Slave Emancipation, Christian Communities, and Dissent in Post-Abolition Tanzania, 1878-1978

Book excerpt: The first historical account of the dramatic growth of Christianity in Western Tanzania during the twentieth century and of the role of former slaves in this process. Examining the intersection of post-slavery and evangelism, this book shows the ways that former slaves from a variety of linguistic and cultural backgrounds came together to create new communities in the Christian missions of western Tanzania. It shows how converts adapted to Christianity and, at the same time, shaped it through their translations of the Bible and other religious texts into the Kinyamwezi language, integrating concepts from their own cultures and experiences of slavery. Working as teachers, pastors, and catechists, former slaves and their descendants laid the basis for the growth of African Christianity in the region, and the book pays particular attention to women's agency in creating spaces for negotiating kinship ties and mutual relations with the wider communities. It also delves into the range of missionary sources to show the experience of lay Christians who opposed religious authority in Catholic and Moravian missions, examining the division caused by catechists' demands for equality of status, recognition, and appropriate pay in the context of ujamaa and the turmoil brought about by the revival movement. Through narratives of religious experience from multiple missions and village outstations, the book shows how former slaves created a Kinyamwezi-speaking Christian culture, taking inspiration both from European missionaries and neighbouring African villagers, and became part of evolving rural communities in the inter-war period, enabling their descendants to achieve a significant degree of social mobility.