1924 - George Byers

June 24, 1924

Jiaji, Hainan

The first Protestant missionary on Hainan Island was an eccentric Danish sea captain, Carl C. Jeremiassen, who was employed by the Qing Dynasty government to hunt down pirates and smugglers on the high seas. Upon reaching Hainan in 1881, however, the 34-year-old Jeremiassen changed his mind and instead spent his time “distributing Bibles in one hand and dispensing medicines with the other.”[1]

George D. Byers arrived in Hainan on October 27, 1906, as a member of the American Presbyterian Mission. For the next 18 years he laboured on the remote Island, faithfully and humbly sharing the gospel with the Li and Miao tribesmen in the mountainous interior. Byers was once described once as “the spiritual father of the Miao people.”[2]

On June 24, 1924, Byers was attacked as he walked home after attending evening vespers at the Jiaji Hospital. It was a time of lawlessness in Hainan. One report said:

“Four armed men, seeking ransom money, were waiting in the shadows and seized him as he was walking up the steps to his home. He was dragged down the road with a rope around his neck…. When the Byers’ ten-year-old son, Robert, heard the incessant barking of his dog, he went out to investigate. Fearing the commotion would bring the police the brigands began firing. Mr. Byers was mortally wounded.”[3]

A bullet grazed young Robert Byers’ leg, but he managed to escape and sounded the alarm. By the time the authorities arrived George Byers was already dead, shot through the abdomen. He was buried in the foreign cemetery at Qiongzhou, poignantly near the grave of Carl Jeremiassen, the first Protestant missionary in Hainan. One obituary described Byers as,

“Quiet, conscientious, standing with unwavering fidelity for the right as it was given to him to see it, devoted to the task of bringing the Good News of the Kingdom to the people of Hainan, a man of prayer and of deep spiritual discernment, the Mission, the Church, and the Chinese among whom he worked have sustained almost an irreparable loss in his death. The Li and Miao work…was very dear to him, and he often exhausted his physical strength in the itinerating trips he made. Our deepest sympathy goes out to the stricken family, who have lost a devoted husband and father.”[4]

Although there were few Christians on Hainan at the time of George Byers’ death, pioneer missionaries like the Byers continued to sow the Word of God, paving the way for a tremendous revival that has impacted the Island in recent years.[5]

1. “The Church on Hainan Island: Past and Present,” Bridge (no.27, January-February 1988), 4.
2. Thompson Brown, Earthen Vessels and Transcendent Power, 201.
3. Thompson Brown, Earthen Vessels and Transcendent Power, 200.
4. Chinese Recorder (vol.55, no.8, August 1924), 531.
5. For more information on the Hainan revival, see “Hainan Island: Part 1 – Missions History & The Three-Self Church,” Asia Harvest (No.75, September 2004); and “Hainan Island: Part 2 – The House Church Revival,” Asia Harvest (No.76, November 2004).