Calabar and its Mission

Calabar is located in south southern Nigeria and was notable first as a centre for the West African slave trade and later for Christian missionary activity. Hugh Goldie provides a history of the missionary work carried out there up to 1890. The copy of the book kindly provided by Redcliffe College for scanning has an inscription dated Feb. 1980 (shown above) from William Anderson (who served there from 1849) to a Mrs McGregor.

Hugh Goldie [1815-1895], Calabar and Its Mission. London & Edinburgh: Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier, 1890. Hbk. pp.328. [Click to download complete book in PDF]

Contents

1. The Country and the People
2. The Form of Government and its Administration
3. The Religion of the People
4. Calabar During the Slave Trade
5. The Origin of the Mission
6. The Entrance of the Mission
7. The Establishment of the Mission
8. The Establishment of the Mission – continued
9. The Progress of the Mission
10. Laying the Foundation of the Church
11. The Extension of the Mission
12. The Extension of the Mission – continued
13. Exploration
14. The Language, and What has Been Done in it
15. Folk-Lore
16. Mission Work and its Methods

Preface

Advancing years indicating that I must soon lay aside the work in which I have been so long engaged, some of my brethren made the request that, as I had been connected with the Mission since its commencement, I should make a record of its history.

Not being now able, in our rude country, to discharge the more active duties of the Mission, I had it in my power to comply with their request.

The history of the Mission is very much the beginning of the history of the country, which has just now taken an important step, in requesting to be taken up as a British colony. [Continue reading]