Chapter X: Christian Missions

If I were writing this book for dramatic effect and less with a view
to historical sequence, I should have been disposed to put this
chapter next to the one dealing with the slave trade, as an
effective pendant; for if Europe has dealt wickedly in enslaving
Africa, she has sent thither a high-minded army of men and women,
who, acting nearly always from noble and unselfish motives, have
raised the African from a callous ignorance to a distinctly higher
stage of civilization. And whether or not Britain was a greater
sinner than other white peoples in the thoroughness with which she
prosecuted the slave trade, she at any rate deserves credit for a
degree of missionary effort far surpassing that attributable to any
other nation.

The Portuguese were the first European nation to send missionaries
to Africa. Their zeal was great, and, with one or two exceptions,
wholly praiseworthy. Portuguese priests and Jesuit fathers
accompanied most of the early expeditions to Africa; in fact hardly
any explorer or conquistador sailed without chaplains in his
company, who raised the cross and preached Christianity as soon as
they set foot on shore. In the chapter on the Portuguese in Africa I
have touched upon the introduction of Christianity into Congoland in
1491. But any race of purely negro blood accepts and loses
Christianity with great facility. The Negro (unless he be
Muhammadanized) is easily converted, and as easily relapses into
gross superstition or a negation of all religion, including his
former simple but sound ideas of right and wrong. In order that
Christianity may become permanently rooted in a negro race it is
necessary for it to be maintained by a European power for a long
period as the religion of the State. If the negro kingdoms which
remained independent retained their Christianity it was in an
unrecognizable form. It is not so with Muhammadanism, the
explanation being that Muhammadanism as taught to the Negro demands
no sacrifice of his bodily lusts, whereas Christianity with its
restrictions ends by boring him, unless and until his general mental
condition, by individual genius or generations of transmitted
culture, reaches the average level of the European. As instances of
the former, one might mention some ten or a dozen individuals living
at the present time, who are priests and deacons of Christianity in
Africa; while for examples of permanently rooted Christianity as the
result of inheritance it is only necessary to point to the two or
three millions of really good negro men and women to be found in the
United States, the West Indies and Cape Colony. Portugal, however,
never attempted to rule the Kingdom of the Congo till the last
quarter of the 19th century; so after more than three centuries of
propaganda[134] the Ba-kongo fell away from Christianity, and in
less than a hundred years had absolutely relapsed into Heathenism,
when once more, against their wishes, missionaries returned to
Western Congoland.

Jesuit priests also accompanied Portuguese conquerors to the Zambezi
and the south-east of Africa. Here they met with relatively little
success, though they left their traces on Zambezia in the most
marked manner by founding a settlement at Zumbo high up the Zambezi
and even establishing stations beyond in the little known Batoka
country, where their presence is attested to this day by the groves
of fruit trees descended from those they introduced. Tete, the
modern capital of Portuguese Zambezi, also began as a missionary
station. Elsewhere, in Portuguese East Africa, the priests had very
little success, as Muhammadanism had already got a hold. Indeed the
first missionary explorer of Zambezia, who visited the court of the
King of Monomotapa, was martyred there at the instigation of the
Arabs[135].

Portuguese priests also travelled over Abyssinia during two
centuries after the Portuguese discovery of that country at the end
of the 15th century. Christian Abyssinia—the most probable origin of
the myth of the Kingdom of Prester John—attracted a good deal of
attention from Portugal since she commenced her exploration of the
outer world. But the Portuguese priests were quite unsuccessful in
converting the Abyssinians from their debased form of Greek
Christianity to the Roman Catholic Church; and after bitter quarrels
with the native clergy these missionaries had been either killed or
expelled from the country by 1633.

The French traders who frequented the Senegal coast between 1550 and
1650 nearly always took a missionary chaplain with them.

Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian priests vainly attempted at
different times to convert the Moors of North Africa. Finding this a
hopeless task, they directed their efforts towards relieving the
sufferings of the unfortunate Christian captives of the Barbary
pirates, and practically continued this work down to the French
occupation of Algeria.

The Protestant peoples did little in the way of missionary work in
Africa till quite the end of the 18th century; though the good
Huguenots, who went out to South Africa, endeavoured, somewhat to
the surprise of the Dutch, to treat the Hottentots as fellow men
fitted for baptism; and the Moravians, attracted by the Hottentots,
began evangelizing work at the Cape of Good Hope in 1732, but were
soon checked in their efforts by the Dutch Company.

Wesleyan missionary work was begun at Sierra Leone coincidently with
the establishment of that place as a settlement for freed slaves in
1787. The London Missionary Society was founded in 1795, and the
Edinburgh Missionary Society in 1796; the Glasgow Missionary Society
soon afterwards. By the end of the 18th century these three bodies
had sent out missionaries to Sierra Leone and the adjoining Susu
country. In 1821 the Glasgow Missionary Society sent the first
Presbyterian missionaries to South Africa. The Church Missionary
Society was founded in 1799. It furnished missionaries for Sierra
Leone, and after a long interval extended its operations to Lagos
and the Niger Delta, where it is still the leading Christian
mission. In 1830 this mission sent its first agents to teach
Protestant Christianity in Abyssinia, and began to consider the
possibility of evangelizing East Africa. In common with other
English missionary societies at that time, and for reasons not
altogether clear, it preferred to employ German evangelists, though
from the results achieved few can find fault with the choice made.
The Church Missionary Society introduced to us men of the stamp of
Krapf and Rebmann. Dr Ludwig Krapf is justly a great name in African
exploration, African philology, and African Christianity. Despatched
by the Church Missionary Society to prospect Abyssinia in 1834, he
was obliged to decide in 1842 (in Shoa), after disappointing
experiences, that there was no field there for Protestant
Christianity, and therefore directed his steps to the Zanzibar
coast. Being a tactful man, and meeting with kindness at the hands
of Sayyid Sa’id, the ‘Sultan’ of Zanzibar[136], he established
himself at Rabai, near Mombasa, and there founded the work of the
Church Missionary Society, which endures and prospers to this day.
Dr Krapf will also be referred to in the chapter on explorers. The
Church Missionary Society educated the first Protestant negro
bishop[137] in the person of Samuel Crowther of the Niger. Its work
met with some success on the West Coast of Africa as regards the
number of adherents; but, like most Christian missions, it has not
achieved rapid progress in more or less Muhammadanized East Africa.
This mission stands out conspicuous for the magnificent philological
work done by its agents in Africa; especially notable among whom
have been Dr S. W. Koelle, Mr Reichardt, the Rev. James Frederic
Schön, Bishop Crowther, Krapf, Rebmann, and J. T. Last.

The Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society was founded in 1813, and
devoted its first efforts to South Africa, Namakwaland, and
Kaffraria. The Primitive Methodist Society was started in 1843, and
continued the evangelization of Fernando Pô, which had been carried
on by the (British) Baptist mission from 1844 to 1859. They also
went at the same time to South Africa. The prospects of this mission
in Fernando Pô were affected by the resumption of the administration
of that island by the Spanish Government, which at that time
discountenanced Protestant missions in its territory. Some
arrangement was come to, however, and the mission still continues to
work there, and to work at the present time without any very marked
restriction.

The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel became a distinctly
missionary body in 1821, and worked chiefly in South Africa.

The British Baptists organized a missionary society early in the
19th century, and sent out missionaries as far back as 1840 to
Fernando Pô. Owing to their expulsion from the island by the Spanish
Government, they moved across to the Cameroons, where they
established the flourishing settlement of Ambas Bay, and made
English almost the second language of the Cameroons people. The
splendid work of this mission in the Cameroons was chiefly done
under the late Edward Saker, whose name is still venerated on the
Cameroons river for the great good that he did to the country by
spreading the knowledge of many useful arts and industries and
educating the Duala people to a remarkable degree. From the
Cameroons the mission, under the guidance of the Rev. Thomas Comber
and the Rev. Holman Bentley, moved on to the Congo[138], where this
Baptist mission now has numerous stations. One of its missionaries,
the Rev. George Grenfell, made himself famous by discovering the
great Mubangi river, the most important of the Congo tributaries,
and known in its upper waters as the Wele, besides making a
remarkable survey of the main Congo and several of its leading
tributaries, thus earning the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical
Society and a number of other distinctions. Though several times
offered posts of responsibility under the Congo Government he
preferred remaining a missionary till his death in 1906. The
linguistic work done by this Baptist mission was important, and
included an illustration of the language of Fernando Pô by Mr John
Clarke, a like service rendered to the Duala language of the
Cameroons by Mr Saker, a valuable Congo dictionary and grammar by
the Rev. Dr H. Bentley, and work of far-reaching interest and
importance by the Rev. W. H. Stapleton.

Roman Catholic missions entered North Africa soon after the conquest
of Algeria. Lyons, in France, became a great centre of missionary
activity. It is the head-quarters at the present day of a powerful
French Roman Catholic Missionary Society—that of the Holy Ghost and
of the Sacred Heart of Mary—which of recent years has been doing a
good work in Portuguese Angola and on the coast region of the Congo,
and also in Senegambia and German East Africa. In 1846 missionary
enterprise in Roman Catholic Austria decided to take advantage of
Muhammad Ali’s conquest of the Sudan to push its way into the heart
of Africa through Egypt. In 1846 these Austrian Catholic
missionaries chose Cairo as their starting point, and this mission
continued to work in the Egyptian Sudan until the uprising of the
Mahdists. Most of the readers of this book have heard of the
adventures of Father Ohrwalder and the nuns who escaped from the
clutches of the Khalifa in 1896. This mission, amongst other
philological studies, illustrated the interesting Bari language of
the upper White Nile, and did excellent work in countries so remote
as Kordofan and Sennār. Italian priests—before the disasters which
befell the colonial enterprise of Italy in 1896—worked amongst the
Galas of Abyssinia. Roman Catholic missions (French) had been begun
in Tigré (N. Abyssinia) about 1830. In 1847, at the request of the
Prince of Shoa, Pope Pius IX sent a Roman bishop-missionary,
Monsignor Massaia, to Shoa, who remained there some years, and may
be said to have started Italian mission work in that field.

In 1878 the late Cardinal Lavigerie having created the Mission of
the White Fathers, which was to convert the Sudan and all Congoland
to Christianity, Pope Leo XIII gave them a rescript directing them
to evangelize all Central Africa. They had settled in Tunis (as well
as in Algeria), on the Congo, on Tanganyika, and in West Africa
(Senegambia), and finally they directed their energies towards
Uganda shortly after the Church Missionary Society had established
itself in that country. Cardinal Lavigerie was a type of prelate
somewhat characteristic of the last quarter of the 19th century,
given to sonorous declamation, who posed as the denunciator of
slavery and the slave trade without ever making personal
acquaintance with its horrors. He endeavoured to obtain in the Roman
Catholic world the glory of a Livingstone without going through
Livingstone’s hardships. Moreover, hand in hand with his desire to
spread religion amongst Arabs, Berbers and Negroes was an equally
ardent desire to make them at the same time French or
French-protected subjects. His strong political bias has somewhat
discoloured his strenuous efforts for the evangelization of Africa,
since his work is now seen to have been by no means disinterested.
No doubt—as foreign critics point out—British missionaries often
come as precursors to British rule; but they do so unconsciously,
and indeed frequently prove inconvenient champions of native
independence. But the missionaries of Cardinal Lavigerie’s order
aimed in earlier days at advancing the political interests of France
almost before they had secured the conversion of their pupils; and
this somewhat detracted from their value as missionaries of
Christianity. The determined hostility shown by these men to the
British protectorate over Uganda provoked a terrible civil war;
though since 1898 (when a section of their work was taken up by a
British Roman Catholic mission) this political aspect of their work
has entirely ceased and they have won hearty commendation from
British, German and Belgian administrators. The White Fathers wear
an Arab costume—a red fez and a long white cassock tied round the
waist with a girdle. Their churches and schools were formerly built
in a Moorish style of architecture. It was Cardinal Lavigerie’s idea
that an approximation in dress and architecture to the Arabs might
induce that people to give a hearing to his propagandists.

About eighteen years ago the Jesuits decided to resume their work on
the Zambezi, which had been interrupted for more than a century by
native troubles and by the expulsion of the Jesuits from the
Portuguese dominions by the orders of the Marquez de Pombal. At
first the efforts of the Jesuits resulted in utter disaster. They
established themselves on the upper Zambezi, in the Batoka country,
near the Victoria Falls, and all those who did not die of fever were
massacred by the Batoka. Then they restricted their efforts to the
vicinity of the Portuguese settlements at Zumbo and Tete and at
Boroma. Near the last-named place they have a most prosperous and
well-conducted establishment where a good technical education is
given to the negroes of the Zambezi. At the invitation of the
Portuguese Government they directed their attention to Nyasaland,
but their establishment there being sacked and burned by Muhammadan
Yaos, they retired from work in that direction. They have
subsequently established mission stations in Mashonaland, besides
resuming work in Madagascar.

Roman Catholic missionaries met with but poor success in Madagascar
until French influence became dominant there a few years ago. The
priests who attempted repeatedly to establish themselves on the
coast of Madagascar in the early days of French colonial experiments
either died from fever or were killed by the natives. The Jesuits
who proceeded to the Hova Plateau during the sixties of the 19th
century, and who were maintained there by subsidies granted by the
French Imperial Government, met with so little success that they
almost abandoned their work. At the present time, however, being
strongly supported by the government of this French colony, they are
obtaining an ascendancy over the Protestants.

Protestant missionary work, chiefly conducted by the London
Missionary Society, and subsequently by the Quakers and the
Norwegians, began in Madagascar in 1818. The missionaries of the
London Missionary Society met with great success in converting the
natives of Madagascar to an undenominational form of Protestant
Christianity; but their efforts were suddenly checked by the
reactionary policy of Queen Ranavalona I, who persecuted and killed
the native Christians, and compelled the missionaries to leave the
island in 1836. After various attempts—which proved futile—to come
to an understanding with the old heathen queen, the Protestant
missionaries returned in full force at her death, and since that
time until the French annexation of the island they may be said to
have converted the mass of the Hovas to Christianity, and to have
established a strong Protestant native Church in friendly
co-operation with the Anglicans, who, under a Bishop of Madagascar,
became established in the island from 1863 onwards.

The London Missionary Society, which has done such striking work in
Madagascar, and was indeed the pioneer missionary society in South
Africa, was attracted to the open field of Tanganyika at the time
when the Church Missionary Society, stirred up by Stanley’s appeal,
sent its emissaries to Uganda. The first missionaries of the London
Missionary Society, crossing Tanganyika from east to west, made
their first establishment on the Kavala islet on the west coast. By
means of the African Lakes Company of Nyasa, they conveyed a steamer
in sections to the waters of Tanganyika, a steamer which has plied
successfully on the lake since it was launched in 1885.
Subsequently, however, the London Missionary Society retired from
those parts of Tanganyika which were under foreign flags, and
directed their attention to the south shore of the lake, which was
placed under British protection by the author of this book in 1889.

A Swiss Protestant mission was founded at Basel in 1815, and soon
afterwards commenced work on the Gold Coast, a work which produced
the most remarkable and beneficial results in the industrial
training of thousands of Gold Coast natives, enabling them thus to
earn good wages and to fulfil many of the tasks hitherto assigned to
Europeans. The Basel mission is now also established in the
adjoining German territories of Togoland. The Moravian Protestant
Missionary Society was founded as far back as 1732, and sent out the
first trained Christian missionaries to South Africa. At the present
day this mission has flourishing establishments in that part of the
continent. The Berlin Missionary Society was founded in 1823, the
Rhenish Missionary Society in 1829, and the North German (Bremen)
Society in 1836. The two first-named German Protestant missions
directed their attentions to Damaraland, and to the Hottentot
country in South-West Africa; the Bremen Mission sent its agents
chiefly to West Africa. Several of these societies, together with
the Moravians, have established mission stations in German
Nyasaland, to the north of Lake Nyasa. A Bavarian Roman Catholic
mission has commenced work in the coast regions of German East
Africa.

The French Evangelical Church began its important missionary work in
Africa as far back as 1829. Its agents—noted almost universally for
their single-minded earnestness and dissociation from all attempts
to procure political influence—have made remarkable progress in
Christianizing Basutoland and the adjoining Bechuana peoples in
South Africa. Following the Bechuana race movements, they were
gradually directed to the Upper Zambezi, and to the Barotse Kingdom.
Here, under the distinguished leadership of M. Coillard, they have
carried out a work of civilization amongst the Barotse deserving of
the highest praise, though they have suffered severe losses among
their agents by ill-health. Sweden, not to be behind other
Protestant states, founded a missionary society in the early part of
this century, which devoted itself to the still unoccupied field of
Galaland, attacking this country both from the Abyssinian side and
from British territory on the East Coast of Africa, whence it is
easier penetrated at the present day. Though the work of this
society has resulted in important additions to our philological
knowledge, its efforts to propagate Christianity amongst the
Galas—who were either obstinate Muhammadans or equally obstinate
Pagans—have been unsuccessful. The Swiss Calvinist Church has sent
missionaries among the Basuto in South Africa, and at a later date
into Angola. The Dutch Reformed Church has done a good deal of
missionary work in South Africa, and of late in Nyasaland. The
American Presbyterian Church started an African missionary society
in 1831 and sent its emissaries to Liberia, where it has many
adherents.

British Presbyterians have established several important missionary
bodies. The earliest (among existing societies) to commence work was
the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which established a
mission at Old Calabar, on the West Coast of Africa, in 1846, and
has since made great progress in converting the natives of Old
Calabar and the Cross River to Christianity and a certain degree of
civilization. It is mainly owing to the work of this mission that
Old Calabar has become an important centre for European enterprise,
and the capital of the eastern half of Southern Nigeria. The
Edinburgh and Glasgow Missionary Societies of the early part of this
century, which sent out missionaries to South Africa, were
dissolved, and took shape in other forms as the foreign missions of
the Free Church of Scotland and the Established Church of Scotland.
The former, which was organized in the fifties, established strong
missions in South Africa, and there founded the educational
establishment of Lovedale, whence many hundreds of South African
negroes have gone out into the world with a practical education.
When Livingstone had directed attention to the Zambezi, the Free
Church of Scotland thought of establishing a mission there, but
after the report of its commissioner decided that the time was not
come for such an enterprise. But in 1875, after Livingstone’s death,
the Free Kirk sent out an expedition to Nyasaland for the
establishment of a mission, which now has stations all along the
west coast of that lake[139]. The Established Church of Scotland
followed suit in 1876, when a settlement was made on the Shiré
Highlands, to the south of Lake Nyasa; and the headquarters of the
mission was styled “Blantyre” after the little town in Lanarkshire
were Livingstone was born. Blantyre is now in many respects the
principal town in the Nyasaland Protectorate. The Norwegian Church
sent out missionaries to Zululand (1842) and to Madagascar in later
years.

Besides the American Presbyterian mission in Liberia, other American
missionaries (Baptists, Episcopal Methodists, and undenominational)
settled in the Gaboon and on the coast between the Cameroons and the
French colony, on the Congo, in Angola, and, above all, on the
highlands of Bihé, behind Benguela. Among the agents of these
American missions, remarkable for the linguistic work they have done
in African languages, were the Rev. J. L. Wilson, who, together with
Preston and Best, wrote on the languages of the Gaboon coast; Dr
Sims, who compiled valuable vocabularies of Congo languages; Mr Héli
Chatelain, whose work in connection with the Angola language was of
exceptional value; and lastly, the Rev. W. M. Stover, who ably
illustrated the Bihé language.

Besides the Church Missionary Society, the Anglican Church has been
represented in Africa by the well-known “Universities’ Mission,”
founded in 1856 as the result of an appeal by Livingstone to the
universities of Oxford and Cambridge. While the Church Missionary
Society is mainly supported by the Evangelical side of the English
Church, the Universities’ Mission is the outcome of the missionary
enterprise of the High Church party. Its first establishment in
Nyasaland under Livingstone was unfortunate, and resulted in the
death of Bishop Mackenzie (the first missionary bishop of Central
Africa) and most of the missionaries with him. His successor, Bishop
Tozer, resolved to suspend work in Nyasaland, and concentrate the
efforts of the mission upon Zanzibar, which thenceforward became its
principal seat in Africa; but later on, when he was succeeded by
Bishop Steere, another and a successful effort was made to reach
Nyasa. From the beginning of the eighties to the present day, though
at times much harassed by the Muhammadan Yaos, this mission has
taken a firm hold in Nyasaland, besides establishing and maintaining
a number of mission stations in German East Africa. In Nyasaland it
occupies chiefly the east coast of the Lake, and has one station on
the west coast, having chosen to work mainly among those populations
which have been to some degree under Arab or Yao influence. To this
mission is due the erection of a fine cathedral at Zanzibar; and
much valuable linguistic work has been done by the late Bishop
Steere, Mr Madan, and the late Bishop of Likoma (better known as
Archdeacon Chauncey Maples[140]).

The Plymouth Brethren have established a mission in South-Central
Africa, across the Zambezi-Congo water-parting.

The Scotch Baptists began a mission to S.W. Nyasaland and also on
the Zambezi in 1895. There, also, is the Zambezi Industrial Mission
(undenominational), which was founded in 1893, and endeavours to be
self-supporting by its industrial work. A few American missionaries,
mostly under Bishop Hartzell of the American Episcopal Church, have
attempted settlement in the Portuguese possessions on the West and
the South-east coasts of Africa; and there are also unattached
American missionaries in the Congo basin carrying on work on their
own account, without being connected with any special society.
Finally, Plymouth Brethren and other English Protestants of
different denominations organized a Protestant missionary,
enterprise in North Africa as the “North African Mission,”
established in 1886. This mission has numerous representatives in
Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, Tripoli, and Egypt. As it devotes itself
mainly to the conversion of Muhammadans, it has had but slight
success at present from the propagandist’s point of view, but it has
achieved more than any other a preparation of the Moslem mind for
the consideration of Christian ethics, and its educational work of
late has been warmly appreciated by the French authorities. This
mission has numerous women members who visit the harims for
educational and for medical purposes. Its agents have been
remarkable for their thorough acquaintance with Arabic and even with
the Berber dialects of Morocco and Algeria.

The only Christian state which existed in Africa before the
beginning of European colonization was Abyssinia, which is to some
degree dependent on the Coptic Church in Egypt, and is in communion
with the Greek Church. Christianity is said to have been introduced
here in the 4th century. The Abyssinians have usually resented the
arrival of Roman Catholic missionaries, and have not shown much
greater encouragement to emissaries from Protestant Churches.
Abyssinian Christianity is, as might be imagined, so degraded and
mixed up with fetishism that it is difficult to recognise it as a
branch of the Christian faith which is the religion of so much of
Europe and America. Russia in the latter part of the 19th century
was much concerned at the spiritual darkness prevailing in
Abyssinia, and endeavoured to send thither missionaries from the
Greek Church, the domain of which she identifies with her own
empire. But these have been propagandists of a singularly military
type—wolves in sheep’s clothing, if one may commit oneself to rather
a strong metaphor—and hardly to be classed with the unarmed
emissaries of Christianity, who, on behalf of the Roman Catholic and
Protestant Churches of Europe and America, have striven usually with
single-minded motives, almost always with deep personal
unselfishness, ever with zeal, sometimes with indiscretion, and not
unfrequently with bitter disappointments and cruel sufferings to
evangelize Africa. The ultimate effect of their work on the history
of Africa will prove to be far-reaching, important, and (I believe)
highly beneficial.

-----

Footnote 134:

For the detailed history of the Portuguese, Italian, Flemish, and
French Catholic missionaries in the Kongo kingdom see my book,
_George Grenfell and the Congo_.

Footnote 135:

Gonçalo de Silveira; killed somewhere to the south-west of Tete
about 1565.

Footnote 136:

At that time the Arab viceroy of Zanzibar was only known as
‘Sayyid’ (Lord); not as Sultan.

Footnote 137:

The Portuguese Church had produced the first Roman Catholic negro
bishop, in the 16th century. He was Bishop of the Congo, was a
member of the royal family of Kongo, and was educated at Lisbon
and Rome. Samuel Crowther was an Egba slave-boy from Lagos, who by
education acquired the intellect and outlook of a European. He was
an upright, sensible man who wrote valuable works on African
philology, and did much towards founding British Nigeria and
exploring the Niger and the Benue.

Footnote 138:

It quitted the Cameroons altogether soon after the establishment
of the German colony, the German Government having expropriated
most of its establishments.

Footnote 139:

The same body also established an industrial mission (initiated by
Dr James Stewart, the founder of Lovedale) in British East Africa,
halfway to Uganda.

Footnote 140:

Who worked for many years in Nyasaland and in East Africa, and was
drowned in Like Nyasa in 1895.