The Methodists and the Americans of the Rajang River, Sarawak
I was really surprised to learn that the Foo Chow colony along the Rajang River was financed by American Methodist Churches from across the USA. This support lasted from 1903 until the Japanese invasion.
In 1890, two Methodist missionaries, Dr Benjamin E. West, an American trained doctor and Methodist Missionary and American missionary H.L.E Luering, went exploring up the Kapuas River and penetrated 250 miles into the interior. Returning to Singapore, Luering returned to Borneo, further exploring other rivers, but his missionary work mainly focused on Java and Sumatra. Efforts to convert the people of Borneo were delayed by another decade.
A Chinese Methodist, Wong Nai Siong, in the Fukien province of China, influenced by the history of the American Pilgrims, started a project for the emigration of Methodist Chinese to Sarawak. He convinced the White Rajah to accept a thousand immigrants from the area. These immigrants were part of the Foo Chow people living in Fukien Province and were of the Methodist faith.
While outfitting in Hong Kong, the group was joined by Bishop Frank Warne of India and accompanied them to the Rajang River in Sarawak. The colony did not flourish. Crop failures, floods and disease cut the numbers in half. The remaining Chinese managed to plant pepper and a few rubber trees for export, as well as vegetable gardens for local consumption.
Dr Benjamin West made periodic visits to the colony from his base in Singapore and, in 1902, discovered the people had established preaching centres among the immigrants and reached out to the local Dyaks.
The White Leaders of the Foo Chow
In 1903, James M. Hoover, an American teacher at the Anglo-Chinese School in Penang, was appointed by Dr West as the first permanent missionary to the Foo Chow settlers. In 1904, Charles Brooke appointed him as “Protector and head of all Sarawak Foo Chows”.
For the next thirty years, Tuan Hoover, as he became known, arranged for the development of the area. He established 41 churches and 40 schools along the Rajang River. In 1904, he introduced rubber seedlings, a rice huller in 1906, the first girls’ school in 1911 and an agricultural school in 1913, as well as a steam launch, bicycles, an ice machine, a power generator and wireless telegraph.
Funding for most of the activities came from the United States. The American Methodist Mission Fund provided monies for churches, schools, teacher and pastoral training, as well as medical missions. American congregations and missionary groups raised funds through donations, sponsorship programs, and mission drives. The States of Iowa, Ohio, Illinois and New York were major donors to the Sibu campaign.
Tuan Hoover and his wife received $21,000 or MY 84,000 per year in today’s currency, but it was increased to $28,000 or MY 112,000 in the early 1930s. However, his food, lodging and travel expenses were paid for by the fund.
There were other salaries paid for by the Americans as well. Teachers, medical personnel, local pastors, preachers and evangelists all received funds from the Americans.
Tuan Hoover learned the Chinese dialect of Foo Chow and the Malay languages and mediated disputes between the two groups. His wife, Ethel Mary Hoover, was Headmistress of the Yuk Ing Girls’ School, promoting vernacular education. Tuan Hoover passed away in 1935 from Malaria.
Reverend and Mrs Gerald Summers replaced him as leader of the Foo Chow and continued Hoover’s work of education and church building into the late 1930s. They established the Methodist Boys School on Island Road in 1941. Summers interned in a Japanese camp in Singapore and died in 1945.
Most of what Tuan Hoover and the Summers had built was destroyed by the Japanese. Churches and schools were torched. The Chinese, perceived enemies of Japan, were slaughtered. Many Methodist missionaries and local Chinese leaders were detained and executed. The people of Sibu had to rely on subsistence farming and the barter system.
The Iban of the Kapit area
Several years before the war, Methodist missionaries were established among the former headhunters. Mr and Mrs Paul H. Schmucker were sent as missionaries among the Iban at Kapit, way north on the Rajang river from where Hoover and Summers worked in 1939. They established the first Iban Methodist School in the region in 1940.
Bishop Edwin F. Lee then sent to Kapit a Batak preacher from Sumatra, Rev Lucius Simamorea, who was assigned to Kapit, several miles up the Rejng river from where Hoover was stationed. He made several inroads with the Dayaks, but the combination of Islam and Dayak animistic beliefs made proselytising very difficult.
However, during the war, the third white Rajah, Charles Vyner Brooke, allowed the return of headhunting with only the Japanese as victims. Many heads were collected.
The Japanese surrendered on 15 August 1945. The period had left a deep scar on Sibu, where violence and repression had been intense.
Post War
G.F. Retallack, who was interim leader between Hoover and Summers, began his activities after the war, rebuilding the infrastructure. He built and repaired churches in Sibu and along the Rajang River. He helped in the transition between the American rulers and the Foo Chow clergy. He set the stage for the opening of the Methodist Boys School in 1954 and the later opening of the Wong Nai Siong School in 1967.
From
The Methodist Church Board of Education, The Methodists on Borneo: Indonesia, No date
Additional information was provided by OpenAI.
Many thanks to Veronica Chang Schmid
Tom McLaughlin for BorneoHistory.net