Missionary Archaeology

19th century mission in Madagascar

More information on collections of missionary archives:

Information on the present day Union of Welsh Independents, together with pictures of the first missionaries and the academy at Neuaddlwyd where they were trained and ordained.

Dysgu Cymraeg?

For up to date news and information about Madagascar

My more recent work looks at the arrival of Welsh missionaries in Madagascar and the development of a London Missionary Society mission in the heart of the Merina state in the centre of the highlands at the beginning of the 19th century. The project studies the landscapes of both the first LMS mission in highland Madagascar and the Welsh village which the missionaries left behind, in order to analyse the processes by which Christianity was established in Madagascar.

When the LMS missionaries arrived in Madagascar, they were confronted with a physical world that was imbued with a coherent set of differentially valued spatial and temporal qualities. These were predicated upon belief in the presence of the ancestors and respect for their power among the living, which also underwrote the political hierarchy that was in place. In their siting and inhabitation of early missionary buildings the missionaries had to negotiate with this pervasive belief system, with consequent implications for the mission's goal of converting Malagasy to Christianity.

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