History

Timeline

The Early Missions Movement: America goes global

Before 1800

1749 Jonathan Edwards publishes the memoir of David Brainerd, pioneer missionary to Native Americans

1776 Declaration of Independence

1788 Adoniram Judson is born

1789 French Revolution

1789 Ann Hasseltine is born

1793 Engllish Baptist William Carey commissioned as missionary to Bengal

1797 America’s Second Great Awakening begins in Kentucky

1800

1806 Haystack Prayer Meeting; British missionary Henry Martyn goes to Calcutta

1808 Andover Seminary is founded; student missionary organization, Society of the Brethren, is formed at Williams College and moves to Andover Seminary in 1810

1809 Hawaiian native Henry Obookiah is at Yale

1810

1810 Adoniram Judson resolves to become a missionary; American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) is founded

1812 Adoniram Judson marries Ann Hasseltine; Judsons and Newells sail for Calcutta; Judsons become Baptists

1812 U.S. declares war on Britain

1813 Judsons arrive in Burma; Gordon Hall and Samuel Nott arrive in India

1814 American Baptist Board of Foreign Missions is formed

1815 Richmond African Missionary Society founded

1816 American Bible Society is founded; ABCFM missionaries begin a mission in Ceylon (Sri Lanka)

1819 Judson baptizes first Burman convert, Mang Nau; ABCFM missionaries Pliny Fisk and Levi Parsons sail for Palestine; Methodist Missionary Society is founded

1820

1820 Hiram Bingham arrives in Hawaii

1821 African-American missionary Lott Carey sails to Sierra Leone and later Liberia; Episcopal Church mission board is founded

1823 ABCFM missionary arrives in Lebanon and translates Bible into modern Arabic; Betsey Stockton and the Stewarts begin missionary work in Hawaii

1823 Judson completes translation of New Testament into Burmese

1824 First Anglo-Burman War; Judson is imprisoned until December 31, 1825

1825 George and Sarah Hall Boardman arrive in Burma

1826 Judson translates the treaty of Yandabo between Burma and Great Britain; Ann Hasseltine Judson dies

1830

1830 ABCFM begins missions to Native Americans in the West; Episcopal church sends missionaries to Greece; ABCFM missionary Elijah Bridgman is the first American Protestant missionary to go to China

1830 Joseph Smith founds the Latter-day Saints

1831 ABCFM missionary William Goodell begins work in Turkey and translates the Bible into Armeno-Turkish

1833 Baptist missionary John Taylor Jones arrives in Thailand

1834 Judson completes translation of Old Testament into Burmese and marries widow Sarah Boardman; ABCFM establishes missions in Persia and Singapore

1835 American Methodists establish mission in Brazil

1836 Providence Missionary Baptist District Association is formed by African-American Baptists to establish missions in Africa

1837 Mt. Holyoke women’s college and Evangelical Lutheran Church mission board are founded

1840

1840 British missionary David Livingstone sails to Africa

1843 American and British Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Episcopalians send missionaries to China treaty ports

1845 Southern Baptist Convention is founded; Sarah Boardman Judson dies

1846 Adoniram Judson marries Emily Chubbuck during an American tour

1847 ABCFM missionaries Samuel and Abby Fairbank go to India; missionaries Lewis and Lydia Grout arrive in South Africa

1850

1850 Adoniram Judson dies at sea

1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom’s Cabin

1854 Emily Chubbuck Judson dies in New York

1859 Darwin publishes Origin of Species

1860

1861 American Civil War

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