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The Role of the London Missionary Society in the Opening Up of East Central Africa
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
Extract
On 1 February 1876 the London Missionary Society decided to establish a mission on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. It was a bold and almost a foolhardy decision, for the route between the lake and the east coast of Africa was more than 800 miles in length, without either roads or ordered government, and over this enormous distance the mission would have to maintain some contact with the outer world if it was to survive. Not without hesitation and misgiving did the Directors commit themselves to so hazardous an undertaking. But interest in the lake region had been aroused by the journeys of Livingstone and Cameron, and a certain wealthy citizen of Leeds, named Robert Arthington, had offered the Society a contribution of £5,000 on the express condition that a mission to the peoples bordering Lake Tanganyika should be undertaken. The offer seemed too generous and imaginative to be refused. The vast lake, with its thousand miles of coastline, was a great natural highway by which to reach and evangelize the villagers who dwelt around its shores. It was not the only lake with such possibilities, and only a few months previously, as it happened, the Free Church of Scotland had sent out a mission to Lake Nyasa, and had supplied it with the sections of a steamer.
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References
page 41 note 1 L.M.S., Southern Committee, Minutes, 18 Nov. 1875; 20 Jan. 1876; 1 Feb. 1876.
page 42 note 1 A good, detailed account of the ‘Missionary Occupation of East Africa’ is given in Oliver, R., The Missionary Factor in East Africa (London, 1952), chapter 1Google Scholar.
page 42 note 2 F.O. 84/1575: Kirk to Granville, No. 98, 24 Aug. 1880.
page 42 note 3 An excellent survey of ‘The Exploration of East Africa’ is given in SirCoupland, R., The Exploitation of East Africa, 1856–90 (London, 1939), chapter viGoogle Scholar.
page 42 note 4 He died on or about 1 May 1873 at Chitambo, in what is now N. Rhodesia.
page 43 note 1 L.M.S., C.A., 9.1.B: Swann to Thompson, 11 April 1893.
page 43 note 2 Tanganyika, Eleven Years in Central Africa (London, 1893)Google Scholar.
page 43 note 3 The station at the mouth of the Lofu was the only suitable place for putting together the sections of the mission steamer, a task which occupied many months; but it was far too unhealthy for permanent occupation.
page 44 note 1 L.M.S., C.A., 5.4.B: Hore to Thompson, 23 April 1884.
page 44 note 2 L.M.S., C.A., 6.1.C: Hore to Thompson, 23 May 1885; 6.3.B: H. to T., 8 Feb. 1886; 7.2.A: H. to T., 30 June 1887; L.M.S. Southern, outgoing: T. to H., 16 Oct. 1885.
page 44 note 3 F.O. 84/1484: Kirk to Derby, No. 114, 26 July 1877.
page 45 note 1 Hore, Tanganyika, chapter viii.
page 45 note 2 L.M.S., C.A., 7.2.A: Hore to Thompson, 30 June 1887.
page 45 note 3 L.M.S., Southern Committee, Minutes, 17 March 1881, and 25 April 1881. Stevenson desired a binding assurance that the L.M.S. would entirely abandon the overland route and import all its requirements by way of Nyasa, but this the Society prudently refused to give.
page 46 note 1 L.M.S., C.A., 7.4.A: Swann to Thompson, 30 Jan. 1889; 8.1.A: S. to T., 20 Jan. 1890.
page 46 note 2 In 1893 the African Lakes Company had been transformed into the African Lakes Corporation.
page 46 note 3 L.M.S., C.A., 9.1.B: Swann to Thompson, 11 April 1893; Southern Committee, Minutes, 25 March 1895.
page 47 note 1 The text of the treaty is given in Coupland, , op. cit., pp. 212–13Google Scholar.
page 47 note 2 The text of the decree is given in Coupland, pp. 225–6.
page 47 note 3 Ibid., pp. 227–30.
page 47 note 4 F.O. 84/1679: Kirk to Granville, No. 135, 23 Oct. 1884.
page 48 note 1 F.O. 84/1486: Kirk to Derby, No. 129, 24 Aug. 1877.
page 48 note 2 F.O. 84/1515: Kirk to Salisbury, No. 104, 26 July 1878.
page 50 note 1 F.O. 84/1515: Thomson to Kirk, 30 Aug. 1878, enclosed in Kirk to Salisbury, No. 139, 7 Nov. 1878.
page 50 note 2 Ibid. (Kirk's No. 139).
page 50 note 3 F.O. 84/1548: Kirk to Salisbury, 7 Nov. 1878. The assent of the council was important, for that of the chief by himself was not enough to make the purchase valid under native law.
page 50 note 4 The relevant passage from Hore's letter to Kirk, dated 26 Dec. 1879, is quoted in Coupland, p. 267.
page 51 note 1 F.O. 84/1574: Hore to Kirk, 25 Feb. 1880, enclosed in Kirk to Granville, No. 71, 25 June 1880.
page 51 note 2 F.O. 84/1548: Kirk to Salisbury, No. 146, 7 Nov. 1879, with minutes; K. to S., No. 157, 23 Nov. 1879.
page 52 note 1 Hore to Kirk, 25 Feb. 1880, loc. cit.
page 52 note 2 F.O. 84/1575: Kirk to Granville, No. 120, 18 Oct. 1880.
page 52 note 3 F.O. 84/1575: Kirk to Granville, No. 134, 13 Nov. 1880.
page 53 note 1 F.O. 84/1679: Kirk to Granville, with enclosed press report of Stanley's speech.
page 53 note 2 L.M.S., C.A., 6.2.A: Hore to Thompson, 7 Sept. 1885.
page 53 note 3 F.O. 84/1679: Kirk to Granville, No. 135, 23 Oct. 1884.
page 53 note 4 L.M.S., C.A., 6.4.C: Shaw to Thompson, 29 April 1886.
page 53 note 5 F.O. 84/1574: Kirk to Salisbury, No. 20, 23 Feb. 1880.
page 53 note 6 F.O. 84/1851: Memorandum by Kirk, 22 Jan. 1887.
page 54 note 1 F.O. 84/1548: Kirk to Salisbury, No. 146, 7 Nov. 1879, quoting Hore to Kirk, undated.
page 54 note 2 L.M.S., C.A., 6.2.C: Hore to Thompson, 28 Nov. 1885.
page 54 note 3 Ibid.
page 54 note 4 L.M.S., C.A., 6.4.B: Hore to Thompson, 24 July 1886; 7.1.A: Hore to Thompson, 6 Jan. 1887.
page 55 note 1 L.M.S., C.A., 6.1.C: Hore to Thompson, 21 March 1885.
page 55 note 2 Coupland, op. cit., especially chapters xii and xvii.
page 55 note 3 The impossibility of an uncompromising British stand in support of the sultan's ‘rights’ in the interior is sufficiently explained by DrTownsend, M. E. in her Rise and Fall of Germany's Colonial Empire, 1884–1918 (New York, 1930), pp. 101–9Google Scholar.
page 56 note 1 L.M.S., C.A., 7.4.A: Swann to Thompson, 30 Jan. 1889.
page 56 note 2 L.M.S., C.A., 7.4.B: Jones to Thompson, 23 Jan. 1889.
page 56 note 3 F.O. 84/1518: Kirk to Derby, No. 6, 7 Jan. 1878.
page 56 note 4 Journals and Papers of Chauncy Maples, ed. Maples, Ellen (London, 1899), pp. 246–8Google Scholar. The subject of Swahili culture as it affected mission work is discussed more fully in my Ph.D. Thesis (London, 1948), pp. 226–32.
page 56 note 5 Hollingsworth, L. W.: Zanzibar under the Foreign Office, 1890–1913, (London, 1953), pp. 57–71, 92–35Google Scholar; also chapter ix.
page 57 note 1 Even Kirk himself regarded indirect British action, exercised through the sultan of Zanzibar, as merely a second-best policy, less satisfactory than action undertaken directly by Britain herself or by a British chartered company. His opposition to Germany's proceedings in East Africa was due not so much to concern for the sultan as to a desire to prevent the displacement of British influence by German rule.
Had it been otherwise, he would not have looked sympathetically, as he did, on a proposal to annex the region around Mount Kilimanjaro to Britain. The proposal was made by H. H. Johnston, after an expedition to Kilimanjaro, in 1884. Commenting upon it for the guidance of the Foreign Office, Kirk called attention to certain serious objections: first, the need for a port (Mombasa or Tanga) as a means of access: this could not be seized without violating the Anglo-French declaration of 1862, which recognized the sultan's sovereignty over the coast; secondly, the certainty that the proposed British annexation, if made, would be the signal for a general rush of European Powers to partition the sultan's ‘dominions’; and thirdly, the fact that such action would ‘alter at once our relations with the Sultan, and, if not at once followed up, give him an opportunity (of which he certainly would then avail himself) of occupying the country or causing trouble and intrigue.’ (In connection with this last objection, Kirk made a revealing remark about the sultan's authority in the interior. ‘His power for mischief, if he wished to use it, is immense, although he has none to give protection.’) In view of these practical difficulties, and of others (such as the need to build a railway, and probably to fight the Masai), Kirk thought the proposal unwise.
But these were reasons of policy, not of principle. Personal loyalty to Barghash has no place in the argument, nor does Kirk concern himself about the interests of Zanzibar, if it is from Britain that the challenge to them comes. ‘For my part,’ he wrote, ‘I should be delighted to see an advance made, but not exactly in the way Mr. Johnston proposed.’ If the European scramble which already seemed to be impending did take place, Chaga (the Kilimanjaro country) was ‘by far the most inviting spot’, and was ‘the point we should choose if the division comes and if we are threatened with having the East African markets closed against us’. In the meantime, British missionaries and sportsmen should be encouraged to enter the region, so that their presence would make the British claims to it more plausible if the time to press those claims should come.
‘It is a pity’, wrote Kirk, ‘we hauled the British flag down on Mombasa when we held it under cession in 1820 from the chiefs, and recalled the agent left in charge by Captain Owen. Had we kept Mombasa and the whole coast then ceded to us, the slave question would have been settled and by this time we should have had dominion over tropical Africa.’ F.O. 84/1679: Kirk to Anderson, 24 Nov. 1884; also Kirk to Granville, No. 151, 23 Nov. 1884.
page 58 note 1 As a matter of fact, German rule, once established, was to a large extent beneficent, especially in the years immediately before 1914. See Townsend, op cit., especially chapter x.
page 58 note 2 The purpose of the blockade was to stop the importation of arms and ammunition into the mainland while the Germans were struggling to put down a serious Swahili uprising (the Bushiri revolt) against their assumption of authority. Lord Salisbury did not in the least favour the blockade, but he thought it well to co-operate with the Germans in order to have some chance of restraining them (F.O. 84/1912: Telegrams No. 48 of 11 Oct. and No. 53 of 15 Oct., to Euan Smith at Zanzibar: both drafted in Salisbury's own hand). By the middle of 1889 the revolt was quelled, and the blockade ended on 1 Oct., having lasted almost a year.
page 58 note 3 L.M.S., C.A., 7.4.C: Swann to Thompson, 14 Aug. 1889; 8.1.C: S. to T., 24 Aug. 1890.—The isolation of the mission was rendered complete by the action of the Portuguese, for reasons of their own, in blocking the Shiré.
page 58 note 4 Swann, , Fighting the Slave Hunters (London, 1910), pp. 203–42Google Scholar; also my thesis, pp. 370–5.
page 59 note 1 L.M.S., C.A., 6.2.A: Kirk to Thompson, 31 Aug. 1885. ‘This’, declared Kirk, ‘is not the time to think of going back. Africa is not a healthy place, but if missionaries are afraid to live in it, officials are not, and traders are flocking in.’ His letter, together with equally forceful pleas from Hore and Swann, reached London on the very morning when the Board was to decide the future of the mission, and determined the outcome (L.M.S., Southern, outgoing; Thompson to Hore, 2 Oct. 1885).
page 59 note 2 As explained in my thesis, pp. 375–9.
page 59 note 3 L.M.S., C.A., 8.1.C.: Swann to Thompson, 24 Aug. 1890.