The analysis makes reference to Tzvetan Todorov, whose concerns include the intersection of European “signs” with non-European cultures as a process of eroding the non-European cultural landscapes, the struggle for spaces, the shaping of identity, and forming intrinsic relationships to facilitate the dominance of European principles. Todorov proclaims a theory in which the concept of signs, multiple discourse and identities are perceived as criteria for judging missionaries. The concept of signs was rooted in the fifteenth century science of “discovery,” which used race narratives to construct societal ideas of aesthetic, control, and exclusion through European lenses and consciousness. This theoretical approach will help redress these imbalances by offering alternative interpretations. Included in this section is also a review of Europe’s colonization, a brief history of the Gold Coast, and the establishment of Christianity. It is a good chance to contextualize discursive and historical moments as they merge in the colonial environment, and how they take issue with the sociopolitical events of that age, particularly in the grounding of Christian missions.
The literature addresses two competing schools of thought. The first, places emphasis on discourses of missionary colonialism and anthropology as established by Friedrich Schleiermacher, Friedrich Fabri, and Gustav Warneck, inter alia, calling attention to their contributions to mission history, and then illuminates how they do not go into missionary practices in depth, or make only a limited contribution to the question posed. The second gives the reader a basic understanding of the complex relationships where the missionary applies and integrates his cultural principles as a measure of power in the Gold Coast, after this defining insight, the history of the Basel Mission and its initial transitional phase on the Gold Coast are investigated. These insights enable us to recognize how European unity of thought was brought to serve the mission’s interests. Beginning at Chapter Three, the focus is on the individual missionaries, Andreas Riis, Rosine Widmann, and Carl Reindorf. Each chapter breaks down components of their cultural background and suggests that the practices of the white male missionary, the Missionsfrau, and the local recruited missionary serve as an entry point into a consideration of the social importance of gender or gender-specific perspectives conditioned in the colonial environment.