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 Periodical article |
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| Title: | The missionary scramble for spheres of influence in Eeastern Nigeria, 1900-1952 |
| Author: | Udo, Edet A. |
| Year: | 1972 |
| Periodical: | Ikenga: Journal of African Studies |
| Volume: | 1 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Pages: | 22-36 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | Nigeria United Kingdom |
| Subjects: | missionary history colonialism |
| Abstract: | In the period before European political imperialism gathered momentum in Africa, Christian mission in what later became Eastern Nigeria were founded by clergymen of African descent - Sierra Leonians and Jamaicans - but headed by European missionaries inured to the tropics. After the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 many missionary sections of Britain determined to share in British imperial exploits. The missionaries were to help carry out the British imperial scheme and were to work hand in hand with the political administrators. The methods used by various missions to carve out their spheres of influence in Eastern Nigeria were similar to those used by the British political officers. Firstly, the missionaries scrambled for spheres of influence; secondly, in a series of delimitation conferences, which began in 1904 and ended in 1932, they partitioned Eastern Nigeria into five denominational districts. Seven main mission bodies dissected Eastern Nigeria into several denomination units -the five British missions had got competition from wholly independently operating missions from France and the USA - which led to devastating results. The process by which the delimitation of the boundaries between the various sects was effected is examined in this paper. Map, notes. |