In Prophetic Identities Tolly Bradford reviews the lives and legacies of two interesting and significant Indigenous Protestant missionaries. Henry Budd (1812–1875), a Cree from Western Canada, and Tiyo Soga (1829–1871), a Xhosa from southern Africa, were the first ordained ministers from their communities. Fortunately both individuals left behind a rich documentary record that can be studied and analyzed, and with other evidence, placed in an historical context. By examining the careers of both men insights are gained about Indigenous Christian missionaries in two different areas of the British Empire. The volume offers a valuable window into lives of two individuals who identified themselves as both “Native” and “Christian.” The book is well researched and organized, with several images and maps, and an index.
Both men's families had a prior relationship with Christianity, in Budd's case his family learned of the new faith from their close association with Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) traders. Both his parents were offspring of Cree-HBC marriages. At a newly established Anglican mission school in the Red River, the young Cree, now known as Henry Budd, learned about the ways of the non-Indigenous world. A fascinating comment by one of his teachers indicates the strength of the students' North American Indian culture. He commented that, “every boy seems willing to reside with us; but they are Indian still” (23).
Budd did well at his Red River school, and left with a commitment to Christianity, one that grew over the years. Initially no possibility of a career in the Anglican Church existed, and consequently he worked for several years with the HBC. Only when the Church Missionary Society began in the 1840s to encourage a more effective Aboriginal participation did he obtain his chance. His knowledge of Cree proved a great asset. He began as an itinerant Anglican Church worker until his ordination in 1853. Eventually his life became centered in the mission he established at The Pas. There, he succeeded in introducing the Cree to small-scale farming in order to supplement hunting and fishing. Overall his success was modest, but he persisted. Throughout his career, his wife, Elizabeth Work, a mixed-ancestry Cree woman raised in the Anglican Church, proved the ideal partner. She spoke fluent Cree and English, and was an excellent wife and mother to their thirteen children. Her death in 1864 during a scarlet fever epidemic removed his devoted life's partner.
The great advantage that Budd benefitted from was his knowledge of Cree. In a 1852 letter to his superior in London, England, he summarized this well: “Possessing as I do the Native language and thereby able to address the Native with ease. Acquainted with their habits and superstitions, and can enter into all their feelings, answer all their objections” (81). Yet as Bradford points out, it was not at all that easy. Yes, he could speak Cree and knew their customs, but his commitment to a church-centered village based on agriculture created a divide between himself and many Cree. After years toiling away in the Mission fields he still felt isolated from the people he served.
Tiyo Soga had the greater impact of the two Indigenous missionaries. Since the 1970s, and particularly after 1990, both activists and scholars have presented Soga as an African nationalist and early crusader against European colonialism in South Africa. In contrast Henry Budd “displayed no signs of proto-nationalism” (75). He was the more deferential of the two. Apart from wishing to transform the Cree hunters and trappers and their families into settled Christian farmers he had no larger vision. Partially this can be explained by the fact that mid-nineteenth century Western Canada, in contrast with southern Africa, was sparsely populated, with vast geographical distances between communities small in number. Nor in the 1850s and 1860s did Henry Budd in Western Canada encounter the same pressure from non-Indigenous settlers as did the Xhosa in southern Africa.
As in Budd's case Tiyo Soga first learned about Christianity from his family. They encouraged him to attend a Presbyterian mission school. A gifted student he was later sent to Scotland for teacher training. After several years as a missionary worker among the Xhosa, he returned to Scotland to prepare for the ministry. Soga faced a major challenge. As a young man Soga did not undergo the normal Xhosa custom of male initiation, including circumcision. In effect, Bradford writes, this meant “that he was not considered a man by the Xhosa but rather remained a boy” (39). Later in his career the Presbyterian missionary's determined efforts to protect the Xhosa language and land base won him support amongst his people.
Ordained in 1856, Soga's subsequent marriage in Glasgow to Janet Burnside gave him, “a familial connection to Presbyterianism and Scotland” (51). His Scottish bride proved a tremendous asset to her husband, offering her total support to his career in the church. In South Africa she and her husband faced great prejudice for their mixed-race marriage on the part of the non-Indigenous population.
The Xhosa faced the continual encroachment on their lands from British-backed settlers in the mid-nineteenth century. Soga championed both the Xhosa and the Christian missions. He also fought to establish better schools for the Xhosa, education being highly valued by both himself and his wife. In the case of his own family all four of his sons were trained in South Africa and then in Scotland in the hope that would become advocates/advisors to their African communities. Bradford nicely summarizes Soga's vision for his people when he writes, that he sought, “to create a modern Xhosa, and African nation that was aware of its Africaness, united, economically equal with its white neighbours, and able to become modern and Christian” (151). Bradford succeeds well in his presentation of two Indigenous missionaries on two mid-nineteenth century British colonial frontiers.
