Records of the South America Mission, Inc. - Collection 204

[Note: What follows is a description of the documents in this collection which are available for use at BGC Archives in Wheaton, Illinois, USA. The actual documents are not, in most cases, available online, only this description of them. Nor are they available for sale or rent.]

Table of Contents

Brief Description of This Collection

Title Page and Restrictions

Historical Background

An Essay on the Contents of the Collection (Scope and Content)

Lists of Microfilm, Oversize Materials, and Pamphlets, in This Collection (Location Records)

Microfilm
Oversize Materials
Pamphlets

List of the Contents of Boxes of Paper Records in This Collection (Container List)

3 Boxes (DC), Microfilm, Oversize Materials

Restrictions

There are no restrictions on the use of this collection.

Historical Background

South America Mission, Inc. (SAM), grew out of the work of Joseph A. Davis, who felt a call to work with the tribal Indians of South America. With his own family and a few others, he organized Paraguayan Mission in 1914 and opened the first station at Concepcion, in northern Paraguay, called Paraguayan Evangelistic and Medical Mission. A second group, the Inland-South America Missionary Union (the Scottish mission to inland South America), founded in 1902, was already working in the same area, led by John Hay of Scotland. The Davis mission joined the Scottish group in 1919, and they took the name Inland South America Missionary Union (ISAMU). It was incorporated in 1921. The aim of the mission was to concentrate efforts away from large urban centers and penetrate remote areas where no other evangelistic work had been done, to preach and to establish self-supporting, self-propagating churches among native Indian tribes.

Dr. Davis was active in the formation of the Interdenominational Foreign Missions Association (IFMA) and the mission, though not yet incorporated at that time, became a charter member of IFMA in 1917. Ill health necessitated Dr. Davis' return to the United States and he served as pastor of the Woodside Community Baptist Church, Long Island, New York, between 1923 and 1928. Differences in methods of authority and operation led to a division in 1932 of the Scottish group from the American-based missionaries and two separate organizations were founded. Under the leadership of Alex. Rattray Hay and John Hay, the Scottish group was renamed New Testament Missionary Union (NTMU) and a division of territory was made in the Amazon Valley. NTMU concentrated on church planting, eliminating the pastoral role, educational, and institutional work. The U.S. group retained ISAMU as its name until 1940, when it was changed to South America Indian Mission. This was subsequently shortened to South America Mission, Inc., in 1970 because the work had been expanded to include nationals in urban centers as well as Indian tribes in the interior. In 1973, SAM began to utilize an aviation service, Jungle Air, and in 1976 this service became a part of SAM.

The primary activity of SAM has been the evangelizing of up to thirty Indian tribes and peoples of mixed blood in the remote river areas of the Amazon Valley of central South America--the Ucayali, Tambo-Urubamba, Xingu, Pisqui, and the Aihuaitia. Regional headquarters were set up in Brazil at Cuiaba, Mato Grosso; in Bolivia at Santa Cruz; in Colombia at Santa Marta; and in Peru at Pucallpa, where a bookstore was established for dissemination of all types of literature for the region. At least thirty centers were established in remote sections with numerous out-stations. Bible Institutes were opened in Aquiduana, Brazil; Fonseca, Colombia (closed by the government in 1950); and Contamana, Peru, initiated in 1952 by G. Hunter Norwood. This latter site was also used for SAM field conferences. In addition to dispensaries and clinics, twenty gospel day schools have provided a foundation for training in indigenous church work. In 1964, SAM assumed sponsorship of Colegio Betania, a school for missionary children established originally in 1957. A crippled children's camp was inaugurated in 1974 and has remained a continuous part of SAM's program since that date. SAM publications have included Our Flag and Field, South America's Indians, Inland South America, and Amazon Valley Indian, the latter a bimonthly.

Main headquarters for the Mission has been in the United States; since 1939 it has been located in the West Palm Beach, Florida, area. In 1981, SAM, Inc., was under the leadership of G. Hunter Norwood as General Director and was headquartered in Lake Worth, Florida. Field work included Bolovia, Brazil, Colombia, and Peru, served by 99 missionaries. Its ministry included work in urban centers and 40% of the mission activity in 1982 was to South American nationals along with continuing ministry to Indian tribes.

Scope and Content

The records of South America Mission, Inc., fall into three categories: Legal documents and reports of mission activities; linguistic materials; and microfilm copies of correspondence, publications, and organizational documents, including constitutions and by-laws. Folders 1-1 to 1-6 contain legal documents for Inland South America Missionary Union, lists of operating principles and doctrinal affirmations, maps of the fields, lists of tribes amd missionaries, and countries in which they operated. Folder 1-3 offers a particularly valuable insight into mission policies, including support finances, qualifications of candidates, language study, use of native helpers, and relationship to local governments.

Folders 1-7 through 2-13 contain in-depth reports of all aspects of the missions activities from 1920 to 1977, including undated documents. Magazine articles (folder 1-7) are actually copies of letters and reports of incidents written for publication in SAM's journals. Folder 1-8 is a collection of printed pamphlets with the following titles:

Folders 1-10 through 2-13 are reports of varying lengths (see Container List for titles, authors, and dates) written by individual missionaries describing their experiences, detailing customs of Indian tribes, methods of evangelizing, use of linguistic materials relating to Indian languages, and a sermon (2-13) which is addressed to missionary candidates, outlining qualifications, training, and acceptance policies. The manuscript in folder 1-12 is incomplete. Folder 1-16 is of particular interest because it reports changing social and economic conditions in Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Cuba; the origins of communist influence there; church-state relations; and the Roman Catholic-Protestant territorial and doctrinal conflicts.

The call to mission and first encounters in South America of SAM's founder, Dr. Joseph A. Davis, are recounted in folder 1-22. Folder 1-23 contains a report on the Nambikuara (spelled also Nhambikuara and Nhambiquara in these records) tribal customs. These tribesmen killed missionaries Arthur F. Tylee and Mildred P. Kratz in 1930 (see also folder 1-7, letter of February, 1931, and folder 1-20 for more information on the murders). A letter and report by Joy Ridderhof (folder 1-24) has information about Spanish Gospel Recordings, which later became Gospel Recordings, Inc. Histories of the mission's work in Peru are in folders 2-7 and 2-9.

Folders 3-1 through 3-7 are materials used in preparation for a translation of Mark's Gospel into Guarjira, a language spoken by an India people living in Colombia and Venezuela. See the Container List for titles of each folder. Folder 3-8 includes a pamphlet outlining the syllable structure of the Terena dialect (spoken in Brazil), a catechism in Guajira, and scriptural translations into Jivara. A letter from Margaret Hardon explains her use of the Terena translation.

Subjects which are covered on ten reels of microfilm are listed on the Location Record. The materials microfilmed include most of the types of documents already described. Reels 2 and 4 contain correspondence and minutes which reveal in detail the reasons for the mission's division into two groups, officially confirmed in 1932. Reel 4 also contains some letters regarding this situation, and reflects in its correspondence the effects of the depression in America in the years 1930-1931 on funding and how it affected the efforts on the field. Of particular interest on Reel 9 is a lengthy apology of 16 chapters for use of apostolic missionary methods in the twentieth century. The writer is identified only as Hay, probably Alex. Rattray, son of John Hay. Reel 10 includes the documents involving the merger of Jungle Air with SAM, and additional correspondence regarding the withdrawal of Alex. and John Hay and others from ISAMU in 1931-1932. Reels 1, 7, and 9 have copies of SAM publications from 1905 to 1981. An examination in Spanish is on Reel 8.

This collection is of particular value to the researcher for the wealth of detail of primitive tribal customs of the Amazon Valley and other parts of central South America and for the indirect evidence of the changing political fortunes of the South American continent within this century. It also reflects a debate over techniques of missionary operation in this century.

Provenance

The materials for this collection were received at the Center from South America Mission, Inc., in February, 1982.

Accession #82-29

Field Map - Inland South America Missionary Union, Brazil/Uruguay, n.d. From Folder 1-4.

"List of Publications of the Bureau of American Ethnology, with Index to Authors and Titles, rev. 1937" (Washington, D.C.; United States Government Printing Office, 1937).

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Last Revised: 6/23/06
Expiration: indefinite