Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/807287

OpenURL Link
Title
'Beong! beong! (more! more!)': John Harper and the Wesleyan Mission to the Australian aborigines
Author/Creator
Roberts, David A.;  Carey, Hilary
Institution
The University of Newcastle. Faculty of Education & Arts, School of Humanities and Social Science
Description
In July 1826, two Methodist gentlemen sat down for a tense meeting with the New South Wales (NSW) Attorney-General, Saxe Bannister (1790–1877): the Rev. Ralph Mansfield, Secretary, and William Horton, Treasurer, represented the NSW Auxiliary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (WMMS). The matter at hand was a controversy that had arisen from a venture undertaken by the Society on a remote penal establishment on the frontier at Wellington Valley on the lower Macquarie River about 100 kilometres north-west of Bathurst in central-western NSW. In particular, there were questions to be answered about the conduct of a young missionary, John Harper (c. 1800–1862), who was alleged to have publicly misrepresented the short-term results and long-term prospects for the evangelization of the Wiradjuri people native to the area. It was reported in the press but widely disbelieved that Harper had already begun the translation of scripture ('which implies a grammatical knowledge of the structure of the language'), that the people were so entranced by his facility in the language that they had begged him “Beong! Beong!” (more! more!), and that he had affected such a change in the morality of the native people that not only did they forbear swearing but had ceased to force their wives to have illicit intercourse with male convicts. The intervention of the Attorney-General is a fair indication of the political sensitivity of Harper’s claims and their possible repercussions for government policy relating to the small community of Wesleyan Methodists in the colony and their fledgling missionary activities.
Relation
Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History Vol. 10, Issue 1
Relation
http://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_colonialism_and_colonial_history
Date
2009
Publisher
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Keyword(s)
religious missions;  Methodists missionaries;  Aboriginal Australians;  John Harper
Resource Type
journal article
Identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/807287
Identifier
ISSN:1532-5768
Reviewed
Reviewed
66 Visitors 92 Hits 2 Downloads
Save/E-mail Citation
Citation Format
E-mail Address
Subject
"Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History"
 
OR