The Pères Blancs Mission and the Colonial State: Radicalism and Governance in Rwanda and Burundi, 1900-1972

Abstract

The colonial state in Rwanda and Burundi is found to be weaker than often assumed, and permeable by external radical influences. Denominational competition between Catholic and Protestant missionaries is examined as a key motor of this radicalism. The more centralised political geography of Rwandan in comparison to Burundi is used to explain the divergence between missionary attitudes in the two kingdoms. The colonial state in both kingdoms is seen as a weak, reactive agent rather than a structuring form of power. Missionaries are seen as more committed and influential actors, but their inability to manage the mass demand for the education that they delivered finally undermined the achievement of their aims. The commonly accepted hypothesis that colonialism widened the gulf between Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda and Burundi as missionaries focused on educating elite Tutsis before World War Two is critically examined. A deeper, pro-Hutu continuity in missionary practise from the arrival of the Société des Missionnaires d’Afrique, more usually referred to as the Pères Blancs, in 1900 until Rwanda's Social Revolution of 1959 is discussed and related to the anti-slavery agenda developed in the late nineteenth century by the order's founder, Charles Lavigerie. Influenced by the difficulties of Burundi’s political geography, Catholic missionaries here are found to be more conservative. The archives of the Pères Blancs Catholic missionary order in Paris are read alongside primary sources produced by the British Protestant Church Missionary Society to analyse their impact between 1900 and 1959 in Rwanda and Burundi. The Africa Archive at the Foreign Office in Brussels is used for context on the relationships of the missions with the Belgian state.