Engraved Stories of Empire : An Examination of Selected Images from the Missionary Register, 1813 – 1855

Images are created not in a vacuum but in hidden yet potent, contending political forces. The missionary endeavour of the nineteenth century was not exempt from this reality. Images became integral to missionary publications and shaped the metropolitan imagination regarding the colonised people, their religion, gods, and rituals. Displaying the colonies and their people was of utmost importance as it aided in garnering support and funding for missionary societies’ motto of civilising, colonising, and Christianising the indigenous populations. This paper highlights how the missionary portrayals of the indigenous community and its individuals played an essential role in imprinting in the minds of the nineteenth-century British public the need for the mission civilisatrice. This analysis is attempted through a careful examination of selected engravings and their descriptions printed in the Missionary Register for the period comprising 1813 – 1855.