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ELEVEN JESUITS SET OUT FOR THE INTERIOR OF SOUTHERN AFRICA BY
OX-WAGON IN APRIL I 879 ON A MISSION TO PREACH THE CHRISTIAN GOSPEL TO
THE PEOPLE BEYOND THE LIMPOPO RIVER; WITHIN A YEAR AND A HALF, THREE OF
THEM WERE DEAD.
They shared the same ignorance of Africa as their European
contemporaries concerning disease, geography, culture, religion and the
political rivalries of the people among whom they came. They also shared
a narrow frame of reference towards the continent and the failure of
imagination that went with it. Further, as people of their time, they
saw - and were seen by - other denominations as rivals, and far from
co-operating, the churches indulged in an unseemly competition.
And yet these men were, in their own way, heroic and faced the
difficulties eagerly, even joyfully. Their failures and disappointments
far outweighed the little progress they appear to have made but they
laid the foundations for what was to follow after 1890 when the colony
of Southern Rhodesia was established. This event inaugurated a
ninety-year period, when relations between church and state waxed and
waned. The missionaries welcomed the order - even if it could not be
called peace - and the infrastructure the colonisers introduced. The
speed of travel, for instance, went from about 15 km a day by ox-wagon,
to 30 km an hour by train.
But the Church - and the Jesuits were for long the drivers of what we
mean by Church - never managed to decide on a coherent policy vis-a-vis
the white government until it was too late. They were divided; the
majority of Jesuits worked with blacks but there was a sizeable number
who worked exclusively with whites. So, while we can document the
enormous and fruitful work that was done over the decades after 1890, we
have to acknowledge the failure to give a united witness in confronting
the nakedly racialist policies of the state. If we had been able to do
this in the 1920s and '30s we might have contributed to the evolution of
a more harmonious society and avoided the terrible bloodshed of
subsequent years.
OX-WAGON IN APRIL I 879 ON A MISSION TO PREACH THE CHRISTIAN GOSPEL TO
THE PEOPLE BEYOND THE LIMPOPO RIVER; WITHIN A YEAR AND A HALF, THREE OF
THEM WERE DEAD.
They shared the same ignorance of Africa as their European
contemporaries concerning disease, geography, culture, religion and the
political rivalries of the people among whom they came. They also shared
a narrow frame of reference towards the continent and the failure of
imagination that went with it. Further, as people of their time, they
saw - and were seen by - other denominations as rivals, and far from
co-operating, the churches indulged in an unseemly competition.
And yet these men were, in their own way, heroic and faced the
difficulties eagerly, even joyfully. Their failures and disappointments
far outweighed the little progress they appear to have made but they
laid the foundations for what was to follow after 1890 when the colony
of Southern Rhodesia was established. This event inaugurated a
ninety-year period, when relations between church and state waxed and
waned. The missionaries welcomed the order - even if it could not be
called peace - and the infrastructure the colonisers introduced. The
speed of travel, for instance, went from about 15 km a day by ox-wagon,
to 30 km an hour by train.
But the Church - and the Jesuits were for long the drivers of what we
mean by Church - never managed to decide on a coherent policy vis-a-vis
the white government until it was too late. They were divided; the
majority of Jesuits worked with blacks but there was a sizeable number
who worked exclusively with whites. So, while we can document the
enormous and fruitful work that was done over the decades after 1890, we
have to acknowledge the failure to give a united witness in confronting
the nakedly racialist policies of the state. If we had been able to do
this in the 1920s and '30s we might have contributed to the evolution of
a more harmonious society and avoided the terrible bloodshed of
subsequent years.