실현되지 못한 가능성: 19세기 전반 아프리카에 파견된 미국 감리교 여성 ‘선교사들’

Abstract

Focusing on 11 American Methodist women 'teaching missionaries' and 9 'missionary wives'to Africa in the first half of the nineteenth century, the study argues that the African mission opened an arena in which antebellum American women could work outside family, a culturally prescribed sphere of women of the time. However auxiliary their positions were in the missionary enterprise, the women 'missionaries' perceived their role as much 'missionary' as the one their male counterparts assumed. Notwithstanding their object was limited to African women, the women missionaries also took a responsibility of evangelism, a 'regular' missionary activity usually given to men only. However, the study concludes that the potential which the Africa mission appeared to promise for women missionaries was not eventually realized for two reasons. A deep-rooted African custom partially accounts for it. An African girl was an important source of wealth for her parents since her future husband give them liberal presents upon engagement. Thus Africans were reluctant to send their daughters to the 'non-profitable' mission schools. No female missionary academy was able to overcome the cultural obstacle. It was hard to procure a substantial number of African female students. An inner problem of the women missionary workforce itself was all the more serious. Except for those six who worked in Africa for more than two years, all other Methodist women missionaries did not stay in the mission field long enough to provide any meaningful missionary labor. The 'African fever' not only took away the lives of two women missionaries, but also forced ten others to return to America. Even while in Africa, the sick women missionaries were not able to fulfill their missionary duty effectively.