The Cultural Significance of Colour in Protestant Missionary World Maps, ca. 1840-1940

Abstract

Colour is one of the most powerful tools in the cartographer’s toolbox and can enhance the quality, clarity, and beauty of maps. Both in Protestant culture specifically and Western culture more widely, a visual artistic culture developed from the Middle Ages until the modern age in which colours designated specific, sometimes contradictory, ideals and concepts. Using late nineteenth and early twentieth century Protestant missionary world maps as a case study, this article shows how mapmakers used colour schemes to visualise Protestant world views about the global spread of the gospel as well as Western colonial perceptions of non-European cultures. Discussion of map colours in contemporary missionary reports, fiction and magazines corroborates and contextualises ‘map users'’ shared understanding of the cultural connotations of map colours.