Rev. John Goldby, M.A.
Continued from page 147 of the last issue
Part Two – Two Kinds of Trade
MAN by nature is spiritually wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked (Rev.3:17), but to have the saving knowledge of Christ is to have what is precious. This wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not be compared to it (Prov. 8:11). Here is gold tried in the fire that we may be rich (Rev.3:18).
Sir William Mackinnon possessed two kinds of wealth, the one spiritual and the other temporal, both of which place obligations upon those who have them. Though few are seen to take these obligations seriously this was not so with Sir William. He displayed uncommon liberality in regard to both.
The gospel is far too precious to keep to ourselves, or to lose by neglect. Solomon speaks of a sore evil which he had seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt (Eccl. 5:13). John urges the Christian to the duty of love on the ground of God’s love to him. “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” (1 John 3:16,17).
In Africa, many missionaries had already given their lives whilst others continued to labour in isolated and dangerous places in order to give the precious gospel to the people. Ethiopia had begun to stretch out her hands to God. Africa was calling for help and Sir William was one among others whom God raised up to assist. He spent little of his wealth on himself but much upon others. He dedicated his life and wealth to promoting the cause of Christ and to the good of his fellow men both at home and abroad.
At home, for example, Sir William supplemented the stipends each year of Free Church ministers in extension charges. He contributed to the building of many churches and manses throughout the Highlands. He gave assistance to poor Highland students and founded the well known Keil School in Dumbarton where his statue now stands. A British Prime minister paid tribute to him by tracing the spring of his Christian principles and actions to the grace of God that was in him and the influence of a godly mother.
The slave trade an obstacle to missionary endeavour
One of the greatest obstacles to the progress of the gospel in Africa was the slave trade and its attendant evils. “Men-stealers are reckoned among those wicked ones against whom laws must be made by Christian princes,” (M. Henry on 1 Tim 1:10). Sir William was strongly opposed to the slave trade, and its destruction was one of the main objectives of the latter part of his life.
In Britain, Christian campaigners like William Wilberforce MP, had fought to have slavery outlawed. An 1807 Act of Parliament forbade British subjects from taking part in the slave trade, and ships under the British flag were not allowed to carry slaves. In 1833 Parliament passed a Bill abolishing slavery throughout the British Empire.
Those chiefly responsible for the traffic in slaves from Central and East Africa were the Arabs and to a lesser extent the Portuguese. In the mid-19th century, estimates suggested that something in the order of half a million slaves were being shipped overseas every year.
British naval squadrons were given orders to apprehend the Arab slave traders. We learn from The Dictionary of Scottish Business Biography that in 1872, hard on the heels of a renewed British commitment to the eradication of the East African maritime slave trade, Sir William commenced the British-India Aden-Zanzibar Line, which no doubt contributed to the effectiveness of the naval squadrons’ activities.
Sir William had associations with leading members of The Church Missionary Society (CMS), whose East Africa Mission started in 1844 when Rev. Dr. Johannes Krapf, a Lutheran, visited East Africa to ascertain if there was a “door” open for the introduction of Christianity, and began translation and linguistic work in Mombasa. In 1846 he was joined by Johannes Rebmann. They were brave and dedicated men who endured much suffering and made a number of useful missionary journeys inland to Kilimanjaro and other areas. Progress, however, was slow and a visitor to their mission near Mombasa in 1864 found only six baptised converts and another six under instruction. But their vision was not limited to the coast. Krapf wrote in 1848, “The coast mission must have a broad basis towards the west, and be the first link of a mission-chain between East and West Africa!”
A fresh impetus to the CMS work came when large numbers of slaves freed by the Navy began to be put ashore on the Kenya coast where the CMS set up church schools and plantations for the slaves. The more able of the freed slaves were schooled with a view to evangelising the tribes from which they had come.
As the missionaries penetrated deeper into the interior, the horrors and cruelties of the slave trade became ever more apparent. David Livingstone spoke of finding women dead, tied to trees, or lying in the path shot and stabbed, their fault having been inability to keep up with the party. Their cruel owners, in order to prevent them becoming the property of anyone else, had put an end to their lives. “O how piercing,” said one, “are the cries of the enslaved and oppressed African! How surely do they enter into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.” The well-known Scottish missionary, Alexander Mackay of Uganda, observed Arab slave caravans continually passing by. Even children were being led, necks linked together with chains. African chiefs were being given extra incentive to indulge their warlike spirit for they could sell their captured enemies as slaves in exchange for cloth and guns. Mackay describes an Arab trader who arrived with guns and cloth for buying slaves; “prices thus: one red cloth, one slave; one musket, two slaves.” Writing to the Times as to measures by which the slave trade might be stopped, Mackay affirmed that force alone could not do it. He suggested the control of arms sales, and the replacement of trade in human beings with legitimate commerce. To rid Africa of the Arab slaver, he said, “We only need to take the trade out of his hands.”
Commerce as an aid to missionary endeavour
The idea of establishing a legitimate trade to replace the slave trade had taken a powerful hold of Livingstone as early as the 1840’s. British and other merchants, he thought, could come in to establish markets. “By driving away the slave-trade, much would be done to help Christian missions, which could not thrive in an atmosphere of war and commotion.” This view became universally accepted as an essential measure in the suppression of slavery, and the missionaries found themselves looking to men of commerce, like Sir William Mackinnon, who could help to promote an environment in which the gospel could advance.
Mackay of Uganda, writing to his father in June 1886, said, “There is a greater bondage than slavery to be grappled with here, and it must be grappled with.” Sir John Kirk, the British Consul in Zanzibar, was the official most experienced in East African affairs. He had a genuine interest in the good of the region and in the ending of slavery. He saw William Mackinnon as the man most likely to be able to effect a change for the better. In 1878, prompted by Kirk, the Sultan who controlled much of the coast offered Mackinnon the lease of a huge territory stretching 1,150 miles down the coast of East Africa. It included the region now divided into the modern states of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Mackinnon realised that such a treaty was also dependent on obtaining the goodwill and co-operation of the tribal chiefs of the interior. He was willing to take on the risk and responsibility of such a lease, provided that the backing and support of the British Government could be obtained. However, the Foreign Secretary, Lord Salisbury, had little interest in East Africa and overruled Kirk’s plan, for reasons which had little to do with Africa and more to do with Europe and pleasing the Germans and Bismarck. Yet, a short time later, German colonial ambitions forced Salisbury’s hand, and Sir William was called in to administer a smaller territory which now forms the states of Kenya and Uganda. A charter was granted and Mackinnon founded the Imperial British East Africa Company on 18 April, 1888.
The chief objectives of the newly formed Company were: (1) The abolition of the slave trade; (2) Perfect religious freedom; (3) The administration of justice (having careful regard to local customs and laws); (4) No trade monopoly; (5) Restrictions regarding the importation of spirits, opium, arms and ammunition; (6) All nationalities to be treated alike.
Lord Salisbury’s foreign policy let the Germans into Tanganyika, but their brutality to the local Africans provoked the Abushiri rebellion which had a detrimental effect on the progress and success of the British East African Company and had a de-stabilising effect on the whole area.
The British Government wanted influence in Africa but not the associated responsibility and expense. These were to be borne by private enterprise. It was companies such as the Royal Niger Company, the British South Africa Company, the African Lakes Company and the British East Africa Company which carried the responsibility and cost of development. The Government’s niggardly policy was short-sighted because no private company could be expected to develop and run whole states without proper government support.
In Africa, Mackinnon met with Livingstone and H.M. Stanley, and it was Stanley whom he employed to negotiate treaties with the chiefs through whose lands he passed. Mackinnon also held discussions with international figures as to how waterways, roads and railways might be linked in order to span the vast continent. Queen Victoria, after entertaining Sir William, Stanley and others at dinner, expressed in her diary the great interest she had in the developments taking place in Africa.
In Uganda, Mackay and his brother missionary, Rev. R.P. Ashe, observed that the directors of the British East Africa Company were “full of zeal for the extension of Christ’s kingdom.” The missionaries therefore welcomed the advent of the Company as a force for good which might be instrumental in assisting the spread of the gospel and in restraining the awful and bloody inter-tribal wars which prevailed. Mackay also felt that, humanly speaking, the persecuted Christians of Uganda could not hold together against the weight of heathenism and Mahometanism without the presence of a stabilising influence; such as might be provided by the British East Africa Company.
Sir William had a high regard for Mackay of Uganda. When news reached him that Mackay had died, he wrote, “I cannot tell you how deeply I felt the intelligence of Mackay’s death. He seemed to me a man among a thousand.” While Sir William had been building roads in East Africa for some time, Mackay had been envisaging a railway or tramway reaching to Uganda. Now, the first steps were taken to set up the Mombasa to Uganda railway under the auspices of Mackinnon’s British East African Company.
In the good providence of God, the energy of the little Scotsman from Campbeltown greatly contributed to the extending of the Kingdom of Christ and the peaceful development of the modern independent states of Kenya and Uganda, whose governments are still supportive of Christian missions.
To be continued