Photograph of Students at the Methodist Mission in Vigan, Ilocos Sur, The Philippines

Vigan, The Philippines, early 20th century. Photograph measuring 5 x 6 ¾ inches, mounted on heavy cardstock. Manuscript caption recto. Wear and some damage to edges; excellent.. A photograph of a group of young Filipino men in suits, with two white women and a child, posing in front of a building. The caption reads “Grove Methodist Dormitory Boys and Missionaries Vigan”. The Methodist Episcopal Church began planning its missionary outreach to the Philippines shortly after the 1898 American victory in the Spanish Civil War, when the Philippines became an American colony. The mission center in Vigan, the capital of Ilocos Sur on the island of Luzon, was opened in 1904, headed by Kansan Berndt O. Peterson.[1] Missionaries opened schools—with the aim of both educating and Americanizing their students—and made Vigan the base for evangelizing around the region. According to the UMC’s history of their activities in Asia, many Filipinos saw the church’s activities as an extension of American imperialism, leading to Nicolás Zamora’s foundation of the Iglesia Evangelica Metodista en las Islas Filipinas in 1909.

[1] Wade Crawford Barclay, History of Methodist Missions, Vol. 4 (The Board of Missions and Church Extension of the Methodist Church, 1949).