Capturing Souls and Capturing Labour: Slavery and the Holy Ghost Fathers in Bagamoyo, Tanzania

Studies on slavery and the slave trade and the activities of missionaries maintain that the ‘Christian villages’ established by missionary societies in Africa evangelised, civilised and developed African teenagers after they had been liberated from slavery. A recent study in Bagamoyo, Tanzania, however, in contrast to this received wisdom, indicates that the Holy Ghost Fathers used the supposedly ‘freed’ or ‘liberated’ slaves for agricultural activities. This was after the Holy Ghost Fathers had acquired enough land at Bagamoyo, along the Central Coast of Tanzania – a fertile area with favourable enough conditions to establish plantations. A review of historical documents and an analysis of the spatial organisation of the mission area where the so-called ‘Christian village’ was located indicate that social control instead of surveillance was used to maximise efficiency of the workers and allow oversight of their labour.