CES-member Ignacio Helmke secures external funding for project

As part of the British Library’s Endangered Archives Project, Ignacio Helmke PhD student at Chair for Latin American History has secured funding of 20,800 British pounds for his project "Photographs and Archives of the Anglican Mission among the Mapuche, Chile (1896–1940)".

The South American Missionary Society (S.A.M.S.) archives in Chile’s Araucanía region (1896–1940) offer a vital lens into transimperial networks and profound cultural collisions between British missionaries and the Mapuche people. Established at the mission stations of Cholchol and Quepe (Maquehue-Pelal), the missionaries arrived from diverse locations across the UK, Ireland, and Canada. Despite this varied provenance, their publications consistently championed a distinctively English character, replete with allusions to the mother tongue, monarchical figures, and the global Anglican Church. For scholars of empire, these records are invaluable; they demonstrate how S.A.M.S. centralised its communications towards England whilst continuously reporting on local maritime commerce and the broader, overlapping imperial and colonial presences throughout South America.

Currently endangered by a lack of local conservation expertise, this project will undertake the urgent rescue of these transnational records. Following a historic agreement between the Church and the National Library, materials—including rare photographs and unique Mapudungun manuscripts of biblical texts collaboratively produced by Rev. C. A. Sadleir and his Mapuche assistants—will be transferred to Santiago for preservation-grade digitisation. By securing this fragile heritage, the initiative fills a critical gap in global history and empowers Mapuche descendants with access to their visual memory, digitally returning these archives to source communities before deterioration or administrative changes close this window of opportunity.

You can find out more about the project on the project website.