The Niger Mission

Record summary

James Frederick Schön’s writings from the Niger expeditions contain translated conversations and observations concerning Hausa and neighboring religious ideas, charms, diviners, illness, and Muslim-Christian encounters. They can help researchers compare how spiritual affliction was rendered across languages during early nineteenth-century missionary expansion. The material is identifiable through Schön, the Church Missionary Society, and Niger expedition publications. It is mediated by interpreters and practical evangelistic goals, while some reports concern hearsay rather than witnessed events and should be checked against Crowther and other expedition records.