Women and the White Man’s God: Gender and Race in the Canadian Mission Field

Between 1860 and 1940, Anglican missionaries were very active in northern British Columbia, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. To date, histories of this mission work have largely focused on men, while the activities of women - either as missionary wives or as missionaries in their own right - have been seen as peripheral at best, if not completely over-looked. Based on diaries, letters, and mission correspondence, Women and the White Man’s God is the first comprehensive examination of women’s roles in northern domestic missions. The status of women in the Anglican Church, gender relations in the mission field, and encounters between Aboriginals and missionaries are carefully scrutinized. Arguing that the mission encounter challenged colonial hierarchies, Rutherdale expands our understanding of colonization at the intersection of gender, race, and religion. This book is a critical addition to scholarship in women’s, Canadian, Native, and religious studies, and complements a growing body of literature on gender and empire in Canada and elsewhere.