John Batchelor

John Batchelor

By Mei Suzuki

John Batchelor was called a father of Ainu. He was born on March 20, 1854 in England. His parents were Christian so he became Christian as well. He learned how to spread Christianity to Oriental countries in his university so he moved to Hong Kong in 1877 as a missionary. However he couldn't get used to Hong Kong, so he moved to Hakodate in Hokkaido when he was 24 years old. In Hokkaido, he heard that Ainu were discriminated against by wajin (old Japanese), so he wanted to change their situation.

Ainu were often separated into two regions, which were Karahuto and Chishima, because of relationship between Japan and Russia at that time. Also they had to be the same as wajin because Meiji government forced them to do that. So they had to work like wajin but they didn’t know how to work and how to write because their main job was hunting animals. Therefore Ainu spent hard life and were discriminated against by wajin.

Batchelor was sad when he heard about Ainu so he did a lot of things for Ainu. He built a school, Airin Gakkou, for Ainu. They could learn alphabets there. Then, he made a dictionary, Kawaeisantai, of Ainu language. He translated Ainu language to English so people around the world could know Ainu language. In addition, he built a hospital for Ainu so they could go there for free. Then he made an Ainu girls school. This school is for Ainu girls who lost parents or didn't have houses. After that, he made an Ainu Kyouka-Dan to let Ainu children study higher level than junior high school. At last, he built a Batchelor school in Sapporo.

He helped Ainu children to be able to go to school and to spend a valuable life by donating. A lot of Ainu children could go to school thanks to him. When he was 70 years old, he retired as a missionary and went back to England. He died when he was 90 years old in England. After his death, Ainu held a lot of ceremonies for him. Because of such a great achievements for Ainu, he was called a father of Ainu.

During the discussion, I asked my classmates “What did you know about Ainu?” and I realized Japanese people don’t know much about Ainu even though Ainu are related to Japanese people the most. I thought they should know about Ainu because Ainu and we are friends. Also they said they could understand what Ainu is, and how terrible the discrimination that they faced, through my presentation, so I was happy.

Through this presentation, I could learn much about Ainu that I didn't know much and what an important person Batchelor is for Ainu. He is not Japanese but he studied a lot about Ainu and did a lot of great achievements for them. I really respect him. In addition, I could learn many wonderful people and what they did through my classmates’ presentations. I became more interested in history thanks to this project.