IR PROBSTHAIN
THE
FUTURE OF AFRICA
DONALD ERASER
MISSIONARY OF THE UNITED FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND
NVASALAND
XonDon :
CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY
SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C.
1911
35 00
F72
PRIMTED BY
TURNBULL AMD SPEARS
EDINBURGH
EDITORIAL NOTE
This text-book is the fifth in a series of text-
books issued conjointly by the leading mis-
sionary societies in Great Britain for the use
of Study Circles. Like its predecessors,
"The UpHft of China," "The Desire of
India," " The Reproach of Islam," and
"The Decisive Hour of Christian Missions,"
the book has been wi'itten and edited with
its special purpose in view. It is designed
primarily for the use of those who study it
chapter by chapter and meet periodically in
Study Cu'cles for discussion.
To the great regret of the Editorial Com-
mittee it has been impossible, owing to the
limitation imposed by the distance between
Great Britain and the heart of Central Africa,
to co-operate with the author in the final
revision rendered necessary by the specific
purpose of the text-book. For the final
arrangement and selection of material the
Editorial Committee must therefore accept
full responsibihty. The Maps, Appendices
(with the exception of Appendix C), and
iv Editorial Note
Bibliography have also been prepared by
the Editorial Committee. Thanks are due
to the friends who have read the manuscript
and helped by their knowledge and experience.
The Committee are also most grateful to Mr
Dudley Kidd for liis help in the preparation
of illustrations and for permission to reproduce
those from his book " The Essential Kaffir "
numbered 4, 5, 8, 1% 11, 18, 19, 20, 28,
36, 37, 39. The Committee are indebted to
Rev. C. Inwood, Livingstonia, for the loan
of No. 9 ; Rev. J. Lennox, Lovedale, for
No. 26 ; the Church Missionary Society for
Nos. 13, 15, 21 ; the South African General
Mission for Nos. 3, 23 ; and the United Free
Church Mission, Calabar, for No. 38.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
This text-book has the disadvantage of being
wi'itten in the heart of Africa, where there are
few books to consult and no opportunity to
refer to Blue books and records, which would
make facts more definite and up-to-date. On
the other hand, it has the advantage of being
written when one sees conditions of African
life and mission work as they actually are,
without the glamour of romance, or the dis-
tortion of a misconceived prospective.
It has also the disadvantage of being written
amid the strain of progressive and far-reaching
mission work, and the advantage of thorough
revision by a competent committee at home,
who understand better than I can, the form
which it must take if it would fulfil its purpose.
" The Future of Africa " deals solely with
pagan Africa and mission-work among the
pagan races of Central and South Africa.
The problems arising from the existence and
spread of Islam in Africa do not come within
the scope of this work, and are therefore
practically untouched.
vi Author's Preface
The book goes forth with the constant
prayer that those who study it may hear, as
loudly and as insistent as we do on the field,
the cry of the utter need of pagan Africa.
DONALD FRASER.
Loudon, Nyasaland,
January 1911.
CONTENTS
Editorial Note ......
Author's Preface .....
Chapter I. Early Discovery
„ II. The Opening up of Pagan Africa
„ III. The Hand of Europe in Africa
„ IV. The Conditions revealed
„ V. The Hand of the Church on Afric
„ VI. Results of Mission Work
„ VII. The Needs of Pagan Africa
„ VIII. The Church's Task
Appendices .....
Bibliography .....
Index ......
PAGK
iii
V
1
33
64
105
134
175
211
249
277
295
305
«>i
ERRATA
Page 85, line 17, for " name " read " fame."
Page 92, line 26, /or " eight thousand hundred " read
" eight hundred thousand."
Page 110, line 2b, for "northernly" read "northerly."
Page 111, line 12, for " Ocambo " read "Ovambo."
Page 140, line 22, for " Garengauze "read " Garenganze."
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
1. An Open-air Congregation, Central Africa
Frontispiece
2. A Village in Central Africa ... 6
3. Pondo Boys . , . . . . 14
4. Zulu Hut : Interior and Exterior . . 22
5. An African Kraal, Natal . . . 31
6. Building a Hut ..... 38
7. The Completed Hut ..... 38
8. Interior of an African Hut ... 46
9. A Village in Central Africa ... 54
10. African Hut ...... 54
11. Fishers on Lake Nyasa .... 63
12. African Boys at Play .... 63
13. Rescued Slave Children .... 70
14. Listening to a Gramophone ... 78
15. A Train in Uganda 95
16. Port Herald Station, Nyasaland . . 95
17. Zulu Women Preparing for a Beer-drink 102
18. An African Warrior . . . .110
19. A Witch Doctor Dancing . . .119
20. A Witch Doctor . . . . .127
21. West African Idol . . . . .142
22. Church at Loudon, Nyasaland . . 142
23. A Mission Boat, Port Herald, Nyasaland 150
X List of Illustrations
24. Village School . . . . .
25. Girls belonging to a Mission Boarding
School .....
26. Training Institution, Lovedale
27. Open-air Preaching in Nyasaland
28. Blantyre Church, Nyasaland .
29. Playground in West Africa
30. A Village Church, Central Africa
31. Grandfathers and Grandmothers Baptised
AT Loudon Convention, 1909
32. An African Congregation
33. Mission Boys Crossing a River
34. A Grandmothers' Class
35. Camping .....
36. Going to School
37. The Lesson ....
38. Winners of the Calabar Cup, West Africa
United Free Church Mission, Calabar
39. A Kaffir Boy
KAOING PAGE
159
159
163
166
167
170
174
183
191
191
198
206
214
255
262
270
MAPS
Africa 100 Years Ago .
Africa — RelioioxNs
Africa at the Present Day .
FACING PAGK
4
134
at end of vol.
THE FUTURE OF AFRICA
CHAPTER I
EARLY DISCOVERY
ANALYTICAL INDEX
The Fascination of Africa.
A Closed Continent.
Medieval Discoverers and Explorers.
(a) Prince Henry.
(b) Later Portuguese Discoverers.
After the Reformation,
(a) Trading Companies.
(6) Colonisation by England and Holland.
Early Missionary Efforts.
^ (a) The Dominicans and Jesuits.
(6) Causes of Failure.
Summary.
From time immemorial Africa has held its The Fascina
fascination for the human race. Greece Africa,
embodied Africa in myth ; Rome sent her
legions thither in lust of conquest ; Gaul
sent her traders in search of barter and
commerce ; in North Africa there were reared
some of the earliest leaders and saints of the
2 The Future of Africa
Christian Church. Looking down the early
centuries we search vainly, however, for
further records of Africa than dim hints of
futile attempts to cross her sealed threshold
The spent waves of past humanity seem but
to have swept to her edge, and then to have
broken and retreated with the tide.
If we turn from yesterday to to-day, what
have we ? Africa — but yesterday chiefly a
name and a by- word, to-day assuming rank
as a great world force, covered with an ad-
vancing network of civilisation, a region of
illimitable possibilities. The causes that have
furthered this development, the purpose that
underHes it, the responsibility the Christian
world bears towards its furtherance, such
questions constitute the theme of this book.
Africa of to-day presents a complex picture.
In area, a " vast ill-formed triangle," the
continent covers eleven and a half miUion
miles in space. Each side of the triangle is
pierced by a mighty river ; on the north the
Nile, on the west the Congo, on the east the
Zambesi. An African traveller has roughly
classified the great continent thus : North
Africa where men go for health, South Africa
where they go for wealth. Central Africa where
they go for adventure. Its population of
about one hundred and sixty miUions seems
Early Discovery 3
enormous. Yet, in comparison to the area
it is small, and computed at fifteen to the
square mile. Its races are innumerable ; its
dialects a vast confusion. The climate of
Africa is modified by its elevation above the
sea-level, but two-thirds of the continent Hes
within the tropics. The rehgions of Africa
may be unequally divided under three heads :
Christianity, Mohammedanism, and Paganism.
Africa's territorial divisions are, in the main,
a matter of recent history. Eight milhon
square miles of its area are partitioned amongst
the various European powers.
To Britain the appeal of Africa is speci-
ally strong. Pioneers, missionaries, traders,
travellers, soldiers, civil servants, serried rank
upon serried rank have flowed out from this
tiny island kingdom, many of them to Hve
and die for that far country. For all types of
men, Africa holds an abiding fascination. The
student, the trader, the hunter, the pliilan-
thropist, firstly and lastly the evangehst, each
and all have felt it, and in each case it differs.
The riddle of the human race, its origin and
development, the greed of gain, the desire for
sport and adventure, the love of fellowmen,
the sense of the mysterious awful responsi-
bility of millions of souls still ignorant of
Christ. All tliis is embodied in Africa and
4 The Future of Africa
has its sigmficance for the readers of her
story.
From the dawn of history, North Africa
has been accessible and preserved in record,
but until the Middle Ages nothing was known
of South and Central Africa, and indeed, from
fifteen degrees north latitude southward to
the Cape of Good Hope its history is only
modern, though constant attempts were made
from the fifteenth century onwards to Uft the
curtain which hid it from the outer world. It
is one of the amazing facts of history that the
greater portion of the vast continent remained
closed for so many long centuries. Was it
God's purpose, we may ask, to keep it closed ?
Was it that neither the Church, nor the
national conscience in Europe, was prepared to
use rightly that great possession which has
only within recent memory been revealed ?
Had Africa been opened to the early ad-
venturers as were Mexico and Peru, would the
continent, Hke them, have been made a desola-
tion ? Can we say that God, in His wonder-
ful patience, was perfecting His preparations
for a day when nations were able in some
measm:e to recognise their trusteeship of
ignorant and lower races ? To such ques-
tions these chapters may perchance supply
an answer.
Early Discovery 5
Tlie first attempt to open up pagan Africa, Mediaeva.
came about through mediaeval adventurers, and Ex-
The Church was slowly awakening to its wide- piof^rs.
world responsibilities and consciousness of a
duty towards lower and ahen races stirred in
the hearts of the noblest of her sons. Three
names stand out in the annals of early African
discovery. Prince Henry the Navigator, half
an Englishman by birth through his mother,
a daughter of John of Gaunt ; Bartholomew
Diaz, the famous discoverer who rounded the
Cape of Good Hope and solved the problem
of the southern route to India; Vasco da
Gama, intrepid adventurer and seaman, who,
touching a beautiful country on Christmas
day, gave to it the name of Natal.
In the middle of the fifteenth century, (a) Prince
Portugal was hard pressed by the Moors. ^^^'
After a disastrous war in North Africa, the
Portuguese were driven back, and returned to
their own country leaving Prince Ferdinand, a
brother of Hemy, to die in the Sultan's prison.
Henry withdrew to the barren Cape St Vincent,
and there meditated deeply on the sore crisis
that was threatening Christendom. He saw
that all the wealth of Asia was passing through
the hands of the Moors who held Egypt and
Constantinople, and that if he could intercept
this wealth, he would take from them the
6 The Future of Africa
sinews of war. Rumours, too, came to him
of the possibiUty of a passage to Asia round
Africa, and also of a wonderful Christian king
in the heart of the continent called Prester
John, who might become his ally.
These stories fired his ambition, and he set
himself to prepare for his adventure. He
gathered about him the best scientific books
and instruments, scholars deep in the arts of
map-drawing and navigation, and learned in
the mysteries of astronomy. He then got the
finest shipbuilders in the world to superintend
the making of his caravels, so that they came
from his yards stronger and better than the
best ships of Genoa.
Soon his sailors began to go forth on their
voyages. Down the western shore they crept
until, in 1445, Cape Verde was reached. These
were brave ventures for men whose imagina-
tions were full of dreadful tales of sea monsters,
and boihng seas, and devils who waited to
snatch at poor sailors. But Prince Henry had
fortified their minds with a bull from the Pope,
which promised an immediate entrance to
Paradise for those who met death by the way.
It is imperative we should understand that
Prince Henry at least was impelled by pure
missionary zeal and a " generous eagerness
fo-r the conversion of the savage nations to
Early Discovery 7
Christianity." From first to last his aim was
high, gallant, and disinterested. His life
was a continuous struggle with danger, the
elements, and his unruly followers. He, in-
deed, attempted a veritable missionary crusade.
He planned to break the back of the threaten-
ing Moorish power, and to spread the know-
ledge of Christianity. As Grand Master of the
Order of Christ, it was his duty " to conquer
and convert all who denied the truth of their
holy reHgion." He was also statesman enough
to recognise that the strength and hope of
Christianity lay in propagating it. This and tliis
alone was its defence against Islam. When
he sent his ambassador to Pope Martin V.,
he insisted that the taking of Christianity
into countries unknown, " was the sole means
of resisting the desolating progress of the false
prophets." The clergy of Portugal became
Henry's staunchest allies, stoutly defending
him, and furthering his schemes in the face of
all opposition. Voyagers started out after
special rehgious services. Chaplains and mis-
sionaries were carried on board the caravels,
on whose sails the Cross was emblazoned.
But Prince Henry's desire for the betterment
of Africa was not universally shared by
his captains and followers. As they cruised
round the Guinea coast they came on the new
8 The Future of Africa
temptation of slaves and the immemorial one
of gold. These two prizes, destined to prove
the ruin of Portuguese enterprise and to cause
irreparable harm to Africa, put an end at this
early stage to the original rehgious aim of
these voyages. Discovery, too, received a
check. Ships returned to Portugal laden with
gold and slaves, manned by sailors fired only
with zeal for gain. Prince Hemy met them
coldly, telling his captains he sought for know-
ledge, not gold. His passionate cry rings across
the centuries : " Plant the Cross on some new
Headland ! That is what I want." Thus
the greed of the early adventurers sowed
the seeds of that curse of African history, the
slave-trade. Nor did the Church condemn the
bringing of cargoes of slaves. She indeed ap-
proved it, for the heathen were thereby given
the blessing of Hving in a Christian land. These
first slave-traders httle thought that with the
introduction of negroes they were preparing
the way for long years of havoc to Africa.
Nor did they reahse that they had started the
dechne of the kingdom of Portugal, for the
tilhng of the land now became a slave occupa-
tion, and honest labour was despised.
Prince Henry's ideals for Africa were thus
crushed, and his death might well seem to be
the consummation of a failure. But regarded
Early Discovery 9
in the light of Froude's reflection his efforts
were not entirely wasted, for " the real value
of the thought or the actions of remarkable
men, does not lie in the material result which
can be gathered, but in the heart and soul of
those who do or utter them."
After Prince Henry died Bartholomew Diaz (b) Later
p n 1 • 1 • I T Portuguese
and Vasco da Gama followed m ms steps, in Discoverers.
1486, Diaz rounded the Cape, touching oc-
casionally on the coast, and in 1497, another
expedition was fitted out and sent forth under
the leadership of da Gama. Before the vessel
sailed the leaders of the expedition spent the
whole night in prayer, and next morning walked
thi'ough the streets in religious procession
accompanied by the chants and prayers of the
priests. The expedition landed at the Cape
and opened communications with the Hotten-
tots, at first in all friendHness, but this attempt
ended, as was the case so often later, in fight-
ing and bloodshed. Fired with the great pros-
pects of wealth and glory, Portugal dispatched
an expedition in 1510 to take possession of
the east coast and open up trade with India.
Various priests and a company of Dominican
friars sailed with the expedition as missionaries
desiring to commend Christianity to the
natives. On the east coast the Portuguese
came into contact with the Arabs who Uved
lo The Future of Africa
there in settlements pursuing the slave-trade,
and for a century and a half the Portuguese
lived in rivalry and warfare with the Arabs on
the edge of the East Coast. They, however,
fell in turn victim to the vices of those they had
at first conquered, and at the end of the seven-
teenth century, the Portuguese colonists were
utterly exterminated, having effected little or
nothing for the pagan hordes they had set forth
to conquer and Christianise.
All that was done for the pagan tribes
on the north-east coast came, not through
European and Christian channels, but through
Arab and Mohammedan ones. What these
brought, however, was a curse and not a
blessing. The Arab had no capacity for self-
discipHne and the idle luxury into wliich he
sank when all labour was done for him by
slaves, reduced his civiHsing influence to the
lowest degree. It is as a slave-owner, and
the organiser of the slave trade, that he has
been felt most in Africa. Yet there were
some, who, in pursuit of their brutal traffic,
did notable deeds. They penetrated to the
interior and actually crossed the continent,
long before Europeans had attempted to
pierce beyond the coast hne.
In the sixteenth century the Portuguese,
holding from the Pope a monopoly of all lands
Early Discovery
1 1
that they might discover in Africa, were
practically the sole traders and colonists
from Europe, but at the Reformation, when
the bulls of popes lost authority over the
Protestant nations, England and Holland
began to feel their way about the coast of
Africa.
Charters were granted by Queen EUzabeth (a) Trading
to companies which traded with the West ^°"^^
Coast, but their commerce soon became
mixed up with slaving. The famous Sir
John Hawkins led one of the early expeditions,
and was soon deeply engaged in the over-
seas traffic in negroes. The Queen expressed
her detestation of his treatment of the natives
in forcible language, but apparently he was
not ashamed of his deeds, nor did society
scout him, for when he was knighted he
adopted as his crest, " a demi-Moor in his
proper colour, bound with a cord."
The effect of such unprincipled trading on
the natives was disastrous in the extreme, so
much so that the coast tribes who were ex-
ploited, and for three or four hundred years
were in touch with the commerce of Europe,
were many of them, at the end of that time,
in a more degraded condition morally and
physically than the untouched tribes of the
interior. On the West Coast the traffic in
12 The Future of Africa
human beings rapidly approached awful
dimensions. The articles that the negroes
wanted for barter were gin and ammunition —
gin to besot themselves, ammunition with
which to overpower and enslave the neighbour-
ing tribes. On the East Coast, when gold
could not be got, the slave trade was started,
and soon, as in the West, all legitimate com-
merce died. The traffic degraded and
brutalised every one involved in it. Thus
these early trading companies were, with few
exceptions, so intent on acquiring wealth
regardless of the means used to obtain it that
they ended in shameless exploiting of both
Africa's peoples and resources.
Wonderful stories now came to Europe
of the riches of Timbuctoo, where the king
tied his horse to a rock of gold. From
Sofala on the East Coast came reports of the
mines of Ophir which had enriched Solomon
and the East ; and expedition after expedi-
tion was dispatched to find them. In 1621
Captain Jobson came back to England after
a voyage up the Gambia, having bought a
wonderful kingdom for a few bottles of his
best brandy, telling of a land whose cities
were roofed with gold. But he never went
back to claim his kingdom, or unroof the
houses ! Year by year all the gold the Portu-
Early Discovery 13
guese could get from their Arab middlemen
who bought at King Solomon's mines was a
little dust in a few goose quills.
Meanwhile a more prosperous and soHd (b) Coionisa-
colonisation was in progress at the Cape of England and
Good Hope. Settlements had been started H°"a°d.
there by the Dutch to refresh the ships' crews
on their long voyages to India, and green vege-
tables, plantations of limes and other fruits
were grown for the poor scurvy-stricken sea-
men. English officers also saw the advantage
of Table Bay as a station on the way to India,
and in 1620 proclaimed the sovereignty of
James I. over the whole country. They
placed on record their reasons for this action,
and among others was the hope that the
Hottentots would soon become servants of
God. The colony, however, became Dutch,
and remained so till the beginning of last
century. As the number of colonists increased
they spread over a larger and larger area,
requiring for their own uses the lands that
had formerly been in the hands of native
tribes. The Dutch colonists were men of a
very superior type, many of them sincerely
rehgious, and lovers of home and of peace.
Like the other Europeans at that time,
however, they had no idea of their re-
sponsibility towards the weaker races, or
14 The Future of Africa
of their natural rights. Thus their unjust
and harsh treatment of the people, so far
from doing anything to reconcile them
to the Gospel of Christ rather repelled
them.
When the colonists first arrived they
found two tribes in possession of the land.
The one was called the Bushmen, the original
inhabitants of Africa, a people who hved by
hunting, without agriculture and without
settled abodes. The other was the Hotten-
tots, a pastoral race who had recently come
into these lands and dispossessed the Bushmen
of some of their ancestral hunting grounds.
As colonisation increased, more land was
required and much of the country of the
Hottentots was seized, and the people enslaved
by the farmers, and as the Hottentots were
not a very beUicose race, this settlement
of the land question gave rise to only a
moderate amount of trouble. But as the
colonists began to press into the hunting
grounds of the Bushmen, fierce trouble
arose. The Bushmen could not be enslaved.
They were hard to captm'e, and they deeply
resented the colonial usurpation of their
lands. At first they were the only inhabitants
of the Cape, and thought themselves to be
the only people in the world. The Hottentots
1>(JM)(J HOYS
Early Discovery 15
followed, passing through the hunting grounds
of the Bushmen with herds of cattle, but they
were no match for their cunning tactics in
war. Finally came the Christian, as he
was called, utterly dispossessing them of their
old homes. They naturally resented this, and
the colonist made no attempt at concilia-
tion. The Bushmen attacked his property
and stole and devoured his cattle. The
whites then hunted them by commandoes,
though a few of them, finding that hunting
only made them more Hable to have their
cattle plundered, tried pacific measures, and
fed the Bushmen in times of severe famine, and
found that they made most faithful herds. But
these few were exceptional, for the ordinary
colonist regarded the Bushman as a mere
wild beast of the field. Towards the end of
the eighteenth century fearful war broke out
between the Europeans and these aborigines.
At the sight of a Bushman the colonist spurred
up his horses and called out his dogs and hunted
him with more spirit than he would a wolf.
As a consequence of this severe treatment
fearful reprisals took place. Hunted hke wild
beasts, driven from the game haunts where
they got their food, the natives wandered
about in a starving condition, feeding on roots
and vermin, and ready at every opportunity
1 6 The Future of Africa
to satisfy their growing anger by acts of
cruelty towards every Christian, and all
his hving property, servants or cattle. The
colonial government unfortunately approved of
the barbarous punishments inflicted by their
people on the Bushmen, and unwisely and
unjustly suffered them to exercise unUmited
power over the lives of those taken prisoners.
One notorious example was reported to the
authorities by the perpetrator of the deed
himself. Having hunted the Bushmen in vain,
he set a trap for them one day by killing a
hippopotamus. He and his men then lay in
wait till the starving people fell on the dead
meat, then they closed round and massacred
the Bushmen. He reported that he counted
a hundred and twenty-two dead bodies, but
that five others had escaped by swimming
the river.
This brutal treatment of the natives changed
those merry dance-loving hunters into a
treacherous and brutish race, whose hand was
against every one, and every man's hand
against them. Their children were kidnapped
when it was found that the elders could not
be kept in slavery. But so great was their
natural love of freedom that often httle boys
escaped from their masters, wandering for
days in the wilds, in a country full of beasts
Early Discovery 17
of prey, until they got back to their own
people.
It was not merely a feeling of hatred towards
the Bushmen that distorted the colonial view
of what was due to the natives. Land-
greed and the need for labour on their land,
led them to trample on the just rights of
the natives. The childi'en of all Hottentots
who were born on the land of a settler were
compelled to be liis apprentices for many years,
and virtually his domestic slaves. Systematic
raids were waged by the frontiermen on
Hottentot tribes for the possession of their
fountains, and the enslaving of the people.
As the " Christians " pushed farther east,
colhsions took place with the more warhke
KaJS&rs, the inhabitants of the south-eastern
corner of the continent. Sometimes the
Europeans drove back the Kaffirs and took
possession of their lands, and sometimes the
Kaffirs returned with fearful vengeance and
repulsed them.
Thus far Europe had used Africa solely Early
as a lever for obtaining wealth. She had^orts"**^^
exploited the natives, the gold mines, and
the ivory trade. For her own base ends,
she had washed her hands in blood with a
callous disregard of the rights of humanity,
sacred, however primitive its stage. Centuries
i8 The Future of Africa
of Christian tutelage had availed not to spare
the victim of her avarice. Yet we cannot
but ask if the history of the early ad-
venturers and colonists was unrelieved by
disinterested effort to benefit the natives ?
Were all alike solely given up to the sordid
search for gold ? Had none of them tried to
bring Light to the people that sat in darkness ?
What of those early missionaries who accom-
panied Prince Henry and his followers ?
Had they no share in those first struggles
to open up Africa ?
It is to the records of Catholic missions we
must turn for the answer to these questions,
for beyond one solitary attempt on the part
of the Moravians, up to nearly the end of
the eighteenth century, no effort was made by
the Protestants of Em-ope to bring to the
African the Gospel of Christ. The Church
in Europe had not reahsed its responsibility.
The " Christians " at the trading ports, and
in the Cape Colony had not come to recognise
that a black man could become a son of God.
In the vanguard of the first missionaries to
Africa went the friars. We find the first traces
of their work on the Congo, whose mouth was
discovered by Diego Cam in 1484. In 1485,
he returned on a visit to the ancient Kingdom
of the Congo, and personally instructed the
Early Discovery 19
king in the truths of the Christian reUgion.
Accordingly when he left, the king begged
for missionaries, and professed a desire to be-
come a Christian. In 1491, a large party of
Dominican missionaries, workmen and agri-
culturists, arrived at the mouth of the Congo.
The governor of the district, and uncle of the
King of Congo, embraced Cliristianity and
was baptized. There the missionaries built a
church, containing three altars, in honour of
the Holy Trinity. Proceeding to the capital,
a distance of one hundred and fifty miles,
they were received in great state by the king.
After a gracious welcome the missionaries
explained their errand, and gave an account of
the baptism of the governor at the coast, and
of the building of the church. Mass was then
celebrated, and the vestments and ceremonies
were watched with awe. The king decided to
build a sanctuary, and a few months later the
Church of the Holy Cross was consecrated.
The king and queen were baptized, and out
of compliment to the reigning monarchs of
Portugal, took the names of John and Leonora.
'Large numbers of the people, of course,
followed their monarch's example, and though
some of his governors and regents remained
persistently devoted to fetichism, he was ably
seconded in his efforts to christianise liis people
20 The Future of Africa
by his son, Alphonso. Pagan customs were
suppressed by law, and armies of rebels who
rose against the king because of their attach-
ment to the old forms, were broken before his
consecrated banner, which depicted the Virgin
Mary and various saints appearing in the
heavens to fight with the Christian army.
Further reinforcements of missionaries were
sent out in 1520, and a native bishop, one of
the princes of the royal house, who had been
educated in Portugal, was consecrated. He
died, however, shortly after landing, and the
experiment does not seem to have been
repeated.
The famous order of the Jesuits was founded
about this time, and they placed themselves
at the Pope's disposal for missionary service.
One of their first expeditions was to the Congo,
to which they sent a large number of mis-
sionaries. A new bishop had also arrived,
and was well received. But he soon found
that a severe task of discipline was before him.
The lives of priests and friars were scandalous.
They would neither heed his protest nor his
orders, and the king had to interfere, and tie
up the unruly missionaries. Some were sent as
prisoners to San Thome, but the result of their
evil morals was such that, " instead of the
Christian doctrine growing, it rather dimin-
Early Discovery 21
ished, and this from the fault of those who
taught it."
From this time onwards things seem to
have gone all wrong. The bishop died, and
the morals of the clergy and laity grew
as lax as before: king, nobles, and clergy
overstepped all moral law. Then came
the fierce cannibal horde of Jaggas (Fans)
who overran West Africa, raiding the whole
land, overthrowing dynasties and overwhelm-
ing tribes. The Congo kingdom was broken
up, and when the Jaggas had retired, the
starving fugitives who returned to their old
lands sold themselves to the Portuguese.
The scattered remnants sent to Portugal for
more missionaries. But the response to their
appeals was less willing now than in former
days. Portugal was impoverished by the
Inquisition. War, also, had broken out with
the Dutch, and the Portuguese were driven
from their coast settlements.
Embassies were then sent to the Pope, and
some answer must have been made, for in the
early part of the seventeenth century mis-
sionaries were very abundant in the Congo
region. But lawlessness and immorahty broke
out among them, and appeals had to be made
to Europe to reduce them to order. The Pope
sent out new Capuchin missionaries, with in-
2 2 The Future of Africa
structions that they were to be the only order
there. The King of Congo received them well,
gave them convents and churches, and slaves
to till their gardens. But when a massacre
of all the princes of the blood was attempted,
the missionaries protested, and the king
turned against them, treated them badly, and
imprisoned them. Once more the country
reverted to heathenism. The successor of
this bad king was no better, and he determined
to kill off all the Europeans and missionaries,
but instead he liimself was attacked and
slain. Thus the history continues, becoming
darker and darker, until at last there is no
Hght left.
How fared matters elsewhere ?
From the first the Portuguese kept in view
the christianisation of the natives as they
passed along the East Coast of Africa, and
founded their settlements. But the land they
had discovered was very great, and their
resources limited. The whole eastern world,
from the Cape of Good Hope to Japan, was
under the jurisdiction of the first bishop of
India, who resided at Goa. His available
staff was so small that even the most im-
portant Portuguese settlements were without
a chaplain for long periods. In 1540, seven
months after the foundation of the order of the
^^tm^v^f^^
A ZV\A: hut EXTKIUOH
A ZULU HUT — INTKHlOlt
Early Discovery 23
Jesuits, that burning saint, St Francis Xavier,
sailed from Lisbon for India. On his way
there he spent a httle time at Mozambique,
and then crossed the seas soon to be followed
by many others of his order.
About this time a young man, the son of
a native chief near Inhambane, voyaged to
Mozambique in one of the Portuguese vessels,
and was so kindly treated that he was favour-
ably impressed, and shortly after was baptized
with great pomp in the church at Mozambique.
He begged for missionaries to accompany him
back to his native land, and the request was
sent to Goa. Father Goncalo volunteered along
with others for this service, and after a voyage
of great privations and risks landed with his
party at Inhambane. They proceeded up
country to a tribe of the Makalanga, and then
opened mission work. The people received
them warmly, and responded rapidly, so that
in a short time four hundred individuals were
baptized, including the chief and his family.
Leaving behind him what he believed to be an
infant Christian community, the father pro-
ceeded up the Zambesi to Sena, and there
received an invitation from the great Mono-
motapa, the " Emperor " at Solomon's mines,
to visit him. On arrival he was hospitably
entertained and offered gold and female slaves.
24 The Future of Africa
When he refused them the king soon perceived
that he was a different type of " Christian "
from any other he had seen, and he Kstened to
his message. He was soon baptized, together
with his mother and some three hundred of his
counsellors and followers. But the king had
no thought of abandoning his heathen customs,
and soon wearied of his visitor.
Some Mohammedans at his court now tried
to poison his mind against the missionary, and
so worked upon his creduHty that he resolved
to put Dom Goncalo to death. The mis-
sionary knew that his life was threatened, but
refused to flee while the heathen were still being
gathered to the fold. Soon afterwards, when
some fifty more natives were baptized, the
king took this accession to the Church as
an act of defiance, and resolved to end the
whole matter. The zealous priest was killed,
and his body cast into the river. The newly
baptized narrowly escaped the same fate.
Meanwhile the brothers, who had been left
behind in the young Christian community near
Inhambane, had not prospered. The converts
rebelled against the moral law that was urged
upon them. They refused to change their
former habits, and left their teacher to
starve in neglect until, in a broken and
miserable condition, he left the country in
Early Discovery 25
obedience to the instructions of his superior
at Goa.
In the middle of the sixteenth century the
Dominicans also turned their attention to East
Africa. Parties of missionaries settled around
the Portuguese forts and at various points on
the Zambesi. At first they confined their
attention to the Europeans, whom they found
in a woeful condition, morally and spiritually.
Later, when some improvement appeared
among them, they applied themselves to the
conversion of the natives. Their task was no
easy one. The tribes were constantly at war
with one another. Away from the forts the
missionaries had to endure privations, isola-
tion, fever, and were in constant danger of their
lives. Yet there began to gather round them
httle Christian communities who lived in
villages under protection of the forts.
From time to time the Dominican mis-
sionaries were reinforced by fresh members
of their order, and Government allowed them
a Httle subsidy, so that they were not entirely
dependent on charity. The Jesuits, too, began
to come into the Zambesi region, and a good
deal of unpleasant jealousy and friction
appeared between the two orders. Un-
fortunately the records of these early mis-
sionaries in the eighteenth century became
2 6 The Future of Africa
very dismal. The morals of the Dominicans
seem to have sadly deteriorated, and Portu-
guese governors had frequently to complain to
their superiors of their lawless and immoral
lives.
At last, in 1760, the Home Government
expelled the Jesuits from South-East Africa,
and in 1775, the Dominicans were also ordered
to leave, and with their expulsion fell the last
remnants of civilisation in that province.
Thus we see missions in progress for over
three centuries in both East and West
Africa. Money had been given, efforts
lavished, hves spent, and the result was ap-
parently total failure. When the missionaries
of the Baptist Society arrived at San Salvador,
capital of the once Christian kingdom of the
Congo, they found no traces of Christ's
religion. The king and people were pagans,
following dark superstitions and cruel customs.
The ruins of the cathedral stood there, and in
the king's compound was a large crucifix and
some images of the saints, but they were only
the king's fetiches. Some ceremonies were
performed at funerals which seemed remotely
to indicate a CathoHc ritual, and a cross was
the favourite fetich for giving skill in hunting.
That was all that remained of four centuries
of mission work.
Early Discovery 27
Another and even more striking example
is that given by Africa's master-missionary.
A centm-y after the expulsion by the Portu-
guese Government, David Livingstone visited
some of the stations where the early
missionaries had been. This is how he
described Zumbo, which is perhaps character-
istic of all the others. " The Chapel, near
which hes a broken bell, ... is an utter
ruin now, and desolation broods around.
The wild bird, disturbed by the unwonted
sound of approaching footsteps, rises with
a harsh scream. The foul hyena has defiled
the sanctuary. . . . One can scarcely look
without feehngs of sadness on the utter
desolation of a place where men have met
to worship the Supreme Being, or have
united in uttering the magnificent words,
'Thou art the King of Glory, Christ,'
and remember that the natives of this part
know nothing of His rehgion, not even of
His Name. A strange superstition makes
them shun this sacred place, as men do the
pestilence, and they never come near it.
Apart from the ruins there is notliing to remind
one that a Christian power ever had traders
here, for the natives of to-day are precisely
what their fathers were when the Portuguese
first rounded the Cape. Their language is
28 The Future of Africa
still unwritten. Not a single art, save that
of distilling spirits by a gun barrel, has ever
been learned from the strangers ; and, if
all the progeny of the whites were at once to
leave the country, their only memorial would
be the ruins of a few stone and mud-built
walls, and that bhghting relic of the slave
trade, the belief that man may sell his brother
man, a belief that is not of native origin."
Causes of In this early story of missions we see
again the same thing which we noted in the
story of Prince Henry and his followers. An
enterprise, having its origin in high ideals
for the betterment of Africa, had again ended
in miserable failure. Unfortunately there is
not much Roman Catholic hterature which
honestly examines the cause. The Portuguese
records are evidently biassed by a great hatred
of the missionaries, and it would be unfair
to estimate their character and work from the
records of men whose hves and conduct were
far from blameless, and whose policy towards
the natives was directly opposed to Christian
teaching. We know how valueless similar
accounts of Protestant missions are.
Some of the early missionaries seem to have
been men of evangelical zeal, who faced danger
and death for the sake of the Kingdom of
God, and who penetrated far into the interior
Early Discovery 29
where no Portuguese army had ever attempted
to go. Yet the fact remains that their record
as a whole is one of failure. Quarrels and
dissensions amongst themselves ruined much
of the Christian influence that might have
come from their presence. In addition to this,
many of the missionaries sent out seem to
have had neither moral nor spiritual stabihty,
and the awful demoralisation that even in
these days inevitably seizes upon Europeans
living among a heathen people if they do not
pay earnest heed to the conduct of their
lives, stole over the early missionaries, until
their conduct became scandalous even to
the heathen. Again and again commissioners
were sent out to purify the missionaries, and
came back aghast at the disorder and im-
morality. Another serious defect that ruined
their influence with the natives was their
impHcation with the slave traffic. \Vlien not
actually conniving at the slave trade, they
frequently employed slaves to work their
plantations, and in some cases even took
active part in the human barter. They
gradually became the enemies rather than the
friends of the defenceless natives. Nor did
they hesitate to use threats and even the sword
to forward their work or avenge their martyrs.
We know what harm this policy has done in
30 The Future of Africa
modern days in China. But it was not less
fruitful of disaster in Africa. The closing
of Madagascar, the strong resentment of Arabs
and heathen against the stern Jesuit Mondaros,
these and many other instances could be cited
where revenge for evil treatment of mission-
aries has only built up a fierce wall of resent-
ment against the messengers of the Gospel.
Slackness and demoralisation, greed of gain^
the use of force, mal-organisation, such were
the reasons of the failure of early missions
in Africa. What lay at the root of this weak-
ness and lack of purpose ? Why had they
fallen so far from their high caUing ? Did
not the degradation and demoraUsation of
the early missions result from their losing
sight of their initial aim ? Was it not from
their lack of courage to maintain their tenets
and to speak out in defence of their aim ?
Wliere was the desire that Africa might
receive a Gospel of peace ? Earnest individual
souls there were indeed amongst the many,
but the majority were swallowed up in the
general current of wealth- seeking and exploita-
tion.
On looking back we see that the results of
the early opening of Africa were as a whole
a pitiable record of failure. First came the
Portuguese adventurers who set forth with
Early Discovery 31
such lofty purpose only to lower and lose
it in the lust of conquest and greed of gain.
England's earliest pioneers did not better
affairs, and the Dutch States in South Africa
were founded for the most part in cruelty.
Yet at the outset each nation had been
prompted by aims far from ignoble, motives
in many instances aspiring and generous.
Despite this, alas, the little leaven of corruption
crept in and spread with dreadful rapidity.
Even those whose direct purpose was to bring
the elevating influence of Christianity into
the new land fell victims to the low moral
standards which prevailed.
What was the effect on Africa ? Such
intercourse did her no good. Her resources
were not developed but wasted, for the three
articles that attracted captains and colonists
were gold, ivory and slaves. No attempt
was made to plant or cultivate, and Europe
left the land poorer than she found it and
herself stained and debilitated by her traffic.
It goes hard with a land which provides wealth
which is discovered and not produced.
The greed for wealth soon swamped all
better feelings of responsibiUty towards the
natives. Where gold failed, slaving was
started, and in east and west legitimate
commerce died. As a result of this un-
32 The Future of Africa
principled trading and exploitation, the coast
tribes were, at the end of their three or four
centuries of commerce with Europe, in a
more degraded condition physically and
morally than the untouched tribes of the
Interior.
Thus Europe for hundreds of years knocked
in vain at the door of Africa, penetrated
her coast-hne, exploited her peoples and
resources, and left chaos. The first three
centuries of Europe's contact with Africa
close in utter night. Lamps have been lit
but they have all gone out. Fierce and
destructive enemies are prowling in the dark
to the terror and destruction of the people.
The slave traffic is eating up its scores of
thousands of victims. Gin, guns and gun-
powder are being poured into the continent.
Eager colonies are pressing into the ancestral
lands of the people, driving out the masters
of the soil, or gathering them into slavery.
And all the while the Church, to whom God
has given the Light of the World, is forgetting
to make it shine on this foul and fearsome
night.
CHAPTER II
THE OPENING UP OF PAGAN AFRICA
ANALYTICAL INDEX
Africa still undiscovered at the beginning of the
Nineteenth Century.
The African Association and Mungo Park.
(a) Purpose of the Association.
(b) Mungo Park in Africa.
(c) Discovery of Niger Delta.
Plans for the Regeneration of Africa.
(a) Fowell Buxton.
(b) Macgregor Laird.
(c) Sir George Taubmann Goldie.
Extension of Commercial Activity.
David Livingstone.
(fl) His Missionary Travels.
(6) His Later Journeys.
(c) His Contribution to Africa.
Further Opening of East and Central Africa.
H. M. Stanley.
The Opened Continent.
We have seen how in past centuries, Eui'opean
nations sallied forth to conquer the mysterious
continent. Portuguese, English, Dutch, each
in turn had come, settled on the fringes, even
penetrated to a certain extent southwards, but
34 The Future of Africa
for the most part the interior remained sealed,
despite all their efforts. Darkest Africa was
still a land of mystery and Ethiopia still
stretched forth her seeking hands.
Difficulties of At the beginning of the nineteenth centm^y
Africa.^ "^ little was known about Africa beyond the
edges of the coast Hne. The Portuguese
maintained a precarious hold of the land they
had discovered, but their control seldom ex-
tended beyond the range of the guns of their
forts. A number of European trading con-
cerns were estabHshed along the West Coast,
but in most cases the factors resided in hulks
anchored in some river delta, or in houses
built close by the shore. Even the interior
of South Africa was unknown beyond the
narrow Umit of the frontier farms.
Various causes combined to close the great
hinterland. The barriers were many, and at
first glance, insurmountable. Physical barriers,
dangers from the savage inhabitants, and from
wild beasts, perils of drought and starvation,
difficulties of transport, all these confronted
him who sought to pierce a way to what lay
behind and beyond the coast-Hne ; a sum total
before which the hardiest adventurer might
quail. Between the liigh plateau of the in-
terior and the coast Hne, there lay a threaten-
ing region of mangi'ove forest and dismal
The Opening up of Pagan Africa 3 5
swamp, covered at low tide with black pesti-
lential mud and long stretches of scrub and
desert, a veritable no-man's-land where fever
and drought bade defiance to the unwary
intruder. The tribes of the interior had not
broken through these barriers nor come into
touch with the coast life, and few influences
had penetrated from the sea-board save the
devastating bhght of the slave trade. Again,
there was the climate. Fever was claiming
its victims at the coast in relentless fashion.
Entirely ignorant of the cause, the Europeans
were continually falling victims to the pesti-
lence, sometimes as many as seventy-five
per cent, of the community dying in a single
year.
The continent, nevertheless, continued to
attract and fascinate the minds of men.
Rumours of wealth beyond the dreams of
avarice lying in the far interior tempted men
to risk all and break through the obstacles.
Sometimes bold spirits ventured through,
never to return, and still the interior remained
barred against the knowledge of Europe.
Since the dim days of antiquity men had Jhe African
been stimulated by rumoured possibihties in and Mungo
the region of the Niger. Somewhere hidden ^^^ Purpose
in the interior was fabulous wealth to be°f^^^. ^.
Association.
gained by those who could follow the course
36 The Future of Africa
of that mysterious river. As civilisation
advanced, moreover, and men's thoughts
" widened with the process of the sun," higher
motives than mere greed of gain began to stir.
In Europe the scientific spirit awoke after
long slumber, and impelled by a desire for
knowledge rather than gold, there resulted
in England the formation of the African As-
sociation. This body numbered amongst its
members some of the foremost thinkers of
the day. Their object was to lower the barriers
that separated Africa from the rest of civiHsa-
tion, to reveal her dark and waste places,
to solve her mighty geographical problems.
First amongst these last they aimed at dis-
covering the real soiKce and course of the
Niger. From the days of Herodotus the
course of the Niger had held its fascination.
On its banks lay the great city of Timbuc-
too, founded by Arab traders, towards which
the wealth of the northern regions flowed.
Whether the Niger lost itself in some mighty
lakes or flowed towards the Nile or elsewhere,
was a question debated for centuries. By
the end of the eighteenth century the African
Association had made four separate attempts
to foUow the Niger and had failed. Each
time their expedition and its leader had
perished without success.
The Opening up of Pagan Africa n
Finally they chanced on a young Scotsman (b) Mungo
who seemed ideally fitted for the quest, injf/-^^^"
the person of Mungo Park. Born in the
Border country, the son of a small farmer,
Mungo Park was a typical specimen of the
quaHties which have planted Scotsmen far
and wide over the face of the earth. Educa-
tion from earhest infancy had widened his
mind and fostered a natural desire for the
expansion that comes of travel. He was
educated first at Selkirk, later at Edinburgh
University, and was fully quahfied as a doctor
when Africa first cast her spell upon him. At
the age of twenty-four Mungo Park offered
his services to the African Association, was
accepted and sailed for the mysterious Con-
tinent in 1795. He set out full of zeal to
solve the problem which had fascinated and
defied the geographers of Europe since the
days of Herodotus. The young Scot was
prompted by an intense love of travel and
a desire to achieve some worthy aim in life.
He started his journey from Pisania, a small
village on the Gambia, with two native
companions, versed in the dialect, one a
negro servant — " Johnson " — the other, a boy
— " Demba." Carrying provisions for two or
three days at a time he passed up the
Gambia and crossed the Senegal. Innumer-
38 The Future of Africa
able dangers and difficulties confronted him ;
pillage and pilfering at the hands of the tribes
he passed through ; the cowardice of his ser-
vants ; the greed of porters or water-carriers ;
hardships and hindrances on all hands, fever,
semi-starvation, thirst, each and all he en-
dured in turn. He soon found himself among
Mohammedan and slave-raiding tribes, and
there his dreadful troubles began. He en-
dured captivity, famine, and the harshest
treatment from the natives. His description
of his escape after four months' captivity
amongst the Moors ends on a note of both
humour and pathos. After getting away,
and beyond fear of immediate pursuit, Park
drew breath for reflection to find " even the
Desert looked pleasant." Still he struggled
on, though hampered by weak health, with-
out food, or money or a guide, in rags and
dependent on the humanity of the natives,
yet indomitable in his pluck and determina-
tion to achieve his object or die in the attempt.
Then came the graphic chmax to this misery.
One July morning as he approached the town
of .Sego and strained his eyes for the first
glimpse of the river, a native shouted, " Geo
afiUi " (" See the water ! ") " Looking for-
wards," says Mungo Park, " I saw with
infinite pleasure the great object of my
^Ji
■'/*•„
The Opening up of Pagan Africa 39
mission ; the long sought-for majestic Niger
glittering to the morning sun, as broad as the
Thames at Westminster, and flowing slowly
to the eastward."
In July 1796, Mungo Park turned his face
homewards. The journey back was as arduous
and fraught with as many perils and privations
as the first had been. Yet amid his bitterest
hardships he maintained a patience with the
natives that was marvellous, never once using
violence in self-defence. A sense of the Pres-
ence of God with him gave him a hopefulness
that carried him through circumstances under
which even a strong man would have lain
down in despair and died. It was when he
had been stripped almost naked by robbers
and left in the desert hundreds of miles from
help, that he saw that moss which inspired
him with faith in God's Providence (a story
which has helped the faith of many another
tried soul since) and sent him on regardless
of hunger and fatigue. " At this moment,
painful as my reflections were, the extra-
ordinary beauty of a smaU moss in fructifica-
tion irresistibly caught my eye. I mention
this to show from what trifling circumstances
the mind will sometimes derive consolation ;
for though the whole plant was not larger
than the top of one of my fingers, I could
40 The Future of Africa
not contemplate the delicate conformation of
its roots, leaves and capsula, without admira-
tion. " Can the Being (thought I) who
planted, watered and brought to perfection
in this obscure part of the world, a thing
which appears of so small importance, look
with unconcern upon the situation and suffer-
ings of creatures formed in His own image ?
Surely not ! " . . . And it was this high
spirit which never forsook the intrepid
wanderer and sustained him even to the end.
Some excitement was created by Park's
return home, but he was poorly rewarded by
Government. He tried to settle down in
Scotland as a country doctor, but he who has
lived and suffered in Africa can never get away
from her siren voice. An incident related by
Sir Walter Scott, who was a friend of the great
African traveller, shows where his thoughts
lay. Scott one day found him standing on
the brink of the Yarrow tlirowing stones into
the stream and watching the bubbles formed
by these as they sank. " This," said Scott,
" appears but an idle amusement for one who
has seen so much stirring adventure." " Not
so idle, perhaps, as you suppose," was Park's
reply. " This was the manner in which I
used to discover the depth of a river in Africa
before venturing to cross it . . . judging
The Opening up of Pagan Africa 41
whether the attempt would be safe by the
time the bubbles of air took to ascend." In
the year 1805 Park returned to the continent
at the head of another Niger expedition. This
time he went under Government auspices and
received a grant of £5000 for his expenses.
Incredible as it may seem to us nowadays, he
started from the coast with a caravan of
thirty-eight British soldiers and seamen, be-
sides the leaders of the expedition. A company
in all of forty-five Europeans and scarcely a
single native with them. Disease and death
quickly thinned his ranks, and when he finally
reached the Niger, only seven of his followers
were aUve. Having constructed a boat from
native canoes he sailed down the river. But
after coming to the countries of _SiikQto4_
among the Hausa-speaking natives, the enmity
of the people increased. Finally, he entered
a gorge which was obstructed by rocks, and
there was attacked by the natives, and his
whole party perished.
Two great characteristics distinguished
Mungo Park, raising him head and shoulders
above the long fine of African travellers who
had preceded him. He was possessed of an
unwavering Christian fortitude, and coupled
with that was an extraordinary forbearance
and consideration for the natives, a quahty
42 The Future of Africa
of which we saw so Httle in those who first
tried to open up Africa. In the years that
came after, many were the tributes raised to
his name and memory, but (to borrow the
words of one of his recent biographers) " the
most precious tribute of all to the name of
the great traveller is one raised by strange
hands " (the work of a passing French gunner)
" in a land of strangers . . . the httle iron
cross that casts its shadow on the sands of the
majestic Niger."
(c) Discovery Various attempts were made after this to
Deitaf^"^ trace the mouth of the Niger, but it was
not till 1830 that Lander sailed out at its
delta and proved that the river flowed into
the Atlantic. A highway to the populous
interior was thus discovered, and a new oppor-
tunity given to commerce and missions to
extend their operations. Despite the efforts
of Mungo Park and others like-minded, Africa
was still, however, a prey to adventurers who
sought only their own profit with Httle regard
for the advancement of the country or its
luckless inhabitants. Slaves, ivory and gold
formed the burden of their dread htany ; ex-
Plans for the ploitation continued rampant.
Regenera- -j^g Conscience of England was now gradu-
tion of , ^^ * _
Africa. ally awakening to the wrongs that were being
Buxton! inflicted on Africa. Goverimient had at last
The Opening up of Pagan Africa 43
been roused to action and, with a patrol of
cruisers on the West Coast, was carrjdng out
repressive and punitive measures against the
overseas traffic in slaves. Yet the traffic
went on with fearful volume. Deeply medi-
tating on these things, FjQwell Buxton seized
the idea that " the dehverance of the African
is to be accompHshed through her own re-
sources." He saw that the traffic in slaves
was fettering all commercial prosperity in
Africa, and that if it were to be stopped a
better merchandise must first be found, which
would not impoverish but enrich the land and
show chiefs that it is more profitable to retain
their people for the development of the natural
resources than to sell them off to the slave-
traders. "It is the Bible and the plough,"
he said, " that must regenerate Africa."
Using the new interest that had been created
in the Niger, he issued his proposals for the
formation of a new African Association which
would establish commercial relations with the
African chiefs in whose dominions the slave
traffic was carried on. A model farm was to
be established at the junction of the Niger
and the Benue. Government was to do its
part, commercial companies their part, and the
missionary societies were to evangehse the
natives.
44 The Future of Africa
In 184Q^the Association was formed under
distinguished auspices, Prince Albert presiding
at the great meeting in Exeter Hall. Thus
the crass indifference of the previous centuries
changed to a general and indiscriminating
benevolence, which Dickens wittily satirised in
" Bleak House."
A richly-equipped expedition sailed for
Africa in 1841 in three ships specially built
for the purpose. Scientists, traders, and mis-
sionaries accompanied them. The steamers
entered the Niger and sailed up one or two
hundred miles. Treaties were concluded with
some of the chiefs, and valuable information
was gathered. But disaster soon closed round
them. Fever carried off forty-two white men
in two months. The model farm was started
at Lokoja, but before long the men in charge
had to retire in broken health, and the expedi-
tion ended in disastrous failure. Its name
became a by-word, and Buxton never recovered
from the disappointment.
All tilings have their price, and the regenera-
tion of Africa was not to be cheaply bought.
Too many had fought for her benefits with Httle
thought of the effect on the land itself. Too
many had exploited her resources and her
peoples with no aim but that of self-seeking
and personal enrichment.
The Opening up of Pagan Africa 45
Among those who were ready to risk their (b)
worldly fortune to save the land and make iJrd.'^^^^'^
some reparation for the hideous evils of the
past, we must mention a philanthropic Scots-
man, by name, Macgregor Laird. He had
been seized by the possibilities of the Niger,
and had made many attempts to develop
trade there. All his available capital was
spent in his endeavours, wliich met with
failure after failure. In lS54_Jie sent out a
small steamer, wliich included amongst its
passengers the negro clergyman, Samuel
Crowther, who had also been in the African
Association's expedition. The experiences of
the past were not lost, several precautions
were taken to avoid the disasters which had
met the previous attempt, and as a result the
Httle " Pleiad " sailed up the Niger and Benue,
remaining there for several months without
losing a single member of the crew.
Several invitations were given by native
chiefs to enter the land with the Gospel, and
the Church Missionary Society sought to
respond. The difficulty, however, was to
maintain communication with the outside
world. Mr Laird brought pressure to bear on
the Government, and at last, in 1856^ Lord
Palmerston agreed to send a steamer up the
Niger once a year. With this means of com-
46 The Future of Africa
munication, trading stations and mission
stations were opened. But just as the com-
mercial undertaking was coming in sight of
success, Mr Laird died, and with his death the
progress of civihsation on the Niger wellnigh
collapsed. The consular agent — X)r Blaikie —
still remained, however, at his settlement of
Lokoja, and missionaries established them-
selves near the trading factories. But for
long periods together the Httle colony was cut
off from the outside world.
A number of trading companies now began
to come to the Niger delta. Their competition
was, however, so deadly that the natives were
soon masters of the situation, and goods were
bartered for guns and gin as the most desired
commodities. Commerce then ceased to work
for the regeneration of Africa and began to
make itself felt as a curse. Attempts were
made to revive the philanthropic aims of
Mr Laird, and some larger companies entered
this sphere. But it was not until another
great leader appeared that the trade of the
Niger was purified and extended to the higher
reaches of the river.
Sir George Taubman Goldie first visited the
Niger in 1877, and he instantly saw the evils
that arose from disastrous competition. He
set about amalgamating all the trading firms,
The Opening up of Pagan Africa 47
and buying out the French companies, and at
last was able to float the National African
Company with a capital of £1,000,000. He
then applied for a royal charter, and his
company became the Royal Niger Company
with immense territorial rights. Under the
active administration of this Company vast
regions were thrown open to trade, and the
closure which slave-raiding tribes had put
on all progress was removed by successful
miHtary expeditions which broke their power.
British activity on the Lower Niger greatly Extension of
stimulated the enterprise of the French nation, Activity!^^^
and at this period they were rapidly developing
the country that extended from the Senegal
and Gambia to the upper sources of the
Niger. In the fifties and sixties Paul du
jChaillu. had explored the Gaboon and the
forest regions of equatorial Africa. His
accounts were greatly doubted at the time.
Wonderfully vivid descriptions of the hfe of
man and beast, however, are to be found in
his books, and his scientific collections are
unsurpassed for their richness and for the new
and amazing forms they reveal.
In South Africa the land was being rapidly
opened up, not so much by the vigour and
heroism of one or two explorers, as by the
gradual increase of the population, and various
48 The Future of Africa
political disturbances. Laige companies of
farmers, some of them through discontent
with British rule, others from a restlessness
and land hunger which could not be satisfied
with the occupied tracts of the colony, were
gradually pusliing their way further and
further north. The Orange river and the
Vaal were crossed, and they settled m lands
where fierce tribes had formerly had undis-
turbed possession. Their progress was not
unarrested, and frequently severe fightmg
took place between these restless farmers and
the untamed tribes around them. Tlie early
missionaries were also gradually adding to
the world's knowledge of South Africa. Dr
Moffat explored the whole of Bechuanaland,
and travelled as far north as the wild land
of the Matabele, and his journeys, undertaken
simply from zeal for the Gospel, opened roads
which were never closed again.
David It was reserved, however, for another and
Livingstone, j^^^r comer to make the chief additions to our
geograpliical knowledge of South and Central
Africa. David Livingstone, the greatest figm-e
of modern history in Africa, was born near
Glasgow in 1813, He received an excellent
education, worked for years in cotton miUs
in summer, qualified fully as a medica mis-
sionary, and went out to Africa m 1840, at
The Opening up of Pagan Africa 49
the age of twenty-eight. For the next thirty-
three years he devoted liis whole life and
energies to the service of Africa. He laboured
at several mission stations, and when the
severe toil of starting and preparing was
barely accompUshed, passed on to fresh
ventures, leaving others to enter into the fruit
of his work. He made various journeys of
exploration, each fraught with hardships un-
known to travellers of to-day. Twice he
crossed Africa, from east to west, and then
back again.
There is deathless interest in the story of
the Httle plain Scot, a son of the people,
brought up in a fine native tradition of God-
fearing and hard work, who went out to
Africa, and, unsupported and unknown,
achieved more by his persistence than armies
and nations had hitherto effected. Alone he
set forth to solve the mystery enshrouding
the vast Continent; alone wandered out to
face perils and hardships that stagger creduhty.
In crossing tropical Africa Livingstone accom-
pHshed the greatest geograpliicai feat of
modern times. The story is unmatched in
annals of travel for its splendid courage and
silent heroism. Unwavering Christian faith
bore up Livingstone through all vicissitudes,
and this, coupled with a marvellous enthusiasm
50 The Future of Africa
for his mission, carried him through situations
which would have defeated any other. In
character he was noted for tenacity to his
word, unbaffled endurance and perseverance,
and undying gratitude for any kindness shown
to him or his. He gave his Hfe, his means,
his all, to further the aim he set above all
else, namely, the great work of Hghtening the
darkness enshrouding the millions of Central
Africa.
In every age and country there have never
been wanting exponents of that spirit of pure
devotion to some high cause which triumphs
over all obstacles. Livingstone, imbued with
this wliite heat of missionary fervour, the
missionary spirit in its purest form, wandered
through tribes and courts of native chiefs.
Even the most debased savages recognised
in their dim fashion the strange power of
tliis rough-hewn ragged traveller " whose
method as a missionary and an explorer was
based on rules of unfailing justice, good feeling
and good manners." He passed unscathed
through the kraals and camps of the fiercest
natives, seldom failing to win attachment,
even service from individuals.
Again and again Livingstone experienced
loneHness, discouragement, the awful de-
pression of African fever, the deadly spiritual
The Opening up of Pagan Africa 51
dryness that came from utter isolatioD for
months together, with no companionship save
that of the handful of native porters whose
unenhghtened intelligences were but httle
higher than those of the beasts which they
pursued or from which they fled. Some years
of African experience, however, convinced
Livingstone that before missionary enterprise
in Africa must come geographical exploration.
" The end of the geographical feat is the
beginning of missionary enterprise ; " and, in
pursuance of this he determined on a certain
course. " I will open a path into the interior
or perish ! " he declared, and with this purpose
he set out on those travels which, with brief
intermissions, were to be pursued till death
brought him rest.
In a missionary journey, after toihng for (a) His
two months across the arid waste of the xravds"^
Kalahari desert, he saw Lake 'Ngami. This
discovery was a mere incident in his effort to
reach the Makololo. After three attempts
he finally reached their chief's kraal. In
these journeys he had served his apprentice-
ship in exploration, and was soon out again
pressing into untrodden regions.
The Makololo were hving far north of the
trading routes of South Africa. Between
them and the commercial markets lay the
52 The Future of Africa
dreaded Kalahari desert, on which many a
party of colonials and natives had perished
of thirst, and where Livingstone almost lost
the lives of himself and his family. Living-
stone felt that " no permanent elevation of
a people can be effected "v^athout commerce,"
and he had to face the fact that to the south
there was no outlet for the stores of ivory and
cattle which the Makololo possessed. There
was no inducement to agricultural develop-
ment when the markets were so distant, and
the expense of European goods was so great
that no European could Hve there, at least
on a missionary salary, without descending
to the level of the natives themselves.
He therefore determined to try to find a
route to the markets of the West Coast, and
started with a company of his people for the
unknown lands that lay between liim and the
sea. He felt that God was pushing him out
on a mission which was inseparably linked
to the work of evangehsation, and he wrote :
" I will go, no matter who opposes."
He reached the Zambesi, travelled up its
banks, amazed to find it flowing from so
northerly a direction. He passed through
tribe after tribe, hospitably received among
the pagans who were free, but opposed,
threatened and harassed wherever the slave-
The Opening up of Pagan Africa 53
trader was accustomed to travel. " It may
be a coincidence," he wrote, " but we never
suffered from impudence, loss of property,
or were endangered, xuiless among people
familiar with slaving." This also was the
experience of Mungo Park and other travellers.
At last, out of many dangers, from cHmate,
famine, and inhospitable people, he emerged
at Loanda on the West Coast, in rags and
poverty, liis body worn to a skeleton with
disease. Starting back from the West Coast,
after practically demonstrating to his men
how much more profitable a market for their
ivory could be found on the West Coast, he
returned to the country of the Makololo.
He was not quite satisfied with what he
had found in the west, though he knew that
no other traveller need suffer again as he had
done by his inexperience. So, after a short
stay with the Makololo, he started out again
for the Zambesi, and travelled to the East
Coast. It was on this journey he saw the
marvel of the Victoria Falls. His progress
down the Zambesi was one of great danger.
Time and again he seemed to see death await-
ing him, and the rabid hatred of wliite men
that the Portuguese slave-raiding had created,
caused him frequent peril. At last, in May
1856, he reached Quilimane, nearly four years
54 The Future of Africa
after he left his wife at Cape Town before
starting out on liis journey.
Livingstone combined to a wonderful degree
the labours of a missionary, a physician, an
explorer, a scientist, and a Unguist. Amongst
his chief discoveries were Lakes 'Ngami and
Nyasa, and the Victoria Falls on the Zambesi.
The results of liis journey across Africa were
tremendous for many reasons. He was the
first European to cross Africa, to reveal the
course of the Zambesi and the wonders of
the Victoria Falls, but these things alone did
not make his journey have such profound
effect. It was also the amazing revelation of
the kind of land that existed in Central Africa.
Hitherto men had imagined it to be the
poorest of continents, whose central and
southern regions were httle more than a
great Sahara, a region of sandy deserts mto
which rivers ran and were lost. Durmg
Livingstone's journeys in 1852-6, "it was
found to be a weU-watered country, with
large tracts of fine fertile soil covered with
forest, and beautiful grassy vaUeys, occupied
by a considerable population."
But Livingstone's explorations never ended
in mere geographical information. His ob-
servations were detailed and accurate beyond
most travellers, but his interest was above
,J
A VILLAGE IN CEXTUAL AFHICA
AN Al'lUCAN HUT
The Opening up of Pagan Africa 5 5
all in the future of the natives who inhabited
the lands he saw. Wherever he went, he
opened doors by which others might enter.
His appeal to the students at Cambridge on
liis first visit home echoed through England
and is as poignant to-day as it was half a
century ago. " I go back to Africa to try to
make an open path for commerce and Chris-
tianity ; do you carry out the work which I
have begun ; / leave it with you.^^
He started out again in 1858 for the Zambesi (b) His Later
to extend our knowledge of the resources ofl^"*^"®^^"
Central and East Africa, and to improve our
acquaintance with the native people, with a
view to introducing them to lawful commerce
and Christian missions. During this expedi-
tion he discovered the Shire River, Lake
Chilwa, and Lake Nyasa, effectively opened
up to the world regions which had been
wantonly sealed by the Portuguese, and
eventually caused the closed waterways of
Central Africa to be recognised as highways
free to all nations. But all his discoveries
were overshadowed by the havoc of the slave
trade, for now he saw it at its fountain head,
decimating the population, and turning pros-
perous valleys into desolations, and it was
his revelations of the awful facts of the interior
that roused Europe to check the trade more
$6 The Future of Africa
effectively. Exploring expeditions, the estab-
lishment of European protectorates, and the
pushing forward of legitimate commerce in
Eastern and Central Africa were all results of
those patient journeys and his strong appeals
to overthrow the Arab and Portuguese slavers.
Space does not permit of a detailed descrip-
tion of Livingstone's later journeys. The
story of Stanley's search expedition is familiar
to all. Before it, Livingstone had twice
visited England for short intervals, when he
was loaded with honours and received every-
where as a hero, but his only idea was to rouse
interest and help for the land of his adoption.
This task accomplished, he returned to devote
his remaining years to Africa regardless of the
honourable ease that might justly have been
his at home. Worn out by sickness and
travel, he died in May 1873,.,at Ilala on Lake
Bangweolo, far from home or countrymen,
tended only by faithful native porters,
(c) His Livingstone's gift to Africa is incalculable.
£°Africa!'°" " Fire, water, stone waU, would not stop
Livingstone in the fulfilment of any recognised
duty." He " never turned his back, but
marched breast forward," deaf to the plaudits
of far-away England, bhnd to any allurement
of wealth or fame, striving only for the good
of milHons of fellow creatures who must be
The Opening up of Pagan Africa 57
brought to the Christ Whose humble faithful
follower he was. Livingstone it was whose
hand unlocked the sealed portal of Africa.
He unveiled the hidden interior. He revealed
to what extent the awful evil of the slave
trade was laying the land waste throughout.
Thanks to his efforts Europe was aroused at
last to late effective measures for repressing
this scom'ge. He was the first to draw atten-
tion to Africa's two great plagues : Fever and
the Tsetse Fly. But he did far more. Wliere-
ever he went he spread and left behind him a
gracious influence which made the path easy
for any Eiu-opean who should follow. In his
achievements and all their possibihties for
Africa a marvellous variety of enterprises found
their inspiration. Administrators, mission-
aries, explorers, traders followed in his steps,
and his death consecrated Europe to the
redemption of Africa. The result mainly
attributable to Livingstone's work and in-
fluence may be summed up in a foreigner's
words : "In the nineteenth century the white
has made a man out of the black ; in the
twentieth century, Europe will make a world
out of Africa."
What then was the secret of Livingstone's
wonderful achievement ? He set out, as
we have seen, alone, unsupported by wealth
58
The Future of Africa
Further
Opening up
of East and
Central
Africa.
or worldly influence, with no experience
to guide him, and yet in the space of a
fleeting generation set forces working whose
power and Umits no sage observer would dare
to estimate, whose effects are for all time.
Amongst the various conclusions that may
be drawn one is unquestionable. Living-
stone's attitude towards Africa breathed a
wider and higher spirit than any of his pre-
decessors had reached. He came to give,
not to get, and the measureless bounty
of his spirit left inexhaustible treasures
behind.
Before Livingstone had started on his first
expedition to the Zambesi, two German mis-
sionaries of the Church Missionary Society
had made explorations which had considerable
results for the future of East and Central
Africa. Starting out from their station near
Mombasa, Krapf and Rebmann had under-
taken a missionary tour to the interior, and
had seen the snow-clad mountains of KiHma-
njaro and Kenia. The fact was only incident-
ally mentioned in their missionary reports,
but it attracted wide attention in Europe
and was received with great increduhty and
ridicule. Shortly afterwards Rebmann sent
home a map of the interior, drawn from the
reports of Arab traders, on which was laid down
The Opening up of Pagan Africa 59
a great sea, " like a monster slug," in the heart
of Africa. When the map was- exhibited in
the Geographical Society's rooms, it excited a
pecuhar interest and in 1856 Speke and Burton
were dispatched to investigate and discover
this reported inland sea. The missionaries
were now the means of tm^ning the whole tide
of exploration, for they had demonstrated that
the interior of the continent was more acces-
sible from the east coast than from the west,
and now all the greatest expeditions started
from the east. Other explorers followed the
missionaries. First, Speke and Burton, who
discovered Tanganyika and the southern end
of Victoria Nyanza. Speke again returned to
explore the Nile with Grant. Meanwhile ^ir
Samuel and Lady Baker exploring on their
own account discovered the Albert Nyanza
and solved the last of Africa's ancient geo-
graphical problems, the sources of the Nile.
Finally came H. M. Stanley, whose journey h. m.
to Central Africa bore extraordinary fruit in ^^"^y-
the opening up of the continent. As we have
seen, his previous visit to Africa rescued
Livingstone, and now again we find liim in the
heart of Africa. He started from Mombasa,
and in April 1875 arrived in Uganda. He
spent a long time at the court of Mtesa, whom
he found grown into a steady and thoughtful
6o The Future of Africa
man, very different from the vain youth whom
Speke and Grant had visited. He had em-
braced Islam, but Stanley told him that there
was a far higher religion, and taught him the
Christian truths. This incident prompted
Stanley's famous latter to the Daily Telegraph,
challenging Christendom to send a mission to
Uganda. The challenge was accepted by the
Church Missionary Society and the following
year the first missionary party was dispatched.
Before the committee of the Church Missionary
Society finally resolved to open the mission,
they were warned by men of experience in
African affairs, that while Stanley might
succeed in making a journey overland of a
thousand miles to Uganda, others might find
it an impossible task, and that after getting
the missionaries there, the difficulty would be
to maintain Hues of communication with them.
Physically the route presented great dangers,
and there were wild tribes, such as the Masai,
who would seek to close the path, and put the
caravans in grave danger of being extermin-
ated. The risks, however, were taken, and
missionaries were sent. In after years, when
all communication with the interior was cut
off, and when the deaths of the missionaries,
and the unsettled condition of the country
seemed to make the maintenance of the mission
The Opening up of Pagan Africa 6i
impossible, grave fears were entertained that
Uganda would require to be abandoned, yet
the story of this centre is a red-letter page in
the annals of African missions. The names of
Alexander IMackay and Bishop Hannington
rank with that of Livingstone in the list of
those who have given their hves for the peoples
of Africa.
Stanley left Victoria Nyanza in 1876 and
travelled to Tanganyika, circumnavigating
the lake and thoroughly exploring its coast
hne. Immediately thereafter the London
Mssionary Society accepted the offer of Mr
Arthingion of Leeds, of £5000 towards the
purchase of a steamer and the estabHsh-
ment of a mission station somewhere on the
shores of Lake Tanganyika, and from that
date the tribes around the lake, which Burton
had first seen in 1857, came into ever-increas-
ing touch with the commerce of Europe
and the messengers of the Christian Church.
Leaving Tanganyika, Stanley struck the
waters of the Congo in 1877, and floating down
this mighty river for a thousand miles until
he came to the Cataracts, he opened up an
enormous territory which no white man had
ever seen before, to which access was easily
obtained by navigable waterways of fourteen
thousand miles. The immediate result of
62 The Future of Africa
Stanley's discovery was the establishment of
the Congo Mission by the Baptist Missionary
Society, who were greatly helped to this step
by Mr Arthington, the friend of pioneer
missions. Next followed the foundation of
the Congo Free State, when King Leopold of
Belgium, whose imagination had been fired
by Stanley's exploits, employed the great
traveller as liis emissary in founding this
state. Thus administration and trade were
initiated in the Congo Free State.
The Opened Thus inch by inch we have seen how Africa
Continent. -i i c r^^ • ,'
was at last unveiled to the eyes oi Christian
Europe. The agents whose efforts led to
this opening of the great unknown continent
have been numerous, their motives varied,
the results that followed sometimes gigantic,
sometimes scarcely discernible. In the end,
when the fulness of time had come and the
Church at home opened her ears to the call and
her heart to pity ; when nations had learnt to
some extent to lead them to sometliing liigher
and not to exploit them to their hurt, then
and then only did God allow the revelation
of the continent. So many different agencies
contributed to this end, but in each case
where progress was effected it was through
the spirit in which Livingstone and his like,
before and since, have wrought.
FISHERS ON LAKE NVASA
AFRICAN BOYS AT PLAY
The Opening up of Pagan Africa 6^,
Missionary followers of Livingstone have
helped. Commercial companies which worked
for something more than financial dividends,
and others which sought for nothing more
than money, no matter at what cost it was
got, have helped. Hunters, Hke Oswell and
Selous, who wandered far, afraid of neither
man nor beast, and whose safety lay in their
kindhness and courage both in hunting and
their relations with the wild tribes to whom
they trusted themselves, they also helped.
Governments hungry for expansion and the
glory of further possession, and governments
pestered by philanthropic people into pro-
tective action towards down-trodden tribes,
helped. At last, in spite of the exclusiveness
of chiefs who hated the stranger, and slave-
traders and Mohammedans who saw in Europe
the deadly enemy of their trade and power, the
barriers have been thrown down, and a great
continent, with perhaps one hundred and
twenty-five miUions of pagan people, stands
revealed. Africa's long, long night has at
last ended.
CHAPTER III
THE HAND OF EUROPE IN AFRICA
ANALYTICAL INDEX
Europe and Africa.
The Slave Trade.
(a) American Slave Trade.
(b) Movement for Abolition.
(c) Slave Trade on the East Coast and in Central
Africa.
(d) Modern Slavery.
European Colonisation.
(a) Portugal.
(b) Great Britain.
(1) West Coast.
(2) South Africa.
(3) East and Central Africa.
(c) Belgium and the Congo.
(d) France.
(e) Germany.
(J') The " Scramble for Africa."
Results of European Colonisation.
(a) Good Government.
(b) Commerce.
(c) Liquor Traffic.
(d) Attitude to Labour.
(e) Suppression of Barbarities.
Conclusion.
Europe and FoR the European the story of Africa holds
Africa. f^j. more significance than the story merely of
64
The Hand of Europe in Africa 65
travellers and explorers. For good or for evil
the Africa of to-day is bound to Europe by a
political relationship such as the early dis-
coverers never contemplated. The first Euro-
pean adventurer who set foot on African soil
welded the first Unk in the momentous chain
of circumstance, which has extended, Hnk by
Unk, till the greater part of the Continent,
north and south, east and west, is now joined
to the main body of advancing civihsation.
From the adventures of the early discoverers
of Africa has sprung a tremendous connec-
tion between Africa and Europe, which has
grown and expanded with each generation.
To-day Africa no longer stands alone and
isolated, but her fate is bound to Europe by
countless indissoluble ties. Nor is this a sudden
development. On the contrary, it is simply
the " natural and inevitable result of forces
that have been accumulating and growing
in intensity over a long period of time."
What, we may ask, has led to the position
Africa now occupies in the pohtical and
moral spheres of this twentieth century
world.
For many long years the main retarding The Slave
factor in the development of Africa was that ^^ *'
terrible stain upon her annals, the slave trade.
In a book of this sort limitations of space com-
66 The Future of Africa
pel one only to touch broadly on the main
features and divisions of a subject so huge in
scope. EarHer chapters mention how Henry
of Portugal's fine schemes of discovery and
heroic enterprise were stopped by his followers
becoming slave - traders. Portugal rapidly
became involved in this deadly trade, and
it is sad to find how this traffic was even
condoned by Christian and philanthropic
excuses,
(a) American Spain caught the infection in the person of
ave ra e. j^^^ Casas, the Dominican, known to fame as
the " Apostle of the Indies." In his zeal for the
enslaved Indians of the New World discovered
by his father's great shipmate Columbus, Las
Casas sacrificed the Africans, deeming them
the hardier race, more fitted for the toil that
was crushing the Indians out of existence.
He Hved bitterly to rue this cruel mistake.
Owing to his instigations the scheme of im-
porting Africans to America was put into
force. It was opposed by the Pope and the
powerful Cardinal Ximenes on grounds of
humanity, but the Emperor Charles V. sanc-
tioned it, and granted a Hcence to one of his
favourites to import the hapless Africans. AU
too soon the evils of this importation became
notorious. Las Casas, stricken with horror,
cried out in his old age : " The slavery of black
The Hand of Europe in Africa 67
men is as iniquitous as that of red men, and
I fear the wrath of Divine justice." But no
repentance could stem the tide of evil which
had been set flowing. From Spain the taint
spread to the shores of Britain. Soon England,
with the energy that distinguished her in all
enterprise for good or evil, was in the thick of
the traffic, which increased in volume year by
year. Sir John Hawkins, one of the famous
Devon sailors of Ehzabethan days, cousin of
Francis Drake, is supposed to have initiated
England to the disgi'aceful commerce. When
he returned from his first voyage Queen
EHzabeth expressed her disapproval of his
forcibly carrying off Africans, and declared that
" such an act would be detestable, and call
down the vengeance of Heaven." But the
price he got for slaves in St Domingo was too
great a temptation for his loyalty. By burning
towns along the coast, and helping one tribe
to make war upon another, he collected his
captives. When Hawkins sailed to Africa for
the third time in 1567, he went, in fact, though
not technically, on a national venture. From
this day onward, Britain's share in the slave
trade grew greater and greater. A hundred
years after this we find Charles II. and liis
brother James chartering a company to supply
the West Indies with thirty thousand slaves
68 The Future of Africa
annually. Britain, a little later, secured the
sole monopoly of supplying the Spanish West
Indies with slaves. By the beginning of the
eighteenth century slavers left Liverpool,
Bristol, and Plymouth to the number of one
hundi-ed and ninety-two ships annually, all
bound for Africa, all destined to carry a
suffering human load of captives. During
the hundred years between Charles II.'s reign
and that of George III. over two milHon slaves
were imported into the Enghsh-American
Colonies alone ! Where did they all come
from ? From the shores of the Gambia and
other rivers southwards of Sierra Leone,
from the deltas of the Niger and the Congo.
Thus arose that class of traders known as the
" Oil River Ruffians," who formed a great
trade at the mouth of those rivers for guns,
ammunition, and gin, exchanging these com-
modities for slaves. Indescribable horrors
arose from this vile traffic. Terrible was the
flow of tears and blood that resulted from this
enslavement of milhons of innocent men,
women, and children. Whole tribes and
villages were rapidly disappearing before the
slave raids. Peaceable and prosperous com-
munities were degraded to the destitute con-
dition of the wild beasts of the forest. Gardens
were uncultivated, and not a tree was planted,
The Hand of Europe in Africa 69
for there was no security of life or property.
Old Calabar, where commerce has been going
on for tlu'ee hundred years, was declared by
Laird, the commercial pioneer of Nigeria, to
be the most unciviUsed part of Africa he had
seen.
The slave trade seemed to rouse the most
cruel instincts in men. The brutal treatment
which the chained slaves received from their
masters as they passed to the coast beggars
description. Nor were their miseries over,
for there still remained the horrors of the sea
passage. Tliese were so great that scarcely
one-tliird of those who embarked at the African
coast arrived on the other side of the ocean.
All that is best and bravest in humanity
revolts at the record of cruelty and barbarism
in which all connected with the slave trade
were more or less impHcated. Mothers were
torn from their httle ones ; strong young men
from aged parents. Regardless of all feeUng
and decency these poor slaves were driven
from their country hke sheep to the shambles.
Any means were used to press them into the
ranks of this sad procession. To what end ?
In order to add to the wealth and luxury of
British sugar planters in the Indies, of cotton
growers in South America. It is terrible to
reflect that the fortunes accumulated by white
70 The Future of Africa
people of those days were literally coined from
the flesh and blood of the wretched enslaved
blacks. That this " sum of all villainies "
should be tolerated by Europe, is an index
to the undeveloped conscience of the Christian
nations of these days.
(b) Move- Yet there were always enhghtened men who
ment for i i i • • i i
Abolition, regarded the whole busmess with detestation,
and during the whole of the eighteenth century
an agitation was on foot for the abohtion of
slavery, which gradually grew in influence and
volume, until at the close of the century some
of the foremost men in England were identified
with the movement. A great step was taken
as the result of the efforts of Granville Sharp,
who contested a lawsuit in defence of a slave.
He lost his suit in the first instance, but was
eventually the means of procuring Lord
Mansfield's famous judgment in 1772, pro-
nounced on behalf of the whole Bench, which
declared a slave free directly he set foot in
England. In 1785 the Vice-Chancellor of
Cambridge instigated a prize essay against
slavery, which was won by Clarkson. Adam
Smith, Dr Johnson, and many others added
the weight of censure against the trade.
In 1787 a committee was formed for the
abohtion of slavery, amongst whose members
were : Josiah Wedgewood, of china fame ;
3 G
The Hand of Europe in Africa 71
Johnson's friend, Bennet Langton; Henry
..Broughanij and many other notable persons.
Bui'ke employed his eloquence to inveigh
against it both in and out of the House.
Finally, Pitt, the Prime Mnister, took the
matter up, thanks partly to the urging of his
friend WilUam Wilberforce, who became known
as " the authorised interpreter of the national
conscience " on the slave trade. For seven-
teen years this man devoted his energies tire-
lessly to forwarding this cause. In pubHc
and in private, he pleaded for the poor slaves.
There is a touch of romance in the tale of how,
moved by indignation and reflection, Wilber-
force one summer's day, under an old oak tree
at Hollwood (a tablet marks the tree to this
day), Pitt's country seat, formed the resolution
to bring the matter before ParHament. Again
and again he and his supporters, despite his
great eloquence and immense personal popu-
larity, were defeated. The " most rehgious
and wittiest man in England " had almost
despaired of winning his cause, when the tide
at last turned, and in 1807 the Abolition Bill
was passed. It must be remembered, despite
the support of Pitt and others, Wilberforce had
to contend against practically the whole com-
mercial body, and men of influence and stand-
ing in every great port in England, men whose
72 The Future of Africa
fortunes in many cases were directly or
indirectly connected with the slave trade.
A month after Wilberforce's death, in 1833,
the Slavery Emancipation Bill was passed, and
from that day forward reform crept on.
International action against the traffic had
also begun to advance. Denmark was the
first to lead the way, America and then Britain
followed. Finally, in 1817, by international
treaty, slavers were declared to be pirates, and
British cruisers were given the right to search
all slave ships and set free the captives. But
no punishment was inflicted on the captains of
the ships, and shipowners found it profitable
to insure their cargoes, for a single slave
landed in Brazil fetched £50. At length only
two nations still held out, viz. Spain and
Portugal. But Britain, whose hands had been
more deeply stained with the traffic than any
other nation, bribed Spain in J 820 with
£400,000, and Portugal in 1836 with £300,000,
to prohibit their subjects from exporting
African slaves. The statesmen who accepted
the money may have been honestly desirous
of checking the evil, but their efforts were
practically frustrated. In 1858 it was cal-
culated that a thousand slaves a day were
landed in Cuba or Brazil, many of this
number, however, succumbing to the hard-
The Hand of Europe in Africa 73
ships of the journey either to the African
coast or on the voyage itself. The American
and Portuguese trader who ventured to run
the risk of British cruisers, and successfully
landed his slaves on the other side of the
Atlantic, realised a profit of a hundred and
fifty or two hundred per cent. So futile did
the patrol system appear to be that agitations
were constantly arising in Britain to stop so
expensive a pohcy as an almost useless expendi-
ture of money. In 1849-50 there was a great
revival of the slave traffic owing to the intro-
duction of free trade, and especially the aboli-
tion of duties on sugar. The cultivation of
sugar greatly revived in Brazil and Cuba,
consequently the demand for slaves was
raised, and it was not till the aboHtion of
slavery in Brazil in 1888 that the Atlantic
traffic finally ceased. By this stoppage Africa
was saved, for immediately legitimate com-
merce began to revive along the West Coast,
and in a few years it rose from an annual
total of £20,000 in ivory and gold dust, to
between two and three milhon pounds.
Meanwhile on the East Coast, as in West (c) Slave
Africa, the scourge of slavery had decimated iSt Coast"^
the land. Here the traffic was prosecuted ^^^ ^" ^^"■
by the Arabs and Portuguese. Livingstone's
record of his travels in the Zambesi region
74 The Future of Africa
is an appalling record of burning villages,
blotted - out communities, and dead bodies
floating on the river so thickly that in the
morning they had to clear the steamer's
paddle-wheels of corpses which the gorged
crocodiles could not eat. Such scenes as
these made him use all the influence he
had to stop Portuguese slaving. Pressure
from London caused the Lisbon authorities
to send instructions to the governors and
officials in Portuguese colonies to withdraw
from all association with this trade. Lisbon
might legislate, and their orders be acknow-
ledged, yet it was not convenient to obey,
for every governor and official was deep in
the traffic. It was the only way they could
earn money to support themselves. Living-
stone's denunciations naturally drew forth the
ill-will of the Portuguese against himself, but
the misdeeds of their colonies became so pubHc
that they were soon compelled to cease any
open connection with slavery. The Sultan of
Zanzibar, however, still remained the greatest
sinner. In the early seventies of last century
not less than nineteen thousand slaves from
Nyasaland alone passed through the custom-
house at Zanzibar. " And," said Livingstone,
" not one-fifth of the victims of the slave trade
ever become slaves or taking the average of
The Hand of Europe in Africa 75
the Shire Valley, not one-tenth arrive at their
destination." For besides those who passed
through the custom-house " thousands are
killed or die of wounds and famine. Thousands
perish in internecine war, waged for slaves
with their own kinsmen and neighbours. The
many skeletons we have seen among rocks and
woods, by the little pools and along the paths
of the wilderness, attest the awful sacrifice of
human hfe which must be attributed directly
or indirectly to this trade of hell." At last,
in 1872, Britain sent out Sir Bartle Frere
to attempt a treaty with the Sultan of
Zanzibar to stop the overseas traffic. The
Sultan at first refused to sign, but a fleet of
British, French, and American gunboats
appeared off Zanzibar, and then he yielded.
This treaty prohibited the carrying of slaves
by sea, but did not affect the domestic slavery
of Zanzibar, nor did it stop the sea-traffic.
Dhows still managed to elude the cruisers, and
a ready market was found for slaves in Arabia,
and by the Persian Gulf, as well as within the
Mohammedan domains of the Sultan.
It is only with the advent of this century
that the traffic has really ceased. If this
iniquity was first started by independent
European adventurers, who acted at fir&t
without Government sanction, but afterwards
7^ The Future of Africa
under special charters from their Government,
the time at last came when the national
conscience of Europe awoke, and refused to
allow itself to be identified any longer with so
nefarious an exploitation. Then, when the
evil instead of decreasing became too profit-
able, and continued to work havoc on the
Continent, the Governments began to take
official action for the suppression of the trade,
and finding that cruising in the waters of the
coast was not effectual, they entered the
Continent, and began to administer large
areas. It was from this desire to undo the
wrongs of Africa that a good many of the
protectorates were founded, and colonisation
was developed. The European protectorates'
action proved the most elective means that
have as yet been used. Germany carried on
active operations in the east, burning down
centres of the trade and scattering the leaders.
Britain worked from north and south, until
at last the main body of the traffic was crushed.
The estabHshment of European protectorates
has thus in some ways been one of the greatest
philanthropic achievements of the nineteenth
century.
(d) Modern But the traffic in human beings is not
Slavery. ^^^ extinguished. Caravans of slaves are
still conveyed from the interior of the
The Hand of Europe in Africa tj
Continent to the West and North coasts. So
long as there is a demand for slaves a supply
will be found. In the hinterland of the pro-
tectorates of the West Coast, especially in
Northern Nigeria, where European power has
not yet penetrated, slaving for human sacrifice,
for domestic use, and for the markets of North
Africa still goes on. Slave dhows still carry
on a trade in the Red Sea despite the presence
of three or four gunboats. Slaves are still
carried to TripoU from Darfur and Wadai in
the Sudan. Slave caravans move along the
Shari River between West Africa, Central
Africa, and Mecca. Slaves are still sought in
Angola with the tacit consent of the Portuguese
colonisers.
It is a rehef to turn from this sad chapter European
in Africa's history to the brighter pages telling
of colonial enterprise. Africa's emergence
into the light of civilisation is one of the
most vivid episodes in the great world-
story. Europe it was who first led on
this path of development. The relation-
ship of Africa and Europe was no mere com-
mercial or even philanthropic one, though
both were revealed in the slave trade and the
movement for its aboHtion, but the connec-
tion had gradually merged into the larger
sphere of political expansion. Europe had
78 The Future of Africa
sent her sons to Africa, impelled thither by the
age-old land hunger, which has attracted
human beings since the days of Lot and Noah.
Africa had become the land of the white
settler. Not merely lust for gold, or en-
deavours to right the evils which forerunners
had wrought on this adopted country, but the
desire to make a new home there brought
shoals of colonists.
(a) Portugal. Colonisation in Africa started in mediaeval
days, when Portugal, the earhest and greatest
coloniser prior to modern times, planted the
flag and the cross on Africa's bays and head-
lands east and west. At various points along
the West Coast she erected forts and opened
trade, but the record of her three centuries of
occupation is that of failure. It is a story of
continued native rebellions and massacres,
resulting finally in the ignominious retreat of
the Europeans. On the East Coast matters
were Httle better. Here the Portuguese had
to contend against Arabs as well as natives.
The prevailing gold lust seized on the colonisers.
Rapid degeneration ensued owing to various
causes, such as luxxu-y, prevalence of slaving,
fever, and all the drawbacks of residence in a
foreign country removed from the restraints
of European civihsation. Official corruption
and the imposition of heavy taxes on coffee-
The Hand of Europe in Africa 79
growing and other industries strangled trade.
Till mtliin recent date owing to these causes
the natives within Portuguese territory were
the poorest and most degraded of any pro-
tectorate.
Although Portuguese rule was so ineffective
it has left great results in Africa, especially by
the introduction of many plants which have
become the staple food of the natives and
Europeans over a great part of the Continent.
It was they who introduced the orange, the
lemon, and the hme. From Brazil they
brought the Chilli pepper, maize (now grown
over all Africa, even where the European has
neither been seen or heard of), tobacco, the
pine-apple, tomato, sweet potato, and many
other vegetables. Take away from the
African's food all that the Portuguese have
introduced and he would be left very poorly
supphed with the necessaries of hfe.
Hard on the heels of Portugal followed (b) Great
Britain. Nowadays colonists from this (")west
country are accompanied by all the panoply Coast,
of civil and military authority. In those days
of Ehzabeth and the Stuarts, much bold
pioneering was done by private enterprise.
Adventurers and merchants sailed over the
Atlantic, and crept round the West Coast,
landing again and again, planting their gallant
8o The Future of Africa
sparse little settlements, retm-ning to Britain
for further supplies of men and merchandise,
slowly broadening and founding these stations.
Thus arose the colonies, so familiar on the map,
Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, Nigeria,
stretching downwards and southwards to
Cape Colony, a veritable Britain beyond the
seas. The development of these colonies
varied, but in the main, the record is one of
order and progress slowly evolving from bar-
barism and chaos. To the average man the
words " West Coast " represent a dim picture
of natives, shining sands and rivers sparkhng
under pitiless sun, swarming with crocodiles.
One's imagination runs riot in a confusion of
gold dust, ivory, cannibals, torrid skies and a
dim pageant of fetichism and jujus. These
isolated details all belong to the reaUty, but
British colonisation has added much to the
picture. The colony of Gambia flourished at
first by the slave trade. The rivers of Senegal
and Gambia, forming the principal route to the
Upper Niger, provided the main body of slaves.
When the trade was abohshed the colony fell
on evil days. Since 1843 its legitimate trade
has considerably revived, and although there is
but a sinall population of 100,000 the total
value of the imports and exports now reaches
over a quarter of a million pounds.
The Hand of Europe in Africa 8i
Sierra Leone, on the contrary, owed its
foundation and development mainly to the
aboHtion of slavery. English philanthropists
started a settlement here for emancipated
slaves. At first, the riot and demoraHsa-
tion of the young colony was notorious,
but missionary societies set zealously to work
and the Crown took over the administra-
tion. Despite the difficulties of missionaries
faced with a welter of innumerable dialects,
a fearsome climate, and general moral dis-
order, the colony has gradually risen to a
state of considerable prosperity. Very much
land yet remains to be possessed, in every
sense, but the outlook is hopeful.
The Gold Coast was a region of similar
drawbacks, harassed in addition by continual
wars with the interior tribes. Yet its com-
mercial prosperity is now out of all proportion
in advance of the other colonies.
Nigeria is a familiar household word to
British readers. In the past, two great evils
prevailed, leaving a deadly trail. First and
greatest, the slave trade; second, the palm
oil trade, which was promoted through the dis-
astrous currency of gin. At the present day
Nigeria is a great colony directly under British
administration, enjoying its benefits, develop-
ing under its fostering care. Wheat and tares
82 The Future of Africa
have flourished side by side here as elsewhere,
and until the importation of gin is suppressed,
no real advancement in the arts and comforts
of civilisation can take place.
In passing to Cape Colony we come to a
country whose soil teems with interest for
every British patriot. Names are written in
her deathless record aHve with interest to
every lover of the land. Great soldiers, able
administrators, intrepid explorers, eager
scientists, uniformed and plain clothes soldiers
of the Cross, of every order and degree, each
and all have added their quota to the develop-
ment of that dearly-bought, hardly-held
country. There is a quiet grave in the lonely
Matoppo Hills under that benign sky, a modern
Mecca to EngHsh-speaking travellers to-day,
where Cecil Rhodes, the Bismarck of African
annals, sleeps his long sleep, unheeding the
threads his fingers set aweaving in the broad
loom of empire that widens on and on, con-
trolled by invisible Destiny.
When the Cape Colony passed under British
rule the population consisted of about 26,000
Europeans, with 30,000 Malay and native
slaves, and about 200,000 Kaffirs, Hottentots,
and Bushmen. One of the first benefits of
British administration was seen in the efforts
made to keep back the tide of the Kafi&r
The Hand of Europe in Africa 83
invasions, for the Bantu races were at this
time steadily flowing over the southern part
of the Continent, driving the Bushmen and
Hottentots before them. The first of the long
series of Kaffir wars took place in 1809, and
during the next three-quarters of a century
these broke out again and again, arising
partly from the restlessness of the fighting
tribes, and partly from the advance of colonists
into lands to which the natives considered they
had ancestral rights.
In 1838 the passing of an Act freed all the
slaves in South Africa. The Abohtion of
Slavery Bill passed thirty years before, had not
affected the holding of slaves in the British
Colonies, and this new enactment led to great
discontent on the part of the Dutch Colonists,
who were dissatisfied with the amount
Government paid in compensation to slave-
holders. This led to the famous " Boer
Trek " when they withdrew in a body from
Cape Colony to cross the Orange River and
West Vaal, and founded their new repubhcs
beyond these streams. The history of South
Africa for the next generation speaks chiefly
of the plough. The settlers then were mainly
farmers, whose days passed cliiefly in contest
with the soil and with African droughts and
cattle disease, and in contention with the
84 The Future of Africa
natives who were continually raising disputes
to prove encroachments on their rights. Then
came a fresh impulse to colonisation, when, in
1870, diamonds were found at Kimberley
and wliite settlers flocked to the Colony. Men
no longer regarded South Africa as a vast farm
country, but with increasing eagerness they
crowded to besiege a hidden treasure house.
From tliis time the presence and trade of
Europeans greatly advanced, and the natives
began to feel the pressure of an ever- advancing
civihsation, which demanded large tracts of
land, and an ever-increasing labour supply for
the maintenance of its interests.
Slowly yet surely, civihsation spread her
subtle ramifications north and south, east and
west, covering the country with a network of
townships, homesteads, railways, mining plant,
diamond factories. The old order was chang-
ing, giving place to the new with its hydra-
headed phases of domestic, civil, commercial,
and administrative development. Expansion
everywhere ; everywhere the waste was being
planted.
(3) East and Elsewhere in Africa this history was repeat-
Central j^„ itself. Thanks to the initiative of mis-
sionary societies Nyasaland was formed mto a
British protectorate. In 1878, the Sultan,
impressed by Britain's victory and power in
The Hand of Europe in Africa 85
the suppression of slaving, effected a cession
of all his mainland territory opposite Zanzibar.
Thus in due course British East Africa was
formed and added to the chain of protectorates
this country was founding in Africa. After
much initial difficulty it was felt that the
administration of so great a territory which
yielded so little return was becoming too costly.
It was feared that the country must be allowed
to lapse to its former uncontrolled condition.
Then the ChiKch Missionary Society entered
the field and took up the cudgels so ably on
behalf of East Africa that the British Govern-
ment felt compelled to shoulder the burden
and " see it through."
From East Africa one's eyes travel across (c) Belgium
the map to a region whose name is notori- congo.
ous. Stanley httle dreamt when he set forth to
lay the foundations of the Congo Free State,
that its name would one day be bruited across
Europe as a synonym for the worst forms of
exploitation and atrocity. The story had
such a good beginning. Every reader who has
heard the name, knows how the great traveller
went out primed with the highest hopes and
most philanthropic aims, the accredited repre-
sentative of an international European Com-
mittee, headed by the King of the Belgians.
Stanley went out to open a new era of pros-
86 The Future of Africa
perity and development for the Congo Free
State in which Britain was to play the chief
part of administration. Stanley laboured to
estabhsh relations between traders and the
native chiefs, to form possible openings and
helps to those pioneers of progress, the mis-
sionaries. In 1885, the Congo Free State was
recognised by all leading European powers.
Stanley retired, feehng the task fairly started,
leaving it to be carried out by English hands.
Gradually, however, the international char-
acter of the state declined. The British,
French, Portuguese, and German officials were
replaced by Belgians. Several severe re-
belHons broke out in the Upper Congo, and the
Belgian outposts were destroyed. In 1892,
a notable campaign was fought against the
Arabs and rebelhous natives, which led to
the expulsion from the Congo of the Arab
leaders. Before this time all the indigenous
products, such as ivory and rubber, had become
state monopohes. This crippled the inde-
pendent traders and consequently all com-
merce was soon in the hands of the State.
Then large tracts of country, with complete
rights over the native produce and stock, and
even over the hves of the natives, were con-
ceded to companies, a goodly number of whose
shares were held by the state. Gradually
The Hand of Europe in Africa 87
stories began to leak out of atrocities com-
mitted by these monopolists in the prosecution
of their trade. It was said that, in order to
increase the supply of rubber, hands were cut
off from those who did not bring in a sufficient
supply ; that entire villages were extermin-
ated, and that the poHce employed were
cannibals, not yet disciphned out of their
savage habits, and that they were allowed,
without hindrance, to devour the bodies of
those slain in war. These charges were sub-
stantiated by a commission of inquiry, and
by several independent British observers.
Europe, roused to horror as these terrible
stories of cruelty multipHed, was stirred to
consider reform. Year by year the agitation
grew in volume, and year by year dreadful
details of the exploitation of the hapless
Congo natives increased. Yet the outcry
availed but little to lessen the iniquitous state
of things, and the Congo butchers continued
to take their toll of countless hves. One of
the worst examples of such murders is that of
the King of Katanga, a notorious slave-trader,
whose country had been occupied for some
time by the Garenganze mission. Finding that
several expeditions desired to gain conces-
sions from him, the King applied to Britain
to establish a protectorate. Before his letter
88 The Future of Africa
however, reached the authorities an emissary
from Belgium, one Captain Stairs, arrived to
demand Katanga on behalf of Belgium. When
the King of Katanga refused to cede his
country Captain Stairs summarily shot him
and annexed the rich mineral land of Katanga
to Belgium. It is impossible, owing to hmita-
tions of space, to cite individual instances of
atrocities, but so numerous did these become,
that the Congo Reform Association at last com-
pelled Britain to interfere. Matters improved
sHghtly for a time, but chiefly on the surface ;
underneath it the tide of cruelty flowed on.
The advent of this century and the death of
King Leopold, whose name will go down to
infamy in African annals, promise better
things for the Congo, but the country is terribly
distant, and the tide turns but slowly. It
will be long before this open sore heals, and
it will leave an indelible scar. At present
more humane rule is bound to reflect on
Belgian action in her colony, but there can
be no sure cure till the concessionary com-
panies are sifted or compelled to alter their
retrogade standard of commercial methods.
The French contact with the West Coast
dates very far back. Traders and explorers
were busy in the regions of the Senegal as far
back as the sixteenth century, and founded
The Hand of Europe in Africa 89
several settlements. Most of the French posses-
sions were lost, regained, and lost again during
the Napoleonic wars. But after peace was
restored they were given back to France. In
the time of the Second Empire some attempts
at expansion were made, but it was not until
the recent revival of interest in Africa that
France became ambitious. From the Ivory
Coast she extended inland, and did great
service by subduing Dahomey, a country which
won an unenviable reputation for blood-
thirstiness, and which had successfully defied
British and Portuguese attempts to conquer it
from the coast inland. From the Senegal
she advanced to the Upper Niger, and by a
bold campaign, in which she suffered severe
losses, she conquered Timbuctoo, broke the
power of the natives, and then descended the
Niger, opening up a populous and rich land
which connected her northern with her southern
dominions. France is also making consider-
able headway in her administration of French
Congo. Madagascar first came into French
possession in the seventeenth century. Her
occupation of the island has been a history of
ups and downs, and ins and outs, but at last
she is once more firmly estabhshed. Her
retrograde policy in commerce and rehgion,
however, has alienated the sympathy of
go The Future of Africa
Europe with France's efforts to civilise
Madagascar.
) Germany. In the early eighties Germany entered the
field of African colonisation. At this time there
was an awakening in Germany, a new spirit, a
desire for colonies beyond the seas which woiild
provide a market for her growing industries,
and a home for the vigorous population. The
j&rst effort at settlement was in Damaraland
and Namaqualand, in South- West Africa. The
natives there, however, were unruly and the
hves of Europeans were frequently in danger.
Britain, who already occupied Walfisch Bay,
on the East Coast, was requested to occupy and
administer the whole of the surrounding unruly
territory, but the British Colonial Office were
unwilhng to increase their immense colonial
1 esponsibilities. Germany, on being appealed
to, instantly stepped in and annexed the
whole territory. At the same time she took
over the Cameroons and proclaimed her pro-
tectorate over a great tract of country
adjacent to Zanzibar. In East Africa the
German pioneers were commercial companies,
the chief of which was called the German
East African Association. They were not well
led, and the Germans had not yet learned
the art of dealing with savage peoples.
The result was that severe distm^bances were
The Hand of Europe in Africa 91
fomented by the Arabs and Swahili, and in a
few months the Germans held few posts in the
interior. The Government now took up the
reins, and sent out Major von Wissmann, who
succeeded in quelling the rebelHons. He
proceeded to organise the administration of his
great province, and now, as German officials
are gradually learning the art of dealing with
subject races, the protectorate is approaching
some prosperity, and considerable agricultural
markets are being developed.
In the Cameroons and German South- West
Africa the occupation has been a story of revolts
and punitive expeditions. The Germans are
not born colonial administrators and have had
to learn several lessons, but peace and trade
are now increasing in their African possessions.
Before Germany started her attempts at (f ) The
colonisation, colonial expansion had followed for Afrka."
a more or less even course of slow, uneager
advancement. Britain had been quietly
occupying her colonies and most unwilHngly
extending where she was actually forced to,
and delaying where there was no pressure.
Portugal was asleep in the dilapidated forts
which still stood at the ancient points of her
colonisation. France and Belgium seemed to
be content with their share.
The sudden action of Germany in annexing
92 The Future of Africa
territory, however, startled the other Powers
into activity, and there ensued the famous
scramble for Africa, which resulted in a
series of conferences and boundary commis-
sions, which are now completing the work
of exactly dehmiting the spheres of influence
of each Power in Africa. These spheres of
influence divide out eighty per cent, of the
inhabitants of Africa and affect the entire
pagan population. The claims of the Powers,
which were readjusted at the British Conference
of 1884-5, were founded on the following :
Prior occupation, exploration, missionary effort
and contiguity of territory. France's share
was three millions of square miles, with a
population of twenty-seven millions. Her
share is the greatest in area, but not in wealth
or possibilities. Britain received as her portion
two and a quarter millions square miles.
Belgium a Httle under nine hundred thousand
square miles, all situated in the Congo Basin,
and containing an estimated population of
sixteen miUion souls. Germany got a huge
sUce of land, a great part of which is unfit for
human habitation. Her area is over eight
thousand hundred square miles, but only about
six milHon people live within her sphere.
Portugal, Italy, and Spain have together about
one and a half million square miles, and a
The Hand of Europe in Africa 93
population about equal to that of Germany's
possessions.
The future of Africa must therefore rest Results of
largely with Europe and her administration colonisation,
of the Continent given over to her charge.
The results of this relationship during the last
quarter of a century are thus of no inconsider-
able importance if we are to estimate aright
the part which Europe is to play in the eleva-
tion of Africa to a right position among the
nations of the world. Has the administration
of Africa by European Powers been for good
or evil ? Has it helped or hindered the
evangehsation of the lands ?
First there is the part played by govern- (a) Good
ment. Good government has achieved much
for Africa's harassed peoples. Government
has suppressed war, estabHshed social safe-
guards, fostered increase of population, and
raised the general morale of the African,
wherever it has had scope and sway. One
of the most striking factors in African history
to-day is the general and secured peace that is
gradually extending over the whole country.
It is true that the attempt to control the tribes,
and to check slave-raiding and internecine
war, has not been achieved by gentleness or
moral suasion only. Where government
unaided has tried to check tliese evils, war or a
94 The Future of Africa
display of armaments has been necessary. But
there are several cases, especially in South
Africa and Nyasaland, where peace has been
estabHshed, and the raiding habits have been
for ever abandoned, not by any costly action of
government, but by long peaceable teaching
of the Gospel by missionaries who have pre-
ceded administration. Thereby many thou-
sands of pounds and many painful pages of
history have been saved. But when missions
have not pioneered there have necessarily been
petty wars and punitive expeditions before
peace was estabhshed. There is not a single
colony or protectorate which has not its history
of fighting. Sometimes the wars have been
caused by the persistent raiding of untamed
peoples, sometimes by the struggle of slaving
chiefs to throw off poUce measures that Govern-
ment had taken to suppress the traffic in
human beings, sometimes through simple mis-
understandings and lack of patience, and,
unfortunately, sometimes by the atrocities of
native poHce, or the wicked scheming of white
adventurers.
Every picture has its darker side, and it
is true that the expansion of empire has
not always been prompted by high or dis-
interested motives. The reins have not always
been guided by firm hands, and in certain
A TRAIN IN LTtANDA
POUT llEKALD STATION, NVASALAND
The Hand of Europe in Africa 95
protectorates, notably the Congo, pioneering
has been synonymous with gross exploitation,
with disastrous consequences to the native
peoples. There are various undeniable evils,
such as the condoning of slave traffic by
authorities in Angola, and France's adoption
of the Belgian method of parcelUng out land
to concessionaire companies who exploit the
country with no thought save of selfish gain.
Still the advantages accruing to beneficial
government are incalculable. Vast tracts of
country which the lawlessness of tribes and
the havoc of slavery were fast depopulating
have been given fresh life, thanks to European
administration. There are still great reaches
in our hinterlands into wliich European
policing has not reached, but almost univer-
sally, where the land is administered by British,
French, or German, a new security of Hfe and
property has been established, and howling
wildernesses are smihng again with the sound of
village work and play.
When we come to the Government's control (b) Com-
of commerce, again, with the exception of the "^^^^^'
Congo regions, we must conclude that the
protectorates have worked in greater or less
degree for righteousness and progress. The
Powers have exerted an active influence for
good in widespread directions and the prophecy
D*
g6 The Future of Africa
of an enthusiast on the subject bids fair to be
fulfilled. " It is a new Africa brought within
the range of missionary and commercial
enterprise . . . matters are taking rapid
strides every year, and if we mistake not
future generations will witness miles upon
miles of roads and railways. There will be
large European colonies on its highest plateaux.
There will be great cities and large manu-
facturing centres on its rivers. Wlieatfields,
cotton-fields, and coffee plantations will be
found everywhere. The great and valuable
forests of timber will be coined into untold
wealth everywhere. Africa ... let us hope
and pray, will be covered with the white robe
of a Christian commerce, and occupy an im-
portant place in the counsels of the world." ^
What has commerce already done for Africa ?
Thanks to Europe, trade has been encouraged,
harbours have been improved, roads have been
made, railways have been built, steamers have
been floated on rivers and lakes, and the means
of communication have been so improved that
commerce is penetrating rapidly to the furthest
recesses of inner Africa. Buxton and
Livingstone, and all thinkers on the problem
of the slave trade, saw that this penetration of
commerce, and the means of communication
1 " Daybreak in Livingstonia/' by Rev. J. Jack.
The Hand of Europe in Africa 97
would do far more than fleets of cruisers to stop
the slave trade. This has been done by proving
to chiefs how much more profitable it is to keep
their people for labour than to depopulate
their country by seUing their people to be
slaves. Tlie merchants no longer need the
great slave gangs to transport their ivory to
the coast, when it can be bought in the
interior by traders and conveyed by estab-
lished Unes of communication.
There is one terrible drawback connected (c) The
mtli commerce which must be noted ere leav- xrlffic.
ing this subject, and that is the hquor traffic.
Drink was introduced not by governments but
by irresponsible traders. In a short time it
increased to alarming dimensions, and un-
fortunately Christianity became associated
with the traffic, just as Islam is with slavery.
The ship that conveyed the first missionaries
to the Congo was loaded with a cargo of gin,
and she discharged it and her missionaries at
the same time. In the wild days when men
bought and sold with no regulating govern-
ment to control them, alcohol and ammu-
nition were the chief and almost the only
means of barter in the rivers of the West Coast.
In 1884, seven million gallons of spirits were
exported to Africa from Hamburg and Bremen
alone. Gin was practically the only currency
98 The Future of Africa
on the Delta of the Niger, so that if a man
wished to buy provisions he must be provided
not with a purse of money, but with a case or
two of gin. It paralysed missionary effort,
it swamped legitimate commerce, it demoral-
ised the people and it decimated whole tribes.
At Bimbia in the Cameroons, in the early days
of the Baptist mission, there was a population
of 10,000, but as a result of the free consump-
tion of gin the population has dwindled to
two hundred in a few years.
What steps, one next asks, have been taken
to Hmit this evil ? Various conferences have
been held by the Powers, but so far no agree-
ment has been come to as to total prohibi-
tion of the traffic. In certain parts of Africa
no spirits are allowed to be sold or given to the
natives. This holds good of the East African
protectorates, in the Upper Niger, and in nine-
tenths of the entire area of the Congo Basin ;
but in Angola and Southern Nigeria Hcjuor
is largely imported, and the Portuguese in
Angola have proposed supplying all the rum
needed in West Africa from their numerous
distilleries. Despite commissions appointed
by the British government and others little
headway in reform has been made so far, as
the moneyed interests in the traffic are so
great and the governments depend largely
The Hand of Europe in Africa 99
on the revenues derived from the duties on
spirits. Yet the future is brightening.
Germany and France are beginning to join
with Britain in a desire for united action
against this scourge. Africa can be best
helped by total proliibition, not by raising the
duty on spirits. This latter expedient does not
affect the sale. In Southern Nigeria and else-
where, despite higher duties, it is increasing.
The problem of the Uquor traffic is one of the
most important issues confronting Christian
government in Africa at the present day.
The victory will not be won without " dust
and heat," and it becomes every Christian
citizen of each Power that has undertaken
responsibilities in Africa to see that no sordid
financial reasons defeat the ends of righteous-
ness and the saving of a people.
One of the most serious points of contact (d) Attitud(
between the natives and European govern-
ments is in the control which governments
exercise over labour, especially where there
is a growing white population, and industries
that requhe a considerable labour supply.
In most protectorates, recruiting of labour,
especially for any distant centre, is not per-
mitted without a Hcence, and the conditions of
the hcence compel the recruiters to explain to
the native the nature of the work, the pay, the
loo The Future of Africa
length of the labour day, the care in case of
sickness, and provision for the return home.
Commissioners are also appointed to super-
vise the relation of labourers and employers.
Such stringent regulations are necessary if
the government is to prevent private in-
dividuals from exploiting the natives for their
own ends, for the tendency of a superior race
is always toward taking advantage of an
inferior one. Many a case is known in every
protectorate, before labour regulations were
made and appHed wth some vigour, where
deception and perhaps violence were used to
get the necessary labour for the European, and
where the workers were so neglected that
disease and famine carried off large numbers.
Of course the regulation of the native labour
supply is apt to become a considerable source
of revenue to a government whose chief
asset is its population. Registration fees and
capitation taxes, for men proceeding to the
labour centre are so increased that it almost
seems as if Government were exploiting the
natives. This is pecuHarly so with the Kru
boy, who is the most reliable worker on the
West Coast, and without whom the coast
trade could scarcely be carried on. The French
Government, in whose country most of the
Krus live, have charged a heavy fee for any boy
The Hand of Europe in Africa loi
leaving the country, and the native state of
Liberia practically robs the labourer on leaving
and on returning. On the Ivory Coast a tax
of 25 francs per head is levied on each labourer,
and in French Congo a passport rate of 100
francs. In the latter state, unlike other French
colonies, the natives are not allowed to work
their own forest products. Other Govern-
ments have also found it necessary to control
this source of supply. When the natives of
Nyasaland were allowed to tap the rubber
in the forests without any restrictions, large
quantities were exported by traders, but the
methods of the people were so destructive
that in a few years no rubber would have been
left in the forests, and it was found necessary
to apply severe restrictions on the gathering.
Unfortunately, in the French Congo the con-
cessionaires who control the rubber supply have
been allowed to force labour by violent means.
In the Congo Free State the administration
is unfortunately interested too deeply in the
labour supply, and regulations, wliich are to the
advantage of government but to the great
disadvantage of the native, are in force. The
contract period lasts for seven years, and for
a breach of contract the native is liable to a
fine of 500 marks and six months' imprison-
ment. When the State railway was being
I02 The Future of Africa
built natives were taken by force to work on
the railway, but were paid for their services.
One of the worst types of forced labour
systems until lately was that employed in
Angola, which amounted to a practical form of
slavery ; but the new Portuguese Government
has immediately taken in hand the scandalous
conditions under which labour was recruited
for San Thome and Principe. The RepubUc
has attacked not only the miserable conditions
under which the natives Hve or travel, but has
also taken definite steps to prevent the forcible
abduction of natives for work and to supervise
further recruiting, so that in future workers
will only go to these islands of their own free-
will and be returned at the expiry of their term.
The RepubUc evidently means to make these
reforms actual and practical.
So long as the countries are governed by
paternal administration, the officials should be
perfectly uncompromised in their relations to
labour, so that the people will always feel that
they can appeal to the magistrate against any
injustice that the employer may do them.
Experience has proved, on the part of mis-
sionaries especially, that by a careful educa-
tion the wants of the people are always
increasing, and this means a greater desire for
work that they may have wages to buy their
The Hand of Europe in Africa
lO
necessities. There is no missionary or friend
of the natives who would wish to encourage
laziness. Without industry and commerce there
can be no permanent elevation of the people.
But the work must be voluntary and not forced.
The final result of European occupation on (e) Suppres-
which we would touch is the suppression of Barbarities.
barbarities. Magisterial courts in all the
protectorates recognise native law in so far as
it is in line with civiUsed and humane rule. But
the atrocities arising from native superstition
or custom, however useful they may have been
in maintaining social order in barbarous days,
are now being suppressed. The poison and
other ordeals are made criminal offences.
Infanticide, cannibalism, human sacrifice, and
many evil practices are disappearing before
the stern arm of European government as far
as it can reach. The charges of witchcraft,
which terrorised Pagan society, are now
rapidly disappearing. Many other brutal
customs which rendered hfe a misery and
claimed a dreadful toll of victims yearly are
being rapidly ehminated.
All this Africa owes to Europe and her conclusion,
colonisers who have crowded thither from
every sort of reason and motive to build up
fresh social structures and develop a new
country from soil iiitherto virgin, unclaimed by
I04 The Future of Africa
civilised man. Such is the story of Europe's
connection with Africa. A story of failure
side by side with splendid achievement ; a
story in which gross exploitation and dis-
interested devotion side by side have dug chan-
nels for Africa's future forces to flow through.
It is the story of a battle-ground of conflicting
forces ever at work. Looking back we wonder
what lessons are to be gained from these
unfolded results. In the past, Europe has
wrought much evil and even more good. Much,
therefore, devolves clearly upon her, in view of
all she has achieved in the past, in view of the
heroic efforts of our forefathers, to suppress the
slave trade. The duty that Hes before Eiuope
is twofold : that of reparation for havoc in the
past, that of preparation for right development
in the future. One plain task confronts her.
Weighty issues depend on her pursuance of that
task. European character, capacity and
experience can lead Africa to the " strength
and matm'ity of nationhood." A momentous
stage has been reached in the vast growth of the
" dark continent." Europe must bring all her
treasures of influence, insight, and experience
to bear on the development of this great
country. Europe has received her summons,
and for weal or woe the trend of Africa's
future will be decided by Europe.
CHAPTER IV
THE CONDITIONS REVEALED
ANALYTICAL INDEX
The Peoples of Africa.
(«) The Bushmen.
(6) The Hottentots.
(c) The Negroes.
{(I) The Bantu.
Tribal Revolutions in Eighteenth and
Nineteenth Centuries.
(a) West Africa.
(h) East Afi-ica.
The Beliefs and Customs of Paganism.
(a) Idea of God.
(6) Spirit- Worship.
(c) The After-Life.
(d) Fetich-Worship.
(e) Sacrifices.
(/■) Witch-Doctors,
(g) Secret Societies.
(k) Infanticide.
(«) Cannibalism.
(.;") Polygamy.
(k) Drunkenness.
(/) Lifeof httle Value.
The Appeal of Paganism.
Thus far we have looked at Africa largely
because of its close connection with our
io6 The Future of Africa
he Peoples European civilisation and with many of the
Afnca. bright names in the history of our country.
Africa has thus presented itself to us a
united whole, and the actual conditions
prevailing in the country itself may have
seemed to be of little interest. At first sight
we seem to see nothing more than a seeth-
ing mass of black humanity. As the mists
and obscurity gradually clear, we learn, how-
ever, to distinguish individual grouping in
what at first glance appeared a mere con-
fused human mass of strange wild people
akin to the savage beasts amongst which
they wandered. Of the six great groups
into which the population of Africa is
divided, two do not concern this textbook.
These are the Semitic and Hamitic, for the
races who come under these headings are
almost entirely Mohammedan. The remain-
ing groups are four in number. The Bush-
men, the Hottentots, the Negroes, and the
Bantu.
a) The The Bushmcu, or Pygmies, were the original
Bushmen, i^l^abitants of Africa. They are identified
by some with the pre-historic savage of
Europe. In the museum at Brussels one
can see stone implements and drawings of
the dwarfish cave - dwellers of Europe,
which are exactly similar to the imple-
The Conditions Revealed 107
ments and dramngs of the Bushmen. They
seem to have come in a great movement
out of Asia, divided into two streams, one
going through Europe where they were de-
stroyed by stronger races, the other passing
into Africa. Signs of their presence can still
be found throughout the continent, and,
though they are fast disappearing, sections
of the same race are known to exist in South
Africa, in the forest region of the Gaboon,
the Masai and the equatorial regions of the
Congo. All the members of this Uttle race
present physical features which are totally
distinct from negro characteristics. Their
skin is a light brown and their average height
four feet seven. Their habits are neither
pastoral nor agricultural. They are simply
hunters who wander perpetually, hving in
caves or Httle huts of branches, eating the
game they capture, or grubbing for roots and
insects when meat fails. The language of the
Bushmen is one of the most primitive forms of
articulate speech, consisting chiefly of clicks
and diphthongs. They have no numerals be-
yond two, and express the plural by repetition
of the singular, as for dogs : dog dog. Yet
alone of all races in Africa they possessed high
artistic qualities, and much of their history can
still be read in the cave drawings and carvings
io8 The Future of Africa
which are to be found in many places of South
Africa.
After the Bushmen came the Hottentots.
They seem to have come down from the north
after a great lapse of time. Tlieir language
has some affinities in general structure with
that of the Bushmen, but they had advanced
from the hunter stage to the pastoral, had
increased in stature, possibly by mixture with
negro blood, and had learned the practical
arts of smelting iron and copper. Their
earliest traditions take us about a thousand
years back, when they w^ere living in the
neighbourhood of the great Lakes. The
Hottentots called themselves the KhoiKhoi —
the men of men — as they prided themselves
in their superiority over the Bushmen. As
they increased in numbers they threw off little
communities who sought new lands. But each
community seemed to Hmit itself to a few
hundred or a thousand souls.
Tlie religion of the Hottentots was animistic
like that of all pagan tribes. They lived in
continual dread of evil spirits, and prayed
to the moon for blessings. After contact with
the Bantu they became worsliippers also of
ancestral spirits. Tliey believed in two gods —
one beneficent, who lived in the red sky, and
one malevolent, who lived in the dark sky.
The Conditions Revealed 109
Tlieir prayers were to the black god for he did
them harm. Tliey had a myth about the
conflict of the red god with the black god —
perhaps arising from the conflict of dark and
dawn. Tliere is curious identity between this
belief in two gods with one which is found
among the Masai.
Socially, the Hottentots were very de-
graded — " a more impro-sddent, unstable,
thoughtless people never existed." The
greater part of the tribes became serfs
to the early Europeans, and mixed with
negro and other races so much that they
became known as the " bastard " race.
Considerable power was gained by some
of these mongrel tribes, and they occupy a
goodly part of South Africa. Most of the
tribes' names end in qua^ which means " the
people 01 " — as " Namaqua," the people of
Nama.
The Negroes are the people who live chiefly (c) The
. Neeroes
in the north of Central Africa, from the fifteenth
north parallel southwards to the fifth. They
again di\'ide into various sub-groups, such as
the Sudanese, Nilotic and Ethiopian. To
these groups belong some of the greatest and
most interesting of the African tribes, such as
the Mandingos, whose language was the lingua
franca of the Western Soudan, where Mungo
no The Future of Africa
Park explored the Niger. Among other tribes
belonging to these groups are the Hausa, whose
language is spoken by perhaps fifteen millions
of people.
Now we come to the greatest group of all —
the Bantu— of whom there are fifty miUions in
Africa. The tribes of this group extend from
the latitude of the Cameroons south to the
Cape of Good Hope. There is a far closer
alHance between all their languages than
between those of the Negro group. The
distinction that lies between members of
the Negro group and of the two main races,
while scarcely discernible physically, is so
great hnguistically that the Bantus of the
Cameroon frontier and the negroes of the
Niger, although hving so near to one another,
have no more in common with one another
hnguistically than Enghsh and Chinese. The
word Bantu means " people," and the three
hundred languages and dialects which the
people speak all show a striking uniformity of
construction. The origin of the Bantu race
is uncertain, but tradition seems to point to a
northernly direction. They probably entered
the continent long after the Bushmen had
settled in its central and southern parts. As
horde after horde passed down they mingled
with the tribes they harassed or conquered.
AN Al'KUAN WAHHIOII
The Conditions Revealed 1 1 1
The race, therefore, is not pure and distinct ;
Negro, Haniitic, and Semitic blood are evi-
dently mixed with the original stock. It was
only about 800 or 900 a.d. that the vanguard
of this race came across the Zambesi, and the
main tribes who now form the predominant
races of South Africa have mostly come since
the occupation of the coast by Portuguese.
One great horde came down by the west,
and their names will be recognised by the
prefix ova, which is simply the plural of the
nouns which indicate people. The Ocambo
Ovahereros, are just " The Mbos," or the
Hereros. The tribes of the eastern invasion
may be recognised by the prefix ama or aba,
as Amazulu, Mashona, or the Abapedi, Basuto,
meaning the Zulu, the Shona, etc.
While Europe was exploiting the coast of Tribal
. p • . 1 1 1 • ■ • ii • 'IT Revolutions
Airica the whole interior was seetmng with re- in Eighteenth
volutionary changes, swarms of savages were JJineteenth
sweeping hither and thither in irresistible waves. Centuries.
under wliich whole tribes were submerged and
lost for ever to the world. Kingdoms rose
under the organising skill of some great warrior,
who, by the power of his spear, affected a new
combination of scattered peoples, carved out
a kingdom for himself, devastated great
tracts of country, and maintained his power
by the terror of wholesale pillage and butchery.
1 1 2 The Future of Africa
His kingdom seldom lasted beyond the second
generation, and then liis besotted successors
fell before the advance of some new Napoleon.
People who speak of the happy innocence of
the savage should read a little of the internal
history of Africa, in the eighteenth and nine-
teenth centuries especially, and they would
see how Africa ran with blood, and a night of
cruelty and terror covered its people.
On the west coast the Portuguese at the
ports were sometimes startled by the appear-
ance of the vanguards of tribes that burst
through the barriers of the interior and
carried desolation to the coast ; these visits
were but the spent waves breaking on the
beach, but they told of a mighty hurricane
of war which was devastating the interior,
whose progress we can only faintly trace now.
In the seventeenth century the Yaggas ap-
peared on the coast. These were probably
the Paris who had come from the north-
east ; they were a fierce cannibal tribe who
spread along the Congo basin, south to the
Loanda province, and north to the regions
of what is now French Congo. As they
passed on their wild progress they wiped out
tribes, and broke up ancient kingdoms, the
old dynasty of the Congo falHng amongst
others.
The Conditions Revealed 1 1 3
Up to recent years the history of many
tribes on the west coast is one of blood. The
Dahomie, for example, with its Amazon
soldiers, famous for their courage and cruelty,
devastated neighbouring tribes, not so much
for love of empire, as to find victims for
slaves, and for human sacrifice. The capital
was a city of human skulls, which were stored
up in piles of thousands.
In the eastern provinces the Masai attained (b) East
• • p rm Africa.
a position of great power. They were once
divided into two sections, the agricultural
and the pastoral. A conflict arose between
the two in which the agricultural was annihil-
ated. The pastoral formed themselves into
a miHtary tribe of wliich all the youths be-
tween seventeen and twenty years of age had
to serve in regiments and abstain from
strong drink and marriage. These hardened
warriors spread over eastern Africa, carrying
death and desolation everywhere. In the
middle of the nineteenth century they had
acquired great importance. They success-
fully resisted the slaving Arabs, and making
themselves masters of some of the main
routes, exacted tribute from all travellers or
effectually closed the interior. History tells
of a devastating horde of cannibals, the
iVIazimba, who towards the end of the six-
114 The Future of Africa
teenth centurj'^ arrived at the Zambesi. Here
they split into two sections, one passing
north-east the other crossing the Zambesi
and sweeping southwards. The northward
section passed over an immense tract of
country, committing frightful ravages, until
they reached the shores of the Indian Ocean.
Here they besieged the Portuguese at Mozam-
bique, wiped out Kilwa in the north and
nearly destroyed Mombasa, but the Portu-
guese finally ralHed and checked them at
Mehnde and almost exterminated them in a
crushing defeat. The section which crossed
the Zambesi proceeded southward, solving
horror and bloodshed till they in turn were
conquered by another savage host, the Abambo.
Out of these ferocious tribes others arose,
the most notable being the Zulus who were
captained and led by a great chief, Chaka,
about the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Chaka formed armies out of the tribes under
him, which over-ran and devastated all South
Africa. At least a miUion people were wan-
tonly exterminated during his terrible reign.
These tribes split up again owing to fright-
ful dissensions among themselves. Tlie three
main divisions were the Matabele, the Angoni,
and the Mantiti. The last named were the
most savage of all these savage races. They
The Conditions Revealed 1 1 5
appeared suddenly, formed by the welter of
Chaka's wars, and were in turn wiped out,
but not before they had caused frightful
slaughter. The missionary, Moffat, to whom
wild rumours had come of this savage horde,
gathered together forces of the Griqua and
Bechuana, and a great battle took place in
which the Griquas fought with firearms
slaying great numbers of the Mantitis. The
enemy fought with desperate valom", single
men fighting with a dozen assegais sticking
in their bodies against a score of Bechuana.
But in the end the invading army was broken
and driven back. Now they spread them-
selves among other tribes, forty to fifty
thousand savages, moving along in dense
masses, parties scouting and seeking for
plunder on all sides as they advanced. But
the immense herds of cattle that they cap-
tured were not sufficient to feed this mighty
army, and they passed on Uke Hving skeletons
whose very famine drove them to fiercest
brutalities, leaving their dead and dying
strewn in the bush. Their route for hundreds
of miles could be traced by human bones, and
soon they melted into nothing.
These are a few of the events that were
happening in the interior of Africa, not, be
it noted, in the centuries before the continent
ii6 The F'uture of Africa
was known to the world, but in these last
centuries, and in this generation. As Living-
stone passed through such devastating scenes
he cried " Blood, blood, everywhere blood."
His own peculiar people the Makololo were just
such another tribe that arose out of Chaka's
wars, flourished by marauding, were scattered
or blotted out. When he preached " Peace
on earth and good will to men," to the Batoka
on the Zambesi, they cried out, " We are
tired of flight ; give us rest and sleep."
The Beliefs In order to understand aright the tribal Hfe
and Customs e x j u j. ±. xiiii*i» i
of Paganism, o* to-day wc have to turn to the belieis and
customs upon which that whole Hfe is founded.
The system is, roughly speaking, what is
known as Paganism, and the future of this
system carries with it much of the whole
future of the Continent. To present a com-
plete picture of Paganism is hard, for in spite
of the gross superstition and cruelty bound up
with the rehgion of Africa, there are many
things that are " broken Hghts " of God.
Also there are social customs and individual
characteristics that are wholly admirable.
But we cannot be blind to the utter
inadequacy of Paganism to satisfy men.
" Though simple in form," wrote Dr Stewart
of Lovedale, whose words were always cautious
and measured, " Paganism is a terrible fate
The Conditions Revealed 1 1 7
spiritually, and an oppressive power under
which to hve. To all the ills of Hfe it adds
the terrors of a world unseen, whose agents
are always actively engaged with human
affairs. The poorness and hardness, narrow-
ness and joylessness of human existence in
Paganism must be seen to be understood."
The rehgion of the African Pagan is animistic.
His object of worship consists of souls
or spirits. The Pagan worships and fears
his own soul or souls (some tribes believe
that each individual has several), and the
souls of his ancestors. He beheves that men,
animals, plants, all the forces of nature,
animate and inanimate, possess spirits which
must be worshipped and propitiated. This
worship may also include the behef in a
Supreme Spirit or Supreme Being.
He has a dim vague idea of a far-away (a) idea of
Supreme God who created the world. Almost
every tribe names the Great God, but none
know Him. At the best. He is an absentee
God who made the world and now takes no
concern with it. Prayers are never made to
Him.
In many tribes there is a belief in one or
many sub-gods. These control some great
natural element, and reside frequently in
some awesome spot. There are gods of rain,
1 1 8 The Future of Africa
of thunder, of the sea, and their dwelling-
places may be on some cloud-capped mountain,
in rushing torrent, or in thundering sea. In
West Africa every dangerous place is the
residence of a god, rocks and whirlpools in
the river, swamps, the surf, etc. Their con-
cerns with men are very intimate, and to
them sacrifice and prayer are made by the
priest or the cliief of the clan. The occasions
of the sacrifice will be before some great
need, or under some calamity. Fear is the
usual motive, sometimes gratitude for deliver-
ance, but never the hunger of the soul for
communion with what is good and holy.
Among all the Bantu tribes, and in many
of the Negro, the spirits of the dead are wor-
shipped. When a man dies liis soul Uves on,
and that soul is peculiarly active about the
affairs of his relatives. Little temples may
be prepared for his residence or he may live
again in the form of a snake or a Uzard, and
abide in the hut of his relatives. In many
parts of Africa it would be a capital offence
to kill one of the snakes or hzards or iguanas
which have become the dwelHng-place of a
departed soul. Offerings of food and drink
are made at the grave that the soul may eat
and drink in his new existence the things
that dehghted him during his corporal Hfe.
- 'o,
1 O
I ^
- c«
C/2
The Conditions Revealed 119
In some parts of the Congo region, when a
body is buried a long stick is placed in the
mouth of the corpse, and when the grave is
filled up, the stick is withcbawn, and thus a
channel is left through wliich beer and food
may be poured. The belief is not that the
soul actually eats the material offerings, but
only their essence. Among some tribes the
worship of ancestral spirits is the chief item
in their reHgion. There is no order of priests
to minister to these spirits but each family
has its own set of spmts which are added to
by every death in the family. Each spirit
has its own responsible priest. The constant
activity of the spirits is the cause of all the
anxieties and calamities of the people. Sick-
ness, drought, death and all disasters come
from their malevolence. ^Vhen, however,
good fortune comes, the spirits have been
appeased, and look with favour upon their
dependants.
This behef in the after-Hfe of the soul (we (c) The
must not call it immortality, for the soul fades the Soui.
off with the memory of the family) has led
to some of the most awful horrors of African
social life. The spirits Hve in some dark
forest-land, or under the sea, much the same
Hfe as men on earth. Tliey must have com-
panions when they enter the unknown world,
I20 The Future of Africa
slaves to maintain the chief's dignity, and wives
to cook for him. Thus many a time the
death of a gi'eat chief has meant the slaying
of a multitude. When a king of Bakuba
died, three hundred slaves were killed, and
their bodies buried with him. When Chaka's
mother died the rivers were said to run blood,
so great was the slaughter in her honour.
Wlien the widows were buried it was not by
a voluntary immolation, but by force and in
the wild terror of the victim. Poor indeed is
the lot of the widows, even when no such
killing horror takes place. They sit for days
in the hut with the decomposing corpse, and
for months or a year afterwards are secluded,
and forbidden to wash.
Fetichism and charms also play a great part
in animistic religions. On the west coast
among both Bantu and Negro people fetichism
has attained an all pervading pre-eminence.
The word fetich is not native. It is a Portu-
guese word feitico, wliich was used for the
httle relics or images of the saints, and the
Portuguese sailors adopted it to describe the
charms of Africa in which they recognised
some similarity. Juju is another word used
for much the same form of animism. It is
French, and comes from the word for a toy
or doll. But those charms, which have so
The Conditions Revealed 121
large a place in the religion of West Africa,
are not influential because of any doll-like
prettiness in them. Indeed the greatest
jujus are intensely ugly, and are strange
conglomerations of all sorts of roots, cloths,
and broken ware. They are not reverenced
for anything that they are, but for the spirit
that has taken up his abode within them.
This indeed is the essence of all the worship
of animism. The old trees, the waterfalls
and whirlpools, the mountains and breaking
surf, are but the temples of some more or
less potent spirit, and hence the worship of
them. Every man has his fetich and a man's
authority, influence, and wealth depend on
its power. Some of the great fetiches or
jujus may become enormously influential,
and the spirits that dwell in them control
the Ufe not merely of the individual, but of
whole communities. When war or pestilence
break out, elaborate sacrifices are immedi-
ately made to the fetich. Charms are made
for every desire and every need and danger in
life — for loving and hating, for hunting and
fishing, for sailing and walking, for buying
and selling, against thieves and assassins,
against wild beasts, against disease and
death, and the terrors of the elements. These
charms gain their supposed power from
122 The Future of Africa
some special dedication by a witch-doctor or
from being imbued with some soul-stuff.
Even hair and nails are held by the animist
to contain this essence of " soul-stuff."
The idea of sacrifice is common to all these
spirit worshippers whether they reverence the
spirits of ancestors for whom no fetich is
made, or the spirits who dwell in elaborated
charms. To these blood is offered. A fowl
or an ox may be killed. In the south the blood
is carefully kept in a calabash, and the meat
divided between the villagers and the elders.
In the west the blood is sprinkled at the door
of the fetich hut or at the entrance to the
village. And though food is offered, it is
but the essence the spirit eats, the villagers
eat the meat. The sacrifice is the blood, for
" the blood is the hfe."
The greater the juju the greater the sacri-
fice that must be offered. Hence arose the
necessity for human sacrifice. Oxen were
better than goats, and human beings than
oxen. In Ashanti and Benin, and in the upper
reaches of the Niger, the tale of human victims
was terrible, and where European power has
not suppressed it the custom still goes on.
After war hundreds or thousands of victims
might be offered to the great juju. They
were his captives, for he had fought with the
The Conditions Revealed 123
\dctorioiis army, and he demanded their blood.
So also when disease swept through the village,
the angry spirit was demanding victims, and
the plague could only be stayed by satiating
him with the blood of men.
Surrounded as the native is by fearful and (f) Witch-
unkno^vn powers who are the begetters of
all his misfortimes and sicknesses, it is no
wonder that the witch-doctor famihar with
the secrets of this liidden world, acquires a
mighty influence. There are tribes, such as
the Masai, and some of the Congo and west
coast people, among whom the witch-doctor
is the most influential man in the tribe. His
decision is absolute and to disobey would be
certain death. These doctois are not all
impostors though in many cases they maintain
their power by melodramatic impositions on
the creduhty of the people. The profession
may run in famihes, descending from father
to son, who guard its secrets most jealously,
or by some prolonged and most arduous
course of instruction the old doctors initiate
their apprentices. They are usually highly
neurotic men or women, perhaps with a touch
of madness and a large supply of slyness.
Their cures and influences may only be effected
when they have worked themselves into an
hysterical state, wliich possibly grips hold of
124 The Future of Africa
the spectators also, and theu- wild appearance,
with painted bodies covered with trappings
made from claws and bones and skins of wild
animals, excite fear and reverence in the
audience. Various are the functions of the
witch-doctors. They interpret the minds of
the spirits and can tell why they are offended
and working havoc ; as exorcists they will
say what sick devil has come to the sufferer,
and they will cast it out. Often also they
have no small skill in administering native
cures and medicines, but fearful is the pain
they must cause at times when they pass
from pharmacy to surgical operations. Dr
Nassau cited this case to Miss Kingsley. " A
man was accidentally shot in the chest. . . .
The native doctor who was called in made
a perpendicular incision into the man's chest,
extending down the last rib ; he then cut
diagonally across, and actually Hfted the wall
of the chest, and groped about among the
vitals for the bullet which he successfully
extracted. The patient died. No anaesthetic
was employed."
The witch-doctor is also supposed to possess
supernatural abihty in the detection of crime.
Here Hes the main secret of his dread power.
His word is law, and when a crime is committed
he points oat the victim, and the unfortunate
The Conditions Revealed 125
wretch must then pass through some testing
ordeal or suffer some barbarous punishment.
In cases of sickness or misfortune the natives
invariably suspect witchcraft. The witch-
doctor is applied to, and paid to discover the
author of the malady or misfortune. Accord-
ingly he produces a culprit, who, whether inno-
cent or not, must undergo some test proscribed
by the doctor. This may be either drinking
poison, or picking stones out of a caldron
of boihng water, or some such fiendish device.
Irmocence is proved by the victim vomiting
the poison, or escaping bhsters. Failure to
prove innocence results in immediate death.
The awful evil of witch-craft cannot be ex-
aggerated. It has killed and still kills more
men and women than the slave trade. The
only escape from the penalty of these awful
accusations is to fly to some neighbouring
clan at enmity with the village where the
accusation has been made, or to take refuge at
one of the few sanctuaries among the west
coast tribes.
Another terror is found in the secret societies (g) Secret
which abound in the west. Many of these are °^'^*^®^-
founded and centre round the cult of some
great juju, and are the pohce who punish
crime and maintain order. Others are bands
of robbers and libertines, who by their secret
126 The Future of Africa
discipline and loyalty, as well as by their
supposed control of potent spirits, terrorise
neighbourhoods. The initiation of youths and
maidens to these secret societies are periods
of hard endurance for the apprentice, and also
of unrestrained vice. They menace, or ab-
solutely destroy what little of modesty and
purity might still be left after cliildhood in
a native village. The dances, too, which be-
guile the bright moonhght nights are too often
plays whose sport and cHmax are posturings
of loathsome obscenity. As one has looked
on these some clear night, when the villagers
are gathered, excited by beer, the old women
leading the dance, the Httle children looking
on with wild laughter, one felt as if the air
breathed of the foulness of hell, and one
wondered how the whole social cohesion of
the people is not wrecked by the moral
rottenness of the school in which these Httle
ones are trained.
Infanticide is common throughout Africa,
where it has not been suppressed by Christian
influence or European administration. The
little children whose upper teeth appear before
the lower are buried aHve or cast into the bush.
In many tribes twin children are destroyed,
as well as the mothers who bare them.
The twin is reckoned to have returned to the
A W ITCM-DOCTOH
The necklace of buck-thorns contains his various medicines
The Conditions Revealed 127
state of the beast, and is cast away as an
enemy. Sometimes the mother is spared, but
she is driven from the village to Hve by her-"
self in the bush, and none hold any com-
munication with her. In many tribes when a
poor woman dies in childbirth her body is
cast aside unburied, for the hyenas to devour.
And all over the continent this calamity
certifies the guilt of the woman, and her name
is only remembered in infamy.
CannibaKsm has been found in many parts (i) Canni-
of the continent among the tribes of the
Upper Nile, in West Africa, in the equatorial
forests, along the affluents of the mighty
Congo, by the Luapula. Among some it
is a rehgious ceremony. The flesh of the
human victim is eaten, just as the flesh of the
ox offered in sacrifice was formerly. Among
most it was a dreadful appetite. To satisfy the
hunger for human flesh, internecine war was
continually going on. In the Congo markets
human flesh was always exposed for sale.
The Fans eat instead of burying their dead.
There are many other evils which are not (jiPoiygam;
atrocities, and therefore do not come under
the ban of government, but yet are gangrenes
in the social body. Polygamy may be excused
by some as essential to the African. But
where polygamy exists it increases indolence
128 The Future of Africa
and sensuality. It lowers womanhood and
makes family life impossible.
Drimkenness is all-prevailing, not simply
from gin-drinking, for Europe has not intro-
duced the African to intoxication. He makes
liquor of his own from palms, or bananas, or
maize, or millet, and where beer can be got
whole villages Uve in a state of intoxication
for days on end. Drunkenness, daily, is the
regal condition of an African chief. Drunken-
ness is the cause of m'ne-tenths of the crimes
of violence that come before the native courts.
There is also a type of slavery other than
the commerce in slaves. There is domestic
slavery which prevails over the continent.
In some cases this is only a mild state of
serfdom which Eiu-opean governments do
not disturb. In other cases the serf is the
absolute property of his master, and may be
bought and sold to others. The captives of
war who were incorporated in the tribe
become members of the household of their
master. For them and their children the
master may provide wives and gardens,
but their children become the property of
the master of his family. The owner is
called "the father," and he is responsible
for the conduct of his serfs. If they get into
trouble he pays their fines. When their
The Conditions Revealed 129
children grow up he provides the dowry for
their wives. On the other hand, he can
claim all or the greater part of their earnings,
and they help him in hoeing his fields, and
building his houses without any remuneration.
He also receives the dowry for the girls who
might be taken in marriage by others. Of
com"se such a system has great evils. The
power of individual progress is severely hmited
and great injustice is done to one who may
in any way be ambitious of progress, or desire
to retain his Uttle children about him. Some-
times this serfdom is pushed to extremes
which amount to nothing more or less than
slavery. But in many tribes, if the master
is guilty of cruel treatment of his serfs, the
serf may escape to another master.
The bartering of human lives often occurs
in marriage. Men who are rich in goods and
cattle may buy girls from their fathers. They
pay dowry, which is often simply purchase
money, and the wife becomes the absolute
property of her husband. In other tribes
the system of dowry is a healthy and necessary
protection for the wives, for in the case of
ill-treatment the wife can return to her
father's house, and the husband has no claim
for the return of the dowry.
Another custom of pawning hves has be-
I30 The Future of Africa
come very common in West Africa. When a
man has got into difficulties over a crime, or
by debt, he pays sometimes by pawning
himself to the creditor, or by pawning his own
children. Thus for years, or all his hfe, a
man may Uve in slavery, receiving no re-
muneration, and paying off his debt by means
of servitude,
i Appeal These are some of the horrors and diseases
aganism- ^| African paganism. Yet the doers are
unconscious of shame. There is no rebuke
for what their religion sanctions, and their
customs have become stereotyped. They are
bHnd with no sense of what vision might
mean. They grope through darkness as yet
unenlightened by truth.
Animism, Uke all other phases of human
development, has its lights as well as its
shades. The terrible darkness of Paganism
is reheved here and there by quahties and
virtues not unworthy of Christianity itself.
It should never be forgotten that Animism,
base and terrible as many of its tenets are,
is yet " an effort of fellowmen to grapple
with the great problem of existence, and we
are told by a great student of Paganism, that
" a longing and seeking for God runs through
Animistic religion Hke a vein of gold in the
dirty rock." The Animist also does un-
The Conditions Revealed 131
deniably extract some consolation from follow-
ing certain observances and rites " meant
to appease the angry spirit," and has the
satisf nction of f eehng that he has done all that
is possible to ensure harmonious relations
between himself and the spirits.
Animistic superstition has also developed
practices which have been maintained because
they have strengthened the respect for govern-
ments, and thereby contributed to the estab-
Hshment and maintenance of civil order.
Such practices have strengthened the respect
for private property, and allowed men to
enjoy its possession. They have strengthened
respect for marriage, and a stricter observance
of the rules of sexual morahty. They have
even strengthened the respect for human
life, and contributed to the security of its
enjoyment.
Although it may seem on the sm-face a con-
tradictory statement, there is no doubt that
in the brutal condition of tribal life many
an unfeeUng practice and many an atrocity
seems almost to have been necessary to
bulwark the rotten society in which the
native hved. This is illustrated by an
incident which occurred on the Upper Congo.
" A certain man went mad with sleeping
sickness and was very troublesome to his
132 The Future of Africa
neighbours. They would gladly have put
him on one of the islands in midstream and
left him to starve, but superstition came to
his aid and prevented the unfortunate man
being maltreated. His neighbours beheved
that if anything violent were done, his spirit
would return to trouble them after death,
perhaps in the shape of a crocodile or a
leopard, or by some evil and unaccountable
smell, or mysterious noise, or by sickness.
Anything that tends to more humane be-
haviour must have its germs of secret good,
and even Animism cannot be regarded from
every point as altogether and absolutely
evil. There is indeed a danger in the Africa
of to-day that when European government
and crusading civilisation are suppressing
customs which are immemorial but contrary
to our ideas of justice and morality, the very
safe-guards of social order are being removed.
Despite any " vein of gold," however, we
are thrown back on the overpowering and
terrible evidence gathered by all who study
it, of its terrible social degradation and
misery, its lack of consciousness of sin, the
very baseness of the superstition which yet
blindly strives to fill the yearning for some-
thing beyond him, at times felt by the
lowest type of human savage. We reflect on
The Conditions Revealed 133
the close contact of Eui'ope and civilisation in
these last centuries with Africa, and wonder
what they can give to remedy this fearsome
state of things ? A yet graver consideration
must force itself upon us. What message
can Christianity bring to meet this inadequacy
of Animism to satisfy the needs of men ? For
an answer to this question we turn to the
chapters that follow.
CHAPTER V
THE HAND OF THE CHURCH ON AFRICA
ANALYTICAL INDEX
The Story of Missions in Africa.
(fl) The Moravians.
(b) Pioneer Work by the London Missionary
Society.
(c) Pioneers in West Africa.
The New Era of Missions.
(a) West Africa.
(b) South Africa.
(c) East and Central Africa.
Methods of presenting Christianitv.
(a) Industrial Missions.
(b) Medical Missions.
(c) Educational.
(d) Production of Literature.
(e) Preaching.
(i) Its Value.
(ii) The Appeal of the Gospel.
We closed last chapter with the question as to
what message Christianity is bringing to meet
the needs of Africa ? For an answer to this
we must turn to the story of what has been
13+
The Hand of the Church on Africa 135
done by the representatives of Christianity in
the past; we must also survey the work
which missions are doing in the present.
We look back to the pioneers of the days that
are gone to enable us to grasp the present
situation and how it came about. We look
to the present, the mission field of to-day, to
teach us by its various agencies and methods
what is actually being done at this moment,
and to guide us in di'awing some forecast of
the possibiUties still veiled in the future.
The history of modern missions in Africa The story of
J , V 1 ,1 J J. 1 J Missions in
dates back exactly one and tliree-quarters Africa,
of a century ago, when the first attempt of the (^) The
EvangeHcal Church to introduce the Gospel
to Africa was made by the Moravians. These
Christians have been described as the most
efficacious and influential missionary organ-
isation that ever existed. They are pre-
eminently a missionary chm*ch, and their
chief aim is to reach the least advanced and
more neglected races with the Gospel teaching.
Their main principle is striking in its good
sense and practical Christianity. " Let us
begin by reforming ourselves and Uve in love
with all the brethren, and with all the cliildren
of God in all reUgions."
In the year 1736 they sent a missionary,
George Schmidt, to the Hottentots, and for
136 The Future of Africa
seven years he laboured near Cape Town,
founded a tiny " valley of grace " (Gnaden-
thal), collected a few Christians round him,
but at the end of that time was banished by
the jealous Dutch Government. Half a
century later the Moravians, with unbaffled
heroism, returned to the charge and started
work afresh in the same memorable spot.
They lived amid constant alarms. At one
time they were threatened by a force of a
hundred armed men, who had come not under
sanction of the Government, but at their own
instigation. They soon gathered about them
a considerable Christian community, and their
work has spread over the colony and into
German East Africa.
(b) Pioneer In 1798 there arrived at the Cape Dr
London^ ^ Vauderkcmp, the first pioneer in Africa of the
Sodety!^'^^ London Missionary Society. So difficult were
the means of communication in those days
that Vanderkemp sailed in a convict ship,
and took three months to a voyage which
to-day takes less than three weeks. The
unsettled state of the natives made his pioneer
work very difficult, and he was driven from liis
first stations by native outbreaks. At last he
settled near Algoa Bay, but here he had httle
peace from the Government and the Europeans.
The colonists felt that his work for the natives
The Hand of the Church on Africa 137
was inimical to their treatment of the Kafifirs,
and they beheved that the refugees who
gathered about the training institute founded
by Vanderkemp at Bethelsdorp were taught
to refuse labour and to be rebeUious.
More favourable conditions prevailed when
the British Government took over the Colony,
but persecution was not at an end. A tax,
which ate up two-thirds of their possible
earnings, was levied on the natives in Bethels-
dorp Institute, and as the result of feeble
staffing, the taking away of the men by force
for work, and other causes, the Institute fell
upon evil days. The London Missionary
Society, however, steadily advanced its work
in other quarters. Men Uke Moffat and Phihp
were sent who led the missionaries in a con-
stantly advancing hne until their forces were
scattered over a region extending in area from
the Cape to the far north hinterland.
In such a brief outline of missionary
societies and their efforts in Africa as this is
compelled to be, special mention of any one
society, even the foremost, would be invidious,
but the efforts of the London Missionary
Society were outdone by none of their suc-
cessors. They planted and watered in certain
instances where others have reaped. Only
the close student of beginnings could at all
138 The Future of Africa
appreciate what those efforts have been.
Vanderkemp heads a long Hst of names
illustrious in mission annals. Not only in
South and Central Africa did the London
Missionary Society sow a lasting harvest but
in Madagascar, where they first sent mis-
sionaries in 1820 they have achieved success
of a striking kind.
(c) Pioneers On the West Coast the Moravians were again
Africa. the pioucers. In 1768 they sent men to the
Guinea coast, but those all died in a short
time. The Edinburgh and Glasgow Missionary
Societies followed by sending six men to the
Susus, north of Sierra Leone. Three died,
and one was murdered by the Fulahs, and the
mission was abandoned.
It was not long, however, ere the Church
Missionary Society entered tliis field by
sending missionaries to the Susus. We gain
some ideas of the difficulties of travelhng
which had to be encountered, on learning
that it took these missionaries three years to
reach their field. They got there to encounter
harsh obstacles at the outset in the hostihty
of the slave traders who regarded them as
spies of their smugghng operations. Twice
they attacked and destroyed the mission
station and finally the missionaries were
forced to beat a retreat. Work was then trans-
The Hand of the Church on Africa 139
ferred to Sierra Leone, the colony which had
been founded for liberated slaves, where riot
and confusion prevailed. In spite of these
unfavourable conditions, however, the work
prospered, and in the course of a few years
there was a large Christian community. In
this work the Wesleyans also had a share.
They had, in fact, preceded the Church Mis-
sionary Society's missionaries, for they had
sent out their first party in 1811. Ten years
later they extended to the Gambia River.
Other missionary societies now followed, and
slowly the work extended along the coast
through recruits from Europe and by mis-
sionary extensions of the native churches.
But owing to the difficulties of advance,
especially the antagonism of the slave traffic
and the great unrest caused in the interior
by the intertribal conflicts, no work was done
beyond the fringe of the coast, and there it
was of the most Hmited character.
It was with the suppression of the slave The New
trade on the West Coast and the activity of Missions.
exploration begun by Livingstone and Krapf
that the new era of serious and far-flung mis-
sionary enterprise began in Africa. From this
time onwards the record of African missions
is "no barren series of Church annals but an
account of a movement always in vital touch,
140
The Future of Africa
(a) West
Africa.
(b) South
Africa.
with the growth of Christianity or with the
advance of civihsation."
In the West, Lagos, the last stronghold of
slaving, was occupied by the Wesleyans and the
Church Missionary Society. Expeditions led
by Samuel Crowther, the first African Bishop,
began to develop work among the tribes of the
Lower Niger. The United Presbyterian Church
of Scotland extended its Jamaican mission
to Calabar. The Basel mission got over
its initial difiiculties on the Gold Coast, and
began to spread its ramifications further and
further into the interior until it reached
Ashanti. The Baptist Society opened work
in what is now German Cameroons, and from
there extended to the Congo. The American
Presbjrterians opened work at various points
along the West Coast and on the Congo. The
American Board entered Portuguese Angola,
and began work at BiHe. Further into the
interior the Plymouth Brethren have been
working in what is known as the Garengauze
Mission in the region of Lake Miveru. In this
wide field of West Africa there are now twenty
missionary societies at work and a native
Christian community of at least 175,000 souls.
In South Africa, the Wesleyans followed
after the London Missionary Society, and in
1832 were organised into a South African
The Hand of the Church on Africa 141
Society whose administration is conducted
locally. Two German societies were next
in the field. Meanwhile, the Dutch Reformed
Church was caring for the coloured population,
but its great missionary awakening did not
take place until comparatively recent times.
The Chiu-ch of England was represented by
the agents of the Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel, who began in 1820 working for
the Em'opeans, but soon extended their efforts
to the Kaffirs. The Presbyterian Churches of
Scotland took up and developed the work of
the Glasgow Missionary Society. In Natal, a
large number of societies are at work, the first
to begin there being the American Board.
They were followed by Norwegians, Swedes,
Germans, English and Scottish societies. In
Basutoland the French Protestants have been
resident since the beginning of the thirties,
and have won a unique influence there. In
South Africa there are now some thirty
missionary societies and they claim a member-
ship of a Httle over a quarter of a million
natives. Tlie Government census, however,
gives a far larger number of Christian natives.
Krapf was the fhst missionary to arrive in (c) East and
East Africa. He reached Mombasa in 1844, a1?^&!
after having been expelled from Abyssinia.
Out of his modest beginnings have grown the
The Hand of the Church on Africa 143
the tribes they formed the first point of con-
tact with civiUsation. As Sir Harry Johnston,
the well-known colonial administrator has put
it, " When the history of the great African states
of the future comes to be written, the arrival
of the first missionary will, with many of these
states, be the first historical event." Often,
however, they failed and seemed to have made
no impression on the iron surface of ignorance
and sin. Yet, despite all discouragements,
they persevered and the number grew. One
society led the way speedily to be joined by
another, first singly, then in twos and threes,
and ever increasingly volunteers swelled the
ranks in this campaign where gains seemed
always overshadowed by losses and discourage-
ment. From these struggles and trials a way
was paved for organised effort. Slowly but
surely methods at first experimental were
evolved and proven by the test of time and
experience.
To gain an estimate of the Church's influence Methods of
in Africa, we must study the means she has chStianSy.
adopted to further her great end. In all mis-
sions the first stages of progress are necessarily
slow. The missionary must grasp at whatever
tool is hkehest to open the closed African mind
and heart. To arouse spiritual interest he is
often compelled to cultivate the craving of the
144 The Future of Africa
African for secular advantages, and little by
little train him to the larger view. What
agencies then does the Church employ to gain
and civiHse the people whose conversion to
Christ is her chief end and aim ?
(a) Industrial From the first, missionaries have worked by
the introduction and development of industry
and commerce alongside of the more purely
evangeUstic work in Africa. The back-
ward and unproductive condition of African
civiHsation has been the cause of all her
miseries, for Europeans did not come to the
African coast for anything that Africa was
manufacturing, but for that which could be
picked up. First, it was gold and ivory, then
it was human beings, and so Africa was
producing commerce for the world only by
stripping herself bare.
Philanthropists saw that if the slave traffic
was to be stopped, Africa must work out her
own salvation by the introduction and develop-
ment of new industries. Men must be taught
that there was more wealth to be got from
retaining a working population in the land,
than by selHng off its people to slavery.
Missionaries also recognised that there could
be no permanent improvement of the tribes
whom they sought to evangelise unless new
commerce and industries were introduced.
The Hand of the Church on Africa 145
Expensive and disappointing experiments
have been made to raise the people by the
civiHsing influences of commerce, but if the
world needs a forcible example of the utter
failure of so one-sided and insufficient a
method, it has only to look at certain regions
of the West Coast. There for three centuries
commerce has had her opportunity to prove
what she can do unaided. With what result ?
The native has again and again been exploited
by unscrupulous traders. He has been debased
by the introduction of civiHsed vices, such as
gin-drinking. Commerce pursued for mere
monetary ends with no thought of developing
Africa's resources for the sake of her people,
tends merely to the destruction of the land
and deterioration of the inhabitants. Com-
merce alone such as had sway on the West
Coast for all these centuries has not availed
to stop cannabalism, infanticide, human sacri-
fice, and a host of other evils. Indeed, there
are parts where she seems to have left the
people worse than she found them. Civilisa-
tion alone is not enough for the moral regenera-
tion of a country Kke Africa. Too often it is
mixed up with selfishness on the part of those
who bring it ; nor does it in itself contain the
power which is required for the moral elevation
of a people. The late Dr Stewart has stated,
146 The Future of Africa
" If we are to try to make a New Continent,
we must have a new man to put into it, other-
wise it will be the old story. We may sweep
the house and garnish it with such ideas,
inventions, or furniture as the twentieth
century can supply. Yet with all this there
is no guarantee that the renewed continent
may not be, if not as bad, yet very Httle better
than before. Such things have happened ere
this. Non-Christian civilisations have come to
grief, and disappeared off the face of the earth
for want of some essential moral element."
Now the Church fully recognises the neces-
sity of associating industry with the teaching
of the Gospel. But the problem instantly
arises — of what kind should that connection
be?
There are two types of industrial missions
in Africa. One is the trading kind ; the other
the educational. The first type, while seeking
to use industry as an aid to the regeneration
of Africa, requires especially to make its in-
dustries a commercial success. An impression
has seized the minds of many people that
the resources of Africa are so abundant, that
missions can be supported and extended by
the profits of the missionaries' own industry.
Under this delusion many attempts have been
made to run cheap missions, in which not only
The Hand of the Church on Africa 147
the necessities of the staff, but of the more
religious and educational work are supposed
to be forthcoming from the profits made by
trading operations. I do not think that any-
such attempt has yet been successful. Bishop
Taylor's Mission in West Africa is a notorious
example of the wastage of Hfe and the dis-
appointments that are seen to follow a rash
and unconsidered attempt on these lines.
In Nyasaland there are several trading
missions which work on this principle, but
they have been backed by contributions from
home, which have aided their efforts towards
self-support, and have helped them to continue
their work. One of these missions, the Zam-
besi Industrial, has attained fair success in
its work of evangehsation. Experience has
shown, however, that there are two or three
grave dangers before a trading mission. One
is, that the pressure to make a commercial
profit is so great that it absorbs too much of
the missionary's time and thought. Another
is, that its efforts must be confined to spheres
which are near a market for its goods. The
questions, therefore, of prior occupation by
another society and of the clamant needs of
regions far afield, cannot have so much im-
portance as this question of a market. Again
there is the serious prejudice which is created
148 The Future of Africa
in the minds of other traders, if missionaries
subsidised by philanthropic money enter into
unfair competition with them.
These dangers are so obvious that mis-
sionary societies of experience have avoided
this type of industrial mission. When Buxton
opened up his famous scheme for the Niger, he
made the commercial enterprise a thing by
itself, but asked the Church Missionary Society
to assist with the reHgious side of the work.
So also Venn, the famous secretary of the
Church Missionary Society, who keenly felt the
necessity of developing the commercial possi-
bilities of Africa, took care that the Missionary
Society was not involved in his schemes. He
got specimens of the products of Africa sent
home, and submitted them to experts and
produce brokers. Whilst impressing on mis-
sionaries the importance of advocating and
encouraging trade, he was strenuously careful
to avoid any actual business connection for
them lest it should distract or monopoUse
their thoughts. He estabHshed small in-
dustrial institutes at Lagos and Abeokuta
where the natives were taught handicrafts.
In 1859 two or three hundred cotton gins
were at work at Abeokuta, and out of this
little beginning there has grown the extensive
trade of Lagos with Britain.
The Hand of the Church on Africa 149
The educational industrial mission work
has no temptation to seek a commercial
profit. It is, therefore, free to develop those
industries which may be of Httle service to the
mission, but of great service to others. Its
aim is not to retain its trained journeymen
for its own profit, but to thrust them forth
into the world to be useful citizens who help
in the general advance of their country.
The industrial mission trains the African
to labour in two ways. One is by teaching
a few in a shght manner some skilled industry,
the other by introducing to systematic labour
gangs of people through the ordinary daily work
of the station. If a missionary would build his
station, equip it with necessary furniture, open
a garden and plant fruit trees, he must himself
superintend the work, and to a large degree
initiate his labourers in their tasks. All the
year round he is teaching the African to work.
The lessons in wage-earning labour, as well
as in the more skilled work of building: or
gardening or carpentry, are making their
contribution to the new civiHsation of Africa.
In connection with most systematic and
well-staffed missions, there is a central train-
ing institute where skilled trades are taught
by European artisans. Promising boys are
apprenticed for three or five years and are
150 The Future of Africa
taught printing, carpentry, tailoring, building
and numerous other trades. When their
apprenticeship is over they go forth to serve
other employers, or to become independent
master workmen. Critics of missions who
are very emphatic about the necessity of
industry for the Africans, seem pecuHarly
ignorant of how much is done by these
great central institutes, and how much the
European's very existence in tropical countries
depends on the services of boys trained in
them.
In some of the South African missions the
training of skilled native labour is severely
handicapped by the action of trades' unions of
the white labourer. There was a time when
the Natal Government decreed that no educa-
tional grant would be given to mission schools
unless industrial training were given in them.
Some societies immediately sent for plant to
equip their schools. But the plant had
scarcely arrived before the agitation of white
artisans, who feared that cheaper skilled
labour would diive them out of the field, led
to the Government passing a law the exact
opposite of the former one. The result of this
opposition to native labour is seen in the
housing of Europeans in Southern Rhodesia,
say, as contrasted with their housing in
■iBf-jf
The Hand of the Church on Africa 1 5 1
Nyasaland. To build a good house in
Nyasaland will not cost one-fifth of the
sum it would cost to build the same type
of house in Southern Rhodesia, because the
skilled labour in Nyasaland is done by natives,
while in Rhodesia it is done by Europeans.
The wage of a skilled Em^opean artisan may
be £1 a day, and of the native £1 a month.
The great need for unskilled labour in the
mines and farms of South Africa, and the fear
of white men that native competition will be
disastrous to them, has greatly compHcated
the question of industrial training. But we
must acknowledge that the presence of white
men in an African country ought not by any
means to hinder the rise of the native to a
competent and self-respecting manhood. So
far the African artisan has not yet shown
liimself as efficient as the European. His
initiative faculties are great, but his power
to progress, when left to himself, is hmited.
You will find natives running the steamers on
the Niger, building the houses of Europeans all
over Africa, making their furniture, printing
their books. You will find them acting as
clerks and telegraphists. But they always
require European superintendence to guide
them, and keep them from deteriorating. Yet
when one sees a great institution like Tuskegee
152 The Future of Africa
in Alabama, U.S.A., where the buildings have
not only been erected but planned by Africans,
in wliich technical classes in thirty industries
are taught by competent Africans, one must
admit that the future may yet see African
leaders of industry who will be able to plan,
direct and develop the future of a high and
advancing civihsation.
If the industrial mission has accompHshed
anything it has only been by its being per-
meated by a spiritual and Christian atmosphere.
" Permanent societies of Christians," said
Dr Phihp, " can never be maintained among
a civihsed people without imparting to them
the arts and habits of civihsed hfe . . . but
if missionaries lose their religion and sink
into mere mechanics, the work of civilisation
and moral improvement will speedily retro-
grade." Hence it will be observed that
in every successful industrial mission the
spiritual tone has been kept high, and the
whole work subordinated to the supreme aim
of making Jesus Christ known, and of forming
the character of the pupils.
It is well that this be emphasised. The
superficial reader places great value on the
testimony of officials and travellers who com-
mend this and that mission because of the
carpenters, cooks, or tailors it has turned out,
The Hand of the Church on Africa 153
whose services have helped to make their
residence in Ahica less troublesome. The
mission whose industrial work has given most
help to the European is far more praised than
the mission which has helped to turn men to
Christ and form them after His image. But
to the true missionary there has neither been
advance in civihsation, nor has his work been
done, if the supreme result of characters
established in Christ has not followed from
his industrial training.
Another all important branch of mission (b) Medical
work in Africa is the medical agency. Africa Missions,
abounds in native doctors of which there are
two classes : one which has some skill in medi-
cine and surgery, varying according to the in-
dividual, the other the exorcists, who believe
that all disease emanates from an indwelling
devil. What Africa has suffered at the hands
of her " medicine men " it would be hard
to reckon. To them she owes not only
barbarous surgery and deadly medicine which
may kill as soon as cure, but wild orgies of
superstitious practices and charges of bewitch-
ing brought against others, which have led to
the scattering of villages, and to the death
year by year of numbers of innocent people.
It was Livingstone and others like him, who,
moved by the awful evils instituted by this
154 The Future of Africa
cult of medicine men, urged unweariedly the
absolute necessity of medical missions. These
men saw the countless benefits that would
ensue from enhghtened and humane treat-
ment of native ailments and diseases. They
saw that many deadly evils would be banished
by the crushing of the superstitious practices
of these witch-doctors. Livingstone and his
contemporaries also saw that for those who
attempted travel and exploration in Africa or
sought to pioneer among shifty and antago-
nistic chiefs, a knowledge of medicine was
well-nigh indispensable.
The work which medical missions have done
cannot be exaggerated. They have led to the
sure exposure of the deceptions, superstitions,
and barbarities of the native medicine men.
The kindliness of the missionaries to the sick is
a continual revelation of the new law of mercy.
In more than one instance the medical mis-
sionary, by his skill, has opened doors which
were locked against Christian missions. By
creating a sense of obhgation for life saved and
pain reheved, the doctor has bound the natives
to the missionaries by strong cords of friend-
ship. Medical missions have lessened count-
less hardships both for the native and also for
the European. They have paved the way for
the missionary's higher activities in countless
The Hand of the Church on Africa 1 5 5
instances. They have, in God's providence,
prolonged his Hfe and increased his store of
health, so necessary for buoyant and active
service.
Although most missionaries in Africa acquire
a smattering of medical knowledge and dabble
a good deal, through force of circumstances, in
medical and surgical work, there is less special-
ised medical work done than in India and some
other countries. Almost all the doctors in pagan
Africa are compelled to divide their energies
amongst all classes of work. Few are provided
with efficient hospitals, and few are allowed
the time or opportunity for the scientific
investigation of those ravaging scom'ges that
sweep over Africa. Yet there are some
notable exceptions. The great hospital at
Mengo in Uganda, under the brothers Drs
A. R. and J. H. Cook, has one hundred and
thirty beds, is very fully equipped, and attracts
patients from all over Equatorial Africa. At
Blantyre in Nyasaland, there is a large
hospital with two doctors in charge. In
South Africa nearly all the medical work for
natives is done by Government medical men,
but the Victoria Hospital at Lovedale does
very helpful though somewhat limited work.
Altogether there are scattered over the Con-
tinent about one hundi'ed hospitals and dis-
156 The Future of Africa
pensaries, most of them in charge of doctors,
some in charge of trained nurses ; but in only
a few of these is the doctor given an oppor-
tunity to speciaUse in his medical work. At
many of the hospitals systematic training is
given to natives who are afterwards put in
charge of hand-dispensaries or who act as
hospital assistants, or are sent to assist
employers of labour in caring for the sick and
maimed among their employees. So far, how-
ever, no fully quaHfied native doctors have yet
been trained in African schools. Most of the
protectorates and colonies have made laws
which forbid any one practising who has
not received the diploma of a recognised
European School of Medicine.
Education has been a necessary arm of all
mission work in pagan Africa. Early mis-
sionary work was confronted by a people who
had no literature of their own, and who had
no means of communicating knowledge to one
another. On the West Coast it has been found
that one or two tribes had certain signs by
which language might be reproduced, but these
were of a secret and Umited form. The result
of this lack of literature was that the intel-
ligence of peoples had httle opportunity of
growth. War and other causes closed up the
boundaries of each tribe, so that each lived
The Hand of the Church on Africa 157
in a peculiar isolation which forbade the
intercommunication of ideas. Traditional
superstitions alone explained natural pheno-
mena, and custom dictated the hne of conduct.
The lever which all missions have used to raise
the gross ignorance of the African has been
education. It has been recognised that teach-
ing in schools has produced in a greater or less
degree a more open mind to rational explana-
tions of the world in which we live, and has
undermined the inexorable hold of traditional
customs and superstitions. It has also pre-
pared a way for the Gospel. Christian truth
does not break suddenly on the mind of the
native with one declaration. It requires
much reiteration, and the new intelhgence that
schools create makes the native more sus-
ceptible to the meaning of the Gospel. As
education increases, the fuller meanings of
spiritual and moral teaching are more easily
understood. Moreover, the art of reading,
places among them God's greatest teacher,
whose voice need never be silenced — the Bible.
One example of this is worth quoting. A
mission in Africa, which despised the routine
work of school teaching, believed that the
daily proclamation of the Gospel would suffice
for the creation of Chiistian hves. One of the
missionaries, who is a first-class linguist,
158 The Future of Africa
translated the New Testament into the ver-
nacular, and when it was pubHshed, he and
his colleagues awoke to the fact, that though
they had this inestimable treasure among
them, no one could read it.
The educational work of missions in Africa
is mainly of a very elementary character, but
it has grown to enormous dimensions. The
schools show a constant growth in efficiency,
but necessarily the staffing and equipment are
of the most primitive character, especially in
the protectorates, where the expenditure is
limited almost entirely to the educational
budget of the missionary societies. When a
group of villages desire a school, two or three
Christian lads are sent as teachers. They
are possibl}^ young married men of tried
character, whose education has not taken them
beyond Standard IV. or Standard V. They
take with them a syllable sheet, a httle black-
board, some slates and pencils, and with this
equipment they begin to teach. They seem
to be poorly enough educated themselves, but
there are one or two things about them that
raise them high above their heathen villagers.
They are dressed, the villagers are naked.
They wash daily, the villagers smear them-
selves with oil, and are coated with dust. The
printed page speaks to them, it is silent to the
A VILLAGE SCHOOL
GIRLS BELONGING TO A MISSION BOARDING-SCHOOL
The Hand of the Church on Africa 159
villager. They have learned the Gospel of an
indwelling God, and a Saviour from sin. The
villagers know nothing of God, and cringe
before fetiches or spirits of the dead. They
have learned a new law of tenderness to suffer-
ing, of sobriety and purit}^ of conduct. The
villagers are drunken as long as they can get
beer, are brutal to the helpless, and their very
sport is permeated with unchastity. SHght
then as the education of these teachers has
been, they are already far ahead of the heathen
villagers, and their faces are towards the light.
They begin the school in the open air, under
some shady tree, and as all the pupils are
in the same class, beginning at syllables,
it is still early morning when religious and
secular teaching are over. When school is
finished, the teachers lead the villagers and
show them how to build to a large rectangular
plan, and in a month or two the scholars have
shifted from the open air to a school-house
which they themselves have built, and which
is by far the greatest and best house in the
community.
The school soon develops. Smart boys
will be able to read before the year is over.
Others drag on in the lower classes term after
term. The slates are in daily use, and the
mystery of counting is learned. A httle
i6o The Future of Africa
pressure is brought to bear on the pupils to pay
a small fee, and soon the large numbers in the
school have diminished to a few who are eager
enough to learn and will not grudge to pay.
Daily a Bible lesson is taught, and its spiritual
and moral lessons are driven home with con-
siderable fulness. Soon hearts are touched,
and a httle group of enquirers begin to gather
about the teacher.
At the best the schools seldom take the pupils
beyond reading of the vernacular, writing, and
simple arithmetic. But when these have
been learned the pupils have acquired the art
of communicating with one another when
absent, of making simple calculations which
meet them in daily Hfe, and of reading the
wisdom of others, and the message of God.
Such is a sHght description of a pioneer
school in Nyasaland, or in East Africa. It will
also hold good of those in most lands in pagan
Africa. As the scliools become established
and the people grow in intelhgence, the pro-
gramme is, of course, more elaborated, and
education is given by more systematic methods.
All missions do not follow this extensive
method of education. There are some who
only teach the pupils about the European
station, and all converts are required to with-
draw from thdr heathen surroundings and
The Hand of the Church on Africa i6i
settle in the neighbourhood of the station.
In other missions large boarding-schools are
opened, and promising children are carefully
trained and educated there, in the hope
that when they are ready, they may go
back among their own people with an estab-
hshed character, and considerably enhghtened.
This method means a much more thorough
education, for it is conducted under the im-
mediate superintendence of Europeans. But
it also means a great hmitation of the mission's
influence.
Secondary education is a growth of recent
days. Its necessity arises from the demand
for better trained teachers and the higher
efficiency required in elementary schools.
In Uganda the professional training of teachers
has only been undertaken on a small scale,
and is still for the most part unorganised.
In Southern Nigeria (" Old Calabar ") an
Institution of the United Free Church of
Scotland has been recently organised, but so
far only one fully quahfied native teacher is in
educational work. At Sierra Leone, as far
back as 1827, the Fourah Bay CoUege was
started for the training of native workers.
It has since been afhhated with Durham
University and is the only African native
coUege which gives degrees. Several of the
i62 The Future of Africa
other old established missions have their
grammar schools and institutes, such as the
Church Missionary Society at Abeokuta and at
Oka on the Niger, the Wesleyan High Schools
at Freetown and Cape Coast and an Institute
at Ibadan, and the Basel Mission on the Gold
Coast. In Nyasaland each one of the missions
has now a central training Institute, where the
future teachers are given a full professional
course in teaching. South Africa has also a
large number of seminaries for higher educa-
tion, and most of the strong missions have one
or two. But, in spite of the unusual advan-
tages for full training in teaching, a very small
percentage of those who are engaged in school
work in this old field have had a complete
course. The urgent needs of schools for
teachers and the attraction of more lucrative
spheres of service draw the pupils away before
their education is completed. Yet the type
of education given in the elementary schools
by these partially trained teachers is much in
advance of what is found in the northern
parts of the continent. Unfortunately in
South Africa, as in Sierra Leone, the rehgious
influence of the schools has not kept pace with
their educational advance.
An ambitious plan for a native College at
Lovedale, South Africa, is now under con-
The Hand of the Church on Africa 163
sideration. Most of the great missionary
societies have fallen in with the proposal and
promised to do their part towards its foun-
dation and maintenance. The government
educational authorities have also concurred
in the proposal, and the native states have
offered large sums of money. It is not pro-
posed to found the College on a European
plan, so as to denationalise the native, but on
essentially native hues, which, while refusing
to lower the high standard of efficiency
expected of a college affiliated with the Uni-
versity, will train native leaders in the arts and
sciences in such a way as to make them more
capable of serving their fellows, as teachers,
ministers, doctors, or in whatever sphere is
open to them.
At present the type of education wliich
missions are giving in their schools is con-
stantly changing. Old methods are being
abandoned and more modern and scientific
methods are being used. All missionaries call
out for more manual and industrial teaching in
the schools, so that the hand and whole body
may be developed as well as the mind. It is
felt that the school books used in many
missions lose a great opportunity as they are
not adapted to the life of the people, and that
the general result of the system of education
1 64 The Future of Africa
followed does not adequately adjust the pupil
to the new life he should Hve at home, nor does
it help to the formation of good and useful
citizens of the state that is arising.
Gradually these questions will work out
their proper solution through the lessons
learned from the experience of the past century,
together with the Ught that the modern science
of teaching is throwing on the problems of the
training of childhood.
While the intellectual and Christian life of
the people is rising all over Africa, it is to be
expected that literature for the feeding of it
will also be growing. Scarcely is a mission
started than the need for a printing press
appears. It may be used first for printing
school books, and as education grows it is
required for portions of the Bible and books
which further the knowledge and feed the
spiritual life of the Christians. The Roman
alphabet and phonetic spelling have been
adopted, thereby greatly faciHtating the pro-
cess of learning to read and fixing definitely
the orthography of the language.
In many of the missions a monthy paper is
published, in some cases a weekly, which not
only teaches Christian truth, but widens the
horizon of the readers by giving news of the
outside world and scientific information. In
The Hand of the Church on Africa 165
Madagascar, where literary work has been
emphasised from the beginning, a considerable
literature is growing up. The whole Bible
was translated in the early days, and has since
been revised. Books on the spiritual Kfe, of
theology, church history and apologetics, com-
mentaries on the Bible, and even a large Bible
Dictionary of nine hundred pages, have been
pubHshed. In Uganda the Bible is pubUshed,
with other devotional books, the Oxford
helps, several commentaries and books on
Church History. In Basutoland also there is
a weekly newspaper which has been continu-
ously pubhshed for forty- three years. The
whole Bible has been translated, together with
several commentaries, a Dictionary of the
Bible, and other helpful books on the Bible.
In West Africa and South Africa, the growth
of the knowledge of Enghsh has somewhat
restrained vernacular pubhcations, and the
higher teaching is done in Enghsh. In every
Protestant mission of pagan Africa, however,
the printing press is producing some kind of
hterature and pushing forward the pubHcation
of the whole Bible in the vernacular of the
people. In this there is an essential differ-
ence from the work of the old Roman Catholic
missions, and in some degree from those of the
present.
1 66 The Future of Africa
But in spite of the apparent desire for
education throughout Africa the educated
people cannot be called a reading people.
By the ordinary native little is read beyond
their Bible and hymn-books. Possibly the
explanation of this is the very elementary
character of the vast majority of primary
schools. Pupils of the first generation of
Christians begin to learn late in hfe, and it is
difficult to retain them in school long enough.
Nearly all the pupils leave school before they
have attained to much freedom in reading,
and consequently they have not yet learned
the deHght of books. Unfortunately far too
many of the books printed are merely trans-
lations. They therefore preserve a difiicult
and foreign form which does not appeal to the
natives. Books are required which are written
from the native point of view, and with the
mental and spiritual environment of those
who are to read them. The time has not yet
come when the African himself will produce
his own hterature, although there are one or
two notable examples of highly popular and
useful books by native converts, notably
the commentary written by the Katihiro of
Uganda.
It is a significant fact for the future of Africa
that the vernacular literature so far is dis-
ff*^'' J.
» «
■laliWUtrspi- ■ - -■» ■
L — ,- ■ ■ , ^
llLANT^ IIK < lllHC II, NVASALANI)
(Churc/t of Scotland Mission)
The Hand of the Church on Africa 167
tinctly Christian in tone, and is almost entirely
issued from mission presses. In South Africa
there are two or three vernacular newspapers
issued by natives themselves. These natives
have all been educated in Christian schools,
and are favourable to Christianity, so that it
m.ay be said with confidence that in Central
and South Africa the press is entirely Chris-
tian, and an agency for the evangelisation of
the land and the building up of Christian
character.
When one considers the more directly (e) Preach-
reHgious work of missions, a wonderful unity '"f) its
of aim and method is found. Tlie preaching ^^^"^*
of the Gospel to pagan Africa must always
remain the chief method of missionary work.
It is probably true to say that almost the entire
Christian community in Africa has been
brought to Christ by the spoken word, though
it may have been pointed and confirmed by
the printed page. Preaching in the Church,
Sunday by Sunday and often during the week,
village services in the open court of the village,
quiet talks by the wayside or in the homes
of the people — these are the ordinary methods
of declaring the Gospel.
The work of preaching is, of course, not con-
fined to the foreign missionary. It is possible
that in many districts the preaching has
1 68 The Future of Africa
been done almost entirely by natives. The
European has always to contend with the
difficulty of speaking in a foreign tongue and
passing his thoughts through a foreign mould ;
but he has also on his side the prestige that
attends the fact that he is a European, also
that his superior education has given him a
clearer insight into the truths of God. " He
comes to them as the representative of the
higher knowledge, the superior forces, the
marvellous apparatus of the outer world
which is breaking in upon their lower level ; he
is associated in their minds with the deference
due to the foreign power whose authority
overshadows them ; the quahties developed
in him by superior knowledge and culture,
and still more the Christian principle which
regulates his life and work among them, win
their confidence, or at least compel their
regard."
It is not good that the European minimise
the possible power that may attend his preach-
ing. The danger in Africa is, that the lack
of that stimulus which an intelHgent and
critical audience may give to a preacher tends
to make the European esteem too Hghtly the
greatest of his regular tasks.
On the other hand the efficiency of the
native as an evangelist has been amply proved.
The Hand of the Church on Africa 169
In many parts of Africa every church member
is an evangelist, if not in the public proclama-
tion of the Gospel, at least in the homely
private talks. Pubhc speaking comes natur-
ally to Africans. Even the small boys are not
shamefaced to stand up and orate before their
elders. Their ease in pubhc speaking is at
once their weakness and their strength. It is
easy to find your preachers when Christian
life is awake, but it is not so easy to find
preachers who carefully prepare, or who really
instruct by their sermons.
Yet these simple native Christians are the
great propagators of Christianity, Through
them the European may multiply himself a
hundredfold, and there are many missions
where, for each European who preaches the
word on Sundays, there are a hundred native
Christians declaring the same word in the
scattered villages.
The advantages of the native evangelist over
the foreign missionary are evident. His work
is not interrupted by furloughs and by the
weakness and sickness that meet the European
missionary in a foreign chmate. He under-
stands his fellows, their type of thought, their
attitude to the past, and to the new Gospel.
He speaks their language fluently and idio-
matically. Most African languages are com-
I70 The Future of Africa
paratively easy to learn, but their very sim-
plicity makes the difficulty for the foreigner.
His thought is expressed in a more formal
mould, by illustrations, and along Unes which
do not appeal to the native. Few men are
able " to get at the back of the black man's
mind " and few are able to see truth in
his perspective. But when you get a well-
educated native Christian, who has not been
denationaUsed by his education, and who has
come to understand the Gospel and is full of
the Spirit, you have a wonderful medium for
the presentation of the Truth.
Besides, the native Christian stands there
as a transformed man of their own species.
He shows in his conduct and home life what
the Gospel can do for him. The European
missionary has come out of another environ-
ment, and all the advantages of his higher type
of Ufe seem to the Africans to have been born
with him in his own land beyond the seas.
The daily practice of temperance, industry,
economy, truthfulness and the many virtues
of a true Christian hfe, when seen in a native
Christian whom they knew formerly as a pagan
like one of themselves, is a more convincing
witness of the Power of God, than any im-
portation can be.
Does this preaching, we may ask, awaken
The Hand of the Church on Africa 171
any response in the heathen heart ? Does the (ii) The Ap-
African native show any desire to hsten to cTspei.
the teaching of the Gospel ? Can his mind
appreciate and understand the message which
Christianity brings to him ? In answering
these questions we must first bear in mind
that the mind of the African pagan is not
wholly unprepared for the teaching of Chris-
tianity. The whole of Animistic reHgion is not
in opposition to the Gospel, and there are many
points of contact which no missionary can
ignore. We have seen in the last chapter
how among the rudest tribes there exists a dim
undefined consciousness of a great unknown
God ; we have also seen the distorted, yet
hving, behef in an after-hfe of the soul. The
need for atonement with the gods whom he
has offended gives rise to the pagan's behef
in the efficacy of sacrifice. These scattered
fragments the Christian missionary can use,
and weld them into the foundations on which
he seeks to rear the City of God in untutored
Africa. He will lead his hearers from the
known to the unknown. If, however, he comes
among the people in unsympathetic antagon-
ism to everytliing and tries, by breaking their
beer pots, to stop drunkenness, by entering
their groves and scattering their fetiches, to
overthrow superstition, he will only find that
172 The Future of Africa
he has ahenated the people from himself, and
has not altered one bit their sensuaHty or their
superstition. It is not by denunciation of evil
that men reveal the truth — we do not lighten
a room by sweeping out the dark, but by letting
in the hght, and the best assent to truth has
been got by emphasising what is known, such
as the existence of God, immortahty, the need
of sacrifice, and passing on to reveal the further
Truth.
We must not, however, be led into thinking
that the newness of the Gospel-teaching is a
hindrance to missionary work among the pagans
of Africa. The Gospel message comes to supply
something which they have never experienced
before, and which they gladly receive. We
have seen in a previous chapter how the
religion of the African is one of fear ; it
entails daily distresses, even torture for the
sick and the defenceless ; it tramples all
humane instincts underfoot, and leads to the
triumph of the barbarous doctrine, " might is
right." To this Christianity brings a message
of sympathy and of certainty. Christ is seen
as able to conquer the demons and evil spirits
which prevail over man. Ears are readily
opened to such a message, regardless at first
even of its rehgious significance. A willing-
ness to hear, and hope for betterance, is
The Hand of the Church on Africa 173
instantly kindled in hearts that otherwise
might remain cold. These untutored peoples
who are burdened with pain and misery
are eagerly awaiting the Divine consolation,
" earthly misery causes men to stretch out
their hands for the Gospel gifts." ^
Another great influence at work to-day is
the personahty of the Christian messenger.
The African is quickly responsive to kindness.
Unselfish love and truth for truth's sake are
utterly strange and new conceptions, yet he
is quick to grasp their value, and some latent
sense of appreciation is aroused to meet this
strange new revelation. The hardened heathen,
famihar only with selfishness all around him,
is imperceptibly softened by the love and
kindness that " seeketh not his own but
another's " good. These virtues awaken in
the Animist feehngs of whose existence he has
been utterly unaware. Thus " confidence in
the person of the missionary leads to con-
fidence in the God of the missionary " ^ and a
readiness to accept and to serve Him.
The evangelic message also brings the
knowledge of a personal and loving God to the
heathen world. The heathen frequently experi-
ence the impotence of their own gods, and the
* Warneck, " The Living Forces of the Gospel," p. IfJO
2 Ibid., p. 170.
174 The Future of Africa
accessibility of God, His power, love and over-
ruling providence, exert a tremendous effect
on the heathen mind. This leads to the
impulse to pray, hitherto unknown to him,
now a new and joyful practice frequently put
into use. " The heathen who has entered into
a personal relation with God must needs tell
Him everything that moves him." ^ A full
understanding of the significance of the Cross
of Christ cannot be expected among a people
who have httle or no sense of sin. Before the
power of Christ to redeem a man from sin can
be reahsed in the mind of the pagan, many
steps have to be cHmbed. Some sense of sin
has to be created. Indeed, one of the greatest
difficulties in preaching is to find words for our
adequate expression of truths, such as purity,
trust, hohness. These, however, are things
which will only be learned as men grow into
the knowledge of God. It is by reveahng God
that some conception of the contents of the
word we use for purity or hohness is learned,
and it is as these are learned that the meaning
of sin breaks on people and the idea of Jesus
Christ as a present Saviour dehvering from
sin is understood.
1 Warneck, "The Living Forces of the Gospel," p. 219.
CHAPTER VI
RESULTS OF MISSION WORK
ANALYTICAL INDEX
The Influence of Missions on Africa.
The Social Results.
(a) Establishment of Peace.
(6) Influence on African Chiefs.
(c) Suppression of Social Evils.
Establishment of the Church in Africa.
(a) How a Church is built up.
(b) Admission to Membership.
(c) Hindrances to Church Life,
(r/) Endurance of Persecution,
(e) Liberality.
(J) Missionary Zeal.
Conclusion.
Christianity, we have seen, has a great work The in-
to do for Africa. That work the Christian JjfJ^^^^f^^
Church is seeking to do along many hnes of Africa
activity. However feeble the effort may be
compared with the task, we cannot but admit
that much is being given to Africa both by
'75
1/6 The Future of Africa
gifts of money and by gifts of human lives.
What then, we may ask, are the results in Africa
to-day of those various activities ? Is Africa
changing ? Is there justification for the hope
that Africa may one day take her place in the
Christian life of the nations of the world ?
These are momentous questions, and to answer
them rightly demands much study and thought.
In a country so closely Hnked to European
civihsation as Africa is, it is difficult to specify
definitely the actual results of Christianity,
for God uses man}?^ forces to accompHsh His
Will, and many who are unaware of it may
yet be His agents. He uses the forces of
government and of commerce in preparing a
way for His messengers, in establishing peace,
in giving settled government, enriching and
enhghtening the people, and in increasing the
accessibility of the continent. Some of these
influences we have already noted, but we have
in this chapter to study more particularly the
changes which have actually been brought
about by missionary work. It will help us
if we divide the spheres of its influence, first,
into those which touch inter-tribal and social
relationships, and second, those wiiicli are more
directly connected with the raising up of a
Church essentially African and no mere
foreign growth transplanted.
Results of Mission Work 177
First, we may see how missions have con- The Social
tributed to the peace of the continent. Again (a) Estab-
and again there have been cases where the pea'jr*^^
teaching of the Gospel, apart from the influence
of a strong government, has tm'ned people
from war and rebelHon, and made them listen
reasonably to the commands of their Governors.
In the earher days of British colonisation in
Africa, " but for the missionaries the natives
would have lacked all local protection. It
was only thi^ough the missionaries that news
of injustice or cruelty practised on a native
could reach the ears of the British Govern-
ment. . . . One must rejoice," the same
African historian goes on to say, " that
ministers of rehgion were found to champion
the cause of the weaker race and keep the
government ahve to a sense of one of its first
duties." In the promotion of settled European
government missionaries have again and again
been the pioneers and mediators. Though
most of them try to avoid anything that would
make them appear the agents of any par-
ticular power, the necessities of the situation
have frequently compelled them to urge
European Powers to estabUsh protectorates
in order to save the subject people from the
mischievous inroads of contending forces, irre-
sponsible Europeans, and the havoc of inter-
178 The Future of Africa
tribal war and the slave traffic. Missionaries
were the means of leading the Bechuana chiefs
to petition the British nation to administer
their country when the gold rush and the
encroachments of the Boers imperilled their
future. It was also the active agitation of the
missionary societies that compelled Britain,
reluctant as she was, to estabhsh the Nyasa-
land, the East African, and Uganda Pro-
tectorates. Nor can it be said that Jingoism
was the inspiring motive in any of the above
instances. It was a case of seeing a native
people threatened by a wave of chaos and
misrule, which would have submerged them,
and of appeahng to a European nation to fulfil
its obHgations to weaker peoples. It is also
a striking fact that in all the tribes where the
Livingstonia missions preceded Government,
no mihtary expedition was necessary. The
Tonga, Henga, Tumbuka, Angoni — the Mazitu
of Livingstone's book — were quietly settled
without a single display of force. The only
place where fighting took place was at Karonga,
and there war was waged against the Arab
slavers, the natives fighting on the side of the
British.i
1 The interesting case of Bishop Tucker's appeal against
Britain abandoning Uganda should be studied in vol. vii.,
p. 75, of The Commission Reports of the Edinburgh Conference,
or vol. iii., C.M.S. Hist., p. 445.
Results of Mission Work 179
For many years wliile the Germans waged a
constant war with the Hottentots in their
South-West Protectorate, the Hereros remained
peaceable through the influence of the German
missionaries, \^^len at last the costly and
prolonged war of the early part of this century
broke out, it was the missionaries who acted as
peacemakers, and after the defeat of the rebels
succeeded in bringing 12,000 of them to
voluntary submission.
Again and again Enghsh Governors and
administrators have testified to the influence
of the missionaries in the cause of peace.
Wlien Sir Charles, then Colonel, Warren was
engaged in pacifying Bechuanaland, he
generously wrote : "... for the preservation
of peace between colonists and natives one
missionary is worth a battahon of soldiers,"
and he refused to allow the Government to
deprive him of John Mackenzie's services.
Warren saw that in Mackenzie he had a man
who understood the situation better than any
other one, and who could justly interpret the
attitude of the natives. Bechuanaland was
the key of Rhodesia, and its retention under
British protection was to have far-reaching
effects. So also when Sir Alfred Sharpe was
appointed to the administration of the North
Angoni in Nyasaland, he had the missionaries
i8o The Future of Africa
by his side to reassure the chiefs, and he used
a mission teacher as an interpreter. The
result was that, without the display of a single
soldier, he took over the control of this tribe,
once the most warlike in Central Africa.
Similar testimonies could also be quoted from
consuls and commissioners in other parts of
Africa.
The call upon Government has not been for
the preservation of the lives of missionaries,
but for the defence of helpless people whose
future existence was at stake. The principle
which has guided Protestant missionary
societies is laid down by John Mackenzie,
when he says, " The missionary who goes into
a heathen land goes at the risk of liis own life,
and has no right to call upon the Home
Government for help when life seems in
danger. And this is surely the doctrine most
generally held by British missionaries and
statemen. Whatever other governments may
have done, it has not been the practice of the
British Government to treat the murder of
missionaries by heathen peoples as calling for
the interference of the sovereign." It is one
thing, however, to bring a tribe under peaceful
administration and quite another to maintain
peace during the days when the irksomeness of
paying taxes, of burying the spear, and of
Results of Mission Work i8i
resisting temptation to revenge aggressions by
others, begin to be felt. Now the " pax
Britminica " is steahng over inland Africa, not
simply because at the back of Government
there are Httle companies of native soldiers
officered by Europeans, but also because a new
teaching is permeating the tribal Hfe, breaking
up the warring and turbulent spirit, and
inculcating a patient forbearance.
Apart from their actual influence in pre- (b) influence
i '^ , on African
venting warfare, many instances might be chiefs.
given where the destinies of tribes were saved
by the power of wise chiefs who had been
guided by Christian missions.
Livingstone's father-in-law, the honoured
missionary Robert Moffat, gained a wonderful
influence over the noted robber chief of the
Hottentots, Africaner. He was at the height
of his dreadful notoriety with a price set on his
h^ad by the Cape Government, when Moffat
first came in contact with him. Africaner had
begun life as a servant to a certain Penaar, a
Dutchman. Penaar treated him with such
harshness that in revenge Africaner one day
murdered liim and escaped into the interior.
There he gatliered a clan of marauding
Hottentots about him and for years carried on
a hfe of war and plunder. He spared neither
white nor black, and the fame of his butcheries
1 82 The Future of Africa
was so terrible that they caused a trembhng
among the natives whenever his name was
mentioned. Moffat, however, penetrated to
the chief's kraal and boldly began mission
work among his people. Gradually he over-
came Africaner's suspicion and hostihty, and
in the end so gained his affections and respect
that finally the chief was won over to Chiis-
tianity, baptised by Moffat, and renounced
his former evil ways with such thoroughness
that he and his marauders settled down to a
peaceable pastoral hfe. When Moffat went
to Cape Town to visit the Governor, Africaner
accompanied him. The favourable impres-
sion made by this visible demonstration of the
conquering power of the Gospel was very great.
Another notable chief of the earher days
was Waterboer, who had been a catechist in
one of the missions of the London Missionary
Society. He was elected chief of Griquatown,
and soon rose to great power, making his clan
the most influential in South Africa. He
suppressed all plundering by his own people,
and by neighbouring tribes. He absorbed
marauding tribes into his own, and settled
them down to a peaceful hfe. He headed the
Griqua chiefs, and succeeded in driving off
from Kuruman the apparently irresistible
horde of Mantiti, who were devastating great
Results of Mission Work 183
stretches of South Africa. Year by year his
fame and power increased till the Government
recognised what an ally for peace and pro-
gressive civiHsation it had in the Christian
chief, Waterboer.
We have another example in Moshesh, the
great chief of the Basuto, whom the French
missionaries led to give up raiding. For the
past two generations the mission influence
has been paramount, so that this people are
possibly the most stable and advanced in
South Africa. They, almost alone in South
Africa, retain their independence. They have
125,000 pupils at school and a rapidly increas-
ing literature. Recently a native parHament
has been formed among them. For years this
tribe steadied by the presence and influence
of their missionaries remained loyal to the
British Empire, when the Kaffirs and other
surrounding people were fighting British forces.
Lastly there is Khama, the most deservedly
famous of all Central African chiefs, who has
stood for righteousness and Christian principle
all through liis long and honourable life.
There is no small romance in the record of this
chief, who as a young man was appointed
leader of the Bamangwato in northern
Bechuanaland and figured largely during the
stormy period of that province's history from
1 84 The Future of Africa
1878 onwards when Colonel Warren main-
tained a military occupation there, finally
achieving the settlement of Bechuanaland in
1885. The effect of the British connection
was unmixed good. Formerly a hotbed of
war and tumults, Bechuanaland was handed
over to Cape Colony " as safe to travel in as
any part of England."
Khama contributed no little to this pacific
settlement. In youth he had come under
missionary influence and accepted Christianity
whole-heartedly. He had much to contend
against, especially the machinations of his wily
old father and his half-brother, who en-
deavoured to raise disaffection amongst his
followers and oust liim from his position as
chief. He met all their plots with an admir-
able mixture of sane dealing and forbearance,
and his followers remained staunch. His
appeal in a letter to the British administrator
during the height of the unrest is character-
istic and is no small testimony to the result of
Christian teaching : "I ask her Majesty to
defend me as she defends all her children.
There are three things which distress me very
much — war, selhng people, and diink." There
came a day notable in African annals when
this dusky chief crossed the seas to pay his
homage in person to the Queen and repre-
Results of Mission Work 185
sentative of that great Christian country,
whence enHghtenment and hope for present
gain and futm-e betterance borne by the
messengers of Good Tidings had come to
K]iama and his faithful people.
But we must pass from individual instances (c) Suppres-
to the wide general improvement introduced social
by Christian missions into African Hfe. The ^^^'^'
unrest of Africa does not only come, as we have
seen, from unhappy tribal relations, but also
from social customs which are deadly and
disturbing. Here, too, missions are saving
more hves than can well be counted. Govern-
ment, of coiu'se, forbids brutal practices, but
the Gospel has reached many places which
government has scarcely touched. The old
missionaries in Calabar, long before Britain
had settled in that country, got some of the
chiefs to agree to abolish infanticide, the
kilHng of mothers, and human sacrifice.
Indeed, one of the most heroic tales of mission
work is the story of Miss Slessor's pioneering
service. For thirty-three years she has
worked in Southern Nigeria and has made it
her custom to live far ahead of any civihsing
power among the most degraded and brutal
natives. She has lived as the rescuer and
guardian of little children who were destined
for death. Many a time she has saved the
1 86 The Future of Africa
people from committing murder upon the
unhappy mother of twins, and upon the twins
themselves. Thanks to the teaching of
mission schools the incalculable horrors of
witchcraft and the poison ordeal are also being
eHminated. A missionary known to the writer
has seen a dozen dead bodies lying outside a
village stockade in Nyasaland after the
administration of the poison ordeal. Not
many years passed before he saw the ordeal
die out in that district because the common
conscience of the people had been educated to
abhor it.
Polygamy is one of Africa's curses. Family
life is impossible under it, and the degradation
of womanhood is involved in it. There are
chiefs who have as many as two or three
hundred wives. Government never attempts
to legislate against this social evil, but the
voice of the Evangel is emphatic in denouncing
it. All over Africa the custom of polygamy
is rapidly dying. In Nyasaland hundreds of
polygamous unions are dissolved, not by force,
but by the new conscience that is awakening.
Home life is also coming into being in Africa,
through the influence of missions alone. When
it does not exist, and it does not exist in
paganism, there can be no purity of life, no
true nurture of the generation that is to be.
Results of Mission Work 187
The African is markedly sociable ; his
domestic virtues are latent and need only
encom-agement and fostering. Already home
ties are held to possess a value utterly unknown
to the former generation. Parental responsi-
bility, honour for parents, tender solicitude
for the weak and sickly, and a spirit of Christian
love and devotion hold sway wherever mission
teacliing has gained a foothold. Children are
being nurtured in these new standards and the
future holds hope that one day the ideal of
family and social relations may be reached,
of a common weal, seeking not merely its own
but another's good, so that " if one member
suffer all the others suffer with it."
Many other social virtues, which make Ufe
brighter and more secure, are appearing to-day
under the influence of missions — virtues which
are essential to true Christianity. Honesty
among people who lived to pilfer and plunder ;
truth, where no he was dishonourable except
when discovered ; kindliness, where cruelty
was a habit ; care for the aged and the sick,
where these were formerly abandoned to the
wild beasts ; cleanliness, where filthiness was
universal ; modesty, where abominations were
openly practised ; clothing, where men and
women were naked, and were not ashamed ;
good housing, where men hved in sheds or
1 88 The Future of Africa
dingy huts ; industry, where none laboured
except under compulsion ; prosperity and
plenty, where poverty and hunger were as
periodical as the seasons — these are some of the
social fruits of missions, which may be seen
wherever Christ's Gospel has been proclaimed.
We now pass to what must be regarded as
the most important result of missionary work
— the creation of a Church in Africa. This is
indeed the main object of missions, the prime
motive of their activity though it may often
escape mention in books of travels, Governor's
reports, or mere smoking-room yarns of
foreign parts. A Church has to be created
where formerly heathendom prevailed : a
pagan people has to be brought into Hving
fellowship with Christ Himself. Without
such a product mission work is still in the hard
and barren days, and there will be httle joy in
the missionary's heart, even though he may
see beautiful villages arising, people acquiring
a new wealth, and Government sitting easy in
its seat.
All that we have said earlier in the chapter
is of minor importance ; now we come to the
very heart of missions. Here is the source of
all individual, social, and national reform.
Wherever a Church lives which is being
sanctified by God the Spirit, to be presented
Results of Mission Work 189
faultless, stainless, and without blemish, there
is a lamp Ht, before which war, social bar-
barities, and all types of immoraHties wither
away, unable to bear its light. Many a time
has the presence of one respected Christian in
a village made an unholy dance cease. Many
a time has the leaven of a Christian com-
munity suppressed the poison ordeal and the
pubHc orgies or fetichism. Not many years
ago when the paramount chief of Northern
Angoniland was elected, and one of the
councillors rose to perform a wild war dance
to incite the tribe to go out on its traditional
raid in celebration of the coronation, the
presence of two or three influential native
Christians turned the dance into a silly fiasco,
and the councillor's plan was defeated. In
these cases, perhaps, no word was spoken.
The mere presence of a Christlike man was a
new conscience to the people, and suppressed
the practices of darkness.
" The Church is the Ark of God, and its
companies of worshippers are the centres of the
manifestation of His glory in the redemption
and sanctification of the wondering children of
men." If missions exist that the whole earth
may be filled with His glory, they must give
birth to those centres for the manifestation of
it, and this is the fruit of proclaiming the
I90 The Future of Africa
Gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ, our first
missionary, came to declare the Gospel.
When He had done so He said to the Father,
" I have glorified Thee on the earth, having
accomplished the work which Thou hast given
Me to do," and missionaries can feel that they
have accomplished the high work for which
they have been sent, when they see around
them a people in whom God is glorified.
(a) How a How is this Cliurcli created ? The answer
buiUup.*^ is, by every agency which is consecrated to
God. Those who read the annual reports of
the Mengo hospital will see how year by year
numbers of the patients are brought to Christ.
Here medical work is the instrument of God
for His Church. One can tell from personal
experience of a carpenter in Central Africa who
turns out splendid journeymen, and through
his ten years' service, scarcely one of his
apprentices has left his shop without having
become a devoted Christian. Here industrial
work is God's instrument for His Church.
The testimony of many missionaries who
reported to the World Missionary Conference
at Edinburgh is that a great number of their
church members have been brought to Christ
in the school. Here educational work is God's
instrument for His Church. And how shall we
reckon the number of souls who have come to
AN AFRICAN CONGREGATION
t,
# » . 4jg
■■s*f^
*<m^^f: *,
llv<!<l\ I!
Results of Mission Work 191
the light through quiet conversations, village
preachings, and church services ? These have
found God's instrument for His Chui'ch in
personal work, and in the preaching of the
Word.
This brings us to the actual question of W Admis-
Church membership. We can only estimate Membership,
aright the possibiUties of a Christian Africa
by considering the character of those to whom
we must look to lead the Church of the future.
In all African churches there is a considerable
interval between profession of faith and com-
municating. The interval may extend, from
six months as laid down by the Baptists on the
Congo to at least two or three years, as in the
case of all the Nyasaland missions. No mis-
sionary of experience baptises men and women
immediately on their profession of faith in
Christ. The African is emotional beyond
most races, and he is particularly social in his
instincts. Consequently he may be swayed
by some popular mass movement, nor would it
become us to let him make vows of faith and
desire which he has not fully understood.
When a man first expresses his desire to
follow Christ he is possibly received informally
to the " Hearers Class." Here he may spend
a year, during which he is taught by a native
teacher the primary doctrines and the whole
192 The Future of Africa
of one of the Gospels. He then comes up for
a personal examination, and if his knowledge
and conduct are satisfactory he may be
received into the catechumen's class. This is
done in a public solemn way, and the catechu-
men pubhcly professes his faith in Christ and
desire to follow Him. He continues in the
catechumen's class for one or two years, during
which time he is regularly instructed by natives
or Europeans in selected Bible Teaching and
in some doctrinal catechism. When he has
completed this course he again comes for a
personal examination, and if he passes, his
name is submitted to the native Christians or
elders. They have seen his hfe and conduct
during the term of his probation, and they
know him well, for there is no privacy in
native Hfe. If a husband has quarrelled with
his wife, the whole village knows it. There
little is hid, all is revealed daily. The walls of
the small huts are not thick enough to conceal
family conduct, and the African does not speak
softly. His conversation with liis neighbour
takes the form of what Miss Kingsley calls a
" friendly yell." Hence the accuracy of the
native Christians' knowledge and judgment
of conduct.
If the catechumen passes then* friendly
inspection he is now ready for baptism. But
Results of Mission Work 193
there are certain public vices that must have
been abandoned through these years of over-
sight. For example, all worship of fetichism
and all brutal practices must have ceased.
Almost universally in pagan Africa no poly-
ganiist may be admitted either to the Catechu-
menate or the Chmch. Only one wife, and that
the true wife, may be retained. Most missions
would refuse anyone who frequented evil
dances. In the Livingstonia and Dutch
Reformed and other missions, all catechumens
must be total abstainers from native beer.
This is a rule made not by the Europeans, but
by the native Church. It was they who led.
When they saw the havoc that beer-drinking
was working in the country, and how easily
they themselves might forget a proper restraint,
they resolved that the native Chm*ch must be
purged of the evil.
When a candidate has been approved by
missionary and people ahke he is then baptised
and received into the full privileges of the
Christian Church. In Anghcan missions
baptism is given at an earUer stage, and then
follows a period of instruction before con-
firmation and the taking of Holy Communion.
In many missions it is insisted that young
people be able to read before they are received
into the Chui'ch. The differing circumstances
194 The Future of Africa
found in different localities necessarily involve
variety of procedure in different missions. But
all the paths by which converts are led into the
Church are long enough to allow some testing of
sincerity, and to give opportunity for con-
siderable instruction. After the candidates
for Church membership have been admitted
by baptism in a public and solemn fashion,
the work of the missionary is far from finished.
There still remains the greater work of leading
the people into some conformity to Christ and
of developing the Church into lines of self-
extension and independence. No missionary
will be satisfied that his work is done when he
has admitted men and women to the Christian
Church. The harder task Hes before him, of
maintaining its disciphne and of purifying its
conduct. The power of mission triumphs
does not he in statistical success, but in the
amount of character that is produced. " How
much of the mind of Christ is appearing in a
community ? " is a more vital question than
" How many are baptised ? "
c) Hin- We cannot be blind to the fact that there
Sunfh Life, are moral hindrances to real Christian pro-
gress, and this the missionary proves daily.
The greatest obstacle of all is the lack of any
sense of sin. Evil, as an offence against God,
is unknown. The only fear of evil is the fear
Results of Mission Work 195
of the social consequences. Certainly moral
progress is distinctly visible in communities
where strong reHgious movements have taken
place and a higher ethical standard is produced
where there are strong religious movements.
It does not, however, always appear suddenly,
nor is it maintained with ease. There is
no field where the rejoicing in progressive
religious work is not at times quahfied with
considerable lamentation over the lack of
conscience, or of permanent improvement.
On the West Coast, for instance, we have
examples of great Christian advances. Six
communicants in one mission in 1816 had
grown to 4500 in 1872, and about a £1000 were
contributed by the people themselves to the
Church fund. Yet even at that period of
progress " not all members were converted
people." Sensual indulgence and vain personal
display were common. A dislike of hard work
crowded the market for clerks and shopmen,
while handicrafts and agriculture were
neglected." The record of progress in the
Uganda Church surpasses anything that has
happened in Continental Africa, yet in its last
year's report we find one missionary referring
to the increasing indifference to Christian duty
and to the growing immorality, and to how
little is taught or understood of the vital truths
196 The Future of Africa
of the Faith, among the candidates for con-
firmation or baptism. The spread of Chris-
tianity in Madagascar between 1870-1880 was
amazing. In 1880, just twelve years after
the succession of Ranavalona II., the first
Christian queen, there were 68,227 Church
members, and 225,460 adherents. Now these
are stirring facts, but the men on the spot saw
them under quahfying Hghts. In their reports
home they lament the presence of a good deal
of ignorance, immorality, and unchristian
conduct within the membership of the Church :
this, too, in spite of the purifying influence of
a great persecution which endured throughout
a quarter of a century. Statistics, too, are
often very deceptive. Many a young mis-
sionary whose mind has been fed on figures,
into which he has read his own romantic inter-
pretation, has received such a shock when he
came face to face with the hard reality of facts
that his spirit has shrivelled. The native
converts are not angels yet — they are but
human beings, who perhaps only a few short
years ago were soiled with vice and ignorant
superstitions. Some of the stain of the past
is still about them.
Over against this somewhat pessimistic
picture we have, however, to place two great
positive facts. In the first place it is
Results of Mission Work 197
proved again and again in Africa that this
sense of sin, so often lacking, is certainly
created by the revelation of God in Christ.
As the knowledge of God increases, so does the
sense of sin and the desire for purity and
strength of character. The height of the
ethical standard is measured by the height of
the knowledge of Christ. As we have seen in
the previous chapter the preaching of the
spiritual doctrines of the Cross has power in
Africa as elsewhere, and it is this that pro-
duces a better moraUty, not the mere preaching
of the higher moral laws. As a result of simple
evangehcal preaching great religious awaken-
ings have taken place and have not expended
themselves in mere emotionahsm. Lives have
been changed. Honesty, chastity, and quiet
have taken the place of pilfering, impurity,
and quarrelHng. Men who were notorious for
indolence have become notable for strenuous
labour.
Again, it is necessary in estimating the
Christian life of the convert to compare it with
that of his pagan neighbour, not with the highly
educated European Christian who has centuries
of Christian life behind him. When we take
this reasonable method we find triumphant
proof of progress and real results. Many there
are amongst these African Christians whose
198 The Future of Africa
lives are shining lamps, whose courtesy, con-
secration and gentle Christian spirit, or burning
zeal, are a daily witness that God dwells in
them.
(d) Endur- One of the best tests of the sincerity of the
Persecution. Christian faith is to watch how it endures
persecution. The African Church has not had
to bear such great outbursts of persecution as
some other churches, but there have been
several notable outbreaks. We have already
mentioned the great persecution of Madagascar
which lasted for a quarter of a century. During
this period the Church instead of diminishing
increased tenfold.
At Bonny, in 1875, a severe persecution
broke out. It was raised by the juju priests
who had grown alarmed at the number of
Christian baptisms. One convert who per-
sisted in going to church and refused to eat
of the juju sacrifices was thrown into the river.
Another was starved to death. Two others
were chained and confined in the bush for a
year until they were liberated at the instiga-
tion of an English trader. It was one of these
martyrs who replied to the persistence of the
juju priests, " Jesus Christ has put a padlock
on my heart, and has taken the key to
Heaven."
The great persecution in Uganda took place
■^1 c
Results of Mission Work 199
in 1885. Some were burned alive and one of
the members of the Church Council died at the
fire exhorting liis executioners to beHeve in
Jesus Christ. Scores of others, some of them
not yet baptised, scarcely even recognised as
Christians, went to death for the Gospel.
Such heroic devotion stands out as an incon-
testable proof of the reahty of the faith of these
converts, however feeble and undeveloped
their Christian hfe might be on other hues.
There is another form of persecution Christian
Africans sometimes have to bear which is not
only more common but more bitter. In certain
villages they are almost ostracised. Many
are subjected to accusations of unfriendliness,
or even mtchcraft, and continual tempta-
tions to sin are thrust in their way. Yet
rather than be disloyal to Christ some have
gone through these triumphantly, growing
more Godlike by the bitterness of their situa-
tion, and perhaps in the end winning the great
victory of turning their persecutors into
believers.
Christianity is also beginning to teach the (e)Liberaiity.
African the dehghts of giving. The forms of
self-help which are found in Africa vary greatly
in kind and degree. In most tribes, especially
where the pressure of European civiHsation
has not come, the native is poor in coin, but
2 00 The Future of Africa
rich in time. He cannot give money, but he
can give time and labour, and this is his first
form of hberahty. You will find him doing
evangeHstic work, building his churches and
schools, carrjdng loads of produce to a market,
acting as messenger for his teacher, hoeing
roads through the bush, and by numerous
little jobs gratuitously performed, making his
contribution to the independent hfe of the
native Church. Then comes the contribution
in produce and other forms of marketable
wealth. Scarcely any pagan tribe of Africa
had originally a coinage of its own. In
Uganda the cowrie shell had been introduced,
but in most other lands the means of payment
in barter were brass rods, beads, or calico.
Wlien, therefore, the Church begins to give
collections, the variety and bulk of the gifts
are fearful and wonderful ! On the days of
great conferences when the people give out of
a full heart, whether it be on the West Coast,
or in British Nyasaland, the church door is
blocked with gifts of food stuffs, live stock,
barter goods, trinkets and ornaments, the
primitive wealth of a primitive people.
As civiUsation advances and European
governments estabHsh their administration,
coins begin to be used. The giving of the
people then reaches a more recognisable
Results of Mission Work 201
standard. Some missions clothe, feed and
educate their pupils, asking no fee, build
churches for the people, and pay for the
evangehsts and native workers. Nowadays,
however, most are agreed that such a system
breeds a pauperised community, which can
never be vigorous. It is always hard to ask
the people to pay for what they have hitherto
received for nothing. The first pressure may
possibly seem to threaten the collapse of the
mission's work, yet in the end foundations
thus laid are found to be firmer.
When Dr Stewart first proposed in 1870
that all the pupils at Lovedale should pay
fees, it seemed as if the institution would be
emptied of pupils. At last, after a two days'
talk, one man rose and offered to pay £4 for his
son's education, and soon others followed. In
the first year £200 were received in fees. Four
years after £1300 were received, and in 1908
over £5000.
Just three years after this experiment in
fees had begun, the Fingoes, who live beyond
the Kei River, encouraged and guided by
Captain Blyth, their magistrate, and Mr Ross,
their missionary, became ambitious to have
an institution of their own. They apphed to
Dr Stewart to help them. He promised to do
so if they would raise £1000 as a proof of their
202 The Future of Africa
sincerity. In four or five months Dr Stewart
was called by them to come and receive the
money, and when he arrived he saw a table
standing on the veldt with £1450 in silver,
which the people themselves had contributed.
As the buildings rose, the people grew
ambitious to see a larger institution, and
collected again about £1500 in silver. Thus
one creation of self-help gave birth to an
offspring which annually grows larger and
more numerous.
In Uganda there is one of the most striking
examples of the financial independence which
can be reached when it is aimed at from the
first, and the type of the work is guided into
an African, rather than a European mould.
There all the educational, all the church
work, the teachers, evangelists and clergy are
paid by the native Church. The salaries are
very low, yet an agency is there which is fit
to do the work, and a mighty elevation of the
people has taken place, through agents paid
by the people themselves.
When we come to consider the work of
propagating the Church, we find the African at
his best. Throughout the world the great
accessions to the native Church have not been
so much the direct outcome of the evan-
gelistic work of the European as of the native
Results of Mission Work 203
evangelist. The power of a missionary has
lain more in his capacity for inspiring and
organising the work of others than in the
direct preaching he himself has done.
A missionary of a somewhat unorganised
mission in Central Africa once said to the
writer as he came up from school in the
evening, " Why do you waste your time
teaching the rudiments of education to that
handful of pupils ? On my station we only
need to stand on the verandah and we have a
congregation. We spend our days in preach-
ing to the heathen." Next day we were out
on tour together. As we drew near to a distant
village we found a congregation assembled, and
a native preacliing to them. In the morning
we were awakened by the horn blowing for
pubUc worship, and before my friend was out
of bed he heard the sound of praise and the
Gospel being declared by a native Christian.
Then I answered him. "In a hundred
villages the same Gospel is being proclaimed
by native preachers this morning while we sit
here. That is why I teach in the school."
" And in my villages," he said, " there is no
one to preach, because I am here."
Some of the best advances in the history
of Africa's evangelisation have taken place
through the energy of the native Church. The
204 The Future of Africa
Calabar mission was started there by the Freed
Slaves of Jamaica. The Yoruba and Niger
missions were sent forth by the native Chm-ch
of Sierra Leone, and not only were the mis-
sionaries natives of Africa under an African
bishop, but the expenses of the mission were
almost all borne by the native Church. The
Basutoland Church opened its famous mission
in Barotseland as an extension under M.
Coillard. In Uganda the evangelisation of the
neighbouring kingdoms has been done by
missionary parties of the native Church, who
sent forth their own teachers, and paid their
salaries. In Livingstonia each station has
attached to it a foreign mission hinterland,
which is worked by native teachers, and
towards the expenses of which the native
Church makes a grant from year to year.
How effective these indigenous extensions are
may be seen in the history of many a local
mission. Churches have been organised, the
heathenism of whole provinces has been
scattered, and the people who were evangelised
by the parent Church have in turn become
evangehsts of others.
It is not only by paid evangehsts that the
work is done, for in most hving churches there
is a vast, unpaid, and unappointed agency
always at work. In Calabar, "it is seldom
Results of Mission Work 205
that in any outlying districts there will not
be found a house that is used for a meeting
place, and although no paid evangehst has
settled among them, one man will make it his
duty to hold regular service on the Sabbath."
In Nyasaland hundreds of unpaid preachers
hold services every Sabbath in the Uttle village
chapels, and in the open spaces. It is largely
through such agency that the great increases
to the Church take place, and the Christian
life is kept Hvely and extensive.
One of the most wonderful Christians in
Africa whom the past century saw was Bishop
Samuel Crowther. Sold as a slave, he was
rescued by a British cruiser and landed at
Sierra Leone. There and in Britain he re-
ceived a thorough education and proved
himself a man of exceptional ability. He was
sent with the earher expeditions to open work
on the Niger and proved his devotion and
sanity over and over again. He got con-
cessions from Mohammedan chiefs, whose
minds seemed steeled against the European.
He seemed to know exactly what to say at the
critical moment, and by which avenue to find
a favourable approach to enemies. His zeal
for the conversion of Africa burned brighter
and brighter with his advancing years, and
when he died he left a name which wilJ
2o6 The Future of Africa
always be honoured in the annals of the
African Church.
Experience seems to teach, however, that
the African is most efficient as an evangehst
when guided and controlled. The time has
not come yet, when his mental balance, or his
religious character, are ready for entire and un-
guided responsibiUty. The greatest and most
permanent extensions have been made, where
his zeal and energy have been allowed great
scope, a wise and fatherly superintendence
being maintained by the European. Of
course, as in all societies where the human
mingles with the divine, there are obvious
drawbacks, and this is true of the young
African Church even where its growth seems
most promising. There is a risk in a certain
case of a mistaken presentation of great
Christian truths owing to merely partial
education. There is a risk of insufficient
emphasis on the great matters of Christian
conduct such as temperance, truthfulness and
industry. There is the risk even of moral
lapses on the part of the evangelist himself,
for old tendencies remain strong and the
African evangehst though usually victorious
has a constant struggle with temptation.
Yet everywhere imperceptibly, yet surely,
the Church is growing. New chm*ches are
Results of Mission Work 207
being founded, old foundations are being
strengthened. We have mentioned the harvest
of Uganda. Special mention of particular
societies in a work of this kind may seem
invidious yet we may perhaps give one
example. In South-East and West Africa
the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society
report over 2600 fully accredited local
preachers. Their West African missions cost
the parent society about £10,000 annually,
and about £35,000 a year is raised in the field
itself. One church on the coast has installed
electric hght at its own expense — a source
of much innocent gratification to the dusky
congregation !
From reflections on these results and the
encouraging side of missionary life we pass
to the most important consideration of all —
the urgent need for effective preparation of
the African evangehst. The training of a
native ministry is the consummation of all the
church and educational work of the missionary.
For the ordinary native evangehst there are
usually short courses of instruction in Bibhcal
and doctrinal subjects. In Uganda there
are five centres where catechists and evan-
gelists are trained. In Livingstonia, besides
the weekly sermon lesson which is given at
the various stations to the voluntary village
2o8 The Future ot Africa
preachers, a three years' course is given at the
Institution to the evangeUsts. In Lagos the
course is for two years, and during their
training the men engage in itinerating and
evangehsing. On the Gold Coast all Christian
workers are prepared by attending a three
years' course at one of the two seminaries.
Very few missions, however, have a properly
systematised college course. At Sierra Leone
there is the well-known college of Fourah Bay,
from which a continuous stream of clergy has
poured out. No less than one hundred and
fifty African clergy have been ordained in the
Church Missionary Society missions of the
West Coast. It must be held in mind that
this mission is now nearly a hundred years old.
The Wesleyan missions on the West Coast
are slightly older than the Church Missionary
Society and have sixty ordained natives at
work. In the Uganda mission, which is about
the same age as the Nyasaland missions, there
are thirty-one ordained clergy. Numerically
the development of the native Church in
Madagascar far exceeds anything on the
continent of Africa. Here there are con-
nected with the L.M.S. 121,613 Christian
adherents, and 29,588 ^ communicants, and for
^ These figures are less thau those on p. 196. This is partly
accounted for by the fact that in 1896-7 half of the congrega-
tions of the L.M.S. were handed over to the Paris Society.
Results of Mission Work 209
these there are now 503 ordained native
preachers.
It is difficult to generalise about the pro-
duction of a native ministry. Differences
must of course appear under the ecclesiastical
poHcy which various missions follow. But for
all, there must always be a guiding principle
of caution, which will not suddenly lay hands
on any man. A long knowledge of the char-
acters of each candidate for ordination is more
essential than in Europe. But the idea of how
much special theological training is necessary
seems to differ as much in Africa as in the Home
Church. On one main point all, however, are
agreed. To secure an efficient Christian
Church in Africa, founded on sound and
enduring Unes, no pains must be spared in
training and preparing an earnest, zealous and
united pastorate. The office-bearers in the
Church of Africa must be thoroughly equipped
and qualified for the tremendous responsi-
bihty that is theirs. The goal may seem
distant for some, but all aim towards that day
when the African Church will be led by its own
pastors, and when the wide surrounding
paganism will be penetrated by the pro-
clamation of the Gospel by Africa's own
evangelists.
We have wandered full circle and return in Conclusion.
2IO The Future of Africa
retrospect to the question confronting us at
the outset. Is Africa changing ? Are there
possibihties of a Christian Africa which the
results thus far of mission work unfold ? We
have learnt, in however sketchy a survey,
something of the manifold activities and
widely varying results of missions. As pioneer,
as peacemaker, as civihsing and moral agent,
lastly and chiefly as Christ's messenger, the
influence of the missionary has penetrated
into the deepest recesses of the land and is
gradually permeating its whole life. " First
the seed then the ear." At present it is mere
seed-time, but " under the soil the green shoots
are moving." There still remains so much to
achieve, such an incalculable amount to be
done ere any harvest may be looked for, but
in each of these results wliich we see — social,
tribal and rehgious — can we not realise the
infinite possibilities of a Christian Africa, should
the efforts on her behalf be strengthened and
advanced by the members of the Christian
Church.
CHAPTER VII
THE NEEDS OF PAGAN AFRICA
ANALYTICAL INDEX
The Extent of Missionary Occupation.
(a) Spanish West Africa.
(h) French West Africa.
(c) British West Africa.
(d) German West Africa.
(e) Liberia.
( f) The Congo.
(g) Portuguese Angola.
(A) South Africa.
(i) Madagascar.
(;■) Portuguese East Africa.
(k) German East Africa.
(/) British East Africa.
(w) The Sudan.
(ra) Summar3%
Difficulties of Missionary Work.
(a) Geographical and Climatic.
(b) Tribal Hindrances.
(c) Scattered Po{)ulation.
(d) Language.
(e) Ethiopianisrn.
2 1 2 The Future of Africa
Urgency of the Situation.
(a) The Population.
(b) The Advance of Islam.
(c) Advance of Civilisation.
Conclusion.
The A HURRIED glance over pagan Africa, with
Extent of • , • • ... t
Missionary I'S numerous missionary societies and con-
Occupation. si(jerable staff of agents, might give one the
impression that the continent is fairly well
occupied, and that an adequate force of
missionaries is now in possession. Such a
wrong impression is gained through the fact
that the map of Africa is chiefly filled in
at points where European contact has made
names famihar, and at these known points
there is a certain adequacy of occupation.
A detailed examination of the known popu-
lation soon convinces one, however, that
numerous tribes have never been touched by
the Christian Church, and in most places of
occupation the staff is terribly inadequate.
(a) Spanish Beginning in the north-west, we have the
* Spanish Protectorate of Rio de Oro, with
a population of perhaps 400,000, and here
there are no Christian missions. Tlie island
of Fernando Po was occupied in 1840 by the
Baptist Missionary Society, but, after a few
The Needs of Pagan Africa 213
years, Roman Catholic missionaries came,
and the Protestants were driven out of the
island. Since 1870 the Primitive Methodists
have had a Httle mission which has met with
some success. Apart from this island occupa-
tion Spanish Africa is without a missionary.
Next we come to a great stretch of a con- (b) French
tinent which belongs to France. This huge ^^ "*^*'
sHce is equal to three times the size of France,
and has a population of over nine milhons.
It includes the old settlements of the Senegal,
the fabled regions of the Upper Niger, and the
great territory of the Sudan. On the Senegal
river there is a small mission of the Paris
Society. On the Guinea Coast, Ivory Coast,
and the eastern extremity of the Dahomey
Coast there are small missions. The whole
interior, however, is untouched, and with the
exception of those occupying a fringe of the
coast line, these nine millions of people are
^vithout the Gospel.
Glancing at the map we notice that British (c) British
rule begins in North-West Gambia, a small
protectorate with a population of 91,000.
This colony has only one httle mission with
two Europeans. The natives are partly
pagans and partly Mohammedans. As we
travel south. Sierra Leone is the next British
colony which we meet. Here we have beliind
2 14 The Future of Africa
us a century of mission work, and there is an
adequate occupation near the coast. Attempts
to reach the heathen tribes of the interior
are, however, only of recent date. With the
force of native Christians now available in
Sierra Leone, what is wanted for full occu-
pation is probably a deeper feeling of re-
sponsibiHty among the native Christians for
those pagan tribes in their immediate hinter-
land. On the Gold Coast the Wesleyans and
Basel Mission are working among the two
milhons of natives. Before they may ade-
quately overtake their field their staffs would
require to be doubled. In Lagos and the
Yoruba country, now known as part of
Southern Nigeria, a number of missionary
societies are at work, but the whole district
east of the Yoruba country, as far as the west
bank of the Niger is absolutely without the
Gospel.
In Northern Nigeria the people are mostly
Mohammedan, though a few short years ago
they were entirely pagan. Still, there are
considerable pagan tribes who have hitherto
repulsed the advances of Mohammedanism.
There are the Adamawa, for example, who
live in the Highlands to the south of the
Benue. From their high level they have been
accustomed to issue forth to raid the Hausa
k "
;'.>'■' ■ ^^
The Needs of Pagan Africa 215
caravans and to defy the Mohammedans.
Along the south bank of the Benue are several
pagan tribes, amongst all of whom no mission
work has yet been done.
What missions there are on the Lower Niger
and on the Cross River have so far clung to
the coast and water highways and have not
succeeded to any large extent in reaching the
interior tribes. Between the Cross River
and the Benue there are no missions. The
delta of the Niger is covered by swamps and
impenetrable forests pierced by streams and
creeks, along which numerous pagan tribes
Hve, bound by every evil custom, includ-
ing cannibalism and human sacrifice. Here
neither missionaries nor traders have settled
nor influenced the natives to any degree.
The history of this region has been one
of perpetual revolts and insurrections, and
after forty years' intercourse with Europeans
scarcely any improvement can be observed
ten miles from the river banks.
Togo, a German colony, has a population ^g^TFrica
of a million. Here the North German Society
is working energetically, but its furthest north
station hardly reaches the centre of the colonv,
and the two northerly provinces are still
unevangehsed. In the German Cameroons
there is a population of four millions. Here
2i6 The Future of Africa
the Basel and American Presbyterian Missions
are working. The Government is friendly
and encourages the educational efforts of the
missions. Here again the missions' influence
has scarcely penetrated beyond the coast Hne,
and seven-eighths of the land is entirely un-
reached.
(e) Liberia. The free state of Liberia has the name of
being a Christian state. The immigrant
negroes, freed slaves from America, make
profession of being Christians, but they are
somewhat decadent Christians, and the great
majority of the two million natives proper of
the country are still untouched by Christian
missions.
(f) The The French Congo is a territory equal to
C°"8-°- two and a half times the size of France, and
with a population of perhaps twelve millions.
In this vast territory there are only four small
stations worked by the Paris Society. These
are situated on the navigable part of the
Ooforve, and conduct a fine spiritual work which
has met with some success. Ten years ago
there were 1600 Church members. But the
whole of that vast territory between the Ogorve
and the Congo is without a single missionary.
To the north of the Ogorve are the Fans (or
Mpongwe), a cannibal people, whose ^vild
incursion from the east to the west over-
The Needs of Pagan Africa 217
turned nations and spread the wildest terror.
The French mission has been touching their
outskirts, and the whole Bible is translated
into their language. This important tribe,
which, if won for Christ, would act as a strong
bulwark against the approach of Islam, is
still, alas ! largely out of the reach of Christian
missions. Missionaries in the French Congo
reckon that to make an effective advance
from Ogorve 180 new European missionaries
would be required and a similar number to
advance from the Congo as a base.
The Belgian Congo is a great region of
900,000 square miles. Its population was once
estimated at thirty million, but the massacres,
scatterings, and famine that have followed on
the oppression of the Government have greatly
diminished the population. Here the Baptists
were the first Protestant missionaries. They
have been followed by the Swedish Mission,
American Presbyterians, Congo Balolos and
other societies. But nearly all their work is
along the left bank of the river, and there are
no missions beyond the Stanley Falls. The great
affluent — the Kasai — has only two or three
stations, and the Ubangi is entirely unoccupied.
Many of the tribes are cannibahstic but with
high artistic skill. Most of them are morally
of a very low type. Some are ready for
2i8 The Future of Africa
occupation, others are absolutely opposed to
the presence of the missionary, and meanwhile
the great opportunity of these 9500 miles of
navigable waterway is not being properly
used. The impression left by Europe on
those great regions has been one of in-
ordinate greed for the products of their soil,
a disrespect for native rights, and a readiness
to shed blood. The peaceable message of the
Gospel has only been heard at a few isolated
points. In recent years considerable obstacles
were placed in the way of Protestant mis-
sionary societies, sites were refused to them, and
their adherents subjected to some persecution.
Tliey were reaping the reward of their brave
exposure of administrative atrocities. Now
a better day seems to be dawning, and new
opportunities are being offered to the
messengers of the Gospel,
(g) Portu- Portuguese Angola extends over an area of
guese . . '--'
Angola. half a million square miles. It has a scattered
population of perhaps seven milHons. Three
and four hundred years ago flourishing Roman
CathoHc missions were carried on at various
centres, but these collapsed, and Httle of their
fruit remained. The interior became a great
hunting ground for slaves, and the port Loanda
flourished as a collecting market for them.
This province has scarcely yet recovered from
The Needs of Pagan Africa 2 1 9
the degradation of these days, when the
stronger people learned to live by raiding their
neighbours, and weaker peoples were cut off
entirely. There are missions in the St Salvador
and Loanda districts at Benguella and Bihe,
and at long intervals between the latter and
Miveru. But these are only isolated points,
and many of the tribes that He between these
stations are not yet occupied. Other opposing
forces meanwhile are gathering power. Slave-
raiding for the San Thome plantations still
goes on. Great rum distilleries have been
started which distribute then- ciu-se over
the whole province, and a certain amount of
opposition has been roused against the Pro-
testant missions owing to their connection
with the agitation against slavery.
In German South- West Africa and in British (h) South
South Africa there are now goodly missionary "^*"
forces. But the task which hes before them
is greater than ever it was. Owing to the
rapid increase of the population, as well as
owing to the lack of aggressive work by many
of the Christian churches, there are probably
more heathen in South Africa to-day than
there were a century ago. Out of a native
and coloured population of over five million,
there are only 150,000 communicants, though
possibly nearly a million would call themselves
220
The Future of Africa
(j) Portu-
guese East
Africa.
Christians. This leaves at least four milhon
heathen for the churches to conquer.
Crossing the ocean we come to the great
island of Madagascar, the scene of the most
remarkable Christian movement of the past
century. The high levels about the capital
have had large opportunities of hearing
the Gospel, yet the surprising fact remains
that after all these years of triumphant pro-
gress, three-quarters of the island is still
unevangeUsed.
In the nine northern provinces, with a popu-
lation of half a million, there are only two
European missionaries. One of the southern
provinces has neither a European nor native
evangehst. In addition to these unoccupied
parts we must consider the great inadequacy
of the present staff for the work of guiding and
consohdating the numerous offshoots of the
native Church. Great lapsing has taken place
through the activity of the CathoUcs and the
strong opposition of the late governor to all
forms of rehgious work. A better and more
tolerant administration, however, is Hkely to
be carried on by the new governor.
When we come to Portuguese East Africa
' we find a huge field almost without missions.
At Delagoa Bay and Beira and inland from
Inhambane there are mission stations, but the
The Needs of Pagan Africa 221
interior south of the Zambesi has none, and
beyond a httle work on the shores of Lake
Nyasa the northern province of Mozambique
is entirely unoccupied. Here IMohammedanism
is rapidly making headway among the Yao,
but other great tribes, such as the Anguru, who
border on British territory, are wholly pagan,
and present a very degraded and restless type
of tribal hfe. The Swiss mission at Delagoa
Bay has proved that it is possible to work
harmoniously with the Portuguese Govern-
ment, and even to get their friendly
co-operation.
German East Africa is a vast territory equal (k) German
to nearly three times the size of the German ^^^^ Afnca.
Empire. Missions are strategically situated
for the future conquest of the land, but as yet
they are only touching small portions of the
population. Other forces are rapidly extend-
ing into every corner of the land, adminis-
tration agents, commercial enterprises and
an active Mohammedan propaganda. The
Christian forces are totally inadequate to
the great task of rapid evangehsation. The
populous region to the south and west
of Lake Victoria Nyanza could furnish
ample room for two hundred new European
missionaries.
When we come to British East Africa we East Africa.
222 The Future of Africa
find a country five times the size of England
and Wales, with a population of about nine
millions. Here eight missionary societies are
at work with a delightful spirit of comity,
but their operations are far from reaching
all the pagan populations. In the protec-
torate which is known as British East Africa
three-fourths of the territory is unreached
by Christian missions, although three-quarters
of a century have passed since Krapf began
at Mombasa his ambitious plans for the evan-
gehsation of Central Africa. In Uganda,
in spite of the vast extensions of the Church
there, one-half of the population is still un-
evangeUsed. Bishop Tucker estimates that a
hundred European missionaries and three
thousand native evangelists are required before
the waiting fields can be overtaken. Other
forces wliich are inimical to Christianity and
the very existence of the tribes are rapidly
extending all over the country. Hollis, in his
preface to The Masai, emphasises the need
of Christian work among tliis most interesting
people, " for it is only by the gradual and
peaceful civihsation of the tribe that they can
be saved from extinction. ... It has often
been proved in other parts of the globe that
the native, on the advent of the white man,
alters Ms habits or ceases to exist, and it is
The Needs of Pagan Africa 223
to be hoped that the Masai will choose the
first of these alternatives."
Finally we come to the Sudan, which (m) The
extends from the Nile to the Niger. Within " ^*
this vast region, which is partly under British
and partly under French protection, there is
scarcely a single mission. Yet here we have
great tribes settled in lands as large as
many of the great states of Europe, now
in the crisis of their hfe, fighting an
encroaching Mohammedanism, whose inroads
are as yet undisputed by the Christian
Church.
The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan covers 950,000
square miles, and aheady Mohammedanism is
rapidly getting complete sway and its progress
has been by a most bloody path. Sir Reginald
Wingate estimates that prior to the Mahdi's
power there was a population of 8| milhon
here : of these 3 J milUon were swept away by
famine and disease, and 3j milhon were killed
in engagements with British and Egyptian
troops and intertribal wars. Several pagan
tribes were wellnigh obhterated. Up to the
present mission work has been proliibited
among the Mohammedan peoples, but pagan
tribes are open to the messenger of Christ.
The Church Missionary Society has attempted
work among the Dinkhas, an interesting
2 24 The Future of Africa
Nilotic race, who live in the deepest social
degradation.
At the Edinburgh Conference Dr Karl
Kumm mentioned the names of twenty-six
tribes whom he had visited in the Central
Sudan who are as yet without the Gospel.
In the northern parts Islam has been trium-
phant, but the pagan tribes, driven out of their
rich valleys, have taken refuge in the moun-
tainous regions and the Sudd country and
parts of the Shari Valley. Here they maintain
their independence. Now that the warring
and enslaving by Mohammedan tribes is being
suppressed by European governments, the more
subtle forces of superior education and prestige
are threatening to conquer where warlike
measures failed. If the tribes are to be saved
from becoming fanatical Mohammedans, and
so presenting a more impenetrable barrier to
Ciiristianity, as well as a continual menace
to the peace of the continent, the Christian
Church must waken at once, to dispute with
Islam possession of these pagan peoples.
Even this scanty sketch serves to show
,n, ummary. ^y^qX large areas of pagan Africa there are in
which the gloom of fetichism is unreHeved
by the bright hope of the C3iristian faith.
Minions shrouded in hopel«5S and fearsome
superstition still send their great voiceless
The Needs of Pagan Africa 225
appeal to Christendom. Tiie ligures turn the
imagination dizzy. We glance down the map
whose httle patches of colom' hold such signifi-
cance, representing vast stretches of country
teeming with thousands and thousands of God's
creatm-es who as yet know Him not, and
are '' fast bound " in the " misery and iron "
of paganism. In Portuguese Guinea there are
800,000 people without a Protestant mis-
sionary. In Dahomey it is the same. In
French Guinea and on the Ivory Coast and
its hinterland the figures rise higher and
higher. Wherever the name of some great
protectorate catches the eye, it is the same.
Eastern Liberia, Nigeria, parts of the Came-
roons, in French and Belgian Congo, in Angola.
In each case the sad total of unevangehsed
heathen runs into miUions. This too, alas,
holds good of the East Coast in almost equal
degree. In aU it is calculated that at least
seventy millions of pagan Africans have never
heard the name of Christ, and when we add
to this the insufficiency of occupation in
regions where workers are bravely toihng,
the task that lies before the Christian Church
seems as tremendous as it is imperative.
" Africa has suffered many wrongs in the
past at the hands of the stronger nations of
Christendom, and she is suffering wrongs at
226 The Future of Africa
their hands to-day ; but the greatest wrong,
and that from which she is suffering most, is
being inflicted by the Church of Christ. It
consists in withholding from so many of her
children the knowledge of Christ. The flags
of Christian nations float over nearly the whole
of Africa, but there are large domains in which
not a mission station has been planted. The
untouched regions of Africa are a clamant call
to the Church."
Difficulties of What is it in Africa which hinders the
Missu>nary ^.^^-^ extension of the Kingdom of Christ ?
These days have seen the removal of many
insurmountable barriers, but with all the pre-
parations that have been made, there still
remains this vast task to be undertaken. No
one with the least experience of African
missions would deny for a moment the many
and serious difficulties that confront the worker
in this field. Various obstacles and hindrances,
some of them very serious, bar progress at every
turn, and must be met with a statesmanlike
directness and determination to conquer them.
No one supposes this can be done in a day, or
even a lifetime, but the faith that can remove
mountains can help even here beyond the behef
of man. If we examine the chief of these
difficulties in some detail, we will gain a clearer
idea of what lies before the African missionary.
The Needs of Pagan Africa 227
First, there are geographicaJ and climatic (a) Geo-
impediments. Many of the unevangehsed fndcirmatic.
tribes Uve in countries where no European
can settle with safety — in swampy low levels
where malaria breeds and in which no con-
tinued residence is possible for a European.
Happily a strong band of efficient native
evangelists is rising, and theirs must be the
heroic task of entering these deadly regions.
They will not be immune to fever, and they too
must lay down their lives if the people are to be
evangehsed, but the climatic conditions will not
be so disastrous to them as to the European.
The presence of sleeping-sickness in a dis-
trict is now beginning to have very large
bearings on the relation of missions to the
natives. Fifteen years ago it did not attract
much attention, and the extent of its ravages
were not known. It was known in the old
slaving days as " negro lethargy," and for some
centuries it has been known on the West Coast.
Now with a slow and irresistible progress it is
spreading itself over the Continent. It crept
along the West Coast from Senegambia to
Loanda ; it spread up the Congo, decimating
villages and leaving a dreadful spoor of death.
When it appeared in Uganda widespread
attention was drawn to its havoc, and govern-
ment commissions were sent to investigate.
2 28 The Future of Africa
After careful research the carrying agent was
discovered to be a species of the tsetse fly.
In Uganda islands were depopulated, and
specially by the Lake shore tens of thousands
of the natives died. It has now spread south
to North-Eastern Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
It is still at its earher stages there, and
the governments are making strenuous efforts
to stay its progress. When it breaks out
Europeans are forbidden to travel and villages
are shifted out of the infected belt of country.
Medical science has entered the field and
maintains strenuous warfare against the
scom'ge by means of preventive and allevi-
ating measures, but so far no sure cure has yet
been found for the disease.
Then there are the regions in the far interior
with which there are no established hues of
communication. It would be folly to pene-
trate there without maintaining a constant
contact with the outside world. Too many
hves have been lost and too much money
squandered in unwise attempts to reach the far
interior before the places nearer the lines of
communication with the outside world have
been occupied. The Church must proceed
strategically, developing its missions farther
and farther into the interior, taking care that
no impassable gaps are left which would cut off
The Needs of Pagan Africa 229
its further stations from all contact with the
civiHsed world.
We speak of all Africa being open to the (b) Tribal
messengers of Christ, but this is not an exact ^° ^^"ces.
statement. Tliere are still many powerful
chiefs who have an inveterate hatred of the
Gospel and waU not permit missionary occupa-
tion. Most of these chiefs are now under
European Governments, and the general
policy of the administration is not to permit
missionaries to enter where the local chiefs
win not have them. The officials feel that
whether the missionary acknowledges it or not,
they are responsible for the lives of Europeans
in their districts, and they will not allow a
rash hazarding of Hfe among those who have
declared their opposition. Besides, they are
responsible for peace, and when a war breaks
out, though it may be for the sake of opening
doors which are wilfuUy closed against civilisa-
tion, they know that they will be in danger
of reprimands from a timorous and economical
home government. Especially do they feel
the necessity of guarding the people from
strife in fanatically Mohammedan countries.
Tlie eager pioneer will therefore find many a
people, whose darkness calls out to liim for
immediate help, closed against him by the
attitude of the native chief.
2 30 The Future of Africa
Even supposing his presence and teachings are
tolerated, the missionary will find tribal loyalty
a great barrier where the chief hates his doc-
trines. This has been proved in East Africa,
when in some cases no progress is made among
the people because the heart of the chief
is hardened. The following illustrates this
loyalty to the chief. " When will you come
to Clirist ? " said a missionary to a young
native. " \Mien my chief does," he rephed.
" But what if he goes to hell," again asked the
missionary somewhat injudiciously. " Then
I shall go with him." The consequence of this
soHd loyalty is that missionaries often feel
that the whole mass of the people present a
united front against his appeal. There seems
an entire absence of those who have the
courage to take independent action. To the
African the unit is not the individual but
the clan or tribe, and independent action is
anti-social and difficult beyond anything we
experience in our higher ci%'ihsation.
On the other hand, when some leader is
brought to Christ, it appears as if a stream
had burst its banks and all the waters were
flowing. One of the causes of the great
progress in Uganda, for example, has been that
the chiefs and leaders of the people have
yielded to the Gospel. In mass movements
The Needs of Pagan Africa 231
of this nature, there is, of course, a grave
danger. It is so difficult to distinguish those
who have come into personal touch with Christ,
from those who are only following a chief,
and the admission of large numbers who
follow others and have not yet been united
to Christ must mean the permanent lowering
of the tone of the Church.
Some peoples, especially the broken and
disorganised peoples, are more responsive to
the Gospel than others. The raided Manganja
on the Shire Highlands have answered the
gospel more rapidly than the more warHke
Yao. The harassed Bechuana responded more
rapidly than the military Matabele. Where
tribes have lived and grown rich and famous
by their marauding Hfe missions find great
obstacles to progress. Perhaps it is simply
the organisation of the people, as with the
Masai or Matabele, into regiments of young
warriors who hve and are trained for the
shedding of blood, that presents the wall of
opposition. With these tribes the whole social
structure of the people is built on lines which
cannot be harmonised with the message of the
Gospel, and before Christianity can make any
headway the tribal life must be completely
revolutionised. Perhaps there are customs,
especially connected with the initiation of
2 32 The Future of Africa
youths to manhood, and girls to womanhood,
which are cherished as essential to the pros-
perity of the tribe, and these must be
aboHshed before any youth can become a
Christian. Such obstacles seem for a time in-
surmountable. But the advance of civihsation
and the estabHshment of European adminis-
tration are rapidly disintegrating the ancient
tribal organisations and social customs, and
by this very disintegration are preparing a
way for the messengers of the Gospel,
(c) Scattered Another hindrance is the scattered nature
opua on. ^1 some populations, a situation which neces-
sitates a far greater army of European
missionaries than is required for the same
population in the crowded areas of India and
China. All India could be accommodated
within the three Congo territories, yet the
entire population of the continent of Africa is
not equal to two-thirds of that of India. In
Africa the average population is only fifteen
to the square mile, wliile in China it is two
hundred and fifty. In Spanish Africa there
are only three persons to the square mile, and
in large tracts of German West Africa there is
a still smaller population.
Besides this scanty distribution of the people
there are tribes which, from their wandering
pastoral occupations, cannot be held to one
The Needs of Pagan Africa 233
place, and others, such as the Bushmen and
Pygmies, who hve in very small communities,
without settled abodes, and at vast distances
from one another. The coming of the mis-
sionary invariably leads to the gathering
together and settlement of these wandering
peoples, but before they can be gathered they
must first be sought and their confidence gained.
For men who have learned the infinite value
of a human soul this task will be stimulating
enough, for it is not in masses we find the thrill
of seeking the lost, but in single men and
women who speak to us out of a Hving iiistory
and appeal to us as individuals. Did not
Christ give His hf e for them ?
Another impediment to rapid evangelisa- (d) Lan-
tion is the multipHcity of African languages.
It is calculated that in Africa there are no less
than 843 languages and dialects. The wide
difference in the language of neighbouring
tribes is accounted for by the great migrations
of tribes, especially in the past century. When
people with widely different fiistories and
origins have come to live near one another,
the wide variety of these languages make
evangehsation a great difficulty. In East
Africa, tribes of Nilotic and of Bantu races
will be found close to one another, with httle
similarity in the structuie of their language.
234 The Future of Africa
In West Africa Bantu and Negro races actually
touch one another, yet between them there can
be no communication. In one misson-field
there are no less than thirty different tongues,
and it is quite a common thing for missionaries
to use two distinct languages on the one
station.
But while there are districts where widely
varied languages are used, we must remember
on the other hand, that many of the dialects
are as closely allied as the provincial dialects
of England and Scotland, and however they
may confuse the European foreigners, a dozen
varieties may make Httle difference to the
freedom of communication which one native
may have with his feUows. As tribal war
ceases, and paths which were closed by
feuds in the past are opened, the intercourse
of tribes with one another is increasing, and
many a dialect is being lost by its merging
into that of its more robust neighbour. This
is a matter of regret to the philologist, but not
to the evangehst.
The diffusion of languages ought to be a
guide towards missionary extension, more than
the geographical distribution of tribes. For
example, the Basuto Mission extended to
Barotseland, nearly a thousand miles to the
north, because they found that the language
The Needs of Pagan Africa 235
was one. The Basuto off-shoot called the
Makololo, the tribe so deeply associated with
Livingstone, had passed on its wild marauding
career as far north as the Zambesi. Among
other tribes which they conquered were the
Barotse. Wherever they conquered they im-
posed their language on the people, and long
after the Makololo had disappeared, and the
Barotse had, in turn, become a mighty people,
the Sesuto language remained. Hence when
M. Coillard opened work among the Barotse
he was able to use the Sesuto literature, and
to give the people at once the whole Bible
in their own language.
So also the Angoni of Nyasaland have passed
in their conquering raid from Zululand to
Tanganyika, and when the Livingstonia
Mission came among them they were able to
use South African natives from their mission
at Lovedale as their first evangehsts, and to
give the people at once a literature and the
entire Bible.
The advantage of having a language, already
reduced to writing, with grammars, diction-
aries, and a literature is enormous. The lack
of these always means long years of slow and
patient labour for which all missionaries are
not equally suited. Thus in the vast regions
of the Congo basin only one language has as yet
236 The Future of Africa
a translation of the Bible. Scores of languages
must first be learned and reduced to rules and
to writing before the tribes there can be
adequately evangelised and a church nurtured.
Finally, a considerable set-back to mis-
sionary progress has been seen in that native
Christian revolt against the control of the
European, which has been called Ethiopian-
ism. The f eehng of revolt may appear in some
form or other in most countries, but it is in
South Africa that it assumed organised hfe
and brought sad disaster to the Chm"ch. A
large number of native ministers seceded
from the parent Church, and, carrying with
them many of their members, sought to
organise a Church of Africa controlled entirely
by Africans. This would have been a useful
ambition, perhaps, had it not been debased by
an intense hatred of Europeans. Tliis antagon-
ism has overclouded the spirit of their Church,
and the division that has been caused has
weakened the Christian forces. Congrega-
tions have spent their energies in spiteful
acts against one another, instead of aggressive
service for the heathen. The one body has
undermined the influence of the other, and the
torn and divided Church has been weakened,
its testimony discounted and the eager spirit
of brotherliness sadly dwarfed.
The Needs of Pagan Africa 237
In some cases the ecclesiastical revolt has
taken the form of seditious teaching against
the rule and presence of the European in the
country, and when this has been done Govern-
ment has stepped in with repressive measures.
In Natal, especially, the alarm about the spread
of Etliiopianism has caused Government to put
very severe limitations on mission work with a
view to controlhng the work of native evange-
Hsts and teachers. In 1902 it was enacted
that no mission work could be carried on
within a native reserve unless under a resident
European. So disastrous was this law that
several churches had to be pulled down,
because there was no resident European in
charge. Etliiopianism, however, is righting
itself. The bitterness is disappearing, and a
recognition of the degeneration which has
begun in all the work which the Africans have
controlled themselves, is leading many to come
back to a sense of their need of the European.
Such, then, are some of the main difficulties
which render mission work so much more com-
plex than those at home can realise. We must
also remember that after all these difficulties
have been considered there still remains the
root one, namely, the fetters of ingrained
custom. Polygamy, drunkennesf?, evil dances
and iniation ceremonies, all these provide the
238
The Future of Africa
Urgency of
the Situa-
tion.
(a) The
Population.
joy of life for the African, and the love for all
the pleasure they bring to him hinders him
from accepting the Gospel.
Can anyone doubt the call of pagan Africa
on the Church ? When will day dawn and the
night be gone? Consideration of this tre-
mendous question forces home upon us many
things that make the call very urgent.
First there is the population. However
great the contribution made by explorers and
travellers to a clearing up of the geographical
problems of Africa, the greatest result of their
work was the discovery of the vast populations
that they found to exist in this once closed
continent. That a rich land, peopled by many
tribes, existed in the interior of Africa was a
discovery that has influenced the whole course
of European history.
The population of Africa is not dense when
we compare it with that of some Asiatic lands.
Perhaps in the whole continent there are not
more than one hundred and sixty milhons of
people. That only gives a population of
fifteen to the square mile, while China, as
mentioned above, has two hundred and fifty
to the square mile. There are also regions
where vast tracks of country have no people
at all, or only Httle hamlets scattered at great
distances from one another. But along the
The Needs of Pagan Africa 239
river courses, where there has been settled
government, and by the shores of the great
lakes, the population is crowded. When
Livingstone arrived at Lake Nyasa, he wrote,
" Never before in Africa have we seen any-
thing hke the dense population on the shores
of Lake Nyasa. In the south-western part
there was an almost unbroken chain of villages.
On the beach of wellnigh every Uttle sand
bay dark crowds were standing gazing at the
novel sight of a boat under sail ; wherever we
landed we were surrounded in a few seconds
by hundreds of men, women and children who
hastened to have a stare at the ' wild animals.' "
But further on he saw how " the population
had all been swept away ; ruined villages,
broken utensils and human skeletons, met
with at every turn, told the same tale." This
was the result of the Angoni raids. To-day,
when peace has been weU estabhshed for a
generation, that desolated shore is covered
for scores of miles by village after village, so
closely built that they seem like one con-
tinuous town. The native population of the
Lower Shire River increased from one thou-
sand in 1891 to fourteen thousand in 1896,
because of the suppression of the slave
trade.
This may be taken as fairly descriptive of
240 The Future of Africa
many other parts of Africa. Bentley describes
much the same history in certain regions of the
Congo. Natal, too, before the rise of the Zulu
kingdom, had been densely peopled by the
Abambo and others. Under Chaka it is
reckoned that one million natives lost their
hves, and the land was almost denuded of
inhabitants. Now, however, under white rule,
the population is quickly rising.
The chart of the previous progress of
African population makes a most varying
diagram, but under settled government it is
constantly and rapidly ascending. In the
past the continent has been devastated by
intertribal war, the slave traffic, ravaging
pestilences, such as small-pox and sleeping
sickness, and brutal customs, such as infanti-
cide and human sacrifice. These all combined
must have claimed a dreadful tale of victims
year by year, and now when, under the paternal
rule of European powers, most of these
enemies of hfe are disappearing, the coming
years must see a large increase to the popula-
tion, for the African is proHfic beyond all
races.
From calamity after calamity the African
has risen irrepressible, and now that peaceable
government is stopping those devastations
that slew their milHons annually, the popula-
The Needs of Pagan Africa 241
tion is increasing at a wonderful rate. In a
few years the pagan population will be not
seventy million, but one hundred million, and
the disproportion between Christian and pagan
population is, under the present conditions,
bound to be a growing one, for the natural
increase of paganism is at present greater
than the largest possible Christian increase
that can arise from the present hmited efforts
of the Church.
Most terrible of all the things that call for (b) The
urgent action is^the swift spread of Islam in isi^*^^ °
Africa. It has had several hundred years'
start of Christianity, and in these later years
it is pressing on from the north and east with
a tremendous force. It comes to the pagan
Africans with a somewhat higher beHef than
they have in their own Animism. Its mes-
sengers, with the veneer of a higher civihsation,
seem to belong to a great world- conquering
power, and appeal to the pride of race. In
the spread of Islam in Africa there is a grave
danger, the importance of which it is difficult
to overestimate. " Mohammedanism," says
Sir Charles Eliot, one of the wisest adminis-
trators who has yet been given to Central
Africa, " can still give the natives a motive for
animosity against the Europeans, and a unity
of which they are otherwise incapable. Had
242 The Future of Africa
Uganda become Mohammedan, which was at
one moment quite possible, the whole of the
Nile Valley, and of East Central Africa, might
have been in the hands of Mohammedans ready
to receive and pass on any wave of fanaticism
which might start in the north, and perhaps
to start one themselves." How in the face
of the liistory of Africa British Government
officials can be found, who not only show special
favour to a Mohammedan propaganda, but
even go out of their way to distribute Korans
among their boys, and do what they can to
handicap Christian missions, staggers one's
imagination. Too often the governments have
show^n favour to the Mohammedan, using him
alone for the police and armed forces, sur-
rounding their stations with Mohammedan
strangers and forbidding any educational or
evangehstic work in tribes where Islam has
got some footing. Such a policy is none
other than suicidal for the whole future of
Africa.
Happily there are signs of some alteration in
the Governments' attitude to Mohammedan-
ism since the strong resolutions of the Edin-
bm'gh Conference, and in Nyasaland at least,
new facilities have been given to missions at
work among populations which are being
Mohammedanised.
The Needs of Pagan Africa 243
But for us Christians there is another and
greater danger in the approach of Islam than
merely the poHtical one. Wherever it con-
quers, a high barrier is raised against the
Christian religion. The spotless white robes
that the traveller so much admires and takes to
indicate a vast advance on the semi-nakedness
of the pagan is too often a calico covering to
moral and physical loathsomeness. Who that
values Jesus Christ can agree with those that
say Islam is more fitted for Africa than Chris-
tianity ? It is more popular certainly, for it
allows the African to indulge in many excesses
to which from time immemorial he has been
accustomed, and its moral law is easy. But
what has Islam done for Africa during
the centuries of its occupation ? " It is a
rehgion without the knowledge of the Divine
Fatherhood, without compassion for those
outside its pale, and to the whole woman-
hood of Africa it is a religion of despair and
doom."
For Africa there is no redemption in Islam
but fetters and death. And if we are to save
the tribes from that menace which our long
delay has made so threatening, and if we are
not to add new and almost insufferable
barriers to the work of evangelism, we must
see to it that we present to Mohammedanism,
244 The Future of Africa
and that speedily, the barrier of an already
Christianised people. Beyond that barrier
Islam cannot step. |
Lastly, the tremendous change which the '
inevitable advance of civilisation is daily
effecting on Africa m^ges us to action. Civil-
isation and commerce of themselves cannot
elevate a people. History drives this lesson
home only too forcibly. Commerce is indeed
a necessary colleague of missions, but com-
merce pure and simple has never raised a
nation. In the case of Africa it has fre-
quently had quite a contrary result. It is a
very grievous reproach to us that the pioneers
of trade are so constantly ahead of missions.
Again and again they liave proved more
numerous, more vigilant, more adventurous.
Yet we have infinitely more to give and to gain
than the best equipped trader. Africa's rela-
tions with commerce in the past have worked
for good and have worked for ill. She has
had her philantliropists in commerce, single-
minded men Hke Macgregor Laird, Goldie,
the Moirs and Mackinnon, who have led great
pioneering enterprises of trade refusing to
touch any harmful import, content to Hmit
their profits if only they might prepare the way
for a better day in Africa. On the other hand
she has had her " Oil River Ruffians " spread-
The Needs of Pagan Africa 24^
ing an influence around them utterly deleteri-
ous to the country and its inhabitants, and
tending to exploitation of the basest kind.
Yet they too were pioneers of civilisation.
It cannot be too much emphasised that
commerce and civilisation unaccompanied by
Christianity can in the long run only harm
and not benefit the awakening continent.
As things are now, Chiistianity must be
roused to play her part in determining the
changes that are to be lasting. Christianity
cannot afford to stand still, but must fight
as she never fought before to counteract the
harm that civilisation and commerce un-
leavened by any spiritual influence effect on
uncivihsed peoples.
CiviHsation, moreover, has a disintegrating
effect on the customs of the people and the old
beHefs of paganism are shattered. Although
this in itseK might be considered good its
effect is often evil, for nothing is put in the
place of tlie old behefs and superstitions,
and the last state is often worse than the
first. With the advance of civihsation the
old reverence for the unseen spirits fades
away. The native becomes more individual-
istic, and the strong restraints of his social
life cease to have any effect. The authority
of the elders, and of traditional custom, are
246 The Future of Africa
scorned away. The sceptical and material-
istic atmosphere of the Europeans among
whom they live is readily absorbed. Now,
however evil much of the religious and social
life of the African is, there are restraints
in it which are absolutely necessary for the
race. If these are removed without being
replaced by others which are still stronger,
one can only foresee a moral chaos into which
the African will be plunged, which will in-
evitably produce the annihilation of the
people.
Nor is this all. CiviHsation not merely
removes former restraints and breaks down
old customs, but positive evils come in her
train. A new immoraHty, loathsome com-
pared with the old pagan conditions, is eating
away the very fibre of the people. They are
enervated by luxury and enfeebled by drink.
It is true that civiHsation, European civilisa-
tion, may not actually have introduced the
vice of drinking, but the crying evils of the
liquor traffic started and grew with the advance
of commerce on the coasts. In addition to the
moral evils brought by civilisation there are
others, namely, physical ones, which follow
on the adoption of new luxuries, imported
vices, European clothing, and the native
contact with the superior races. Already
The Needs of Pagan Africa 247
phthisis is slaying its thousands in South Africa.
The Masai are threatened with extinction
through the introduction of civihsed vices.
Whole communities have disappeared in West
Africa through indulgence in rum and gin.
If these introduced scourges are to be resisted,
the Christian Church must be there in time
to teach the African how to reject the evil.
The missionary must teach the African to take
such precautionary measures as will pull him
through the crisis of the impact of Western hfe,
stronger and better for the new things that
have come.
We look back on all that the chapter has un- Conclusion,
folded ; the appeal of Africa's untouched
regions, the urgency of that appeal on every
hand, the challenge of the obstacles that con-
front us, and what is the Church's answer ?
Is she going to rouse herself to seize the day of
opportunity and make some adequate repara-
tion for her cruel treatment of Africa in the
past, and her no less heartless neglect of the
present ? Never before has such an oppor-
tunity faced her.
A yet graver question arises at this crisis.
Does the Christian Church inherently desire
to respond to this mighty appeal ? Is she
stirred in every fibre of her being to come to
the rescue at this time on behalf of Africa ?
248 The Future of Africa
If now she folds her hands in sleep, or lazily
moves along to her task, other more eager
forces will not lag, and harm will be done
which long and strenuous effort will be
powerless to undo.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CHURCH'S TASK
ANALYTICAL INDEX
Present-Day Opportunities in the Mission-Field.
(a) Settled Condition of Tribes.
(6) Development of Means of Communication,
(c) Development of Medical Science.
The Church's Task.
(a) Duty towards Government.
(b) Christianisation of Colonial Life.
(c) Redistribution of the Missionary Forces and
Co-operation.
(d) Increase of Missionaries.
(e) Development of the Native Church.
( /) Preparation of Literature.
The Appeal of Africa.
We have seen some of the preparations which Present-Day
trod has been making by many agents for the Opp°^tuni-^
evangehsation of Africa, and in many of the M-r'^
conditions existing to-day we cannot but see """''•
great opportunities for the Church.
349
(a) Settled
Condition of
350 The Future of Africa
One of the greatest is the settlement of the
Condition o, j ^ fey strong European Governments. Unce
^'"-- ae conseience'of Europe had been roused by
Christian agitators, the civihsed naUons set
thTmsetves tenuously to check the havoc of
Save trade. When they understood the
Idministration of territories, and ound ha
their presence there was impossible, and that
Se could not progress until peace was es^^^
Ushed they proceeded to suppress mtertribal
war and to open to the world nations whose
Zcem not Tnly worked devastation among
the neighbouring%ribes but also forbade J
pntrance for the outside world. ihus tne
;" of European Powers in Africa ha.
on the whole, produced a quieter and more
^ett ed tribal life, which no longer presents the
oW mpossible conditions to the missionane^
,„ oeve,op- The increase of trade and European colomsa-
z^. tion has ^^'>^^^\^^z::^L^^Vj^s
commnnica- .jhe continent IS circumnavigateQ oy »F j
*"• eauipped ocean Hners, which arrive at their
ports v^th unbroken regularity, a very different
?tate rf affairs from the days when missionar e
had sometimes to wait two or three years for
a ship to carry them to Africa.
The need for efficient control, and the
prosecution of lawful commerce have also
Ltersected Africa with Unes of commumcation.
The Church's Task 251
The great waterways are used by flotillas of
steamers and light draught barges. The lakes
all have their httle fleets of steamers. The
natural barriers on African rivers, as between
Matadi and Stanley Pool on the Congo and
over the Murchison Cataracts on the Shire,
are being traversed by railways. The French
have vigorously pushed on railways on the
West Coast, most of which are built with
direct relation to the river routes of the
Senegal, the Niger, and their tributaries.
On the West Coast of Africa there are at
least nineteen short railway lines.
Other great systems are piercing the
interior of the Continent. The Cape to Cairo
railway from the south is nearing the Belgian
Congo. From Cairo it is open to Kliartoum,
and has steamer connection to Gondokoro,
1100 miles farther south. Victoria Nyanza
is hnked on to Mombasa, and that long and
hazardous journey which took Stanley a
hundred and four days to accomplish can
now be done luxuriously in three days. The
Germans have also begun a railway from
Dar-es-salaam to Tanganyika. A hne connects
Beira with Rhodesia, and soon the Portuguese
Angola coast will be joined to the heart of
Africa by the Katanga railway.
In addition to this continually growing
252
The Future of Africa
(c) Develop-
ment of
Medical
Science.
railway system, telegraph lines are beginning
to cover the whole continent. In Uganda and
Nyasaland, where the early missionaries waited
for eight months or a year for reports from
the outside world, or for the transmission
home of news of critical events within their
bounds, men can now communicate with the
home committees more quickly than with
their neighbouring mission station.
The difference this has made for efficient
mission work and for rapid evangeHsation is
very great. The pioneer parties no longer
present their great death roll of men who fell
on the march into the interior, or arrived
broken in health, only to be immediately
sent home. Tribes that were hidden in the
remote regions of Central Africa now seem
to Hve at the very doors of Europe.
Another marvellous opening has been
made by medical science. Since the dis-
covery of the cause of malaria and other
fevers the health conditions of Africa have
been entirely changed. The old records of
the West Coast of Africa which gave it the
name of the " white man's grave " are becom-
ing matters of history. That land has not yet
become a health resort, but the sickness and
mortaUty have been greatly reduced.
Since these discoveries of medical science
The Church's Task 253
were made there are men who used to be
periodically at the gates of death with
malaria] or tick fever, now they pass years
in vigorous health and with scarcely a day's
illness. The health and buoyancy and
capacity for work of missionaries have been
enormously increased, and the death roll
greatly decreased.
These are some of the wide movements
which God has set agoing for the redemption
of the dark continent. These roads cannot,
however, have been opened, and this new lease
of Hfe given, simply that Europe may grow
richer on the wealth of Africa. Are they not
the paths by which the Church may enter in,
and proclaim " deUverance to the captives
and recovering of sight to the bhnd ? "
In view of all these opportunities let us The Church'
consider the work to which the Church is "^^^k.
called. How is she to use the opportunities
thus given to her ?
First of all she has a duty to perform to- (a) Duty
wards those Governments who have assumed *?^^'''^s
, . n A <• Irovern-
the protection of Africa. It is her part to '"ents.
help to purify and ennoble the ambitions of
the Governments. These have not come to
Africa for the exploitation of the natives or
to enrich themselves, but they have under-
taken a great trusteeship that these people
3 54 The Future of Africa
may learn under their tutelage to appreciate
the blessings of Christianity and civilisation.
Many hard things have been said about the
motives that led to the " scramble for Africa,"
and the only way to justify the annexation is
for the European Powers to show that they
are steadfastly and dehberately engaged in
raising the whole social tone of the people
whom they have taken under protection.
Unfortunately this has not yet been demon-
strated by all. There still remains the mis-
government of the Belgian Congo, and the
remedy for this does not only rest with
Belgium. Every European Power which was
party to the treaty of Berlin, and five years
afterwards, to that of Brussels, accepted a
guardianship of the Congo, and only agreed
to the allotment of that great territory to the
Congo Free State, on the understanding that
it would fulfil its beneficent professions to-
wards the native peoples. So long as misrule,
and the barbarous treatment of the natives
continue, mission work will be severely
handicapped, extensions prohibited, and the
population itself in danger of being deci-
mated.
None can rouse the conscience of Europe
but the Church of Christ. Pohtical agitation
would only be misunderstood. Only the work
THE LKSSUN
The Church's Task 255
of those who beheve in the philanthropy of
Christianity can remedy these great wrongs.
The relation of Governments to the drink
traffic is a special matter that requires con
tinual agitation. It is not a matter which
can be settled by one nation. The hinter-
lands and boundaries of the various Protector-
ates cannot be pohced, and the separating
hnes are pencil ones on the map, not visible
features of the earth. Hence if effective
control is to be taken, whether by prohibition
or by severe restriction, all the Powers should
unite in action. A Christian people only can
bring this about.
Then there are relationships of Government
to labour, where systems of forced labour,
scarcely distinguishable from slavery, are
permitted, or actually enforced by the Govern-
ment itself. Where these exist there can be
no settlement or progress in tribal hfe, and
the natives are exploited to their hurt by
those who have undertaken paternal duties
towards them. Until these conditions of ad-
ministrative control are altered the messengers
of Christ cannot help the people forward.
It is not that all the relations of Govern-
ment to the native peoples are antagonistic to
missions. On the contrary, in many countries
there is a beneficent and paternal care exer-
1*
2 56 The Future of Africa
cised over the people, and the Church is wise
which seeks to use this help towards the
redemption of Africa, while at the same time
never allowing herself to be spiritually fettered
by identification with the administration.
The Roman Catholics of the early days made
the profound mistake of trying to use the
officials to force conversion, and to support
the Church, frequently with most disastrous
results. Yet there are functions of Govern-
ment which greatly assist mission progress.
For example, many of the African colonies
give grants to education. These grants
reUeve mission funds to a great extent, and
in a land Hke Africa, where education is a
necessary, indeed indispensable, adjunct to
missions, every pound given to assist secular
education means the releasing of other money
for more spiritual work.
A general attitude of friendliness between
the Government and missions adds a great
deal to the influence and the happiness of
the missionary. In questions of the marriage
law, of the rights of parents to their cliildren,
of individual hberty, when the missionary and
the official work in harmony it is far easier to
maintain and nurture the life of the Church.
A great many solutions of difficult relation-
ships between the Government and mission-
The Churches Task 257
aries have been found in a patient forbearance
and a wise and Christian courtesy.
There are necessarily difficulties for the
British missionary in German territory, as
for the German in British territory, but
these need not be insuperable. It is absurd
for an Enghshman to expect that a French
Government will recognise a school in which
Enghsh is taught instead of French. The
Enghshman who works in French countries
must magnify French and exalt loyalty to
France. In Angola we read of a hospital
being closed because the medical missionary
did not possess a diploma from a Portuguese
medical school, and so was not allowed to
practise. In Portuguese East Africa, on the
other hand, we find a flourishing medical
work connected with the Servian mission,
because they take the trouble to send their
missionaries to Portugal to acquire a Portu-
guese medical diploma.
In the great work of bringing Christ to
Africa we must be ready to spare no pains,
and to suppress many insular prejudices.
The fact that parts of Africa are not coloured
red does not save Britain from responsibility
towards these parts. Some of the nations
which administer these parts are themselves
in spiritual darkness and if we do not fulfil
258 The Future of Africa
our duty to their colonies, they cannot. In
France only a small minority is Protestant.
This little Church has already undertaken
great responsibihties for Africa. But there
is not one missionary in the French Sudan,
and not one in the Upper French Congo. Has
this fact no significance for the Christians of
Britain ?
Another task before the Church is the
Christianisation of colonial Hfe. In South
Africa there are over one million whites in
contact with five miUion natives and coloured
people. These Europeans are all, whether
they will or no, representatives of Christianity
to the natives. Day by day the influence of
their lives is working for good or evil amongst
the native population. What would it not
mean for the future of South Africa, if we found
there a Colonial Church which was throbbing
with spiritual Hfe and devotion to Christ's
Kingdom ? Unfortunately, this is not the
usual type in the towns and villages. And
in the scattered mines and farms the Church
at home has left too many of her children
uncared for. Nowhere does denominational
rivalry seem so wasteful. There are villages
in South Africa where you will find Dutch
Reformed, Presbyterian, Wesleyan, Baptist,
Congregational, and Church of England con-
The Church's Task 259
gregations, organised and with their clergy-
men in charge, while many of the growing
out-posts of civilisation are left without a
single pastor to guard their Christian Hf e. It is
tragic that this should be so. The disastrous
effect of leaving young men, keenly absorbed
by the stress of their business, ^one among
a population of pagans whose low morahty
is insidiously contaminating, too often
has direly harmful results. The Church
has a duty to her young colonials which
cannot be neglected without hurt to the
empire.
Yet the service of colonial hfe is not alto-'
gether lost. There are one or two striking
examples of its power in South Africa.
The Wesley an Church in England in 1882
asked its Colonial Church to form itself into
a self-governing and self-supporting body.
They promised a contribution of £14,000 for
the first year, but this was to be reduced
year by year until it was no longer necessary.
In 1902 it had been reduced to £250. By
this time the Colonial Society had raised the
local income to £10,000. At the time of the
change the membership of the Wesleyans
was 20,000. In 1908 it had risen to 78,000,
the greater part of whom were natives. There
are now 100 English missionaries, and 120
26o
The Future of Africa
(c) Redistri-
bution of
Missionary
Forces and
Co-opera-
tion.
native ministers, all of them paid by the
Colonial Society.
Throughout the Protectorates of Africa,
there are many times more European traders
and officials than there are missionaries. Why
should not these men be so captured for the
Kingdom of Christ that their influence will
be neither negative, nor positively evil, but
triumphantly Christian ? There are many
traders of this type who have consecrated
their business career to the service of the
Kingdom, and who give a positive and
visible service for its extension. This much
is certain ; it is a poor and hurtful poHcy for a
church to allow communities of fellow Euro-
peans to congregate for the purposes of trade,
and to be so involved in other work, that there
are neither men nor money available for the
helping of our own countrymen. There are
great numbers of whites on the East Coast of
Africa, and on the Zambesi and Shire River,
that are left in this destitute condition. The
Church's neglect is neither pohtic nor humane.
We come now to the more immediate
task which the Church must perform within
herself and on the mission field. We have
seen how great a tract of country in Africa
is still unoccupied. If we are seriously and
systematically to fuifiJ our duty to these
The Church's Task 261
iinevangelised parts a great change in present
conditions is needed.
The initial step must be a proper distribu-
tion of the missionary forces. Tliere are
certain strategic positions that must be
occupied. When trade is projecting its com-
mercial outposts missions ought to be ahead.
They are the true pioneers of civilisation,
and it is imperative that they precede trade
if the people are to be prepared to meet the
new forces of civilisation whose extension can-
not be stopped. There is also the vigorous
advance of Islam, but with the urgent and
special call for missionaries to Islam we must
not deal, as here we are only considering pagan
peoples. Everyone knows that the barriers
wliich a simple paganism presents to Christi-
anity are feeble compared with a fanatical,
though perhaps superficial, Mohammedanism.
Before we aUow this strong wall to rise, we
should rapidly and energetically possess the
pagan lands which are threatened.
There arises then tliis pressing question
of a redistribution of the missionary forces.
The evil of the denominationahsm of our
Churches, and of the so-called undenomina-
tionahsm of some evangeHcals, is that each
body has worked too often without consulta-
tion with its neighbour. Frequently, also,
362 The Future of Africa
previous occupation by, and the natiu-al line
of advance of, older missions have not been
respected by newcomers. In South Africa,
and in Natal especially, this evil has led to
great waste of effort. There are native
locations attached to some towns where no
less than six or seven different denominations
conduct their own pecuHar type of service.
Sometimes the discipline of Christians by
one mission has not been respected by a
neighbouring mission, and there are even
Protestant missions which will not acknow-
ledge the validity of the baptism of other
Protestant missions. The available forces for
Africa's evangeUsation are too inadequate to
allow of such waste and friction.
We urgently need a spirit of comity and
economy in many parts of Africa. There
are centres where missions are crowding
one another, while other near and needy
districts are largely neglected. On the Shire
Highlands, amid a comparatively small
population, there are five missions, besides
the old pioneer mission of the Church of
Scotland, and within forty or fifty miles to
the east and to the south there are heavy
populations among whom no missionary
lives.
Livingstone long ago warned his committee
WINNKliS or TlIK (Al.AHAli (11', W KST AlUUA
The Church's Task 263
at home against making South Africa " a
dam of benevolence," and he consistently
went fm-ther afield. In the early days of
the Bechuana mission, the London Missionary
Society withdrew from Khama's town which
they had pioneered, when they found that the
Hermannsburg Mission was prepared to occupy
this area. It was not until by mutual arrange-
ment the German missionaries had withdrawn,
that Mackenzie finally settled there.
The wastage is also great when one comes
to special Unes of work ; such as hospitals,
institutions, printing presses, and Hterary
work. It is folly that each separate mission
should try to develop along these special
Hues, when an arrangement for combined
work would greatly economise funds and
men, and greatly increase efficiency.
It is time that a central consultative body
were at work, like the Propaganda in Rome,
which will help to prevent waste and lead to
the occupation of all strategic points. Such
a reorganisation will make hearts sore, and
where there is mission property involved,
will seem to mean a large initial loss. But
these difficulties are not insurmountable.
It is of course not true that these overlapping
agencies do no good. Indeed their presence
in the field may be very productive. The
264 The Future of Africa
overlapping, however, tends to unnecessary
waste, and the loss of large opportunities.
These are days when the Church cannot afford
to waste or neglect the openings that God
has given.
Happily we seem to be entering rapidly a
period of more scientific mission work. A
movement is going on in South Africa for
reviewing the distribution of forces. In
many fields conferences have started in
which missions are agreeing on common
principles of work, and delimiting spheres of
occupation. Now we have the magnificent
plan of the Continuation Committee of the
World Missionary Conference. That all the
bright possibilities which are in this Com-
mittee may be fully realised, is the earnest
wish of every Christian, whose ambitions are
for the evangelisation of the whole world.
(d) Increase But even the distribution of overcrowded
ITumber of missions will not meet this day of opportunity.
Missionaries j^^^j^y hundreds more of European mission-
aries are necessary. The staff on most mission
stations is inadequate for its present work.
We need men who will relieve the strain on
those in the field, and allow more thorough
work to be done. We need men who will
enter the unevangehsed parts, and we need
men for speciaHsed work.
The Church's Task 265
Teachers are wanted for the full develop-
ment of educational work. Clergymen are
wanted to pay special heed to the training of
native preachers and evangeUsts. Literary
men are wanted who will produce a hterature
for the Church and translate the Bible into
the vernacular.
Let us put aside for ever the idea that any
tjrpe of man will do for Africa. The African
missionary requires special and thorough
training for his work. The industrial teacher
must be master of his trade, otherwise he
cannot teach his apprentices efficiently. The
educationist should know the science of
teaching, or he wastes his opportunity and
develops his schools on futile hues. The
doctor must be fully qualified, for he will
find himself face to face with serious work
which he cannot delegate to a speciahst.
The clergyman should know his theology
if he is to teach a properly proportioned
doctrine and build up a Church on a per-
manent and true basis. Everyone requires
sufficient education to understand the structure
of languages, and a mind open enough to
appreciate those whose mental attitude is
widely different from his own.
Above all, the Church needs for Africa
men of firmly established character, who
266
The Future of Africa
(e) Develop-
ment of
the Native
Church.
have learned to stand alone with God. It is
a sad lookout for the mental development
of a missionary if he has not yet learned
how to find companionship in books, for he
may find no social comrade here. It is a
deadHer thing for him if he has not learned
the secret of self-control and of growing in
Christ. Amid all the demorahsing atmosphere
of paganism, he will find it a hard hfe if he
has not learned to renew his soul from day
to day in the presence of God Himself.
In Africa, where personal influence goes
so far, and loyalty to his master is so char-
acteristic of the native, character counts
for more than in most fields. If a man's Ufe
grows daily stronger in the fellowship of the
Holy Ghost, his missionary service will be
of unmeasured value. For, after all, the
lesson of missions is not that the world will
be won by the launcliing forth of numbers
of Europeans, but by the coming of one and
another who have learned something of the
wonderful power that God can give to a
man wholly consecrated to Him.
We must remember, however, that the
resources of the Church do not end in Europe
or America. Within the native Church itself
will be found a vast army of men who must
be used for the evangeHsation of the continent.
The Church's Task 267
For this is not a foreign enterprise only,
it is African also. But the character of the
African, at his best, is still subject to so many
limitations that, as we have seen, it is not
safe or wise to send him forth beyond the
supervision and guidance of Europeans. We
must remember that if paganism has a sadly
downward pull on the European, in spite of
the comparative isolation which surrounds
him as a foreigner, and in spite of his in-
heritance of traditions and tastes which have
grown through centuries of Christian life, the
pull on the native, only recently drawn out
of the mire of paganism, and living, as he does,
amid sights and sounds which are for him a
very active temptation, must be much more
insidious. If a full and special education
is necessary for the European missionary,
how may we expect efficiency, wisdom
and character in the African to whom all
this training has been short and hmited ?
Experience has proved again and again
how much the native Christian's zeal must
be guided, and so sure are Government
officials of this that in few, if any, countries
would they allow the missionary to send
his native agents far afield in active propa-
gandist work, unless they could be effectively
controlled and superintended by the European.
268 The Future of Africa
The Church, therefore, will not seek to
evangehse Africa by native agents alone,
but by means of Europeans associated with
natives. It is well that the usefulness of
native evangeHsts should be emphasised.
There are missions in Africa which make
no provision for a native agency, but send
out their European missionaries as their sole
evangeUsts. This seems an unwise policy,
for, as we have already seen, the native
possesses natural aptitudes which make him a
more efficient evangeUst in many cases than
the Eiu-opean can be. There is also the ques-
tion of economy. In many parts of Africa
twenty or thirty native agents can be main-
tained in comfort at the same cost as one
European. Thus one does not hesitate to say
that a European with a score of efficient native
helpers will be many times more valuable for
Africa's evangelisation than two Europeans
would be, although when we count the cost of
their salaries, passages, and furloughs, the two
Europeans would cost more than double as
much as the one with his large staff of native
helpers.
Again, if the native Church is not developed,
we do it harm by stultifying the spirit of liber-
ahty. To allow the Christian to think that the
work of evangeUsation is a foreign duty, and
The Church's Task 269
to provide foreign funds for the payment of
all the native agents, fosters dependence on
European wealth, and prevents the growth
of the spirit of self-help. It is a constant
temptation to let one's work run on ahead so
rapidly that it becomes a necessity to grow
only with the increase of hberaHty from
home. The shrinking of the foreign mission
income, and the consequent decrease in the
allowance from home, are not always an evil.
They may, instead, afford a new opportunity
to press upon the native Chm-ch the need
for more liberality on its own part.
One of the great tasks, therefore, which lie
before the Church, if it is to overtake the
unoccupied parts of Africa, is to permeate the
native Church with the evangelistic spirit,
to train native agents thoroughly, and to
lay more and more upon the people the duty
and privilege of hberahty for the extension of
the kingdom.
Most of the African Churches are already far
ahead of the home Church in tliis spirit of evan-
gelisation. It took hundreds of years to lead
the European Church to any reahsation of its
duty to propagate the Gospel. To this day
but a small proportion of European Christians
reaUse the service that is demanded of them.
But there are many African Churches where
2 70 The Future of Africa
the great proportion of the members are
either giving out of their poverty, or are
actively engaged in missionary service for
the heathen around them. Who can tell the
greatness of the contribution which young
Africa may yet make for its own evangehsa-
tion were it baptized in the spirit and fed
with restless zeal for the redemption of the
tribes that are still lost in paganism.
To rouse this zeal it will be necessary to
devolve upon the natives, as they rise into
conscious Christian Hfe, a gradually increasing
responsibility for the government and life
of their own Church. As they come to realise
for what purpose a Church exists in the world,
and how they are responsible for its service
and discipHne, they will learn to plan ambitious
schemes for extension. When they have had
some voice in the initiation and preparation
of these schemes they are bound also to
recognise that on them lies the duty of carry-
ing them into execution.
(f) The Pre- Yet another task that these days demand
GteSref ^^ *^^ preparation of an adequate Hteratiu-e
for the people. In pagan Africa, where no
hterature exists, the first task is the reduction
of languages to writing. Then follows the
preparation of school books, the transla-
tion of the Bible into the vernacular, and the
A KAl'l'llJ UOV
The Church's Task s/i
multiplication of books of a devotional and
expository type, and also of a general literature
which will widen the mental horizon of the
people, and increase their general intelligence.
We can never have a strong Church nor an
efficient native agency unless we give them
a literature out of which they can feed their
minds, especially a Cliristian Hterature which
unites all increase of knowledge with an
increase of character. No mission can feel
that it has done a permanent work for the
people until it has at least put the Bible in
their hands. Yet not a single tribe where
the Gospel has not been proclaimed has a
vernacular Hterature or a portion of the
Bible. In many tribes where missionaries
have been at work for a quarter of a century
and more, owing to the pressure of other
work or the inadequate training of the
missionaries, even the New Testament is
not translated. Already portions of the
Bible or the whole book are translated into
one hundred African languages. But there
are still over four hundied languages and
over three hundred dialects which have not
been given the Bible.
If Africa is to meet the new intellectual
and Christian awakening that has come
to it, and to furnish means to project
272 The Future of Africa
God's Gospel everywhere, and feed those
who shall come to Him, then she has a great
and m-gent need for men who will give
themselves to this enduring and far penetrat-
ing work of giving a Christian literature to
the people.
For the accomphshment of these great tasks
in the immediate future what is the Church at
home to do within her own borders ? The
mighty changes that have linked the world
together and brought the innermost parts
of Africa almost within sight and sound
of Europe have added to the commercial
activities of all lands. They have increased
the wealth of Em-ope. They have added to
the lustre of kingdoms and republics. But
what have they added to the Christian
Church ?
They have imposed on her a new enter-
prise which will demand her best. It would
be a grave danger to our nation if increase of
wealth were only to mean an increase of luxury,
if the story of great extensions of empire were
to settle the Chm-ch in pride and ease. Our
nation has not been relieved of the crime of
her slaving traffic, nor has she contributed to
the exploration and annexation of vast reaches
of the continent that she may sit down in
contemplation of her new treasures with a
The Church's Task 273
quiet mind. That which she did in the past
has not yet been atoned for. That which she
has undertaken to-day has not yet been carried
out.
It is a striking thing that for the last thirty-
five years the great missionary societies have
begun no new enterprise in Africa. The
early seventies of last century saw the begin-
ning of some of the most notable missions.
Uganda, Tanganyika, Nyasaland, the Congo,
were all occupied in these days. Since that
period, when the minds of the Church were
greatly moved by the discoveries of Living-
stone and Stanley, practically no new field
has been occupied by the great societies.
Extensions have been made on all sides from
the base of their estabhshed work. Many
new societies have been formed which have
spread more or less into unoccupied territory.
But the organised forces of most of the great
Churches, Church Missionary Society, the
Churches of Scotland, the Wesleyans, the
London JVIissionary Society, the Baptists,
have started no great mission in the un-
occupied parts. From the West and East
the C.M.S. are slowly attempting an entrance
to the Sudan. The Wesleyans have entered
Rhodesia. The Church of Scotland has taken
over an endowed mission in East Africa. But
274 The Future of Africa
none of these movements have the bold,
decided, and ambitious, featm'es which char-
acterised the efforts of the seventies.
Christians have not been wholly indiffer-
ent, for a large number of undenominational
societies have been formed in the meantime
and have entered new fields. But these are
sorely handicapped by the lack of sufficiently
trained men as their workers, by inadequate
funds for ambitious plans, and sometimes by
lack of a broad policy which will allow them
to develop the necessary centres out of which
aggressive work proceeds, such as training in-
stitutions and printing presses. While the great
societies have been dreading that the start-
ing and maintaining of large new enterprises
would sap the contributions for the established
work, independent associations of Christians
have arisen who have captured a Uberahty
that was waiting to be consecrated to the
evangelisation of untouched regions.
A new generation has come. A new Africa
Hes at our doors. Is not the hour at hand
when again the Churches must be boldly
challenged, as they were by Arthington and
Stanley, to undertake new and large missions
for Africa. The great Sudan, the Moham-
medanised lands of East Africa, the hinter-
lands of the West Coast, the mighty Congo
The Church's Task 275
regions, Portuguese East Africa, these and
many another field call aloud to the Chiu-ch.
In each one of them scope will be found for
the most ambitious society, an untouched
field, and no others working.
Governments have not ended their task
at the partition. Every on,e of them is
pushing its authority and administration
further and further afield every year. As
each new land has opened up its prospects
new trading companies have entered. MiUions
of money have been freely subscribed by this
country to the most speculative schemes for
new Africa, as well as to sure and sane enter-
prises. What is wrong with the Church that
she has not again ventured boldly in these
past tliirty-five years ? Are there not men
and women enough who will risk their capital
beheving it a great return if salvation be
brought to those that are lost ? Commerce
and administration find no lack of men who
will risk all for the prizes they can give.
Traders will be found in isolated fever-stricken
spots, with httle comfort and abundant
danger, where no missionary is to be found.
We speak of the sacrifice of life in West Coast
commerce. No missionary in Rhodesia has
Hved a more lonely and comfortless Ufe than
many of the pioneer officials there. The
276 The Future of Africa
forests and fever-belts of the Congo have
hidden from civilisation scores and scores
of State agents for every missionary that has
entered them. The Church has no monopoly
of heroism. Nay, her record is far behind
that of many a government and many a
commercial firm. Why is it so hard to get
men who will hazard all for Christ, esteeming
the glory of bringing to degraded peoples
the Uberating Gospel of Christ, a far more
tempting service than all that fame and wealth
may give to their servants ?
Conclusion. Our only hope for Africa is in the awakening
of a richer and warmer life at home. We are
clogged and bound by the dullness and prayer-
lessness of the Church which has sent us forth
and to which we are Hnked. We rise in
buoyant faith and service in its quickening.
By God's own connecting lines, invisible but
unbroken, the tone of the home Church
reaches into Africa. That fire which may
kindle by His Spirit in the home Church will
cast its brightness and warmth into the very
heart of the continent.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
SOME OF THE LEADING DATES IN THE
HISTORY OF AFRICA
A.D.
150 . Missionary Training College founded at
Alexandria. Amongst its Principals
were : Origen, Clement, and Panta^nus.
400 . Christianity flourished in North Africa.
African Leaders in the Early Church
were : Tertulliau, Cyprian, Athanasius,
Arnobius, and Augustine.
640-1000 Moslem Conquest of Egypt and North
Africa.
1100-1300 Europe awakens to Missionary Eflfort.
1182-1226 St Francis of Assisi preached to the
Saracens.
1235-1315 Raymond Lull, Missionary to North Africa.
1394-1460 Prince Henry, the Navigator. Explorer
of West Coast, etc.
1484 . The Congo discovered.
1487 . Cape of Good Hope discovered. Vasco da
Gama rounded Cape, touched at East
Coast points, etc.
1497-98 . Portuguese Settlements founded on East
and West Coasts.
1517 . Charles V. granted a Patent for exporting
African Slaves.
1517 . Turks occupy Egypt.
K »79
28o The Future of Africa
A.D.
1578 . St Paul de Loanda, capital of Portuguese
West Coast Colonies founded,
1588 . First British Afi'ican Company chartered.
1600-1700 English and French founded Trading
Ports along Senegambia, etc.
1652 . Dutch established themselves at the Cape.
1737 . Moravians sent first Missionary to South
Africa.
1768 . James Bruce rediscovers Headwaters of
the Blue Nile.
1772 . Granville Sharp obtained the judicial
decision declaring all slaves free on
British ground.
1796 . Missionary Work begins in West Africa.
1799 . London Missionary Society enter South
Africa.
1804 . Church Missionary Society enter West
Africa.
1806 . British take the Cape of Good Hope.
1807 . Slave Trade declared illegal for British
subjects.
1814 . Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society
begin Work at the Cape.
1825 . Beginning of Missionary Stations in North
Africa.
1841 . Lovedale Missionary Institute founded by
Free Church of Scotland.
1844 . Beginning of Missionary Work in East
Africa.
1841-73 . David Livingstone's Journeys and Dis-
coveries.
1848-75 . Opening of Central Africa, chiefly by
British Explorers.
1861 , Universities Mission started,
Appendices
281
A.D.
1865-85 . Central African Protectorate founded by
Britain.
1871 . Stanley's Expedition to find Livingstone.
1875 . Ldvingstonia Mission founded by Free
Churcli of Scotland.
1876 . Blantyre Mission founded by Church of
Scotland.
1876 . Uganda Mission started by Church Mis-
sionary Society.
1875-77 . Stanley's Transcontinental Expedition and
Descent of the Congo.
1878 . African Lakes' Corporation established.
1885-95 . Partition of Africa.
1890-91 . Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference.
1893 British Central Africa Protectorate formally
established.
1897 . Zululand annexed.
1899-1902. Boer War.
1905 . First Commission of Enquiry into Abuses
of the Congo Free State.
1907 . British Central Africa Protectorate became
Nyasaland Protectorate.
1908 . The Congo Free State taken over from
King Leopold by Belgium,
1910 . Union of South Africa.
APPENDIX B
PRINCIPAL DATES OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE'S
LIFE
Born at Blantyre, Lanarkshire . 19 th March 1813
Ordained Missionary in London . 20th Nov. 1840
Embarked for Africa . 8th Dec. 1840
Arrived at the Cape . . . Jan. 1841
Married Mary Moffat . . . .1845
Discovered Lake 'Ngami . . 1st Aug. 1849
First Great Journey, Cape to Linyauti
June 1852 to Oct. 1853
To open a Road to the West. Linyanti to
Loanda . Nov. 1853 to May 1854
To open a Koad to the East. Back to
Linyanti — Linyanti to Quilimane
Sept. 1855 to May 1856
Awarded Gold Medal, Geographical Society May 1855
First Visit Home . . . Dec. 1856
Published " Missionary Travels " . Nov, 1857
Severed connection with London Missionary
Society . . . . .1857
Returned to Africa . . 10th March 1858
Second Great Journey, exploring the Zambesi and Shire
Rivers
Discovered Lake Shirwa . . May 1859
Discovered Lake Nyasa . . Sept. 1859
Universities Mission to Central Africa
started . . . , .1861
282
Appendices 283
Death of Mrs Livingstone . 27th April 1862
Second Visit Home . . 23rd July 1864
Published " Zambesi and its Tributaries " . 1865
Returned to Africa for Last Time . Sept. 1865
Visited India .... Oct. 1865
Last Great Journey . started Jan. 1886
Discovered Lake Moero . . Nov. 1867
Discovered Lake Bangweolo . July 1868
Meeting with Stanley . 28th Oct. 1871
Death at Ilala . . 4th May 1873
Buried in Westminster Abbey . 18th April 1874
APPENDIX C
KOMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONS
It is somewliat difficult to get exact and reliable infor-
mation about the position of Roman Catholic missions.
Their published statistics are notoriously unscientific,
and as they are constructed on a different basis from
that of Protestant missions, comparisons of figures are
more misleading than informative.
We have seen how disorganised and antagonistic much
of the effort of the various Catholic Orders was three
centuries ago. Since that date the whole missionary
enterprise of the Catholic Church has been magnificently
organised and unified, externally at least. The first
Jesuit Pope, Gregory XV., founded the Congregation
for the Propagation of the Faith. This body is called
the Propaganda, and has now complete control of all
work in non-Catholic lands. It is composed of cardinals,
and a secretary and notary. Its chief, the Cardinal
Prefect, is styled, by the Roman people, the Red Pope,
and he is virtually pope of all unbelieving lands — that
is, of Protestant as well as heathen and Mohammedan
lands. The Propaganda establishes and maintains mission
colleges, where students are given special training for
missionary work. It controls all the funds which Catholic
people give for propagandist work, and the donors have
no power of allocating their gifts. There are several
auxiliary societies for the colleeting of these moneys,
284
Appendices 285
bub the contributions of Protestant Churches are many
times larger than those of Roman Catholics.
Much has been said in these days of the possibility
of an organised co-operation between Protestant and
Catholic missionary societies so as to avoid overlapping,
but all the approach comes from Protestantism ; the
Propaganda has not, and cannot make any overtures.
The purpose of its existence makes any recognition of
Protestantism as a Christian society impossible ; for it
exists for the conversion of heretics as much as that
of heathen, and counts the sacraments and church life
of evangelicals as worse than useless. Yet all mission-
aries and travellers will agree that they have experienced
a vast amount of gentlemanly courtesy and Christian
consideration from individual Catholic missionaries.
That is inevitable. The essential brotherhood that
exists between Europeans, and the true love of Jesus
Christ, which is found in men of all creeds, will assert
itself in spite of ecclesiastical differences ; but the
organised body of Roman Catholicism remains in-
veterately opposed to that of Protestantism.
This opposition has given rise to serious difficulties
in many parts of Africa. The familiar story of public
slander and hatred which characterised the invasion of
Uganda by the White Fathers has its exact parallel in
the Congo, Madagascar, East Africa, and elsewhere. In
these cases the Protestant missionaries were first in the
field, and had already made headway, when the Catholic
priests entered, passing over millions of untouched pagans
that they might oppose themselves to what they con-
sidered the deadlier evil of heresy. They moved forward,
strengthened by a papal Bull that " the movements of
the heretics are to be followed up, and their efforts
harassed and destroyed."
The religious war which this intrusion created has
2 86 The Future of Africa
been restrained in several parts of Africa by Govern-
ment interference where Protestant nations were in
control. In Uganda a division of territory was necessi-
tated to prevent further collisions. In German East
Africa, and in North-Eastern Rhodesia, spheres were
delineated in which the opposing bodies might work.
But in Catholic protectorates the balance of favour
naturally inclined to the Roman priests. Thus in
Madagascar large numbers of Protestant places of
worship were seized by the Catholics, and have never
been restored. In the Congo Free State, where Pro-
testants have openly exposed the iniquities of the
Government, and Catholics have been silent, sites ap-
plied for by Protestant societies were deliberately
handed over to the Catholics. In Portuguese West
Africa marriages by Protestant missionaries were not
recognised by the civil authorities, while Catholic
marriages were.
Among the Orders which are at work in pagan Africa,
the Societas Jesu — the Jesuits — is the best known. This
Order began with the brightest promise and most fervent
zeal ; but the inevitable interference of its agents with
politics led to its expulsion from every pagan country.
Last century saw its revival at several points. In 1837
a Jesuit was sent to Abyssinia, but he soon raised the
suspicion of foreign interference, and all Europeans were
expelled, the Anglican Mission ruined, and, in 1859, the
Jesuit Order was expelled. In 1880 South Africa was
reoccupied by this society, after more than a century's
expulsion. Its agents tried to force themselves on
Khama, but he refused to have them. They succeeded
in settling among the Matabili. Lobengula was pleased
to have them because of their industrial skill, and they
built at Buluwayo. From there they have spread
throughout Rhodesia, and have reoccupied their old
Appendices 287
fields on the Zambesi. They settled again at Tete,
Shupanga, and other old stations, and there carried
on useful agricultural and industrial work, and did not
a little to revive the old Christian traditions, as well
as to make valuable linguistic contributions. They
worked by means of Christian settlements, forming
villages of Christians, which in time would become
the parents of other communities. They established
schools for the children of colonists, thereby doing
a necessary work which evangelical Christians had
neglected. They opened orphanages for native children,
and hospitals for the care of Europeans as well as
natives, which were served by nuns.
Since the revolution in Portugal, history has again
repeated itself, and once more all Jesuit missionaries
have been expelled from Portuguese dominions.
In addition to the Jesuit Order, there are forty-eight
other institutions at work all over the continent.
Among these are the Benedictines, who are doing good
service in German East Africa, and a few years ago
suffered severely during a native rebellion, when their
bishop was killed as well as several brothers and sisters,
and many of their stations burned down. On the east
coast there is also the Society of tlie Holy Ghost, known
as the Black Fathers, under a bishop who is resident at
Zanzibar. They have large congregations at Nairobi
and Mombasa, especially where numbers of Goanese
reside. On the Congo they have also extensive work,
and tried hard to overthrow the influence of the Baptists
at San Salvador.
In An^'ola the Congregation of the Sacred Heart have
their principal station at Huilla, wliere they have a
large industrial institution, with some eighty natives
engaged in skilled trades, such as tanning, boot-making,
tailoring, wagon-buikling. They also do important
K*
288 The Future of Africa
botanical work by the experimental cultivation of exotic
trees and of native plants. The Trappists have a famous
industrial station near Durban, which is one of the most
interesting sights in Natal.
But the most widespread operations are those of the
White Fathers. These missionaries belong to the
Society of Our Lady of Africa, a French Algerian Order
which was founded by Cardinal Lavigerie about 1873,
with a view to the evangelisation of Mohammedanism in
Africa. His ambitions rapidly extended, and one of the
first acts of Leo XIIL was to give Lavigerie a command
to evangelise Africa from the Congo to Zanzibar. Since
that time the line of the Society's occupation has also ex-
tended south towards Nyasa along the plateau of North-
Eastern Rhodesia. Early in the history of his society
Lavigerie was wise enough to learn the lesson of past
failures, and he founded a companion Order of Sisters
of Our Lady of Africa, which has added a great strength
to the work of the Fathers.
One of the strongest motives with this apostle of Africa
was the suppression of the slave trade, and to do this he
revived the idea of a military branch of his Order, the
Armed Brethren of the Sahara, who acted as guards to
the brothers, and attempted by force to suppress the
slave traffic. The history of the movements of these
armed missionaries is not edifying. Fortifications were
built around the stations, strong and loopholed. Of
course it was impossible that British and German
Governments could allow these armed French mis-
sionaries to dispense justice within their spheres and
to pursue fugitives. They became the pioneers of
French territorial expansion, and other nations looked
on them w-ith not undeserved suspicion.
Their plan was to buy slave children, and, freeing
them, train them to be good Catholics ; but natives
Appendices 289
could not distinguish between Christian slave-buying
and Arab slave-stealing. Tribes robbed of their children
by an Arab slaver believed that they were sold to the
]\lissiou ; and consequently serious trouble arose be-
tween the people and the Fathers, leading sometimes
to bloodshed.
Since the suppression of the slave trade, the White
Fathers have settled down to more Christian and
peaceable methods of operation, and have become the
most important Eoman Catholic Order at work for the
evangelisation of Africa.
They live in large settlements consisting of, perhaps,
three or four fathers and lay brothers, and some sisters,
and carry on little boarding schools, where children are
trained, and successful agricultural operations are carried
on. Recently they have been learning from the Pro-
testant missions, and are developing education by means
of village schools. Their industries, like those of most
of the Koman missions in Africa, have won much com-
mendation from Europeans. And few will dispute the
fact that the great emphasis they have put on agricul-
ture has been a right emphasis ; for here the native is
being trained to improve that which is his particular
possession, and is not simply being api^rcnticed to trades
whose prosperity entirely depends on the presence of
the European.
What the religious value of all the Roman Catholic
mission work has been it is ditiicult to judge. Personally
I have come across no product of their mission, and
therefore cannot speak from first-hand knowledge. They
claim to have at least six hundred thousand Catholics in
Africa ; but what that fact signifies it is hard to estimate.
By the recent census of Uganda, the Catholics seemed to
be more numerous than the Protestants; and one of
the stations on the Mehinga Plateau in North Easiern-
290 The Future of Africa
Ehodesia claims to have two thousand Christians con-
nected with it, though it is but a recently established
station, and situated in a scantily populated sphere.
It is an undesirable task to try to depreciate the value
of their statistical success. We would rather believe
that many of their missionaries are themselves sincerely
devoted to Jesus Christ, and are revealing His incom-
parable Person to those benighted people. I have met
many of their agents — Jesuits, Benedictines, White
Fathers, and Black Fathers — and found a strong spiritual
sympathy in them. Their whole-hearted devotion, and
the light of the love of the Lord that is in many of
them, constrained me, however unwilling they might be
to recognise any corporate co-operation with us, at least
to rejoice that in some " way Christ is preached," and
the liberty of a life in Him is shown to many who knew
no life but that of dark, cruel, and sensual superstitions.
Most Catholic missionaries who come to Africa come
for life, and take no furlough. This magnificent
sacrifice is often held up in contrast to the frequent
furloughs and comparative ease of the Protestant
missionaries : but the sacrifice is unnecessary, and
harmful. No European can maintain physical efficiency
in a prolonged residence in tropical Africa ; and more
serious still is the result on the spiritual and intellectual
life of the missionary. Apart altogether from health
necessities, the spiritual and intellectual tonic that is
given to a man who has long resided among people who
do not think or read, and among surroundings which
are peculiarly demoralising, is more than worth the
expense of his passage home. He should be a better
missionary, in every way, by every visit home.
APPENDIX D
BRITISH MISSIONARY SOCIETIES
IN AFRICA
North-East (Egypt to Somaliland)
FOtTNBED
MISSION
STATIONS
B.F.B.S. British and Foreign Bible Society . 1812
C.M.S. Church Missionary Society . . 1882
North- West (Tripoli to Morocco)
B.F.B.S. British and Foreign Bible Society . 1824
CM.M.L. Christian Missions in Many Lauds . 1883
Western (Senegal to Nigeria)
S.S.G. Society for the Spread of the Gospel 1792
W.M.M.S. Wesleyan Methodist Missionary
Society 1811
C.M.S. Church Missionary Society . . 1816
U.F.S. United Free Church of Scotland
Foreign Mission Committee . 1846
S.P.G. Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel 1852
U.M.C. United Methodist Church Miss-
ionary Society . . 1859
P.M. M.S. Primitive Methodist Missionary
Society 1870
Q.I.M. Qua Iboe Mission .... 1887
South- West Africa (Kamerun to German South- West
Africa)
S.P.G. Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel 1859
292 The Future of Africa
STATIONS
P.M.M.S. Primitive Methodist Missionary-
Society 1870
B.M.S. Baptist Missionary Society . .1879
C.M.M.L. Christian Missions in Many Lands . 1881
R.B.M.U. Regions beyond Missionary Union . 1889
South Africa (the British Union with Basutoland
and Swaziland)
L.M.S. London Missionary Society . . 1799
B.F.B.S. British and Foreign Bible Society . 1810
U.F.S. United Free Church of Scotland
Foreign Mission Committee . 1825
W.M.M.S. Wesleyan Methodist Missionary
Society 1867
P.M.M.S. Primitive Methodist Missionary
Society . . . . '. 1872
B.Y.M.F.M.S. Birmingham Young Men's Foreign
Mission Society . . .1877
C.M.M.L. Christian Missions in Many Lands . 1884
Y.W.C.A. British National Foreign Department 1900
F.C.S. Free Church of Scotland Foreign
Mission 1907
Southern Central Africa (Five British Protectorates)
B.F.B.S. British and Foreign Bible Society . 1810
L.M.S. London Missionary Society . . 1860
C.S.F.M. Church of Scotland Foreign Missions
Committee .... 1875
U.F.S. United Free Church of Scotland
Foreign Mission Committee . 1875
U.M. Universities Mission to Central Africa 1880
C.M.M.L. Christian Missions in Many Lands . 1882
C.S.F.M. W. Church of Scotland Women's Foreign
Missions Association . . . 1884
Appendices 293
FODSDED
MISSION
3TATI0KS
P.M.M.S. Primitive Methodist Missionary
Society . . . . ". 1885
S.P.G. Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel 1891
W.M.M.S. Wesleyan Methodist Missionary
Society 1891
Z.I.M. Zambesi Industrial Mission . . 1892
B. I. M . S. Baptist Industrial Mission of Scotland 1895
N.I.M. Nyassa Industrial Mission . . 1896
East Africa
B.F.B.S. British and Foreign Bible Society . 1817
C.M.S. Church Missionary Society . . 18-t4:
U.M.S. United Methodist Church Mis-
sionary Society . . . 1861
U.M. Universities Mission to Central Africa 1864
S.P.G. Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel 1893
F.A.S. Friends' Anti-Slavery Committee . 1896
C.S.F.M. Church of Scotland Foreign Missions
Committee .... 1898
Madagascar and Mauritius
L.M.S. London Missionary Society . . 1820
S.P.G. Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel 1836
C.M.S. Church Missionary Society . . 1856
F.F.M.A. Friends' Foreign Mission Association 1867
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Note. — The following Bibliography is confined entirely to such books
as have direct bearing on the subject-mattei' of " The Future of Africa."
The problem of Islam in Afnca is dealt icith only in so far as it receives
treatment from tcrilers on West and Central Africa. The Litei-atnre on
South Africa is selected with refei-eiice to the problem of the native races.
The books likely to be of most service to numbers of Stvdy Circles are
marked with an asterisk.
A. HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE
GENERAL
*The Partition of Africa. J. Scott Keltie. (Stanford, 16s.)
*The Development of Africa. A. SOva White. (Philip, 78. 6d.
[Chapters IV., V., VI., and VIII.]
*The Colonisation of Africa. Sir H. H. John-ston. (Cambridge
Press, 6s.) [Chapters V. and VIII.]
*The Opening-up of Africa. Sir H. H. Johnston. (Home Uni-
versity Library, Is.)
In Unknown Africa. P. H. G. Powell-Cotton. (Hurst & Blackett,
2l8.)
Reports. — Annual Reports of the Administrator of East Africa.
(London.)
Foreign Office Reports. Annual Series. (London.)
Colonial Office Reports. Annual Series. (London. )
Each Protectorate publishes an Annual Report as above, giving
full local information. (P. S. King & Sons.)
EAST AFRICA
Somaliland. E. V. A. Peel. (Robinson, 7s. 6d.)
British East Af-rica. M'Dermott. (Chapman, 6a.)
296 The Future of Africa
*The Rise of Odr East African Empire. Capt. Lugard. (Black-
wood, 42s,) [Chapters III., VII., XVII., and XVIII.]
•Foundation of British East Africa. (H, Marshall, 6s.)
*The East Africa Protectorate, Sir C. N. Eliot. (Arnold, 15s. )
British East Africa, Somerset Playne. (Foreign and Col. Pub.
Society, 84s.)
Travels in the Coastlands of British East Africa, W. W. A.
Fitzgerald. (Chapman Hall, 28s.)
British East Africa. Lord Hindlip. (Unwin, 3s. 6d.)
Portuguese Nyasaland. Basil Worsf old. (Sampson Low, 7s. 6d.)
WEST AFRICA
The Rise of British West Africa. G. George. (Houlston &
Son, 12s.)
Affairs of West Africa. E, D. Morel. (Heineman, 12s.)
*Travels in West Africa. Mary H. Kingsley. (MacmiUan, 7s. 6d.)
*West African Studies. Mary H. Kingsley. (Macmillan, 21s. net. )
Between Capetown and Loanda. A. G. S. Gibson, (Wells
Gardiner, 3s. 6d.)
A Transformed Colony : Sierra Leone. T. J. Aldridge. (Seeley,
16s,)
The Gold Coast, Past and Present. G. Macdonald. (Longmans,
7b, 6d.)
The Ashanti Campaign of 1900, C, H. Armitage and A, F,
Monteiro. (Sands, 7s. 6d.)
The White Man in Nigeria. G. D. Hazzledine, (Arnold,
10s. 6d.)
*From the Niger to the Nile. Boyd Alexander, (E. Arnold,
2 vols., 36s. net).
In the Niger Country. H. Bindloss. (Blackwood, 12s. 6d.)
*The Lower Niger and its Tribes. A. G. Leonard. (Macmillan,
12s, 6d.)
*Cro8s River Natives. C. Partridge. (Hutchinson, 12s. 6d.)
New Africa, E. Descamps,
Modern Slavery. H. Nevinson. (Harpers, 7s. 6d.)
*The Siege of Kumassi. Lady Hodgson. (Pearson, 2l3.)
Timbuctoo the Mysterious. F, Dubois. (Heineman, 128. 6d.)
Bibliography 297
CENTRAL AFRICA
(Uganda, Congo, and Central African Protectorates)
*The Uganda Protectorate. Sir H. H. Johnston. (Hutchinson,
24s.) [Vol. II., Chapters XIII. to XX.]
*The Story op Uganda. F. D. Lugard. (H. Marshall, Is. 6d.)
[Chapters I. -IX.]
*Uganda to Khartoum. A. B. Lloyd. (Unwin, 10s. 6d.)
With Macdonald IN Uganda. Major H. H. Austin. (Arnold, 15s.)
The Congo and the Founding of its Free State. H. M. Stanley.
(Sampson Low, 2 vols., 21s.)
Red Rubber. E. D. Morel. (Fisher Unwin, 2s. 6d.)
*Great Britain and the Congo. E. D. Morel. (Smith Elder, 68.)
The Congo Crisis. Grattan Guines.s.
British Central Africa. Sir H. H. Johnston. (Methuen, 18s.)
*New World of Central Africa. H. G. Guiness. (Hodder, 6s.)
A Whitb Woman in Central Africa. Helen Caddick. (Unwin,
6s.)
Under the African Sun. W. J. Ansonge. (Heineman, 21s.)
Among Swamps and Giants in Equatorial Africa. Major H. H.
Austin. (Pearson, 15s. net.)
*Tropical Africa. Henry Drummond. (Hodder, 3s. 6d.)
Ntasaland under the Foreign Office. H. L. Duff. (Bell,
78. 6d.)
The Jungle Folk of Africa. R. H. Milligan. (Revell, 6s.)
Africa from North to South, through Marotsbland. A. St H.
Gibbons. (John Lane, 2 vols., 32s. net.)
•Missionary Journeys. David Livingstone. (Murray, 6s.)
The Zambesi and its Tributaries. David Livingstone. (Murray,
6s.)
Last Journals. David Livingstone. (Murray, 128.)
•Through the Dark Continent. H. M. Stanley. (Sampson Low,
128. 6d.)
*lN Darkest Africa. H. M. Stanley.
The Land of the Nile Springs. Sir H. Colville. (Arnold, I63.)
The Tanganyika Problem. T. E. S. Moore (Hurst & Blackett,
25s.)
In Remotest Barotseland. C. Harding. (Hurst k Blaokett,
lOfl. 6d.)
298 The Future of Africa
Tbavel A5D Adventubb in South-East Apmoa. F. C. Selous
(Rowland "Ward, 25s.)
SUNSHINB AfTD STORM IN RHODESIA. F. C. Selous. (R. Wai'd,
10s. 6d.)
SOUTH AFRICA
(S. of Zambesi)
History of South Africa, 1652-1903. H. A. Bryden. (Sands, 6s.)
Britain's Title IN South Africa. J. Cappon. (Macmillan, 7s. 6d.)
*The Beqinninq of South African History. G. M'C. Theal.
(Unwin, 16s.)
*The Progress of South Africa in the Century. G. M'C. Theal.
(Chambers, 5s.)
The Expansion of S. Africa. A. Wilmot. (Unwin, 5s.)
*SouTH Africa : A Study in Colonial Administration. W. B.
Worsfold. (Methuen, 6s.) [Chapters I., V., VI., and X.]
The Story of South Africa. W. B. Worsfold. (H. Mai-shall,
Is. 6d.)
*HiSTOBY OP Rhodesia. H. Hensman. (Blackwood, 6s.)
How We Made Rhodesia. A. G. Leonard. (Kcgan Paul, 6s.)
Ancient Ruins op Rhodesia. W. G. Neal and R. N. Hall.
(Methuen, 10s. 6d.)
South Africa: its People, Progress, and Problems. W. F.
Purvis. (Chapman & Hall, 5s.)
On the South African Frontier. H. W. Brown. (Sampson Low,
12s. 6d.)
♦Impressions of S. Africa. J. Bryce. (Macmillan, 6s.) [Parts
II. and IV.]
*The Native Races of S. Africa. G. H. W. Stow. (Sonnenschein,
21s.)
♦The Renascence of South Africa. A. R. Colquhoun. (Hurst &
Blackett, 6s.)
♦Transvaal Problems. L. Phillips. (Murray, 12s.)
♦The Afrikander Land. A. R. Colquhoun. (Murray, 16s. net.)
♦The Essential Kaffir. Dudley Kidd. (A, & C. Black, 18s. net.)
Savage Childhood. Dudley Kidd. (A. & C. Black, 7s. 6d. net.)
Sketches of Kaffir Life. G. Callaway. (Mowbray, 2s. 6d.)
Matabeleland. a. R. Colquhoun. (Simpkin Marshall, 28. 6d.)
♦The Basutos. Sir G. Lagden. (Hutchinson, 248.)
Bibliography 299
Basdtoland : the Legends and Customs. Minnie Martin.
(Nichols, 3s. 6d.)
My African Journey. Rt. Hon. W. Spencer Churchill. (Hodder,
5s.)
B. EELIGION AND FOLK-LOEE
Brinton, D. G. Religions of Primitive Peoples. (Putnam, 6s.)
*Dennett, R. E. At the Back of the Black Man's Mind. (Mac-
millan, 10s.)
*Frazer, Professor. The Golden Bough. (Macmillan, 20s. )
*Frazer, Professor. Psyche's Task. (Macmillan, 2s. 6d. )
Hayford, C. Gold Coast Native Institutions. (Sweet & Maxwell,
15s.)
HiNDE, C. The Last of the Masai. (Heineman, 15s.)
HoLLiS, A. C. The Masai : Their Language and Folk-Lore.
Lloyd, Miss L. C. Bushman Folklore. (In prep. Sonnenschien.)
Macdonald, Rev. Jas. Myth and Religion. (Nutt, 7s. 6d. )
Nassau, Dr. Fetichism in West Africa. (Duckworth, 7s. 6d.)
*Warneck, J. L. The Living Forces of the Gospel. (Oliphant, 5s.)
* World Missionary Conference. Report of Commission IV.
N.B. — Religion and Folk-lore are also dealt with in a large number
of the hool's in Section C.
C. MISSIONARY WORK AND PROBLEMS
AFRICA IN GENERAL
Christus Liberator: An Outline Study on Africa. (Macmillan
2s.)
*Dawn in the Dark Continent. Stewart of Lovodale. (Oliphant,
6s.)
Daybreak in the Dark Continent. W. S. Naylor. (New York,
50 cents.)
*The Redemption of Africa. F. Perry Noble. (Revell, 15s. net.)
•History of Protestant Missions. J. Warneck. (Oliphant, 10s. 6d.)
[Part II., Chapter II.]
300 The Future of Africa
Onk Hundred Years' History of the Church Missionary
Society, (C.M.S.,2s.)
History of the London Missionary Society. Sylvester Home.
(L.M.S., 2s. 6d.) [Chapter III., VII., IX., XII.]
Keports of the World Missionary Oonfekence, 1910. (9 toIs.,
Oliphant, 18s. 6d., or 3s. 6d. per vol. )
EAST AFRICA
Travels, Explorations, and Missionary Labours during an
Eighteen Years' Residence in Eastern Africa. J. L.
Krapf.
"Banani" (Work of "Friends'" Mission in Zanzibar and
Pemba.) H. S. Newman. (Headley, 2s 6d.)
WEST AFRICA
Fifty Years in Western Africa. Barrow. (S.P.C.K., 2s.)
*Hausaland. Canon Robinson. (Sampson Low, 2s 6d. )
Ewe-speaking People of the Slave Coast of West Africa.
A. B. Ellis. (Chapman, 10s. 6d.)
Yoruba-speaking People of the Slave Coast of West Africa.
A. B. Ellis. (Chapman, 10s. 6d.)
TsHi-SPEAKiNG PEOPLE OF THE GoLD COAST. (Chapman, lOs. 6d.)
Nine Years at the Gold Coast. D. Kemp. (Macmillan, 12s. 6d.)
Mission Work in Sierra Leone. J. S. Mills. (Boston : Drayton,
$1.00.)
Calabar and its Mission. H. Goldie and Dean. (Oliphant, 5s.)
CENTRAL AFRICA
Two Kings of Uganda. R. P. Ashe. (Low, 2s.)
*DWARFLAND AND Cannibal COUNTRY. A. B. Lloyd. (Unwin,
7s. 6d.)
Chronicles of Uganda. R. P. Ashe. (New York, $1.50.)
A Doctor and his Dog in Uganda. A. R. Cook. (R.T.S., 2s.)
Through my Spectacles in Uganda. M. J. Hall. (C.M.S.,
Is. 6d.)
Uganda by Pen and Camera. C. W. Hattersley. (R.T.S., 28.)
*Eightbbn Years in Uganda and East Africa. Bishop Tucker.
(Arnold, 30s.)
Bibliography 301
*Thk Baqanda at Home. C. W. Hattersley. (R.T.S., 5s.)
The Wonderful Story of Uganda. J. D. Mullins. (C.M.S.,
Is. 6d.)
^Pioneering on the Congo. H. W. Bentley. (Revell, 20s.)-
*0n the Threshold of Central Africa. F. Coillard. (American
Tract Society, 10s. 6d.)
History of the Universities Mission to Central Africa. A. E. M.
Anderson, Montreal. (U.M.C.A., Is.)
A Thousand Miles in the Heart of Africa. J. du Plessis.
(Oliphant, 5s.)
Daybreak in Livingstonla. J. W. Jack. (Oliphant, 5s.)
*Among the Wild 'Ngoni. W. A. Elmslie. (Oliphant, 3s. 6d.)
♦Missionary Journeys. David Livingstone. (Murray, 6s.)
*Last Journals. David Livingstone. (Murray, 12s.)
The Zambesi AND ITS Tributaries. David Livingstone. (Murray, 6s.)
On the Borders of Pyqmyland. Ruth Fisher. (Marshall, 3s. 6d.)
SOUTH AFRICA x
Memories of Mashonaland. J. W. H. K. Bence. (Arnold, 10s. 6d.)
Journals of the Mashonaland Mission. J, W. H. K. Bence.
(S.P.C.K., 2s. 6d.)
In the Lesuto. Canon Widdicombe. (S.P.C.K., 3s. 6d.)
Transvaal as a Mission-field. E. Farmer. (Darton, 2s. 6d.)
♦Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa. David
Livingstone, (Murray, 6s.)
Missionary Labours and Tours in South Africa. R. Moffat.
♦African Wastes Reclaimed. (The Story of the Lovedale Mission.)
R. Young. (Dent, 4s. 6d.)
♦Lovedale : South Africa. J. Stewart. (Oliphant, 5s. )
Ten Years North of the Orange River. J. Mackenzie.
Twenty Years in Khama's Country. J. D. Hepburn. (Howden,
6s.)
Among the Matabele. D. Carnegy. (R.T.S., Is, 6d.)
MADAGASCAR
MaDASASCAR of To-Dat. W. E. Cousins. (London, 1895 • R T S
2s.)
Sign of the Cross in Madagascar. J, K. Fletcher, (London, 1901
Oliphant, Ss. 6d.)
302 The Future of Africa
*Thirty Years in Madagascar. T. T. Mathews. (London, 1904 :
R.T.S. 63.)
The Martyr's Isle. A. Sharman. (London, 1909 : L.M.S., 2s. 6d.
*Madagascar Before the Conquest. J. Sibree. (London, 1896
Unwin, 16s.)
Among the Menabe. (Thirteen Months in Madagascar.) H. Smith.
(London, 1896: S.P.C.K., Is. 6d.)
MISSIONARY BIOGRAPHY.
*Bentley, W. Holman. H. M. Bentley. (R.T.S., 6s.)
Callaway, Henry, First Bishop of Kaffraria. M. S. Benham.
(Macmillan, 6s.)'
Colenso, Bishop. F. Gregg. (S.S. Assoc, Is. 6d.)
COILLARD OF the Zambesi. C. W. Mackintosh. (Unwin, 6s.)
*Crowthek, Samuel, "The Black Bishop." J. Page. (Hodder,
7s. 6d.)
Grbnfei-L, George, and the Congo. H. Johnston. (Bapt. Miss.
Soc, 30s.)
*Gbenfell, George, Life of. G. Hawker. R.T.S.
Hall Martin. "In Full and Glad Surrender." Miss Hall.
(Hodder, 6s.)
Hannington, Bishop. W. G. Berry. (Revell, 4s. 6d.)
*Hannington, Bishop, Life of. E. C. Dawson.
Johnson, William and Lucy. "Faithful unto Death," P. Don-
caster. (Headley, 3s. 6d.)
*J0HNS0N, W. A. B. Seven Years in Sierra Leone. Life of. Pierson.
(Nisbet, 2s.)
*La'WS, Db, of Livingstonia. James Johnston. (Partridge, Is. 6d.)
♦Livingstone, David. W. G. Blaikie. (Murray, 2s. 6d., also pub-
lished at Is.)
Livingstone, David. Thomas Hughes. (Macmillan, 2s. 6d.)
iviNGSTONE, David. Sir H. H. Johnston. (Philip, 4s. 6d.)
"Livingstone, David. T. Banks MacLachlan. (Oliphant, Is.)
Mackay of Uganda. J. W. Harrison. (Armstrong, 6s.)
*Mackay OP Uganda, Life OF. By his Sister. (Hodder.)
Mackenzie, Charles Frederick. H. Goodwin. (Bell, 10s. 6d.)
Mackenzie, Charles Frederick. ' ' An Elder Sister. " (Bishop Mac-
kensde and his Sister's Lives in Africa.) (Bemrose, 3s.)
"Mackenzie, John. South African Missionary and Statesmen : Life
of. W. D. Mackenzie. (Hodder, 7s. 6d.)
Bibliography 303
Maples, Bishop, Life of. Ellen Maples. (Longmans, 7s. 6d.)
Marttks OF Blanttre. W.Robertson. (Nisbet, 2s. 6d.)
Moffat, Robert and Mary. J. S. Moffat. (Unwin, 3s. 6d.)
*Pajik, MUNGO, T. Banks MacLachlan. (Oliphant, Is.)
•PiLKiNGTON OF UGANDA. C. F. H. Battersby. (Marshall Bros.,
4s. 6d.)
Stanley, H. M. Autobiography. (Boston, $5.00.)
*Stewartof Lovedale. Dr James Wells. (Hodder, 5s.)
ScOTT, W. Affleck. W. H. Rankine. ("A Hero of the Dark
Continent.")
Waddell, W. T. Artisan Missionary on the Zambesi. M'Connachie,
(Oliphant, Is. 6d.)
Wakefield, Thomas. E. S. Wakefield. (R.T.S., 3s. 6d.)
Whatelky, Mary Louise, Life of. Whateley. (R.T.S., 2s.)
l
INDEX
AboUtion Bill, 71, 83
Abyssinia, 141
Africa, 26. 30, 34, 37
Aarea, 2, 3
,, appeal, 3, 226, 247, 272
adventxu-ers, 5, 30
,, attraction, 35, 40
,, connection with Europe,
65, 77, 104, 133, 250
,, description, 2
,, fascination, 3
,, opening of, 30, 32, 229,
253
,, Protectorates, 80 et sen.,
93, 212 et sea. 225, 250,
255, 260
regeneration of, 44, 46,
210, 253, 275
Africa, Central, 48, 54, 138
Africa, South, 34, 47, 83, 138, 140,
141, 219, 258
African Association, 36, 37
African New Association, 43, 44
Africaner, Chief, 181
Albert Nyanza, 59
American Missions, 140
America (and Slave trade), 66
Animism, 120, 121, 130, 241
Arabs, 9, 10, 36
Arthington, 61, 62
Ashanti, 122
B
Baker, Sir S., and Lady, 59
Bantu, no Hse/f., 118, 120
Baptist Society, 26, 62, 98, 140,
212, 217, 273
BarbaritieB, 103
BasBtoU,nd, 166, 183
Bechuanaland, 48, 178, 179, 188
Beliefs of Paganism, 116 et sen.,
120
Benin, 122
Benue, 43, 45
Bethelsdorp, 137
Bimbia, 98
Blaikie, Dr, 46
Blantyre, 155
" Boer Trek," 83
Burton, 59
Bushmen, 14 el sen., 106
Buxton, Fowell, 43, 96
Calabar, 185, 204
Canibalism, 127
Cam, Diego, 18
Capo, the, 9, 13, 110
Cape Town, 53, 136
Cape Colony, 18, 80, 82
Capuchins, 21
Chaillu, Paul du, 47
Chaka, 114, 120, 240
Charms, 120, 121
Charters, 11
Church, African, 188, 189, 190 el
seq. , 198, 202, 206, 209, 236, 259,
266 et seq.
Church of England, 141
Church Missionary Society, 45, 58,
60, 85, 138, 142, 148, 162, 208,
22:3, 273
Civilisation, 244 tt seq.
Climate, 3
Coast Tribes, 32
Colonists, 32
Colonisation, 78 «l se«.
Commoroe, 46, 95, 145, 244
30s
3o6
The Future of Africa
Communication, means of, 250-
251
Companies, commercial, 43, 46, 47
Company, National African, 47
Congo, Kingdom of, 18, 20, 26, 61
,, Kingof, 19, 22
,, Free State, 86, 101, 235
„ Eiver, 2, 18
Cook, Drs, 155
Crowther, Bp. Samuel, 45, 205
Customs of Paganism, 116 et seq.,
131, 231
Dahomey, 89
Dances, 126
Diaz, Bartholomew, 5, 9
Dominicans, 9, 19, 25, 26
Drink, 97 et seq., 128, 193, 255
Dutch, 13, 21, 33, 83, 136
East Coast, 10, 12, 22, 25, 53, 260
Education, 156, 157 et seq.
Eliot, Sir Charles, 241
England, 11, 67, 79
English Government, 42, 45, 177,
237
Ethiopianism, 236 et seq.
Factories, trading, 46
Fans, 127, 216
Farm, model, 43, 44
Fetichism, 120, 193
Fever, 35, 44
Fourah Bay College, 161, 208
French Companies, 47
French Colonisation, 89, 213
French Protestants, 141
Frere, Sir Bartle, 75
Friars, 18
Froude, J. A., 9
G
Gama, Vasco da, 5, 9
Gambia, River, 12, 37, 47, 139
Garunganze Mission, 87, 140
Gaul, 1
Germany, 90 et seq., 215
German East African Associatiom,
90
Gin, 12, 32, 97
Glasgow Missionaiy Society, 141
Goa, 22, 25
Gold, 12, 13, 17, 18, 23, 31
Goldie, Sir G. Taubman,
Gold Coast, 81, 208
Goncalo, Father, 23 et seq.
Government (see wider respective
cowiUnes)
Grant, 59
Greece, 1
Guinea Coast, 7
H
Hannington, Bishop, 61
Hausas, 41, 214
Hawkins, Sir John, 11, 67
Hereros, 179
Hottentots, 9, 13, 14, 15, 17, 108,
135, 179, 181
Ilala, 5, 6
India, southern route to, 5
,, and trade, 9, 13
Inhambane, 23, 24
Infanticide, 126
Interior, 10
Ivory, 17
Ivory Coast, 89, 213
Jag-gas, 21
James I., 13
Japan, 22
Jesuits, 20, 23, 25, 26
Index
307
JobsoD, Captain, 12
John, King of Portugal, 19
Johnston, Sir H. H., 143
Journeys, LiTingstones, 51 et seq.
Juju, 120, 125
K
Kaffirs, 17
Kalahari Desert, 51
Katanga, 87, 88
Kenia, 58
Khama, 183 et seq,
Kilimanjai-o, 58
Kimberley, 84
Kingsley. Miss, 124
Krapf, 58, 139, 141, 222
Labovir, 99 et seq., 151
Laird, MacGregor, 45
Lake 'Ngami, 51
Lake Nyasa,
Lander, 42
Languages, 233, 234
Las Casas, 66
Leonora (of Portugal), 19
Leopold, King of Belgium, 62, 88
Liberality, 199
Liquor Traffic, 97 et seq., 246
Literature, 164 et seq. , 265, 270
Livingstone, David, 27 ; birth, 48 ;
life and achievements, 48 et seq. ;
gift to Africa, 56 ; death, 56 ;
influence, 58, 74, 139, 152, 239
Livingstonia Mission, 178, 193,
207
Loanda, 53
Lokoya, 44, 46
London Missionary Society, 61,
136, 140, 182, 263
Lovadal«, 155, 162, 201, 235
M
Maokay, Alexander, 61
Mackenzie, John, 179, 180, 263
Madagascar, 30, 89, 138, 196, 208,
220
Makalanga, 23
Makololo, 51, 285
Mandaros, 30
Masai, 123
Matabeleland, 48
Mengo, 155
Missions —
Catholic, 18, 26, 256
Modern, 139, 143, 175, 176 et seq. ,
185, 186
Ind-ustrial, 144 et seq., 152, 190
Medical, 153, 154 et seq., 190
Difficulties of, 226, 227, 257
Misslonanes, Early, 9, 18, 20, 22,
25, 28, 29
Missionaries, Modern, 173, 174,
177, 179, 180, 194, 230, 247,
256, 260
Missionary Societies, 43, 137, 207,
215e<se«/.,222, 258, 273
Mission Stations, 46, 203, 204,
213, 2\betseq., 262
Moffat, Dr Robert, 115, 137, 181
Mohammedans, 24, 205, 213, 214,
215, 221, 223, 241, 242
Mombasa, 58, 141
Monomotapa, 23
Moravians, 18, 135 et seq., 138
Moshesh, 183
'Mtesa, 59
Mozambique, 23
Natal, 5
Native evangelists, 168, 169 etseq.,
209
Negroes, 109
New African Association, 43, 44
N'gami, Lake, 51
Niger, River, 35, 36. 39, 42-46,
215
Niger Expedition, 41
Nigeria, 81, 214
Nile, 1, 59
Nyanza, Lakes Viotoria and
Albert, 59
Nyasa, Lake, 54, 239
Nyasaland, 151, 160, 162, 178, 179,
186, 200, 208, 235, 242
308
The Future of Africa
Ophir, miners of, 12
Orange River, 48
Ordeals, 125, 186
OsweU, 63
Paganism, 116, 130, 267
Palmerston, Lord, 45
Paris Society, 216
Park, Mungo, 37 et seq. ; death,
41 ; character, 41, 42, 53
Peoples (of Africa), 106 et seq.
Persecution, 198, 199
Philip, 137
Pioneers, 31
Pitt, 71
Ph^mouth Brethren, 140
Polygamy, 127, 186, 237
Popes, 6, 7, 10, 21, 20, 21, 66
Population, 2, 223, 232, 238
Powers, 3, 92
Portugal, 5 et seq., 9, 19, 21, 66, 79
Portuguese enterprise, 8, 33
government, 27
settlements, 22, 218,
219, 220
Republic, 102
Preaching, 167 et seq., 197, 203
Presbyterian churches, 141
Prester, John, 6
Primitive Methodists, 213
Prince Henry the Navigator, 5 et
seq. ; death, 8, 28
Protestants, 18
Protestant missions, 28
Quilimane, 53
R
Railways, 251
Rebmann, 58
Reformation, 11
ReUgious, 3
Revolutions, Tribal, 111
Roman Catholics, 28
Rubber, 86, 87
Sacrifices, 122, 123
Sahara, 54
San Salvador, 26
San Thome, 20
Schools, 158, 159, rf se^-.
Schmidt, George, 135
Scientists, 44
Scott, Sir VV., 40
"Scramble for Africa," 92
Secret Societies, 125
Sego, 38
Selous, 63
Sena, 23
Senegal, 37, 47
Sharp, Granville, 70
Sharpe, Sir Alfred, 179
Sierra Leone, 81, 139, 161, 205,
208
Slaves, 8, 23
Slaving, 31, 53, 76, 128
Slave trade, 10, 11,32,43,55.65
et seq. , 139
Slave traders, 53, 66
Slavery Emancipation Bill, 72
Sofala, 12
Sokoto, 41
Solomon's, King, Mines, 11, 12,
23
Speke, 59
Spirit-worship, 118, et seq.
Stairs, Captain, 88
Stanley, 56, 59 et seq., 85
Stewart of Lovedale, 145, 201
Sultan, 75, 84
Susus, 138
T
Table Bay, 13
Tanganyika, 59, 251
Timbuctoo, 12, 36
Togo, 215
Traders, 10, 44
Trading firms, 46
Trading routes, 51
Tribes, ill et seq., 182, 233, 252
Coast, 11
Interior, 35. 52, 182, 233
252
Index
309
Tsetse fly, 57
Tiicker. Bishop, 222
Tuskegee, 151
U
Uganda, 59, 60, 61, 161, 165, 178,
195, 198, 202, 207, 208, 222, 230,
251
United Presbyterian Church of
Scotland, 140, 161
Vaal, River, 48
Vanderkemp, 136, 138
Verde, Cape, 6
Venn, 148
Victoria Falls, 53, 54
W
Warren, Sir Charles, 179, 183
Waterboer, 182
Wesleyans, 138, 140, 259
West Africa, 21
West Coast, 11, 34, 43, 52, 53, 139,
145, 195, 208, 227, 251
Wilberforce, William, 71
Witch- Doctors, 123
World Missionary Conference, 190
Worship, Pagan, 117 et seq.
Wrongs Inflicted on Africa, 42
Xavier, St Francis
Yarrow, The, 40
Zambesi, 2, 23, 25, 52
Zumbo, 27
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