Faith, freedom, and flag: The influence of American missionaries in Turkey on foreign affairs, 1830--1880

From the early days of the American Republic, Protestant Christianity and the American values which derived from it have had a heavy influence on U.S. foreign affairs. The initial 19th century missionaries to Anatolia in the Ottoman Empire were highly-educated men steeped in Calvinistic and American values. In the period 1830-1880, when American official representation was slight and generally confined to Constantinople, information about activities in Anatolia came largely from the missionaries who were scattered across the region, living in towns and regularly visiting scores of villages in their mission areas. Their reports, letters, articles, lectures, and books profoundly shaped the views of policy makers and have influenced policies and opinions to this day.;Who these missionaries were, what uniquely American values they took with them overseas---rule of law, democracy, equality of citizens and respect for their "inalienable" rights, including freedom of conscience---how they reacted and then responded to the traditional Islamic yet slowly modernizing societies they found in the Ottoman Empire, what experiences---especially their efforts among the Christian minorities-----molded these impressions, and how they were portrayed to policy makers in Washington, are the subjects of this thesis. This examination of the eleven men (see frontispiece) who comprised the "Northern Armenian Mission, 1859" of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Constantinople concludes that the first groups of missionaries in the 19th century set the stage for America's outraged response to the massacre of Armenians in the mid-1890s and to the enforced, inhumane expulsion of the Armenians from the eastern provinces of Turkey at the beginning of World War I. They set the stage for the massive, multi-million dollar outpouring of America's relief efforts in the Near East, and finally, for President Wilson's decision, in the face of missionary establishment pressures, not to declare war on the Ottoman Empire when the United States entered the First World War in 1917.;Over the decades, the missionaries pressed the U.S. government for protection of themselves and their property, setting the precedent for protection of citizens abroad. They sought, and obtained, official U.S. representation to the Sublime Porte on issues of freedom of conscience, religious liberty, equality of all citizens before the law regardless of religion, the development of civil society, and education for women. These issues continued to color American relations with Turkey throughout the 20th century, and remain as foundations of foreign policy today. The missionaries' perceptions and their images of the "Terrible Turks" portrayed in their writings persist in today's relations with Turkey.