Life and death, power and vulnerability: Everyday contradictions at the Loango Mission, 1883-1904

Abstract

Everyday histories of places and the people who inhabit them can reveal the realities and nuances of negotiated colonial relations. Mission stations were significant sites of social and cultural confrontation and transformation. The Loango Mission on the West Central African coast was one such arena where mission priests, sisters and brothers interacted with local populations in day-to-day incidents and endeavours. Daily life was marked by contradictions. The missionaries might project power through hierarchical structures, material resources, and Catholic rituals, but experience was also marked by disease, death, and despair. The discussion documents daily life through letters, reports, photographs, published accounts and observations of the author on visits to Loango. Questions concerning the agency of local people - those who converted, those who doubted, and those who resisted - are raised. The paper ends by considering how the daily life contradictions at the mission might have affected African perceptions of the new faith.