Adoniram Judson and the Creation of a Missionary Discourse in Pre-Colonial Burma

Abstract

In the following paper I argue that Adoniram Judson, the first American Baptist Missionary to Burma, was strongly empathetic with his adopted country. His work as interpreter-translator during the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Yandabo in 1826 and his visits to Ava both immediately before and after the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-1826), although couched in the language of Christian mission, exhibited characteristics markedly different from the perspective of Ann Judson's memoir, and from those of certain missionary narratives subsequent to his own. I propose to examine aspects of three texts: Ann Judson's An Account of the American Baptist Mission to the Burman Empire ; Henry Gouger's Personal Narrative of Two Years Imprisonment in Burmah ; and Adoniram Judson's deposition to John Crawfurd. I shall also refer to J. Snodgrass' Narrative of the Burmese War (1824-1826) and Henry Trant's Two Years in Ava for other perspectives on some events.