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Tanzania and Malawi in Records from Colonial Missionaries, 1857–1965 - Volumes
Volumes
5 volumes in Tanzania and Malawi in Records from Colonial Missionaries, 1857–1965
Central Africa : a monthly record of the work of the Universities' Mission
Vol. 1-82 (1883-1964). This illustrated monthly magazine was the prime organ of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) until its merger with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. It was written by and for educated, articulate and tolerant representatives of the British middle and professional classes which provided both the Society's membership and a significant proportion of its support. Although not entirely free of subjectivity, especially in relation to slavery and colonial rule, those who wrote in Central Africa generally showed great comprehension and sympathy in their accounts of African societies. Read more →
Missionaries' Correspondence
This correspondence reveals a history of the mission's relationship with the native people they sought to convert which is at times tumultuous. Alongside the preaching and lessons that might be expected from missionaries, are guidelines regarding appropriate punishments and incidents where individuals condone wife beating. However, a missionary bishop did object to a member of the Goverment's alleged proposal that female slaves should not be emancipated with their male counterparts, lest their masters should be left lacking concubines. Various items within this grouping discuss sightings of and interactions with both slaves and their captors; however. general agreement upon their right to freedom sits alongside derogatory remarks toward their race as a whole. Deaths are frequent in these accounts with cholera and water-born diseases frequently killing both natives and missionaries; deaths are also caused by serious famines, the war between the Manganju and Anjewa peoples, and the 1905 rebellion. Some traces of African history are present in this grouping, though it is a version interpreted through the eyes of missionaries. The missionaries made notes regarding the Swahili and Makua languages, recorded details of the war betweem the Manganju and the Anjewa, described how accusations of witchcraft were dealt with, recorded the migration of a tribe with c.5000 members to avoid capture and forced labour, and provided accounts of the 1905 rebellion as it unfolded. This voluminous selection of correspondence provides a detailed overview of how the missionaries both saw and experienced their time in Africa, before many of them met their sudden deaths. Read more →
Missionaries' Journals
These items mainly consist of narratives of Africa as it was experienced by the first missionary settlers. Within such accounts are commentary on local beliefs and a detailed description of the first 'small pox village' designed to isolate those with the disease from those without. The more descriptive content includes details of Bishop Steere's first attempts to make contact with the natives through gifts of corn and Reverend Proctor's claim that 'the English never beat anyone capriciously'. The first of these journals includes the names of the tribal chiefs Bishop MacKenzie met on route to Lake Nyassa and describes a deadly famine in the area. Read more →
Miscellaneous Correspondence
These assorted narrative accounts provide a detailed insight as to the changing nature of missionary work once Christian missionaries started having to compete with Muslim missionaries. These items also describe how the missionaries dealt with a native belief in Shambala. This grouping combines these missionary narratives with a genealogical history of the Wakilindi Clan of the Wasambaa tribe native to Tanzania and with Lord Brougham's essay 'On The African Slave Trade' that was published in 1876. Read more →
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