Thomas Thompson’s Missionary Voyages

Thomas Thompson [c.1708-1773] was the first Anglican Missionary to Africa, primarily to what is now Ghana. This book is a facsimile with introduction and notes of his account of two of his voyages.

Thomas Thompson [c.1708-1773], An Account of Two Missionary Voyages. London: SPCK, 1937. Pbk. pp.87. [Download the complete book in PDF]

Contents

The Story of the Book

An Account of Two Missionary Voyages

The Story of the Book by The Editorial Secretary, S.P.G.

The re-discovery of a forgotten book is always of interest : but the nature of the book here reproduced makes it of rare and striking interest. Two Missionary Voyages is the first-hand story of a pioneer missionary nearly two hundred years ago-one of the many whom the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel sent out to work among the settlers in America, from its foundation in 1701 I till the Declaration of Independence closed this channel to its agents.

A scholar, a Fellow of his College in Cambridge, it was true missionary enthusiasm that called Thomas Thompson from an easy life in England to face the hardships of a new country. His description of his work among the settlers shows many points of similarity to that which has been done in recent years in remote parts of the Canadian prairies or the Australian bush. But among the white settlers he found a number of negro slaves, and his missionary zeal over-flowed into a special care for these poor folk.

So much so that after five years among them he conceived the new idea of sailing across to the Guinea coast of Africa to teach the Christian Faith among the tribes from whom the slaves had been taken. The Society approved his plan, and appointed him the first missionary of our Church to the natives of West Africa. Indeed, it may fairly be claimed that he was the originator of missionary work in West Africa. [Continue reading]