What Debora’s Letters Do: Producing Knowledge for the Basel Mission Family

Abstract

B orn to a family of Pietist missionaries and later marrying a missionary herself, Debora Hoch-Pfleiderer’s life was shaped by the absence of people and the distance between countries and continents. For long periods, letter writing was the only way for Debora to communicate with her family and friends in India, Switzerland, and Germany. The earliest surviving letters from Debora are from 1871, when she was eleven years old. They were sent from the Basel Mission children’s home to her parents in India. As decreed in the children’s ordinance (Kinderverordnung), released by the Basel Mission committee and Inspector Joseph Josenhans in 1853, Debora and her sister Friederike were sent back “home” to Europe to begin their school education there. The objective behind this forced separation of children and parents was primarily twofold: the acquisition of specific skills necessary for a life in Europe, on the one hand, and learning how to become part of the home culture, on the other. In the context of migrant children and knowledge, it is therefore interesting to note that Debora, as well as the younger siblings that undertook the same journey after her, were repatriated to be taught the