The British Zion: Congregationalism, Politics, and Empire, 1790-1850

4. Missionary Politics in Britain and the Cape Colony

75 4 Missionary Politics in Britain and the Cape Colony In 1825 James Kitchingman, the London Missionary Society (LMS) missionary at Bethelsdorp in the Cape Colony, received a communication from colonial officials regarding the collection of annual property taxes, called the opgaaf. In order to avoid “difficulties experienced at the last opgaaf,” the dispatch instructed Kitchingman to “attend [the] next . . . with a list of [the mission’s] people . . . and to pay for them on the spot.” Furthermore, the missionary “was called upon to pay out of his own pocket, the tax for absentees and defaulters.” Kitchingman declared the orders “both unreasonable and . . . impossible for me to do,” and vigorously protested against the imposition of secular responsibilities that would interfere with his duties as a missionary . “The whole of my time,” he noted in his journal, “will be occupied in this and other things quite foreign to a missionary’s work—it seems hard for a missionary to be almost wholly employed in things so contrary to the object for which he was sent out.”1 Kitchingman’s protests to the colonial authorities fell upon deaf ears, and the missionary turned to John Philip, Resident Director of the LMS in Cape Town, for assistance. Philip also forcefully objected to the efforts of colonial officials to impose upon the missionaries secular duties intended “to annoy and weary them out.” He argued that “devolving such concerns into the hands of a missionary” threatened to make him “a kind of political agent, . . . a tool of government, and an instrument of oppression.” The colonial government had “no more claim” on a missionary’s time than it had “upon his property.” Inasmuch as Africans laboring on white farms were exempt from the tax, 76 The British Zion Philip saw the policy as a concerted effort to “force the mission Khoi into the service of the farmers.” His protests to the Colonial Office in Cape Town led to a quick reversal of the instructions to Kitchingman. The “idea of compelling Mr. Kitchingman to collect the opgaaf, and of making him responsible for the tax,” he wrote, “was abandoned.” The “formidable attempt, which threatened the ruin of [the] missions” was averted.2 Kitchingman’s story reflects something of the complex and contentious relationship between the missionaries of the LMS and the colonial administration of the Cape. Contrary to conventional assumptions about missionaries working “hand in hand with the colonial powers for the subjugation of black people and the territorial extension of the imperialist power,”3 the history of the LMS in early nineteenth-century southern Africa suggests the pervasiveness of real differences between the interests and objectives of the missions, colonial authorities, and the settler community.4 John Philip ’s accusations that colonial officers devised policies intended to “annoy” the missionaries, to “ruin” the missions, and to coerce Africans “into the service” of white settlers reveal the intensity of the antagonism born of a fierce debate over the economic and political future of the Cape Colony. This chapter examines the emergence of mission politics within this debate, its connections to the growth of evangelical politics in Britain. Special attention is given to the central role of John Philip, whose long career and energetic struggles on behalf of the African population made him a pariah among white society, a trusted ally to many Africans, and a heroic figure to supporters of the missionary movement in Britain. The LMS and the Cape Colony Founded in 1652 by the Dutch East India Company, the Cape Colony grew over the next century and a half from a remote outpost to a prosperous colony of white settlement based upon the production of wine, grains, cattle, and sheep. This production depended upon the labor of the indigenous African population of the Cape as well as slaves from the east coast of Africa.5 The arrival of Protestant missionaries from Britain in southern Africa coincided, more or less, with the initial British seizure of the Cape Colony in the mid1790s . At that time the European population consisted primarily of Dutch and German settlers who held substantial authority over the population of slaves and free Africans (principally the indigenous Khoi and San, known to the Europeans as “Hottentots” and “Bushmen,” respectively) who worked as agricultural and domestic servants.6 When the first missionaries of the LMS Missionary Politics 77 arrived at the Cape, the pressures of Dutch colonialism had broken much of the fabric...