Amelia Witt

Supervisors: 

• Esme Cleall (Primary) 
• Julia Moses (Secondary)

Period:

Post-1800

Thesis abstract:

Although the study of missionaries in the British Empire has been vastly expanded in the last few decades, the scope of this research has often been limited to that of Asia and Africa, and without much consideration for the body. This thesis seeks to explore representations of the Indigenous body in British Protestant missionary writing from 1840-1900, based in the regions of Australasia, Polynesia and Melanesia.

Using textual examples from published missionary periodicals – aimed at both adults and children – alongside contemporary non-fiction and travel writing, I concentrate on three major elements: disabled Indigenous children, epidemics and sickness, and constructions of Indigenous death and the deceased.

First, my thesis explores how disabled Indigenous children were represented in children’s missionary literature, an oxymoron of pity and disgust that demonstrated the complex intersections between the body and race. Following this, I consider the ways missionaries portrayed the disastrous effects of European contagion on Indigenous populations, alongside the dramatic requests for conversion from highborn tribal nobility, demonstrating the apparent success of missionary expansion. Finally, I delve into a common trope of missionary writing, the death bed narrative, in the context of Australasia, Polynesia and Melanesia. 

My research aims to contribute to current historiography by expanding study into the geographical regions of Australasia, Polynesia and Melanesia – namely Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Tahiti, and the Cook Islands – whilst also diversifying research from that of the solely able -bodied to one that encompasses the body at all levels of health and ability.