Digital Resource: American Missionary Association Annual Reports

Latest update: 20 August 2024 - gmc 

One of the fun parts of this job is locating digital resources that express Beaufort District's long and storied history.

One such example was discovering the digital version of the American Missionary Association Annual Reports on the Internet Archive through a mention of the annual reports in the History Leaks blog.  The American Missionary Association is best known for its educational work among the newly emancipated slaves of the South.   Arguably the largest and most influential abolitionist organization of the nineteenth century, the American Missionary Association (AMA) issued annual reports on its achievements and activities for over a century covering their work throughout the world.

Here in Beaufort District, Rev. Mansfield French, Georgianna A. Warren and at least 86 others were among the teachers, superintendents, and principals supported by the AMA. For an introduction to the impact of these so-called "Gideonites" on our local history, read Willie Lee Rose's Rehearsal for Reconstruction: The Port Royal Experiment in the BDC and in the local history sections at the branch libraries. You can find a frequently updated list of online and library resources about the "Missionary Teachers to the Freedmen" on our BDCBCL Wordpress blog. 

• The Gideonites began to arrive in our area in March 1862.  AMA Annual Reports for 1847 through 1869 are available through the Internet Archive. 

• AMA Annual Reports for 1870 through 1891 are available through the Internet Archive. 

A little background about the AMA that you might find interesting: 

The American Missionary Association grew from the Amistad Committee of 1839. On June 28, 1839 the schooner Amistad left Havana, Cuba with 53 West Africans aboard and bound for nearby sugar plantations. The Africans revolted three days out and killed most of the crew. The captives forced their Spanish owners to sail towards Africa but their captors zig-zagged the schooner for 63 days eventually running it aground on Long Island, New York where the Africans were considered property, pirates, and murderers. The trial was highly controversial, politicized, and significant in the course of American history. 

To learn more, we recommend that you borrow one (or more) of the following titles from other unites of the Beaufort County Library: 

The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom by Marcus Rediker (2012)

Amistad: The Slave Uprising Aboard the Spanish Schooner by Helen Kromer (1997, 1973) 

The BCL has plenty of copies of Steven Spielberg's 1997 movie Amistad on DVD that you can borrow.

The Amistad Research Center, an independent community-based archive in partnership with Tulane University, provides guidance to their holdings of the American Missionary Association records.