Impacts of Missionaries on Africans and African Cultures
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Impacts of Missionaries on Africans and African Cultures
The missionaries had significant impacts on the lives of the African people and their culture. When someone hears the mentioning of the word missionaries, people tend to think about religion. This is because the primary role of the missionaries when they came to Africa was to spread the gospel. The missionaries believed that the gospel is of paramount importance to people’s lives. Although the majority of the missionaries succeeded in spreading the gospel by encouraging the people to accept Jesus as the savior, these missionaries also had other impacts on the people of Africa. Apart from spreading the gospel, the missionaries also led to a change in people’s lifestyles. The missionaries’ ethnocentric, judging the African cultures and their way of life according to preconceptions originating from their standards prevented the missionaries from understanding the African cultures, which led to the missionaries influencing Africa to match their culture besides spreading of the religion. The missionaries, therefore, had a significant impact on changing the Africans and their culture. The effects of the missionaries to the African Cultures included an increase in nationalism, the loss of the African cultural identity, disruption to the unity of the Africans, and the spread of Christianity through trained black missionaries.
According to Mentan, Tatah (2018), several motives contributed to the imperialism of Africa, the economic motivation making Africa the priority target as compared to other parts of the world. Mentan (2018) claims that capitalism and imperialism are the significant causes of the current underdevelopment of Africa. Such practices reinforced exploitative dependence that facilitates the underdevelopment. This chapter speaks about the strategies of imperialism used in Africa for economic gain. Manipulation was an effective strategy used. Missionaries deceived leaders of Africa into thinking of themselves as patriots and nationalists pursuing some noble cause. As a result, African leaders who welcomed the missionaries convinced their subject to accept the ideas of the missionaries. However, in reality, they only satisfied imperialist needs. Africans were also disillusioned into thinking other western developed countries were Christian so that they wouldn’t resist Christian conversion. The majority of the Africans had not had a chance to visit other countries to confirm whether what the missionaries were claiming was true.
The loss of cultural identity was one of the significant impacts of the missionaries on Africans and the African culture. The missionaries brought about westernization along with Christianity. The presence of the missionaries on the African soil represented Christian values, hospitals, churches, and schools. The Christian missionaries in Peru enforced a new lifestyle upon the Machiguengas. These missionaries aimed at wiping out their culture by removing their gods and their institutions. The missionaries were after corrupting their dreams. Some of the Africans became convinced of the new religion introduced by the missionaries. Those who accepted the missionary religion were westernized, and they had to clean themselves their culture and adapt to a new religion. However, not all Africans took the teaching of the missionaries. Some Africans believed in their traditions and, therefore, continued to practice it irrespective of the influence of the missionaries. Africans who were against the missionaries’ ideas continued with their tribal belief and avoided the westernization of their lives at all costs.
Additionally, the Africans lost their cultural identity in the field of education as the majority of the Africans converted from their traditional way of life to the new religion introduced by the missionaries. As a result of the cultural change, there was no one to teach upcoming generations the tribal history and believe. The majority of the people were focused on learning the new culture and new lifestyles, which continuously led to the loss of the community culture. Unlike traditional education, Christian education introduced by the missionaries used the Bible to teach the converts how to read and other language skills (Mhango, 2018). The missionaries also used the Bible to teach the Africans the western practices and believe and to show them that what they were doing was immoral and against the will of God. In Western Africa, even the structure of the government was changed. When the missionaries got into western Africa, they embarked on a mission to change the structure of the government by introducing a parliamentary system of the government. The missionaries attempted to westernize the Umuofian government by adding the district commissioners, the court system, as well as the court messengers.
The missionaries who were the product of Western Christian civilization carried their cultural values from their countries to where they were taking the message. These missionaries were had no doubt their cultural superiority. It is from these cultures that these missionaries acquired their convectional features of building the schools, the churches, and imposing the ethos and the habits of the western Christian civilization, which they passed to the converts. In areas where these missionaries found it difficult to influence the paper to turn away from their culture, missionaries utilized the Christian mission stations. The stations were stocked with food and other essential commodities. Sometime the mission stations would serve as a refuge for freed slaves, with stores, schools, plantations, churches, and hospitals. The missionaries would use the stations to practice superintendence over the moral lives of their converts. The missionaries took advantage of the converts to dictate their lives by banning their traditional customs; for example, they banned polygamy, ancestor-worship, singing, dancing, among other traditions.
The missionaries established settlements in different regions in the continent Africa which served as self-supporting economic communities. The missionaries used these settlements to continue with their teaching to the converts. The missionaries used the settlements to teach the converts the virtual of hard work. The missionaries would use the Bible to teach the converts that they need to work hard per the will of God. The missionaries also used the settlements as protection centers to avoid temptations. The missionaries acknowledge that changing one’s way of life was not a simple thing. Most of the converts got tempted to return to their traditions, such as polygamy, among other traditions. Through these settlements, the missionaries succeeded in changing African culture and adopted the western culture.
The arrival of the missionaries also had significant impacts on the unity of the Africans. The missionaries affected African unity, both positively and negatively. The impact on African Unity was best felt in western Africa. When these missionaries arrived in West Africa, they found it easy for them to control West Africa due to the division between Liberia and West Africa. The inhabitants in these regions were also highly primitive, which made them victims of cruelty and worst exploitation by the missionaries. The missionaries in most parts of Africa taught the people a common language, which made it easier for the people in a given region to communicate with one another. Fortunately, as the communication barriers were eliminated, it helped to unite the people who previously could not unite due to a lack of regular communication. However, the missionaries also created huge divisions between family and community members. The people were divided between the converts and those who reject westernization. Those who accepted the new religion of Christianity were rejected by society and were considered as traitors. No one wanted to be associated with the converts. In some regions, the leaders ordered the new converts to be alienated and not use community resources.
The ethnocentric view of the missionaries also had a significant impact on the unity between the missionaries and the African communities that rejected the missionaries’ new way of life. The majority of the missionaries and other leaders considered themselves superior against the African people. As a result of the superior perception, the missionaries would disregard African practices, which created a lot of disagreements between the two groups which father heightened the disunity between the converts and those who rejected the new religion. According to Mentah, (2018), the Africans who accepted to join Christianity were accused of collaborating with the colonial powers to destroy African culture, which they held dear for a long time. These cultures also helped to connect the living with the spirits of the dead (Mujinga, 2019). In some cases, these converts were beaten up for selling the community to foreigners.
Environmental destruction is yet another significant impact of the missionaries on Africans. The effects of the colonizers on Africa could not be underestimated. According to eco-theology, a crime against the natural world was a sin. Ecotheology claims that the actions of humans to make some species extinct and to destroy the biological diversity of God’s creation are sins. No human has the right to degrade the integrity of earth by interfering with nature or by actions such as stripping off the land it’s covering. While the missionaries should have been the stewards in protecting the environment, they were the major contributors to climate destruction through the clearing of the land, among other activities. According to (Mujinga, 2019), Europeans have achieved the privilege of living environmentally at the expense of the Africans. Some of the challenges that Africans encounter was as a result of the actions of the European during the colonial era (Muguti & Angeline, 2018). The primary role of the missionaries was to spread the gospel to the Africans and also love as per the Bible. However, instead of the missionaries being overseers’ of God’s creation, the missionaries began to lead the colonizers in the plundering of the natural resources. These actions resulted in significant environmental and ecological destruction among African countries (Mujinga, 2019). Research shows that the majority of African cultures associated their gods and believes with natural resources, for example, specific species of trees, animals, and other natural surroundings (Muguti & Angeline, 2018). However, the Europeans continue with the claims that environmental destruction is a crime. However, they fail to acknowledge that they were the ones who began with these crimes by robbing, grabbing, and exploiting Africans and their heritage (Mujinga, 2019). Therefore, the presence of the missionaries in the African continent contributed significantly to environmental degradation, which has exposed the continent to severe climate change. In some regions, since the colonial period still, experience low rainfall compared to other parts of the continent. This has made people in these regions to suffer due to lack of food and other necessities since they cannot engage in any form of production (Mujinga, 2019).
Moreover, although the missionaries went to Africa claiming to spread the gospel, research has revealed that some of the missionaries had other intentions while going to Africa. Okyere-Manu (2014) argues that some of the missionaries went to Africa as spies to lay the groundwork that would facilitate the colonization of the Africans. The missionaries were well versed in the Bible. The used the Bible verses to manipulate the Africans and to take advantage of their illiteracy. For instance, the missionaries quoted the call of Christ as found in the Bible when Jesus called upon his disciples to go and spread the gospel. Jesus had also requested the disciples to baptize those who accepted his preaching and teach them to obey what Jesus had taught them. The missionaries would use these verses to manipulate the Africans and to ensure that they followed their teaching without questioning. Some missionaries lied to the Africans that Jesus had sent them and, therefore, they had to obey their teachings. The missionaries developed interpretations of the Bible to convince the Africans to abandon their beliefs and their heritage. Research shows that before the arrival of the missionaries in Africa, the African communities believed in worshipping of many gods (Okyere-Manu 2014). The Africans had different gods for different seasons, among other things. However, the missionaries used the Bible to convince the Africans that the act of praying to the gods was against God’s will and that their predicaments were as a result of God’s anger over their actions (Okyere-Manu 2014). To do away with these gods and avoid the future temptation of worship the gods, the missionaries convinced the Africans to burn down all the shrines as well as cutting down of the particular trees that represented the gods. The missionaries discouraged the worshipping of many gods and instead encouraged the people to worship only one God (Okyere-Manu 2014). The white missionaries also used the Bible to convince the Africans that they were superior to the Africans and, therefore, the Africans had to respect and obey their teachings.
Ross (2020) affirms that the missionaries had other intentions apart from the spreading of the gospel. According to Ross, the impacts the missionaries had on Africa were immense and could not be underestimated. Ross claims that every mission carried out by the colonizers, and the missionaries were for the good of the European. The missionaries used the gospel to hide their real character. They knew that the Africans would easily fall into their trap if they pretended to be preaching the word of God. The missionaries contributed to the rise of the slave trade across Africa. As mentioned above, some missionaries managed to convince some African leaders through gospel who, in turn, encouraged their followers to accept and obey the teachings of the missionaries. It made it easier for the missionaries to arrange for some people to be sold as slaves in Europe and other parts of the world (Ross, 2020).
Additionally, the missionaries managed to identify targets of slaves and then provide the information to the raiders that make it easier for the traders to acquire the slaves. Research has shown that the slave trade generated millions of money for the Europeans. While the Europeans were creating millions of money from the trade, families were divided with their loved ones, their traditions, and culture. Also, only the strongest were considered eligible for the slave trade (Ross, 2020). As a result, the elderly in the society who were less productive did not have anyone to look after them. They were, therefore, left to suffer on their watch while the missionaries pretended to cater to them by preaching the gospel.
The missionaries also led to the spread of the toxic gospel in the African continent. Mjango (2018) argues that that missionaries and Christianity were subjects of spreading toxic gospels to unsuspecting African Christians. In his article, Mhango explains that the missionaries made the Africans believe that the gospel that they were teaching was a good thing. However, in reality, spread these missionaries were not good at practical (Mhango, 2018). The gospel taught was against everything that the Africans stood for and was perceived to be of great importance to their lives. The gospel spread by the missionaries enabled the Europeans to destroy the African culture, African civilization, as well as the communities’ general way of life (Mhango, 2018). For instance, when some of the Africans become converted by joining the church had to change their African names. The change in people’s names led to the loss of African identity. In their teachings, the missionaries taught the Africans the importance of virtual of respecting one another. This was hypocritical because the Europeans themselves treated the Africans like dogs (Mhango, 2018). This kind of treatment resulted in Africans losing their self-esteem and considered themselves as people of a lesser god. The fact that these missionaries claimed to preach the word of God made it easier for the Africans to believe them, which also made it easier for the missionaries to control them.
As mentioned above, the arrival of the missionaries in Africa represented the Africans first encounter with the western. The introduction of Christianity to the Africans led to civilization and culture patterns that eventually were going to lead to the conquering of the African communities. African acceptance to join Christianity led to the accumulation of western civilization, technology, and ideas. Irrespective of the instructions of the 19th-century missionary theorists and thinkers, the Christian missionary enterprise was a vital tool that would eventually lead the Africans into westernization. The introduction of western cultural practices, beliefs, and lifestyles significantly affected the African communities. It is, however, essential to note that during the westernization of the African societies, the Africans were not passive recipients. Their needs and poor choices shaped the entire process of westernization during the time of colonization. The act of the Africans to selectively absorb the western influences was an important step towards the creation of a new cultural synthesis. However, as time progressed, more Africans joined the mission schools. These individuals realized that the missionaries were taking advantage of the Africans to mislead them and benefit from them. These groups of elite educated began to challenge the missionaries’ dominance in the continent Africa. This helped to control the missionaries’ manipulation, which also helped to avoid further damage to the continent. Where it not for the elite educated who went back to their societies and educated their people what the missionaries were doing, the continent would have experienced higher losses.
It is important to note that the activities of the missionaries in the continent had a significant contribution to the spread of Christianity in the region. Although the missionaries had other intentions in addition to the spreading of the gospel, some of the Africans felt that they were genuine and believed that they had come to save them from wrongdoing. This led to many Africans converting to Christianity to live per the will of God. Many of the Christians began to learn how to read and write so that they could read the Bible and interpret it to themselves. The missionaries also acknowledged that the Africans were more welcoming to the teaching when it came to the Africans themselves. For this reason, the missionaries trained Africans missionaries to convince their fellow Africans to accept the gospel and to live per the will of God.
In conclusion, it is evident from the above discussion that the presence of the missionaries in Africa had significant impacts on the continent. The missionaries in the continent brought more effect to the continent besides the spreading of the gospel. As seen for the above discussion, most of the missionaries went to Africa, claiming to spread the gospel, yet they had other hidden intentions. One of the impacts of the missionaries in Africa is that they led to the spread of the gospel. The majority of the Africans believed the missionaries were sincere in their teaching and that they had come to rescues the Africans. As a result, a good number of Africans were converted to Christianity. The arrival of the missionaries also led to the loss of the African culture (Arowolo, 2010). The missionaries used the Bible to convince the Africans that their traditions were against the will of God. The missionaries convinced the Africans that the challenges that they were encountering in life were, as a result, their customs and that God was angry with them; that’s why he was punishing them. As a result, many of the Africans abandoned their cultures and began to follow the teachings of the missionaries. This led to the loss of the African cultural identity, such as polygamy and the worshipping of many gods.
The missionaries proved to the Africans that their culture was superior to their and, therefore, they had to change. The missionaries also led to the exploitation of African resources. They were able to locate areas rich in natural materials and update their colleagues to go for these materials. The missionaries would also make arrangements with local leaders who had accepted to convert to Christianity to sell some of their people as slaves. The missionaries also acted as informers to the slave raiders. They provided them with vital information on where to find the slaves. These missionaries led to the westernization of the African communities, which significantly led to the loss of African culture and heritage.
References
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Mhango, N. N., (2018) “How Missionaries Spread Toxic Gospel in Africa.” In How Africa Developed Europe: Deconstructing the His-Story of Africa, Excavating Untold Truth and What Ought to Be Done and Kn, 95–124. Mankon, Bamenda: Langaa RPCIG.
Mhango, N. N., 2018 “How Europe Decreased and Reinvented Africa Ready for Exploitation.” In How Africa Developed Europe: Deconstructing the His-Story of Africa, Excavating Untold Truth and What Ought to Be Done and Kn, 29–64. Mankon, Bamenda: Langaa RPCIG.
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Ross, E. (2020). “Impact of Christianity in Africa.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 298 (1955): 161-69.