we 27 See: Lize Kriel, “From Private Journal to Published Periodical: Gendered Writings and Readings of a Late Victorian Wesleyan’s ‘African Wilderness’,” Book History 11, (2008): 169– 198. 28 See: Malin Gregersen, Fostrande förpliktelser: Representationer av ett missionsuppdrag i Sydindien under 1900-talets första hälft [Fostering Obligations: Representations of a Mission Task in South India during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century] (Lund: Lunds universitet, 2010), 39; Eva H. Ulvros, Fruar och mamseller: Kvinnor inom sydsvensk borgerlighet 1790–1870 [Mrs. and Miss: Women in Southern Swedish Bourgeoisie 1790–1870] (Lund: Historiska Media, 1996), 23. 29 Janet G. Altman, Epistolarity: Approaches to a Form (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1982), 13.

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heard. Your hearts would be moved to more thankfulness to the Lord.” 30 This quote also shows that the letter’s function as a bridge is paradoxical. While bridging the gap at the same time it raises awareness of the very existence of a gap. 31 The letter is the only way for the ‘friends of the mission’ to ‘see’ the situation in the mission field, but they do not see it with their own eyes. This paradox is especially present in the second sentence. Holm indirectly accused the ‘friends of the mission’ of not being thankful enough. He appealed to the function of the letter as a bridge, urging the readers to put more trust into his accounts. At the same time he excused them – they did not, after all, have the first-hand-experience that he had been granted. Their status as eye-witnesses, retained through their letters, awarded the missionaries authenticity as well as establishing them as authorities regarding the respective region of the world. Although missionaries, as with all authors of letters, provided readers with distinctively personal accounts of events, their letters were read as representative of missionary views in general and even of the situation in the respective part of the world on the whole. Thus, combining the letter as a type of article with the printed typesetting of the periodical assigned the missionaries’ accounts an exceptionally high degree of authority. Apart from generating authenticity and authority, the form of the letter also guaranteed emotional attachment on the part of the readers and created a sense of shared identity and purpose. Not only, as mentioned above, did some of the missionaries write letters on a regular basis, so that the readers ‘knew’ them well and could follow their paths for a succession of years. 32 It was especially through the immediate forms of address that missionaries used when approaching the ‘friends of the missions’ directly in their letters that they tied the readers to their mutual cause. They emphasised their share in accomplishments and at the same time urged them to sustain their efforts. At a later stage in the letter cited above missionary Holm writes:

30 Albert Holm, “Mukimbungu den 22 okt. 1901,” Missionsförbundet 20, no. 1 (1902): 4–5, 5. Swedish original: “Skada bara, att I ej kunnen se, hvad vi sågo, och höra, hvad vi hörde. Edra hjärtan skulle då stämmas till mera tacksamhet mot Herren.” 31 On the paradoxical nature of letters see: Altman, Epistolarity. 32 For example, Karl Edvard Laman (in Congo), Hilma Börjeson, Sven M. Fredén as well as Johan and Eva Sköld (all four in China) wrote letters published in Missionsförbundet for more than a decade. Interestingly, it was almost impossible for the readers of Missionsförbundet to follow certain converts or indigenous missionaries over a longer period of time. Of one Congolese convert, Moses Nsiku, who was well known because he had travelled to Sweden as a child together with missionary Carl Johan Nilsson, only two text were published in Missionsförbundet [Moses Nsiku, [No Title], Missionsförbundet 13, no. 9 (1895): 66 and Moses Nsiku, “Londe, Matadi, 12 sept. 1905.” Missionsförbundet 23, no. 23 (1905): 357] and he was mentioned only a couple of times more, for example at his death in 1905 [“Moses Nsiku,” Missionsförbundet 24, no. 5 (1906): 69–70]. This has to be interpreted as a lack of interest in the individual ‘other’ on the side of the Swedish supporters and the society as a whole, and was part of a process of ‘othering’.

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Beloved friends of the mission, keep on praying and working for Congo in the same effective way from now on as you have before; your work will not be in vain before the Lord. 33

Through this direct form of address the missionaries included the readers into their common project of spreading the Gospel, acknowledging their efforts but at the same time pressuring them to persist or even to increase their commitment. As mentioned above, Missionsförbundet, as well as many of the publications that the authors of this volume have analysed, included letters as the main type of article. Combining the function as well as the structural form of earlier (missionary) accounts 34 with the immediacy and personal forms of address that letters provide, this type of article is likely to have served exceptionally well the functions of the periodicals to encourage support. And, lack of explicit reference notwithstanding, I would like to suggest that it both encouraged the missionaries and impressed their supporters that they furthered the traditional significance of letters to Christianity: Paul the Apostle was a very important point of reference for the missionaries of Svenska Missionsförbundet as well as for many others, and the Pauline epistles of the Bible were frequently cited. 35 Apart from enhancing the emotional attachment of readers towards the periodical mainly by their immediate forms of address, the letters by missionaries included in missionary periodicals granted these publications a very high degree of authority and made them a valuable source of knowledge of far-away regions of the world. The readers in Sweden had access to accounts professedly conveyed directly from eye-witnesses, guaranteeing an impression of authenticity.

33 Holm, “Mukimbungu den 22 okt. 1901,” 5. Swedish original: “Älskade missionvänner, hållen på att bedja och arbeta för Kongo på samma verksamma sätt härefter som hittills; edert arbete skall icke vara fåfängt i Herren.” 34 The Hallesche Berichte published by August Hermann Francke from 1710 onwards as well as the Moravian Gemeinnachrichten, compiled by the leaders of the Brethren and circled among their communities from 1747 onwards, are examples of these accounts that can also be seen as early predecessors of missionary periodicals. See: Dieter Gembicki, “Kommunikation in der Brüdergemeine: Überlegungen zur Rolle der Gemeinnachrichten,” Unitas Fratrum, 63–64 (2010): 245–306, 245–6, 254; and Felicity Jensz, “Origins of Missionary Periodicals: Form and Function of Three Moravian Publications,” Journal of Religious History 36, no. 2 (2012): 234–255, 237. 35 See, for example: “Skörden är mycken, men arbetarne äro få [The Harvest is Plentiful, but the Workers Are Few],” Svenska Missionsförbundet 1, no. 4 (1883): 49–50, 50. I doubt whether any explicit reference can at all be found in the published letters of missionaries because associating themselves with figures like Paul would not be in accordance with the missionary ideal of modesty.

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THEMATIC PROPERTIES OF THE MISSIONARY PERIODICAL MISSIONSFÖRBUNDET Concerning the thematic content, Frow suggests properties like a set of topoi or recurrent topics of discourse, recurrent iconography, recurrent forms of argumentation, or kinds of actions or actors (the latter of which might be further divided into those speaking for themselves and those spoken about). 36 Boundaries within this categorisation are fuzzy. For example, it is not always possible to distinguish between topoi and iconography or between topoi and kinds of action. As this volume has demonstrated, there were many recurrent topics of discourse in missionary periodicals, including the biblical commission to spread the Gospel, the conversion of ‘heathens’, the spiritual state of the world, and the founding of mission stations. The recurring metaphorical images that were evoked in missionary periodicals, especially those of darkness and light, war, and sowing and reaping, are located on the boundary between topics and iconography. A form of argumentation that was used in the missionary periodicals was for example the helplessness and poverty of the ‘other’ that invoked a call for action. Closely related to this was the Biblical argument for evangelisation, citing the commission of Jesus to: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15); and the so-called ‘call for Macedonia,’ Paul’s vision of a man from Macedonia calling him to “come over and help” (Acts 16:9). 37 Kinds of actors were prototypically European missionaries, as well as indigenous missionaries (usually referred to as ‘helpers’ or evangelists) as in the case of Richter’s contribution to this volume. These two kinds of actors, especially the first, were present in the periodicals as authors speaking with their own voices. Another type of actors comprised of actual, as well as potential, converts. Other people discussed or represented were those categorised as ‘heathens,’ even though these were often not actors but depicted as passive and stripped of their individuality. Converts could sometimes be authors too, although more often their speech was reported by missionaries, which occurred also in the case of so-called ‘heathens.’ Kinds of actions that were often recounted in the missionary periodicals included preaching, praying, visiting people, talking, singing, reading the Bible, holding services, baptising, translating, travelling, learning languages, celebrating Christmas, erecting buildings, handing out medicine, giving money, writing letters and diaries, and other occupations of missionary daily life.

36 Frow, Genre, 75–76. 37 All English Bible quotations are from the King James Version. The Swedish Bible quotations are cited from the periodical Missionsförbundet, where preliminary versions of the translations of the Bible Commission (appointed in 1773 and publishing their official translation in 1917) were used.

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An overarching theme in missionary discourses, which is actually touched upon by many authors of this volume, and thereby establishes itself as a generic property of the missionary periodical par excellence, was the use of the metaphorical images of darkness and light. Metaphors of darkness and light are abundant in the periodical Missionsförbundet. The editorial article in the last issue of 1895 (published shortly before Christmas) is entitled “A Light for Revelation to the Gentiles,” 38 citing Luke 2:32, and contrasting Jesus as “the light of the world” (John 8:12) with the alleged death and darkness of the ‘heathen world’ with the help of another Bible quote, Isaiah 9:2, 39 and elaborations of it, like the following: When we look about in the heathen world death and darkness still reign over it in large parts. Dark covers the earth and darkness the people. But we have a powerful remedy to disperse this dark; we have the Gospel of the Lord to preach for those who walk in the night of unbelief and misbelief. 40

Together with Matthew 4:16, a passage parallel to Isaiah 9:2, and the second part of 1 John 1:5 (“God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.”) these quotes form the corpus that the articles in Missionsförbundet allude to regularly. 41 In the above mentioned article, the Biblical origin of the symbolism of light in the language of missionary publications is explicitly stated; it is the main topic of the text. More often, though, the reference to the Bible remains implicit, when metaphors of darkness and light are used in descriptions of certain converts, or of general conditions in the ‘heathen world.’ It can be generally said that missionaries use darkness to denote heathenism, the entity they imagine as the ‘heathen world’, while light symbolises Christianity, God, Jesus and the Gospel. This dualism, which is clearly linked to a division between evil and wrong versus good and right, is obviously a core feature of mis-

38 “Ett ljus till hedningarnes upplysning: Luk. 2:32 [A Light for Revelation to the Gentiles: Luke 2:32],” Missionsförbundet 13, no. 24 (1895): 185–186. Note that the word “hedning,” that is “heathen,” is used in the Swedish Bible quoted in the periodical. 39 Isaiah 9:2 reads as follows: “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.” Interestingly, in the Swedish version cited in Missionsförbundet the verbs “to see” and “to shine” are in future tense, making possible the interpretation voiced in the article that Isaiah is prophesising about Jesus [See: “Ett ljus till hedningarnes upplysning: Luk. 2: 32,” 185. Swedish original: “Det folket, som vandrar i mörkret, skall se ett stort ljus. Öfver dem som bo i mörka skuggors land skall ett ljus skina.”]. 40 “Ett ljus till hedningarnes upplysning: Luk. 2: 32,” 186. Swedish original: “Skåda vi ut öfver hednavärlden, så härskar ännu död och mörker till stor del öfver densamma. Mörker öfvertäcker jorden och mörkhet folken. Men vi hafva ett kraftigt medel för att skingra detta mörker; vi hafva att predika Guds evangelium för dem, som vandra i otrons och vantrons natt.” 41 See, for example: “Från död till lif [From Death to Life],” Svenska Missionsförbundet 1, no. 7 (1883): 97–98, 98.; “Det folket, som i mörkret vandrar, ser ett stort ljus [The People that Walk in Darkness See a Great Light],” Svenska Missionsförbundet 3, no. 1 (1885): 2–5, 3.

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sionary thinking of the time, as the articles in this volume show. The visual representation of this dualism in the metaphors of darkness and light reduced the complexities of the relationship between Christianity and ‘heathenism,’ and thereby also between Christians and non-Christians. It made the boundaries between the two seem clear cut while at the same time assigning positive values to one group while denouncing the other. Rolf Reichardt has described the effect of images as reducing concepts to their most basic meaning, “thereby increasing their social effectiveness through sensualization, emotionalization, and popularization.”42 Although Reichardt refers to actual images, I would like to argue that this is true also for metaphorical images. While illustrations of the symbolism of darkness and light do appear in Missionsförbundet, as for example in the light emanating from the cross as well as the torches in the masthead reproduced in figure 2, their metaphorical use is predominant. Nonetheless, I assume that the imagery of darkness and light in Missionsförbundet appealed to the senses of the readers, evoking emotional reactions, making ‘heathenism’ and all things associated with it appear repellent and evil as well as underlining that Christianity had to be seen as the only remedy against this evil. Although it was obviously rooted first and foremost in the Bible, the missionary symbolism of light took on new dimensions in this context. By association and interference with at least two contemporary discourses, the metaphors of darkness and light expressed in missionary publications offered more varied interpretations by readers. The first are enlightenment-inspired ideas of progress, the second is the myth of Africa as the ‘Dark Continent’ that was a popular trope in nineteenthcentury British thinking. Symbolism of light and metaphors of darkness and light were also a vital part of enlightenment thinking. 43 Brian Stanley and the contributors to his edited volume Christian Missions and the Enlightenment have shown how missionary ideas were influenced by enlightenment discourses on many levels despite the criticism of religion articulated within these. 44 Especially ideas of progress that had developed in the context of enlightenment thinking were adopted by missionaries and integrated into their Christian theologies. Although missionaries used metaphors of darkness in relation to all people and places they denounced as ‘heathen,’ 45 it had a special relevance when applied to Africans and Africa, marking this continent as the core of heathendom, dark42 Rolf Reichardt, “Light against Darkness: The Visual Representations of a Central Enlightenment Concept,” Representations, no. 61 (1998): 95–148, 139. 43 See: Reichardt, “Light against Darkness.” 44 Brian Stanley, ed., Christian Missions and the Enlightenment, Studies in the History of Christian Missions (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2001). 45 Darkness featured in the missionaries’ narratives on China (as Klein and Wu have shown in this volume), on India (as Gregersen has noted), on Indians in Fiji (as Bonea has pointed out) on Jews in Poland (as Jagodzińska has demonstrated), on New Guineans (as presented by Richter) and – in Protestant periodicals – even on Catholics in Europe and America (as mentioned by Morrison).

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ness and evil in accordance with what Patrick Brantlinger has called the ‘myth of the Dark Continent’ in his article “Victorians and Africans,” highly influenced by Said’s Orientalism: 46 By mid-century, the success of the antislavery movement, the impact of the great Victorian explorers, and the merger of racist and evolutionary doctrines in the social sciences had combined to give the British public a widely shared view of Africa that demanded imperialization on moral, religious, and scientific grounds. It is this view that I have called the myth of the Dark Continent; 47

Analysing materials issued by abolitionists, fictional and non-fictional literature on Africa by so-called explorers, travellers as well as missionaries – most prominent among those David Livingstone – and ‘scientific’ writing on evolution and race, Brantlinger shows how this body of literature converged to produce an image of Africa as a dark, evil place inhabited by an inferior and backward race with savage customs. Practices like cannibalism, human sacrifice and slavery were constructed as essential to African culture; African religion in general was denounced as superstition and idol worship, African priests as witch doctors; European travels in Central Africa were described as an opening-up or as a penetration of a place dark and unknown; cruelty, disease and death featured prominently in narratives on Africa. 48 According to this image, Africa was in need of British intervention and help at the same time as it was dangerous and tempting the British into degeneration. Although this myth – as Brantlinger has shown – found popular favour in a British context, it was far from confined to it. While the abolitionist materials do not seem to have been widely known in Sweden because the anti-slaverymovement never really gained ground in the kingdom, 49 both travel literature as well as evolutionary and racist theories were widespread. 50 Just as in Britain, 46 Patrick Brantlinger, “Victorians and Africans: The Genealogy of the Myth of the Dark Continent,” Critical Inquiry, no. 12 (1985): 166–203; and Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 5th ed. (London: Penguin, 2003). 47 Brantlinger, “Victorians and Africans,” 167–178. 48 Brantlinger, “Victorians and Africans,” 174–175, 197. This position of Africa in missionary thinking is also reproduced in the Canadian Presbyterian ‘ABC of Missions’ cited by Morrison in this volume: “Africa, Continent Dark, Where rises the light from Livingstone’s spark.” The ‘darkness’ of China as well as Quebec are much more implicit in these rhymes: “China, fourth of mankind, Whose eyes, through the Gospel, will no more be blind” and “Quebec, where priestcraft holds sway, May it walk out of twilight into the day.” 49 Hanna Hodacs, Converging World Views: The European Expansion and Early-NineteenthCentury Anglo-Swedish Contacts, Studia historica Upsaliensia 207 (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2003), 150–151. 50 Many of the British narratives were translated into Swedish within a couple of years, apart from work by and on Livingstone (see next footnote). For example works by Henry Merriman and John H. Speke. Furthermore, there were a few narratives written by Swedes who had travelled to Africa, for example Charles J. Andersson and Peter A. Möller. Evolutionary and racist theories were received as well as developed in Sweden – most prominently by Carl von Linné, see for example: Gunnar Broberg and Mattias Tydén, “Eugenics in Sweden: Efficient

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David Livingstone was especially popular. His own narrative Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, Stanley’s How I Found Livingstone, Blaikie’s biography The Personal Life of David Livingstone and other works were published in Swedish translations no later than two years after they were printed in Britain and reached several editions. 51 Livingstone also featured in various publications of Swedish missionary societies for adults as well as for children as a ‘hero of the mission field’ and was not absent from Missionsförbundet either. 52 It can therefore be assumed that the Victorian myth of Africa as the ‘Dark Continent’ was shared by the Swedish public of the second half of the nineteenth and into the early twentieth centuries. Encountering metaphors of darkness and light in the writing on Africa in Missionsförbundet, readers must have associated these with the knowledge of Africa they had gained from other sources. Some instances of the myth of the ‘Dark Continent’ were also explicitly referred to in the publication. For example, in the first volume of Missionsförbundet from 1883 there were several references to cannibalism in Congo, 53 and in a letter from Congo, mis-

Care,” in Eugenics and the Welfare State: Sterilization Policy in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland, ed. Gunnar Broberg and Nils Roll-Hansen, 2nd ed. (East Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State University Press, 2005), 77–149, 81–85; Nina G. Jablonski, Living Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color (Berkley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2012), 126–128; Lennart Lundmark, Allt som kan mätas är inte vetenskap: En populärhistorisk skrift om Rasbiologiska institutet [Not Everything that Can Be Measured is Science: A Popular History Piece on the Institute for Racial Biology], Skriftserie Forum för levande historia 4 (Stockholm: Forum för levande historia, 2007), 7–19. 51 David Livingstone, En missionärs resor och forskningar i Syd-Afrika, vol. 1 [A Missionary’s Travels and Researches in South Africa, vol. 1], transl. O. W. Ålund (Stockholm: Bergegren, 1859); David Livingstone, En missionärs resor och forskningar i Syd-Afrika, vol. 2 (Stockholm: Bergegren, 1860); Henry M. Stanley, Huru jag fann Livingstone: Resor, äfventyr och upptäckter i Centralafrika jemte fyra månaders sammanvaro med dr Livingstone [How I Found Livingstone: Travels, Adventures and Discoveries in Central Africa Including FourMonths of Contact with Dr Livingstone], transl. C. A. Swahn, Bibliotek för resebeskrifningar 1 (Stockholm: Bonnier, 1873); and William G. Blaikie, “David Livingstone: Hans person och missionsverkamhet [David Livingstone: His Personality and Missionary Activities],” transl. and adapted by Elisabeth Kjellberg, Läsning för Hemmet [Readings for the Home] 4, no. 4–6 (1882): 1–122. 52 Vautier Golding, David Livingstone, transl. Henning Sjögren, Missionsfältens hjältar 5 (Stockholm: Fosterlandsstiftelsen, 1910); and Jakob Emanuel Lundahl, David Livingstone: Upptäcktsresanden och människovännen [David Livingstone: Explorer and Philanthropist], Svenska Missionsförbundets Söndagsskolbibliotek. Ser. 1. Biografier 2 (Stockholm: Svenska Missionsförbundet, 1917). For references to Livingstone in Missionsföbundet see, for example: “Några erfarenhetsrön vid missionsarbetet bland hedningarne [Some Experiences in Missionary Work among the Heathens],” Svenska Missionsförbundet 1, no. 3 (1883): 33–36, 34; “Missionen i Afrika III [Mission in Africa III],” Svenska Missionsförbundet 1, no. 6 (1883): 83–90, 84–85; “Ur Livingstones lefnad [Some Aspects from the Life of Livingstone],” Missionsförbundet 11, no. 6 (1893): 81–83. 53 “Missionen i Afrika III,” 86; and N[ils] Westlind, “Mukimbungu den 17 april 1883,” Svenska Missionsförbundet 1, no. 6 (1883): 90–91.

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sionary Louise Johnson united the disrespect for African religion with metaphors of both darkness as well as penetration when she wrote: Oh, this poor people, far removed from God, peaceless, groping in the night of ignorance and superstition, surrounded by the demons of darkness! But God has given us open doors among this people; however, there are not enough workers to penetrate, as should be, through these doors. 54

By using this form of the symbolism of light, Missionsförbundet not only legitimated missionary efforts by referring to the Bible, the periodical also re/produced and cultivated colonial and imperial imagery, and thereby indirectly legitimised imperialism. Similarly, Jagodzińska has shown in this volume that while they were authoritative sources themselves, missionary periodicals also reproduced stereotypical knowledge from other sources. One aspect that Brantlinger does not pursue in his analysis of the myth, however, is the possible tensions between the alleged darkness of Africa and the perceived blackness of the bodies of the Africans, reinforcing the racist character of the image. Marianne Gullestad, analysing visual material from the Norwegian Missionary Society’s mission to Cameroon in the twentieth century, has pointed out that: … all through the twentieth century the missionary publications exhibit visual and verbal tensions between the central metaphors of Christian light and heathen darkness, on the one hand, and the whiteness and blackness of the bodies, on the other. 55

The prominence of metaphors of darkness and light that have here been analysed as a thematic property of Missionsförbundet is striking. Ascribing darkness to the non-Christian ‘other’ and lightness to the Christian self introduced a clear division that went hand in hand with a hierarchical structure, attributing different values to people, religions and geographic regions and thereby exercising power as understood by Foucault. 56 The symbolism of light served to order the world for the readers of Missionsförbundet (as well as other periodicals) into a part that was Christian and another part that still had to be made Christian and thereby transformed for the better. Thus, the missionary publications offered an easy answer to complicated matters. So-called heathenism was portrayed as the cause of all evils perceived, while Christianity was presented as the sole solution. Both Gregersen and Wu have discussed the transformative power attributed to Christianity and symbolised in images of darkness and light in their contributions to this volume. 54 Louise Johnson, “Mukimbungu den 11 aug. 1895,” Missionsförbundet 13, no. 20 (1895): 154. Swedish original: “Ack, detta arma folk, långt bortkommet från Gud, fridlöst, famlande i okunnighetens och vidskepelsens natt, omgifvet af mörkrets demoner! Gud har dock ibland detta folk gifvit oss öppna dörrar, ehuru arbetskrafterna ej räcka till att intränga, som sig bör, genom dessa dörrar.” 55 Marianne Gullestad, Picturing Pity: Pitfalls and Pleasures in Cross-Cultural Communication: Image and Word in a North Cameroon Mission (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007), 4. 56 Michel Foucault, Der Wille zum Wissen: Sexualität und Wahrheit 1 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983 [1976]), 98.

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The symbolism of light of the missionary periodical had the function of legitimising the missionary endeavour (and indirectly even the imperial endeavour) both for its own supporters as well as – through association with topoi like the myth of the ‘Dark Continent’ – for a wider public. In this process the ‘self’ was re/made as both Christian and white. At the same time, the image of the Gospel as a light shining in ‘the land of death and darkness’ also functioned as a strong sign of hope, strengthening the belief of missionaries and ‘friends of the mission’ alike, confirming their shared goals as well as expressing the obligation to act. 57 CONCLUSION By analysing recurrent discursive properties of the Swedish evangelical missionary periodical Missionsförbundet as well as those periodicals used by the authors of this volume, I have demonstrated that the form of missionary periodicals had certain functions. A number of effects were achieved by its generic properties. These effects, I argue, can be summarised under two headings: evocation of emotional attachment; and, production of authoritative knowledge. Missionary periodicals had the effect of evoking emotional attachment and could function as tools of identity and community building for the missionary societies. The periodical appearance of a paper with the same size and layout and especially the same masthead induced feelings of stability and familiarity. Moreover, images – both actual as well as metaphorical – and topics were recurrent, as demonstrated here through the example of darkness and light. The recurrence of this metaphor also evoked emotions because it provided the readers with an enemy, the evils of ‘heathenism’, which had to be fought. Thereby the ‘friends of the mission’ were united by a common cause: spreading the light of Christianity to save those living in the darkness of ‘heathenism.’ Above all, the immediate forms of address in the letters of the missionaries functioned as instruments of identity building. By binding the members of the community emotionally to the mission, the missionary societies were able to exert influence on them, for example encouraging them to donate more funds. At the same time and partly also as a result of this, missionary periodicals of the long nineteenth century were sources of authoritative knowledge. This was achieved partly through their form: the journals appeared as printed materials. In their size as well as in their layout many of them drew from contemporary newspaper journalism, for example including mastheads and editorials. Reporting cur-

57 Concerning this effect, the metaphors of darkness and light went hand in hand with another frequently used image, that of the missionary enterprise as a war and a struggle against evil and the demons of darkness that would inevitably end with victory for Christ and Christianity. Jointly these metaphors called for optimism that the goals would be reached although great strength and sacrifices would be needed, but they also provided consolation for losses and encouragement in the face of backlashes.

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rent events was also a feature that they shared with this genre and which enforced their reliability. Furthermore, the status of the authors of these reports (which were often published in the form of letters) also enhanced their authority. They were eye-witnesses and belonged to the few Europeans who had actually been or were in the regions of the world that were reported on. In the Christian circles the periodicals aimed at, the Biblical legitimisation of the endeavour furthered the trustworthiness of the materials. Returning to Todorov’s understanding of the norms of genre, it is clear that missionary periodicals can be interpreted to form a genre in and of itself. That not all periodicals displayed all properties that have been discussed as generic in this article is self-evident, and, as Todorov suggested can also be seen as supporting the argument for a particular genre. Those publications dealt with in this volume, which display quite different features, also confirmed to different norms, for example being published with a particular target audience in mind. The editors and authors of the childrens’ magazines discussed in Morrison’s article, or of the missiological Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift analysed by Best, had certain types of readers in mind when editing and writing. This had an influence on the generic features as both “models of writing” as well as “horizons of expectation.” 58 Moreover, there were obvious generic differences between Protestant and Catholic periodicals, as Wu has pointed out in regard to diverging thematic contents as well as the martyrlogical tradition visible in the German Catholic periodical Kleiner Herz-Jesu-Bote. Judging from the materials analysed in this volume, it almost seems as if the confessional and denominational differences exceeded those between periodicals issued by missionary organisations of different national origin. The empirical evidence brought together in this volume suggests that a quite distinct genre of missionary periodicals was established in the nineteenth century, displaying properties that enabled missionary societies to inform, engage and unite people around the common cause of Christian missions abroad as well as at home.

58 Todorov, Genres in Discourse, 18.

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS HANNA ACKE is a Ph.D. candidate in history in the Graduate School, Cluster of Excellence for Religion and Politics at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany. In her thesis she examines how the missionary enterprise was legitimated in Swedish missionary publications of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 2011/12 she held a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service for research at the University of Stockholm, Sweden. JEREMY BEST is a Lecturer in Modern History at Appalachian State University, USA. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park, USA, completing a dissertation entitled, "'Founding a Heavenly Empire': Protestant Missionaries and German Colonialism, 1860-1919." He has been a Fulbright Fellow at the Free University Berlin and a Research Fellow with the German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C. Dr AMELIA BONEA received her Ph.D. in Modern History from the University of Heidelberg and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford. Her main research interests are media history, with a focus on journalism and the development of global communications, and the history of science, technology and medicine, with a regional focus on South Asia. Her current project examines from a historical perspective health concerns associated with the use of technologies of communication in India. She is also rewriting her doctoral dissertation on telegraphy and news reporting in nineteenth-century India for publication as a book. Dr MALIN GREGERSEN, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Archeology, History, Cultural studies and Religion, University of Bergen, Norway, has researched extensively on Swedish missionary representations from India in the first half of the twentieth century. She is now part of the project “Merchants and Missionaries: Norwegian Encounters with China in a Transnational Perspective, 1890–1937” and her present research explores Scandinavian missionary networks in early-twentieth century China. AGNIESZKA JAGODZIŃSKA, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor at the Department of Jewish Studies at the University of Wrocław, Poland. She is an author or editor of four books and several articles on Jewish studies (in Polish and English). Her main academic interest is history of Polish Jews in the nineteenth century, in particular Jewish acculturation and integration, conversion, Jewish literature and iconography. Currently she is working on the topic of the missions of the London Society to the Jews in Poland.

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Dr FELICITY JENSZ is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Cluster of Excellence for Religion and Politics at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany and an Associate of the School of Historical Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She has published widely upon Moravian missionaries, Indigenous peoples, and British colonial governments. Her current research project examines Protestant missionary schooling provided to Indigenous and nonEuropeans in British colonies in the nineteenth century. Dr THORALF KLEIN is a Senior Lecturer in Modern History at Loughborough University, United Kingdom. He specialises in the social and cultural history of modern China (including Taiwan) from about 1800 to the present. He has published extensively on Christian missions and Christianity in the context of China’s relations with the world at large. His current research examines the representation of the Boxer War of 1900/01 in global media networks. Dr HUGH MORRISON, Lecturer in Social Sciences, University of Otago, New Zealand undertook his Ph.D. study in New Zealand religious history at Massey University. Together with Geoffrey Troughton he edited a collection entitled, The Spirit of the Past: Essays on Christianity in New Zealand History (Wellington, 2011). His current research focuses upon New Zealand Missionaries and Global Interaction, including Children and young people as historical subjects and agents in the missionary endeavour. Dr ARMIN OWZAR is visiting professor for the History of Western Europe at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. Prior to this appointment he was a DAAD Lecturer in Modern European History, Department of History, University of California, San Diego, USA. He has written extensively on European colonialism and imperialism as well as the constitutional history of Europe. His publications include “Reden ist Silber, Schweigen ist Gold”: Konfliktmanagement im Alltag des wilhelminischen Obrigkeitsstaates (Historische Kulturwissenschaft 8), Konstanz 2006. He is currently working on a project examining the perception of Islam amongst nineteenth-century German missionaries. Dr GABRIELE RICHTER studied at the University of Hamburg, the HumboldtUniversity in Berlin, Yale University Divinity School and Columbia University. She completed her Ph.D. in 2010 in Religious History at the Faculty of Theology, Universität Rostock, Germany in which she examined the work of the Lutheran missionary Wilhelm Bergmann in Papua New Guinea in the 1930s. Dr HELGE WENDT is a Research Fellow in the Collaborative Research Centre “Transformations of Antiquity” (CRC 644) at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Sciences, Berlin, Germany. His dissertation, published as Die missionarische Gesellschaft: Mirkostrukturen einer kolonialen Globalisierung (Stuttgart 2011), is a comparative study in global history on local social cohesion processes

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related to mission activities in different regions under British, French, Portuguese and Spanish colonial dominions between 1700 and 1900. His current project examines processes of change in knowledge and use of energy resources in the eighteenth century. ALBERT WU is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California-Berkeley, where he is finishing a dissertation on European missionaries and Chinese Christians. He has received a Fulbright Fellowship and a German Academic Exchange Service Scholarship to conduct research in Germany, the Vatican, China, and Taiwan. He is interested in the intersection between religion, politics, and globalisation.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

MISSIONARY AND RELIGIOUS PERIODICALS Ââkesiŋ Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift American Baptist Magazine and Missionary Intelligencer, The Annalen der Verbreitung des Glaubens Annales de l’Association de la Propagation de la Foi Arminian Magazine Australasian Methodist Missionary Review, also known as Methodist Missionary Review or the Missionary Review Break of Day Calwer Missionsblatt Canadian Church Juvenile China-Bote Chinese Bible Woman’s Mission Chinese Recorder Church Missionary Gleaner Church Missionary Intelligencer Church Missionary Juvenile Instructor Die evangelischen Missionen Evangelical Magazine Evangelisches Missions-Magazin Hallesche Berichte Indian Evangelical Review International Review of Missions, The Jewish Intelligence, also known as Monthly Intelligence Jewish Records Jewish Repository, also known as Jewish Expositor and Friend of Israel Juvenile Missionary Herald Kleiner Herz-Jesu-Bote Lettres édifiantes et curieuses Lettres édifiantes et curieuses de la Mission du Maduré Lettres édifiantes et curieuses de la nouvelle mission du Maduré

Little Missionary, The London Missionary Repository for Youth, and Sunday School Missionary Magazine Lotu, The Message Methodist Magazine Mission Field, The Missionary Herald, The Missionary Messenger Missionary Outlook Missionary Register Missions-Blatt Missionsförbundet, also known as Svenska Missionsförbundet Missionstidning, also known as Svenska Kyrkans Missionstidning Monthly Leaflet Nachrichten aus der Brüder-Gemeine Neue Weltbott, Der New Zealand Baptist New Zealand Missionary Record, The Nordisk Missions-Tidskrift Periodical Accounts Relating to the Missions of the Church of the United Brethren, Established among the Heathen Reaper, The Stadt Gottes Sunbeam, The Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine Yain nayam/Jaingngajam

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BOOKS AND ARTICLES Altena, Thorsten. “Ein Häuflein Christen mitten in der Heidenwelt des dunklen Erdteils”: Zum Selbst- und Fremdverständnis protestantischer Missionare im kolonialen Afrika 1884–1918. Internationale Hochschulschriften, 395. Münster et al.: Waxmann, 2003. Altholz, Josef L. The Religious Press in Britain, 1760–1900. New York and London: Greenwood, 1989. Altholz, Josef L. “Anonymity and Editorial Responsibility in Religious Journalism.” Victorian Periodicals Review 24, no. 4 (1991): 180–186. Austin, Alvyn J. China’s Millions: The China Inland Mission and Late Qing Society, 1832–1905. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007. Austin, Alvyn and Jamie S. Scott, eds. Canadian Missionaries, Indigenous Peoples: Representing Religion at Home and Abroad. Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2005. Ballantyne, Tony. “Review Essay: Religion, Difference and the Limits of British Imperial History.” Victorian Studies 47, no. 3 (2005): 427–455. Barringer, Terry. “Why Are Missionary Periodicals [Not] So Boring? The Missionary Periodicals Database Project.” African Research and Documentation, no. 84 (2000): 33–46. Barringer, Terry. “From Beyond Alpine Snows to Homes of the East – A Journey through Missionary Periodicals: The Missionary Periodicals Database Project.” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 26, no. 4 (2002): 169–173. Barringer, Terry. “What Mrs Jellyby Might Have Read: Missionary Periodicals: A Neglected Source.” Victorian Periodicals Review 37, no. 4 (2004): 46–74. Baylen, J. O. “The British Press, 1861–1918.” In The Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422– 1992, ed. Dennis Griffiths. London: Macmillan, 1992: 33–46. Becker, Dieter and Andreas Feldtkeller, eds. Es begann in Halle… Missionswissenschaft von Gustav Warneck bis heute. Erlangen: Verlag der Ev.-Luth. Mission, 1997. Bickers, Robert A. and Rosmary Seton, eds. Missionary Encounters: Sources and Issues. Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996. Blaschke, Olaf. “Das 19. Jahrhundert: Ein Zweites Konfessionelles Zeitalter?“ Geschichte und Gesellschaft 26 (2000): 38–75. Bogner, Artur, Bernd Holtwick, and Hartmann Tyrell, eds. Weltmission und religiöse Organisationen: Protestantische Missionsgesellschaften im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Würzburg: Ergon, 2004. Bouche, Denise. Histoire de la colonisation française, vol. 2. Paris: Fayard, 1991. Brake, Laurel, Marysa Demoor, and Margaret Beetham, eds. Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland, London: British Library London, 2009. Brantlinger, Patrick. “Victorians and Africans: The Genealogy of the Myth of the Dark Continent.” Critical Inquiry 12, no. 1 (1985): 166–203. Brewer, Sandy. “From Darkest England to the Hope of the World: Protestant Pedagogy and the Visual Culture of the London Missionary Society.” Material Religion 1, no. 1 (2005): 98– 123. Brown, Lucy. “The British Press, 1800–1860.” In The Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422– 1992, ed. Dennis Griffiths. London: Macmillan, 1992: 24–32. Buckner, Phillip, ed. Canada and the British Empire, The Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Burton, John W. Our Indian Work in Fiji. Suva, Fiji: Methodist Mission Press, 1909. Burton, John W. The Fiji of To-Day. London: Charles H. Kelly, 1910. Byrnes, Giselle, ed. The New Oxford History of New Zealand. South Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press Australia and New Zealand, 2009.

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Gregory, Brad S. Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1999. Gründer, Horst. Christliche Mission und deutscher Imperialismus: Eine politische Geschichte ihrer Beziehungen während der deutschen Kolonialzeit (1884–1914) unter besonderer Berücksichtigung Afrikas und Chinas. Paderborn: Schöningh: 1982. Gründer, Horst. Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien. 5th ed. Paderborn: Schöningh, 2004. Gullestad, Marianne. Picturing Pity: Pitfalls and Pleasures in Cross-Cultural Communication: Image and Word in a North Cameroon Mission. New York: Berghahn Books, 2007. Hall, Catherine. Civilising Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination 1830–1867. Cambridge: Polity, 2002. Hardiman, David. ‘Healing Bodies, Saving Souls’: Medical Missions in Asia and Africa. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006. Hevia, James L. “Leaving a Brand on China: Missionary Discourse in the Wake of the Boxer Uprising.” Modern China 18 (1992): 304–332. Hölscher, Lucian. “The Religious Divide: Piety in Nineteenth-Century Germany.” In Protestants, Catholics and Jews in Germany, 1800–1914, ed. Helmut Walser Smith. Oxford: Berg, 2001; 33–47. Hutton, J. E. History of the Moravian Church. Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged. London: Moravian Publication Office, 1909. Jensz, Felicity. German Moravian Missionaries in the British Colony of Victoria, Australia, 1848– 1908: Influential Strangers, Studies in Christian Missions, 38. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Jensz, Felicity. “Firewood, Fakirs and Flags: The Construction of the Non-Western ‘Other’ in a Nineteenth Century Transnational Children’s Missionary Periodical.” Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Religions- und Kulturgeschichte 105 (2011): 167–191. Jensz, Felicity. “Origins of Missionary Periodicals: Form and Function of Three Moravian Publications.” Journal of Religious History 36, no. 2 (2012): 234–255. Jensz, Felicity and Hanna Acke. “Forum: The Form and Function of Nineteenth-Century Missionary Periodicals,” Church History 82, no. 2 (2013): 368–404 Johnston, Anna. Missionary Writing and Empire, 1800–1860. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Johnston, Anna. “British Missionary Publishing, Missionary Celebrity and Empire.” Nineteenth century prose 32, no. 2 (2005): 20–47. Kasdorf, Hans. Gustav Warnecks missiologisches Erbe: Eine biographish-historische Untersuchung. Gießen: Brunnen Verlag, 1990. Keane, Webb. Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. Kelly, John D. A Politics of Virtue: Hinduism, Sexuality, and Countercolonial Discourse in Fiji. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Kelly, John D. “‘Coolie’ as a Labour Commodity: Race, Sex, and European Dignity in Colonial Fiji.” Journal of Peasant Studies 19, nos. 3–4 (1992): 247–267. Kessler, Lawrence D. “‘Hands Across the Sea’: Foreign Missions and Home Support.” In United States Attitudes and Policies Toward China: The Impact of American Missionaries, ed. Patricia Neils. Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1990: 78–96. Kriel, Lize. “From Private Journal to Published Periodical.” Book History 11 (2008): 169–198. Lee, Joseph Tse-hei. The Bible and the Gun: Christianity in South China, 1860–1900. New York: Routledge, 2003. Lodwick, Kathleen L. “Hainan for the Homefolk: Images of the Island in the Missionary and Secular Press.” In United States Attitudes and Policies Toward China: The Impact of American Missionaries, ed. Patricia Neils. Armonk, NY: Sharpe 1990: 97–110. Long, Kathryn T. “‘Cameras ‘Never Lie’’: The Role of Photography in Telling the Story of American Evangelical Missions.” Church History 72, no. 4 (2003): 820–851.

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INDEX Ââkesiŋ, 113–130, 231 Aborigines (Australian), 48–49, 55, 114, 181 Africa, 29, 30, 61, 64, 74, 75, 101, 133–150, 233, 238–241 East, 60, 66, 84, 134, see also DeutschOstafrika North, 91 South, see South Africa West, 24, 134, 144, see also DeutschSüdwestafrika Ahmad, Sheik, 145, see also Mecca Letters Aimé-Martin, Louis, 98, 99, 101–102, 105– 106, 107, 111 Aki[c]kepe, 122, see also Papua New Guinea, Authors Alexander I, Tsar, 153–154, 157, 160 Allgeyer, Bishop, 141, 144 Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift, 13, 57–76, 136–139, 142–143, 243 All Hallows’ Anglican Girls’ School, 31–32 Alsace, 149 Altholtz, Joseph, 155 Altman, Janet Gurkin, 233 Ament, William, 194, 199 America, 41, 101, 104, 107 North, 9, 23, 25, 26, 55, 60 South, 25, 101, 104 American Baptist Magazine and Missionary Intelligencer, The, 6 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 188, 189, 192, 193, 194, 198, 200, see also Missionary Herald, The American Presbyterian Press, 189 Anandam, 219, see also Church of Sweden, Mission, Co-Workers Anderson, Margaret Lavinia, 81 Anglican, Church, 154, 160 Missions, 162 Theology, 193 Animists, 134 Annalen der Verbreitung des Glaubens, 136, 139

Annales de l’Association de la Propagation de la Foi, 97–99, 107–108, 111 Anzer, Johann Baptist von, 93 Argus, The, 171 Arminian Magazine, 52 Association de la Propagation de la Foi (Association of the Propagation of Faith), 98, 107 Audience, 10, 12, 44, 46, 57–58, 62, 64, 66, 84, 90, 98, 100, 105, 112, 123, 136– 138, 152, 169–171, 182, 186, 189, 207–208, 214–215, 217, 243 Potential, 43, 186 Australia, 21, 48, 55, 169, 179, 180 Colonial rule, 14, 113–115, 125–127, 129 Australasian Methodist Missionary Review, 169–186 Australian Town and Country Journal, 170– 171 Austria-Hungary, 187 Autonomy, 105–110, 153, 220 Axenfeld, Karl, 73–75 Banks, Joseph, 43 Baptist, Missionary Periodicals, 11, 21, 26, 36 Missionary Society, 42 Barringer, Terry, 11–13, 39–40, 136 Barton, James, 194 Bâtâmilec, 124, see also Papua New Guinea, Authors Bavin, Cyril, 173, 182–183 Becker, Carl Heinrich, 145, 149 Becker, Ferdinand Wilhelm, 158 Beijing, China, 87, 187, 192–193, 201 Bell, Adam Schall von, 100 Bengal, India, 106 Bergen, Chris, 24 Berlin Mission Society, 60, 73, 79, 82, 83– 84, 88–89, 93–96, 189 Berliner Missionsberichte, 85 Bertelsmann, C., 59 Bertrand, Joseph, 105–110 Bible Class, 21, 25, 40 Blomstrand, Anders, 216

256 Bombay (Mumbai), 106, 220 Bound volumes, 49–53, 98, 107 Boxer Protocol, 188 Boxer Rebellion, see Boxer War Boxer Uprising, see Boxer War Boxer War, 15, 69, 82, 89–90, 187–204 Boxers, 187–204 Bracker, Detlef, 71–73 Brandenburg Mission Conference, 60 Brantlinger, Patrick, 239, 241 Break of Day, 21, 30, 31 Breklum Mission Society, see SchleswigHolsteinische Evangelisch-Lutherische Missionsgesellschaft Brethren’s Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel among the Heathen, 43, 46, 47, 49 Brisbane Courier, 171 Britain, see Great Britain British, see also Great Britain Colonial World, 7, 19–37 Colonies, 13, 61, 22–37, 42, 61, 174, 174, 220 Criminalisation of Poor, 179 Empire, see Empire, British Imperial Rivalry, 54, 106, 193 Public, 138, 151, 155–156 Settler Societies, 19–37 Privileges and Responsibilities, 29–30, 32 British and Foreign Bible Society, 151 Brooks, Sidney, 190, 193 Brown, George, 170, 176 Brüdergemeine, see Moravians Buchner, Charles, 59 Buckner, Phillip, 23 Buddhism, 86, 88, 143 Buganda, Kingdom of, 64 Bülow, Bernhard von, 64 Burma (Myanmar), 33 Burton, John Wear, 173, 177, 180, 182, 183–184 Caillié, René, 101–102, 111 Calvinists, 133–134 Calwer Missionsblatt, 52, 209 Cameroon, 61, 241 Camus, Père Le, 103 Canada, 13, 19–37, 104 Canadian Church Juvenile, 9 Cannibalism, 123, 172, 183, 239, 240 Carey, Hilary, 23 Carey, James, 190, 201–202

Index Carey, William, 42 Cargill, David, 172 Caribbean, 25 Cariboo Presbytery, 27 Carter, Marina, 177 Caste, 177–179, 182, 211–212, 214–217, 220, 223 Catholic, Anti, 61, 65–66, 80, 137, 139, 161–163 Missionary Organizations, 61, 79–96, 142 Missionary Periodicals, 79–96, 97–112, 136–137, 147 Catholic Centre Party, 141 Catholics, 13, 52, 61, 64, 191, 196, 198, 203, see also Jesuits, French Collaboration with Protestants, 149–150 Fijian, 171 French, 64, 97–112, 133–134 German, 133–150 in China, 196, 198, 203 Polish, 154, 157, 160, 161–163 Rivalry with Protestants, 133–139, 150, 160 Cederlöf, Gunnel, 216 Censorship, 10, 13–14, 47–49, 156–165 Self, 14, 43, 159–160, 200–201 Ceylon (Sri Lanka), 61 Chalfant, Revernd, 200 Chateaubriand, François-René, 102 Childhood, 19–37, 184 China, 13, 24, 25, 29, 30, 33, 35, 54, 61, 64, 79–96, 100, 101, 187–204, 207, 227, 229, see also Boxer War China-Bote, 188–189, 193–199 China Inland Mission, 188–189, 194, 199, see also German Alliance Mission Chinese Bible Woman’s Mission, 11 Chinese Recorder, 189, 192, 193, 195, 198– 201 Christlieb, Theodor, 59–60 Church of England, 188, see also Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts Church Missionary Gleaner, 11 Church Missionary Intelligencer, 11 Church Missionary Juvenile Instructor, 11 Church Missionary Society (CMS), 11, 24, 200 Church of Sweden, 207 Mission (CSM), 205–223 Co-workers, 219–222, 223

Index Circulation, 11, 26, 41, 59, 115–116, 170 Attempted hindrance of, 161 Citizenship, Imperial, 19–37 Class, 14, 177–179, 216 Codes of difference, 24 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 102–103 Colonial Sugar Refining Company, 174 Colonialism, see also Imperialism, Critique of, 55–56, 70, 125–130 Dutch, 54, 135 and Islam, 139–140 Support of, 220 Comaroff, Jean and John, 80, 88 Congo, 227, 229, 233 Congregational, Church, Canada, 19–37 Congress of Berlin, 61 Constantine, Grand Duke, 160 Constantinople (Istanbul), 103 Conversion, 58, 68, 94, 151, 154, 156, 162, 164, 182, 184–185, 206, 210, 218, 236 Jewish, 151–152, 154, 156, 162, 164 Narratives, 13, 79–96 Converts, 50, 64, 68, 85, 100, 138, 154, 155, 172, 173, 195, 216, 231, 236, 237 Chinese, 79, 85, 88–89, 90, 93–94 ‘Coolie’, ‘Free’, 175–176 Indian, 169–188 Mission, 14, 169–188 Cook, James, 43 Cooper, James, 104 Copping, Harold, 37 Cox, Jeffery, 155, 156–157, 178 Crimean War, 154, 159, 163 Criminality, 178–179 Cross, William, 172 Danish West Indies, 40 Daoism, 86, 88 Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 140, 141 Daughters of the King, 35 Deutsch-Ostafrika, 61, 135, 137, 138, 140, 142–145, 147–149 Company, 139 Deutsch-Südwestafrika, 61, 138 Deutschtum, 72 Die evangelischen Missionen, 189, 190, 192, 195, 199, 200 Dilkusha Children’s Home, 173 Dissenters, 151 Distribution Networks, 9, 13, 27, 41, 208

257 Double cure, 205, 218 Dudley, Hannah, 172–173, 175 Duff, Alexander, 48 East Africa, see Africa, East East Turkestan, 229, see also Xinjian, China Editorial, 53, 227, 237, 242 Censorship, 10 Changes, 48–49, 103, 112, Comments, 33, 49–53, 55, 58–59, 157, 159, 227, 237 Conventions, 171 Intentions, 10, 12, 15, 120–122, 155, 227, 230 Policy, 157–158, 189, 208 Position, 15, 45, 65, 158–159, 208 Strategy, 51, 53–56, 57–76, 99–112, 113, 124, 223, 230, 243 Voice, 45, 53–55 Editor, 10, 13, 45, 46, 49, 51–53, 55, 57–59, 60, 62–64, 66, 68, 91, 98, 99, 170, 189, 230, 231, 233, 243 Changes, 55, 59–60, 117 Education, 25, 27–29, 34, 54, 100, 101,102, 140–142, 172, 175, 184, 185, 189–205, see also Schools Edward VII, King, 31 Ehecjupe, 122, see also Papua New Guinea, Authors Einsiedeln, Switzerland, 137 Elizabeth, Princess, 31 Empire, British, 19–27, 45, 54–55, 151, 152, 163, 174, 177, 193 Religion and Nation, 19–37 French, 104–105 Rivalry, 102 German, 57–76, 84, 92–93, 95, 134 and Mission, 57–76, 120 Religion and Nation, 19–37 Russian, 153, 163 England, 31, 32, 33, 40, 41, 42, 44, 104, 152, 158, 159, 162, 188, 191, 194, 220 Esherick, Joseph, 81 Evangelical Church of Poland, 154 Evangelical Consistory (Poland), 160, 162 Evangelical Magazine, 52, 53 Evangelical Revival, 41, 151 Evangelisch-Lutherische Mission zu Leipzig, 212–213, 215 Evangelische Missions-Hilfe, 73 Evangelisches Missions-Magazin, 52, 58, 136, 148

258 Fetter Lane Society, 41 Fiji, 14, 29, 169–188 Fiji Times, 171 Fijians, “Dying out” of, 180–181, 186 Finschhafen, Papua New Guinea, 114, 117 First Nations, 24, 31, 32 Fitzgerald, Rosemary, 216 Fitzpatrick, Matthew, 55 Flierl, Johann, 114, 117, 118 Foucault, Michel, 241 Fox(e), John, 191 France, 97–103, 106–107, 111, 133, 153, 187 Francke, August Hermann, 42, 235 Freinademetz, Joseph, 92–93 Franco-Prussian War, 53 French, Revolution, 52 Values, 105 Friendly Islands, see also Tonga, 29, 171, 172 Frimodt-Møller, Christian, 206, 211 Frow, John, 225–226, 230, 236 Frykholm, Harald, 216, 220 Gandhi, Mahatma, 177 Gansu, China, 83 Gapecnuoc, 122, 126, 129, see also Papua New Guinea, Authors Gender, 119, 179, 216 Genre, 15, 94, 171, 225–243 Formal Organisation, 226–230 Currency, 158, 169, 170–171, 185–186, 188, 227, Familiarity, 227–228, 230, 233, 242 Format and Size, 26, 50–52, 97– 98, 207, 227–228, 242 Layout, 226, 229, 242 Masthead, 49–50, 226, 228–230, 238, 242 Periodicity, 55, 64, 186, 226–227 Recognisable, 49–50, 227–228 Reliability, 227, 230, 243 Types and Lengths of Articles, 47, 62–66, 84, 117 Thematic Content, 236–242 Metaphors of darkness and light, 84, 88, 93, 202, 237–243 Recurrent topics of discourse, 236 Rhetorical Structure, 230–235

Index Letters, 231–235, see also Missionary, Letters George V, King, 29, 31, 35 George VI, King, 31 German Alliance Mission, 188, 189, see also China-Bote German Colonial Institute, 142 German Colonialism, 134–135, 141, see also Empire, German Legitimisation arguments, 143 German Colonies, 61, 134, 138, 139–150, see also Deutsch-Südwestafrika, Deutsch-Ostafrika, Kamerun, and Papua New Guinea German East Africa Company, 139 Germany, 40–45, 48, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 64, 66, 68, 72, 74, 83, 84, 91, 93, 95, 113– 115, 117, 119, 120, 122, 123, 129, 133, 134, 135, 138, 147, 187, 188, 193 Gesellschaft für Innere und Äußere Mission im Sinne der lutherischen Kirche, see Neuendettelsau Mission Gill, Walter, 179 Globalisation, 70 Goa, India, 106, 110 Gomic, 124, see also Papua New Guinea, Authors Gordon, Arthur, 174, 181 Gordon, General, 19 Götzen, Adolf von, 144 Great Britain, 9, 22–25, 29, 30, 31, 40, 42, 43, 52, 54–55, 102, 154, 187, 239–240, see also British, see also Empire, Britain Conflict with Russia, 154, 159 Greenland, 40 Grundemann, Reinhold, 59, 60, 61 Guangdong, China, 83 Gullestad, Marianne, 241 Gütersloh, Germany, 59 Halinkec, 122, see also Papua New Guinea, Authors Hallesche Berichte, 42, 235 Hawai’i, see Sandwich Islands Heathenism, 53, 172, 182, 183, 237 Heinke, Ludwig, 141 Heldsbach, Papua New Guinea, 117 Henle, Richard, 91–93 Herrnhut, 40, 46 Hevia, James, 194 Hoekendijk, Johannes Christiaan, 118–119 Hoff, Ludwig, 158

Index Holland, 83–84 Holm, Albert, 233–235 Holm, Niels Johannes, 44–45, 53 Hölscher, Lucian, 79–80 Holy Ghost Fathers, 141 Hubrig, Friedrich, 85 Huon Peninsular, see Papua New Guinea ‘Imagined Commuities’, 232 Immigration, 34, ‘Coolie’, 169–186 Imperial East Africa Company, 64 Imperialism, 13, 22–23, 37, 56, 70, 75, 76, 137, 187 Christian, 35 Critique of, 55–56, 70, 199 and Mission, 58, 67–70, 187, 240, 241 and Providence, 45, 53–54, 159 Support of, 13 Indentured Labour, 169–186 India, 14, 24, 25, 29, 33, 35, 48, 61, 101, 105–107, 109, 110–111, 140, 175, 177, 179, 184, 185, 205–223 East, 209, 210 South, 15, 205–207, 211–223 Indian Coolie Mission, see ‘Coolie’, Mission Indian Evangelical Review, 134 Individualism, 95, 223 International Review of Missions, The, 147 Internationalism, 60, 66, 68, 75 Ireland, 33, 52 Islam, 14, 65, 184, see also Muslims Anti, 142–144, 146–147, see also Islamophobia Images of, 134–150 Islamic, Conspiracy against Colonial Government, 145 Fundamentalism, 145 Threat, 146, 149–150 Islamisation, 135, 137, 142, 147–148, 149 Threat of, 139 Islamophobia, 14, 136, 137, 145 Italy, 187 James, 219, see also Church of Sweden, Mission, Co-Workers Janssen, Arnold, 83–84 Japan, 21, 24, 90, 187 Jesuits, 138 French 14, 97–112 Anti- stance towards, 99 Jewish conversion, see Conversion, Jewish

259 Jewish Expositor and Friend of Israel, The, 155 Jewish Intelligence, 155, 157, 158, 159 Jewish Records, 155, 157, 158, 159 Jewish Repository, The, see Jewish Expositor and Friend of Israel Jews, 47, 151–165 Jiaozhou Bay, China, 64, 83, 91, 93, 95 John, Griffith, 195 Johnson, Louise, 241 Johnston, Anna, 186, 208 Jü, 98, see also Converts, Chinese Juvenile Missionary Herald, 26 Kagawa, Toyohiko, 33 Kaiserreich, see Empire, German Kamerun, see Cameroon Kâte (PNG language), 113–130 Keen, David, 22 Kelly, John, 177 Keyßer, Christian, 117, 118–119, 122, 123, 124, 126, 127, 129 ‘Kingdom of God’, 35, 92, 194, 202–203 Kingdom of Poland, see Poland, Kingdom Kituai, August, 129 Kleiner Herz-Jesu-Bote, 79, 84, 91, 243 Kleinlandau, Alsace, 149 Kölnische Volkszeitung, 92 Koo, Dr T. Z., 33 Korea, 24 Kriel, Lize, 48 Kristina, 219, see also Church of Sweden, Mission, Co-Workers Kuder, John, 116 Kugelberg, Eva, 213–214, 217 Kugelberg, Fredrik, 209, 213–221, 223 Kulturkampf, 80, 84, 95, 138, 147 Kulturprotestantismus, 80 Labrador, 47 Lal, Brij, 178 Le Gobien, Charles, 97–99 Leo XIII, Pope, 149 Lepsius, Johannes, 65 Le Roy, H. P., 13–139 Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, 97–112 Lettres édifiantes et curieuses de la nouvelle mission du Maduré, 97, 105–106, 109 Leuschner, Wilhelm, 85 Li, 89, see also Converts, Chinese Li Chotang, 90, see also Converts, Chinese Li Syn tshoi, 86, see also Converts, Chinese Li tshyung-yin, 85–86, see also Converts, Chinese

260 Liberals (German), 133, 141 Lindsay, William W., 170 Little Missionary, The, 11 Livingstone, David, 239–240 Logaweng, Papua New Guinea, 115 London, 11, 42, 43, 87 London Association in aid of the Missions of the United Brethren, commonly called Moravian Missions, 44 London Missionary Repository for Youth, and Sunday School Missionary Magazine, 51–52 London Missionary Society, 151 London Society for Promoting Christianity among Jews, The, 14, 151–165 Lorenz, Chris, 24 Lotu, The, 21 Louis XVI, King, 101 Louis XVIII, King, 101–102 Lutheran Church, Evangelical, Papua New Guinea, 116, 122 Poland, 154 Sweden, 211, 216 Tamil Evangelical, 213 Lutherans, 133, 134, 189 German, 14, 83–87, 88–89, 93–96, 113–130, 189, 212 Swedish, 207–223 Lyon, France, 98 Madagascar, 65 Madura (Madurai), India, 106, 110, 213, 217, see also Lettres édifiantes et curieuses de la nouvelle mission du Maduré Mahdi Revolt, 137, 145, see also Sudan Mahler, Raphael, 161 Maidment, Brian, 50 Maigao, 125–126, see also Papua New Guinea, Authors Maji-Maji Uprising, 144–145 Malaysia, 140 Manchus, 195 Māori, 20, 24, 30 Marchant, Bessie, 34 Marshall, Thomas William, 138 Martignac, Jean-Baptiste Gay de, 103 Martin, William Alexander Parson, 195 Martyrdom, 82, 90–93, 94, 187–194, 195, 202 Martyrs, 79–82, 90–93, 96, 190–192 Mary, Queen, 31

Index Masthead, 49–50, 228–230, see also Genre, Formal Organisation, Masthead McCarthy, Thomas, 183–184 McLeod, Hugh, 30 Mecca Letters, 145 Medical mission, 15, 205–223 Meinhof, Carl, 148 Melbourne Spectator, 171 Membuŋ, 127–128, see also Papua New Guinea, Authors Mennonite, 37 Message, 21 Methodist, 14, Church of Australasia, 169–170 Missionaries, 169–186 Newspaper, 20 Church of Canada, 33 Methodist Magazine, 50 Methodist Missionary, see Australasian Methodist Missionary Review Metropole, 25, 26, 134 Millennialists, 151 Mirbt, Carl, 143–144, 149 Mission Field, The, 188, 189, 190, 192, 193 Missionary, Education, 27, 100, 123, 138, 160, 141– 142, 173, 175, 185 ‘Helpers’, 50, 85, 115–117, 120–121, 219–222, 223, 236 Letters, 9, 47, 48, 49, 84, 91, 92, 109, 120, 122, 125, 141, 158–159, 171, 176, 190, 195, 207, 208, 212, 227, 230–235, 236, 240, 242, 243, see also Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, see also Genre, Rhetorical Structure, Letters Reports, 9, 12, 42, 44, 47, 49, 55, 58, 63, 65, 66, 84, 85, 90, 92, 97, 98, 100, 102–108, 110–112, 121, 123, 139–139, 152, 154–161, 164–165, 171, 183, 186, 201, 203, 207, 208, 219, 220, 227, 243 Missionary Herald, The, 188, 189, 192, 193–196, 198–199, 203 Missionary Messenger, 21 Missionary Outlook, 21 Missionary Register, 47 Missionary Review, see Australasian Methodist Missionary Review Missions-Blatt, 13, 39–56 Missionsförbundet, 15, 225–243 Missionsschriften für Kinder, 85

Index Missionstidning, 205–223 Missiologists, 117, 134, 136–149 Critique of Government, 141, 147 Dispute with Missionaries, 134 and Orientalists, 136 Missiology, 137, 138, 149 Modernisation, 70, 81, 96 Modernity, 13, 14, 68, 80–82, 93–96, 148, 190 Catholic Anti- stance, 80–81, 148–149 And Missionaries, 82 Mohammed, Prophet, 143, 145, 150 Monthly Intelligence, see Jewish Intelligence Monthly Leaflet, 21, 26–27, 34 Moravian Church, 39–56, 60, 67 Morpeth, Australia, 172 Mosquito Coast, 54 Moule, George Evans, 200 Mühlhahn, Klaus, 81 Mumbai, see Bombay Muslims, 61, 64, 134–135, 139–150, 183, 212, see also Islam Myanmar, see Burma Nachrichten aus der Brüder-Gemeine, 44 Nameplate, see Masthead Nandy, Ashis, 184–185 Napoleon, 98, 101, 153 National identity, 21–22, and Religion, 19–39, 57–76, 101 Nationalism, 58, Missionary, 45, 57–76, 110, 148 and Religion, 75 and Universalism, 58, 67, 70, 76 Nationalistic aspirations, 12, 176 Native American Indians, 42 Neue Missionsschriften, 84–85 Neue Weltbott, 97–98 Neuendettelsau, 117, 120 Mission, 113–130 New Britain, 170, 171 New Guinea, see Papua New Guinea New Hebrides (Vanuatu), 25, 29 New York Methodist Society, 50 New Zealand, 19–37, 169 New Zealand Baptist, 21 New Zealand Missionary Record, The, 21, 26, 29 New Zealand School Journal, The, 28 New Zealand War Cry, The, 21, 36 Newspapers, 9, 41, 51, 92, 142, 154, 169– 171, 186, 188, 197, 202, 227 Nicolas I, Tsar, 160

261 Nies, Franz, 91–93 Nordin, Elin, 221 Nordisk Missions-Tidskrift, 211 North America, see America, North North German Mission Society, 60, 63, 69 November Uprising (Poland), 158 Oeuvre de la Propagation de la Foi, 108 Open Brethren, 37 Opium, 70, 85, 86, 88, 94 Wars, 93, 94 ‘Other’, the, 9, 10, 13, 14, 30, 34, 223, 236, 241, see also ‘Othering’ ‘Othering’, 194, 234 Pacific, 29, 55, 64, 113, 171 South, 169, 172, 174, 180 South West, 25 Pākehā, 21, 30 Pakiam, 219, see also Church of Sweden, Mission, Co-Workers Papua New Guinea, 14, 29, 113–130 Authors, 122–130 Huon Peninsular, 113–114 Paris, France, 87, 98, 109 Patukota, India, 213, 214, 216, 217, 223 Pedagogy, 35 Periodical Accounts Relating to the Missions of the Church of the United Brethren, Established among the Heathen, 13, 39–56 Periodicity, 226–227, see also Genre, Formal Organisation, Periodicity Periphery, 25, 122–123, 138, 143 Photographs, 9 in Missionary Periodicals, 11, 36 Pilhofer, Georg, 117, 120–122, 125, 128– 129 Pius VII, Pope, 100 Poland, Kingdom of, 14, 153–154, 156–165 Polygamy, 85, 86, 88, 143–44 and Slavery, 143–144 Porter, Andrew, 10, 41 Portugal, Colonial Power, 106–107 Colonies, 109–111 Padroado, 109–111 Posse, Hedvig, 209 Pratt, Mary Louise, 124 Prefaces, 49–56, 97–112 Presbyterian Church, New Zealand, 19–37 Quebec, 30

262 Querbeuf, Yves Mathurin Marie de, 98, 99, 100, 107, 111 Race (discourses on), 14, 20–21, 33, 148, 169–186, 239 Racism, 148, 179–180 Rarotonga, 29 Rasendiram, 219, see also Church of Sweden, Mission, Co-Workers Readership, see Audience Reaper, The, 21 Rechenberg, Albrecht von, 146 Reichart, Rolf, 238 Reichel, Ernst, 67, 68, 69 Reichstag, 141 Religious Education, 25, 27, 34, 100, see also Missionary Education Religious Freedom, 94, 200 Religious Tract Society, 151 Rhenisch Mission Society, 60 Rhodes, Alexandre de, 109 Ricci, Matteo, 100 Richter, Julius, 60, 65, 71–73, 75, 137, 139, 189, 193, 195 Römer, Joseph, 45 Russia, 152–153 Sailsburg, Lord, 197 Saint-Pierre, Jacques-Henre Bernardin de, 102 Saint Thomas Christians, 109–110 Salvation Army, 36 Samoa, 29, 138, 171 Sandwich Islands (Hawai’i), 29 Sattelberg, Papua New Guinea, 118, 124, 128 Saxon Provincial Mission Conference, 68 Scandinavia, 59, see also Sweden Schleswig-Holsteinische EvangelischLutherische Missionsgesellschaft, 71 Schmidlin, Joseph, 149 Schools, 28, 29, 31, 81, 117, 140, 141, 142, 144, 173, 175, 213–214, 219 Language of instruction, 106, 142 Nursing, 213–214, 221 Sunday, 21, 22, 25, 28, 37 Schnee, Heinrich, 146 Schultze, Erich, 149 Shandong, China, 92, 187 Shanghai, China, 189, 200 Sheffield, Devello Z., 200 Simon, Gottfried, 150 Slavery, 40, 45, 54, 105, 143–144, 239 Anti, 61, 239

Index and Polygamy, 143–144 Small, A. J., 176, 177 Smith, Judson, 194 Smith, Richard, 158 Social change, 15, 174–186, 205–223 Social Democrats (German), 141 Societatis Iesu, 100, see also Jesuits, French Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 41, 97 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 41, 42, 188–189, 190, 192–193 Society of the Divine Word (Societas Verbum Dei), 79–96 Solomon Islands, 21 South Africa, 21, 22, 80, 207, 209 War, 32 South America, see America, South South India, see India, South Spener, Phillipp Jacob, 114 Spivak, Gayatri, 113–114, 120, 122, 123, 129 Sri Lanka, see Ceylon Stadler, Jürgen, 119 Stadt Gottes, 84 Stanley, Brian, 238 Strachan, John Miller, 209–212 Steck, Karl, 118 Stenz, Georg, 87, 92 Stern, Abraham, 161 Steyl, Holland, 83 Stereotypes, 20, 150, 219 Anti-Islamic, 136, 137, see also Islamophobia in Missionary Periodicals, 12, 85, 87, 147–148, of Fiji Indians, 178–179 , 181–182, 185–186 Strasbourg, Switzerland, 137 Strong, Rowan, 45 St Thomas, Danish West Indies, 40 Subaltern Voice, 113–114, 120, 122–123, 129 Sudan, 137, 145 Sunbeam, The, 21 Sunday School, see Schools, Sunday Superstition (Heathen), 71, 85–87, 88, 94, 205, 216, 239, 241 Suter, Edgar, 118 Suva, Fiji, 173 Svenska Kyrkans Mission, see Church of Sweden Mission

Index Svenska Missionsförbundet, 226, 235 Swahili, Language, 142, Muslims, 145 Sydney, 123–124, 169–170 Sydney Morning Herald, 171 Taiwan, 24 Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church, see Lutheran Church, Tamil Evangelical Tamil Nadu, India, 105, 213 Tatars, 103 Conversion to Catholicism, 103 Taylor, Hudson, 188 Thieves Islands, 29 Thornley, A. W., 175–176, 181, 182 Tianjin, China, 187 Treaty of, 92, 94 Tibet, 54 Timbuktu, 101 Tirupattur, India, 206, 209, 213, 214, 217, 220, 221, 223 Todorov, Tzvetan, 225, 243 Togo, 138 Tokyo, Japan, 87 Tomlinson, Matt, 170 Tonga, 29, 171, 172 Torabully, Khal, 177 Tropes, 33, 82, 87, 88, 92, 95, 172, 238 Conversion, of, 80 Dangerous ‘Coolie’, 177–182, 185 Dying race, 181, 185 ‘Heathenism’, 182 Modern Progress, 80 Needy ‘heathen’, 12 Tugendholg, Jakub, 161 Turgot, Anne Robert, 103 Twain, Mark, 197, 198 Tweeddale, Gus, 20 Uganda, 64–65, see also Buganda, Kingdom of United States of America, 11, 24, 34, 54, 59, 104, 105, 180 Cultural Influence, 20, 26, 30 and Nationalism, 58, 67, 70 Van der Veer, Peter, 80 Vanuatu, see New Hebrides Victoria, Queen, 31, 32 Vietnam, 90 Volpert, Anton, 92 Wagner, Herwig, 118 Warneck, Gustav, 57, 59, 60, 62, 63, 65–72, 76, 137, 138

263 Warneck, Johannes, 60, 65, 137 Warsaw, Poland, 154, 158, 159, 163 Warsaw, Duchy of, 153 Way, Lewis, 153 Weber, Max, 80–81 West Africa, see Africa, West West Indies, see Caribbean Wewel, Anton, 90 Wilhelm II, Kaiser, 93, 190 Willard, Frances E., 34 Wodziński, Marcin, 153 Wood, Harold, 174 World War I (WWI), 24, 27, 32, 33, 37, 60, 61, 62, 65–66, 67, 71, 72, 76, 114, 115, 116, 120, 146, 189, 226 World War II (WWII), 25, 34, 36, 114, 116, 117 Xavier, Francis, 107–108 Xinjiang, China, 83, 229 Yabim (PNG language), 114, 115, 116, 117, 130 Yain nayam/Jaingngajam, 115, 118 Yale, British Columbia, Canada, 31–32 Yanzhou, China, 87 Zahn, Franz Michael, 59, 60, 63, 68–69, 71, 72 Zalar, Jeffrey, 81 Zanzibar, 139 Zhili, China, 187 Zinzendorf, Nikolas von, 40 Zou, 123–124, see also Papua New Guinea, Authors Zulenalec, 122 see also Papua New Guinea, Authors Zwemer, Samuel, 147

m i s s i o n s g e s c h i c h t l i c h e s a rc h i v Studien der Berliner Gesellschaft für Missionsgeschichte

Herausgegeben im Auftrag des Vorstandes von Andreas Feldtkeller, Irving Hexham, Ulrich van der Heyden, Gunther Pakendorf und Werner Ustorf.

Franz Steiner Verlag

7.

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Tanja Hemme Streifzüge durch eine fremde Welt Untersuchung ausgewählter schriftlicher Zeugnisse deutscher Reisender im südlichen Afrika unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der kulturellen Fremderfahrung 2000. 250 S., kt. ISBN 978-3-515-07563-3 8. Chun-Shik Kim Deutscher Kulturimperialismus in China Deutsches Kolonialschulwesen in Kiautschou (China) 1898–1914 2004. 272 S. mit 23 Abb., geb. ISBN 978-3-515-08570-0 9. Andrea Schultze „In Gottes Namen Hütten bauen“ Kirchlicher Landbesitz in Südafrika: die Berliner Mission und die EvangelischLutherische Kirche Südafrikas zwischen 1834 und 2005 2005. 619 S. mit 17 Abb., geb. ISBN 978-3-515-08276-1 10. Ulrich van der Heyden / Holger Stoecker (Hg.) Mission und Macht im Wandel politischer Orientierungen Europäische Missionsgesellschaften in politischen Spannungsfeldern in Afrika und Asien zwischen 1800 und 1945 2005. 700 S., geb. ISBN 978-3-515-08423-9 11. Vera Boetzinger „Den Chinesen ein Chinese werden“ Die deutsche protestantische Frauenmission in China 1842–1952 2004. 305 S. mit 15 Abb. und 1 Kte., kt. ISBN 978-3-515-08611-0 12. Ulrich van der Heyden / Andreas Feldtkeller (Hg.) Border Crossings Explorations of an Interdisciplinary Historian. Festschrift für Irving Hexham 2008. 496 S. mit farb. Frontisp., geb. ISBN 978-3-515-09145-9 13. Lize Kriel The ‘Malaboch’ books

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