The Bonin Islanders, 1830 to the Present by Chapman David;

Author:Chapman, David;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

The SPG and Cholmondeley

Not only were the islanders on Ogasawara subject to the “civilizing mission” that was part of Japan’s imperial ambitions, the influence of another empire, Britain, never quite left the islands after Japanese colonization. Following Robertson’s[32] recommendation that the foreign communities in Yokohama and Edo “ameliorate the condition”[33] of the Bonin Islanders in 1876 and Plummer’s visit in 1877, the islanders came to the attention of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG). The mission of the SPG was to provide Christian ministry to British abroad and the evangelization of non-Christians.[34] In Japan, the evangelism of the SPG was targeted mostly at local “heathen” Japanese, but a special request to dispatch a clergyman to the Ogasawara Islands was sent to Bishop Edward Bickersteth (1850–1897) late in the nineteenth century.

As Japanese citizens, the Bonin Islanders occupied an unusual position within the empire not only because of their ethnic roots, but also because of the legacy of Christianity. At the beginning of the SPG’s involvement in the lives of the islanders they had been settlers of a former British colony that had only recently been forcibly colonized as subjects of Japan. The missionary activities on the Ogasawara Islands were an attempt to stimulate and grow Christian beliefs that already had some footing in the community. The SPG not only brought Christianity, but also a mostly British viewpoint to the island community. This approach was not very different from that of many British visitors to the Bonin Islands in the early to late nineteenth century that were overwhelmingly concerned about a lack of morality, faith, and education. The clergy of the SPG also held these western, or more specifically, British views as it followed its mission of evangelicalism. As Ion[35] states, the missionaries in Japan “remained British in outlook, interpreting Japan with Western attitudes, and judging Japanese by Western standards.” The judgment of the Bonin Islanders was also through the British lens. Moreover, as Ion[36] argues, the Japanese perceived the Christianity of the SPG missionaries as interwoven with British nationality. The lifestyle and worldview they presented was entirely British[37] and this was the same on the Ogasawara Islands. The Bonin Islanders must have seen it as such and the other Japanese island inhabitants would have also made the association of Christianity with Foreignness and, in particular, with being British. For the descendants of original settlers the notion of them being “foreign” and not quite Japanese would likely have been further confirmed for other islanders because of their Christian beliefs and connection with the church and the SPG.

After receiving the request for a clergyman to visit the Ogasawara Islands, Bickersteth approached Anglican Minister Reverend Lionel Berners Cholmondeley (1858–1945). Cholmondeley (pronounced Chumly) was priest in charge of St. Barnabas in the Tokyo suburb of Ushigome, close to where he taught English at what is now the main campus of Waseda University.[38] An Anglican Minister from Gloucestershire England, Cholmondeley was the quintessential eccentric Englishman. He was described in an

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