Missionaries and the Colonial State: Radicalism and Governance in Rwanda and Burundi, 1900-1972

Catholic and Protestant missionaries followed their own, competing agendas rather than those of the colonial state. This volume unravels these agendas and challenges received wisdom on the histories of Rwanda and Burundi, as well as the colonial relationship between state and mission.

The archives of the White Fathers Catholic missionary order in Rome and Paris are read alongside primary sources produced by the British Protestant Church Missionary Society to analyse their impact between 1900 and 1972 in Rwanda and Burundi. The colonial state was weaker than often assumed, and permeable by external radical influences. Denominational competition between Catholic and Protestant missionaries was a key motor of this radicalism. The colonial state in both kingdoms was a weak, reactive agent rather than a structuring form of power. This volume shows that missionaries were more committed and influential actors, but their inability to manage the mass demand for the education that they sought and delivered finally undermined the achievement of their aims.

Missionaries and the Colonial State is a resource for historians of Christianity, Belgian Africa specialists, and scholars of colonialism.

David Whitehouse is business editor at The Africa Report in Paris. He wrote In Search of Rwanda’s Génocidaires (2014) and co-authored the autobiography of Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy (2013). He is now researching missionary impacts in colonial southeast Asia.