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The Missionaries

The Role of Missionaries

"Without doubt it is a far more costly thing to kill the (indigenous population) than to Christianise them." (Warneck 1888)

European missionaries to southern Africa during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries played a strangely ambiguous role in the history and affairs of the region. On the one hand they were driven by a strong desire to genuinely serve humanity and bring about material and social changes which would improve its quality of life. On the other hand they were possessed of a moral self-righteousness which led them to make hasty and uninformed judgements upon indigenous mores, norms and values they were scarcely equipped to understand. The first manifested itself in an involvement in local agriculture, irrigation and technology which, being environmental and hence independent of larger cultural issues, found a small measure of acceptance in rural society. The second sought to impose an alien morality and work ethos upon the local people without realising that these undermined their most basic social and cultural tenets and were therefore largely resisted. The dichotomy of this approach was not something which found separate expression in different individuals but was often incorporated within the same person. Casalis wrote at Thaba Bosiu, Lesotho, in about 1833, that:

"... we said that, wishing to provide entirely for our own subsistence, we must have a site where we could build houses and cultivate the ground according to our own ideas and habits. Our buildings and plantations would also serve as a model for the Basutos, whom we regretted to see dwelling in huts, and living in a manner so precarious and so little worthy of the intelligence with which they were gifted." (1889)

It is not for nothing that the statue of Livingstone in Edinburgh represents the missionary-traveller with a Bible in one hand and the other resting upon an axe (Warneck 1888). Ironically enough, in the long run it was found that changes wrought by missionaries at a practical and economic level did more to further their spiritual cause than any amount of moralistic sermonising ever did from the pulpit. Local acceptance of early missionaries in the eastern Cape hinged more upon their technological ability to introduce furrow irrigation into an otherwise drought-stricken land than upon their Christian teachings (Williams 1959). This was also borne out by the experiences of Moffatt in the northern Cape.

The ability of missionaries to make converts and hold them on their stations also seems to have been somewhat in doubt. Etherington (1977) stated that only 12% of people on mission settlements were there for "spiritual" reasons. The majority sought either material advantage or psychological security. Also, although some groups such as the Basotho and the Tswana openly welcomed missionaries, others like the Pedi, the Zulu and the Pondo vehemently rejected their presence as a matter of national policy. Despite Campbell's claim that:

"Missionary stations are surrounded by moral atmospheres, or have a moral and civilizing influence to a considerable distance around, beyond which it is extremely hazardous for white men to go." (1815)

they had strong objections to a missionary presence and often took appropriate action. Whole populations moved away from stations; individuals suspected of Christian leanings were administered magic and emetics; and converts were ostracized and quarantined to missionary settlements, thus being effectively purged from the group's polity and its social functions. Despite the continuing spread of a missionary presence into southern Africa during the 19th Century, by the time of the Anglo-Zulu conflict of 1879 very few converts had been won over to Christianity (Etherington 1977).

Success in making converts also seems to have had little to do with the liberality, or otherwise, of missionary methods. Etherington (1977)states that:

"Colenso advertised his willingness to tolerate polygamy and the exchange of bride wealth but made only a handful of converts during a long missionary career. Americans who took a hard line on these issues did considerably better. Berlin and Hermannsburg missionaries who minimized liturgical spectacles won adherents while the Oblates who staged impressive ceremonies failed utterly. Itinerant preaching proved to be no more effective than sedentary station work." (1977)

Ultimately the success of the missionaries in southern Africa appears to have hinged upon their ability to provide viable agricultural land for indigenous settlement at a time when Black-owned land was being increasingly alienated for white usufruct. Residence on mission lands however had its price. Tyler (1891) reported in 1891 that the church at Nqumba, Natal, had adopted, among several others, the following rules:

  1. No polygamist shall be allowed to become a member of this church.
  2. He who sells his daughter or sister treats her like a cow, and cannot be received into this church.
  3. No member of this church shall be permitted to attend a wedding if beer is drunk there, although he may have been invited to it.
  4. No member of this church is allowed to go where there is slaughtering for the departed spirits."

This was more or less in line with the "moral" stances taken by most missionary societies, who generally held that:

"Their bottomless superstitions, their vile habits and heathen customs - their system of polygamy and witchcraft - their incessant beer-drinks and heathen dances which are attended by unspeakable abominations - these present a terrible barrier to the spread of Christianity and civilization." (Wilkinson 1898)

The degree to which these "vile habits" had been abolished from local communities was commonly held by missionaries to be a measure of their success in the field. By the 1880s however they could not have countenanced the fruits of their labours with too much joy. The United Missionary Conference reports for 1884 consistently show that all these practices were still prevalent throughout southern Africa despite a missionary presence in some areas dating back over four generations (United Missionary Conference 1889). After Williams had conducted his research in the 1950s he also concluded that:

"Of the missionary failure in (the Transkei) there is no doubt. Even today the amaXhosa is not a Christian nation. The fact that abaKweta (circumcision initiation) ceremonies take place two miles from the University College of Fort Hare in the year 1959 symbolises the missionary failure significantly to influence the way of life of the rank and file of the tribal amaXhosa." (Williams 1959)

A change of heart appears to have occurred from the 1880s onwards when the initial success of the first trade schools at Morija in 1841 and Lovedale in 1857 spurred others to follow their example. By 1902 fifteen such institutions had opened their doors in southern Africa alone, and fifty-six throughout the African continent, all but seven of the latter having been founded after 1880 (Dennis 1902). Livingstone's children had laid aside the Bible and taken up the axe.

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