American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was among the first American Christian missionary organizations. It was created in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College. In the 19th century it was the largest and most important of American missionary organizations and consisted of participants from Protestant Reformed traditions such as Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and German Reformed churches.

Before 1870, the ABCFM consisted of Protestants of several denominations, including Congregationalists and Presbyterians. However, due to secessions caused by the issue of slavery and by the fact that New School Presbyterian-affiliated missionaries had begun to support the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, after 1870 the ABCFM became a Congregationalist body.^[1]

The American Board (as it was frequently known) continued to operate as a largely Congregationalist entity until the 1950s. In 1957, the Congregational Christian church merged with the German Evangelical and Reformed Church to form the United Church of Christ. As a part of the organizational merger associated with this new denomination, the ABCFM ceased to be independent. It merged operations with other missions entities to form the United Church Board for World Ministries, an agency of the United Church of Christ.

Other organizations that draw inspiration from the ABCFM include InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference, and the Missionary Society of the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches.

was the first corresponding secretary, starting in 1810.

Samuel Worcester

corresponding secretary of the ABCFM from 1821 to 1831^[3]

Jeremiah Evarts

At the 1822 annual meeting, board members elected officers: Evarts as corresponding secretary, as president, and Rev. Joseph Lyman as vice president. The Prudential Committee consisted of William Reed, Rev. Leonard Woods, Jeremiah Evarts, Samuel Hubbard, and Rev. Warren Fay.^[4]

John Treadwell

became corresponding secretary, serving Dec 1831 – February 1832 (his death)^[5]

Elias Cornelius

Rufus Anderson (1796–1880) and David Greene (1797–1866) became "coequal" secretaries in 1832. When Wisner died (February 9, 1835), William Jessup Armstrong took his place.^[6]

Benjamin B. Wisner

Anderson, Greene, and Armstrong led as coequals from 1835 to 1846, with Anderson as foreign secretary, Armstrong as domestic secretary, and David Greene as secretary for and editor of the Missionary Herald^[7] Rufus Anderson continued as foreign secretary until 1866. Armstrong died in a shipwreck between Boston and New Jersey in 1846.

American Indian missions

was elected in 1843 as recording secretary. Rufus Anderson, Rev. David Greene, and Rev. William J. Armstrong were listed as "Secretaries for Correspondence." (President and vice president were listed respectively as Theodore Frelinghuysen LL. D. and Hon. Thomas S. Williams)^[8]

Selah B. Treat

By 1858, was sole corresponding secretary, with Rev. Mark Hopkins as President and abolitionist William Jessup as Vice-President.^[9] Hopkins had been the President of Williams College since 1836.

George Warren Wood

By 1866, Rev. and Rev G. W. Wood had joined Rufus Anderson and Selah Treat as corresponding secretaries.^[10] Wood, as ABCFM Secretary in New York City, held his position from 1850 to 1871. Clark assumed the position of Foreign Secretary when Anderson left in 1866 and remained Foreign Secretary until 1894.^[11]^[12]

Nathan George Clark

Mission to Gaboon ( station, Olandebenk station, Negenenge station, one outstation at Nomba)

Baraka

Mission to Zulus ( station, Umvoti station, Esidumbini station, Umsunduzi station, Itafamasi station, Table Mountain station, Inanda station, Umlazi station, Ifumi station, Amahlongwa station, Ifafa station, Umtwalumi station)

Mapumulo

Mission to (Chilesso station)

Angola

ABCFM in the Middle East[edit]

The ABCFM founded many colleges and schools in the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans.^[33] For example, the American College of Sofia in Bulgaria is the successor to a Boys' School founded by the ABCFM in 1860 in Plovdiv and a Girls' School in Stara Zagora in 1863. They were combined in Samokov, Bulgaria in 1871, and moved to Sofia in the late 1920s.^[34]

Babajee (b. 1791)

(1789–1855)

Liang Fa

(1795–1853)

David Malo

(c. 1792–1818; also known as ʻŌpūkahaʻia)

Henry Opukahaia

(c. 1785–1844)

Puaaiki

(c. 1797–c. 1832; also known as Asaad Esh Shidiak)

Asaad Shidiak

(1830–1890) second full-Hawaiian to be ordained.

Joel Hulu Mahoe

of the Ojibwe mission did translations and lay preaching beginning at Pokegama (Minnesota) in 1836, was ordained eventually and worked at the Odanah mission until he died in the late 19th century.

Henry Blatchford

(1797–1854), known as "Munshi Abdullah", was a Malayan scholar and translator under the employ of Alfred North, an ABCFM missionary stationed in Singapore.

Abdullah Abdul Kadir

American Ceylon Mission

(Siam, 1834, resigned 1847)

Dan Beach Bradley

Haystack Prayer Meeting

History of Christian missions

Oberlin Band (China)

Protestant missionary societies in China during the 19th Century

List of American Board missionaries in China

List of Missionaries to Hawaii

Bliss, Edwin Munsell, ed. The Encyclopaedia of missions. Descriptive, historical, biographical, statistical. With a full assortment of maps, a complete bibliography, and lists of Bible version, missionary societies, mission stations, and a general index ; online vol 2 1891, 726pp

online vol 1 1891, 724pp

Conroy-Krutz, Emily. Christian Imperialism: Converting the World in the Early American Republic. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015.

Phillips, Clifton Jackson. Protestant America and the pagan world: the first half century of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1810–1860 (Harvard University Press, 1969)

Putney, Clifford (writer of introduction and editor with Burlin, Paul), The Role of the American Board in the World: Bicentennial Reflections on the Organization's Missionary Work, 1810–2010 (Eugene, Or: Wipf and Stock, 2012)

Strong, William Ellsworth. The Story of the American Board (1910) [

online

Varg, Paul A. Missionaries, Chinese, and Diplomats: The American Protestant Missionary Movement in China, 1890–1952 (Princeton UP, 1958).

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (1838). . s.n. Retrieved April 24, 2014.

Report, Volume 29

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (1836). . Retrieved April 24, 2014.

Annual Report, Volumes 27-31

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (1840). . Retrieved April 24, 2014.

Annual Report - American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Volumes 31-33

İdris YÜCEL, "An Overview of Religious Medicine in the Near East: Mission Hospitals of the American in Asia Minor (1880–1923)", Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, Vol 14, Issue 40, Spring 2015.

İdris YÜCEL, "", Journal of Modern Turkish History, Vol 8 Issue 15, Spring 2012.

A Missionary Society at the Crossroad: American Missionaries on the Eve of the Turkish Republic

İdris YÜCEL,"", Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, Vol 14, Issue 40, Spring 2015.

An Overview of Religious Medicine in the Near East: Mission Hospitals of the American Board in Asia Minor (1880–1923)

İdris YÜCEL, , TTK Yayınevi, Ankara 2017.

Anadolu'da Amerikan Misyonerliği ve Misyon Hastaneleri (1880–1934)

İdris YÜCEL, , Erciyes Üniversitesi, Yüksek Lisans Tezi, 2005