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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Church, State and Society in Colonial Cameroon |
Author: | Joseph, Richard A. |
Year: | 1980 |
Periodical: | International Journal of African Historical Studies |
Volume: | 13 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 5-32 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Kamerun |
Subjects: | missions colonial conquest education Religion and Witchcraft colonialism History and Exploration |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/218370 |
Abstract: | After a brief survey of missionary intervention during the immediate precolonial period along the Cameroon's coast, the present article goes on to consider some of the special problems generated by the successive involvement of British, German and French colonial forces as well as their associated religious fraternities. The missionaries are discussed in terms of their unique role as intermediaries between the colonial authorities and the colonised peoples. Special attention is paid to the twin areas of education and language in which the missions made their greatest secular impact, but where the State's concern for promoting basic literacy and numeracy, the Church's interest in indoctrination and practical training, and the African's wish to be prepared for remunerative careers could never be fully reconciled. The struggle of the indigenous Baptist churchmen to be more self-determining and selective in their socioreligious practices paves the way for a closer examination of the crusade of the gifted nationalist preacher, Lotin Same, and the array of political and cultural issues which became interwoven with his religious activities. Notes. |