Management of Conversion on the Upper Niger and at the Confluence

Kolapo, Femi J.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-31426-2_4

Management of Conversion on the Upper Niger and at the Confluence

Femi J. Kolapo⁴

Chapter
First Online: 29 November 2019

206 Accesses

Part of the book series: African Histories and Modernities ((AHAM))

Abstract

This chapter operationalizes the concept of conversion (and non-conversion) largely from the point of view of the Nigerians who were being proselytized, showing how as a process, it had diverse manifestations as it was inflected and filtered through local lenses and mediated by local needs. The social, political, and domestic implications of the process of conversion and the parameters used by the missionaries to explicate it are highlighted. The chapter analyzes how the engineering of cultural change worked on the ground regarding both the missionaries and the local people, confirming that conversion was more of a negotiated process of religious change and a contested attempt to begin society-wide cultural refashioning.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter: USD 29.95; Price excludes VAT (USA)

eBook: USD 79.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Softcover Book: USD 99.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Hardcover Book: USD 99.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
In Chap. 1, I observed that the acknowledged classic literature on the early history of Nigerian Christianity were not concerned with defining or deploying the term “conversion” as a tool of analysis. They merely took the reality of conversion to Christianity as an obvious fact.
2.
Steven Kaplan briefly engages with this issue in, “Themes and Methods in the Study of Conversion in Ethiopia: A Review Essay,” Journal of Religion in Africa Vol. 34, Fasc. 3 (Aug., 2004), 374–5.
3.
Comaroff and Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, Vol. 1, 250.
4.
Comaroff and Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, Vol. 1, 250.
5.
Nagata was discussing the concept of fundamentalism as it is applied in studies of contemporary Islam in Malaysia: “Beyond theology: Toward an anthropology of fundamentalism,” American Anthropologist vol. 103.2 (2001), 492–93.
6.
Nagata, “Beyond theology”, 493.
7.
Lewis R. Rambo, “Conversion: Toward a Holistic Model of Religious Change,” Pastoral Psychology Vol. 38.1 (Fall 1989), 48.
8.
Rambo, “Conversion”, 48.
9.
Nagata, “Beyond theology”, 493.
10.
This follows the sentiments of Orlando Woods, “The geographies of religious conversion”, 6.
11.
Beidelman, Colonial Evangelism. 6, 212.
12.
Crowther to CMS secretary, Steamer Rainbow. Bonny. Dec. 3rd. 1859. Niger Mission. C. A3/O 4 (a) Rev. Samuel Adjai Crowther. Letters & Papers 1857–63.
13.
Dandeson Crowther to CMS Secretary, July 5, 1880. Bonny. Report on the Mission Stations in the Upper & Lower Niger, visited. June to October 1879 Niger Mission C. A3/O 13. Archd. Dandeson C. Crowther. Letters. Journals & Reports. 1862–80 Para. 1b.
14.
Crowther to CMS Secretary, Steamer Rainbow. Bonny. Dec. 3, 1859. Niger Mission. C. A 3/O (a) Rev. Samuel Adjai Crowther. Letters & Papers 1857–63.
15.
S. A. Crowther, entry for Sept. 9th, “Report of a visitation to the Niger Mission for the year 1868.” Niger Mission. C A 3/04 (b) Rev. Samuel A. Crowther. Journals & Reports 1857–72.
16.
Crowther to CMS Secretary, Steamer Rainbow. Bonny. Dec. 3rd. 1859. Paras. 4–6.
17.
Gauri Viswanathan, Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity, and Belief (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998), xi.
18.
This is the broad theme of some of the classics studies of the spread of Christianity in West Africa, e.g., Ajayi, Christian Missions; Ayandele, Missionary Impact, 56–73 and his “The Missionary Factor in Brass, 1875–1900,” in Nigerian Historical Studies, ed. T. Falola, (London: F. Cass, 1979), 192–203; and Lamin Sanneh, Abolitionist Abroad: American Blacks and the Making of Modern West Africa (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1999); Elizabeth Isichei, A History of the Igbo People (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1976); Ekechi, Missionary Enterprise and Rivalry. See also, Church Missionary Gleaner (1853), 67–68.
19.
Comaroff and Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution. Vol.1, 251; Susan Neylan, The Heavens Are Changing: Nineteenth-Century Protestant Missions and Tsimshian Christianity (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press 2002). See also pp. 5–6, where she upholds the two sides of the bargain involved, but nevertheless considered the local intermediaries’ acts significant in being active participants in the process that ultimately colonized them.
20.
Jeffrey Cox, “Religion and Imperial Power in Nineteenth-century Britain”, in Richard Helmstadter, (ed.) Freedom and Religion in the Nineteenth Century (Stanford, CA: 1997), 352–3.
21.
Cox, “Religion and Imperial Power”, 353.
22.
Rowan Strong, Anglicanism and the British Empire, 289.
23.
V.Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), 60–61; A. J. Christopher, Colonial Africa (Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes and Noble, 1984), 83; Comaroff and Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, Vol. 1:314; Vol. 2:281, 314, 411; Kosuke Koyama, No Handle on the Cross: An Asian Meditation on the Crucified Mind (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1977).
24.
Beidelman, Colonial Evangelism, 6.
25.
Beidelman, 6.
26.
Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa, 60–61; Christopher, Colonial Africa, 83.
27.
Beidelman, Colonial Evangelism, 212.
28.
Dana L. Robert, ed., Converting Colonialism: Visions and Realities in Mission History, 1706–1914 (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2008).
29.
Elizabeth Elbourne’s review of the Of Revelation and Revolution in her, “Word Made Flesh: Christianity, Modernity, and Cultural Colonialism in the Work of Jean and John Comaroff” American Historical Review 108. 2 (2003), 435–459, does an excellent job of showing these multiplex dynamics of the engagement between Africans and missions.
30.
Crowther to CMS Secretary, Steamer Rainbow. Bonny. Dec. 3, 1859. Paras. 4–6. Similarly, CMS missionary Henry Townsend in Abeokuta, in 1850 was so optimistic that he boasted in a letter that, “I do not doubt but that the government of this country is set against the spreading of the Gospel; they see what they did not at first, that the Gospel will overturn all their system of lies which they wish to preserve as entire as possible.” Townsend to Venn, Nov. 14, 1850, marked ‘Private’; C.M.S.—quoted in Ajayi, “Christian Missions”, 100.
31.
Pier M. Larson, “‘Capacities and Modes of Thinking’: Intellectual Engagements and Subaltern Hegemony in the Early History of Malagasy Christianity,” American Historical Review (October 1997), 970.
32.
Terence Ranger, “Religion, Development and African Christian Identity”, in K. H. Petersen (ed.), Religion, Development and African Identity (Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1987), 36–7.
33.
Terence Ranger, “The Local and the Global in Southern African Religious History,” in Robert Hefner, Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation (Berkeley: University of California Press 1993), 65–98.
34.
Elizabeth Elbourne, Blood Ground: Colonialism, Missions, and the Contest for Christianity in the Cape Colony and Britain, 1799–1853 (Montreal & Kingston: MQUP, 2002), 18, 196.
35.
Lamin Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (Maryknoll, NY, Orbis, 1989), 111–112, 192–209; and his Encountering the West: Christianity and the Global Cultural Process: The African dimension (London: Marshall Pickering, 1993), 73–1 16.
36.
Robin Horton. “African Conversion,” Africa 41 (1971), 85–108. See also Brian Stanley, “Conversion to Christianity: The colonization of the mind?” International Review of Mission Volume 92, Issue 366 (2003), 315–331.
37.
Stanley, “Conversion to Christianity”, 317–18.
38.
For a critique of the conventional take on conversion, see Rambo, “Conversion: Toward a holistic model of religious change”.
39.
Alison Twells, The Civilizing Mission and the English Middle Class, 1792–1850. The ‘Heathen’ at Home and Overseas, (London & New York; Palgrave Macmillan 2009), 12.
40.
Andrew Porter, Religion Versus Empire? British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700–1914 (Manchester University Press 2004), 92.
41.
Porter, Religion Versus Empire? 93.
42.
On the complexity of Crowther’s position, see E. D. A. Hulmes, “Christian Attitudes to Islam; a comparative Study of the work of S. A. Crowther, E. W. Blyden, And W.R. S. Miller, in West Africa” (PhD. Diss., University of Oxford, 1980), 152–156. On the one hand, he called for an end to social institutions such as polygamy, relationships with totems, and representative or symbolic attachments to previous religions. But he also advocated for baptizing wives who found themselves in polygamous marriages because they were the victims, and he advocated for a general gradual tackle of African culture. At Abeokuta, he insisted that Christians needed not completely renounce social institutional structures that did not disrupt community stability but should only reject idolatrous aspects of it.
43.
Philip D. Curtin, The Image of Africa: British Ideas and Action, 1780–1850 (London, 1965), 259–61, 414–16, 424–28, 473–76.
44.
See Andrew C. Ross, “Christian Missions and the Mid-Nineteenth-Century Change in Attitudes to Race: The African Experience” in Imperial Horizons of British Protestant Missions, 1880–1914, Andrew Porter, ed. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2003), 90.
45.
Curtin, The Image of Africa, 265–270.
46.
See Woods’ criticism of bias in supposing the presence of such individualism for non-European societies in conversion discourses: Woods, “The geographies of religious conversion”, 5.
47.
Due to the difficulties of ethnocentric assumptions that often underlay the concept of conversion and the fact that as an individual experience, the interiority of the conversion process makes it inscrutable, John Peel argued that the only workable definition of conversion he could make fruitful use of is the following: “… process of conversion is the process by which people come to regard themselves, and be regarded by others, as Christians.” This definition works well where the analysis of Christian transformation starts off from the outcome, i.e., that many Yoruba people already became Christians, called themselves Christians, and were so identified as Christians. Here, I work from the opposite end: non-convert individuals and groups of individuals who were to be engaged by the missionaries along the way toward the desired outcome. I found Peel’s method not suitable to my goal. Not dealing with as wide a canvas as Peel and having some documentation on micro-level process of conversion, I feel that it is methodologically unjustifiable to adopt Peel’s definition rather than work from the individual prospective target of missionary preaching up toward their desired outcome of a congregation, and eventually, a transformed community. See Peel, Religious Encounter, 215–16.
48.
James Thomas Entry for Sept 4, 1870. The Journal of James Thomas Native Teacher Lokoja From 1869–1870. Doc. 16. Kolapo.
49.
James Thomas, Doc. 8. June 9th, 1863. Para. 6.
50.
Rev. Charles Paul believed this to be due to the bad influence of their Muslim friends: “Report for the year ending Sept. 30th 1876”, Niger Mission C A 3 /O28 Journals and Reports 1866–79.
51.
Crowther to CMS Secretary, Steamer Rainbow. Bonny. Dec. 3, 1859. Niger Mission. C. A 3/O (a) Rev. Samuel Adjai Crowther. Letters & Papers 1857–63.
52.
Crowther to CMS Secretary, Steamer Rainbow. Bonny. Dec. 3, 1859.
53.
Charles Paul to Crowther. Mission House Gbebe. Confluence of Zworra and Tsadda. 4 January. 1866. Niger Mission. C. A.3/O 4 (a) Bp. Samuel A. Crowther. Letters. 1864–8.
54.
Charles Paul to Crowther. Mission House Gbebe. Confluence of Zworra and Tsadda. 4 January.
55.
Charles Paul to Crowther. Mission House Gbebe. Confluence of Zworra and Tsadda. 4 January.
56.
Charles Paul to Crowther. Mission House Gbebe. Confluence of Zworra and Tsadda. 4 January.
57.
James Thomas Entry for Sept 4, 1870. The Journal of James Thomas Native Teacher Lokoja From 1869–1870. Doc. 16. Kolapo.
58.
James Thomas, Gbebe in Confluence. Journal Kept By James Thomas Native teacher from Octoher 19th 1862 to June 9/63, Para. 7; entries for June 21–25, 1864 in Gbebe 1863. Journals kept by me James Thomas—Native Teacher; and entry for August 24, 1875, The Journal of Mr. James Thomas. [1874–1875].
59.
For a summary of several studies emphasizing the process perspective, see Christopher Lamb and M. Darroll Bryant, “Introduction: Conversion: Contours of Controversies and commitment in a plural world” in their edited volume, Religious Conversion: Contemporary Practices and Controversies (London: Cassell, 1999), 7, and in the same volume, especially Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Farhadian, “Converting: Stages of Religious Change”, 1–22.
60.
James Thomas, entry for January 22, 1871. Journal of James Thomas 1870–1871. Doc. 17.
61.
Rev. Charles Paul to Rev. C.C. Fenn, Lukoja. Sept. 19, 1871. Report for the year ending Sept. 30, 1872, also reported the case of “Twenty-five of our candidates for baptism who had been under instruction for three years have been admitted into the visible Church of Christ by baptism.” See also, Samuel Crowther, Rn File 25/88 8 Information on the Progress of Islam in Western Africa. Dated, Bonny, Dec. 31, 1887. S. A. Crowther, Para. 16.
62.
James Thomas, entry for January 22, 1871. Journal of James Thomas 1870–1871. Doc. 17.
63.
Charles Paul, Report for the year ending Sept. 30, 1871. Lokoja. Niger Mission. C A3/O 28 Journals and Reports 1866.
64.
Lewis R. Rambo, and Charles E. Farhadian, “Converting: Stages of Religious Change”, in Religious Conversion, 1–22.
65.
Charles Paul, Entry for Oct. 25. Friday Charles Paul. Report for the year ending Sept. 30, 1868. Lukoja.
66.
Samuel Crowther, Rn File 25/88 8 Information on the Progress of Islam. Para. 16.
67.
Woods, “The geographies of religious conversion”, 12.
68.
Henri Gooren, Religious Conversion and Disaffiliation: Tracing Patterns of Change in Faith Practices (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2010), p. 25; Diane Austin-Broos, “The Anthropology of Conversion: An Introduction” in The Anthropology of Religious Conversion Andrew, eds., Buckser and Stephen D. Glazier (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003), 1.
69.
S. F. Nadel, A Black Byzantium. The Kingdom of the Nupe in Nigeria (London: Oxford University Press, 1942), 16, 88. Defines kuti variously as cult or magic.
70.
Femi J. Kolapo, “CMS Missionaries of African Origin and Extra-Religious Encounters at the Niger-Benue Confluence, 1858–1880”, African Studies Review Vol. 43, No. 2 (Sep., 2000), 87–115; & John Iliffe, “Persecution And Toleration In Pre-Colonial Africa: Nineteenth-Century Yorubaland,” in Persecution and Toleration Papers Read at the Twenty-Second Summer Meeting and the Twenty-Third Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, ed., W. J. Sheils Fey (Basil: Blackwell, 1984), 359–61; and J. D. Y. Peel, “Syncretism and Religious Change”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Jan., 1968), 121–141.
71.
Jesuit missionaries in colonial Mexico among the Tarahumaras “envisioned conversion as a gradual process that commenced rather than concluded with baptism” and they would seem to have been more able to build a longer time frame into the process of conversion than did even these African agents of the Anglican CMS. See William L. Merrill, “Conversion and Colonialism in Northern Mexico: The Tarahumara Response to the Jesuit Mission Program, 1601–1767” in Hefner, Conversion to Christianity, 136–7.
72.
James Thomas, entry for January 22, 1871. Journal of James Thomas 1870–1871. Doc. 17 p. 256.
73.
See Peter van der Veer, “Syncretism, multiculturalism and the discourse of tolerance”, in Syncretism /Anti-Syncretism: The Politics of Religious Synthesis, ed. Rosalind Shaw and Charles Stewart (London: Routledge, 1994), 186–187, and Shaw and Steward, “Introduction: Problematizing Syncretism,” 6–8, 13–14.
74.
Shaw and Stewart, “Introduction”, 6–8, 187; J. D. Y. Peel, “Syncretism and Religious Change” 121–141.
75.
Kolapo, “CMS Missionaries of African Origin”, 101; Norris 2003, 171.
76.
This is analogous to Peel’s idea in Religious Encounter, 216, regarding pre-conversion factors involved with the judgment to convert, where “purposes and criteria of judgment necessarily precede conversion, being drawn from the converts’ prior cultural repertory; and since they undergird the decision to convert, they are likely to continue as a substrate of the new beliefs and practices, whatever other novelties may inhere in or follow from the fact of conversion itself.”
77.
Gooren, Religious Conversion and Disaffiliation. Gooren’s study is premised on the immediate post-9/11 US (and global) concern with the radicalization of previously nonreligious people. The backdrop was that of secular America challenged by increasing radicalization. The context for the Niger-Benue Confluence area, on the contrary, was not secular and not simply individual radicalization.
78.
Gooren, Religious Conversion, 48–50.
79.
Niger Mission. CA.3/O33. Simon Benson Priddy. Letters & Journals 1862–4. The Journal of Simon Benson Priddy School Master in Gbebe or the Confluence. Para. 50.
80.
James Thomas, Gbebe in Confluence. Journal Kept By James Thomas Native teacher from October 19th 1862 to June 9/63. Para. 57, entry for July 24.
81.
James Thomas, Gbebe in Confluence. Journal Kept By James Thomas Native teacher from October 19th 1862 to June 9/63. Para. 57, entry for July 24.
82.
James Thomas, entry for Feb. 22, Para. 7, Gbebe 1863. Journals kept by me James Thomas—Native Teacher.
83.
James Thomas, Journal Kept By James Thomas Native teacher from Oct. 19, 1862 to June 9, 1863, Paras. 39, and 49; Gbebe 1863. Journals kept by me James Thomas—Native Teacher, Para. 7. The probability of persecution or ridicule was a serious impediment that prospective converts had to deal with. See Peel, Religious Encounter, 233–240.
84.
James Thomas to H. Venn, June 9, 1863—Gbebe Mission house. Para. 6.
85.
Simon Benson Priddy. Letters & Journals 1862–4. Para. 17 & 18. Niger Mission. CA.3/O33.
86.
Entry for Feb. 22nd, paragraph 7, Document no. 11. Gbebe 1863. Journals kept by me James Thomas—Native Teacher; Para. 34 Document no. 11. Gbebe 1863. Journals kept by me James Thomas—Native Teacher; Document no. 12. Paras. 33. & 34. The Journal of James Thomas—Native teacher at Gbebe 1864–1865. 12.
87.
Charles Paul. Niger Mission. C.A3\O 28 Journals and Reports 1866–79. Journals Kept at Lukoja for the year ending Sept. 30, 1867.
88.
Peel, J. D. Y. “The Pastor and the ‘Babalawo’: The Interaction of Religions in Nineteenth-Century Yorubaland,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, vol. 60, no. 3, (1990), 338–369.
89.
T. B. Wright. Entry for Feb. 7—Thursday. The [1867] Journal of Thomas B. Wright. Rev. Thomas Benjamin Wright 1864–1879 CMS Yoruba Mission. CA 2 O97.
90.
Charles Paul, “A Visit to Onumaye”, Journal for the year ending Sept. 1867. Gbebe.
91.
Pythias J. Williams, A Journal of Itinerancy to the Towns and villages situated on the north, east and south of Gbebe. 1880. Niger Mission CA3/042 Pythias James Williams. Letters & Journals, 1880.
92.
Ajayi, “Christian Missions”, 103–7.
93.
Thos. C. John. Annual Letter. Lokoja Station. Feb. 13, 1880.
94.
Charles Paul, entry for February 2., Journals and Reports 1866–79. Journals Kept at Lukoja for the year ending Sept. 30, 1867. Niger Mission. C.A3/028.
95.
The issue of polygamy was discussed at the 1876 conference of West African Protestant Missionaries, and while Bishop Crowther was unable to attend, his son, Archdeacon Dandeson Crowther went. He gave a paper on his own, but also represented his absent father. His remark reflected the position of his father, viz.: “The wives of a polygamist should be called slaves, for such they really were, and polygamists should not be admitted into the Church, because they were slave holders… The giving up of wives should be strenuously insisted upon, seeing that it was the only test to a rich man, the wives being regarded as mere property.” Conference of West African Protestant Missionaries. Held at Gaboon. Feb. 1876 in Nigeria-Niger Mission 1857–1882. pp. 9, 10. C A 3 O13 Original Papers—Letters and Papers of individual missionaries and catechists. Archdeacon Dandeson Coates Crowther. 1862–1880.
96.
James Thomas, Entry for Feb. 26, 1867, Journal of James Thomas. One of the Native Teachers Lokoja. From October 1866 to 1867.
97.
Charles Paul, Report for the year ending Sept 30, 1871. Lokoja.
98.
H. Johnson to E Hutchinson Esq. Secretary, CMS. Mission House, Lagos Dec. 14, 1877. “A Journey Up the Niger by the Rev. Henry Johnson.” Niger Mission C. A3/023 Archd. H. Johnson. Journal 1877.
99.
Robert Hefner, “Of Faith and Commitment: Christian Conversion in Muslim Java,” in Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 102.
100.
Rev. T. C. John. Letters & Reports 1865–79. Annual Letter. Lokoja Station. Sept. 30, 1878. Niger Mission C.A3/021.
101.
James Thomas, Entry for. Sept. 18th Document no. 3 Journals. June 25, 1858 to Sept. 26, 1859.
102.
James Thomas, Entry for. Sept. 18.
103.
James Thomas, Entry for Sept. 26 Sunday. Document no. 3 Journals of James Thomas from June 25, 1858 to Sept. 26, 1859.
104.
James Thomas, Entry for Oct. 16, Document no. 3 Journals of James Thomas from June 25, 1858 to Sept. 26, 1859.
105.
James Thomas to CMS Secretary. May 6th, 1863. Document. No.8.
106.
Kolapo, “CMS Missionaries of African Origin”, 92–3.
107.
James Thomas’s diary though provides many evidence for both Nupe and Bassa practice of Ifa divination.
108.
James Thomas, Journal of James Thomas Native teacher, Oct 4, 1868.
109.
James Thomas, entry for Aug. 15th, The Journal of James Thomas Native teacher at Gbebe 1864–1865. Doc. 2.
110.
T. C. John, Annual Letter. Lokoja Station. Sept. 30, 1871, to Rev. Henry Ven.
111.
James Thomas, entry for Nov 17–1869, The Journal of James Thomas Native Teacher Lokoja From 1869–1870.
112.
Charles Paul, entry for March 15. Report for the year ending Sept. 30, 1868. Lukoja. Niger Mission. C.A3/O 28 Journals and Reports 1866–79; and Journal of James Thomas Native teacher, Oct 41868; C. Paul: Charles Paul. Report for the year ending Sept. 30, 1868. Lukoja., entry for March 15.
113.
See Charles Paul, entry for Nov. 19, 1866. Charles Paul. Niger Mission. C.A3/O 28 Journals and Reports 1866–79. Journals Kept at Lukoja for the year ending September 30, 1867; and Charles Paul, entry for April 18–1867. Journals and Reports 1866–79.; Charles Paul, Journals Kept at Lukoja for the year ending September 30th 1867. Niger Mission. C.A3/O 28.
114.
T. C. John, Annual Letter. Lokoja Station, September 30, 1878. Rev. T. C. John. Letters & Reports 1865–79 Niger Mission C.A3/021.
115.
James Thomas, entry for Sept. 4, 1870. The Journal of James Thomas Native Teacher Lokoja from 1869–1870. Doc. 16. Kolapo.
116.
T. C. John to Rev. Henry Venn. Annual Letter. Lokoja Station. Sept. 30, 1871.
117.
On one occasion, a man came to buy ground tobacco in a market where Wright was preaching to some women in a market and responded to Wright’s question with absolute defiance. “His father was blind and died in blindness, so he himself resolved to follow the footstep of his father, but that his children will learn. On being asked if he should like to go to eternal misery, if his father were to be there, whilst he has chances to avoid it; he actually but blindly replied, that he is ready to go….” T. B. Wright, entry for March 24, 1867. Revd. Thomas Benjamin Wright 1864–1879. CMS Yoruba Mission. CA 2 O97.
118.
James Thomas, entry for July 13. 1858 Journal; See also, T. C. John, Report of Lokoja Station for the year ending September 30.1879.
119.
Adegbola, “Ifa and Christianity among the Yoruba.”
120.
Kolapo, “CMS Missionaries of African Origin” makes this argument.
121.
James Thomas, entry for Aug. 4, 1858, Journals of James Thomas from June 25, 1858 to Sept. 26, 1859. The phrase “all that” in local colloquialism was a derisive term for whatever has been considered worthless.
122.
Ibid.
123.
Ibid., entry for Sept. 26, 1858.
124.
Ibid. Entry for April 24, 1860.
125.
James Thomas to CMS Secretary. Mission House, Gbebe in Confluence. June 12, 1864. Niger Mission C A 3/O 38 James Thomas Letters & Journals. 1858–79.
126.
James Thomas, Gbebe in Confluence. Journal Kept By James Thomas Native teacher from Oct. 19, 1862 to June 9, 1863. Para. 2.
127.
J. D. Y. Peel, “Syncretism and Religious Change”, 124.
128.
2. Oct 22nd, 1860.
129.
James Thomas, Journal Kept By James Thomas Native teacher from October 19, 1862 to June 9/63, Para. 48.
130.
James Thomas, Lokoja, Sept. 20, 1879 Report.
131.
James Thomas, Journal from Oct. 19, 1862 to June 9, 1863; & Aug. 15.

Bibliography

Adegbola, E. A, Adeolu. “Ifa and Christianity among the Yoruba: A study in symbiosis and in the development of Yoruba Christology, 1890–1940.” PhD Diss., University of Bristol, 1976.
Google Scholar
Ajayi, J. F. A. Christian Missions in Nigeria, 1841–1881: The Making of a New Elite. London: Longman, 1965.
Google Scholar
Austin-Broos, Diane. “The Anthropology of Conversion: An Introduction.” In The Anthropology of Religious Conversion Andrew, edited by Buckser and Stephen D. Glazier, 1–12. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003.
Google Scholar
Ayandele, E. A. “The Missionary Factor in Brass, 1875–1900.” In Nigerian Historical Studies, edited by T. Falola, 192–203. London: F. Cass, 1979).
Google Scholar
Ayandele, E. A. Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria. 1842–1914. London: Longmans 1966.
Google Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. Colonial Evangelism: A Socio-Historical Study of an East African Mission at the Grassroots. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982.
Google Scholar
Charles Paul, Niger Mission. C.A3/O 28 Journals and Reports 1866a–79.
Google Scholar
Comaroff, Jean, and John L. Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, Volume 1: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Book Google Scholar
Cox, Jeffrey The British Missionary Enterprise since 1700. Routledge, 2009.
Google Scholar
Cox, Jeffrey. “Religion and Imperial Power in Nineteenth-century Britain.” In Richard Helmstadter, ed., Freedom and Religion in the Nineteenth Century. Stanford, CA: 1997.
Google Scholar
Crowther, S. A. Niger Mission. C A 3 /04 (b) Rev. Samuel A. Crowther. Journals & Reports 1857a–72.
Google Scholar
Crowther, S. A., Niger Mission. C. A 3/O (a) Rev. Samuel Adjai Crowther. Letters & Papers 1857b–63.
Google Scholar
Curtin, Philip D. The Image of Africa: British Ideas and Action, 1780–1850. London, 1965.
Google Scholar
Dandeson Crowther, Niger Mission C. A3/O 13. Archd. Dandeson C. Crowther. Letters. Journals & Reports. 1862–80 para. 1b.
Google Scholar
Elbourne, Elizabeth, “Word Made Flesh: Christianity, Modernity, and Cultural Colonialism in the Work of Jean and John Comaroff.” American Historical Review 108. 2 (2003): 435–459.
Google Scholar
Elbourne, Elizabeth. Blood Ground: Colonialism, Missions, and the Contest for Christianity in the Cape Colony and Britain, 1799–1853. Montreal & Kingston: MQUP, 2002.
Google Scholar
Gooren, Henri. Religious Conversion and Disaffiliation: Tracing Patterns of Change in Faith Practices. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Book Google Scholar
Hefner, Robert. “Of Faith and Commitment: Christian Conversion in Muslim Java.” In Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation. Berkeley: University of California Press, (1993):99–127.
Chapter Google Scholar
Horton, Robin. “African Conversion,” Africa 41 (1971): 85–108.
Article Google Scholar
Hulmes, E. D. A. “Christian Attitudes to Islam; a comparative Study of the work of S. A. Crowther, E. W. Blyden, And W.R. S. Miller, in West Africa.” PhD. Diss., University of Oxford, 1980.
Google Scholar
Iliffe, John. “Persecution and Toleration in Pre-Colonial Africa: Nineteenth-Century Yorubaland.” In Persecution and Toleration Papers Read at the Twenty-Second Summer Meeting and the Twenty-Third Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, edited by W. J. Sheils Fey, 359–61. Basil: Blackwell, 1984.
Google Scholar
James Thomas. The Journals of Church Missionary Society Agent, James Thomas in Mid-nineteenth-century Nigeria, Intro., Femi J. Kolapo. Lewiston: The Edwin Kolapo, Femi J. “CMS Missionaries of African Origin and Extra-Religious Encounters at the Niger-Benue Confluence, 1858–1880.” Vol. 43, Iss. 2 (September 2000): 87–115.
Google Scholar
Kaplan, Steven. “Themes and Methods in the Study of Conversion in Ethiopia: A Review Essay.” Journal of Religion in Africa Vol. 34, Fasc. 3 (Aug., 2004): 373–392.
Article Google Scholar
Kolapo, Femi J. “CMS Missionaries of African Origin and Extra-Religious Encounters at the Niger-Benue Confluence, 1858–1880.” Vol. 43, Iss. 2 (September 2000): 87–115.
Google Scholar
Koyama, Kosuke. No Handle on the Cross: An Asian Meditation on the Crucified Mind. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1977.
Google Scholar
Lamb, Christopher, and M. Darroll Bryant. “Introduction: Conversion: Contours of Controversies and commitment in a plural world” in Religious Conversion: Contemporary Practices and Controversies. London: Cassell, 1999.
Google Scholar
Larson, Pier M. ““Capacities and Modes of Thinking”: Intellectual Engagements and Subaltern Hegemony in the Early History of Malagasy Christianity.” American Historical Review (October 1997):969–1002.
Google Scholar
Merrill, William L. “Conversion and Colonialism in Northern Mexico: The Tarahumara Response to the Jesuit Mission Program, 1601–1767.” In Robert Hefner, Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation, 129–163. Berkeley: University of California Press 1993.
Google Scholar
Mudimbe, V.Y. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.
Google Scholar
Nadel, S. F. A Black Byzantium. The Kingdom of the Nupe in Nigeria. London: Oxford University Press, 1942.
Google Scholar
Nagata, Judith. “Beyond theology: Toward an anthropology of fundamentalism.” American Anthropologist vol. 103.2 (2001): 481–498.
Article Google Scholar
Neylan, Susan. The Heavens Are Changing: Nineteenth-Century Protestant Missions and Tsimshian Christianity. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University
Google Scholar
Niger Mission C A 3/O 38 James Thomas Letters & Journals. 1858–79.
Google Scholar
Niger Mission. CA.3/O33. Simon Benson Priddy. Letters & Journals 1862–4.
Google Scholar
Niger Mission. C.A.3/O 4 (a) Bp. Samuel A. Crowther. Letters. 1864–8.
Google Scholar
Nigeria-Niger Mission 1857–1882. C A 3 O13 Original Papers – Letters and Papers of individual missionaries and catechists. Archdeacon Dandeson Coates Crowther. 1862–1880.
Google Scholar
Peel, J. D. Y. “Syncretism and Religious Change.” Comparative Studies in Society and History Vol. 10, No. 2 (Jan. 1968): 121–141.
Article Google Scholar
Peel, J. D. Y. “The Pastor and the ‘Babalawo’: The Interaction of Religions in Nineteenth-Century Yorubaland,” Africa: Journal of the International African Vol. 60, Iss. 3 (1990): 338–369.
Article Google Scholar
Peel, J. D. Y. Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.
Google Scholar
Porter, Andrew. Religion versus Empire? British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700–1914. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004.
Google Scholar
Pythias J. Williams, A Journal of Itinerancy to the Towns and villages situated on the north, east and south of Gbebe. 1880. Niger Mission CA3/042 Pythias James Williams. Letters & Journals, 1880.
Google Scholar
Rambo, Lewis R. “Conversion: Toward a Holistic Model of Religious Change,” Pastoral Psychology Vol. 38. 1 (Fall 1989): 47–63.
Article Google Scholar
Rambo, Lewis R., and Charles E. Farhadian. “Converting: Stages of Religious Change.” In Religious Conversion: Contemporary Practices and Controversies, edited by Christopher Lamb and M. Darrol Bryant, 23–34. London: Cassell, 1999.
Google Scholar
Ranger, Terence. “The Local and the Global in Southern African Religious History.” In Robert Hefner, Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation, 65–98. Berkeley: University of California Press 1993.
Google Scholar
Ranger, Terence. “Religion, Development and African Christian Identity.” In Religion, Development and African Identity, edited by K. H. Petersen, 36–7. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1987.
Google Scholar
Rev. Thomas Benjamin Wright 1864–1879 CMS Yoruba Mission. CA 2 O97.
Google Scholar
Rev. Charles Paul, Niger Mission C A 3/O28 Journals and Reports 1866b–79.
Google Scholar
Rev. Henry Johnson.” Niger Mission C. A3/023 Archd. H. Johnson. Journal 1877.
Google Scholar
Rev. T. C. John. Letters & Reports 1865–79 Niger Mission C.A3/021.
Google Scholar
Robert, Dana L. ed. Converting Colonialism: Visions and Realities in Mission History, 1706–1914. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2008.
Google Scholar
Ross, Andrew C. “Christian Missions and the Mid-Nineteenth-Century Change in Attitudes to Race: The African Experience.” In Imperial Horizons of British Protestant Missions, 1880–1914, edited by Andrew Porter, 85–105. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2003.
Google Scholar
Sanneh, Lamin O. Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture. Maryknoll, NY.: Orbis Books, 2009.
Google Scholar
Sanneh, Lamin. Abolitionist Abroad: American Blacks and the Making of Modern West Africa. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1999.
Google Scholar
Shaw and Steward, “Introduction: Problematizing Syncretism.” In Syncretism /Anti-Syncretism: The Politics of Religious Synthesis. London: Routledge, 1994:1–24.
Google Scholar
Simon Benson Priddy. Letters & Journals 1862–4. Niger Mission. CA.3/O33.
Google Scholar
Stanley, Brian. “Conversion to Christianity: The colonization of the mind?” International Review of Mission Volume 92, Issue 366 (2003): 315–331.
Article Google Scholar
Strong, Rowan. Anglicanism and the British Empire, c.1700–1850. Oxford University, 2007.
Google Scholar
Twells, Alison. The Civilizing Mission and the English Middle Class, 1792–1850: The ‘Heathen’ at Home and Overseas. London & New York; Palgrave Macmillan 2009.
Book Google Scholar
Veer, P.T. van der. “Syncretism, multiculturalism and the discourse of tolerance.” In Syncretism /Anti-Syncretism: The Politics of Religious Synthesis, ed. Rosalind Shaw and Charles Stewart, 186–187. London: Routledge, 1994.
Google Scholar
Viswanathan, Gauri. Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity, and Belief. Princeton, Gooren, Henri. Religious Conversion and Disaffiliation: Tracing Patterns of Change in Faith Practices. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Google Scholar
Woods, Orlando. “The Geographies of Religious Conversion.” Progress in Human Geography Vol. 36, Iss. 4, (November 2011): 440–456. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132511427951.
Article Google Scholar

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada
Femi J. Kolapo

Authors

Femi J. Kolapo
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Kolapo, F.J. (2019). Management of Conversion on the Upper Niger and at the Confluence. In: Christian Missionary Engagement in Central Nigeria, 1857–1891. African Histories and Modernities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31426-2_4

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31426-2_4
Published: 29 November 2019
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-31425-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-31426-2
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics