RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Africa
tion of women, and bloodthirsty cruelty and oppression. Stanley was really the first of Christian missionaries there; for the slight teachings that he gave the king were not forgotten, and his translation of the Lord's Prayer was copied and recopied. On leaving Uganda Stanley wrote a letter to the London Telegraph describing Uganda and the willingness of King Mutesa to receive Christian instruction. He then addressed the missionarysocieties in these words: " Here, gentlemen, is your opportunity. The people on the shores of the Nyanza call upon you." This challenge was at once taken up by the Church Missionary Society; and in 1876 its first missionaries reached Uganda. The first converts were baptized in 1882, and persecution soon set in, when a number of the Christians were burned alive. Alexander Mackay, a layman and a member of the mission, was a man of indomitable energy and wonderful devotion; and upon him rested to a great degree the responsibility for the defense of the mission. Several of the missionaries were murdered, including Bishop James Hannington (1885), by order of King Mwanga, Mutesa's successor. Roman Catholic missionaries appeared on the scene; and quarrels and strife ensued between the two denominations. Mohammedans also intervened, trying to profit by the dissensions between the Christians. "The British protectorate was declared in 1894. In 1897 the Sudanese troops in British employ revolted and attempted to seize the country in the Mohammedan interest. The valor of the Christians weighed largely in deciding this fierce little war against the mutineers. In it George Laurence Pilkington, a notable lay missionary lost his life. With the defeat of the mutineers and the assignment of the Mohammedans to separate reservations peace was finally established, and the whole protectorate is in a prosperous condition.
The Church Missionary Society has now in the protectorate 90 missionaries (men and women), 2,500 native workers, 170 schools with 22,229 scholars, and 53,000 baptized Christians. It had established a considerable industrial enterprise for the development of the people; but in 1904 this department of its work was turned over to the Uganda Company, a commercial body chartered in England to develop the country. The Roman Catholic missions were established by the Algiers Society for African Missions. There are now 88 stations and about 80,000 baptized Roman Catholic Christians. At Kaimosi, about twenty-five miles north of Port Florence, is a mission of the American Society of Friends, which is instructing the people in various industries. Altogether Uganda is after thirty years of missionary labor a remarkable instance of the change in a people which can be produced by the attempt to follow the principles of the Bible. The overthrow of barbarism in the native customs was effected before any outside political forces entered upon the scene. Ihe Bible has been translated into Ugandan (1888), and Gospels have been rendered into Nyoro and loro.
HI. African Islands:
Annobon. See Fernando Po.
Canary Islands: A group of islands lying north-
west of Africa and belonging to Spain, of which they form a province. Area 2,807 sq. miles; population 358,564, reckoned as entirely Roman Catholic, the first Roman Catholic see having been erected here in 1404.
Cape Verde Islands: A group of fourteen islands lying off the west coast of Africa and belonging to Portugal. Area 1,480 sq. miles; population (1900) 147,424, of whom about two-thirds are negroes and nearly one-third of mixed blood. The religion is Roman Catholic.
Comoro Isles: A group of small islands about half way between Madagascar and the African coast. Area 620 sq. miles; population about 47,- 000, chiefly Mohammedans. The islands are ecclesiastically under the jurisdiction of Mayotte, but it does not appear that any mission exists upon them
Corisco. See Fernando Po.
Fernando Po, Annobon, Corisco, and Elobey: Islands in the Gulf of Guinea, belonging to Spain. The area of these islands taken together is about 780 sq. miles; population 22,000. Roman Catholic missions are carried on in the islands by the Spanish Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Mary. Nineteen clergy are reported in Fernando Po, with about 4,000 Roman Catholics. There is a Protestant mission in Fernando Po, established by the Primitive Methodist Missionary Society in 1870, a mission established by the Baptist Missionary Society of England having been driven from the country by Spanish intolerance a number of years before. One of the Gospels was translated into Adiya, a dialect of Fernando Po, in 1846. It is now obsolete. There is a station of the American Presbyterian Church on the island of Corisco (see above, under Rio Mtjni).
Madagascar : An island off the southeastern coast of Africa, from which it is separated by the Mozambique Channel at a distance of 240 miles, measuring between nearest points. It is 980 miles long, and 360 miles in its greatest breadth. It is a possession of France, whose claim dates from a concession made to a trading company by the king of France in 1642. The claim was not recognized by the native rulers. After a struggle lasting intermittently from 1882 to 1896 the formal annexation to France took place. Area 224,000 sq. miles; population (1901) 3,000,000, including 15,000 Europeans and some hundreds of Africans and Asiatics. The people are of Malay stock with an infusion of African blood. The principal tribe, which ruled the larger part of the island until the French occupation, is called Hova. Sakalava, Betsileo, and Sihanaka are the names of other important tribes. The history of Madagascar during many years is connected with the story of its evangelization through the London Missionary Society, beginning in 1818. The mission had great success during fifteen years. The language was reduced to writing; schools were established; the New Testament was translated and printed; and numbers of the people professed Christianity. In 1835 the reigning queen drove out the missionaries and proscribed Christianity. After bloody persecutions it was made a capital crime to profess the religion of Christ.
Africa