The encounter between the Basotho and the missionaries of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society, 1833–1933: some perspectives

Abstract

The Paris Evangelical Miss ionary Society (PEMS) encounter wi th the Basotho is an in teres t ing case s tudy for several reasons . When the f irst group of PEMS miss ionar ies ar r ived at the Sotho capital , Thaba Bosiu, in June 1833, the Basotho had had ve ry little contac t wi th Europeans . Eugene Casalis and Thomas Arbousset , together wi th their ass i s tan t Constant Gosselin, were indeed the f i rs t Europeans to r epo r t on their contact wi th them. 1 Also, in the ear ly 1830s the Basotho were still a people in the making. They were mos t ly composed of diverse groups who had pledged allegiance to Moshoeshoe in the previous decade, af ter their polities had been sca t te red by a series of conflicts. Hoping to p ro tec t the group which he was creat ing f rom outside threa ts , the p a r a m o u n t we lcomed miss ionar ies , w h o m he had t r ied to a t t rac t even before Arbousse t and his companions arr ived. With the suppor t of Moshoeshoe, Casalis, Gosselin and Arbousse t founded the miss ion which was to become the pr ide of their society, and the only such endeavour among the Basotho for three decades. I t was also a miss ion which, unlike mos t of its coun te rpa r t s in southern Africa, achieved a measu re of success: in 1848, af ter 15 years of Evangelical presence , approx ima te ly 1,5% of Moshoeshoe ' s subjects had become church members , and half as m a n y were ca techumen. Between 3% and 3,5% of the popula t ion a t tended church regular ly. 2