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Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. 2nd of 3 files Chapters 3 to 8 (page 62 to 265) of WALKING THE RIFT: ALFRED ROBERT TUCKER IN EAST AFRICA IDEALISM AND IMPERIALISM 1890 – 1911 by JOAN PLUBELL MATTIA A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham For the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Theology School of Historical Studies The University of Birmingham 2007 62 CHAPTER THREE THE MARRIAGE QUESTION Arriving in Mombasa harbour on May 14, 1890, sick and weak from unsanitary food preparation on board the “Ethiopian,” Alfred Tucker, third bishop of the immense territory comprising the Diocese of Eastern Equatorial Africa (1890-1899), was greeted with the words, “Cotter dead” by Mr. Bailey, the missionary assigned to meet him. Tucker’s immediate response to this news of the loss of one of the Mombasa missionaries was to acknowledge “the intense anguish of my mind when with such tidings ringing in my ears and feeling physically weak and ill I set foot for the first time on the shores of Africa.”1 It would be far from the last death among the Church Missionary Society personnel in his twenty-one year episcopacy in East Africa but, with the history of death in the East African endeavour and the uncertainty of his own well-being so close at hand, the gravity of the greeting elicited the anxiety laden response recorded above. 2 Yet death would not be the only major issue to face Tucker as he began his ministry on the African mainland. In the environs just on the northern edge of Mombasa a substantial missionary village had grown up over the previous twenty years. Freretown, a community of freed slaves established by the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in 1873 was now under the direction of an English CMS missionary, Harry Kerr Binns (Islington, 1875). Bishop Tucker’s letters give no indication to foreshadow the clash he would experience between imperial tendencies to bring order and law where he found nothing 1 Tucker to Wigram, May 16, 1890, CMS Archives, G3 A5 O/133 2 The first two bishops of the Diocese of Eastern Equatorial Africa died shortly after arrival; James Hannington on Oct. 31, 1885 after only one year and four months of ministry, and Dr. HP Parker on Mar. 26, 1888 after a ministry of exactly the same length. 63 familiar and the need for the Bishop of the emerging implanted church to exercise appropriate spiritual nurture and oversight in sacramental matters. With time being short and arrangements pressing for his initial inward trek to visit the twelve mission stations in the interior of a diocese which spanned present day Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda; Tucker lost no time looking around the Mombasa base camp named Freretown, and was cautiously impressed with what he saw. Here is the girl’s school, here’s the boys and there the church. Hark, what sound is this? It is the evening hymn being sung with a depth of feeling, a precision and beauty of resonance, that would do honour to any school in England…God grant that I may not be disappointed as I penetrate (as I mean to do) beneath the surface.3 But disappointed he eventually became. After only five months in residence in Mombasa interspersed with trips to Uganda, England, Jilore and Chagga, Tucker produced a report for CMS headquarters as to his impression of conditions in Freretown. Much of the report dealt with his assessment of the moral state, lack of vision, and career success of the inhabitants of Freretown which, Tucker felt, emanated from the dormitory system with its lack of night supervision, communal sleeping platforms, and shabby buildings. Tucker’s phrase for the state of affairs at Freretown was “living beneath their privileges.”4 However, in addition, two pages of the report dealt with what became known and referred to in subsequent letters as “the marriage question.” Freretown serves as a microcosm illustrating the clashing of the missionary vision of a shared faith with spiritual equality, and the imperial environment into which this faith was 3 Tucker to Wigram, May 16, 1890, ibid. 4 Tucker to Wigram, June 3, 1892, CMS Archives, G3/A5/O/238. 64 implanted. It was a unique collection of missionary challenges which ranged over a whole series of civil matters; including law, courts, marriage, divorce, personal disputes, education, etc. The matter of marriage is one that surfaces to the greatest extent in the archived letters and so offers greatest detail. Jeffrey Cox observes that quite frequently it is within the institutions adopted or established in the mission field that the rubbing of the two tectonic plates of universal Christian religious values and the imperial context of those values is the most easily recognizable5. Since marriage is one of the most basic institutions of any society it is not surprising that the tension would be articulated in the “marriage question.” It would be a matter of great importance to the missionaries in the field, the administrators at CMS headquarters, and the initial personnel of the Imperial British East Africa Company, as they all sought to interact with the collected community of Freretown and with the imported Muslim government of Mombasa. This study will, first of all, describe the practice that had developed in the Freretown mission village regarding marriage, Tucker’s response to this practice, and the Church Missionary Society’s contributions to the evolving situation. Secondly, it will analyze this interaction in the light of the theory of “tectonic plates.” As the marriage question unfolds, other civil matters are used to bring context to the discussion. But first it is necessary to describe and review the concept of the mission village. 5 Jeffrey Cox, Imperial Fault Lines: Christianity and Colonial Power in India, 1818 – 1940 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), p. 8 and also p. 18. 65 THE MISSION VILLAGE Yates traces the beginnings of the mission village to West Africa around 1816 with the visit of Edward Bickersteth of the CMS to the makeshift settlements developing around Freetown in Sierra Leone.6 Bickersteth, a former solicitor turned priest, was quick to see the potential of the gathered masses for the ranks of the church, partnering with the government who provided schools and churches while the CMS paid for and recruited teachers. The concept of a missionary controlled African community spread to other locations.7 Freretown, on the East African coast, was one among many; others mentioned by Hastings include Kuruman, Bethelsdorp, Theopolis, and Genadendal. Although the inhabitants of mission villages were not forced to live there, in the areas where the villages thrived the alternatives were often tenuous; sometimes involving tribal warfare, or social dislocation due to slavery or the blending of multiple cultures, such as along the Swahili coast. When African power was strong, such as in the Ugandan part of Tucker’s diocese, mission villages were small or non existent. But where African authority was weak, the villages grew and where African leaders were non-existent the leaders of the mission villages became civil authorities.8 Such was the case at Bagamoyo, the White Father’s enterprise on the Tanzanian coast, Robert Moffat’s village of Kuruman in southern African and at Freretown, only nominally under the auspices of the Sultan of Zanzibar. 6 T. E. Yates, Venn and Victorian Bishops Abroad (London: SPCK, 1978), p. 113. 7 Adrian Hastings, The Church in Africa 1450-1950. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 209ff. Also the classic contribution of R. W. Strayer, The Making of Mission Communities in East Africa: Anglicans and Africans in Colonial Kenya, 1875 – 1935. (New York: Heinemann, 1978). 8 Hastings, p. 211. 66 Although the freed slave villages could be seen as a type of reservation, a place to put dislocated slaves, the missionaries saw them as a place to evangelize, educate, and demonstrate an alternative civilization. This civilization was sometimes equated with English culture but other times drew, perhaps unconsciously, upon a concept which can be recognized in the monastic traditions of England’s history: the colony of heaven. Hastings points out that the colony concept was strong in the Moravian/Pietistic communities having a hallmark of withdrawal from the world, as in the Basel Missions on the Gold Coast. But for missionaries with a state church background such as the Anglicans, even those with a pietistic spirituality, withdrawal from the world was not a well-worn path. They were much more comfortable stepping into the role of civil authority.9 The missionaries saw the operation of mission villages as “a practical way to begin the Christianization of Africa, as some sort of natural extension to their own household and domestic life-style,”10 a phrase which again calls to mind the alternative domestic life- style of the pioneer monastic communities from Ireland to England, such as Lindesfarne. The mission villages obtained a similar function, becoming a bridge between Christianity and Africans. But, to summarize Hastings, it was a bridge that would become a cul-de- sac.11 In the absence of shared traditions and customs the villages were sometimes hard to manage, with violent elements not interested in conversion but still needing care.