Before delving into the role that missionary schools played in the emergence of Indian nationalism, it is necessary to understand the broader context in which Christian missionaries had been religious actors in the Indian subcontinent since the 1700s. With the rise of British power under the East India Company, and later the crown, missionaries of various denominations made India one of their largest areas of activity.

This was especially true after the amendment of the company's charter in 1813, which allowed missionaries unhindered access to the company's domains. But it was through their involvement in new forms of education that the missionaries made a significant and perhaps the most lasting impact. Many 'educational missionaries' initially saw Western learning and knowledge as a stepping stone to spreading Christianity.

By the 1870s, however, this approach to the conversion of India's Brahmans and other high castes had largely fallen out of favor. By then, the most active Anglican missionary societies, The Church Missionary Society (CMS), The London Missionary Society (LMS), The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), and the Cambridge Mission to Delhi (CMD), were mostly involved in teaching in high schools and colleges across North India. In the United Provinces, India's most populous province, these societies ran half of the high schools and colleges.

American missionary societies, by contrast, worked overwhelmingly with the lower-caste communities and were far less involved in higher levels of education. Anglican mission schools, therefore, interacted with the very groups and communities who would go on to lead the Indian nationalist movement.