In Search of Autonomy
A Couple of Freed Slaves in Bagamyo Catholic Mission, Tanzania (1890-1920)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51185/journals/rhca.2025.varia2Keywords:
Emancipation, Family, Mission, Post-slaveryAbstract
Bagamoyo, a town on the Swahili coast of Tanzania, was a hotspot of the slave trade in East Africa in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Catholic missionaries redeemed many slaves in order to convert them to Christianity. Once married, the priests settled the former slaves in Christian villages. This article follows the trajectory of one of these couples at an individual level through the lens of parish registers. These archives seem to be useful to trace emancipation strategies, especially from the point of view of the family, a central issue in missionary politics. The young couple then navigated, according to gendered possibilities, between insertion into an affective and religious Christian community and some alternative economic networks of belonging offered in the towns of the Swahili coast, outside the framework of the mission station.
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