What are the long-run implications of exposure to missionary activity for women’s socio-economic outcomes and social norms? Most of the literature in historical political economy finds that high Protestant missionary activity leads to better outcomes, particularly for women, over generations. I use data from 19th century Egypt, where Protestant missions were one of the main providers of public services, to challenge this mainstream view, providing evidence for a” backlash effect” that took place in locales with intense Protestant missionary activity affecting value orientations and developmental outcomes in such localities in the long run. I rely on original geo-coded data of missionary stations, staffing, and associated activities of each station in late 19th century Egypt, matched with 1996 census data and geo-referenced DHS survey data of 8764 women from 1992. I collect locations of abandoned missions to construct a placebo test. The results, which show that exposure to missions is associated with more traditional household practices and less favourable developmental outcomes for women, are robust across several specifications; the impact of abandoned missions differs from that of ongoing missions. The results reveal while Protestant missionary efforts sparked a local backlash, Catholic missions had the opposite effect. Defying conventional wisdom, the denomination of the missions matters less than the contentiousness of their strategies in engaging with local populations. The analysis suggests that looking at local populations’ reaction to colonial encounters and foreign cultural influence is key to understand the relationship between missionary activity, human capital and value orientations in the long run.