Daniel Vrooman (1818–1895) was an American

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...

diplomat A diplomat (from ; romanization, romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state (polity), state, International organization, intergovernmental, or Non-governmental organization, nongovernmental institution to conduct diplomacy with one ...

, and cartographer.

Early life and China

Vrooman was born in Allegany County,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, on 15 August 1818.. He and his wife Elizabeth Clemens (1826–1854) went to

Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...

(then known as "Canton") in March 1852, having been posted there by the

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was among the first American Christian mission, Christian missionary organizations. It was created in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College. In the 19th century it was the l ...

.. Soon after their arrival, he wrote to ''

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'', with questions regarding the use of

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magic lantern The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name , is an early type of image projector that uses pictures—paintings, prints, or photographs—on transparent plates (usually made of glass), one or more lens (optics), lenses, and a light source. ...

s, the standard American methods of

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cleaning, and the use of

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printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in whi ...

es. Although Guangzhou had been opened to foreign trade by the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing ending the

First Opium War The First Opium War ( zh, t=第一次鴉片戰爭, p=Dìyīcì yāpiàn zhànzhēng), also known as the Anglo-Chinese War, was a series of military engagements fought between the British Empire and the Chinese Qing dynasty between 1839 and 1 ...

, access to the walled cities of the

Manchus The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) an ...

and Chinese continued to be denied to foreigners, who were mostly kept to the mercantile ghetto of the

Thirteen Factories The Thirteen Factories, also known as the , was a neighbourhood along the Pearl River in southwestern Guangzhou (Canton) in the Qing Empire from to 1856 around modern day Xiguan, in Guangzhou's Liwan District. These warehouses and stores were t ...

on the southern shore of the western suburbs. Vrooman successfully made a highly accurate . map of the forbidden cities in 1855 by training one of his converts to pace the streets between major landmarks, marking a course by means of a compass and reference to the wall's major gates.. These measurements were then compared against Vrooman's own, based on the angles of the visible landmarks with the high points of the city's suburbs. The map was so well done that, upon the opening of the city by the treaties of

Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...

(1858) and

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

(1860), they were found to need no major changes, although the

Second Opium War The Second Opium War (), also known as the Second Anglo-Chinese War or ''Arrow'' War, was fought between the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and the United States against the Qing dynasty of China between 1856 and 1860. It was the second major ...

had seen the destruction of the Thirteen Factories and the creation of a new enclave at Shamian. Elizabeth died in

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in 1854 and he remarried three years later to Maria Wilberforce (1836–1866). He served as the American vice-

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and was said to have introduced mechanized cotton spinning to the city. In 1863, he published a

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

phonetic alphabet of his own devising.

Later life

Vrooman retired from the ABCFM's Guangzhou mission in 1866 or '67, but continued to work as an independent missionary in Guangzhou until 1878. In 1878, he was made superintendent over a mission to the Chinese in Victoria,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. He retired from this post in 1881. He died in

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, on 3 March 1895.

Works

* "Map of the City and Entire Suburbs of Canton", 1855, rev. 1860 * "Vrooman Phonetic Alphabet for the Canton Dialect of the Chinese Language", 1863

References

Citations

Bibliography

* . * . * . * . {{DEFAULTSORT:Vrooman, Daniel 1818 births People from Allegany County, New York American Protestant missionaries Protestant missionaries in China 19th-century cartographers Consuls for the United States American expatriates in China Protestant missionaries in Australia American missionaries in Australia 1895 deaths