The development of the White Fathers' Mission among the Bemba speaking peoples, 1891-1964

• Main Author: Garvey, Brian
• Published: SOAS, University of London 1974
• Subjects: 266.0096894
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.456289

The study which follows began as a research project while the author was working at Mulobola mission in the area of Chief Kabwibwi in nineteen sixty eight. With the encouragement of Professor Orner-Cooper of the University of Zambia and Mr D.K. Fieldhouse, a former tutor, of Nuffield College, Oxford, a year was spent at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, under the supervision, which continued throughout the project, of Dr., later Professor, J.R. Gray. Financial support during this year came from the British Province of the Society of Missionaries of Africa, White Fathers, and a further research period in Zambia in 1972 was financed by the Central Research Fund of the University of London, and the Scholarships Committee of the School of Oriental and African Studies. The first drafts of the thesis were written while the author was Head of the History Department at the Isaac Newton Comprehensive School for Boys, North Kensington, and the work was completed in Lusaka while the writer was working at the School of Education of the University of Zambia. In an historiographical study of 1965 Professor J.R.Gray pointed out the considerable lacunae in the written historical accounts of Roman Catholic missionary effort in Africa. What has been published so far has tended either to describe the general activities of the missionary orders, or to deal with specific events in mission history on a limited time scale. No social or pastoral studies have been made of catholic mission communities to the depth demonstrated by Canon Taylor in his works on Uganda and the Copperbelt. M. Bureau's article and the work of Fr.Hastings have perhaps come nearest to that. In Zambia itself the oatholic missions have fared badly in the standard works of local history. Both Gann and Hall describe Bishop Dupont and his exploits but are little concerned to mention the White Fathers mission in other contexts except to refer to the disputes between the catholic missionaries and their London Missionary Society or Dutch Reformed Church rivals. professor Rotberg does not consider missionary activity beyond 1924 in his provocative work, and even before that limits most of his attention to the experiences of the London Missionary Society and the Universities' Mission to Central Africa.