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Abstract
In 1891, the founder of the Matadi mission commissioned a master sculptor in Ghent to create a neo-gothic Madonna and child with a kneeling, imploring African released from the shackles of slavery at the Virgin’s feet. “Our Lady of Congo” was expected by its creators to become the tutelary figure of the new colony. In Belgium, it was successfully used as missionary propaganda, notably by the Society for Congolese Children, a pious association settled in Ghent to ransom young slaves in the Congo Free State. Yet the sculpture only had mixed success in the Leopoldian colony. It took part in the creation of a nostalgic space for the missionaries of Matadi, but failed to elicit the devotedness of the local population, despite over three centuries of Kongo Christianity elaborated by the local elites and the Catholic missionaries. These divergent receptions are analyzed based on historical and visual sources, using comparative data to shed light on the representations of slavery, race, and redemption as appraised in Belgium and in Congo.
Acknowledgments
I warmly thank Jean-Luc Vellut and David Maxwell for their enduring support and friendly remarks on this article. Thanks are also due to the anonymous reviewers, who provided very useful comments.
notes and references
Notes
1 Kavenadiambuko Citation1999, 33–34; Stanard Citation2011, 43; Vellut 2015, 36.
2 Œuvre 1843; Pirotte Citation1973, 39–44; Essertel 2001; Harrison Citation2008.
3 Salvaing 1983; see also Comaroff and Comaroff (1991, 49–85) and Maxwell (2011) on the Protestant world.
4 For scholarly pursuits over missions in Congo, see Etambala Zana (Citation2009), Marchal (Citation1996, vol. 2: 139–349), Maxwell (2011, 2013, 2016), Vellut (Citation1991, Citation2005, Citation2010, Citation2015), and Vinck (2012).
5 Verslag Citation1912, 9–15; Kratz Citation1970, 20–24; Etambala Zana Citation1991, vi-vii; Vints Citation2000, 1–2.
6 On Mat(t)hias Zens (1839–1921), see De Roo (1989) and Vanderstraeten (Citation1998).
7 The star on the statue’s flag has six branches, not five as on the official version; this apparent mistake was corrected on an ulterior copy (picture by A. Meslin, in a holy card album conserved in the archives of the KADOC center at the Catholic University of Leuven-KUL [Documentatie- en Onderzoekscentrum voor Religie, Cultuur en Samenleving]).
8 In the archives of DSMG, a folder contains copies of statue pictures used as models by the workshop of Zens. Some compositions are similar to Our Lady of Congo, but without the African slave (Documentatiecentrum voor Streekgeschiedenis dr. Maurits Gyseling [in Sint-Amandsberg, near Ghent], folder “Modellenboeck Atelier Mathias Zens”).
9 Verslag (Citation1912, 27), “Culte” (Citation1904, 455), Verstraeten (Citation1979, 243).
10 According to Marc Beyaert, archivist at Sint-Jacobs’, the brotherhood disappeared in the 1960s (personal communication, 2017).
11 As appears from the reference to the society members as zélatrices, the focus on the redemption of she-slaves, and the casting of the drama performances, the Society for Congolese Children was clearly female-oriented. La Rocca (2007) has creatively reassessed the way devotional piety has been a ground for female religious agency.
12 The former sold different works to the church before 1891 and the latter was vicar of another parish in the same city (Verstraeten Citation1979, 159–160; Verslag Citation1912, 15).
13 The pictures are conserved at the KADOC archives, “Mission de Matadi 1891–1899” (KFH1841).
14 Verslag Citation1912, 18–19, 27.
15 Etambala Zana Citation1991, 23–24, 28, 43, 132–133; Denis Citation1958, 166, 169, 175–178.
16 Kratz Citation1970, 20–48; Marchal Citation1996 vol. 2: 242–270; Kavenadiambuko Citation1999, 40–43; Vellut 2015, 67–69.
17 Photo library of KADOC, KFA 42047, 42104, 42105, 42106.
18 Bontinck (1988, 69) and others inspired by him relayed this assertion later on, but it is unsubstantiated.
19 In 1904, the construction of a cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary in the capital Boma was announced. The prospective name was Our Lady of Congo, but the church was eventually named Our Lady of Assumption although a mission in the city was dedicated to Our Lady of Congo (“Culte” Citation1904, 453–455; Denis Citation1958, 170; Etambala Zana Citation1991, 67). In Léopoldville, the cathedral of the city was inaugurated in 1949 under the name of Our Lady of Congo (Denis Citation1958, 170) –a name still used today in Kinshasa.
20 Le Sacré-Coeur au centre de l’Afrique, published under different names until the 1960s (Pirotte Citation1973).
21 This holy image of the statue is conserved in File 2485 of the Redemptorist Archives, KADOC, Leuven. Rodestraat is a street in Antwerp where Congolese (especially sailors) used to reside during the colonial period.
22 On this topic, see the international website of the Missionaries of Africa-White Fathers: http://www.africamission-mafr.org/Statue_Notre_Dame_d_Afriquegb.htm
23 See also Beyaert (2018, 114–115) on the action of the Trinitarian brotherhoods in Ghent and elsewhere to rescue Flemish enslaved by the Barbary pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries, and on the public reception of the rescued.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Pierre Petit
Pierre Petit is an anthropologist and art historian, and the director of the Laboratoire d’Anthropologie des Mondes Contemporains at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He has been working in Congo since 1988 and in Laos since 2003. He authored a book on the iconography of Patrice Lumumba on official miniatures, like stamps or coins: Patrice Lumumba, La fabrication d’un héros national et panafricain (Académie royale de Belgique, 2016). More recently, he published History, Memory, and Territorial Cults in the Highlands of Laos. The Past Inside the Present (Routledge, 2020). [email protected]