Service Alert
Hege Library & Learning Technologies
Hege Library & Learning Technologies
In 1871, the newly formed American Friends Board of Missions sent their first missionaries, Samuel Purdie and his wife, Gulielma, to Mexico. The couple opened a school for girls in Matamoros, Tamaulipas. Samuel later published a newsletter and textbooks in Spanish and helped establish schools and monthly meetings in other areas of Tamaulipas. In the 1880s, the school grew into the Hussey Institute, a boarding school for girls and day school for boys. Friends’ schools and meetings extended to Matehuala in the state of San Luis Potosi and other places.
The Revolution that began in 1884 placed hardships on Friends and others. At a 1914 conference, 12 Protestant denominations divided up ministries in Mexico; Friends would work in Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosi. Anti-Catholic and anti-American sentiment led to 1917 laws that assigned all church property to the government and made it illegal for foreigners to preach and teach. Mexican pastors continued Friends’ ministries, but as public schools improved, the need for Friends’ schools decreased.
With the goal of improving Mexican-United States relations, American Friends Service Committee started joint work camps in 1939 in the states of Vera Cruz and Nayarit. Friends in Mexico City bought a building in 1955 and started Casa de los Amigos in 1956, which became a base for work camps and later for refugees from wars in Central America. Originally supported by AFSC, Casa de los Amigos became independent in 1984.
North Carolina Yearly Meeting restarted ministry in Tamaulipas by the late 1970s. About the same time, an independent Friends ministry began in Nueva Rosita, Coahuila.
Friends World Committee for Consultation currently lists three yearly meetings in Mexico.
Casa de los Amigos (English or Spanish)
American Friends Board of Missions, Fifty Years of Service (Richmond, Ind., American Friends Board of Missions, 1944).
Quaker BV 2535.F67 1944
Economic Life on Our Mission Fields (Richmond, Ind., American Friends Board of Missions).
Quaker BV 2535.E25 1949
Education on Our Mission Fields (Richmond, Ind., American Friends Board of Missions).
Quaker BV 2535.E38 1948
Farr, Wendell G., Outreach of Friends of the Five Years Meeting, A Study Unit for Sunday Schools and Study Groups (Richmond, Ind., American Friends Board of Missions).
Quaker BV 2535.F37 1950
Foreign Mission Work of American Friends, A Brief History of Their Work from the Beginning to the Year Nineteen Hundred and Twelve (Richmond, Ind., American Friends Board of Foreign Missions, 1912).
Quaker BV 2535.F67 1912
Heironimus, Dorothy, Friends in Mexico (Richmond, Ind., American Friends Board of Missions, ca 1942).
Quaker BX 7655 H44 1942 c1
Hussey, Robert Lee, Jr., The C. G. Hussey School for Girls in Matamoros, Mexico 1883-1929 (Thesis, Guilford College, 1968).
Thesis 1968 H.9.7
Jay, Mahalah, An Abridgment of the Story of Friends’ Mexican Missions (Westfield, Ind., Woman’s Foreign Missionary Union of Friends).
pamphlet in “Friends: Missions” file in FHC
Jones, Christina H., American Friends in World Missions (Richmond, Ind., American Friends Board of Missions, 1946).
Quaker BV 2535.J6
Knowles, James Purdie, Samuel A. Purdie, His Life and Letters, His Work as a Missionary and Spanish Writer and Publisher in Mexico and Central America (Plainfield, Ind., Publishing Association of Friends, ca 1908).
Quaker BX 7795.P85 K55 c1
Pickett, Clarence E., For More Than Bread: An Autobiographical Account of Twenty-Two Years’ Work with the American Friends Service Committee (Boston, Mass., Little, Brown, and Company, 1953). The former AFSC Executive Secretary wrote a 22-year biography of the Service Committee, including a narrative of the 1940s AFSC work camps in the Mexican states of Vera Cruz and Nayarit.
Quaker BX 7747 P57 and Main Collection BX 7747 P57
Purdie, Samuel Alexander, Memories of Angela Aguilar de Mascorro, and sketches of the Friends' Mexican Mission. (Chicago, Ill., Association of Friends, 1885).
available as eBook
Pumphrey, Stanley, Friends' Missions or Missionary Work in the Society of Friends, An Address by Stanley Pumphrey (Richmond, Ind., Friends' Review, 1880).
BV 2535.P84
Rhoads, Margaret W., The Work of American and British Friends Overseas (typescript, 1930?). Brief mention of the state of Friends in Mexico at the time of writing.
typescript in “Friends: Missions” file in FHC
White, Mildred E., editor, Religious Life on Our Mission Fields (Richmond, Ind., American Friends Board of Missions, 1948).
Quaker BV 2535.F7
Raymond and Helen Binford Papers
Box 6, Series IV A, Folders F21 through F24 contain the writings and correspondence of Dr. Raymond Binford (former Guilford College President and faculty member) and Helen Binford during their service as directors of two AFSC work camps in Morelos, Mexico. Writings include notable personnel from AFSC: Ed Duckles, Ray Newton, Suzanne Sein, Wanneta Chance, and Heberto Sein.
MS 440
Sylvester and May Mather Jones, Memory Books, 1900-1960.
Book 2: The Cuban missionary couple attended the 75th anniversary of the founding of Friends’ work in Mexico in 1947.
MS 488
Refugee Bulletin, 1984-1992 (Casa de los Amigos, Mexico City). Newsletter from Casa de los Amigos during a flow of refugees from Central American countries and a regional earthquake.
American Friends Board of Missions, 1895-1973. Annual report published by coalition of yearly meetings on missionary activities. Includes mission work in Mexico from the earliest volume.
Friends Missionary Advocate (Plainfield, Ind.). News of missionary activities around the world. including Mexico ministries in Matehuala, Monterrey, and Victoria.
Issues from 1885 to 1950 are available on microfilm in Quaker Books. Issues from 1950 (followed by the present-day Advocate) are available in periodicals (Reading Room).
El Amigo, 1945-1950 (Nayarit, Mexico). Spanish language Quaker publication edited by Heberto Sein, active Mexican Friend and AFSC member.
microfilm 93-081
Saunders, Elizabeth, "Mexico's Matamoros Meeting," Friends Journal, Vol. 68, No. 4, April 2022.
Wright, Nicholas, and Jill Anderson, “Solidarity Hospitality: Refugees, Migrants, and the Casa de los Amigos,” Western Friend, July/August 2010. A Quaker ministry for refugees and migrants continues in Mexico City.
Duckles, Edwin (clerk of Mexico City Monthly Meeting), “In Memory of Heberto Sein,” Friends Journal, Vol. 24, No. 1, January 1, 1978.
Walls, William A., “A Recent Adventure with Mexican Highwaymen,” The Herald of Peace, No CCCXCI, January 1, 1883 (Richmond, Ind., Peace Association of Friends In America). From WorldCat: "Quaker missionary William A. Walls tells of his encounter with brigands in Mexico near the Friends' Mexican Mission at Matamoros, Mexico."
available as eBook