Samuel B. Coles Papers

Collection

Identifier: 727

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The papers of Samuel B. Coles document his work as a missionary and agriculturalist at the Galangue Mission in Angola during the 1920s-1950s. The collection is mostly comprised of photographs, but also contains a small amount of correspondence, lists, and a publication on the Pestalozzi Children's Village School in Angola.

The photographs provide rich visual documentation of Coles and his work at the Galandue Mission in Angola, which was the first mission founded and staffed by African Americans in Angola and was administered by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Rather than minister with sermons, Coles ministered through agricultural education. The photographs portray individiuals and buildings at the mission, while focusing on Coles demonstrating agricultural techniques and instruments and the results of those efforts. Coles also developed a machine shop at the mission, and photographs show him at various machines, as well as tools, implements, and cookware produced by him and individuals at the mission. A small number of unidentified photographs are also present.

Correspondence is comprised of two postcards and a single letter, dated 1954-1955, from Adele Apfel and Johanna M. Schlegtendal, respectively. The lists are for supplies purchased or kept by Dr. Mary F. Cushman and Rev. Henry C. and Bessie McDowell, all of whom were connected with the Galangue Mission. Lastly, the collection contains a fragment of a pamphlet, circa 1955 and entitled Pestalozzi in Angola, regarding the Pestalozzi Children's Village School in Angola.

Dates

Created: 1920s-1959
Other: Date acquired: 05/24/2006

Creator

Coles, Samuel B., 1888-1957 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright to these papers has not been assigned to the Amistad Research Center. It is the responsibility of an author to secure permission for publication from the holder of the copyright to any material contained in this collection.

Biographical Note

Samuel B. Coles (1888-1957) was an African American missionary from Alabama who spent three decades in Angola teaching agricultural and machining techniques and methods.

Samuel B. Coles was born on May 3, 1888, in Tilden, Alabama. His mother died when he was five-years-old, and he was raised by his father along with his two brothers. During his youth, Coles worked laying steel rails, in a logging camp as an ox driver, on a dairy farm, and as a blacksmith. He entered Snow Hill Industrial and Normal School in Alabama in 1908 and Talladega College in 1912. He graduated from the high school at Talladega in 1916 and served with the medical corps during World War I. Following his military service, Coles graduated from Talladega College in 1922 with a bachelor's degree in science.

While at Talladega, Coles read an account of Scottish missionary Alexander M. MacKay, who in the 1870s set up a forge and machine workshop in Africa, which influenced Coles' own missionary work. Coles traveled to Portugal for a year's language study and then journeyed to Africa in 1923 to serve as a missionary for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). He returned to the United States for five years during World War II, during which time he studied at Cornell University, Alfred University, Barrow School of Pottery, Pratt Institute, Howard University, and the Biblical Seminary of New York City. At these institutions, he took classes ranging from cheese-making to pottery to blacksmithing.

During his time aboard, he spent 30 years engaged in agricultural efforts near Galangue, Angola, in Portuguese West Africa. Coles taught local populations how to use plows, to train oxen to pull them, to plant new crops, as well as masonry and carpentry. He also spent 18 months during 1935-1936 transferred to a mission in Liberia, and during his later years worked on establishing a children's village for orphans sponsored by the Pestalozzi Foundation. His book, Preacher with a Plow, describes his efforts as a missionary.

Coles married Bertha Terry Coles in 1919 and she traveled with her husband while overseas. The couple had three children: Laura Hill, Edward Coles, and Clarence Coles. Samuel B. Coles died in 1957.

Extent

0.20 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Source of Acquisition

Samuel Hill

Method of Acquisition

Gift

Related Materials

The J. Taylor Stanley papers contain additional correspondence and records concerning the Galangue Mission in Angola.

Related Publications

Samuel B. Coles. Preacher with a Plow. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1957.

Lawrence W. Henderson. Galangue: The Unique Story of a Mission Station in Angola Proposed, Supported and Staffed by Black Americans. New York: United Church Board for World Ministries, 1986.

Separated Materials

The University of Liberia Bulletin, 1953. Monrovia, Liberia: University of Liberia, 1953.

Richard and Doris Henries. Liberia: The West African Republic. New York: Franklin R. Bruns Jr., 1950.