Evidence: Missions and Extractions

There were White Fathers in Northern Rhodesia thirty years before there were banyama accusations. Missions were founded at Mambwe in 1895, Kayambi in 1896, and Chilubula in 1902. The founder of these stations, Père Dupont, had a fearsome local reputation as a sorcerer who shot lions and healed the sick, but he was not very different from other missionaries who established themselves in Africa at the turn of the century.^[30] Once the missions were established, however, the White Fathers relied on African catechists to proselytize the countryside—not because the territory of their vicariate was so vast, according to the White Fathers’ historians, but because the competition from the London Missionary Society and Livingstonia Mission was so intense, according to historians of Protestant missions and independent churches.^[31] As a result, White Fathers’ missions typically had a few priests for spiritual work—three in Chilubula in the 1920s, but only one at smaller stations like Kapatu or Chilonga—and at least as many “coadjuteurs,” religious brothers who worked to supplement the material well-being of the mission either by supervising construction or making furniture. A very few worked closely with private enterprises.^[32] Most of the stations had been founded before 1915; Mulilansolo and Ilondola were founded in the 1930s with the patronage of a French countess. Aside from Chilubula, none of the missions were terribly well-off. (Chilubula was by all accounts the best-provisioned place in Northern Rhodesia: it had wheat fields, herds of pigs, and a talent for charcuterie.) Other stations never managed to grow all their own food, even with student labor, and they frequently had to trade with the countryside. Their schools never had strong government support, and never attracted many students, since, as a French-speaking order, their instruction in English was sometimes poor.^[33]

Indeed, White Fathers were accused, not only of vampirism, but of violating the conventions of retail trade. On the Luapula, at least, the White Fathers operated barter stores that did not take money and sometimes exchanged goods for farm labor. At Ipusukilo, one priest rhapsodized about their new barter store

built of bricks…open all day long, and the Africans are ready to use it. In it one finds stationery, basic materials, and a wide variety of clothes, for which those who do not have money exchange foodstuffs or work. There are many reasons for the store’s appeal: beads, stamps, paper, envelopes—the things one buys in a store. I have no money. Contribute flour or firewood. I have neither. You are a lazy person, cultivate: on your farm, you will find everything with which to purchase all that you desire. The manager is prevented by an infirmity from hard work, but if you work here and nowhere else, these goods will be given to you.^[34]

In July 1932, L. G. Mee, a trader, complained to the boma that the White Fathers at Lubwe and Ipusukilo had for some time been selling calico to Africans as well as paying wages in calico.^[35] The secretary for native affairs replied that the priests had already been warned about this.^[36] The White Fathers at Ipusukilo had been trading cloth for salt, which they then exchanged for grain locally. In August 1932, the boma informed them that trading in salt and cloth was illegal without a general trader’s licence, which they could purchase for 50/- for six months— “an absurd regulation,” the priests complained.^[37]

At Chilubula and other missions, the economics of boarding schools had long disrupted the priests’ relations with the countryside. Money for boarding school students’ clothes had to be raised from tributes from the countryside. But “some parents did not understand that their children in catechism classes must work free on mission farms; recalcitrant students make work impossible.” These students were dismissed “to seek their fortunes elsewhere.” ^[38] In 1936, boarding school students had to work for the mission for three weeks.^[39] In 1939, catechists and students returned to Chilubula without the expected tribute for their upkeep; parents claimed that there were now so many students attending school that it was impossible to subsidize them all. Père Reuter—who had only returned to Chilubula in 1937 after years of supervising the diggers at the Lupa Goldfields in Tanganyika—made a speech to the students. “You have neither paid nor done work,” he said. “If each of you works six days a month, we shall have enough revenue for fifty-four students. Please remember that there are many children in the villages between 10 and 12 years of age who no longer study here. Why?” ^[40] At Kapatu, eight students ran away because they were asked to work five days a month to pay their school fees.^[41] At Ilondola, in 1948, classes were suspended because there was no food for the students. Nevertheless, students were asked to stay at the mission and work for three weeks, “a good occasion to see their spiritual and moral progress.” ^[42]

Catechists’ wages also caused dissent. In 1906, in Chilubula, catechists demanded that their pay be increased from one shilling a week to one shilling for three days’ work; a few catechists were dismissed, but they did receive a slight increase. In 1931, a group of catechists at Ipusukilo threatened not to hold classes unless their wages were increased; they received a stern lecture, and a few were dismissed.^[43] Catechists demanded a tribute of flour in the villages they visited—which they frequently did not receive. During the Depression, catechists were known as kupula, meaning “those who beg for food,” according to the priests, but according to Richards, a derisive term applied to the casual labor that Bemba offered to wealthier households during harvest times, work that was generally spoken of with great contempt.^[44] By 1934, catechists earned two shillings a week, the same as unskilled agricultural laborers earned and far less than the 22/- paid surface workers on the Copperbelt. When not working, catechists lived at the mission and grew their own food.^[45] In 1940, the White Fathers Mission at Mulilansolo did not have enough money to pay catechists regularly for their tours, which, the father superior lamented, “caused them to do the work of God very quickly.” ^[46] In 1943, catechists returned from their tour and returned their books, demanding an increase in salary, “A real revolt!” ^[47]

In 1938, a European in Fort Jameson, in Eastern Province, complained to the boma that the White Fathers at St. Mary’s refused to allow their converts to work for him. The White Fathers insisted that these accusations were false. They claimed that this man ( “a Jew”) had “debauched” the women who worked on his farm, and in protest they had prevented Catholics from working there. Nevertheless, the district commissioner called all the local chiefs to the boma and said, “Be on your guard against this mission, you are not their slaves, missionaries should have no say in this matter.” ^[48] Two years later, the priests at St. Mary’s complained that wartime economies had caused them to enlist reluctant porters. “We do not have enough money for paying porters, so we request that our Christians carry our luggage. Some are strong and good at heart about this, but others need a little prayer and even then will say they are sick just at the moment of departure.” ^[49] In 1948, the father superior of St. Mary’s complained that there seemed no end to wartime and even postwar economies: “The salary of unskilled workers is more than three times that of our catechists…they are leaving us, the best ones especially, and it is this continual change in personnel that makes our mission seem secular.” ^[50] In 1958, the priests were unable to pay their catechists at all, because most of the money for wages had been stolen from a priest’s house.^[51]