James Diego Thomson

Diego Thomson:

A study in Scotland and South America (1818-1825) [1]

 Bill Mitchell

 Recently I was in a mototaxi as it bumped its way up a dusty, barren hillside in San Juan de Lurigancho in Lima, Peru. Tucked away in a side street, on a simple one-storey building, I caught sight of a sign—Centro Educativo Diego Thomson—a little school, an annex of a Pentecostal church. It reminded me of the opening in Lima of the first protestant teacher training college with degree-awarding status in the 1980s—Instituto de Educación Superior Pedagógico "Diego Thomson". Why should Peruvian evangelicals identify a Scot, who spent a little over two years in their country and left  late in 1824, as the pioneer of public education in that land—a man virtually unknown in his own country? The following study explores some factors in the success of James (or Diego) Thomson's work in South America during the period 1818 to 1825.

 1. A thumbnail sketch of his life

 James Thomson was born in 1788 in Creetown, Kirkcudbright. Thirty years later, in 1818, he went to Argentina to establish monitorial schools and distribute Scriptures, having served as co-pastor with James Haldane of Leith Walk Tabernacle. Argentina[2] and Chile[3] both granted him honorary citizenship in recognition of his services to education. In Peru Thomson organised public education and coordinated the translation of the New Testament into the Quechua languages. On his way back to Britain in 1825 he encouraged leading politicians and Roman Catholic clergy in Bogotá to inaugurate the  Bible Society of Colombia.

 While in Britain he arranged for the translation of the New Testament into the Aymara language of Peru and Bolivia by a Bolivian political exile then living in London. He married in 1827 and went with his wife to Mexico, where he was agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) until 1830. There he distributed Bibles and New Testaments in Spanish, and encouraged the translation of the Scriptures into a number of Mexican languages. The Thomsons had two daughters there, both of whom died in infancy and were buried in Mexico City and Puebla.

 He spent most of 1831 in Britain and then was the BFBS agent in the Caribbean from 1832 to 1838, and in Canada from 1838 to 1842, where among other activities he encouraged Scrip­ture translation into Ojibway and Cree. While in Upper Canada he took some winter leave to complete the medical studies he began in Edinburgh, and in May 1842 graduated M.D. from McGill University at the age of 53. In 1843 he was in Mexico and the Yucatan peninsula, making grammatical and vocabulary notes for a projected translation of the Bible into the Mayan language. While there he fell seriously ill in Chichen Itza and was carried 25 miles to Valladolid by Mayans, where he was nursed back to health by a local business man and the parish priest.

 In 1845 he represented the BFBS in Scotland. He then succeeded George Borrow as the BFBS agent in Spain, Portugal and North Africa. The death of his wife in Madrid in 1848 led to Thomson’s involvement in the quest for liberty of religious expression in Spain. In 1849 he left BFBS employment and gave himself to support fledgling Protestant endeavours in Portugal and Spain. In the 1850s his articles in the Christian Family Advocate brought Spain to the attention of British evangelicals. He planned a Spanish Evangelization Society, but did not live to see it come into being. He died in London on 20 February 1854. The Society was founded in 1855: a “direct result of inspiration provided by Thomson's efforts” (Sitoy: 134).

 2. The early years: formative influences

 Thomson was born on 1 Sep 1788 in the Parish of Kirkmabreck, Ferrytown-on-Cree, Kirkcudbrightshire, the third child of William Thomson and Janet Burnett. His father was the dominie and session clerk of the parish church. He is remembered as one of the six signatories to the 1802 libel action raised by the laird against the minister, Rev. Dr. John Inglis, for drunkenness, which resulted in the minister being deposed in 1804. A five-year vacancy ensued while the two patrons, the laird and the Crown, argued over who should fill the vacancy. The dispute went to the Court of Session where the laird was successful (Cutland: 11).

The laird, John McCulloch, was one of the "Improvers", influenced by currents of thought from the Scottish En­lightenment. Changes in agriculture had produced the displacement of many tenants. At the same time the In­dustrial Revolution was introducing new techniques into industry. There had been great unrest among the poorer people and some landlords, whether for reasons of political and physical control, or even genuine philanthropy, realised that it was better to have a settled rural population. With these aims in view they erected both country houses and planned villages; Creetown was such a village.

 McCulloch was the moving force in the development of the village and the establishment of industries there. A grain mill was in operation, lead shot mill was begun in 1770, a tannery was developed in 1781, and in 1790 McCulloch began a cotton mill. The quarry shipped granite to various parts, e.g. NW England and Ireland. He encouraged construc­tion in the town. A report in 1792 referred to fifty houses that had been built and another fifty houses that had been laid out. The population in 1764 was 104, in 1793 551, and in 1840 1226.

 Creetown was, when Thomson was born, the Ferrytown of Cree, the ferry  going to Wigtown on the other side of the inlet. Due to the laird's petitioning, it was granted burgh status and in 1792 became the Burgh of Creetown. While the quarry was a major employer, the orientation was essentially to employment related to the sea. There was regular trade with the NW of England and a thriving contraband trade went on with items smuggled in from the continent via the Isle of Man. Creetown was also on the main road from Carlisle to Portpatrick, and a mail and stage coach service was operational from the 1790s. There was also the possibility of going by ship to America from nearby Kirkcudbright or Dumfries. It was a thriving burgh with an outward-looking perspective on the world.

 The 1790 statistical report of the area indicates only a very small number of dissenters in the parish of Kirkmabreck. James Haldane visited the area in 1798, and though there is no record of a stop in Creetown, it is likely that he was there. On his second visit to the south‑west in 1803, he visited Wigtown, and almost certainly visited Creetown, if only to use the ferry. These visits aroused considerable interest, as can be seen from the discipline imposed by the Anti‑Burgher minister in Sanquar on some parishioners who defied him and went to hear Haldane (Wallace: 85). Haldane’s second visit took place during the libel action against Inglis. It is inconceivable that the Haldane visit would not have been discussed in the Thomson household, where the father was dominie, session clerk and seeking to oust the incumbent. Did the 15 year-old James take all this in?

 3. Glasgow and Edinburgh

 Earlier researchers have suggested Thomson studied in Glasgow University (McKay: 21), Thomson’s own writings also point to theological studies,[4] though he himself makes little reference to his education, apart from early medical studies in Edinburgh.[5]

 It is not known at what point Thomson changed his allegiance from Presbyterianism to the nascent congregational/Baptist churches of the Haldanes,[6] but by 1817 Thomson was having his daily devotions in French, in preparation for joining Robert Haldane in Montauben. This never transpired, for reasons that are not clear (BFBS: xciii). What did happen was that in 1818 he spent a few months in London at the Borough Road school of the British and Foreign Schools Society (BFSS), and on the 12 July of that same year he sailed from Liverpool for Buenos Aires. Like other Haldane missionaries he did not go out with a recognised society, rather “the church in Leith Walk which enabled him at first to go out...aided him for his first year, and used ever to pray that he might find favour among the people; a prayer that was remarkably answered”.[7]

 In 1822 he wrote of “my letters sent from time to time to my friends in Edinburgh”.[8] He kept up these friendships; in 1824 he added a postscript to a letter to BFBS asking that a copy of the letter be forwarded to Mr. Haldane, 16 George Street, Edinburgh, “as my time will not allow of going over the same ground in a separate communication to that gentle­man, as my duty and feelings require”.[9]

 Thomson shared many of the concerns of the Haldanes. He reflects the same commitment to home and foreign mission,[10] to education,[11] to the Bible Society, and to the diffusion of the Scriptures.[12] The Haldanes’ enthusiasm for the revolutionary happenings in France were paralleled in Thomson’s support for the independence movements in South America.

 On the wider front, Edinburgh was a place of ideas, action and people. Christopher Anderson's bringing together of popular education, the Bible and the Bible Society was another example of evangelical concerns of the day. Amidst the millennial hopes that prevailed in evangelical circles, an interest in foreign mission characterised other groups than those of the Haldanes. This may be seen in Rev. John Inglis’ 1818 address to the meeting of the Society for Propagation of Christian Knowledge: “The Grounds of Chris­tian Hope in the Universal Prevalence of the Gospel”.[13]

 Interest in South America was reflected in journals then circulating in Edinburgh. Articles in the Edinburgh Chris­tian Instructor spoke of the religious opportunity that was opening up there, especially for the Bible Society.[14] From 1808 to 1825 the influential Edinburgh Review carried extensive reviews of publications on South America. The editor, Francis Jeffrey, and regular contributors Henry Brougham and James Mill, held that providence was "calling a free world into being to redress the tyranny of the old". The British were to be the chosen agents of change. Mill was emphatic on this subject: "The inhabitants of the new world are holding out their arms to the inhabitants of the British Isles, craving their assistance ion the hour of need--and offering them, in return, the most unbounded prospects of advantage which it ever was in the power of one nation to hold out to another”.[15] Later, in 1825, a Scottish "colony" of crafts­men left Leith for Argentina under the auspices of Scots who already held land there.[16]

 4. South America: Schools, Scriptures and the Enlightenment.

 Thomson arrived in Argentina in 1818, a mere eight years after the establishment of an independent republic by Rivadavia. Independence had been won in Chile under Bernardo O'Higgins, while in Peru independence would not come until 1824.

 It was a time of increasing emigration from Europe to Argentina. The country was led by the liberals and the social make-up of a city like Buenos Aires was between those called gente decente (who were in government and power) and the gente de pueblo (the bulk of the populace). It was a division that recalled Thomson's own early experience, of the Scottish gente decente (the progressive laird, the morality-conscious dominie, and the mill owners, all sharing Enlightenment values) and the gente de pueblo (the displaced migrants from the rural areas). The developments in the Creetown of his youth were in microcosm the hopes for the continent awakening from "tyranny and oppression".

 In the emergent apparatus of state and government, relations between citizen and state were generated by a common objective--the re-establishment of law and order after a period of social and political turbulence that began with the revolution in 1810. It was a time of change from traditional authoritarian ideals of subjects loyal to the Crown, to a progressive ideal of the participatory citizen. The Enlightenment had paved the way for this change, and education was seen as the medium by which to “inspire in children the habit of order, the sentiments of honour, love of truth, the search for justice [and] respect for their peers”.[17]

 The monitorial system of schools which originated with Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster in the late 1790s in England was a pedagogical version of the rationalism that pervaded the industrial revolution. It was an odd combina­tion of progressive didactics, authoritarian rule and impersonal attention, which was welcomed by the progressive liberals in South America. In Buenos Aires it offered an authoritarian style of treatment combined with modernity, that was suitable to “porteño elites of virtually all preferences, as eager to establish orderliness among the youth as to restore order in the nation” (Szuchman: 155).

 When Thomson brought the system, it was hailed as the greatest and most efficient innovation in the field of education:[18] “To the enlightened it carried the legitimacy born of its English origins; to the rational, it offered scientific design; to the liberal and anticlerical, it became positively identified with secularism; and to the authorities, always short of money, it promised economy” (Szuchman, ibid.).

 The Lancasterian system was embraced by almost all the liberal leadership of the gente decente as being of “unques­tionable public utility”. In 1821 the  newspaper of Buenos Aires' utopian liberals recorded “we have just happily seen in practice the Lancaster system, by which not only do children learn to read and write, but they also become accustomed to order”.[19]

 Thomson's time in Argentina was not confined to Buenos Aires. He travelled to Montevideo in what was then "la Banda Oriental" to develop schools there, and to other parts of the United Provinces as they were then called, to promote schools in the interior (Thomson, 1827: 265-277).

 Wherever he went Thomson linked his interest in schools with his interest in distribution of the Scriptures.[20] Prior to his arrival, the Bible had begun to be distributed in the southern cone countries—BFBS agent David Creighton had been in Buenos Aires in 1806. In 1807 Spanish Scriptures had been delivered to the British River Plate garrison. Although Thomson was not officially a BFBS agent until late in 1824, the experience of Bible Societies in Europe had encouraged him to develop his work. Those Bible Societies established in Europe were predominantly Roman Catholic, and reports of the Catholic response in Europe may have fuelled Thomson's expectations further. Certainly he imitated the BFBS conciliatory approach in working with Roman Catholic authorities wherever possible.

 The criticisms that had been raised against the Bible Societies and the replies that these had received helped Thomson to formulate his own approach:

 1. The Bible Society distributed Bibles without directing the way it was to be used. It had a servant role.

 2. The Bible without note or comment was to be the common meeting point, it led to the avoidance of division and allowed people to join forces.

 3. The Bible was seen as the best means of moral and religious improvement.

 Within South America itself, others forces had been at work in the late eighteenth century following the expulsion of the Jesuits, especially those derived from the ideas of the Catholic Enlightenment in France and Spain (Mitchell, 1972: 246-251). Such currents of thought were welcomed by the more liberal clergy. Prominent among works then circulating were the Catechisme Historique of Claude Fleury[21], and Juan Mabil­lon's Tratado de la Iglesia de Jesucristo which was widely used in the sub-continent after 1807. The anonymous trans­lator of this latter work emphasised the importance of understanding the sources of the Christian faith in their original tongue. Mabillon stressed the importance of the forms of early Christianity and early Christian discipline.

 This concern with the sources of Christianity is also seen in the writings of Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, the chief educational authority in Spain between 1780 and 1810: “Seeing that the primary theological source is the Holy Scripture...the best and highest preparation for the study of the Christian ethic will be the frequent reading of and the prolonged meditation on the Holy Scriptures”.[22] After the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 textbooks with such emphases were in common use. Another influential thinker was Benito Geronomio Feyjóo. His ideas are known to have been introduced to seminaries in Peru a generation before Independence.

 Taken together these ideas produced among the more liberal clergy a renewed respect for the practices of the primitive church and a consequent reduction in ceremonial aspects of worship. They argued for a greater freedom of conscience and promoted Bible study. They also encouraged the use of the vernacular in worship.

 A significant influence in encouraging Bible study was the Chilean Jesuit Manuel Lacunza.[23] Following expulsion from his native land he lived as an anchorite in central Italy, devoting his time to the study of prophecy. His great work La venida del Mesías en Gloria y Majestad was circulated in manuscript copies under the pseudonym of "Juan Josafat Ben-Ezra, a Hebrew Christian". Parts of the work were printed and circulated as early as 1785. The full work was published in Spain in 1812. In 1816 General Manuel Belgrano, Argentine representative in London, arranged for printing of it in four volumes in Spanish. It was banned by the Holy Office in 1824, but further editions were published in Mexico in 1825. Translations were made into several European languages--Edward Irving translated it into English in 1826.[24]

 At the time of Thomson's activity in South America “there was no town of any consequence between Havana and Cape Horn, where it was not known” (Mitchell, 1972: 251). Ignacio Gorriti, a prominent cleric of the Independence movement in Buenos Aires, advised young priests to use Lacunza in order to learn profitable rules for interpreting all parts of Scripture.

 The desire of liberals to promote the best in their cul­tures, and therefore to return to their roots, led to the desire to incorporate the indigenous masses into the process of emancipation. This was seen in Peru and Mexico, both on the part of those identified with the liberators' struggle and also with those of the clergy who identified themselves with the independence cause. As a result Thomson's interest in translating Scriptures into the indigenous languages met with a ready response both from clergy and from liberal leaders. In Peru, his translation of the New Testament to Quechua was carried out by four members of the new Congress, two of whom were clerics, and a "lineal descendant of the last Inca king". The New Testament was translated into Aymará by Vicente Pazos Kanki in the period 1826-28 in London, where he had become the first Bolivian chargé d’affaires (Mitchell, 1990: 341-5).

 5. Thomson's policy

 a. The Haldane heritage

In examining Thomson's activities, links with the Haldanes in Scotland have already been made clear. A few years after Thomson's departure from Edinburgh, James Haldane became involved in an often acrimonious debate over the inclusion of the Apocrypha in the Bible distributed by the BFBS. The Edin­burgh Bible Society thereafter produced Bibles without the Apocrypha. BFBS later followed suit and from 1823 produced the Spanish version of Felipe Scío de San Miguel without the Apocrypha. Haldane's opposition to the BFBS continued for many years. Even when Thomson was appointed BFBS representa­tive in Scotland in 1845 James Haldane signed a Warning to the Public to dissuade people from supporting BFBS.

 It is in this area that we see most clearly that although Thomson had come from the Haldane churches, he was in no way bound to follow the same line. In his correspondence with the BFBS he stressed the importance of having a Bible with the Apocrypha,[25] and pointed out that not to have it would be disastrous for his work. It would be regarded as a Protestant Bible and would not be acceptable to the clergy in South America. In a letter to Dr Milner of the American Bible Society[26] he expressed disagreement with the BFBS decision, but since it was not 'a matter of conscience' he agreed to abide by it. He recognised the BFBS dilemma, but proposed that the Apocrypha be published by someone else, and then bound together with the 'canonical' Bible. He added that it was important to have the Spanish Bible printed in Spain, so that it would not identified with London, and hence with a Protestant country. Thomson shared Haldane's commitment to the Word of God, but expressed it in very different terms.

 His sensitivity to the Roman Catholics, and his commitment to work within that framework while he was in South America also marked a divergence from evangelical thought in Britain, where there was a virulent anti-popery strain. It would appear that Thomson's position was not mere prag­matism, but rather derived from a conviction that the Word of God alone would bring about emancipation and revolution, with corresponding changes in the church.

 He had studied the Catholic decrees, and often cited that of Pope Benedict XIV of 1757 who gave permission for the reading of the Scriptures in the vernacular, i.e. "of such vulgar tongues as should be approved by the Holy See or be accom­panied with notes from the Learned Fathers of the Roman Catholic Church". Thomson made much of the word "or" and since the Scío version had ecclesiastical approval, he argued that it was right for Roman Catholics to use it, even though it had no notes (Thomson, 1853: 14-15).

 It may be that the debates and strife which he had seen in Scotland, and in which the Haldanes were often protagonists, produced in Thomson an abhorrence of sectarianism. Some years later, in the report of his tour of Yucatan and other places, he wrote of St. Kitts “I saw here some symptoms of sectarianism which I had rather not seen, for its sight is disagreeable to me at all times and in all places” (1845: 73). While he shared the same high view of Scripture as the Haldanes, he allowed much more liberty of conscience in interpreta­tion:

 The Scriptures are our grand and only guide in all matters pertaining to the Kingdom of God, and when they speak out in clear directions, we have nothing to think of but an entire and cheerful submission to the instructions they give. But in those cases where they do not speak out and mark our path definitively, we are left at liberty to regulate our practice by the General Rules contained in the same Volume. (1837: 5)

 Thomson was also much more irenic on the vexed question of the ordinance of baptism, so important to the Haldane churches. In his Union Liturgy, on which he began work around 1827, he provides a number of options on baptism--infant baptism, baptism of adults (“which will suit the Baptists”), and a “Service for the Dedication of Infants” which “might be used by the Baptists without infringing on their principles, and would be a favourable opportunity of publicly giving thanks to God for the Birth of the Child, and the Safety of the Mother; and of earnest, united prayer for the Child's welfare in time, and in eternity” (ibid., 8).

 b. Thomson's tripod

With regard to his own strategy, Thomson summed it up at an early point in his South American ministry:

 The lamp which illuminates the world with the light of life seems placed upon a tripod: the school society, the Bible society, and the missionary society...How gratifying is it to all those who love Sion to see such numbers of the Great and the Good in our native Isles inlist themselves under one or other or  all of these banners. Blessings be on all them who love and seek the prosperity of Sion.[27]

 Later he wrote “my most prominent object in South America is the promoting of education on the Lancasterian plan”.[28] Although BFBS was very important, he was not at that time an agent, “only a servant of BFBS... I have said that my prominent object here is the establishment of schools. I freely profess myself as such and am hailed everywhere as a friend” (ibid.). At that point he did not think of returning to his homeland:

 It is my intention, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to spend my life, long or short as it may be, in South America; probably not in any fixed place, but residing from time to time wherever I can most effectually promote the work of the Lord, whether that be in promoting the objects of the BFBS, or the BFSS, or in preaching the Cross of Christ (ibid.).

 Elsewhere he indicated that if people could not read, then the Scriptures were of little use to them. He believed he should attend to the first to achieve the second:

 I have thought it best to allow myself to be guided in the manner of doing it by the various circumstances and occasions which the providence of God opens up to me from time to time...two things, the education of youth and the circulation of Scriptures.[29]

 At this point in his career the “missionary society” was understood in terms of “British Christian Colonies”.[30]  In Chile he proposed to O'Higgins that he bring out tradesmen and farmers (1827: 36). He later presented a similar plan to General San Martin in Peru, for “the men who will be most useful in South America, are men truly religious and of sound morality”.[31] He suggested chaplaincies in every British “embassy” or “factory”, and pressed the need for full religious liberty. The “colonies” he envisaged could only develop in such a context. There was ample opportunity, “the man of science, the moralist, the christian, have all fine scope here for their talents” (1827:37).

 In view of the dramatic events taking place, there was an urgency about his mission. “It is time for benevolence and religion to bestir themselves and to work...the true panacea are men of bleeding hearts whose feet run to relieve the afflicted”.[32] In this his single object was to promote the Kingdom of God. For Thomson the 'Kingdom of God' and 'Providence' were linked together in his understanding of the events taking place in South America and its indepen­dence movements.

 He himself was in contact with the protagonists--Rivadavia, O'Higgins, San Martin and Bolivar--they were like King Cyrus of old,[33] raised up by God to liberate the continent. For Thomson it was neither easy nor proper “to remain indifferent as to the issue of the struggle”. He linked it with news he was receiving from Europe and from Jerusalem, and could only conclude: “the day of his merciful visitation has come”.[34] The “old tyranny and oppression” was ending, and a new day was dawning, there was a “singular interposition of Provi­dence on behalf of the cause of liberty”.[35] Thomson’s millennial hope embraced the whole world, for him the Kingdom was coming.

 6. From Enlightenment to Enlightenment.

 The formation that Thomson had was imbued with values derived from the Scottish Enlightenment, and the evan­gelicalism he embraced was similarly characterised by those values. The developments he saw in the Creetown of his youth and the activities pursued by leading evangelicals of his time in Edinburgh (such as Gaelic Schools) helped shape his thinking. They found an echo in his writings, and concrete expression in his ministry, though he showed remarkable flexibility in adapting and developing this in the South American context.

 South Americans welcomed his “simplicity and modesty” and  recognised his unique contribution: “the caring Christian spirit that characterises this distinguished philanthropist, his activity and truly apostolic zeal in promoting the work of the London society,[36] are known from one end of South America to another. It is impossible to speak highly enough of him” (Bello, 58-9). 

The openings that he found and the receptivity to his work and ideas in South America derived from the basic orienta­tion produced in a different context by the ethos of the Enlightenment. Thomson, however, saw it otherwise: “All chance is but direction that we cannot see”.[37]

Bibliography

 Bello, Andrés, ed. “Informe XXI de la Sociedad de escuelas británicas y extranjeras a la   junta general celebrada en Londres el 15 de Mayo de 1826”.  El Repertorio  Americano Tomo II (1827): 58-80.

BFBS.  45th. Report. London: Richard Clay, 1849.

Bowman, Charles H. Vicente Pazos Kanki: Un Boliviano en la Libertad de América. La  Paz: Editorial Los Amigos del Libro, 1975.

Cutland, John R. The Story of Ferrytown of Cree and Kirkmabreck Parish. Castle Douglas: Forward Press, 1985.

Mitchell, Donald. "The Evangelical Contribution of James Thomson to South  American Life (1818-1825)". Ph.D thesis. Prin­ceton: Princeton Theological  Seminary, 1972.

Mitchell, Bill. "James Thomson and Bible Translation in Andean Languages", Bible Translator, 41.3 (1990): 341-5.

McKay, Girvan C. "Growth and Eclipse of Presbyterian Missionary Outreach in Argentina". Lic.Th. thesis. Buenos Aires: ISEDET, 1973.

Sitoy, Valentino. "British Evangelical Missions to Spain in the Nineteenth Century". Ph.D thesis. Edinburgh: New College, 1971.

Szuchman, Mark D.  Order, Family and Community in Buenos Aires 1810-1860.   Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988.

Thomson, James. Epitome de Gramática Inglesa y English Extracts con vocabulario.  Lima: J.A. López, 1823.

----------. Letters on the Moral and Religious State of South America. London: James Nisbet, 1827.

----------. Union Liturgy. London: James Nisbet, 1837.

----------. "Tour in Yucatan together with brief notices of Travels in Buenos Ayres, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, N.Granada, Venezuela, Mexico and the West Indian Islands, the United States, Canada, N. Brunswick and N.Scotia". Unpublished ms. held in Bible Society Collection, Cambridge University Library, 1845.

----------. Spain, Its Position and Evangelization. London: Partridge and Oakey, 1853.

Wallace, D.E. "The Life and Work of James Alexander Haldane", Ph.D. thesis.  Edinburgh: New College, 1955.

[1] A revised edition of a paper first published in Bulletin of the Scottish Institute of Missionary Studies, 6-7 (1991): 66-75

[2]  1818-1821.

[3]  From 1821 to 1822 Thomson was director of elementary education.

[4]  E.g.  Union Liturgy. London: James Nisbet, 1837.

[5]  Letter to BFBS from Montreal, 20 February 1841.

[6]  In 1808 the Haldanes accepted baptism of believers by immersion and their ‘congregational’ churches became ‘baptist’ churches.

[7] Evangelical Christendom, 1847, I: 389.

[8] Lima, 9 November 1822.

[9] Letter from Guayaquil, 5 October 1824.

[10] Wallace suggests that the first Scottish missionaries of the modern missionary movement were sent out from the Tabernacle (Wallace: 310).

[11] Note James Haldane's role as co-founder of the Gaelic Schools Society and the Edinburgh Gaelic School Society in 1811, the Glasgow Gaelic School Society in 1812, and the Inverness Education Society in 1818 where the Gaelic Bible was used as a text. Many years later Thomson wrote of  a similarity between plans for schools amongst Mexico's indigenous population and the Gaelic schools in the Highlands. These latter had produced "happy results" which he hoped would be repeated in Mexico. The way would then be opened "for versions of the Scriptures in the Indian languages". Letter to BFBS, 25 May 1843.

[12] Note the Haldanes’ role in the founding of the Edinburgh Bible Society in 1809. Though as will be noted below, Thomson did not share their views on the Apocrypha.

[13]  5 June 1818.

[14] E.g. The issue of May 1811.

[15] "Molina's account of Chili", Edinburgh Review  14 (1809), IV: 336.

[16] See below on Thomson's plans for "colonies" in Chile and Peru.

[17] El Censor, 24 April 1817.

[18] Thomson was not the first to recommend the system. In 1812, Vicente Pazos Kanki, in his role as editor of La Crónica, urged the city authorities to develop such a system in schools (Bowman:100). Thomson did not meet Pazos Kanki until 1826, when it was arranged that Pazos Kanki would translate the New Testament into Aymara.

[19] El Argos de Buenos Ayres, 25 August 1821.

[20] In his Epitome… Thomson included selected passages from the Bible as the texts to be studied by students.

[21]  1640-1723.

[22]  Cited by Mitchell, 1972: 249.

[23] 1731-1801.

[24] The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty, published in London in 1827. Lacunza’s ideas later reached a much wider public in the notes of the ‘Scofield Bible’—a fact little known by that Bible’s users.

[25]  “I trust you will find it convenient to procure an edition of the Apocrypha to accompany your new edition of the Spanish Bible”. Letter to BFBS from Lima, 17 November 1823.

[26] 8 February 1828.

[27] Letter to BFBS from Buenos Aires, 18 August 1820.

[28] Letter to BFBS from Santiago, 8 October 1821.

[29] Letter to BFBS from Guayaquil, 5 Oct 1824.

[30] There is no hint at this time of anything similar to the "Spanish Evangelization Society" which he would advocate in the 1850s.

[31] Thomson's correspondence with James Haldane suggests such a group was being formed in Edinburgh for South America. Letter to Haldane from Lima, 11th July, 1822.

[32] Letter to BFBS from Lima, 13 November 1823.

[33] Isaiah ch.45.

[34] Letter to BFBS from Lima, 15 July 1824.

[35] Letter to BFBS from Guayaquil, 5 October 1824. Thomson believed the end of Spanish power was inevitable, following the Patriot victory in Junín, and their later taking of Guamanga in mid-August 1824.

[36] BFSS.

[37] Letter to BFBS from Guayaquil, 5 October 1824