In 1784, John Caroll was appointed the first Superior of Catholic missions in the Northern United States. Wishing to revive the Native American missions and care for the arriving migrants, he called upon Jesuits, diocesan priests, and various congregations. No sooner had the missionaries arrived than numerous delegations of Native American chiefs came to ask for "Black Robes" to teach them about the Great Spirit. They claimed to be the descendants of those who had been evangelized in the 17th and 18th centuries by the Jesuits, known as Black Robes. In the name of their pedagogy of inculturation, they refused Protestant ministers and asked only for Catholic missionaries. Despite many difficulties-colonial politics, land confiscation, and lack of resources-the missionaries spread out among the various groups, whose religious situations varied greatly. To their surprise, they discovered that some groups had maintained their faith thanks to catechists. They tried to establish pastoral care adapted to the circumstances: itinerant missions, resident missionaries, use of catechists, and Jesuit "ladders." Catholic priests tried as much as possible to satisfy the spiritual needs of the indigenous people, who ultimately became the key players in this new evangelization.
Résumé L’histoire des « moretti » est restée méconnue dans l’historiographie. En qualité d’anciens esclaves rachetés par des missionnaires européens, ces jeunes Subsahariens furent envoyés en Europe pour étudier dans des institutions catholiques et revenir en Afrique comme missionnaires. Certains devinrent ainsi les premiers prêtres et religieuses indigènes du XIX e siècle, précédant le clergé africain moderne. Cet article propose de retracer ce phénomène à travers les parcours de deux prêtres, Jean-Pierre Moussa (1815-1860) et Daniele Sorur Pharim Den (1860ca.-1900), ainsi que d’une religieuse, Bakhita Kwasce (1841ca.-1899), qui surent dépasser de nombreux obstacles et dénoncer le racisme auquel ils furent confrontés.
Abstract This article highlights the challenges posed by the colonial mindset to the formation of an indigenous clergy. Comparing missions on the African and Asian continents allows us to connect the common dynamics of race relations in the church in the late modern period. This contribution is grounded primarily in unpublished documentation preserved in the Apostolic Archives ( A.A.V. ), the Archives of Propaganda Fide ( A.P.F. ), and the Historical Archives of the Secretariat of State – Section for Relations with States and International Organisations ( A.S.R.S. ). It further draws on materials consulted in the Archives of the Generalate of the White Fathers ( A.G.M .Afr.) in Rome, as well as in the General Archives of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit ( A.G.C.S .Sp.) in Chevilly-Larue (Paris).
Résumé Fondé sur des archives inexploitées, celles des Franciscaines Missionnaires de Marie, des Filles de la Charité et de la Propaganda Fide , cet article vise à étudier les enjeux de l’intégration et de la formation des sœurs autochtones à la vie religieuse en Birmanie et au Vietnam au XX e siècle. Il montre les tensions entre supérieurs ecclésiastiques et responsables européennes à ce propos. En analysant les arguments qui justifient le maintien de la différenciation, il prend au sérieux le critère racial tout en le replaçant parmi une série d’autres critères plus explicites, et au sein de hiérarchies préexistantes dans les congrégations.
Abstract This article examines how British women missionaries in colonial northern India used photography to legitimise their medical work. It focusses on an album compiled by Annie P. Howlett of the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission ( ZBMM ) in the United Provinces. The analysis shows how women arranged images into sequences that linked medical care with biblical motifs to address scepticism within the ZBMM about the place of medicine in missionary practice. It argues that the combination of religious and medical imagery enabled missionaries to present healing as a means of advancing evangelistic purpose. Their photographic work reveals how religious authority, medical intervention, and colonial structures intersected in early-twentieth-century India.
Abstract In Ankole, a district of the British Uganda protectorate, the Catholic White Fathers and the Anglican missionaries of the Church Missionary Society ( CMS ) both developed distinctively ambivalent racial discourses on the Bahima, a local social category associated with owning or rearing cattle. Concurring with colonial mainstream representations, which were supporting British colonial policy, the missionaries described the Bahima as a superior race of Hamitic conquerors. However, as they failed to evangelise the Ankole cattle breeders, they also depicted the Bahima as a backward race, inherently opposed to Christianity. This ambivalence, found in written missionary sources, is also echoed by the memories of elderly Bahima people, as they were expressed in oral interviews.
This article examines the politics of visibility and discretion among religious minorities. While the social sciences have often treated visibility as the principal pathway to recognition, recent studies highlight its ambivalence and potential for stigmatization. Building on this critique, the article reframes discretion not as a merely endured condition but as a potential resource for political agency. Drawing on the case of the Swiss Jewish community in the 1970s and 1980s, it shows how discretion can simultaneously protect and enable recognition. The article argues that visibility and discretion form the two poles of a strategic dilemma shaping minority political life.
This paper tackles the role of entrepreneurs in the rise of the Christian Right in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. I argue that in Taiwan and Hong Kong, the emergence of the Christian Right was backed by transnational entrepreneurs and big companies. These entrepreneurs are characterized by their flexible citizenship. First, they strive for professional success while embracing pro-family values to find a balance between their work and mobile lifestyle. Second, their proselytizing practices inside the workplace in Taiwan are embedded in the political goals of the Christian Right. They also proselytize within factories located in Chinese cities. Third, they establish associations, businessmen’s fellowships, and exclusive gathering spaces to cultivate their symbolic capital between Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Chinese cities.
This article considers the religious encounter between Scottish missionaries and the Kikuyu of Central Kenya between 1898 and 1934. At the basis of the encounter were the Kikuyu warrior tradition and the Church of Scotland’s approach to missions, an approach that aimed at converting men first, and re-directing their martial culture to a non-conformist Protestant Christianity. The paper studies the encounter in four areas – schooling, circumcision, baptism and the Boys’ Brigade. It argues that after the first decade, and despite the contestations that marked the religious exchange, Kikuyu young men invested in the new faith, sparking fierce debates within their communities. Using Kikuyu and missionary sources, the study has tapped into insights gleaned from listening to intra-Kikuyu dialogue about the new faith, especially in the missionary interventions on schooling, circumcision and baptism. This has helped to understand the processes by which Christianity was interpreted in local idioms, beliefs and practices. To interrogate its data, the paper has used entanglement as its theoretical framework. The paper points out that the local agency responsible for the popularization of the Christian mind in Central Kenya was manufactured in the crucible of fierce debates among young men, and with their communities. It also notes that by the 1930s, a definite Kikuyu Christianity had emerged, a fact that missionaries acknowledged in the gift of windows with Kikuyu weaponry drawn on them given to the Church of the Torch at Kikuyu in 1934 by Scottish Christians and congregations.
L’article analyse la manière dont les parents faisant appel à une structure de prévention des radicalisations violentes en Suisse vivent et gèrent la conversion à l’islam de leur enfant. A partir d’une ethnographie et d’entretiens, l’étude montre comment la conversion déclenche chez les parents incompréhension, peurs et sentiment d’impuissance face à une identité religieuse nouvelle et perçue comme subversive. L’analyse s’appuie sur le concept de « catégorie révolutionnaire » illustrant comment la conversion redéfinit les relations parents-enfants. L’institution joue un rôle de régulation auprès des parents en proposant un accompagnement spécialisé permettant de mieux comprendre les changements vécus.
Missionaries and medical missions played a significant role in shaping pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial African societies, particularly with regard to education and healthcare. Despite this profound impact, scholarly attention to their contributions remains somewhat limited. This article explores the life, contributions and impact of Jean-Marie Coquard, who arrived in Egba, Abeokuta, in the late nineteenth century. Drawing on sources such as autobiographies, biographies, archival records, newspapers, and interviews, the paper sheds light on Coquard’s resilience and the personal sacrifices he made amid cultural resistance to Western medicine including maternal healthcare. By exploring his legacy, this study highlights the broader impact of missionaries and medical missions, offering insight into their often overlooked but transformative roles in African history
