Jack Voelkel
George Mackay: Canadian Pioneer to Taiwan Part 2
This is part two of Alex MacLeod's biography. Here is part one.
Mackay in Canada
In 1885, the Canadian government began to levy a tax of $50 on each individual Chinese immigrant in order to deter them from settling in Canada. In 1900, the head tax was raised to $100 and then three years later it increased to $500 (the equivalent of approximately two years' wages for an average Canadian).
Mackay began speaking out against the head tax in 1881, especially appealing to his supporters to work against it at his farewell meeting in Woodstock. On his second visit to Canada in 1893-5 the head tax was collected on his disciple (and future son-in-law) Koa Kau, and Mackay spoke widely and vigorously against this “unjust unchristian, and unconstitutional” discrimination.
He was elected moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in 1894 and led the church to publicly oppose the head tax, even sending a delegation to Ottawa. This was the first time that a Canadian church became involved in a political issue apart from the traditional issues of temperance and Sunday observance. It proved to be a very controversial stand. Mackay then can be said to have been at the forefront of early Canadian efforts to fight against racism and unfair immigration laws.
The tax ended in 1923 when Chinese immigrants were completely barred from entering Canada after the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed. It was only in 1947 that immigration from China resumed.
“From Far Formosa”During his time in Canada Mackay’s letters and writings were edited into his book From Far Formosa, still considered the best 19th century account of the natural history, ethnology, and society of Taiwan.
Mackay also brought back 16 cases of artifacts from his teaching museum at Oxford College, for a missionary museum at Knox College, Toronto. In 1915 this collection entered the vaults of the Royal Ontario Museum, where the over 1000 items lay untouched until rediscovered during the 1987 “Mackay 125” celebrations. Investigated by Taiwanese anthropologists, the collection is now recognized as the most important and earliest collection of Taiwan aboriginal artifacts in the world. In 2001, as part of the commemorations of the centenary of his death, part of this Mackay collection was returned to Taiwan for a special exhibition.
Mackay’s Six Key ContributionsMackay made six key contributions and so established himself as a missionary from whom we can learn some important lessons:
- Language and culture: Mackay was one of the first Westerners to enter very deeply into the culture of China. Having no access to a teacher, he began his study of the local Taiwanese dialect by spending days on end in the company of herd boys. He amazed many with his proficiency in both Chinese and a number of local dialects. Mackay would not allow the construction of a separate sphere for Westerners in the mission he was establishing.
- Travel: He did not remain in the relative comfort of urban centers along the coast. Mackay traveled far and wide throughout Taiwan. He loved the country and loved seeing new parts of it. He also loved its people which drove him, even more than his curiosity did, to explore so much of it. Like Jesus with his disciples, Mackay took a team of Chinese co-workers wherever he went. During the first seven years of his ministry in Taiwan, he spent only 175 days (less than 6 months) in Tamsui, the urban headquarters of the mission. (James R Rohrer, “George Leslie Mackay, 1871-1901: An Interpretation of His Career,” Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society, XLVII (2005), 40.)
- Entrepreneurial spirit: Mackay was a true pioneer. He was always taking new initiatives. He learned basic medical skills, including dentistry, in order to communicate to the Chinese that he was not a threat, but that he had their best interests at heart. This innovation paved the way for much more effective evangelism. He became adept at planning and construction because he had no access to architects or master builders and yet came to see the establishment of church infrastructure and ownership of land as critical to long-term prospects for success of the Christian movement in Taiwan. He was also a gifted fund-raiser. He used his early successes as leverage to raise money so that the work he had begun could not only continue, but also expand.
- Education & Medicine: He soon recognized the need for better schools and the high esteem in which education was held in Chinese culture. He established Oxford College as a school with the primary aim of training future leaders of the church in Taiwan. He also established a hospital to serve the people of Taiwan.
- National leadership: He was perhaps most radical here. He bucked the trend of Western missionaries keeping power in their own hands – whether overtly or while paying lip service to ideas of empowering national leaders – by ordaining Chinese Christians to be ministers and giving them wide-ranging powers. Other Western missionaries found him difficult to work with as result. (To be fair, Mackay also had a particularly ornery personality.)
- Anti-racism: He married a local woman and he fought the racist head-tax instituted by the government of Canada. Both of these moves cut very much against the grain of Western culture, including the mindset which predominated in the later 19th century missionary movement.
- What impresses you most about the life and work of George Mackay?
- What principles of his ministry could enrich your own witness for Christ?
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