Henry H. Riggs

Henry H. Riggs (March 2, 1875 – August 17, 1943) was a Christian missionary stationed in Kharpert during the Armenian genocide. In his book Days of Tragedy in Armenia: Personal Experiences in Harpoot, 1915-1917, Riggs provides an important eyewitness account of the genocide and concluded that the deportation of Armenians was part of an extermination program organized by the Ottoman government. The book is considered to be one of the most detailed accounts of the Armenian genocide in the English language. After growing up in the area, Riggs traveled to the United States where he acquired his education at the Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, and the Auburn Theological Seminary, and graduated from 1902. The same year, Riggs was appointed missionary to Turkey by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Upon arrival in the Ottoman Empire, Riggs studied at the Talas American College near Kayseri. Riggs eventually became the president of the Euphrates College from 1903 to 1910. After his presidency, he began his Evangelist work in the Kharpert province.

Armenian genocide

Henry Riggs first wrote about the propaganda that was initiated by the government prior in entering World War I. He recalls that "the Turkish authorities began a systematic build-up of hostility," dispensing "a great deal of fiction to prove that the Armenians were a disloyal element menacing the safety of the Turks." He declared that the case brought up against the Armenians was ultimately "in the minds of the common Turkish people, in preparation of atrocities which were to follow."

After the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, Henry Riggs believed that "Turkey re-established herself on a basis excluding the Christian races" and continued to maintain in 1943, decades after the Armenian genocide ended, that:

During the preceding decade the Turkish people, and again especially their leaders, had been guilty, before God and man, of one of the most revolting crimes in history . The triumphant reestablishment of the Turkish sovereignty not only left that crime unpunished, but, in the mind of probably a majority of the Turks, the horrid course which they had pursued had been gloriously vindicated.

Later life His brother Ernest Wilson Riggs succeeded him as president of Euphrates College 1910 to 1921 and participated in Near East Relief Work and then joined James Levi Barton as associate secretary and corresponding secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions from 1921 to 1932.

Meanwhile, Henry Riggs continued missionary work through his interest in Kurdish ethnic studies and produced a translation of the Kurdish Gospel into Arabo-Kurdish dialect.

He was then sent to Beirut, Lebanon, in September 1923 and continued his Evangelist missionary work among Armenian refugees in Lebanon and Syria. During that time, he also taught in the Near East School of Theology.

Riggs eventually served as an Executive Secretary of the Near East Christian Council. In 1940, the family moved to Auburndale, Massachusetts, for the education of their two daughters. He returned to Beirut in 1943 and eventually became ill in Jerusalem and died there on August 17, 1943, at the age of 68.

Personal life Henry Riggs married three times; first with Annie Tracy in 1904 (died 1905), second with Emma Barnum in 1907 (died 1917), and last, with Annie Denison in 1920. Annie Denison Riggs, mother of Ruth Elizabeth Riggs Steiner and Helen Sarah Riggs Rice, died in 1949 at the age of 62.

Henry Riggs spoke Armenian, Turkish, and English.