New book explores Jamaican contribution to African mission

[...] In chapter one, Dr. Wariboko explained the reasons offered for European interest in the evangelisation of Africa, and in particular West Africa. He said that "At the end of the slave trade, Europeans were intent on correcting the wrong afflicted on African conscience, African mind and the African body."

The recruitment and placement of Jamaican missionaries, he said, was the product of collaboration among the Church Missionary Society, Church of England in Jamaica, and the Niger Mission which was based in Nigeria. The Church Missionary Society, he said, recruited missionaries at a time when the 'Back to Africa Movement' was strong.

The historical evidence, he said, shows that the Church Missionary Society did not show the recruits their contract of employment until they got to Africa. In Nigeria, they were told that having arrived there, they could not return to Jamaica, not even for vacation.

Contract document
The recruits were told that they had to make Africa their home. The contract document, Dr. Wariboko said, was negotiated by the then Anglican Bishop of Jamaica, Enos Nuttall, after whom the Nuttall Hospital in St. Andrew is named.

"The trick was that if they made Africa, their home, then the Church Missionary Society would pay them like an African, which was much lower than their Caucasian missionary counterparts. The pay for one European missionary could pay for 20 African missionaries, excluding health benefits, transportation. However, the Jamaican missionaries, insisted on being treated like their white European counterparts," Dr. Wariboko said.

The UWI academic concluded that the missionary programme was intrinsically built on race sentiments. Read more