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Section 5

Servants of Empire

 

As the eighteenth century drew to a close, the question being asked by evangelists was 'Can savages, however virtuous, enter the Kingdom of Heaven?' As tales of sexual promiscuity, human sacrifice and infanticide began to appear in the press, many people were appalled and members of the newly founded London Missionary Society (1795), secure in their belief about the superiority of Christian civilisation over all other forms of society, became convinced that it was their Christian duty to make the Gospel known in the South Seas. As the influence of the missionaries spread, the eighteenth-century perception of the native inhabitants as noble savages was replaced by a strikingly different one-that of thoroughly treacherous and deceitful individuals who nevertheless could be transformed into Christian citizens obedient to the laws of God (and of Europeans) by the intercession of the Holy Spirit in Christian conversion.

 

1. Francesco Bartolozzi, 1727-1815
The Cession of the District of Matavai ... to Captain James Wilson for the Use of the Missionaries, 16 March 1797 179-?

2. John Clevely, c.1745-1786,
From James Clevely's Drawings
Discovery and Resolution at an Island in the Pacific, 1777 178-?

3. James Smetham, 1821-1889
Maori Chiefs in Wesley's House, 22 July 1863 1863

4. Unknown
The Missionary Settlement Rangihoua on the North Side of the Bay of Islands c.1832

5. Unknown
Station of the Church Missionary Society at Te Puna, Bay of Islands, seen from the SSE c.1840

6. C. John M. Whichelo, 1817-1865
Portrait of Reverend William Yate c.1840

 

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A selection of images from the Paradise Possessed exhibition.

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