Who invited European Christianity and colonialism in East Africa?

 

I have come across various deceptive ahistorical claims accusing "Negro-stock" indigenous East Africans of inviting Europeans to their lands through the coast. And more outrageous claims that they were used to stop spread of Islam. Firstly, both Christianity and Islam are alien to indigenous Africans in East Africa. Both are vehicles of colonialism. And both generally work together against indigenous people in Africa.

The British were long involved in the Indian ocean via their British East India company. They were constantly in competition with the French who gave them the biggest headache in ending slave trading in the Indian ocean in the 19^th century. They found a useful ally in the Omanis – themselves slave traders and plantation owners - as a proxy against the French. As part of this, they assisted the Omanis to occupy a strip of coastal land and some islands in East Africa.  Sayyid Saïd bin Sultan al-Busaidi was completely beholden to the British. The Mazrui Arabs, who held some territories in the coast of present-day Kenya, knowing of this relationship, were wary of losing the territories and repeatedly pleaded to the British for protection. Moreover, they offered their occupied territories to the British to rule, and to the surprise of the British, went ahead to hoist a British flag in Mombasa. The British however preferred to make an occupation agreement much later with their long-time ally Sayyid Saïd bin Sultan al-Busaidi.

The first Christian missionary to set up in east Africa was the linguist Johann Ludwig Krapf in 1844. Krapf was born into a Lutheran family of farmers in southwest Germany. At that time most of the East African coastline was then part of the Omani Zanzibar sultanate (an Islamic slave-trade colony). It was Sultan Sayyid Said who gave him a permit to start a missionary station at the coastal city of Mombasa. After his wife and daughter succumbed to malaria in Mombasa, he moved to Rabai and set up a mission station in 1844. While in Rabai, he started drafting dictionaries and translating sections of the Bible. Working with a Muslim judge named Ali bin Modehin, he translated the biblical book of Genesis. He went on to translate the New Testament, as well as the Book of Common Prayer.

However, during this period in his attempts to put together a proper linguistic sketch of Kiswahili language, he was faced with enormous frustration due to his seeking of information from Muslim Arabs whose language only has loanwords in Kiswahili but not cognates because Kiswahili and Arabic are of different linguistic ancestry. It was only in 1845 that he finally decided to consult with those who he derogatorily called “surrounding pagan tribes” of Wanyika and Wakamba that he was able to do a proper linguistic study of Kiswahili.

“Afterwards I intended to touch again upon the subject, as I wished to put my fellow labourers, whom I expected from Europe, in possession of proper materials for their study of the Kisuaheli immediately after their arrival. But when I saw myself in the beginning of this year (1845) disappointed in my anxious hope, I put off doing over again the original sketch, until the rainy season of this year compelled me to suspend my excursions from Mombas to the surrounding country, and gave me leisure for the revision of the original sketch, which in the meantime had been more matured from the increased knowledge of the Kisuaheli, and from the acquaintance with the cognate Dialects, the Kinika and Kikamba, with which my excursions to the pagan tribes around Mombas had brought me into contact.”

Krapf J.L. (1850). Outline of The Elements of The Kisuaheli Language, With Special Reference To The Kinika Dialect. Tubingen, Printed By Lud. Fried. Pubs.

The book was able to illustrate a proper linguistic study of Kisuaheli(Kiswahili) through comparisons with cognate dialects like Kinyika (Mijikenda languages) and Kikamba. In 1846 he was joined by Johannes Rebmann, another southwest German Lutheran who was in the service of the CMS. Krapf and Rebmann set off to explore the interior of East Africa. Krapf's deteriorating health forced him to return to Germany in 1853.

The difficult work of spreading Christianity throughout East Africa was continued by the various European colonial occupiers who faced stiff resistance from the indigenous peoples.

 

References

Ansre, Gilbert. 1988. To unify or dialectize? In Issues in Bible Translation, ed. by Philip Stine, 187-206. (United Bible Societies Monograph 3.) London: United Bible Societies.

Graham, Gerald S. (1967). Great Britain in The Indian Ocean: A Study of maritime enterprise 1810-1850

Krapf J.L. (1850). Outline of The Elements of The Kisuaheli Language, With Special Reference To The Kinika Dialect. Tubingen, Printed By Lud. Fried. Pubs.