ABSTRACT
Despite the increased interest in missionaries’ families, 2 the main emphasis is frequently on adult-focused concerns, rather than on children’s experiences of play or education. This chapter explores the place of play within the creation of a religious childhood among missionaries’ and Indigenous children in the Anglo-world and British colonial contexts from 1800 to 1870. It argues that play frequently provided a site of shared experience between missionaries’ and Indigenous children that was approved rather than feared by adults. Indeed, such ‘vital contact zones’ 3 might be central to the evangelizing process. While play and toys can be interpreted as potential agents of acculturation into European ways, the skill of Indigenous children was admired in creating toys and play materials, suggesting forms of hybridity. 4 Within different mission communities, recreational activities were more likely to include both adults and children than be rigidly segregated by age, gender and ethnicity. Although there was a trend towards childspecifi c social events, these were frequently shared between Indigenous and missionaries’ children. Thus, in some mission communities, a greater focus on ‘age’ led to a greater integration by race.
