History of Baptist Mission in Northeast India
A Timeline (1836 – 2011)
In 1836, aided by the British Commissioner of Assam, American Baptist mission work in present-day Northeast
India was established - though as a way-station for work that would extend to the Shans of Burma and ultimately
into China. By 1840 it was clear that the Shan mission was impracticable. As a result, the missionaries shifted their
focus to the Assamese people. The vision included introducing the Gospel through childhood education, and through
the dissemination of Scripture portions and tracts through the use of a printing press. By 1861, however, the mission
could claim only 53 Assamese Christians in their three small churches. Plagued with funding problems, security
concerns, missionary illness, internal disputes, and a Hindu population seemingly impervious to the Gospel message,
the Mission Union questioned whether the Assam mission was worth keeping alive. The first generation of Assamese
Christians, however, began to evangelize the indigenous communities living in the mountains. As a result, in 1867
the number of converts in the mission nearly doubled with the baptism of forty Garos. Five years later, nine Naga
men were baptized, signaling the dawn of a bountiful harvest in the region. Though it took many decades to develop
the mission work among the hill tribes, Christian conversions and church growth continued from this point on with
few significant interruptions. Expanding into four main mission fields, namely Assam, the Garo Hills, the Naga
Hills and Manipur, local evangelists were responsible for the most significant evangelistic work – leading often to
mass conversions among their closest neighbors. Today there are ninety-four Baptist Associations, 7,804 churches,
and 1,045,455 baptized believers related to the work of International Ministries of the American Baptist Churches,
USA.
1832
Major Francis Jenkins, the British Governor General’s Agent and Commissioner for the
Province explores Assam producing detailed daily entries over a six-month trip through
Assam, discussing settlements, land use, natural resources, the navigability of waterways,
local culture and language, and similar subjects (18 October 1832 to 27 April 1833)
1836
In compliance with the desire of Jenkins and several other friends of missions, application
was made to the British Baptist missionaries in Calcutta, who being at that time unable to
occupy the field, addressed the American missionaries in Burma, communicating the desire
of the Commissioner, and representing that a location on the Northeast frontier with
principal reference to the Shan or Khamti population, was a desirable position for the
American Board to occupy, as it could soon be connected with their mission stations in
Burma, and thus an immense population lying between Burma and Assam, and never yet
visited by any missionary, be made accessible. It was resolved at once to embrace this
opening of Providence, and accordingly Nathan and Eliza Brown and Oliver and Harriet
Cutter, with a printing press, were deputed to undertake its establishment.
1836
Establishing a mission center to promote community organization through education, the
new mission in Sadiya provided access to several Khamti villages, and Brown and Cutter
began in earnest to produce and print tracts and small books in their language in
preparation for the opening of their first school with 20 students.
1837
Miles Bronson and Jacob Thomas are appointed by the American Mission Board to join the
Assam mission, arriving in Calcutta April 11, 1837. While traveling onward to Assam and
up the Brahmaputra river, Thomas is killed suddenly by a falling tree from the river bank.
1838
Though deeply affected by the tragic death of Jacob Thomas, the mission sees great hope in
working with the Khamtis, and soon added the Singphos, a numerous tribe intermingled
with the Shyans, and lying in the great Hukong valley between Assam and Burma. Bronson
moves to Jaipur to work more closely with the Singphos and Khamtis.
1839
Dr. Miles Bronson begins working among the Nagas in the immediate vicinity of Jaipur,
and starts a school in the village of Namsang. Dr. Bronson also prepares several elementary
works in their language. At the same time, the Khamtis around Sadiya unite in a general
insurrection, attack and burn the station, killing the political agent Lt. Col. A. White and kill
dozens of people. In retaliation, British forces burn Khamti villages, and the people are
scattered. The unsettled state of the country between Assam and Burma, and the
treacherous spirit manifested, both by the Shans and the Singphos, causes American
missionaries to abandon hopes of ministry among the Shans of Burma and eventually
China. The Browns and Cutters, with the press, shift to Jaipur. Cutter establishes more
Assamese schools and writes a 252-page Vocabulary and Phrases in English and Assamese,
published in 1840 from the Mission Press at Jaipur.
1840
Mr. and Mrs. Barker, and Miss. R. Bronson (sister to Miles Bronson) arrive to assist Miles
Bronson in the new work among the Namsang Nagas. However Miss Bronson had devoted
only a few weeks to the study of the Naga lanaguage, with the hope of devoting her life to
the instruction of the youth, when a violent attack of fever removed her from the work she
had so ardently desired to engage in. She died December 7, 1840.
1841
Nidhi Levi, the first Assamese convert, is baptized in the Buri Dihing river near Jaipur on
13th June 1841. Looking for a more suitable location to engage in his duties, Dr. Nathan
Brown and his family shift to Sibsagar, while Cutter continues at Jaipur superintending the
operations of the Baptist presses. Due to severe and repeated illness, Miles Bronson left his
work among the Nagas and settled in Nowgong. Added to these discouragements, the
Shyans and Singphos still remained inaccessible, soo the mission was to focus solely on the
Assamese population at three stations: Sibsagar, Nagaon and Guwahati.
1843
The Bronsons, having shifted to Nowgong, establishes the Nowgong Orphan Institution,
the first Baptist institution in Central Assam. The same year, the Cutters move to
Sibsagar and establish the printing press along the bank of the Dikhow River..
1845
26th January 1845 the Baptist Church of Assam, the first Christian church to be organized
from among the indigenous of the region, is organized in Guwahati by Nathan Brown,
Miles Bronson and Cyrus Barker.
1848
The Assamese New Testament is now complete, and is published at the Baptist press in
Sibsagar. Dr. Nathan Brown found that the Assamese Bible published by William
Carey from the Serampore Press in circulation at that time, consisted of Bengali and
Sanskrit loan words, so it was idiomatically inadequate. Therefore, he undertook the
project of translating the Bible into pure and simple Assamese and published the
New Testament in 1848.
1851
Baptist Association of Assam was created to bring the now independently functioning
churches of Sibsagar, Nowgogna and Guwahati together in fellowship. Though this
association did not survive, it was the beginning of an organization of all the churches
related to American Baptist Mission—thus anticipating the CBCNEI organization by nearly
one hundred years. That same year Rev. William Ward and Cordelia Ward reached
Guwahati (April 1851). Ward would be instrumental in Bible translation into Assamese, and
in the development of the Assamese alphabet and written language.
1861
Though the future looked bright, hope gave way to disappointment with one reversal
following another. There was falling away from the missionaries, there was disagreement
with the Home Board that led to the closing of the Nowgong Orphan Institution, there was
a financial depression in America that dried up the Mission's funds, and there were the
devastating political disturbances of the Rebellion of 1857 in India and the Civil War of
1861-65 in America. All this had an adverse effect on the young churches in Assam. A
membership of 85 in 1851 had dwindled to 54 by 1861, and the eight missionary families
and seven fulltime Assamese church workers had shrunk to two and three respectively in
that same decade.
1866
Dr. Miles Bronson publishes the first Assamese Dictionary.
1867
Kandura R. Smith as pastor of the Guwahati church and in-charge of the field in the
absence of a missionary was the human agent through which the first Garos, Omed and
Ramkhe, were brought to Christ. Those two, in turn, established the first successful
American Baptist Mission among the hills people. Kandura, the son of a blind fisherman,
became the instrument through which the first Baptist churches were established in the
hills. With the baptism of forty Garos and establishment of the Rajasimla church in 1867,
the number of Baptists in the region almost doubled overnight.
1872
286 baptized Garos, as reported by T.J. Keith, Godhula Brown, an Assamese Christian who
had distinguished himself working among Kacharis in Lower Assam and among the
orthodox Hindus of Majuli Island, was the first to carry the Gospel into the Naga Hills and
bear fruit. Through his work the first nine Nagas confessed Christ in Baptism in 1872.
1875
Though there had been a church organization that embraced all churches related to the
Mission as early as 1851, this was disbanded within a few years. When church organizations
began to appear again they were in the form of regional associations rather than structures
that embraced all the churches related to the mission. The first of these was the Garo
Association which first met in 1875.
1886
The mission had created a structure for itself in 1886. Prior to this each centre had operated
more or less independently of the others. Now the missionaries began to meet together
regularly—first at three year intervals, then two, and finally annually. The Missionary
Conference, as the Mission organization was called, became the coordinating agency for the
Mission throughout the North East.
1896
The Ao Baptist Association was founded in 1896. Also, the first American Baptist work had
just begun in the fourth regional convention area, Manipur, by the end of the century.
Interestingly enough, it was begun by a man who, when he first came to India, was neither
an American nor a Baptist. One of the greatest of the missionaries to have served in the
North East, William Pettigrew was an Englishman who had come to India under an
independent mission. He had been working for a year in Imphal before he joined the
American Baptist Mission and took up residence at Ukhrul in the Tangkhul hills in 1896.
1900
There are 2000 Christians related to the work of the American Baptist mission.
1906
There are 86 churches, 8446 Christians related to the work of the American Baptist mission.
The Jorhat Christian Medical Center has its origins as from 1906 – 1919 a medical
educational program under the leadership of Rev. S. A. D. Boggs to train medical personnel
was started.
1910
In addition to widespread touring during which they treat people at the roadside and in the
villages, the missionary doctors and nurses establish hospitals and nursing schools. The first
Mission hospital is that at Tura, the first small building of which is completed with the help
of an elephant for hauling lumber in 1910.
1919
The Industrial Training Institute is opened. The Jorhat Christian Medical Center is opened.
Medical missionary Dr. Herbert William Kirby, a qualified homeopath from the
Hahnemann Homeopathic Medical College, in Philadelphia, PA, originally assigned to
Sadiya, relocates to Jorhat and a dispensary of bamboo walls is built and in the market place
a temporary two-room location is established to treat the sick. Patients start to come for
medications as well as those who have leprosy. Since these patients are not able to go back
home Dr. Kirby has “shacks” built for them. A grant of $10,000.00 is received from a
church in Philadelphia and houses are then constructed for these Leprosy patients.
1920
Efforts of evangelists spread out among the Tangkuls, Semas, Zeliangrongs and
Chakhesangs. The Tangkhul Christians of Manipur number nearly 2,000. The Kangpokpi
Christian Hospital is opened in Manipur by Dr. G. G. Crozier and his wife.
1922
Nagas celebrate the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the Clarks into the Patkai Mountains.
There are 5,614 Christians among the Ao villages alone; and many thousands more among
their Naga neighbors.
1924
The original dispensary of the Jorhat Christian Medical Center, made of bamboo walls
becomes the Clark Memorial Dispensary. Patients come from around North East India, and
as far as Myanmar and China.
1926
The Satribari Christian Hospital, a forty-five-bed hospital for women, and run by women
medical staff, is built in Guwahati. The Gale Memorial Bible School for Women is opened
after it was moved from Golaghat and focuses on women’s leadership management. The
Francis Memorial Primary School is opened – a co-educational primary school for all
children.
1933
The twenty-five bed Jorhat Christian Medical Center is completed.
1934
The first nursing school is opened in Jorhat.
1950
There are approximately 1,500 churches with 107,038 members in the Council.
1951
The four Baptist hospitals report 19,959 outpatients and 4,785 inpatients during the
previous year.
1955
The Impur Christian Hospital is expanded from the original dispensary that opened in
1912.
1960
Through the 1960's the missionaries continue to play an important role. Up until 1956 the
main administrative officer, the General Secretary, is a missionary. As late as 1968 nine of
the fourteen standing committees have missionaries as conveners, and it is not until that
year that a north easterner was appointed as Council Treasurer. During this time
missionaries head many of the Council’s central programs and institutions.
1970
American missionaries are forced to leave Northeast India by the Indian Government due
to security concerns. CBCNEI is fully indigenous in all respects except its continued
dependence upon funds from the American Baptists for the maintenance of its central
structure and some of its institutions. There are 212,958 church members and 2,970
churches. There are six hospitals reporting the treatment of 37,921 outpatients, with 10,797
inpatients during 1969. In addition to running hospitals and two major nursing schools, the
medical services included public health programs, mobile dispensaries, mobile medical
service to refugee camps, family planning clinics, orphanages, blood banks and the
treatment of lepers. Expenditure for the entire medical program came to twenty-two lakhs
in 1969, nearly all of which (excluding capital projects) was generated by the medical
institutions or the churches themselves.
1984
400,444 church members in 3,627 churches.
1986
Celebration of 150 years of mission work in Northeast India with major celebrations in
Kohima, Nagaland. When CBCNEI celebrates its 150th Anniversary the local leadership
proudly and joyfully shares the growth from 1950 to 1986: from four hospitals to six
hospitals; from serving 18,420 out-patients and 4,754 in-patients annually to 56,000 outpatients and 14,500 in-patients; from six students in Eastern Theological College to 154
students including 42 Bachelor of Divinity students; the establishment of the Clark
Theological College and the Manipur Baptist College; from 1,645 churches to 3,944; and
from 121,447 to 438,939 baptized members.
2011
CBCNEI currently consists of six member conventions: the Assam Baptist Convention
(ABC,) the Arunachal Baptist Church Council (ABCC), the Garo Baptist Convention
(GBC) the Karbi Anglong Baptist Convention (KABC), the Manipur Baptist Convention
(MBC), and the Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC). They represent a Baptist family
of 94 Baptist associations, 7,804 churches, and 1,045,455 baptized members.