Survey of Canadian Protestant Missionary Archives Relating to Africa

Abstract

Although Canada has shared in the task of evangelization from the first decade of the nineteenth century and Canadian church missions have been laboring in Africa since the 1880s, they are, unlike their American and British counterparts, mostly unknown, Even scholarly studies on church missions like those of Groves, and Neil contain only occasional references to Canadian involvement in world missions, while many directories and almanacs on missions do not even list Canadian missionary societies separately from those of the United States.Yet in 1975 about 3200 Canadian protestant missionaries and 4800 Canadian Roman Catholic missionaries were involved in missionary work outside Canada, high numbers the country's population. Of these, about 870 protestant missionaries and 1900 Catholic missionaries were working in Africa. An attempt will be made here to analyze the nature and extent of Canadian protestant missionary involvement in Africa and, more particularly, to make a few observations on the state of their archives.Our survey revealed the existence of twenty-two protestant missionary societies in Canada which have been involved in Africa, either directly or indirectly, at one time or another. These may be divided into three categories: Canadian, American-Canadian, and international missionary societies. Missionary societies classified as Canadian are those which have roots in Canadian soil and history, have head offices in Canada, make their own decisions and policies, control their own finances and administration, and direct their overseas missions without reference to any authority outside Canada.