A
Christian Missionaries, Colonial Knowledges, Contested Geographies:The Missionary Translation of Indigenous Language and Culture in New
South Wales and Oregon Territory in the Nineteenth Century@
Anne Keary
UC Berkeley
My dissertation is a comparative project which examines the work
of Christian missionaries as translators of indigenous language and
culture in two regions of the world transformed by European settler
colonialism in the first half of the nineteenth century: New South
Wales, Australia and Oregon Territory in America. In both regions,
Protestant missionaries were sent out to convert indigenous people to
Christianity. In pursuit of this goal, they studied indigenous
languages, developed knowledges of indigenous cultures and came to act
as mediators between indigenous people and European colonists. My
dissertation considers how these missionary knowledges and activities
were shaped by - and shaped - the distinctive political, economic and
cultural histories of colonization in each region. It also seeks to
illuminate the distinctive role missionaries played as negotiators
between Europeans and indigenous communities in settler colonies.
I have developed the outlines of my comparative inquiry from a
study of the work of the American philologist, Horatio Hale, who
visited both New South Wales and Oregon Territory between 1838 and
1842 as a member of the United States Exploring Expedition. On his
travels, Hale relied principally on Christian missionaries for
information about the indigenous languages and cultures of each
region. In Australia he met with missionaries from the London
Missionary Society and the Church Missionary Society who had
established their missions in 1824 and 1830 respectively. In Oregon
Territory he met with missionaries from the Methodist Missionary
Society who had been there since 1831 and the missionaries of the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, who had
established their missions in the mid-1830s. In his philological
study, Philology and Ethnography (1846), which was largely derived
from missionary accounts, Hale presented the indigenous languages of
Oregon Territory and New South Wales in strikingly different ways.
In Oregon Territory, Hale named the language of each indigenous tribe
and mapped the languages as tribal entities onto territory. In other
words, he described - and inscribed - the indigenous languages of the
Pacific Northwest according to Western conceptions of nationhood:
equating land, language and people. The one Pacific Northwest
language he did not map on to territory, was the ATrade or Jargon
Language@ of the region which he describes in an a separate chapter.
In New South Wales, by contrast, Hale commented on the difficulty of
naming any of the indigenous languages of the country. He made no
reference to the territorial extent of each language, provided no map
and made no mention of the Australian colonial jargon, although this
language has since been thoroughly documented.
These different representations of the indigenous languages of New
South Wales and Oregon Territory were, I argue, a product of the
different political and economic histories of colonization which
shaped each region. In Oregon Territory, the Anglo-American custom of
according political recognition to indigenous people meant that
Europeans, including the missionaries, were interested in naming
indigenous groups and mapping tribal territories: not surprisingly,
they used their own political terms and categories. In New South
Wales, on the other hand, the founding doctrine of the British
colonization of Australia was terra nullius which held that the
country was either uninhabited or without a recognizable sovereign
power. The British in New South Wales therefore felt no need to name
Aboriginal tribes and map them as language groups. Indeed, quite the
opposite: the recognition of Aboriginal tribes would have run counter
to the prevailing interests of British colonial ideology.
The question of the recognition or nonrecognition of the different
Ajargon languages@ of each territory was, similarly, a consequence of
the different socio-economic histories which shaped each region. In
Oregon Territory, the jargon language which Hale documents, had
evolved out of the Alegitimate@ colonial trade in fur over the course
of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The jargon of
New South Wales, by contrast which Hale ignored, had evolved out of
the trade between Aborigines and convict laborers in tobacco, alcohol
and sexual relations - a trade regarded by both the colonial
authorities and the missionaries whom Hale conferred with as
illegitimate.
These differences provide the comparative framework for my
examination of the work of missionaries as translators of indigenous
languages and culture. The kind of comparative study I am undertaking
is aimed not so much at uncovering the structures which shaped
colonial relations in each region, but at exploring the ways in which
everyday missionary practices were affected by larger political and
economic forces. My study is local and cultural for the most part,
but from the local it looks in two directions. On the one hand, I am
interested in how localized colonial and cross-cultural relations and
practices were affected by different imperial intentions and
ideologies. How, for example, did the recognition or nonrecognition
of indigenous societies as political entities affect the ways in which
missionaries went about the everyday work of translating indigenous
languages. Or how did it affect their roles as negotiators between
European colonists and indigenous people? On the other hand, I am
interested in the ways in which transnational colonial and evangelical
discourses were employed and reshaped by missionaries in these
different local contexts. In both regions, for instance, missionaries
turned to philology and ethnology to describe the indigenous people
they intended to convert: how were their philological and ethnographic
descriptions affected by the different organization of colonial
relationships in each place? In attempting to answer these kinds of
questions, I hope to illuminate some differences - to show how
missionary practices were shaped by different histories of colonialism
- and to draw some cross-regional parallels - to show how
missionaries in both places came to represent indigenous people, act
as mediators for them and, in the process, play a key role in the
reshaping settler colonial identities.
I have organized my study around four overlapping areas or
problems: Language, Religion, Land and Law. In each of these
fields, missionaries played a key role as interpreters of both
indigenous language and culture. Each issue involved an interplay
between local, national and transnational forces.
With regard to language, I begin by examining the various
religious, moral and scientific discourses which informed the
practice of missionary translation in both New South Wales and Oregon
Territory: the belief that all languages could be transparent
vehicles for the message of the Christian God; the commitment to
literacy and the study of language as part of the moral training of
the Protestant subject; and, coming out of the emerging life sciences,
a growing interest in the scientific classification of languages. I
then outline the different sociolinguistic contexts in which the
missionaries began their work of translation. In New South Wales,
before the arrival of the missionaries, translation was, of course,
mainly undertaken by the Aborigines who acquired elements of English
as a means of dealing with the colonizers who were taking over their
country. Most of the British, on the other hand, following the
arrogant logic of terra nullius, were either disinterested in
Aboriginal languages or held that Aboriginal people did not have a
language proper at all. There were some, amongst the colonial
officials, who took an amateur scientific interest in Aboriginal
languages, and then, at the other end of the social scale, there were
the convicts and laborers who learnt to speak a colonial jargon with
the Aborigines for the purposes of trading or engaging in sexual
relations with Aboriginal women. But no one among the British had
seriously attempted to learn an Aboriginal language in order to
communicate with the Aboriginal people. In this context, the
missionary recognition of Aboriginal languages challenged the
prevailing ideologies of British colonialism - while their rejection
of the jargon language entailed a new formulation of British-
Aboriginal relations. The missionaries, themselves, were not
especially concerned with naming different Aboriginal languages,
although they did become increasingly aware of differences and
increasingly aware of Aboriginal communication networks. I argue,
that in the absence of political recognition, and in the absence of
firmly established British categories and ways of dealing the
Aboriginal people, the missionaries eventually came to a more radical
understanding of Aboriginal culture. They increasingly found their
own linguistic and social categories destabilized in the process of
translation. However, for all that, I show that missionary
descriptions of indigenous languages and later their philological
studies came to be harnessed to humanitarian and paternalist demands
for Aboriginal protection and assimilationist Acivilization@ policies.
In Oregon Territory the missionary translation and representation
of indigenous languages took a rather different form. The
sociolinguistic context in which the missionaries of the American
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and the Methodist
Missionary Society found themselves had developed along different
lines. Fur traders interested in identifying trading partners and
establishing trading relationships, had established names for
indigenous groups and their languages: the Nez Perce, the Flathead,
the Cayuses, the Chinook, the Walla-Wallas. Such names attributed a
European-style national unity to social groups whose organization was
often rather more fluid. The fur traders did not, however, usually
make any concerted attempt to learn the indigenous languages.
Although some did become more or less fluent, most furtraders were
content to speak the colonial trade jargon, a language which was
developed out of exchanges with fur-trading Indians. But again, in
most cross-cultural exchanges, it was the indigenous people themselves
who did most of the translating. The missionaries, then, when they
arrived, followed the furtraders= in naming indigenous tribes for the
purposes of identifying different linguistic groups for conversion.
They also turned to the use of furtrader interpreters for the purposes
of spreading their religious messages, although some of the Methodists
went on to use the colonial trade jargon. I argue that in Oregon
Territory, missionary preconceptions of indigenous society combined
with their reliance on furtrade interpreters, ultimately limited their
work of translation and their understanding of the indigenous cultures
of the Pacific Northwest. They held to the categories which had
emerged out of European economic interests and political practices.
Their philological interests were similarly informed by an interest in
strict classifications. I go on to show, in a later section, that
the missionary conceptions of indigenous linguistic groups ultimately
came to be used by Americans in the treaty-making process, and
therefore, in the reformulation of indigenous political identities.
Having outlined the socio-linguistic contexts in which
missionaries carried out their work of translation, I go on to examine
translation in relation to the specific matters of religious
conversion, territorial claims, and legal and political relations.
With regard to religion, I take up the question of how missionaries
in both New South Wales and Oregon Territory went about their attempts
to convert indigenous people to Christianity. In both regions, the
development of a knowledge of indigenous practices and beliefs was
integral to the project of conversion. I examine missionary
assessments of indigenous beliefs and practices and, again, I consider
the ways in which this was to varying degrees, informed by both
Christian and ethnographic discourses. I then look at how missionary
conversion strategies and the indigenous reception of Christianity was
conditioned by the different histories of colonization which
characterized each region. In Oregon territory the missionaries
focused on either converting indigenous leaders or indoctrinating the
children. The development of an ethnographic knowledge of indigenous
religious beliefs was limited by both missionary use of the colonial
jargon and their relations with interpreters. It was also limited by
indigenous interest in Christianity. Those indigenous groups who had,
to a degree, been able to turn the fur trade to their own advantage
tended to show the most interest in Christianity and appropriated some
of its forms and practices for their own purposes. It was in the face
of syncretism that the American missionaries attempted to develop a
better understanding of indigenous customs. In New South Wales, on
the other hand, the British missionaries confronted a rather
different situation. In the absence of established political
relations, they did not look to the conversion of tribal leaders as a
strategy for the conversion of whole tribes. Initially, they also
made a greater attempt to understand indigenous belief systems if only
to seek parallels which they could use to communicate Christianity.
The Aborigines, for their part, showed only a limited interest in the
religious message of the missionaries. Seeing little to gain from
British Christianity and repelled by the Christian interest in death
even as their own communities were being devastated by disease, they
held fast to their own beliefs. In the face of this failure, some of
the missionaries returned to ethnography and ethnographic writing as a
means of shoring up the cultural authority they had lost as
missionaries.
With regard to land and territory, I examine missionary
understandings of indigenous relations to the land. In both regions,
incoming colonists were intent on the appropriation of indigenous
territory and, to varying degrees, in both places missionaries found
themselves negotiating between colonial and indigenous claims to the
land. In New South Wales, missions were initially established at a
remove from European settlements but on land which the British had
already imaginatively claimed. The missionaries, however, found that
Aboriginal people were continuing to use the land for their own
purposes. Although the missionaries made a limited attempt to
encourage Aborigines to farm, the Aborigines rejected their attempts,
continuing to live by native means of subsistence. Consequently, the
British missionaries developed an understanding, albeit limited, of
indigenous economic, social and even religious uses of the land which
ran counter to prevailing British beliefs. In the later 1830s and
1840s, however, European colonizers began to move in to claim the land
for grazing sheep and violence broke out between colonists and
Aboriginal people. The missionaries, horrified by attacks on the
indigenous people and alarmed by the influence of convict stockmen on
the Aborigines , came to defend indigenous claims to the land, but
they did so with difficulty, both defining such claims in British
terms whilst seeking to avoid any overt challenge to terra nullius and
the overarching British claim to the continent.
In Oregon Territory, the missionaries played a rather different
role. The furtraders in the Pacific Northwest had developed their own
knowledge of indigenous geography and understood the territory to be
the possession of different indigenous groups of the region. The
furtrade, had also, of course, begun to transform indigenous uses of
the land. When the missionaries arrived, they established their
mission stations not far from fur-trading centers or on sites deemed
good for farming. They understood, in abstracted European terms, that
the land belonged to indigenous people but they believed themselves to
be agents of a higher moral project. When indigenous leaders
initially accepted the missions, hoping that they would provide
desirable material goods, the missionaries settled in the belief that
this was a Providential sign of the future success of their mission
and that they had been given the land. They accordingly established
farms and were active in their attempts to encourage indigenous people
to turn from hunting to farming. In this situation, missionary
understanding of alternative indigenous relations to the land remained
limited. When it became apparent that the missionaries were not
going to provide for indigenous groups in the same way the traders
had, indigenous resistance to the mission establishments grew. Then,
in the 1840s, as American settlers began to move in to the region, the
missionaries welcomed them, viewing them in the terms of Anglo-
American ideology as model Christian farmers (in ways in which the
convict stockmen of Australia were so obviously not). Indigenous
leaders, for their part, rightly saw them as invaders and increased
their resistance, leading to the infamous massacre of Marcus and
Narcissa Whitman of the ABCFM in 1847 and the consequent eruption of
warfare between colonists and indigenous groups across the region.
Whilst the remaining missionaries hoped for peace, they did not seek
to defend indigenous claims to the land, as in New South Wales, rather
they defended the Christian American expansionism to which they
believed the indigenous people should accede.
Finally, with regard to law, I examine the role missionaries
played as negotiators between indigenous people and colonial officials
in each region. In New South Wales I examine the work of missionaries
as interpreters in the courts and advocates for Aboriginal protection.
In Oregon territory I consider the role missionaries played in treaty
negotiations. In both cases, I look at the ways in which missionary
representations of indigenous people informed the constitution of
colonial relations in each region. In New South Wales, I focus on a
court case in 1836 in which an Aboriginal man was charged with the
murder of another Aboriginal man. In this case, the counsel appointed
for the defense called into question the legitimacy of British
jurisdiction in cases involving crimes committed between Aborigines.
The missionary interpreter was called upon for advice and he
accordingly submitted an affidavit describing the alternative
Aboriginal practices of justice and punishment, although he ultimately
argued that they should be brought under British law. The judge=s
ruling definitively reasserted British jurisdiction over the entire
colony. The missionary, for his part, subsequently went on to argue
for Aboriginal rights within the British legal system. In Oregon
Territory, on the other hand, I will be focusing on the work of the
Methodist missionary, Elijah White, who went on to become an Indian
Agent and conduct a number of treaty negotiations in the 1840s and
1850s. Here I explore the ways in which White represented indigenous
people. On the one hand, he recognized their autonomy in American
terms, as Adomestic nations@ but on the other hand, this recognition
ironically allowed for little acknowledgment of alternative indigenous
forms of political organization. Although accounts of the treaty-
making process itself provide some evidence of alternative ways of
understanding the transaction, ultimately White, with all the
authority of his missionary experience, insisted on representing the
indigenous groups using established American categories and compelling
them to accept to American colonization.
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