American Missionary in Africa Letter Archive Chronicling Portuguese Angola, Belgian Congo, and British South Africa, 1946

1946. [Colonialism][Religion] Archive of letters by Dr. John A. Reuling recording his 1946 missionary work in Africa, across mid-century Portuguese, Belgian, British, and South African colonial systems, where evangelism was a tool of westernization and colonialism alongside education, public health, and agricultural training. Written during Reuling's first year as Africa Secretary for the American Board, the letters track his movements through Elende, Bailundo, Currie Institute, Chikore, Mt. Silinda, Mange, Adams College, Johannesburg, McCord Hospital, Groutville, and other mission and colonial settings. Reuling criticizes mine compounds, overcrowded townships, migrant labor, white settler indifference, and extractive demand for "gold, manganese, copper, diamonds, etc.," while also presenting mission schools and hospitals as tools for reshaping African society through Western medicine, wage labor preparation, and Christian discipline. Reuling calls for African church autonomy and African leadership, yet his language remains paternal and administrative, indicative of mid-century missionary attitudes towards development in Africa.

John A. Reuling African Mission Letters. Angola, Belgian Congo, Southern Rhodesia, Portuguese East Africa, South Africa, and Boston, 1946. Archive of 10 typed letters, 43 pages total, including nine multi-page circular letters from Dr. John A. Reuling and one typed American Board Foreign Department letter to Rev. Henry A. Jessop. The letters are dated April 28 through December 17, 1946, and include Reuling's sequential mission letters numbered 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, and 11, each circulated to "Dear Friends." The content covers colonial and mission administration in African schools, hospitals, mine labor, township poverty, public health, and Christian churches.

[1] Reuling, John A. Letter #1. Elende Mission Station, Cuma, Angola, Portuguese West Africa, April 28, 1946. Five-page typed circular letter tracing Reuling's route through London, Lisbon, Liberia, Brazzaville, Luanda, Lobito Bay, and inland Angola, including his statement that correspondence between Galangue and Chilesso could require "over 400 miles of foot travel."

[2] Reuling, John A. Letter #2. Currie Institute, Dondi, Bela Vista, Angola, Portuguese West Africa, June 10, 1946. Seven-page typed circular letter describing Angola mission stations, African pastoral ordination, plantation and fishing labor, and the economic damage caused when Western trade displaced earlier Ovimbundu caravan networks while "giving them nothing in return."

[3] Reuling, John A. Letter #4. Missao do Bailundo, Teixeira de Silva, Angola, West Africa, June 21, 1946. Four-page typed circular letter on African schooling in Angola, including overcrowded classes, pupils walking 70 to 150 miles, Currie Institute, Means School for Girls, Liceu fees, and Reuling's statement that "the 20th century has caught up with the Ovimbundu."

[4] Reuling, John A. Letter #5. Chikore Mission Station, Southern Rhodesia, August 8, 1946. Three-page typed circular letter assessing the Leopoldville Conference, where mission and African delegates addressed urbanization, industrial development, mission-government relations, education, medicine, African economic status, and the claim that "Africa and Africans are subject to the same restlessness" affecting the postwar world.

[5] Reuling, John A. Letter #6. Mt. Silinda Institute, Southern Rhodesia, August 20, 1946. Three-page typed circular letter on Mt. Silinda's industrial training, teacher training, hospital, farm, mahogany forest, Association of Churches, and African church responsibility for "full financial responsibility for its own work."

[6] Reuling, John A. Letter #8. Mange Mission Station, Alto Maxixe, Inhambane, Portuguese East Africa, September 6, 1946. Four-page typed circular letter linking mission work in Mozambique to African church self-support, South African General Mission cooperation, coastal travel, and mine recruitment that carried men from Mange to Johannesburg by ship and rail.

[7] Reuling, John A. Letter #9. Johannesburg, Union of South Africa, September 21, 1946. Seven-page typed circular letter analyzing Johannesburg mining, Orlando township, mine compounds, African teachers, Bridgman Memorial Maternity Hospital, and the colonial economy driven by American demand for "gold, manganese, copper, diamonds, etc."

[8] Reuling, John A. Letter #10. Adams M.S., Natal, South Africa, October 7, 1946. Four-page typed circular letter on Adams Mission Station, African nationalism, Communist organizing, McCord Hospital, drought relief, soil-cement housing, and African leaders watching events in "Egypt, Indonesia, India."

[9] Reuling, John A. Letter #11. Groutville Mission Station, Natal, South Africa, October 21, 1946. Four-page typed circular letter on Adams College, Inanda Seminary, McCord Hospital, South Coast churches, Groutville Church, Mr. Robbins Cuma, and Chief Albert Luthuli.

[10] Reuling, John A. Typed letter to Rev. Henry A. Jessop. Boston, Massachusetts, December 17, 1946. One-page typed American Board Foreign Department letter in which Reuling explains that he did not reach Umsunduze, notes that he was preparing "to have my appendix out," and names American Board personnel including the Booths, Sticks, Bergsmans, Kaetzels, Rubensteins, and his own children.

The archive records missionary reform at the end of World War II through the lens of mid-century colonial development. Reuling's letters are especially strong coverage of African education and public health, including operational details rarely present in formal mission reports, such as pupils sleeping in adobe thatched houses, pupils walking 25 to 30 miles to school, a mission doctor being absent on furlough, malaria treatment limited by quinine shortages, and African nurses at McCord Hospital serving as "a positive demonstration" of African competence. They also preserve Reuling's paternal assumptions about African population, including his his belief that mission intervention could guide African development, and his insistence that Christian institutions could keep postwar unrest from turning violent. Original typed letters, many stapled at upper left, with fold lines, scattered stains, occasional edge wear. Overall good to very good condition.