From B. J. Sulivan 1 July 1870
Bournemouth
July 1/70
My dear Darwin
I send by post the five last numbers of the Mission Magazine as they give all the recent information. Do not return them as I have duplicates.1 You will also be interested in the Araucanian Mission where little has been done yet beyond Gardiner’s Labours at Lota, where there is a considerable European population, and where he first fixed himself through difficulty of residing in the Araucanian portion of the Country: but where he had much communication with the Indian chiefs, & some Indian children at school.2 He worked there with all classes, Roman Catholics helping to build church & school, though the priests tried to stop it, but gave up in dispair: and three years since when the law for free religious toleration was hotly debated in the chambers at St Jago.3 several liberal speakers pointed to the altered condition of Lota & its neighbourhood, and the good a protestant minister had done, as the stong argument for toleration. During the last two years a catechist had been settled at Lebu with several sons of chiefs at school—residing with him: but the war with Chili has done much harm to the work. Still you will see by the letters that something is still being done.4
The last letter of Mr. Bridges about the station at Keppel Island you will think more of a farming than a mission character.5 but from the first we have relied much on teaching the Fuegians to plant Potatoes & vegetables, and take care of cattle sheep and goats, and all the accounts of hundred tons of potatoes and wool of 1300 sheep (all sprung from 16 first landed) refer to so much native work. We having only had one farm labourer and his wife on that Island, to teach & superintend the natives, who do nearly all the work. Those on the Island at the last accounts being chiefly new hands—the older trained ones having been some time living again in T. D. Fuego in wooden huts build by themselves, & with some cultivation going on, and every desire to increase it. Mr. Bridges went out as a boy with our first missionary, he has taught all the natives that know any thing, speaks the language fluently, and has long since reduced it to writing in the phonectic character; so that many of them read and write.6 He is more known & looked up to by the natives than any one who has been there, from his more continued & familiar communications with them, & therefore he will be even safer than Mr. Stirling with the natives, besides having two companions & two females with them. I have always opposed beginning the station as I have feared the danger from the Natives more than any of those at the Mission did. & I could not forget the Murder of our whole party—but one—when they rashly trusted them in spite of my warnings—.7 but because I refused to be a party, as one of the Committee, to a too hasty attempt to settle among them—Stirling determined to give us the proof it was safe by living alone amongst them; & now I hope it is really quite safe.8 at all events it is justifiable. I am glad to hear so favorable an account of your health. only dont do too much.
Yours very sincerely | B. J. Sulivan
Footnotes
Bibliography
Blancpain, Jean-Pierre. 1990. Les Araucans et la frontière dans l’histoire du Chili des origines au XIXo. siècle. Une épopée américaine. Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert Verlag.
Clergy list: The clergy list … containing an alphabetical list of the clergy. London: C. Cox [and others]. 1841–89.
Crockford’s clerical directory: The clerical directory, a biographical and statistical book of reference for facts relating to the clergy and the church. Crockford’s clerical directory etc. London: John Crockford [and others]. 1858–1900.
Hazlewood, Nick. 2000. Savage. The life and times of Jemmy Button. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Macdonald, Frederick C. 1929. Bishop Stirling of the Falklands. The adventurous life of a soldier of the cross whose humility hid the daring spirit of a hero & an inflexible will to face great risks. London: Seely, Service & Co.
Summary
Sends copies of a mission magazine [missing] and discusses the missionaries’ work in S. America, especially that of Thomas Bridges and W. H. Stirling.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-7260
- From
- Bartholomew James Sulivan
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Bournemouth
- Source of text
- DAR 177: 294
- Physical description
- ALS 8pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7260,” accessed on 18 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7260.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 18