ACTIVITIES AND WORK OF THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES IN EAST AFRICA 1. The Christian missionaries taught and spread Christianity among different communities in East Africa. 2. They built churches as centres for spreading Christianity and worshipping God. 3. They fought against slave trade and resettled slaves at Frere, Bagamoyo and Zanzibar. 4. The Christian missionaries introduced legitimate trade after their abolition of slave trade. 5. They built schools for Africans and taught religion, arithmetic, writing and reading. 6. They trained civil servants, for example doctors, nurses, teachers, and drivers among others. 7. They encouraged technical education, where they taught the Africans the knowledge of brick making, brick laying, farming, cookery, and craft work among others. 10 | P a g e 8. They translated the bible into local languages, for example to Kiswahili and Luganda. 9. They also encouraged the spread of western culture and values, for example fashions, eating habits, dressing and so on. 10. The Christian missionaries discouraged African cultural practices like human sacrifice, murder of twins, worshipping idols and witchcraft. 11. They assisted the colonial rulers to sign political agreements, for example Buganda agreement of 1900. 12. They made East African people to accept colonial rule through their sweet preaching like “blessed are the humble for the kingdom of God is theirs”. That is why it is said that the flag followed the cross. 13. They built hospitals and health centres to provide treatment to mostly the Africans. 14. The Christian missionaries then introduced the use of modern medicine to cure tropical diseases, for example quinine to cure malaria. 15. They constructed roads for easy movement of people and transportation of commodities. 16. The Christian missionaries introduced new crops such as coffee, cotton, tea and tobacco among others. 17. They introduced plantation farming, that is to say farming on a large scale.
Posts