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.Etherington,pp.153 72.7 For example, the cover of the official monthly journal Central Africa for 1 July 1885(vol.31) shows a rather idealized picture of the cathedral, and the adjoining buildings.Theview shows the cathedral, reached by a jungly path with palms along which African womenand children, bearing pots, are walking.Since the cathedral was located on the eastern edge ofdensely populated Stone Town, which even in 1885 extended very close to the plots of landgranted by the Sultan to the Christians when the slave markets were closed, such an idyllicrural scene reflects a vivid imagination.8 As is suggested below, this was in part because the British authorities on Zanzibarfavored the Protestant British missions in the distribution of slaves so rescued.9 For example, in the archives of the order at Chevilly-LaRue, Paris, the handwrittenBagamoya Daily Journal has an entry for Friday 15 July 1887, p.52, which reads:  Rachatd un petit garçon de cinq ans d âge environ.In October 1888, the Journal records that on1 October the priests purchased a child from a local leader, Kingo:  Kingo nous vend [sic] unenfant pour 14 piastres-L enfant portera le nom de Charl.(?) en souvenir de P.Gommenginged,fondateur de la mission.All translations from the French are the author s.20 Economies of Representation, 1790 2000journal of the Vatican Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith.Numerousaccounts of such purchases occur also in the journal of the Bagamoya missionaries,the Annales Apostoliques de la Congregation du St.Esprit et du St.Coeur de Marie.These accounts make it clear that for the Catholic missions, purchase was the usualmeans of obtaining slaves to convert; indeed, that there was a growing pressure fromthe rivalries of the French and English in the region to force them to this practice.By 1886, a report in the Annales Apostoliques reflects openly on the desirability ofpurchasing slaves, and seeks to justify the procedure:In the old times one found it was an easy matter to feed them [the slaves].The only thingone had to do was to go to the Zanzibar market with a few piastres in one s pocket.At thesight of the missionaries a great number of little arms stretched out to them and the poorchildren dragged from the barbarous tribes of the interior, thin, in poor health, fearful ofthe Arabs and hoping that their future would be better with the Europeans, kept sayinginsistently,  Buy me! 10It is recorded in the Annales Apostoliques for the same year that, although someslaves freed by the British Navy ended up at the Catholic mission at Bagamoya,raising money in Europe for the explicit purpose of purchasing slaves had becomethe easiest means of obtaining converts.The Catholic missionaries felt that the(uneven) distribution of freed slaves to the Protestant and the Catholic missionspartly reflected the growing rivalry between the French and the British in the IndianOcean region, as well as the longstanding British prejudice against Catholic orders:The Consuls took upon themselves to spread the blacks rescued from the smugglersbetween the catholic and the protestant missions, and so we received between 50 and 60children at one go.The Consul General, Sir.John Kirck [sic], recently knighted, fearedthat in giving the children to the Catholic missions he would at the same time give a morepowerful influence to the French, and undoubtedly believed in his own conscience that heshould put the interests of the Queen and his own interests above and beyond the interestsof humanity, that is the reason why, as from now, the only thing he gives the missionis sweet smiles  what an excellent diplomat.Fortunately, numerous well-wishers havesent us from Europe sufficient funds to purchase these enslaved children.And since atBagamoya we have always under our gaze young victims of the greed and tyranny of themusselmen, stolen in the interior, captured in wars, or sold by their masters, or sometimesby their parents, we have been able to execute the wishes of our charitable correspondentsand to save from misery and from exclusion from the faith these poor children who,without us, would be sold to the Arabs, and would never recover their lost liberty.1110  Autrefois, on trouvait aisémont moyen de les alimenter: il n y avait simplemente qu ase rendre avec quelques piastres en poche sur le marché Zanzibar [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]