Father Hendricks was a Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 Roman Catholic missionary

Missionary

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

.

Accompanied by a Polish nobleman called Adam Ignatovich whom he had met in Omsk

Omsk

-History:The wooden fort of Omsk was erected in 1716 to protect the expanding Russian frontier along the Ishim and the Irtysh rivers against the Kyrgyz nomads of the Steppes...

 on his way to Chinese Turkestan, Hendricks arrived in Kashgar

Kashgar

Kashgar or Kashi is an oasis city with approximately 350,000 residents in the western part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Kashgar is the administrative centre of Kashgar Prefecture which has an area of 162,000 km² and a population of approximately...

 in 1885 and remained there until his death. During his stay in Kashgar, Hendricks clashed with Nikolai Petrovsky

Nikolai Petrovsky

Nikolay Fyodorovich Petrovsky was the Russian consul-general in Kashgar from 1882 until 1902.Petrovsky's main adversary during his time in Central Asia was George McCartney, his English counterpart. The competition between their two countries for influence in Central Asia is known as the Great Game...

, the Russian consul-general, and lived for a time with George Macartney at Chini-Bagh

Chini-Bagh

Chini-Bagh was the Kashgar residence of George Macartney, Britain's consul-general and his wife, Lady Catherine Macartney, for 28 years. Over the years, Chini-Bagh saw an incredible procession of adventurers, explorers and other exciting characters, including Aurel Stein, Father Hendricks, Albert...

. Hendricks frequently had to travel to British India, and despite good relations with Macartney, he occasionally had troubles crossing the border. British agent Ralph Cobbold

Ralph Cobbold

Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Patteson Cobbold, DSO served in the 60th Rifles in India.Ralph Cobbold was the second son of the Ipswich MP John Patteson Cobbold. He explored the Pamirs in 1897–1898. His report on Russian plans to occupy Chitral was an important episode in the Great Game between the...

 reported that in the late 1890s Hendriks was detained by the British for several weeks at Hunza

Hunza

Hunza may refer to*Hunza Valley*Former State of Hunza*Hunza River*Hunza Peak*Hunza people*Hunza is the Muisca name of the city of Tunja, Colombia...

 on the border with Xinjiang

Xinjiang

Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...

. Hendricks ran his church out of a mud hut and was apparently able to only convert one person, a Chinese cobbler, during his time in Kashgar.

Father Hendricks died of throat cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

 and was carried to his grave by a Cossack

Cossack

Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...

escort.