JOSEPH BOOTH
AN AFRICAN LEGEND
(From: Investigator No. 37 1994 July p. 32)
EARLY LIFE
Joseph Booth was born in Derby, England, on February
26, 1851 of Unitarian father and Church of England mother.
Religious differences at home led Booth into lifelong
habits of questioning. Both parents for example accepted
the Ten Commandments and yet his grandfather boasted of killing
Frenchmen and his uncles Russians. To Booth this conflicted with
"Thou shalt not kill." He concluded that no one truly obeyed God's
commandments.
Employment as a booking clerk in Derbyshire at 15
gave Booth independence. He became agnostic and read writings
of atheists and radicals. This on top of family conflicts, produced
a volatile self determination which would later serve him in struggles
against the forces shaping Africa.
Booth married a Yorkshire girl in 1872 and had a
son, John Edward, in 1876 and a daughter, Emily, in 1883. The
family moved to New Zealand in 1880 where Booth became a sheep
farmer. He started doing a lot of Bible reading and gradually
his faith returned. By 1886 Booth lived in Auckland and became
a close friend of Reverend Thomas Spurgeon, son of London's famous
Charles Spurgeon.
Booth's gradual conversion culminated in a sudden
dedication to do whatever God called him for. It happened when
little Edward gave him a birthday card with a Bible text:
"The text was: 'Acknowledge Him in all thy ways and He will
direct thy path.' The words pierced me as though I had
been swiftly stabbed."
(Shepperson & Price 1958 p. 22)
The text reminded Booth of his conclusion of 20 years earlier
that no-one obeyed God:
"I was seized with such trembling and weeping that I was
compelled to go back to my room overwhelmed and speechless,
unable to pray, but only to sob in paroxysm of shame at the
appalling self-centred, superficial life I led up to that
day."
(Ibid)
Booth's wife reported a dream about a foreign woman saying:
"Won't you come over and help us?" But the catalyst that
would make Booth a missionary awaited in Australia. In 1887
Booth moved with his family to Melbourne where he became partner
in a restaurant chain. He was now an orthodox Baptist and a
deacon in the North Brighton Baptist Church.
In Melbourne's Science Hall militant workers met
on Sunday nights for lectures and debates. Their champion, an
ex-Wesleyan minister turned atheist Joseph Symes, challenged Melbourne's
ministers to debate. Only Booth accepted and, with growing
confidence, debated on alternate Sundays for two years. The "catalyst"
came early in 1891 when Symes before an audience of 1,000 turned
to Booth and said:
".you are laying up your 'little pile' like the rest of us.
Of course, you never heard or read Christ's final orders 'Go
ye out to the uttermost parts of the earth.?' Are there
no savages in Central Africa, and if so, why do you not go
to them instead of casting these doubtful pearls where no
man wants them?"
(Ibid p. 24)
In May Booth sold up. Twice he sailed to Britain to offer himself
to the China Inland Mission and other societies. His age
against him - he was 40 - he was refused. Then John Paton, famous
New Hebrides Missionary, turned Booth's thoughts to Africa.
On October 19 1891 Booth's wife died. On October 31 he departed
with his children for England.
[A letter from Rev Kevin Purvis of the Brighton
Baptist Church in Melbourne is here omitted.]
GOALS
Around 1800 William Carey and the Baptists built
self-help missions in India. These now inspired Booth's ideal
of self-maintaining, self-propagating mission stations largely
independent of foreign patronage. Wealth lay in work, felt Booth,
and Africa could be rich if its resources were rightly used.
Booth planned that an initial missionary band, self
supporting by cultivating cash crops, would inspire hundreds of
groups of 6 to 10 people to move to Africa and open "industrial
missions" everywhere. The missions would be "industrial" in that
Africans would be taught agriculture and industry. All capital
would be held by trustees. Missionaries would neither trade
nor invest. Each mission would preach and plant new missions there
by spreading European/African cooperation continent-wide. Ultimately
there would be Africa-wide racial equality in political rights,
wages and employment/education opportunities, and finally independence.
Booth's goals could best be started where conditions
were not totally primitive - near established missions. This would
lead to charges of "reaping without sowing". His procedures for
enriching Africa would produce accusations of stirring native
rebellion.
In Britain a visiting missionary urged Booth to
stock up with guns. However:
"My decision was never to use a weapon and if God could or
would not protect me from any and every danger I had nothing
to live for and preferred to die. Thus, unwittingly, I became
what is now called a pacifist."
(Shepperson & Price 1958 p. 28)
AFRICA
In August 1892 Booth established the main station
of his Baptist "Zambesi Industrial Mission" near Blantyre in Nyasaland
(now Malawi). The long-established Scottish Free Church missionaries
in Blantyre opposed Booth's purchase of land and thus started
a long, bad relationship.
Booth wrote sarcastically:
".is it not a marvellous picture
to see elegantly robed men, at some hundreds
of pounds yearly cost, preaching a gospel of self denial
to men and women slaves, with only a scrap of goat skin around
their loins, compelled to work seven days a week."
(Shepperson & Price 1958 p. 33)
Booth paid Africans 18 shillings monthly - six times the amount
that government or missions paid. Boys from other missions
joined up and were rebaptized. Planters, traders and Administration
feared economic disruption. Africans praised Booth excitedly;
the Whites abused him.
Booth next attempted to expand his Industrial Missions
toward Livingstonia which brought complaints from the Church of
Scotland in Britain. Nevertheless by March 1893 eight missions
were established. In the wilds of Africa Booth travelled
weaponless, with ten-year-old Emily.
[Map of Africa showing places mentioned in this
article is here omitted.]
SECOND MARRIAGE and CONFLICTS WITH AUTHORITIES
British trustees of the Zambesi Mission disowned
Booth in 1895 because of the furore over him. He spent four months
in Britain and America, found new allies, then established the
"Baptist Industrial Mission". On March 4 1896 Booth married
Isle-of-Wight nurse, Annie Watkins.
In Central Africa and Zululand rumors of European
cannibalism of Africans circulated. Booth therefore
travelled about with a Yao tribesman to ease fears. Meanwhile
he kept explaining his plans for African betterment. White critics
viewed this as setting off currents of discontent which
could lead to native rebellions. Booth's text "Ethiopia
shall soon stretch out her hands to God" (Psalm 68:31) aroused
White fears when Ethiopia defeated Italy in March 1896.
In 1897 Booth's book "Africa for the Africans" criticised
the European nations' "Scramble for Africa". In 1898 Booth visited
America and accepted belief in the Sabbath. Then, representing
the Seventh Day Baptist Church of Plainfield, New Jersey (USA),
the Booths established "Plainfield Industrial Mission" 30 miles
south of Blantyre. Next, via the Central African Times,
Booth advocated redress of indigenous grievances. In 1899 Booth
circulated a petition for African independence within 21 years
and free higher education for 5% of Africans.
All this was too much. Commissioner A. Sharpe sought
Booth's arrest. Assisted by Africans the Booths hid in Mozambique.
Upon returning to Nyasaland they lost control of Plainfield.
In 1903 Booth - by now a Seventh Day Adventist - was deported
to South Africa.
CHILEMBWE
An early convert was John Chilembwe (born c. 1860).
He was baptized in July1893, became Booth's trusted servant, interpreter
and travel companion, nursed Emily when she had malaria, and tended
the dying Edward while Booth was in Britain (early 1894) raising
funds. Influenced by Booth Chilembwe believed
that the servitude of "Ham" to "Japheth" would shortly
cease.
Booth and Chilembwe formed an organization "Christian
Union of Nyasaland" which sought:
"equal rights, political, social, and economic, for Africans
as well as Europeans independent African activity in all economic
fields."
(Quoted in Rotberg 1935 p. 62)
In l897 Booth took Chilembwe to America. Chilembwe studied
for three years at a Negro Baptist Seminary. Then, back in Africa,
Chilembwe established the "Providential Industrial Mission"
run by Africans. He built independent African schools
and planted cotton tea and coffee. The mission was outwardly
Western and the people clean, hard-working, anti alcohol and
anti European
RUSSELL
In 1905 Booth tried to establish missions
in East Africa and Uganda but was thrown out by the British. He
wandered around South Africa and Britain seeking new support.
A native rebellion in Natal in 1906 brought the
Seventh Day Adventists under suspicion. To allay suspicion they
excommunicated Booth. Then in Britain he sought sponsorship from
the Churches of Christ. They turned him down. Their Cape Town
branch however gave him temporary work of opening a mission for
them.
Booth was depressed and discouraged. Everyone opposed
industrial missions. Yet without such missions he felt that few
Africa's would find Christ. In Scotland in 1906, Booth discovered
Russellism.
Charles Taze Russell (1852-l9l6) was the founder
of the Jehovah's Witness sect. His gospel included the elements:
1 Jesus returned in 1874 and the Kingdom of God began in
1878.
2 The Biblical Time of the End was 1799-1914 and the Biblical
"time of trouble" 1874-1914.
3 European war c.1907 would merge into Armageddon around 1912-1914.
4 Worldwide peace under resurrected Jewish patriarchs ruling
from Jerusalem to occur by 1915.
5 Russell himself was God's "faithful and wise servant"
dispensing "meat in due season".
Booth, fired with new enthusiasm, visited America
to confer with Russell.
KAMWANA and DOMINGO
Returning to Africa and based in Cape Town, Booth
now introduced Russellism into Central Africa via mail and travelling
workers. Elliot Kamwana, a Tonga tribesman from Livingstonia first
met Booth in 1900, was baptized in 1902, and was indoctrinated
at Booth's house for six months in 1907.
Kamwana took Russellism to Livingstonia. At huge
emotional gatherings 10,000 were baptized between September 1908
and June 1909. Natives found such quick conversions more
appealing than the arduous Scottish way involving apprenticeships.
However, polygamy and immorality became rife. Kamwana predicted
colonialism's end amidst cosmic cataclysms for 1915. The authorities
deported him. Russel wrote in his magazine The Watch Tower:
"Brother Elliot Kamwana was arrested
and deported by the government at the instigation of the Calvinistic
Scotch missionaries of Bandwe, Lake Nyasa, who
were greatly surprised that their work of years could be so
quickly lifted to the higher plane of our teaching."
(Russell 1909)
In 1912 the enthusiasm was spent. Kamwana's "Watch Tower movement"
split apart and spread to Rhodesia, Tanganyika and the Congo.
Meanwhile, in 1910, Booth's allegiance switched to the Seventh
Day Baptists.
Charles Domingo, also of Livingstonia, passed theology
exams in 1900, established an independent church, studied Russellism
in 1909, then was persuaded by Booth to believe in the Sabbath.
With this success as lever Booth went to America and obtained
Seventh Day Baptist support.
By 1912 Domingo had 2,000 followers. But again outward
symbols of baptism and Sabbath observance substituted for inward
spirituality. The Seventh Day Baptists withdrew support and numerical
growth ceased. Booth had failed again!
MORE DISAPPOINTMENT
In l912 Booth was adrift once more. His income
now came from boarders in his Cape Town house. Here too trouble
occurred when he took in Africans.
In February 1913 Booth issued leaflets advocating
a "British Christian Union" with goals of racial equality and
harnessing the latent productive capacity of 50,000,000 Africans.
The scheme got nowhere. Another petition, in May 1914, expressed
African grievances, especially loss of land, and urged establishment
of "Native Advisory Councils." Failure again.
Booth, now old and dispirited, moved to Basutoland
to do independent missionary work.
UPRISING
Russellite prophecies filtered through to Booth's
finest success story, Chilembwe. Despite leading a much-praised
successful mission Chilembwe determined to "strike a blow and
die."
The causes of the uprising were general: Taxation,
low wages and land confiscation had been sore points in Nyasaland
for decades. 12% of the Nyasaland miners working in South Africa
died annually. Famine in 1912 caused much misery. American Negro
visitors spread stories of Negro triumphs in America. Emotional
revivals by Scottish Free Church missionaries since 1895 had produced
tendencies of expressing nationalism through religion. Further
religious waves (including Kamwana's and Domingo's) were
therefore partly nationalistic. Russell's "time of trouble", by
this stage revised to "immediately after 1914" provided apocalyptic
elements.
On January 23, 1915 Chilembwe with 200 followers
killed three Whites. To prevent the uprising spreading and inviting
German invasion, the British acted fast. Several companies of
troops converged and Chilembwe died in battle.
AFTER 1915
The uprising made Joseph Booth the talk of Africa.
Cape Town police fetched the Booths from Basutoland and bundled
them, penniless, aboard a boat for Britain. The official conclusion
was that Booth had been unaware of the uprising but had sowed
the seeds.
Booth's struggles for native causes continued with
declining vigour. He returned to South Africa after 1925. There
his wife died and he married for the third time. Failing
in health the Booths returned to Britain in 1932 where Joseph
Booth died on November 4.
Booth had struggled mightily against intercontinental
social/political currents to achieve an independent Christian
Africa with racial equality. In the process he established numerous
mission stations and joined sect after sect in his search for
sponsorship. Though ultimately failing in his goals for Africa
he was great in persistence, great in endurance and great in his
ideals. Joseph Booth has become an African legend. Independent
rule has now come to most of Africa not Booth's way in peace but
largely in violence.
EPILOGUE:
The African Watchtower movement, called "Chitawala"
in Rhodesia and "Kitawala" in the Congo persisted as an independent,
multifarious movement. It was eschatological, anti-European and
violent. There were numerous murders, riots, drowning of
"witches" and small native rebellions.
Around 1930 the Jehovah's Witnesses, the main offshoot
from Russellism, arrived and tried to recapture the movement.
They failed but did make many converts from it. This has given
the Witnesses a "grass roots" aspect not enjoyed by other Western
religions in Africa.
[A press clipping about the former wife, a JW, of
Nelson Mandela here omitted.]
