Included are letters related directly to events in India's history, documents and letters from Sword's life in the United States, as well as typed correspondence, handwritten letters, hand drawn maps, sketches, reports, telegrams and more. Some of the letters and documents reference Gandhi, Partition of India, missionary work, WWII, and the American and British forces stationed in India. Also included is official correspondence with US Government representatives such as George Merrell, Secretary of the President of the United States, and Richard W. Byrd, American Vice Consul in India. There are five letters from Vijaya Lakshmi Nehru Pandit, an Indian diplomat and politician, the sister of Jawaharlal Nehru the aunt of India Gandhi and the grandaunt of Rajiv Gandhi, each of who served as Prime Minister of India. She was the first woman President of the United Nations General Assembly.

Victor Hugo Sword was a Baptist missionary to Assam, India. He was a representative of the American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society. Born in Sweden in 1893, he immigrated to the United States and eventually became a naturalized US citizen in 1920. He graduated from Bethel Academy in St. Anthony Park, Missesota in 1915, received his Bachelor of Divinity degree from Northern Theological Seminary in 1934, and a Master of Arts degree from Northwestern University in 1935. He wed a fellow graduate of Bethel Academy, Cora Estelle Walter (class of 1916) and the two had a daughter, Linnea, in 1928. Sword went on to become the Chairman and one of the founders of Union Christian College in Assam, India, and was a well-known missionary figure in the country. He had direct contact with Gandhi and Nehru as well as many contacts with the American government in India. Sword wrote several books about India, including Baptists in Assam: A Century of Missionary Service 1836-1936, and Gandhi’s Children.

1.0 Linear Feet (2 boxes and 1 map folder)

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