American Baptist Missionary Union membership certificate, 1850

Description

This certificate contains harmful imagery and language subjugating other cultures and religions.

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Certificate to Mrs. Aurora D. Swaim granting honorary membership in the American Baptist Missionary Society on July 31, 1850. The top half of the certificate is a black and white engraving of a missionary holding a Bible and evangelizing to indigenous people on a tropical island with idolized scenery including palms waterfalls. The caption states, "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death upon them hath the light shined," Isaiah.