The society was founded at Brighton in 1844 as the Patagonian Missionary Society,[1] sometime referred to as the Patagonian Mission.[2] Captain Allen Gardiner, R.N., was the first secretary. The name was retained for twenty years, when South American Mission Society was adopted.[2] The name of the organisation was changed after the death of Captain Gardiner, who died of starvation in 1851 on Picton Island in South America, waiting for a supply ship from England. Gardiner thought that the original mission should be expanded from southern South America (Patagonia) to all of South America.[3] Charles Darwin is reported to have supported the society financially and rhetorically.[4]
The society's purpose was to recruit Christian missionaries, send them to and support them in, South America. There were nationally based SAMS organisations in Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States but during the 1990s those in Australia and New Zealand were merged with the Church Missionary Society in those countries. In 2009 the 'mother' society in Britain was merged with CMS. SAMS was one of the early members of Faith2Share, the international network of mission agencies, and the SAMS organisations in Ireland, Canada and the US continue to play an active role within that network.
- ^ "W. Barbrooke Grubb | History of Missiology".
- ^ a b Every, D.D., Right Reverend, Edward Francis (1915). "The South American Missionary Society". Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1915., London. Retrieved 27 September 2007.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ "History of SAMS". Archived from the original on 8 April 2005. Retrieved 27 September 2007.
- ^ Darwin, Sir Francis; Darwin, Charles (1898). The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin: Including an Autobiographical Chapter, Volume 2. New York: D. Appleton and Company. pp. 306–308.