missions: Early History

Two unsuccessful attempts were made to establish Protestant missions in the middle of the 16th cent., one by French Protestants for a colony in Brazil and the other a plan of King Gustavus I of Sweden for work among the Laplanders. The Dutch East India Company sent missionaries to the Malaysians early in the 17th cent., and a seminary for the training of missionaries for work among the Native Americans was carried on in New England in the 17th cent. by John Eliot and Roger Williams (see also Stockbridge). The Society of Friends also made converts among Native Americans.

In Great Britain associations were formed to encourage the extension of the faith among the American colonists—the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England (1649), the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (c.1698), and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (1701). The Scottish Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge appointed (1742) David Brainerd as a missionary to the Native Americans. Denmark sent into its colonial fields of the East and West Indies the first Lutheran missionaries—mainly German Pietists—in 1705. Members of the Moravian Church went as missionaries to all continents except Australia before 1760.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Nineteenth Century to the Present
• Early History
• Roman Catholic Missions
• Bibliography

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