Sisters in Spirit

Front matter

SISTERS SPIRIT

Christianity, Affect, and Community Building in East Africa, 1860-1970 a C. Sisters In Spirit: Chri iia niy Affect d Community B anaing Ip East Africa, 1860-1970. g. MI: Michigan noae eh rsity Pre: $2017, hath s://doi org/10.14321/9781611862409. ara ae alf of Unknown In:

Sisters in Spirit

CHAPTER 2. From Slaves to Christian Mothers: Developing

a Doctrine of Female Evangelism, 1863-1877

CHAPTER 3. Industrials and Schoolgirls: Bonds of Personal Dependency and the Mbweni Girls’ School, 1877—1890 CHAPTER 4. Networks of Affective Spirituality: Evangelism and Expansion, 1890-1930

CHAPTER 5. Of Marriages and Mimbas: Minding the Borders of the Christian Community, 1910-1930

CHAPTER 6. I Am a Spiritual Mother: Affect, Celibacy, and Social Reproduction, 1920-1970

CHAPTER 7. The Intimacies of National Belonging: Community Building in Post-Independence Tanzania, 1960-1970

Epilogue

A NOTE ON SOURCES NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

Prichard, Andreana C. Sisters In Spirit: Christianity, Affect, and Community Building In East Africa, 1860-1970. E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2017, https://doi.org/10.14321/978161 1862409. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution

Prichard, Andreana C. Sisters In Spirit: Christianity, Affect, and Community Building In East Africa, 1860-1970. E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2017, https://doi.org/10.14321/978161 1862409. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution

Acknowledgments ne of the greatest myths about writing is that it is a solitary occupation,

a lonesome pursuit, something done locked away from the world. The

process of writing this book was anything but; I was sustained and en-

couraged by a network of people and institutions. In fact, much like the spiritual community discussed in the pages that follow, this physical book both is the product of and engendered a great many connections and relationships—some intellectual and some professional, with a great many others based in friendship, comradery, faith, curiosity, family, and love—all of which span generations and continents.

The heart of this book is in Zanzibar and Tanzania, and would not have been written without the cooperation and engagement of colleagues and friends there. The Right Reverend Maimbo Mndolwa, Bishop of Tanga and Dr. John Kabudi generously provided contacts as well as intellectual and professional support. Mama Salma, Asha, and Salma welcomed me to Arusha with an intensive—in every sense of the word!—introduction to Kiswahili and to Tanzanian culture. Omega Ray is a patient, good-humored, and wise teacher. I am grateful to Mama Rashidi and to Diana Carvalho and her lovely family. Hellen Didas was a kindred spirit far from home. Irene Mashasi, Amina Iddy, Tom, and Robert assisted with research

Prichard, Andreana C. Sisters In Spirit: Christianity, Affect, and Community Building In East Africa, 1860-1970. E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2017, https://doi.org/10.14321/9781611862409. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution x | Acknowledgments and translation. In Zanzibar, Mama and Baba Zeyn (Ali Aboud Mzee and Khadija binti Issa) and their children charmed me in many ways, not least of which was their spirited work for the 2008 Obama campaign.

Parishioners of former UMCA churches and descendants of UMCA congregants generously shared with me their memories, perspectives, and ideas. Iam humbled to offer them my gratitude here: Margaret Amani, Joseph Apiuwa, Philip Baji, Margreth Philipo Bendera, Margaret Bartlett Carere, George Chambai, Margaret Chilumba, Agatha Joyce Chilunda, Father Amani Chitemo, Zainabu Dhahabu, Angela Charles Diwi, Charles Diwi, Edina George, Father Simon Habils, Matayo Hassani, Cecila Hemedi, Alfred Hemedi, Agnes Paulina Heri, Mama Juma, Leila Henry Kaleza, John Keto, Mary Rafael Kigo, Dorcus Kijazi, Lillian Kiondo, Tom Kwetukia, Monica Livinga, Marion Grace Lucas, Mary Diwi Lugendo, Prisca Emile Lutakamale, Steven Chambi Makala, Grace Makao, Joyce Mhando Mapunda, Sophia Herbert Masewa, Christine Mbaruku, Frank Mcharuru, Reverend Mathew Mhagama, John Mhina, Maria Petro Mhina, Basil Mkate, Irene Bartlett Mkoka, John Peter Mnyambu, Stella Mnyambu, Judith Atanasio Mokiwa, Frank Mselemu, Mary Muhina, Esta Musa, Mary Mvungi, Violet Namala, Christopher Njema, Florence Njema, “Mzee Nyangi,” Chief Justice Augustino Ramadhani, Bishop John Ramadhani, Bridgeth Ramadhani, Alice Salimu, Veronica Milly Sambila, Philipo Magembe Sekomba, Basil Sembano, Agatha Semhando, Harold Semhando, Vicar General Elias Sengano, Mzee Simpindu, Jane Sudi, Mzee Sudi, Peter Sudi, Phoebe Suri, Nassur Tajiri Ali, Alfred Tandau, Margaret Tandau, Margaret Waimu, and Josephine Wakati. Some people, such as Bibi Miriam, Mama Kate, Francis the Choirmaster, Tom, Auntie Phoebe, Father Mathew, Bibi Miriam, Mama Joyce, and Mzee Christopher, wished to be known by first names. Sisters of the Community of the Sacred Passion and of Chama cha Mariamu Mtakatifu generally wished me to employ pseudonyms. I appreciate their contributions, as well as the contributions of those interlocutors wishing to remain entirely anonymous. This book belongs to all of them.

Some relationships forged in East Africa spanned continents. While in East Africa and since, I enjoyed the friendship of fellow travelers: Alisa Alano, Jim Brennan, Marita Ebil, Bre Grace, Josh Grace, Amy Jamison, Priya Lal, and Rachel Taylor. The staff at MS-TCDC are phenomenal and I've been honored to work with them.

Back at home, my colleagues at Northwestern helped me produce a dissertation. I thrived in the company of wonderful fellow graduate students: James Coltrain, Jesse Eaves, Erik Johnson and Noah Blan (the Power Tri), Pamela Khanakwa, Nate Mathews, Tom Rudczynski, Andrea Ferber Seligman, Marygrace

Prichard, Andreana C. Sisters In Spirit: Christianity, Affect, and Community Building In East Africa, 1860-1970. E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2017, https://doi.org/10.14321/9781611862409. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution

Acknowledgments | xi

Tyrrell, Zachary Wright, and many others. I owe much to the faculty and staff in Northwestern’s History Department, to the staff at the Melville J. Herskovits Africana Library, and to the folks at the Program for African Studies. I am also grateful for Jeanne Herrick, Renee Redd, Angela Johnson, and Elizabeth Pardoe. David Schoenbrun has an enviably endless supply of creative, stimulating questions that allowed me to see my work and others’ in a new light. He is patient, kind, and generous with his feedback. Jonathon Glassman was a demanding and rigorous advisor, and I owe him as much for enduring my stubborn tenacity as I do for his insightful, incisive, and challenging scholarly instruction. Jon’s scholarship is sensitive and thoughtful, and anything that is good in these pages is due to his mentorship and guidance.

Friends in Evanston and elsewhere provided a network of support, acceptance, and love that made all the academic work possible during those years. The Bahr family, Cindy Hogan, and Caroline Jevon were the best neighbors, and Heather, Chris, and Ella Ward were a great surprise upon my return from Tanzania. Sarah Holcomb and Brett Holcomb have been a treasured anchor in my life, as have Jim Steen, Marcie Steen, and Tori Steen—bear hugs, margaritas, and fierce, loud laughter are some of their many gifts. Erin-Marie Legacey, who from the first day of graduate school has been the merriest of traveling companions on this harrowing journey, believes so strongly in her friends that failure seems impossible. Hayward Kwit embodies the perfect balance of wisdom and whimsy—she is an amazing woman, a terrific mother, and a true friend.

My faculty and staff colleagues in the Honors College at the University of Oklahoma are dedicated teachers and incredibly decent, hardworking people. Rich Hamerla and David Ray fought for me when I needed it. Friends and fellow writers elsewhere on campus have made this an intellectually stimulating and emotionally supportive environment: Noah Theriault, Miriam Gross, Dan Mains, Kimberly Marshall, and Emily Rook Koepsel are great writing buddies. Ronnie Grinberg, Marc Levine, Jessica Pearson, and Erika Robb Larkins have been wonderfully supportive academic partners-in-crime and cherished friends. Alex Edwards, Becky Weintz, Francesca Winter, Danielle Theriault, Karen Colwell, Callie Morreau, Mairead Todd, Sam Stalcup, Alecia Shannon, Beatrice Williamson, Jennifer Whitney, various yogis and CrossFitters, and many, many others put the “home” in Oklahoma. Julia Ehrhardt is a fierce supporter, a model teacher, and a great friend. Carolyn Morgan paved the way for female scholars at OU, and I rely on her advice, mentorship, advocacy, and friendship daily. Sarah Tracy is a treasured friend, a keen reader, a

Prichard, Andreana C. Sisters In Spirit: Christianity, Affect, and Community Building In East Africa, 1860-1970. E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2017, https://doi.org/10.14321/9781611862409. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution xii Acknowledgments superior mentor, and a role model in many ways. Her presence and encouragement kept me in the game and pushed me (carried me?) over the finish line.

I received a great deal of help with the research for this book, and it came in various forms. In East Africa, staff and faculty at the University of Dar es Salaam, Kivukoni College, St. Mark’s Theological College, Minaki College, the Anglican Church of Tanzania, COSTECH, the Tanzania National Archives, the American Embassy in Dar es Salaam, and the Zanzibar National Archives were critical to this research and aided me in myriad ways. In Britain, archivists and librarians at Rhodes House at the University of Oxford, as well as at the School for Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, the Shropshire Archives, and the British Library granted me access to countless documents and were generous in their assistance. Yoland Brown was of particular help in Shropshire. Reverend Mother Superior Philippa CSP of the Community of the Sacred Passion granted photography permissions. Chapter seven previously appeared in the Journal of African History. I am thankful for my student research assistants from the University of Oklahoma: Oscar Enriquez, Jacob Henry, Kierstan Strachan, and Kellie Reidlinger. The VPR and the Vice President and Provost Kyle Harper have also provided support. The cartography lab at the University of Wisconsin, Madison created the maps included in the introduction. Lucy Gardner Carson provided valuable editorial assistance.

Our work is only possible because of the work of others, and I am also indebted to Caroline Bledsoe, Neil Kodesh, Laura Fair, Karen Tranburg Hansen, Kenda Mutongi, Elizabeth Prevost, Lynn Thomas, and Luise White. I owe Pamela Scully and Clifton Crais my career in African history, for they opened my eyes to Africa and to the fascinating stories that we can tell about the past.

Then there were those who literally helped me put these words on the pages that follow. Several writing groups have welcomed me into their ranks—some formal, some informal; some in person, others online (#GraftonLine); some long-term, others short-lived. “Writing coach” doesn’t begin to describe how fundamental Michelle Boyd was to this project, and to my work and sense of academic self more generally. Emily Callaci, Kathryn de Luna, and Rhiannon Stephens read every word of this document, many several times over. Without their insightful feedback, critical challenges, encouragement, patience, and friendship, this book would not exist.

Fellowships and grants from several programs at Northwestern University, including the Department of History, the Program of African Studies, The Graduate School, the Nicholas D. Chabraja Center for Historical Studies, the Office of

Prichard, Andreana C. Sisters In Spirit: Christianity, Affect, and Community Building In East Africa, 1860-1970. E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2017, https://doi.org/10.14321/9781611862409. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution

Acknowledgments | xiii

Fellowships, and the Residential College Program, as well as an NCAA Post-Graduate Scholarship and a Fulbright-Hays DDRA supported this work. The University of Oklahoma provided funding in the form of the Junior Faculty Fellowship program, the President’s International Travel Fellowship, the Faculty Improvement Grant, as well as time to write through the Honors College Research-Intensive Leave program. Additional financial support was provided from the Office of the Provost and the Vice President for Research, University of Oklahoma.

Iam indebted to the many anonymous reviewers who took the time to provide thoughtful and constructive comments on different versions of this manuscript, and on work that has appeared elsewhere. Peter Alegi and the staff at the Michigan State University Press made this dream a reality.

My family has doubled in size in the time since I last wrote acknowledgments, but the love and support I’ve received has grown exponentially. My parents have always been blind to the possibility that I might not succeed—in this and all other endeavors—and deaf to any worries I voiced along the way. I often wondered at their faith in me; when I couldn't see what they saw, I used their resolve to plod forward. My brother, Ian Prichard, is an amazing man, and has given us the equally amazing Erin and Oliver. They are models of love, self-sacrifice, respect, kindness, and long-term, mutually sustaining friendships. Lincoln Prichard is the loyalist friend and my favorite distraction. In Patrick Schlecht I have found a place to call home.

Prichard, Andreana C. Sisters In Spirit: Christianity, Affect, and Community Building In East Africa, 1860-1970. E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2017, https://doi.org/10.14321/978161 1862409. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution

Prichard, Andreana C. Sisters In Spirit: Christianity, Affect, and Community Building In East Africa, 1860-1970. E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2017, https://doi.org/10.14321/978161 1862409. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution

Introduction n January 1898, Beatrice Muyororo and Petro Kilekwa were married in a small but festive ceremony on the grounds of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa’s (UMCA) Mbweni station on the East African archipelago of Zanzibar.

The wedding took place in St. Mary’s Chapel, a quaint building with a rounded, beehive-like brick nave and a three-story bell tower. Covered in a fragrant bramble of wisteria, bougainvillea, and honeysuckle vines, perpetually in bloom thanks to the tropical climate, the chapel was but several hundred meters from the rugged white coral coastline—this made it a breathtaking setting for the young couple's nuptials. Many of the UMCAs British mission workers likely attended the event, dressed in their stiffly starched and impractically white dresses and suits, as did the many African clerics and congregants who loved the couple and wished them well. Petro’s classmates from the mission’s Kiungani Theological College, as well as friends that Beatrice had known since she was a small child, probably also joined the celebration.

Born into the Yao ethnic group from the Lake Malawi region of Tanzania, Beatrice arrived at the mission in 1881 at the age of two or three as a refugee from the Indian Ocean slave trade.’ Many of Beatrice’s classmates ended up in the mission this way, kidnapped by slave traders from their inland villages and

Prichard, Andreana C. Sisters In Spirit: Christianity, Affect, and Community Building In East Africa, 1860-1970. E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2017, https://doi.org/10.14321/9781611862409. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution marched in neck yokes toward the coast, clinging tightly to their mothers’ hands until separated by the whims of traders or by death.” Bound for plantations along the East African coast or for servitude further afield in Arabia, India, or Oman, Beatrice and eventually hundreds of other men and women in her same situation were intercepted by the British navy and entrusted to the care of the UMCA. The UMCA was a British Anglican mission founded by abolitionists to work among refugees from the Indian Ocean slave trade. The mission was an outgrowth of a revival movement within the Church of England; its founders were determined to recreate the church abroad, and they established stations and schools on Zanzibar to train their new dependents as evangelists.

Missionaries placed Beatrice on the mission’s rural station at the Mbweni shamba (farm) several miles from Zanzibar’s Stone Town, where she attended the Mbweni Girls’ School and lived in its dormitory under the ever-watchful eyes of a British “lady” missionary. She was from the earliest accounts a star pupil: by thirteen or fourteen, Beatrice was reportedly “very good tempered, and always had a smile on her face.” British missionaries regarded her as a success story, praising her religious spirit, her industriousness, and her domestic skills. Beatrice showed some promise as a teacher and, after leading small lessons for the younger girls at Mbweni, was promoted in 1893 to the role of pupil-teacher. At first, a report on Beatrice’s career noted, she seemed to find “the new work very trying, and did not like to assert her authority.” “I do not think she has ever been very successful in keeping a large number of children in order,” the missionary continued, “but she has constantly used her influence with individual children when naughty, and by private talks made them see reason, and helped them to do better.” Indeed, on balance it seems that Beatrice was sufficiently prepared to assume her role as the wife of a traveling preacher when she married Petro in January 1898. After their wedding, mission administrators sent Beatrice and Petro to Masasi, a UMCA diocese in southwest Tanzania, to work as evangelists.‘

When the Kilekwas moved to Masasi, Beatrice brought with her a wide complement of wedding gifts, including “plates, cups, mugs, a jug, teapot, spoons, ladle, enameled basin and saucepan, some print for a dress, and some colored handkerchiefs,” which were provided with the hope that her daily performance of simple domestic tasks would transmit Christian values to neighbors and onlookers. These accoutrements of a proper, civilized Christian life were not the only, nor the most important, evangelical tools that Beatrice brought with her from Mbweni, however. Rather, the personal and spiritual relationships that Beatrice had cultivated at

Prichard, Andreana C. Sisters In Spirit: Christianity, Affect, and Community Building In East Africa, 1860-1970. E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2017, https://doi.org/10.14321/9781611862409. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution

UNDATED PHOTOGRAPH, FROM “A VISIT TO THE HILLS BEHIND KOTA KOTA,” CENTRAL AFRICA 31, NO. 361 (JANUARY 1913).

FIGURE 1. Reverend Petro Kilekwa, his wife Beatrice, and their three boys.

Prichard, Andreana C. Sisters In Spirit: Christianity, Affect, and Community Building In East Africa, 1860-1970. E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2017, https://doi.org/10.14321/978161 1862409. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution

Mbweni were templates for new relationships she would forge with students, protégées, neighbors, and new inquirers. These relationships not only served as Beatrice’s evangelical tools, but they also were fundamental to the consolidation of a diverse, multigenerational network of African UMCA congregants that spread from Zanzibar to the mainland of Tanzania and Malawi between 1860 and 1970. The community that these ties produced and maintained was one that existed in the interior lives of the community’s members, and can best be understood as an “affective spiritual community.’

I developed the concept of the “affective spiritual community” to describe and better understand communities produced and sustained by a circuit of emotional feeling and spiritual connection. Women such as Beatrice and her colleagues, as well as the network and broader community they produced and of which they were a part, can both be understood as an affective spiritual community. In this book, I explore the process by which African adherents used a sophisticated evangelical repertoire—a shared emotional and spiritual subjectivity; daily, embodied performance of a set of commonly held, though always negotiated, values; and constant movement between mission stations—to build community. The UMCA’s female lay evangelists built a unified community between 1860 and 1970, a period that stretches from the days of some of the earliest Western outposts in East Africa, across the colonial period, to the earliest days of Tanzania’s independence, and across unconnected lands. I examine the construction, the content, and the resilience of the ties they forged, and follow the relationships as they radiated out from Zanzibar, throughout the Tanzanian mainland, and across generations.

Beatrice’s personal life and career, and in particular her moves in the years after leaving Mbweni, elucidate the ways in which the unique affective dimensions of the lives of the UMCA's “sisters in spirit” produced and sustained an encompassing, multigenerational spiritual community. At Masasi the Kilekwas found a flourishing mission center, which was run largely by other African Christians trained at the UMCA’s schools on Zanzibar. Settled by a contingent of British UMCA preachers and freed slave adherents late in 1876, the Christian presence in the area grew quickly. In 1898 the four-station complex that included Masasi, Miwa, Chiwata, and Mwiti boasted a total of 1,412 adherents. In the same year there were eleven schools scattered over the district, with 489 students enrolled.° As Beatrice’s missionary “mother” had hoped, one of those eleven schools was in fact exclusively for girls.

The girls’ day school at Masasi was run by Rose Muriezai, who was the wife of the African priest Barnabas Mtaula and was one of Beatrice’s dearest friends from

Prichard, Andreana C. Sisters In Spirit: Christianity, Affect, and Community Building In East Africa, 1860-1970. E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2017, https://doi.org/10.14321/9781611862409. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution

MAP PRODUCED BY THE CARTOGRAPHY LAB AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, MADISON. ~

Newala

Masasi bary

Magite

Kwa Mkonoe Chitangal

Ruvuma R.

Pangani R. Usam, Tunduru Magomero

LIKOMA ISLAND e with inset showing area of detail. 100 miles

MAP 1. Select UMCA mission stations and points of interest

Prichard, Andreana C. Sisters In Spirit: Christianity, Affect, and Community Building In East Africa, 1860-1970. E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2017, https://doi.org/10.14321/978161 1862409. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution

Bagamoyo,

TANZANIA

10 miles

MAP 2. Significant UMCA sites on Zanzibar and the adjacent East African coast.

Prichard, Andreana C. Sisters In Spirit: Christianity, Affect, and Community Building In East Africa, 1860-1970. E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2017, https://doi.org/10.14321/9781611862409. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution

Mbweni.” Mbweni's British “lady” workers had praised Rose as one of the “best and most useful pupil-teachers,’ a “bright, clever girl, with deep religious principles, and ...areal missionary spirit.”* In this they made a good pair: not only had the women always been “great friends,” but they also both looked “upon teaching as the great object of their lives,’ which was a trait missionaries believed would “be the means of leading others to Christianity” once stationed together. This, of course, was the pair’s essential task as Christian teachers: educating Rose’s fifty-two female pupils was the key component, UMCA adherents and workers believed, in creating a “a race of intellectual Christians.” By “race,” British missionaries were referring to the nineteenth-century sense of the word as a civilization bound and defined by a shared set of cultural values, rather than as a discrete and immutable category defined by geographical origin or heredity, as it is regarded today.” Beatrice and Rose would have approached their work with Masasi’s young women with this concept in mind, assisting in the development, expansion, and consolidation of a new Christian civilization (or “race”) in East Africa based on values they absorbed while at Mbweni.

The strong friendship Rose and Beatrice forged at Mbweni was based on the time they spent together as pupil-teachers, a sense they were set apart in their engagement in a common intellectual and religious endeavor, and their shared religious beliefs. They were both also members of the Guild of the Good Shepherd, the UMCA’s professional development organization for female teachers. The guild, like the UMCA’s theology more generally, encouraged members to “feel the power and help of mutual intercession and of prayer,’ and promoted special ritual and devotional practices as a means of instilling and sustaining a spiritual and a sensual or embodied connection between teachers, and between themselves and their students.”

The affective and spiritual bonds Rose and Beatrice forged at Mbweni were also undoubtedly strengthened by the situation at Masasi. It is true that the UMCA presence in Masasi was relatively strong and the number of adherents grew every year, but as preachers, teachers, and community leaders, the Zanzibar-trained couples were distinguished from their followers by virtue of their educations and positions within the church. Further, they were not “of” the people they were brought in to recruit, lead, and serve. Though Barnaba Mtaula was from the area (the son of a local chief) and Petro Kilekwa had spent about a year in Masasi in 1896, neither Rose nor Beatrice was familiar with the land or its people. Cultural customs and language barriers complicated their immediate integration into the community. Since they

Prichard, Andreana C. Sisters In Spirit: Christianity, Affect, and Community Building In East Africa, 1860-1970. E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2017, https://doi.org/10.14321/978161 1862409. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution did not speak the local language, they were left to communicate with each other in English or Kiswahili (neither of which was a native tongue) and with their followers either through an interpreter or silently, through the embodied performance of daily rituals. Rose and Beatrice’s domestic routines—which included a particular wardrobe and style of dress, a favored floor plan for the house and compound, very precise laundry and cooking methods, and theories about child-rearing, for example—immediately marked them to passersby as Christians. These quotidian acts of civilized or “practical” Christianity, as historian Kenda Mutongi has called it, set them quite apart from their “heathen” neighbors and left them with an often overwhelming sense of isolation. There was also outright resistance to the church's work, and to its agents. For example, in 1905 an uprising against the mission caused Rose and her scholars to flee the mission compound. She recalled working furiously to continue the students’ Christian learning while in exile. Of her attempts to hold the intellectual and spiritual community together in the face of external threat, Rose wrote, “We are trying to keep our scholars together,” despite having “no books here, but we teach them what we can remember of the scriptures, and we make them write with a stick on the ground.”®

In this environment, far from the church’s civilizational and spiritual center at Zanzibar, bonds with old friends, the presence of fellow believers, and proximity to those with whom the “native” evangelists shared cultural and religious practices were a comfort and a source of strength. Rose and Beatrice invested in relationships with other Zanzibar-trained Christian couples living near them, and they maintained ties with both their former home at Zanzibar and their friends in other parts of the mission. In this way, they engaged in the process of weaving together a spiritual community, one that crosscut and superseded other affinities. Their marriages, kinships, and friendships breached ethnic divides and bridged the wide geographical spaces of the mission’s lands, all in the service of producing a “race of intellectual Christians.”

Evangelists’ affective and spiritual connections undergirded the expansion of the burgeoning “race” or civilization. When the Kilekwas left Masasi in 1899 for Likoma, an island in Lake Malawi, for example, they brought news of the Mtaulas and the Majaliwa clan with them, as well as gossip from their recent tenure at Zanzibar. While stationed at Mtonya they found Eustace Malisawa and Augustine Ambali and their wives Amy and Mabel, all of whom were Zanzibar-trained refugees from disparate parts of eastern Africa. These friendships sustained them, and reinforced the spiritual, intellectual, and emotional connections that united

Prichard, Andreana C. Sisters In Spirit: Christianity, Affect, and Community Building In East Africa, 1860-1970. E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2017, https://doi.org/10.14321/9781611862409. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution

UNDATED PHOTOGRAPH, FROM “MISS JONES’ GIRLS,” AFRICAN TIDINGS 16, NO. 208 (FEBRUARY 1907).

FIGURE 2. Elderly returned Mbweni schoolgirls. From left: Agnes, Kate, Mary, Emily, and Ester.

them. After several years near Lake Malawi, the pair departed for a six-month leave in Zanzibar; the bonds they had formed at Mbweni years before endured, pulling them home. Beatrice looked forward to seeing her friends and their missionary “Mother” Caroline Thackeray, and she in turn was so anxious to see Beatrice and the Kilekwas’ young children that she personally paid for their journey.” Petro recalled their return to Mbweni as “everything we could wish for. In truth we were at our home.”

Prichard, Andreana C. Sisters In Spirit: Christianity, Affect, and Community Building In East Africa, 1860-1970. E-book, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2017, https://doi.org/10.14321/9781611862409. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution

Connections like these among Rose, Beatrice, Amy Malisawa, and Mabel Ambali, and their friends and adoptive kin at Zanzibar, extended throughout the mission. The network of UMCA women knit together a larger affective spiritual community through their daily performance of a set of commonly held values; through a shared emotional and spiritual subjectivity; through their inherent mobility and constant movement between stations; and through the extension of new personal and spiritual connections. This community spread from Zanzibar to the mainland of Tanzania and Malawi, incorporated many ethnolinguistic groups, and encompassed several generations.

Efforts to build an affective spiritual community took place against a backdrop of the campaign to end the slave trade, the transformation of the East Africa economy, widespread Christian evangelism, and the consolidation of colonial rule. Individual congregants pursued opportunities for enhanced security, professional careers, and religious journeys alongside the broader changes happening around them, and engaged with these developments in patchy, uneven, and gendered ways. The UMCA was in many ways like other, better-known mission organizations, such as the London Missionary Society (LMS) or Church Missionary Society (CMS), and shared with the CMS mission at Freretown and the LMS mission in Sierra Leone a particular focus on ex-slaves and refugees from the slave trade. These similarities give the trends identified here broader applicability. This denomination’s unique theology, the demographics of its adherents, and this work’s focus on affective relationships, on the other hand, offer a new set of understandings for the history of religion and Christian missions in Africa, the creation of ethnicities, and the development of cultural nationalisms.

While resonating with other histories, this study offers an exceptional lens into the way the UMCA’s particular theology and the social circumstances of adherents’ lives combined to produce intimate, affective spiritual relationships between female lay evangelists that united the church across ethnic and generational boundaries. These understandings come through a focus on the lives, work, and personal relationships of the UMCA's sisters in spirit. They are examined in a series of vignettes and a set of historical snapshots of the lives of the UMCA’s female lay evangelists, stories that reveal these women at work and at home as individuals and within the context of broader networks. The intimate scale of this study was intentional, for “thick description and studies of local processes can contain clues to large causation.” The voices of individual African women provide access to the interior lives and intellectual contributions of female actors. They also shed