1. Colonialism and the ‘Civilising Mission’
HI177 | A History of Africa since 1800
Term 2 | Week 1 | Dr Sacha Hepburn

2. Today’s Lecture
What was the relationship between Christianity, missionary activity, and colonial rule?
How and why did so many Africans convert to Christianity?
How did Africans adapt and revise Christian teachings and practices?
Emphasis on African agency in missionary activity

3. Christianity in Africa
Illuminated Gospel, late C14th–early C15th Ethiopia. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Pendant showing Saint Anthony of Padua, C16th Kongo.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

4. The ‘Civilising Mission’
Civilisation (in minds of colonisers) = Western ways of living, thinking and behaving.
Civilising mission/mission civilisatrice was a justification for European conquest of territory and intervention into African societies.
Christianity was a huge part of this project.
Exchange of sorts: missionaries provided education, healthcare and training in exchange for African souls…

5. Missionaries (i): Europeans
‘There was never a single monolithic missionary movement’ - David Maxwell
Roman Catholic (many French established)
Anglican (British established)
Presbyterian
Gospel and Methodist (many American)
Evangelical and faith-based missions
Presence of multiple organisations in colonial contexts => competition for converts…
Missionaries often had sympathy with the civilising aims of imperial projects => an ambiguous position

6. Missionaries (ii): Africans
Historiography: move away from the history of Western, mostly male-dominated missionary organizations in last 30 years; increased focus on lives and experiences of African missionaries and congregations
Africans played a crucial role in missions founded by Europeans
E.g. as teachers, labourers and domestic servants.
African Christians established missions and churches on their own
E.g. Henry Johnson, William Allen and Daniel Olubi in 1850s Ibadan.

7. Samuel Ajayi Crowther, 1864. National Portrait Gallery.

8. Sarah Forbes Bonetta, 1862. National Portrait Gallery.

9. How did conversion take place?
European missionaries converted individuals, trained teachers and pastors…
But most Christianisation carried out by African teachers, pastors, preachers, healthcare and social workers, members of communities
Examples of mass conversion:
Buganda fully Christianised by 1900 and sent missionaries into neighbouring states
Ganda evangelist Apolo Kivebulaya spent 37 years doing missionary work in north-east of Congo Free State

10. Why convert to Christianity?
Role of marginality
Slaves
Young men
Women and girls
Missionaries and Christian teaching
E.g. impact of education and literacy
Impacts of colonial rule
Exploitative and rapid social change (result of e.g. mining, plantations, and white settlement)
Intense social, intellectual, and religious disturbance
Africans search for meaning and control

11. African adaptations and African agency
Literacy: a tool of popular Christianization that stretched well beyond the control of missionaries.
Founding of African Independent Churches
E.g. Samuel Crowther’s removal from Niger mission prompts founding of new churches
Broader context: ideas about African self-determination growing from late C19th…

12. Edward Wilmot Blyden, 1894
Bylden’s Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race (1888). Courtesy of the British Library.

13. Conclusions The ’Civilising Mission’: a controversial legacy
Complexity of conversion: ideological, material, instrumental
African adaptations and agency: colonisation never involved a simple unilateral transfer of ideas from Europe to Africa.
Literacy and education as a weapon?