Phoebe Flanigan September 2011 HIST 4020 Paper #1: Religion and Colonialism Despite the reasoning and

rhetoric presented by colonial governments throughout history, conquest and colonization are always economically motivated. But conquest and colonization, if they are to be successful, must also be rooted in a sound ideological foundation. In the history of the West, the ideological foundations behind the expansion of empire have often been religious in nature. The exact intentions and effects of religious campaigns in a colonial context, however, are multidimensional, and very difficult to traceespecially in the case of colonial Africa. What can be said with certainty is that religion, though it was interpreted and used at cross-purposes by British missionaries, British colonizers, and colonized Africans, played a vital role in shaping the colonial conquest of Africa.

The British Perspective The British justified their occupation of Africa by citing the white mans burden, an earnest though misguided Orientalist doctrine that systematically undermined African cultural and value systems while asserting and affirming the legitimacy of British hegemony. This perceived mandate was based in social evolutionism, an ideology that posited the existence of a cultural hierarchy in which tea-drinking British gentlemen were at the top while the brutalized and degraded races of Africans1 cowered at the bottom. As a result of this logic, the British felt that it was their moral duty to redeem the lower races2 by bringing them into the civilized world. The most direct means of accomplishing this goal was through Christianity. As Dr. John
1

Burton, Sir Richard, Selected Papers on Anthropology, Travel & Exploration (New York: Robert McBride and Company, 1924,) 127-128. 2 Burton, 128.

Philips is famously quoted, Civilization need not bring Christianity, but Christianity always brings civilization. Thus, missionaries, with their evangelical and pedagogical objectives, were seen as an integral part of bringing cultural and moral enlightenment to the barbaric Africans. But bringing civilization to Africa also meant ending the slave trade. In fact, the first Christian missionaries in West Africa were sent in an effort to break the slave trade and to reorient intercepted and relocated Africans within the Christian church. At the same time, this missionary presence secured port towns as trading points for ivory and other goods intended to replace the lucrative practice of human trafficking. Thus, the Christian mission was regarded as a necessary means of bringing the cultural, moral, and material civilization of the British to Africa, and disguised (intentionally or inadvertently) the economic motives of British colonials. Though they viewed polytheistic Africans as inferior peoples, the British had a more respectful relationship with African Muslims, or Hausa. In fact, British explorers and anthropologists generally regarded Muslims as the only negroes who were really improvable,3 or had any dignity and self-respect.4 Existing Muslim kingdoms in Africa at the time of British exploration were extremely wealthy and complex. The British recognized these kingdoms as civilized and granted them a measure of respecthigh respect, even, in the case of the famous explorer Richard Burton. Indeed, to Burton, the very fate of the African continent rested upon the success of Islam. As he explained in his Selected Papers on Anthropology, Travel & Exploration, the dispersion of Africas gloom, and the dawn of the bright day when she will take her place in the Republic of Nations, appear wholly dependent upon the light of the Crescent. Thus only can the negro be annihilated by absorption with the negroid.5 Nevertheless, Islam remained unpopular with the Christian missionaries, chiefly because they
3 4

Burton, 126. Burton, 126. 5 Burton, 125.

never have converted, and they probably never will convert a single Moslem soul to Christianity.6 However, that did not stop Christian missionaries from adopting the tactics that had made Islam so successful into their own proselytizing strategy. As Burton and his contemporaries agreed, The reason why [the Muslims] succeeded better than the missionaries was, that they settled down in the native villages as head-men, and they began by educating the people.7 Furthermore, they prepar[ed] the natives for civilization, and extend[ed] their influence [...] across the whole of Africa, principally by commerce.8 Later Christian missionaries imitated these strategies as they focused their attentions upon establishing mission schools and encouraging participation in capitalist economic systems. Thus, while British colonizers and missionaries regarded negro Africans as a lower class of human, they respected and even emulated the negroid Muslims.9 In mimicking these Muslim proselytizing tactics, British missionaries established a cultural model that ultimately opened the door to capitalism and colonialism. Whether this consequence of Christianization was inadvertent or intended is difficult to say, though many would argue that the missionaries were not consciously priming Africa for exploitation. Rather, as the famous missionary David Livingstone expressed, they recognized commerce, civilization, and Christianity as mutually supporting parts of an enlightened whole. Unfortunately, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and even well-meaning missionaries like Livingstone eventually invited negative consequences. The Comaroffs, a pair of contemporary anthropologists, explored these effects. They argued that Christian missionaries, and especially Protestant and Calvinist missionaries, saw hard work and the accumulation of capital as the
6 7

Burton, 125. Burton, 128. 8 Burton, 132. 9 Burton.

hallmarks of civilization. To that end, missionaries actively encouraged their converts to take on wage labor and become consumers. Because wage labor at the dawn of the colonial era amounted to working on exploitative projects in the fields and mines, missionaries unintentionally created a labor base for abusive colonial practices. Thus, in actively pursuing the 3 Cs (commerce, Christianity, and civilization) as a part of their religious vision, British missionaries prepared Africa for colonialism.

The African Perspective The African experience with religion was entirely different. This is evident in the manner they interpreted the new faith. Rather than rejecting their traditional beliefs in order to embrace a new religious paradigm, Africans layered monotheistic religions atop their preexisting structures to create a new religious palimpsest. Robin Horton examines this dynamic in his journal article On the Rationality of Conversion. Horton contends that the basic two-tiered structure of African cosmology is actually favorable to the adoption of monotheistic religions such as Islam and Christianity. He further argues that populations in the process of globalizing their interactions will be more favorable to the adoption of Christian and Islamic monotheism, as the shift from local to global socioeconomic interactions tends to precipitate a focal shift from lower-tiered, micro-deities (a category that includes minor gods and spirits as well as deceased ancestors) towards macro, monotheistic conceptions of a supreme being. Of course, the incorporation of these new brands of monotheism to satisfy the shift towards a supreme deity is not a one-way discourse. As Horton explains, [...] one does not treat any human group as a tabula rasa automatically registering the imprint of external cultural influences. Rather, one treats it as the locus of thought-patterns and values that determine rather closely which of these

influences will be accepted and which rejected.10 It stands to reason, then, that many African populations understood Christian and Islamic concepts of God as elaborations upon their own pre-existing conceptions of a supreme being. Thus, British missionaries in Africa were not actually purging indigenous belief systems and replacing them with Christianity as they may have hoped; rather they were presenting Africans in an increasingly globalized context with a macrocosmic understanding of the supreme being that Africans selectively absorbed into their pre-existing religious paradigm as they saw fit.11 Christianity awarded its converts socially, politically, and economically, and since Africans generally believed that they could maintain their existing beliefs while adopting Christianity, those who converted stood to gain in abstract and material terms. Though prior to the twentieth century Christianity attracted mostly outcasts and was regarded with respectful indifference12 by African society at large, Christianity eventually became a fashion and a status symbol. However, as F.K. Ekechi notes in his article Colonialism and Christianity in West Africa: The Igbo Case, 1900-1915, People do not accept change for changes sake; they do so essentially because of the anticipated rewards that follow any innovation, (104). Evidence of these rewards began to culminate in the early 1900s when military infiltration of British Africa became increasingly unruly and violent. However, it quickly became evident that Christian villages were being treated with a measure of immunity and respect. As a result, increasing numbers of Africans, especially young men, began [...] to associate themselves with the Christian missions.13 People (and again, especially young men) who associated themselves with
10

Horton, Robin. "On the Rationality of Conversion." Journal of the International African Institute. 45. no. 3 (1976): 221 11 Horton 12 Ekechi, F.K. "Colonialism and Christianity in West Africa: The Igbo Case, 1900-1915." The Journal of African History. 12. no. 1 (1971), 103. 13 Ekechi, 105.

the missions were also exempt from being forced to join exploitative labor and porterage systems, and no longer had to fear imprisonment or flogging for refusing to comply with the government-enforced Forced Labor Ordinance or failing to pay local fines. In all of these instances, missionaries stepped in to represent and defend their converts.14 Besides providing protection and representation, Christianity, through its mission schools, also provided an avenue to higher jobs and overall economic improvement.15 Catholic schools became especially popular since they were free and taught in English, a language that served as a passport for higher economic and social status.16 Thus it was the combined promise of these social, political, and economic rewards rather than the illuminating word of the Bible that drew Africans to the Christian church. Finally, and ironically, the mission schools established to spread Christianity provided their African students with the tools they would need to protect themselves from, and ultimately strike back against, colonial institutions. This proved especially useful when combating localized abuse. As Ekechi notes, Some Native Court clerks, especially those who were nonnatives of the areas they served, exploited the local communities to such an extent that many felt that the best remedy for colonial oppression was to educate sons of the village. Hence the extraordinary demand for missionaries and mission schools.17 Beyond providing a structure to understand and respond to local exploitation, mission schools also provided Africans with the educational tools and the ideological foundation they would need to rebel against the colonizers. As Ekechi explains, For the Africans [...] the acquisition of Western education was a means to an end; education would provide the weapon with which to fight colonialism.18 Thus, the
14 15

Ekechi Ekechi, 111. 16 Ekechi, 110. 17 Ekechi, 111. 18 Ekechi 110

missionary schools, though established with the purpose of spreading Christianity, also acted as a counterforce against the exploitative effects of colonialism.

Clearly, the relationship between religion and colonialism is extremely complex and difficult to summarize. For British missionaries, Christianity was a means of redeeming Africans and providing a philanthropic service in the name of God. For businessmen, on the other hand, Christianity was a useful pretense for the British presence in Africa. Missionaries and businessmen alike shared a respect for the success of the Islamic empire in Africa, and copied some of the strategies the Muslims had employed in an attempt to garner the same successes, religious and economic. Ultimately, despite the good intentions of some Christian missionaries, the British generally employed religion as a tool to justify colonialism and to establish a socioeconomic model friendly to capitalism and colonialism within Africa. For the African converts, on the other hand, the adoption and treatment of incoming brands of monotheism was a matter of strategy. In fact, in many cases Africans made the best of a difficult situation by adopting Christianity to meet their own needs and goals. African populations incorporated external, monotheistic beliefs into their pre-existing religious paradigm thereby garnering rewards and preferential treatment and gaining the tools they would need to protect themselves against abusive colonial institutions.