ABSTRACT

This article examines the efforts of British Christian missionaries in regulating the daily lives of European seamen in colonial Indian port cities. Missionaries aimed to reform seamen, who typically lived a life a debauchery and degeneration, by moral regulation and promotion of healthy living and hygienic practices in their everyday lives. Through a study of the Sailors’ Home run by Baptist missionaries and several other charitable institutions in Calcutta, this article provides new insights into maritime history, missionary history and colonial politics. Missionaries conceived seamen as not only the victims of government apathy and a malevolent labour market, but also tropical climate and an unforgiving urban space. This perception, rooted in the Victorian notions of purity and the link between a sanitary body and a moral mind, helped them justify regulating seamen’s bodies across the colonial world and beyond. The article shows how their actions produced white imperial bodies in a colonial context.

摘要

本文考察了英国基督教传教士在规范印度殖民地港口城市欧洲海员日常生活方面所做的努力。传教士旨在通过道德规范和促进日常生活中的健康生活和卫生习惯来改造通常过着放荡和堕落生活的海员。通过对加尔各答浸信会传教士和其他几家慈善机构经营的水手之家的研究，本文提供了对航海历史、传教历史和殖民政治的新见解。传教士认为海员不仅是政府冷漠和恶意劳动力市场的受害者，也是热带气候和无情的城市空间的受害者。这种观念植根于维多利亚时代的纯洁观念以及卫生身体和道德思想之间的联系，帮助他们证明在殖民世界及其他地区监管海员身体的合理性。这篇文章展示了他们的行为如何在殖民背景下产生了白人帝国机构。