The Wesleyan Mission to New Zealand 1819-1840

Abstract

In essence, this thesis is a study of a handful of missionaries. Although their activities involve many other people, the basic story concerns no more than eight men; and although many problems are investigated, there are no more than three major themes. Firstly the influence the missionaries had on the people around them; secondly the effect of isolation on the missionaries; and thirdly the consequences of the missionary’s problem of reconciling and maintaining a series of conflicting relationships. All human beings have problems of relationships, but these missionaries were under particular strain. Each one had his relationship with his God and with himself; with the missionary society and the religious public in England and Australia; with his family; with his colleagues; with European settlers, both “respectable” and “depraved”; with rival missionary bodies working in his area; and finally, his relationship with the people he had come to convert. If it is possible to have a relationship with inanimate objects, one could add to the list, the large number of possessions (personal possessions, buildings, farms, gardens, animals, trade goods) which soon accumulated around the missionary and often dominated his behaviour.