Book contents
- African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade
- African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Foreword Beyond the Printed Word
- Introduction Finding the African Voice
- Part One Remembering Slavery and the Slave Trade
- Part Two The Verbal Arts and Everyday Objects
- Part Three Documenting Our Own Histories and Cultural Practices
- Part Four Slavery Observed: European Travelers’ Accounts
- Part Five Administrative Records
- Part Six Legal Records
- Part Seven Recorded Encounters with the Enslaved: Christian Workers in Africa
- 36 Introduction:
- 37 Experiencing Fear and Despair
- 38 The Testimony of Lamine FilalouA Young Man’s Experience of Enslavement and His Struggle for Freedom in French West Africa
- 39 The Blood Men of Old Calabar – a Slave Revolt of the Nineteenth Century?
- 40 Makua Life HistoriesTestimonies on Slavery and the Slave Trade in Nineteenth-Century Madagascar
- Part Eight Documents from Muslim Africa
- Part Nine Living with the Past
- Index
36 - Introduction:
Missionary Records
from Part Seven - Recorded Encounters with the Enslaved: Christian Workers in Africa
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2013
Book contents
- African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade
- African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Foreword Beyond the Printed Word
- Introduction Finding the African Voice
- Part One Remembering Slavery and the Slave Trade
- Part Two The Verbal Arts and Everyday Objects
- Part Three Documenting Our Own Histories and Cultural Practices
- Part Four Slavery Observed: European Travelers’ Accounts
- Part Five Administrative Records
- Part Six Legal Records
- Part Seven Recorded Encounters with the Enslaved: Christian Workers in Africa
- 36 Introduction:
- 37 Experiencing Fear and Despair
- 38 The Testimony of Lamine FilalouA Young Man’s Experience of Enslavement and His Struggle for Freedom in French West Africa
- 39 The Blood Men of Old Calabar – a Slave Revolt of the Nineteenth Century?
- 40 Makua Life HistoriesTestimonies on Slavery and the Slave Trade in Nineteenth-Century Madagascar
- Part Eight Documents from Muslim Africa
- Part Nine Living with the Past
- Index
Summary
Missionary societies operating in mid-to late-nineteenth-century Africa sought first and foremost to convert African men and women to Christianity. Among the assumptions held by European missionaries was the inherent sinfulness of the long-standing universal institution of slavery and the practice of human sacrifice. Slavery remained a general phenomenon in mid- to late-nineteenth-century Africa and was widely condemned by missionary workers. European religious workers simply did not have the power to prohibit the continued existence of these practices in the communities where they worked. They were guests who could exhort and attempt to persuade, but they had little power to force their values upon their hosts. They did use the power of the pen to condemn these and other practices and to publicize their existence in publications read by audiences in Europe. Missionary records are especially useful for hearing the voices of the enslaved.
- Type
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- Information
- African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade , pp. 417 - 420Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013