MISSION FOR LIFE: THE STORY OF THE FAMILY OF ADONIRAM JUDSON by Joan Jacobs Brumberg

Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Mission for Life:  The story of the Family of Adoniram Judson, the dramatic events of the first American foreign mission, and the course of evangelical religion in the nineteenth century (The Free Press, Inc., NY, 1980).

(BIOGRAPHY)

Reviewed by Dorinda Rupe

This is a fascinating, well researched book and an excellent one to read now. Last year (2013) marked the 200th anniversary of Adoniram Judson's embarkation with his bride of two weeks, Ann Hasseltine, from the U.S.A. to become the first American foreign missionaries. This year (2014) is the 200th anniversary of their mission in Burma, since the British East India Company had the power to deny them the right to do mission work in India. As the title indicates, this is not a biography of Judson, but the story of his family, including his three wives (not polygamy, as was practiced in Burma, but due to the deaths of his first two wives) and three of the six children who survived into adulthood and were involved in some sort of religious education/ministry.

The book emphasizes the interplay between the Protestant evangelical movement of 19th century America and the Judson family and how they impacted each other. Although the Judsons converted from Congregationalist to Baptist based on Biblical study during the long voyage from the U.S.A. to India, which convinced them that their own pedobaptisms were not biblical, their names became household words to all evangelical denominations. Adoniram and Ann, believing strongly in the "power of words" sent regular reports back to the states—both to the supporting Baptists and Ann to secular magazines. Their readership excitedly looked forward to the next installment of their story. The names of Adoniram and Ann became well known in the U.S.A. and both their lives became models for evangelical thinking and behavior. Each of the three wives was dedicated to the "mission for life" commitment.  His third wife brought new talents in communication, not to the "heathen" of Burma, but the unreached in America. None of the three children who survived to adulthood became a foreign missionary, but they were impacted not only by their parents, but also the changes in life and culture in the U.S.A., each finding new ways to express their faith here in the states.

Interesting facts:

1.  Ann was not commissioned, since she was female, but received the following words from her pastor, the Rev. Jonathan Allen, "on her wedding day, February 5, 1812, in the Congregational Church at Haverhill." This farewell sermon by Rev Allen, included remarks addressed specifically to Ann and to her friend, Harriet Atwood Newell, who was also to go: 

It will be your business, my dear children, to teach these women, to whom your husbands can have but little or no access.  Go then, and do all in your power, to enlighten their minds, and bring them to the knowledge of truth.  Go, and if possible, raise their character to the dignity of rational beings, and to the rank of Christians in a Christian land.  Teach them to realize that they are not an inferior race of creatures; but stand upon par with men. . . . (page 88)

2.  Ann was very much an advocate for women's rights, in a country where women were considered worse than dogs and practices such as polygamy, suttee (with sometimes, not just one, but  multiple living wives being burned on the funeral pyre with their deceased husband), and others were common.

3.  The Judson's, unlike missionaries from some other churches, did not try to turn converts into Americans, but instead allowed them to continue to wear their normal Burman attire, learned their language instead of insisting that they learn English, etc. They valued the customs of Burma. The king praised them for that.

4.  The American Baptist Church, International Ministries is having a 200th anniversary conference this summer. All 113 of the commissioned missionaries will be in attendance as will 100 representatives of mission partners in the various countries. It will begin with a huge birthday party and conclude at the end of the week with a re-commissioning of those already involved in their work, the commissioning of new missionaries ready to go into the field, and the commissioning of all participants, as we are all called to preach, teach and serve others. See World Mission Conference for more information.

I am so impressed by the missionaries that I have had the privilege of meeting and/or learning about. Two I am especially excited about and support are Dan Buttry and Lauren Bethell.  Dan travels the world, mediating and training others to do mediation. He is apt to be wherever there are crises. I was happy to hear that he went prior to Kenya's last elections to work with tribes that had been killing each other's members following the previous election. I know there were others, helping with this, but what a different election this one was! He is wonderful about keeping those who support him updated as to his trips and work in the various fields.  

Lauren is in Switzerland and working in the area of human trafficking. She also travels all over and trains others in this field of work. It is so wonderful to be part of these 2 vital areas that are so needed in our world today. I have met Lauren and will meet Dan at the conference.  

5.  Our Uncle Aaron Webber was one of the ABC missionaries. He and Aunt Margaret served many years in Puerto Rico, training Puerto Ricans so they could take over American Baptist work there. Later he served in Cuba, Nicaragua, and El Salvador.

 

THREE IN ONE: Three Books About Slavery in the United States

Yellin, Jean Fagan, Harriet Jacobs: A Life (Basic Civitis Books, New York, 2004).

Douglass, Frederick and Jacobs, Harriet, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave & Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Modern Library Mass Market Paperbacks, 2004).

NOTE: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass are both available for Kindle and Nook. Both of these books are also published separately.

 

(BIOGRAPHY, AUTOBIOGRAPHY) 

Reviewed by Dorinda Rupe

During late January, 2013, as I was sorting though some old papers, I ran across a newspaper article about a new book on slavery. That article had been sitting in my "to be read" pile for 9 years, as I kept buying and reading other new books. Pretty ridiculous. It was time to read the book, or throw the article out. I really wanted to read it. Thus began a reading marathon during February, which coincidentally, is Black History month. I ended up reading three books, all related to slavery and in some way interconnected.

Jean Fagan Yellin, Professor Emerita at Pace University, spent 20 years researching the life of Harriet Jacobs. In the process, he investigated the various cultures within the U.S.A. that Jacobs was a part of or interacted with, and the people she hated, feared, loved and, sometimes, was ignored by, during the different phases of her life. Included in the book are 101 pages of notes, some for each page in the story, from the Introduction to the Afterword. There is also an eight-page Selected Biography.

Harriet Jacobs is the only female American Slave known to have written and published an autobiography, Incidents in the life of a Slave Girl. Yellin embellishes the story using the results of her fantastic research, so the reader has much detail about Jacobs' life as a slave. Jacobs was constantly looking for ways to run from the brutality of slavery. An astounding self-advocate during slavery, and later an advocate for those of her people still enslaved, Jacobs worked at times with blacks like Frederick Douglass and with elite white abolitionists in both the U.S. and England. 

Yellin also records: Jacobs’ efforts during the Civil War to bring aid to those blacks fighting for the Union; her political fight for emancipation; her constant efforts to bring dignity to the freed slaves who flocked to the nation's capital with nothing but the rags on their back, and often ill and dying; her work to bring some stability, rights, and opportunities to those of her people who remained in the South; building schools for black children; teaching in those schools; and organizing fund raisers and clothing drives for those she was helping in both the North and the South. Jacobs always emphasized that black people were equal to whites in all ways and could be contributing members of society if given the chance. She was well known and accepted as an advocate and helped many black people to find positive roles and improve their lives. She also, as she aged, watched her country become less and less eager to help the freed slaves, as the white southerners demanded and won back land that had, shortly after the Civil War, been given to persons who had served as slaves on those lands.

Interwoven with Jacobs' story of constant advocacy is the story of her family, which was extremely important to her. Family included her grandmother, brother, uncle, two mixed-rade children, and a half-brother, also mixed-race.

This was an excellent book and gave me incentive to read the original autobiography by Harriet Jacobs while she was a fugitive. She lived (and hid) in the northern states, but remained on constant lookout for her master, Dr. James Norcom to come knocking on her door and to forcibly take her back to Edenton, NC. 

After reading Yellin's book, I debated with myself whether to read Jacobs' autobiography too. I am so glad that I did read it. Although Yellin quotes Jacobs at times in her book and tells much of her story, reading Jacobs’ story in her own words is definitely a very worthwhile experience. She wrote her story anonymously, for fear of jeopardizing her family even more than running would do. She also left out many of the most horrible aspects of the abuse by her master, for fear that the northern abolitionists, for whom she was writing the book, wouldn't believe that a slave owner would engage in such terrible acts.

I was able to get Jacobs' story in a book that also printed the original autobiography of Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.  It was interesting to read both of the autobiographies, noting the different ways the two of them were abused, partly, of course, because one was male and one female, but also just differences in the way their owners treated slaves. What struck me most was that they both had this very strong, intrinsic belief that they were valuable human beings with the same rights as any white man, any slave owner. They had to be true to themselves and, therefore, stood up and fought for their rights. When they finally escaped, Jacobs and Douglass worked together at times in their abolitionist efforts. When they published their autobiographies, there were the naysayers, who “knew” that no slave was ever treated in the manner recorded. They proclaimed these books to be fictional accounts, for surely no slave would be capable of writing such a book. However, both books were finally recognized as true accounts and accepted. Somehow eventually Jacobs' was again considered a fiction by someone else, possibly Julia May Child, one of the well-known abolitionists who had hired Jacobs and become her friend. It was Yellin, who, in her research, reconnected the book to Jacobs.