• 1700 – After a Swedish missionary's sermon in
Pennsylvania, one Native American posed such searching questions that the episode was reported in a
1731 history of the Swedish church in America. The interchange is noted in
Benjamin Franklin's
Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America (1784). • 1701 –
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts officially organized • 1704 – French missionary priests arrive to evangelize the
Chitimacha living along the
Mississippi River in what is now the state of
Louisiana • 1706 –
Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg, German missionary, arrives in
Tranquebar • 1706 – Irish-born
Francis Makemie, who has been an itinerant Presbyterian missionary among the colonists of America since 1683, is finally able to organize the first American presbytery • 1707 – Italian
Capuchin missionaries reach
Kathmandu in
Nepal.
Maillard de Tournon makes public, in
Nanjing, the
Vatican decisions on rites, including the stipulations against the veneration of ancestors and of
Confucius. • 1708 – Jesuit missionary
Giovanni Battista Sidotti is arrested in Japan. He is taken to
Edo (now called Tokyo) to be interrogated by
Arai Hakuseki • 1709 –
Experience Mayhew, missionary to the
Martha's Vineyard Indians, translates the
Psalms and the
Gospel of John into the
Massachusett language. It will be a work considered second only to John Eliot's Indian Bible in terms of significant Indian-language translations in colonial
New England • 1710 – First modern Bible Society founded in Germany by
Count Canstein • 1711 – Jesuit
Eusebio Kino, missionary explorer in southern
Arizona and northern Sonora, dies suddenly in northern Mexico. Kino, who has been called "the cowboy missionary", had fought against the exploitation of
Indians in Mexican silver mines. • 1712 – Using a press sent by
The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the
Tranquebar Mission in India begins printing books in the
Portuguese language • 1713 – Jesuit
Ippolito Desideri goes to
Tibet as a missionary • 1714 – New Testament translated into
Tamil (India); the
Royal Danish College of Missions is organized in
Copenhagen • 1715 –
Eastern Orthodox Church missionary outreach is renewed in
Manchuria and Northern China • 1720 – Missionary Johann Ernst Gruendler dies in India. He had arrived there in 1709 with the sponsorship of the Danish Mission Society • 1721 – Mission San Juan Bautista Malibat in
Baja California is abandoned due to the hostility of the Cochimi Indians, as well as to the decimation of the local population by epidemics and a water shortage. Chinese
Kangxi Emperor bans Christian missionaries as a result of the
Chinese Rites controversy.
Hans Egede goes to
Greenland under the dual auspices of the Royal Mission College and the
Bergen Company. • 1723 – Robert Millar publishes
A History of the Propagation of Christianity and the Overthrow of Paganism advocating prayer as the primary means of converting non-Christians • 1729 –
Roman Catholic missionary Du Poisson becomes the first victim in the
Natchez revolt. On his way to
New Orleans, he had been asked to stop and say Mass at the
Natchez post. He was killed in front of the altar. • 1730 – Lombard, French missionary, founds a Christian village with over 600 Indians at the mouth of Kuru river in
French Guiana. A Jesuit, Lombard has been called the most successful of all missionaries in converting the Indians of French Guiana • 1731 – A missionary movement is born when Count
Nicolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf attends the coronation of King
Christian VI of Denmark and witnesses two of Egede's
Inuit converts. Over the next two years, his
Moravian Church at
Herrnhut will begin its missionary outreach with work among the slaves in the Caribbean and the Inuit in Greenland. • 1732 –
Alphonsus Liguori founds the
Roman Catholic religious institute known as the
Redemptorist Fathers with the purpose of doing missionary work among rural people • 1733 – Moravians establish their first
mission in Greenland • 1734 – A missionary convinces a
Groton, Connecticut church to lend its building to the
Mashantucket Pequot Tribe for Christian worship services. • 1735 –
John Wesley goes to Indians in Georgia as missionary with the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts • 1736 – Anti-Christian edicts in China; Moravian missionaries at work among
Nenets people of
Arkhangelsk • 1737 – Rev. Pugh, a missionary in Pennsylvania with The
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts begins ministering to blacks. He noted that the masters of the slaves were prejudiced against them becoming Christian. • 1738 – Moravian missionary George Schmidt settles in Baviaan Kloof (Valley of the Baboons) in the Riviersonderend valley of South Africa. He begins working with the
Khoikhoi people, who were practically on the threshold of extinction. • 1739 – The first missionary to the
Mahican (Mohegan) Indians, John Sergeant, builds a home in
Stockbridge, Massachusetts that is today a museum. • 1740 – Moravian
David Zeisberger starts work among
Creek people of Georgia • 1740 –
Johann Phillip Fabricius, missionary, arrives
in South India • 1741 – Dutch missionaries start building Christ Church building in
Malacca Town,
Malaysia. It will take 12 years to complete. • 1742 – Moravian Leader Count
Zinzendorf visits
Shekomeko, New York and baptizes six Indians • 1743 –
David Brainerd starts ministry to
North American Indians • 1747 –
Jonathan Edwards appeals for prayer for world missions • 1748 – Roman Catholic
Pedro Sanz and four other missionaries are executed, together with 14 Chinese Christians. Prior to his death, Sanz reportedly converted some of his prison guards to Christianity. • 1749 – Spanish Franciscan priest
Junípero Serra (1713-1784 arrives in Mexico as a missionary. In 1767 he would go north to what is now
California, zealously building missions and converting Native Americans. • 1750 – Jonathan Edwards, preacher of the
First Great Awakening, having been banished from his church at
Northampton, Massachusetts goes as a missionary to the nearby
Housatonic Indians.
Christian Frederic Schwartz goes to India with Danish-Halle Mission • 1751 – Samuel Cooke arrives in New Jersey as a missionary for the SPGFP • 1752 – Thomas Thompson, first Anglican missionary to Africa, arrives in the Gold Coast (now
Ghana) • 1753 – The disappearance of Erhardt and six companions leads to temporary abandonment of Moravian missionary initiatives in
Labrador. • 1754 – Moravian John Ettwein arrives in America from Germany as a missionary. Preaching to Native Americans and establishing missions, Ettwein will travel as far south as Georgia. • 1755 – The
Moravian mission settlement at
Gnadenhütten, Pennsylvania is attacked and destroyed during the
Gnadenhütten massacre. Moravian missionary
Johann Jacob Schmick remains with the Mahicans through exile and captivity despite almost constant threats from white neighbors. Schmick will join his
Indian congregation as they seek refuge in Bethlehem, follow them as captives to Philadelphia, and remain with them after they settle in
Wyalusing, Pennsylvania. • 1756 – Civil unrest forces
Gideon Halley away from his missionary work among the
Six Nations on the
Susquehanna River where he has been working for four years under the supervision of Jonathan Edwards with an appointment from the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians. • 1757 – Lutherans begin ministering to Blacks in the
Caribbean • 1758 –
John Wesley baptizes two slaves, thus breaking the skin color barrier for Methodist societies • 1759 – Native American Samson Occom, direct descendant of the great
Mahican chief Uncas, is ordained by the Presbyterians. Occom became the first American Indian to publish works in English. These included sermons, hymns and a short autobiography. • 1760 – Adam Voelker and Christian Butler arrive in
Tranquebar as the first
Moravian missionaries to India • 1760 – Methodists first reach the West Indies. • 1761 – The first Moravian missionary in Ohio, Frederick Post, settles on the north side of the Muskingum. • 1762 – Moravian Missionary
John Heckewelder confers with Koquethagacton ("White Eyes") at the mouth of the
Beaver River (Pennsylvania) • 1763 – The Presbyterian Synod of New York orders that a collection for missions be taken. In 1767 the Synod asks that this collection be done annually. • 1764 – The Moravians make a decision to expand and begin publicizing their missionary activity, particularly in the British colonies; Moravian Jens Haven makes the first of three exploratory missionary journeys to
Greenland • 1765 –
Suriname Governor General Crommelin convinces three Moravian missionaries to work near the head waters of the Gran Rio. They settle among the
Saramaka near the Senthea Creek in Granman Abini's village where they are received with mixed feelings. • 1766 – Philip Quaque, a Fetu youth from the Cape Coast area of
Ghana who spent twelve years studying in England, returns to Africa. Supported as a missionary by the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, Quaque is first non-European ordained priest in the Church of England • 1767 – Spain expels the Jesuits from Spanish colonies in the New World • 1768 – Five United Brethren missionaries from Germany, invited by the Danish Guinea Company, arrive in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), to teach in the Cape Coast Castle schools • 1769 –
Junípero Serra founds
Mission San Diego de Alcalá, first of the 21
Alta California missions • 1770 – John Marrant, a free black from New York City, begins ministering cross-culturally, preaching to the American Indians. By 1775 he had carried the gospel to the
Cherokee and
Creek Indians as well as to groups he called the Catawar and Housaw peoples. • 1771 – Methodist
Francis Asbury arrives in America; David Avery is ordained as missionary to the
Oneida tribe • 1772 – After visiting Scilly Cove in
Newfoundland, Canada, missionary James Balfour describes it as a "most Barbarous Lawless Place" • 1773 –
Pope Clement XIV dissolves the
Jesuit Order; two
Dominican order missionaries beheaded in
Vietnam • 1775 – John Crook is sent by Liverpool Methodists to the
Isle of Man • 1776 – Cyril Vasilyevich Suchanov builds first church among
Evenks of
Transbaikal (or Dauria) in (Siberia); The first baptism of an
Eskimo by a Lutheran pastor takes place in Labrador. • 1777 – Portuguese missionaries build a church at Hashnabad,
Bangladesh • 1778 – Theodore Sladich is martyred while doing missionary work to counter Islamic influence in the western
Balkans • 1780 – August Gottlieb Spangenberg writes
An Account of the Manner in Which the Protestant Church of the Unitas Fratrum, or United Brethren, Preach the Gospel, and Carry On Their Missions Among the Heathen. Originally written in German, the book will be translated into English in 1788. • 1781 – In the midst of the
American Revolutionary War, the British so feared Moravian missionary
David Zeisberger and his influence among the
Lenape (also called Delaware) and other Native Americans that they arrested him and his assistant, John Heckewelder, charging them with treason • 1782 – Freed slave
George Lisle goes to
Jamaica as missionary • 1783 – Moses Baker and George Gibbions, both former slaves, leave the U.S. to become missionaries in the West Indies • 1784 – First Christians reported in
Korea;
Yi Seung-hun back home in Korea after being baptized in China • 1784 –
Thomas Coke (Methodist) submits his Plan for the Society for the Establishment of Missions Among the Heathen. Methodist missions among the "heathen" will begin in 1786 when Coke, destined for
Nova Scotia, is driven off course by a storm and lands at
Antigua in the
British West Indies. • 1785 – Joseph White's sermon titled "On the Duty of Attempting the Propagation of the Gospel among our
Mahometan and
Gentoo Subjects in India" is published in the second edition of his book
Sermons Containing a View of Christianity and Mahometanism, in their History, their Evidence, and their Effects. The sermon was first preached at the
University of Oxford. • 1786 –
John Marrant, a free black from New York City, writes in his journal that he preached to "a great number of Indians and white people" at
Green's Harbor, Newfoundland. Marrant's cross-cultural ministry led him to take the Gospel to the
Cherokee,
Creek,
Catawba (he called them the Catawar, and
Housaw Indians). • 1787 –
William Carey is ordained in England by the
Particular Baptists and soon begins to urge that worldwide missions be undertaken. • 1788 – Dutch missionaries begin preaching the Gospel among fishermen in
Bangladesh • 1788 –
Rev Richard Johnson the first Christian cleric in Australia • 1789 – The Jesuits establish
Georgetown University as the first US Catholic college • 1790 – Prince Williams, a freed slave from South Carolina, goes to
Nassau, Bahamas, where he will start Bethel Meeting House • 1793 –
Stephen Badin ordained in U.S. Although much of Badin's ministry was pastoral work among his own countrymen, he did some outreach among the
Potawatomi Indians • 1794 – Eight
Russian Orthodox missionaries arrive on Kodiak Island in Alaska. Within a few months several thousand people have been baptized • 1794 – Roman Catholic missionary Zhou Wenmo enters Korea • 1795 – Roman Catholic missionary Zhou Wenmo celebrates the first mass in Korea at Easter • 1795 – The
London Missionary Society is formed to send missionaries to
Tahiti • 1796 – Scottish and Glasgow Missionary Societies established; • 1797 – Netherlands Missionary Society formed; The Duff, carrying 36 lay and pastoral missionaries, sails to three islands of the South Pacific; The first Christian missionary (from the
London Missionary Society) visits Hiva on the Pacific island of
Tahuata; he is not well received. • 1798 – The Missionary Society of Connecticut is organized by the Congregationalists to take the gospel to the "heathen lands" of Vermont and Ohio. Its missionaries evangelized both European settlers and Native Americans. • 1799 – The
Church Missionary Society is formed by the
Clapham Sect in South London, England; == 1800 to 1849 ==