Women missionaries, Chinese girls, and Protestant empire-building: The Salvation Army’s social and evangelical work in 1930s colonial Hong Kong

In the 1930s, The Salvation Army’s women missionaries (Salvationists) ran an industrial home for young Chinese abused bondservants (mui tsai), offenders, and prostitutes in Hong Kong. The colonial Government funded it to demonstrate its compliance with imperial anti-slavery directives and the League of Nations’ doctrine of trusteeship. Hong Kong’s colonial elites also subsidised it. In turn, while integrating the girls into the British Empire, the Salvationists could recruit ‘soldiers’ to expand their church’s missionary empire in South China. The article offers unique gender, age, and race perspectives on a multi-faceted collaboration that bestowed religious and social leadership on the Salvationists, but affected the girls’ reform, salvation, and life chances in the colony.