A Preacher’s Perspective

This article presents a critical, postcolonial analysis of the travel accounts of the Dutch church minister Sytze Roorda van Eysinga (1773–1829), who travelled within the East Indies archipelago in the 1820s as ‘visitator’ of the churches and schools in the colony. Which elements are characteristic of the preacher’s perspective? What did he emphasize in his travel texts? How did he represent the indigenous people who had to be Christianized eventually? So far, only little attention has been paid to the preacher’s perspective in general and to the work of Sytze Roorda van Eysinga in particular. First, Roorda’s representation of the tropical landscape is analysed. Then, his ideas about the indigenous people are discussed, mainly using the theoretical framework of the book Missionary discourses of difference. Negotiating Otherness in the British Empire, 1840–1900 by Esme Cleall (2012).