Did Gender Influence Protestant Politics and Religion in 19th-Century Chile? Comparing the Private Writings of David and Jane W. Trumbull, 1848–75

In the nineteenth century, the port city of Valparaiso, Chile, was a hub for foreign European immigrants who contributed to the growing import/export economy fueled by nitrates and other raw materials. In particular, the British, although a small minority, dominated the shipping and merchant markets, economically transforming the region. As Protestants, however, the British clashed with the country’s stringent Catholic beliefs and laws. Protestants were not allowed to practice their religion in public, deceased Protestants were buried in separate cemeteries and mixed religious marriages were forbidden.

David Trumbull, a Presbyterian minister from New Jersey first arrived in Valparaiso in 1845 and stayed until 1849 when he returned to the United States, married Jane W. Fitch Trumbull. He and Jane returned in 1850. For the next thirty plus years both worked to improve relationships between the Catholic Church in Chile and Protestant immigrants in Valparaiso and ran several Protestant schools in the city.

The role of women in the Protestant community of nineteenth century Chile is not well known, mostly because many did not leave a written record of their activities. Both Jane and David Trumbull kept diaries that spanned decades. This paper aims to compare their personal writings from the period of 1848-1875 with the goals of discovering what both thought important and if gender norms during this period influenced what women wrote in their personal diaries. Some of the questions that inform this paper are: how involved was Jane in the Protestant schools that they both ran? Did she participate in other religious activities in Valparaiso, and if so, in what capacity? How do her writings differ from her husband’s during the same period? How are they similar? Was she as influential as her husband in working toward establishing religious freedom of practice for Protestants in Valparaiso?