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Prelude to m’zungu colonisation of Africa

"Veni, Vidi,"

The early African converts to Christianity were made to abandon their ancestral culture

and way of life as 'pagan' therefore to be shunned. Indeed, in some situations, the
converts were taught to feel that they were absolved from obeying their own traditional

rulers and certain laws of the state. These trends occasionally brought kings into conflict
with the missionaries and their converts.

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Christian converts were indoctrinated to frown upon the use of indigenous first names in

favour of 'Christian' ones. Often drumming and the harmless songs and dances of the
people were condemned.

***
As happened in parts of Yorubaland in the last century, some of the Christian
missionaries often engaged in local politics and took an active part in helping the

colonial authorities in their wars of territorial expansion.

“Christian Missionary Activities in West Africa" 21
History Textbook

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Church Mission Society
" The Church Mission Society (CMS), formerly known as the Church Missionary Society,

is a British mission society working with the Anglican Communion and Protestant
Christians around the world. Founded in 1799.

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In the first 25 years of the CMS nearly half the missionaries were Germans trained in

Berlin and later from the Basel Seminary.[8] The Church Missionary Society College,
Islington, opened in 1825 and trained about 600 missionaries; about 300 joined the CMS
from universities and about 300 came from other sources.

***
The principal [Africa] missions, the founding missionaries, and the dates of the

establishment of the missions are:

West Africa (1804): Melchior Renner and Peter Hartwig were sent to the Pongo River, the
country of the Susu people in Guinea. The West Africa mission was extended to Sierra

Leone (1816). Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a Yoruba by birth, was selected to accompany the
missionary James Schön on the Niger expedition of 1841. Crowther (later appointed first

African Anglican bishop in Nigeria) was the principal missionary to Yorubaland in 1844
and the Niger in 1857.