Missionaries in Africa

What made educational work even more compelling for missionaries in Africa was that, except for small pockets of acceptance, missionaries were neither accepted nor tolerated in most parts of Africa . Consequently, missionaries turned their attention to youths and schools as sources of conversion because they soon realized, to their utter dismay and puzzlement, the futility of trying to convert men of good standing in African society.

As one of the early missionaries in Africa put it, the intense missionary rivalry in Africa produced an atmosphere of war, and Edward H. Berman affirms that "the most important outcome of denominational rivalry was the rapid expansion of mission schools in all parts of Africa ." In Nigeria for example, the Church Missionary Society, which started out with 6 schools in 1849, increased its number of schools to 150 by 1909. The Wesleyan Mission went from 3 schools, 255 pupils and 9 teachers in 1861 to 138 schools, 5,361 pupils and 285 teachers in 1921. The Roman Catholic Mission increased its number of schools from 2 in 1893 to about 127 in 1922. In Uganda , the CMS had 72 schools with 7,683 students in 1900, but by 1913 they had 331 schools with 32,458 students.

However, the work of the missionaries in Africa was not easy sailing, for while a few Africans and their rulers patronized missionary enterprise, others rejected missionary intrusion in any form. On the whole, support or lack of support for missionary work was greatly influenced by internal developments in Africa . In Yorubaland, for instance, the Egbas, under their ruler Sodeke, accepted missionaries because they expected military help from the British government against their enemies. King Manuwa of Ijebuland patronized missionaries because he wanted his town to become a trading entrepot for the Ijesha, Ondo and Ekiti districts.

Of all the foreign missionaries in Africa , Bowen's zeal for the education of Africans was most visibly demonstrated. Like Buxton before him, Bowen believed that the whole social existence of the African would be changed with the emergence of eminent scientists, technocrats, intellectuals and intelligent rulers. Consequently, he believed that Christianity will only be implanted in Africa when these categories of people were produced through civilization or education.

A reason for going to Africa was centered around the belief that Africans were in desperate need of spiritual salvation. Although the English were the first to contribute to the growth of the foreign missionary movement with the organization of a system of missions by the Methodists in 1787, the idea of sending missionaries to Africa was favorably received in America. Samuel Hopkins of Newport , Rhode Island , originally proposed in 1770 to train a number of emancipated slaves for service as missionaries in Africa .

Missionaries in Africa were nearly always expansionists who were supported by powerful religious leaders in America . In many cases, however, they were unwilling to echo the message that it was the destiny of the nonwhite races to melt away entirely. Despite their opposition to the sentiment for the disappearance of nonwhite races through outright oppression and dispossession, they supported the ideas of racial inferiority and a hierarchy of humankind determined by race, a viewpoint that shaped their responses to Africans.

As a consequence, missionaries in Africa conveyed a strong impression of heathen depravity in their writings. By defining Africans as savage, and by emphasizing only the most exotic elements of African life, missionaries legitimized the importance of their work. In dwelling on the low standards of African sexual morality, they shocked Protestant sensibilities in America , and by condemning the religion and customs of Africans, they pointed to the need for Christian salvation.