Girlhood: A Global History

11. Palestinian Girls and the British Missionary Enterprise, 1847-1948

11 Palestinian Girls and the British Missionary Enterprise, 1847–1948 nancy l. stockdale In the nineteenth century, imperial-minded Britons became increasingly fascinated with the fate of Palestinians, the residents of the “Holy Land,” who came to figure prominently in Orientalist imaginations. Alternately viewed as living examples of biblical characters, decadent “Orientals” who did not deserve to reside in the sacred space of Christianity’s origin, and pitiful Others oppressed by Islam and Ottoman despotism, Palestinians were targeted by British missionaries for religious and cultural conversion. Children figured large in missionary plans because they were viewed as pliable and more easily swayed than adults. Missionaries hoped to bring children under their religious and cultural influence, converting children in an effort to convert society. As a result of Palestinian society’s segregation of the sexes as well as British assumptions about the importance of educating girls for future roles as wives and mothers, British women missionaries in Palestine during the late Ottoman and the British Mandate periods targeted local girls for outreach. In the schools and orphanages that they established or managed, these women missionaries attempted to disconnect Palestinian girls from their indigenous cultures and families and convert them to Protestant faith and British cultural values. They hoped to create new generations that would embrace British faith, manners, and imperial authority among the diverse population of the Holy Land. In this way British missionaries attempted to lay claim to Palestine, the Holy Land of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, by co-opting the youngest members of its society. Moreover, missionaries’ representations of the lives of Palestinian girls and their families reinforced strong Orientalist stereotypes about supposed moral decay in the Ottoman Empire, and glorified both British values and the actions of British missionaries striving to permanently alter Palestinian girls’ lives. In this chapter I provide an introduction to the history of British women missionaries’ work among girls in Palestine during the late Ottoman and British Mandate eras, detail their methods of education as directed toward Palestinian girls from several ethnic and confessional communities , and explore reactions of Palestinian girls to these potent crosscultural encounters. By examining the contentious and sometimes violent impact of British women missionaries on the lives of Palestinian girls, 217 we may better understand the significance of Orientalist and imperialist attitudes on individuals’ lives during their formative years. The Landscape of Late Ottoman Palestine and the British Missionary Endeavor Like many societies of the Middle East during the Ottoman period, that of Palestine was composed of people from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds ; the majority of the population were Arab Muslims, but there were Arab Christians, Jews, Greeks, and Armenians as well. The majority of girls in nineteenth-century Palestine lived in villages or larger towns and were integral members of their families, assisting their mothers with household needs, working in agricultural or craft production, and preparing for lives as mothers and wives. Schooling was a luxury that most families could not consider for their daughters; local religious schools were populated almost exclusively by boys, although educational reform was being debated throughout the Ottoman Empire. For Palestinian girls, however, be they Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, education was defined as oral tradition and working side by side with the women of the family in preparation for their own adult lives. For middle-class British missionaries, however, such traditional education was unacceptable. They viewed Palestine’s girls as desperately deprived and in need of formal literacy training. More important, however, they were appalled by the lack of Protestant reach in the country and by Palestinian society’s “Oriental” approaches to religion, social customs, and government. This sentiment was enhanced by Palestine’s position as the “Holy Land,” and the promise of British control over the Land of the Bible was increasingly popular as imperialism, Orientalism, and mass culture collided with Evangelicalism in Victorian Britain. In 1841, the first Protestant church of Jerusalem opened its doors, and from that point, a small but steady stream of British missionaries came to the country, hoping to sway Palestinians to abandon their own faiths and cultural traditions and embrace British forms of Protestantism, social values, and customs. For many British women missionaries, establishing small schools seemed the logical way to indoctrinate Palestinian girls, who they hoped would carry a newfound faith in British values to their families and into the lives of subsequent generations. The earliest missionary schools employing British women in Palestine, such as the Diocesan Schools for Girls in...