A Star in the East: American Baptist Missions to the Karens of Burma

When Dr. Judson, the great missionary, first went to Burma in 1813, that
country was little known. Its entire area at the present time is only
equal to that of the New England States together with New York,
Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland, certainly not a great extent of
territory as compared with the vast dominions of India and China which
border it, the one on the northwest and the other on the north. But in
Dr. Judson's day all that could have any possible interest to the average
citizen of the western world was a narrow strip of country extending
along the coast where a few European merchants had established themselves
and were eking out a rather precarious existence.

Then, as now, Burma was richly endowed with natural resources, but her
people little understood the value of their splendid heritage. To use the
figure of speech which they still frequently employ in referring to
themselves, they were like a frog sitting at the foot of a stalk of
sugar-cane and knowing nothing of its worth until a water buffalo or
carabao comes along and eats up the luscious growth. Rice grew profusely
on the rich alluvial plains. The magnificent forests waved with trees
supplying timber of great variety and value. Some of the most remarkable
oil fields in the world were to be found there, and they were seemingly
worked in a crude way long before the value of the oil was fully
understood in America or in Europe. Burma was the home of the
pigeon-blood ruby, one of the rarest and most precious of gems. Elephants
with their splendid tusks of ivory roamed the jungles, and the peacock
with its gorgeous plumage frequented the upland glens. But the country
was cursed by its kings. Ignorant, deceitful, vain, superstitious,
blood-thirsty, they lived surrounded by sycophants, knew nothing but
flattery, and, as might be expected, practiced the utmost cruelties even
upon their own people. When a new king ascended the throne, it was
customary for him to put all of his relatives to death, lest any of them
should contest his place. One king who failed to build himself a new
capital in accordance with the custom of the realm, sought to make amends
by having sixty persons buried alive under the walls of his palace. It is
said of a certain other king that when a subject of his had visited
England and returned, the king asked him what he had seen in that strange
land, and in particular how it compared with his own kingdom of Burma.
Was England so fair and rich a country? "No, your Majesty," came the
reply, "how could it be, for there the lordly teak does not grow." And
the king knew no better than to accept the estimate as true.

Needless to say, the cruelty and vindictiveness which surrounded the
throne spread through all the lower ranks of government officialdom and
indeed permeated the life of the entire people. Aside from the monks of
the Buddhist order--for Burma was, and still is, one of the chief
strongholds of Buddhism,--the life or property of no one was safe. If any
of the common people were suspected of acquiring more wealth than was
needed for bare sustenance, some charge would be trumped up against them,
and their property be confiscated. Cruelty and oppression were everywhere
known. Justice and mercy were not so much as dreamed of. And if this was
the attitude of the Burmese even towards those of their own race, one may
rightly infer that it would be still more relentless towards those of
other races living under their dominion.

Among the most persecuted of these subject peoples were the Karens
(accent on the last syllable). Naturally a timid and retiring race, they
were perhaps all the more heartily hated and despised by the Burmans on
that account. The writer has heard it related by some who remember those
early days, that the Karens were subjected to such terrible and heartless
oppression that they were obliged to live for the most part in the
farthest recesses of the tropical jungles or in the fastnesses of the
mountains. Even there they lived in such constant terror that oftentimes
they dared not build their wretched little huts, but dwelt in caves or
under overhanging rocks, and would not leave their abodes and return to
them by the same route lest a path should be formed and their whereabouts
should be discovered. They subsisted by cultivating the soil, which in
the mountain regions is so poor that two crops of rice cannot be grown
successively on the same piece of land and fresh forests must be cut down
every year, entailing a vast amount of labor.