My Missionaries

Conversing with his elder sister, he mentioned that his doctor had told him, last evening, he would not live the night through; ‘but, (he observed), ‘I did not think so. I could not speak, to tell him that I entertained a different opinion, but I felt a certainty, in my own mind, that my end was not near. Indeed, I had a firm and abiding conviction, that I had a great deal of work to do, before my heavenly father called me home.’ When asked, what made him think so? He replied, ‘From a constant whispering to my heart, “Be up and doing.”'

--William Burchell on Thomas Burchell, Jamaica missionary

My M.A. thesis is a comparative study of missions in the British Empire. I'm looking specifically at how "the colonial encounter," as we history types like to say, shaped missionary identities and loyalties in Bengal and in Jamaica in the first half of the nineteenth century. Part of my thesis argues against a scholar named Catherine Hall, who has written a great deal on constructions of Englishness and masculinity--power relationships, essentially--in the Empire. She argues, in several places, that Baptist missionaries in Jamaica imposed middle class Englishness upon their converts in a successful effort to assert their power, as white men, over former slaves. She especially notes their usage of terms such as "babes in Christ" and "younger brothers and sisters" to describe African converts. I, in turn, note that these terms (and many other missionary actions) actually come from scripture or are grounded in biblical primitivism or apostolic example (which the missionaries themselves often refer to in their own writing. Prof. Hall didn't notice that, I guess). Too, my interpretation accords more agency to native Christians than Hall's allows.

I've really enjoyed researching and writing it. I plan to expand it, with more research--I need more secular sources--into the dissertation, which will eventually be publishable, I hope. Someone needs to straighten out Catherine Hall and vindicate those missionaries.

While researching this, I've read several thousand pages of missionary journals and accounts from between 1790 and 1850. The immersion in these old writings--just the beauty of the language--has probably been my favorite part. I've also been fortunate enough to handle several nineteenth century books. None were in their original bindings, but the pages were original, yellow-gold and wispy, and some had frontispiece portraits of the subject, with a signature, like yrs affectionately...William Knibb. It has also been very interesting to see how these men thought about God and how he works his will in the world, and to compare their ideas to mine. Sometimes reading of their faith and fervor, and their ability to work tirelessly for souls, has shamed me. I also often found myself wondering at their certainty of purpose. Often, they doubted themselves and their own abilities, but they never doubted God, and they were not cynical. I am probably too close to my subject by now, as some of their words and phrases and philosophy have crept into my sentences. I fear I am still cynical, but these missionaries have improved me, indeed.