African workers and the Universities' Mission to Central Africa in Zanzibar, 1864–1900

Abstract

This article explores the connections between African workers and Christian missions in late nineteenth-century Zanzibar, focusing on the Universities' Mission to Central Africa (UMCA), a High-Church Anglican missionary society. Procuring and managing labour was central to the everyday lives of Christian mission societies because missionaries demanded a range of skilled and unskilled workers – including builders, cooks, water-fetchers, porters and servants – in order to establish an ideal setting for the core aims: the conversion of souls and establishment of an African ministry. The missionaries constantly veered between submitting to local customs and conditions, and imposing their own ideals of what they felt to be the proper management and division of labour. A good example of this was their employment of slaves, a practice that was not always illegal for British subjects and particularly widespread amongst explorers in need of porters. At the same time, the missionaries often had to abandon their belief that they must not exercise formal authority outside the main nucleus of the clergy, as they managed their labour forces and attempted to reform freed slaves into skilled free wage workers. These issues bear on how historians understand the tensions between conversion, cultural adaption, industrialisation and capitalism, but it also says something of the role of missionaries and Christian Africans as cultural brokers between the mission economies and the local economies they interacted with. This article addresses the missionaries' employment of hire slaves, the attempts to establish Christian working communities and the use of household labour with regard to women and children.

Keywords:

• slavery
• abolition
• missions
• UMCA
• Christianity
• Zanzibar
• child labour

Notes

1. UMCA archives, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth & African Studies at Rhodes House, Oxford, [hereafter, UMArch] A1 (III) A, fo. 389, Edward Steere to W. H. Penney, 20 September 1881.

2. Heanley, A Memoir of Edward Steere, 249–51.

3. Heanley, A Memoir of Edward Steere, 120–1; UMArch A1 (III) C, “First Quarterly Statement of Bishop Steere,” 28 August 1875, 5.

4. Glassman, “Racial Violence, Universal History, and Echoes of Abolition in Twentieth-century Zanzibar,” 176–80.

5. Many historians have already noted how widespread the British or German employment of slaves was yet missionaries' employment of slaves is rarely mentioned. Moreover, they do not consider how this may or may not have stood up to political and religious ideologies or how Africans perceived it. Nwulia, Britain and Slavery in East Africa, 173–4; Rockel, “Slavery and Freedom in Nineteenth Century East Africa,” 100; Morton, Children of Ham, 138–9; Okia, “Windmill of Slavery.”

6. See references to CMS in footnote 8 below.

7. The missionaries constantly faced difficulties conveying their wishes to workers and there was a sense of competitiveness between mission stations about who could train the best workers. Wilson's apparent ineptitude for handling financial issues or for getting the most out of their labour force is a good example of this: UMArch, A1 (VI) B, fo. 357, Farler to Bishop of Magila, 9 November 1881, 359. For concerns about the expense of porters see: A1 (V) A, fo. 6, “Pastoral Letter Addressed to the Clergy and Members of the UMCA by the Right Rev. the Bishop [Charles Alan Smythies],” Zanzibar, July 1885, 7.

8. For CMS see Glassman, Feasts and Riot, 107–8; Bennett, “The Church Missionary Society at Mombasa,” 157–94; Bennett, Arab Versus European, 68–75; Nwulia, Britain and Slavery in East Africa, 153; Morton, Children of Ham, esp. chapter 3; Githige, “The Issue of Slavery.” For a good summary of the difficult work environment led by the Holy Ghost Fathers in Bagamoyo see Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 84–5. Critical work on the UMCA's labour ethics are less widespread and perhaps best represented by White, Magomero, esp. 34–5, 37.

9. McCracken “Underdevelopment in Malawi,” esp. 199; Fabian, “Missions and the Colonization of African Languages,” 165–187; Luise White, Speaking with Vampires; Comaroff and Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, vol. 2; Pels, A Politics of Presence, esp. 271–5; and Atkins, The Moon Is Dead!

10. UMArch A1 (III) A, fos. 89–90, Steere to Festing, 24 February 1873.

11. UMArch A1 (III) A, fo. 90, Steere to Festing, 1873.

12. Hine, Days Gone By, 86, 95–6, 98.

13. “The Work at Likoma,” 117–9.

14. Porter, Religion versus Empire? 225.

15. UMArch A1 (III) A, fo. 90, Steere to Festing, Zanzibar, 24 February 1873.

16. Foreign Office papers, Kew National Archives, London, [hereafter FO] 84/1391, Frere, “Memorandum on Disposal of Liberated Slaves,” 57; UMArch, A1 (III) A, fos. 5–8, Nugent West to St Andrew's College, 1874, 7; Frere, Eastern Africa as a Field for Missionary Labour, 23.

17. UMArch, A1 (IX), fo. 126–8 Farler to Penney, 1883.

18. Porter, Religion versus Empire? 225, 227–9, 332–3; Ranger, “Godly Medicine,” 261; Good, The Steamer Parish, 47.

19. Good, The Steamer Parish, 19.

20. Hine, Days Gone By, 117.

21. Ranger, “Godly Medicine,” 261; Good, The Steamer Parish, 45–6.

22. Maxwell, “Freed Slaves, Missionaries, and Respectability,” 80.

23. Cooper, Slaves to Squatters, 2; Freund, The Making of Contemporary Africa, 61.

24. Fraser et al. The East African Slave Trade, 5–6, 31–64, 34.

25. New Testament, 21st Century King James Version, Thessalonians 3, 3.6–11.

26. Madan, Kiungani, 62.

27. UMArch A1 (V) A, fo. 2, Sermon by the Rev. Canon King, 30 November 1883 a letter from the Bishop.

28. UMArch A1 (III) A, fo. 6, Nugent West to St. Andrew's College 1874.

29. Fraser et al. The East African Slave Trade, 6.

30. Steere, Central African Mission, 14. This is remarkably similar to Hegel's interpretation of freedom through consciousness discussed in Patterson, Slavery and Social Death, 99.

31. Lyne, Zanzibar in Contemporary Times, 78.

32. UMArch TC E30, Kirk to Parliament, 22 September 1871.

33. Steere, Central African Mission, 15.

34. Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 84–5.

35. Johnson, My African Reminiscences, 21.

36. Cust, “Madagascar: Slavery and Christianity,” 193 (Mission Life, May, 1883). Cust was reacting to a published extract of one of Gregory's letters, in particular to this comment: “The students are all married; each has a house, consisting of sitting-room, bed-room, and kitchen, with an upstairs room for his slaves.” Gregory, “Madagascar,” 581 (The Mission Field December 2, 1878).

37. Gregory, “Slavery in Madagascar,” 302–6, 305 (Mission Life, July 14, 1883). In Madagascar there was a similar system of hiring slaves and in the mid nineteenth century it was widely thought that slaves were in a better position than the free wage labourer who was forced into the imperial labour system. Campbell, An Economic History of Imperial Madagascar, 117–8.

38. Cust, “Madagascar: Slavery and Christianity,” 193 (Mission Life, May, 1883).

39. UMArch A1 (IX), fo. 160, Maples, “Slavery and Christianity”; fo. 121 “To the Members of the Universities' Mission” 1882.

40. Cust, “Madagascar: Slavery and Christianity,” 231 (Mission Life, May, 1883).

41. UMArch A1 (IX), fo. 121, “To the Members of the Universities' Mission,” 1882.

42. UMArch A1 (IX), fo. 121, “To the Members of the Universities' Mission,” 1882 146–51, Maples, “Christianity and Slavery,” 1883. There was also a sense that Steere himself was embarrassed by the great cost of the cathedral. In fact, he insisted that it must be called the “Slave Market Church” rather than “Christ Church Cathedral,” as it is more widely known, by way of attempting to minimise any sense of extravagance. A1 (III) A, fo. 389, Steere to Penney, 20 September 1881.

43. UMArch A1 (VIII), fos. 154–5, Heanley to Penney, undated; A1 (IX), fo. 156, Farler to Penney, 17 November 1883; Johnson, My African Reminiscences, 33.

44. Christie, Epidemics in East Africa, 311.

45. Christie, Epidemics in East Africa, A1 (IX), fos. 154–5 Heanley to Penney, November 1883.

46. UMArch, A1 (IX), fos. 123–5, Hodgson to Penney, November 1882. For some useful insights into Farler's career as Slavery Commissioner see McMahon, Slavery and Emancipation in Islamic East Africa, 28–30, 68, 79, 89, 93.

47. “Livingstone's 1871 Field Diary: A Multispectral Critical Edition,” 297c/103, 297c/110, 297c/123, 297c/130, 297b/135, 297b/143, especially 297b/145: http://livingstone.library.ucla.edu/1871diary/; see also UMArch A1 (IX), fo. 156, Farler to Penney, 17 November 1883.

48. Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 150.

49. Sheriff, Slaves, Spices & Ivory in Zanzibar, 149; Christie, Epidemic in East Africa, 331; Rockel, “Slavery and Freedom in Nineteenth Century East Africa,” 100; Cooper, Plantation Slavery, 187–8.

50. Sheriff, Slaves, Spices & Ivory in Zanzibar, 149; Christie, Epidemic in East Africa, 1, 15. For a summary of the labour arrangements of entrepreneurs F.A. Fraser in Zanzibar and William Sunley in Johanna see Coupland, The Exploitation of East Africa 1856–1890, 174–9.

51. Waller, Heligoland for Zanzibar, 7–9.

52. UMArch A1 (IX), fo. 156, Farler to Penney, 17 November 1883.

53. Fraser, A Letter to the Honourable Members of the Select Committee, 13.

54. Cave, “The End of Slavery in Zanzibar and British East Africa,” 24; Nwulia, Britain and Slavery in East Africa, 174; Okia, “The Windmill of Slavery,” 9, 11; Rockel, “Slavery and Freedom in Nineteenth Century East Africa,” 100.

55. Rockel, “Wage Labor and the Culture of Porterage in Nineteenth Century Tanzania.”

56. Glassman, “The Bondsman's New Clothes,” 298.

57. Glassman, “The Bondsman's New Clothes,” 291; Christie, Epidemic in East Africa, 312; Anderson-Morshead, The History of the Universities' Mission, 83.

58. Anderson-Morshead, The History of the Universities' Mission, 83; Steere, Some Account of the Town of Zanzibar, 11.

59. Glassman, “The Bondsman's New Clothes,” 291–2; Cooper, Plantation Slavery, 184–9; Fair, Pastimes and Politics, 117.

60. Fair, Pastimes and Politics, 118; Bissell, Urban Design, 42–3; Deutsch, Emancipation without Abolition, 71.

61. Livingstone, Narrative of the Expedition to the Zambesi, 55.

62. FO 84/1357, Letter 47, Dr Kirk, 17 March 1875.

63. Johnson, My African Reminiscences, 34, 36.

64. UMArch TC C1, Farler to Penney, September 1884; TC C1, Capel to Bishop of London, 1884, 10–12.

65. UMArch A1 (III) A, fo. 428, Bishop Steere, August 1881.

66. UMArch A1 (V) A, fo. 6, Pastoral Letter Addressed to the Clergy and Members of the UMCA by the Right Rev. the Bp. [Charles Alan Smythies] printed in Zanzibar, July 1885, 14.

67. Johnson, My African Reminiscences, 35–6.

68. UMArch, A1 (VIII), fos. 241–2, Dale to Travers, Kiungani, 15 November 1895.

69. Doke, “The Linguistic Work of H. W. Woodward,” 198. Woodward was a UMCA missionary between 1875 and 1932.

70. J. D., “Schoolboys in Zanzibar.”

71. Frewer, “An African Overseer,” 100; J. D., “Schoolboys in Zanzibar.”

72. UMArch A1 (IV), fo. 1a, West to Searle, Zanzibar, July 1873; A1 (III) B, fo. 461, Steere to Festing, 5 March 1878; Johnson, My African Reminiscences, 34, 36.

73. Maples, “Sermon Preached on the Anniversary Day of the Universities Mission,” 212–6, 215–6.

74. UMArch A1 (VI) B, fo. 441, Farler to Penney Kiungani Zanzibar, August 1884.

75. It was also said that these educated freed slaves to procure a slave when they married. UMArch A1 (IV) A, fo. 60, Capel to Steere, 30 January 1877.

76. UMArch A1 (IV) A, fo. 330, Hodgson to Penney, December 1880; 689 Capel to Randolph, 11 August 1884; Lyne, Zanzibar in Contemporary Times, 211. When the workmen left the mission they also often left their assigned trades, meaning that their training was sometimes in vain, TC C1, Capel to Bishop of London, 1884, 9.

77. Johnson, My African Reminiscences, 36, 51.

78. UMArch A1 (III) A, Steere, “The Free Village in Yao Land,” (1876), 3–5; Rowley, Twenty Years in Central Africa, 253; Lambourn, “Zanzibar to Masasi in 1876,” 42.

79. UMArch A1 (III) C, “First Quarterly Statement of Bishop Steere,” 28 August 1875, 4.

80. UMArch A1 (III) B, fo. 483, Steere to Robins, July 1878; H. A. Forde, ‘Zanzibar II’, Mission Life, August 1882, 342.

81. UMArch A1 (IX) fos. 33–5, Johnson to Waller, 14 August 1894.

82. Christie, “Slavery in Zanzibar as It Is,” 31; Goody, “Slavery in Time and Space,” 36; Cooper, Plantation Slavery, 161.

83. UMArch A1 (VI) B, fo. 357 Farler to Steere, Magila 9 November 1881, 360; Frewer, “An African Overseer”; Tozer, “Miss Tozer to Miss Twining, Zanzibar, May 5, 1872,” 250; some wasimamizi were women, Bennett, “The Industrial Wing at Mbweni.”

84. UMArch TC C1, Farler to Penney, 12 September 1884.

85. Maxwell, “Freed Slaves, Missionaries, and Respectability,” 80.

86. Anderson-Morshead, The History of the Universities' Mission, 281.

87. Ingrams, Zanzibar, 222.

88. As discussed in Gaitskell, “At Home with Hegemony?”

89. UMArch A1 (IV) A, fo. 75, Capel to Steere, 2 March 1877.

90. UMArch A1 (VI) B, fo. 432, Farler to Penney, Algiers 29 April 1883; A1 (IV) A, fo. 330, Hodgson to Penney, December 1880; fo. 689, Capel to Randolph, 11 August 1884; A1 (V) A, fo. 15, Pastoral Letter by the Bishop of UMCA acts of the synods held at Lukoma, Newala, Magila and Zanzibar between July 1887 and February 1888, V; Newala, II.; TC C1, Capel to John Jackson [Bishop of London], 1884, 9; Anderson-Morshead, The History of the Universities' Mission, 282–3; Lyne, Zanzibar in Contemporary Times, 211.

91. Frere, Eastern Africa as a Field for Missionary Labour, 47.

92. UMArch A1 (V) A, fo. 6, “Pastoral letter addressed to the clergy and members of the UMCA by the Right Rev. the Bp.” [Charles Alan Smythies] (Zanzibar, July 1885), 8; Rowley, Twenty Years in Central Africa, 178; Frere, Eastern Africa as a Field for Missionary Labour 39.

93. Newman, Banani, 154.

94. UMArch TC C1, Farler to Penney, 12 September 1884. Erasto Mangénya, a UMCA mission-educated Tanzanian civil servant, writes about missionary brutality and prejudice in Discipline and Tears, 29–30.

95. Wimbush, “My Impressions of Zanzibar Today as Compared with Two Years Ago,” 99 (African Tidings, 1895).