3- . SoCtU w K.Uoie^i o. American BoartJ of (Commissioners for JForrign iBisstons. THE South African Mission, Rhodesian Branch. (Formerly called The East Central African Mission.) A CONDENSED SKETCH. I 1893-1007. i I Mi h AIM ■ - BOSTON: ^rtiitctt for tije &mtrlcan Boats. ) j t 1907. PRESS OF SAMUEL USHER, BOSTON, MASS. RHODESIAN BRANCH OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MISSION. i . The Origin. — This mission is at once tht foreign missionary enterprise of the Zulu mission in Natal, and an independent movement to reach the tribes in the interior of Africa with the gospel. The mission to the Zulus in Southern Africa began seventy-two years ago at two points — one in Natal called the maritime mission, and the other in the heart of the continent, about two degrees south of the Tropic of Capricorn, called the interior mission. And although the latter was abandoned as soon as begun (in con¬ sequence of wars between the Dutch boers and the natives), from an early day in its history the Zulu mission has cherished this hope with which it was planted, and has cast its eyes upon the regions beyond Natal, in Zululand and the Gaza Country, northeast of the Limpopo River, and Matabeleland, as a field to which its labors might at some time extend. This territory is occupied by tribes kindred to the natives of Natal, and the Zulu tongue is generally under¬ stood. The hope has been cherished that the native Christians would be drawn into this work, and thus the expansive impulse of a real foreign 3 missionary effort be added to the forces which were developing the mission churches. Various projects looking to this end have been consid¬ ered from time to time ; but political complica¬ tions and scanty numbers in the mission staff, and a certain lack of zeal among the natives, combined to prevent any active movement for many years. At length, with the impulse given to our knowledge of Central Africa and its peoples, and to missionary zeal in their behalf, especially by the explorations of Livingstone and Stan¬ ley, this long cherished purpose awoke to new strength, and preliminary steps were taken. In the Annual Meeting of the Zulu mission for 1879 the matter was taken up in earnest, thor¬ oughly considered, and a plan of operations formed. Rev. Myron W. Pinkerton, one of the younger members of the mission, was authorized to make explorations in Umzila’s kingdom, be¬ tween the Limpopo and the Zambezi, with refer¬ ence to the proposed new mission. After careful preparations he set out July 8, 1880, with one American and one Christian native. The expe¬ dition was wisely planned; great kindness and help were received from the Portuguese author¬ ities, and everything seemed to promise success, when suddenly Mr. Pinkerton was prostrated by fever and died November 10, and was buried on the way from the sea to Umzila’s kraal. 4 The next year Rev. E. H. Richards was sent by the Zulu mission to take up the task of ex¬ ploration where Mr. Pinkerton had laid it down. Umzila’s kraal, the capital of the kingdom, was reached October io, 1881, without special inci¬ dent ; and, after a full conference with the king, the desired permission was given to open the new mission whenever the Americans should choose to come. It was ascertained that Zulu was the court language and was generally understood even by the tribes tributary to Umzila, whose vernacular was a dialect kindred to the Zulu. 2. The Location and Beginnings. — In November, 1882, Rev. William C. Wilcox, des¬ ignated to assist Mr. Richards in opening the new mission, requested permission to go forward alone and explore the region around Inhambane Bay. Permission was given to begin the new mission at this point, with the expectation that after due exploration and the arrival of needful reinforcements a steady advance would be made toward the tribes in the interior. Mr. Wilcox, with his family, went forward in July, 1883, t0 establish the mission, which has since received the name of the East Central African Mission. In 1884 Mr. Wilcox was joined by Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Richards and by Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Ousley. Mr. and Mrs. Ousley had been edu¬ cated in the schools of the American Missionary s Association, graduating at Fisk University. The three families settled at separate stations, Mong- vve, Kambini, and Makodvveni, all near to each other and to the Bay. Zulu helpers came to their assistance, and the work of teaching, preaching, and Bible translation went on uneventfully until 1888, when Rev. and Mrs. Francis W. Bates and Miss Nancy Jones reinforced the mission. Miss Jones was the first single woman of African descent ever commissioned by the American Board. The malarial climate of the coast proved ex¬ tremely unhealthful to several of the missionaries. This fact, combined with an unchanged purpose on the part of the Board to push forward as soon as possible to the sites originally chosen among the tribes of the interior highlands, oc¬ casioned a second expedition to Umzila’s country, now called Gazaland. This region lies along the eastern coast, from Delagoa Bay northward to the mouth of the Zambesi and extends inland from 150 to 200 miles. Mr. Bates accompanied Mr. Wilder of the Zulu Mission, but the journey was fruitless as to its main object. Gungunyana, the successor of Umzila, had given his confidence to Portuguese missionaries, and declined to re¬ ceive other white men. A change of climate had become imperative for Mr. Bates, and in 1889 he and his wife were transferred to the Zulu Mission. Mrs. Richards’ 6 severe sufferings from malaria necessitated the return of that family to the United States, and in 1890 they were released from their connection with the Board. Mr. and Mrs. Ousley were also obliged to resign on account of ill health. Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox, who had withdrawn from the mission in 1887, were reappointed early in 1891 and went immediately to the field. Rev. and Mrs. Fred. R. Bunker and W. L. Thompson, M.D., also joined the mission in 1891. At that time the removal of Gungunyana to the southward and the openings made by the British into Gazaland made the moment favorable for a new effort to reach the location chosen from the first. Mr. Wilcox and Dr. Thompson under¬ took another journey inland, and on the way received from the Honorable Cecil Rhodes, the South African premier, the promise of a tract of 3,000 acres of land for each missionary family, on the plateau above Umzila’s old kraal, now under the British protectorate. Gungunyana also gave free permission for the entrance of missionaries. The explorers found the region offered them to be a beautiful country, at an elevation of about 4,000 feet above the sea, well Watered and well wooded, and inhabited by a friendly people. They marked out a site upon the slope of Mt. Silinda, 200 miles from the coast, and just within the line of the British protectorate. It was a semi-circular opening in the forest which clothed 7 the mountain side, and it overlooked a fertile valley stretching far below. The trees were the finest they had seen in Africa. It was a pleasure to find that the mark made by Mr. Rhodes upon the map as the place for the mission exactly corresponded with their own selection. Still another careful exploration was made by Messrs. Wilder, Bunker and Thompson in 1892. All things confirmed the choice and favored the new departure, and a pioneer company set out on the twenty-first of June, 1893, for Gazaland. The party included Mr. and Mrs. Wilder of the Zulu Mission, with their children; Mr. and Mrs. Bunker and Miss Jones; Dr. and Mrs. Thomp¬ son, and Mr. Bates. Mrs. Bates and her little children returned to America until the mission should be somewhat established. Several Zulu helpers accompanied the missionaries. They traveled by steamer to the mouth of the Buzi River and by canoes and on foot the remaining distance, the rear of the party reaching Mt. Silinda on the nineteenth of October, 1893. On a few days of this long and toilsome journey some of the ladies walked over twenty miles, en¬ during the tramp bravely. On the way, as they camped by night in the lowlands, they had suf¬ fered much from fever, but the mountain air soon checked it and they found the climate both healthful and agreeable. Their temporary huts were soon completed. 8 Most of them were of circular form with conical roofs, built of rough sticks, plastered with mud, and having floors of pounded earth. On the thirtieth of November they held a thanksgiving service. At that date they could report the be¬ ginning of a boys’ school and four out-stations at which regular Sunday services were held, the Zulu helpers proving a most valuable assistance. The Zulu language was understood by the people, though it was not their own tongue. As early as the following March, 1894, there were converts to the truth. The active opposi¬ tion of neighboring Boer colonists had been overcome, and the missionaries had begun to build permanent houses. They taught the natives to make bricks, and to assist in laying the walls, sawing the timber, and putting in the sashes. The land granted to the mission was in two blocks, twenty miles apart, and the grant was conditioned upon both tracts being occupied. Mr. Wilder was chosen to open the second tract, on the side of Mt. Chikore, and he settled there in 1895, and a wagon road was built be¬ tween that place and Mt. Silinda. His health suffered severely from the hard labor incident to the undertaking, without proper assistance, and it was feared that he would be obliged to leave the mission. This trial was, however, mercifully averted by a season of rest in Natal. In that year Mr. Bates came to America for 9 SKETCH MAP OF THE REGION ABOUT his family, and in 1896 they went to Gazaland, accompanied by Miss H. J. Gilson. Miss Gilson went to found a boarding school, in which she hoped to educate the children of both natives and colonists. She had had special preparation for this work in several years as a teacher in the Huguenot schools of Cape Colony and among missionaries in Natal. This party made the journey from Beira to Mt. Silinda, which had occupied the pioneers three months, in fifteen days. A railroad had now been built for 165 miles inland from Beira, and a wagon road for a part of the remaining way. In this year, 1896, many were presenting them¬ selves for church membership, and, after careful instruction and thorough examination, the first church in Gazaland was formed in January, 1897, with sixteen members, all on profession of their faith. This joy supported the little isolated band of missionaries through a long season of tem¬ poral distress caused by a visitation of locusts, destroying the crops, and by the widespread destruction of cattle by rinderpest, followed by famine and sickness among the natives. The boarding pupils of the school had to be sent to their distant homes, but they did a truly remarkable evangelistic work among their own people. The hearts of the missionaries had before this time been made glad by a like Chris- tian activity among some of their lads who had gone 120 miles eastward to their homes, and whose labors resulted in the professed conversion of twenty persons. Miss Gilson’s school of boys and girls quickly recovered itself, with the passing away of the famine. Mr. Bates taught in the boys’ depart¬ ment. In 1899 there were one hundred pupils enrolled, sixty of whom were boarders. Of those enrolled, twenty-five were girls; ten of them were in Miss Gilson’s family. Sixty-two were from heathen homes, the rest from the families of the Zulu evangelists and of European and Boer settlers. Both blacks and whites had come in considerable numbers to live near the mission land, knowing that they would be pro¬ tected there, and they readily responded to calls for whatever labor the mission could afford to employ. One of the church members was a white pupil whose father was at first bitterly opposed to a mixed school for blacks and whites, averring that the whites would never send their children to such a school. Prejudices were removed and Miss Gilson’s cherished hope began to be fulfilled of preparing white pupils for Christian service in the land, thus multiplying the laborers in that wide harvest-field. A growing interest among the Europeans in the work for the natives prom¬ ised well for the future. The older white girls 13 were most earnest and enthusiastic students, some of them having been able to assist as pupil teach¬ ers. At one time they were learning from the wife of a Zulu evangelist to read the Zulu New Testament, so that after leaving school they might be able to teach the natives upon their home farms. Most of the young church members are com¬ mending the gospel by their lives and by their words. Some of them have gone down as evan¬ gelists to the lowlands, where our missionaries cannot live, and have shown good abilities and genuine devotion. Others have gone daily, after the morning hours of labor and of study, to teach a kraal school, below the station. In April, 1899, Dr. and Mrs. Thompson came for a furlough to America, worn down by the strain of medical and manual labor; and in March, 1900, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. T. Lawrence, M.D., sailed to join the mission, and were assigned to the Chikore station. But even with this welcome reinforcement, the number of mission families is only five, instead of the six originally considered indispensable. Mr. and Mrs. Bunker withdrew in 1896 to an important work in Natal, and Miss Jones retired from the mission in 1897. The mission has had a varied experience in the recent years. In 1904 Mr. Bates was obliged by alarming illness to return with his family to 14 this country, and he has finally resigned his connection with the mission. Mr. C. C. Fuller, accompanied by his wife, went to Mt. Silinda in 1902 to take charge of an industrial work al¬ ready started. With almost superhuman labors he succeeded in bringing in from the coast a traction steam engine, by the aid of which sub¬ stantial progress has been made. Mt. Silinda has an abundance of arable land, a magnificent forest, a good water supply, and it is surrounded by intelligent natives who are preferred as labor¬ ers, by miners and other employers, to all other tribes. And unless the mission shall train the hand as well as the head and heart, it is doomed to failure. It cannot keep the young people always in its immediate care. The young Chris¬ tians must receive such training as will enable them to rise above the fearful temptations of the kraals and by skillful labor to establish Christian homes and secure such things as are needed for a civilized life. There is a bright prospect, also, that the industrial department, if properly manned, may become not only self- supporting, but remunerative, and a skilled mechanic is imperatively called for as a co¬ laborer with Mr. Fuller. In 1902 Miss H. J. Gilson was transferred from Mt. Silinda to Melsetter, the location of the British Resident representing the South Africa Company, where a school for the white is children of the colony was established. The company meets the expenses of this school. It was believed that there was no work more essential for the colored people than the educa¬ tion of the colonists through their children to a Christian view of their relations to the natives. For the natives also, an evening school has been kept, with the assistance in both of Miss Minnie Clarke, and they wait for the day when the colonists will be so far enlightened as to allow of teaching both races together. Miss Gilson’s place at Mt. Silinda has been taken by Miss Julia F. Winter, who joined the mission in 1904. In 1905 that station was reinforced by the coming of Rev. and Mrs. Thomas King, and it still enjoys the devoted services of Dr. and Mrs. Thompson, the pioneers, and Mr. and Mrs. Fuller. Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Wilder are now alone at Chikore, Dr. Lawrence having gone to England to comply with the government law that no physician shall receive license to practise med¬ icine unless he has a degree from a British medical school. In 1903 a deputation consisting of Rev. E. E. Strong, d.d., and Rev. Sydney Strong, d.d., the latter accompanied by his wife, was sent by the American Board to South Africa, and went on to Rhodesia. They were surprised and gratified by the progress made in the ten years l6 since the mission was fairly begun, and were led to anticipate great results in the future. The Zulu evangelists from Natal had proved to be successful in gathering congregations in a number of places adjacent to the stations. In both of them new helpers are needed in suffi¬ cient force to allow of an advance into the valley of the Sabi River, now wholly unevangelized. This mission is so closely related to that in Natal that they have been practically united under the name of The American Board’s Mission in South Africa, having two branches, the Zulu and the Rhodesian. A link between them has been formed at Beira, on the coast, six hundred miles north of Durban, Natal. Here Rev. Mr. Bunker and his family were located in 1904, ac¬ companied by Zulu evangelists, in the expecta¬ tion of reaching not only the people of that port, but the populations along the coast toward the interior, especially in the valley of the river Busi. The Portuguese officials have put many obstructions in the way, but Mr. Bunker is still pursuing his work hopefully. Amid the toils, delays and difficulties of founding homes and planting a church in the wilderness, the hearts of the missionaries have been strengthened by the evident blessing of God upon their endeavors, and by the fair promise of the future. They are faithfully and nobly doing their part, the Lord of the harvest J 7 is owning their labors, and it only remains that His people in our favored land should never fail of giving them a constant sympathy and an abundant support. SOUTH AFRICAN MISSION, 1907. RHODESIAN BRANCH. The dates given below indicate the time when each individual joined either the Zulu or Rhode¬ sian Branch of the South African Mission. Rev. George A. Wilder, D.D., Chikore. 1880 Mrs. Alice C. Wilder. 1880 William L. Thompson, M.D., Mt. Silinda.. 1891 Mrs. Mary E. Thompson. 1889 Miss H. Juliette Gilson, Melsetter. 1896 William T. Lawrence, M.D., Chikore. 1900 Mrs. Florence E. Lawrence. 1900 Mr Columbus C. Fuller, Mt. Silinda. 1902 Mrs. Julia B. Fuller. 1902 Miss Julia F. Winter, Mt. Silinda. 1904 Rev. Thomas King, Mt. Silinda. 1905 Mrs. Estelle R. King. 1905 Rev. and Mrs. Fred R. Bunker occupy Beira, the inter¬ mediate station between the Zulu and Rhodesian branches of the South African Mission, having joined the mission in 1891, opening work at Beira in 1905. : .... • i . 7 J * • »