AFRICAN MISSIONS, EDUCATION AND THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE
The SUM in Nigeria, The Cameroons, Chad, Sudan and other African Territories

Part 4: Lantern Slides, Slides and Photographs
Part 5: Publications in Hausa

Publisher's Note

The Archive of the Sudan United Mission (SUM), held at the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World, New College, University of Edinburgh, is an important resource for the study of missionary work, education, medical work, evangelism, the emergence of native churches and the growth of nationalist sentiment in Africa in the twentieth century.

Initially founded as the Sudan Pioneer Mission, SUM took its name from the concept of Greater Sudan. At the beginning of the twentieth century many of the colonial boundaries were in a state of flux and Greater Sudan comprised a vast area of Africa stretching from the coasts of Nigeria, Dahomey and the Cameroons in the west to Chad and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan further east. The main aim of the SUM was to halt the advance of Islam across this huge swathe of territory. Initial efforts focused on the Benue region in Nigeria.

The SUM archival material spans the period 1904-1991 and allows researchers to study:

• The correspondence of the founders of the mission, Karl and Lucy Kumm.
• The work of J Lowry Maxwell amongst the Hausa and Jukun tribes and his insights into African language, culture and customs.
• SUM activities in Northern Nigeria and the inter-action of missionaries with the Middle Belt Movement.
• The crucial role of the hospitals and leper colonies in Nigeria, bringing medical advances to the region and providing worthwhile jobs for Africans in Nigeria.  
• The importance of education, new schools and training colleges in both Nigeria and the Sudan.
• Reports from the range of different mission stations.
• The tremendous political and social changes in Africa which gathered momentum after 1920, culminating in independence movements and a vibrant Pan-Africanism.
• SUM’s commitment prior to 1960 to the establishment of Native African Churches and its changing role once this had been achieved.  
• SUM’s activities in Chad, Dahomey, the Cameroons and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.

In 1989 the SUM Fellowship in the UK changed its name to Action Partners. Bawtry Hall in Doncaster, South Yorkshire was purchased to be a headquarters and training centre for World Mission.

Early Developments of the Sudan United Mission

The Sudan United Mission was founded by Hermann Karl Wilhelm Kumm (1875-1930) from Osterode, Germany and his wife Lucy Evangeline Guinness (1865-1906). Kumm, as a young man, felt a calling to missionary work among the Muslims in Africa and during a visit to England he heard Mr Glenny of the North Africa Mission talk of his work. He decided to study Arabic in Egypt and work among the Muslims there. In a letter written in Alexandria, Egypt, in November 1898, Dr Kumm explains his call to work with people in Africa:

“…Even while I was still in England a voice seemed to say to me. ‘I have prepared the people of the desert for my Gospel, go and preach it to them’. Now at last I have had a look upon those dear people and upon the vast desert Sahara, which is for me the Promised Land. Yet it was only a short look and I had to come away again to abide the Lord’s time…”

Lucy Guinness, before meeting and marrying Karl in Cairo, had worked in an East End factory, edited a magazine for Regions Beyond Missionary Union (which had been founded by the Guinness family) and visited mission stations in Africa.

Kumm and his wife decided that the evangelisation of the Sudan was imperative. It had a population of over fifty million, Islam was growing and none of the Free Churches of Great Britain were doing any work there. In 1900 they decided to form the German Sudan Pioneer Mission, although after a short time back in England they decided to sever their connection with the German mission, forming the Sudan Pioneer Mission. Its first meeting was held in Sheffield in 1902. Not satisfied with the scale of the mission, a meeting was held in Edinburgh 15 June 1904 to which interested men of all denominations were invited.

The target area for the mission was enlarged to encompass Greater Sudan, a far more ambitious project. The Sudan United Mission was born.  Kumm and his wife travelled all over the UK calling on volunteers to join the society. One of the first to step forward was John Lowry Maxwell from Belfast, followed by Dr Ambrose Bateman and John Burt.

The first four SUM missionaries, Karl Kumm, Maxwell, Burt and Bateman sailed on the “Akabo” for Nigeria on 23 July 1904. They travelled inland and were advised by the High Commissioner, Sir Frederick Lugard that they should start work with the hill tribes around the town of Wase. They travelled up the River Benue to Ibi, another 225 miles, and then headed north to Wase, eighty miles from the river.  Bateman developed appendicitis and had to return to England.  Later, Maxwell and Burt trekked a further 23 miles to the town of the Wukari and the centre of the Jukun tribe and set up a mission station there.  Kumm argued: “The whole raison d’être of the…Mission is to counteract the Moslem advance among the Pagan tribes in the Benue region. This cannot be done by going to the Mohammedans and therefore our work will lie among the Pagan tribes.”

SUM appealed to the public for at least 150 missionaries to be placed along 50 stations along a perceived border line where Islam and Paganism met. It was hoped that for each tribe “at least three white missionaries, a medical man, an ordained educationalist and a horticulturalist” could be secured.  Kumm returned to Britain in May 1905 to continue the recruitment of additional missionaries and to appeal for extra funding. He travelled to Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, South Africa, Denmark, Canada and the United States in an effort to rouse further interest in his broad, non-denominational missionary movement.

Missionary work progressed well and in 1907 expanded to Langtang among the Taroh or Yergum people. The first convert, Tom Allying, was baptised in Nigeria in 1908. A year later the first female workers arrived. Further expansion in later years led to work among other tribes such as the Birom people round the town of Forum and the Panyam and Kabwir tribes. SUM recruits from Australia and New Zealand began work in the Sudan in 1913. In 1917 the first church was established at Donga in Nigeria.

J Lowry Maxwell spent 30 years in Africa until ill health forced his return to Britain in 1934. He showed a great appreciation of African culture and was an accomplished linguist.  He spent much of his time amongst the Hausa speaking population of Northern Nigeria, writing a handbook for students of the language and translating hymns into Hausa. He became the mission’s Hausa teacher and taught both missionaries and government officials. He could also speak the Jukun language and translated parts of the scripture into that language. He also wrote a history of the SUM called “Half a Century of Grace”.

Northern Nigeria

The Benue River in western Africa, the longest tributary of the Niger, dominated the area first explored by SUM missionaries.  They focussed their efforts on education and medicine.

At the beginning of the twentieth century slavery still existed in Nigeria and in honour of Kumm’s wife Lucy who had died in 1906 it was decided to build a place for freed Nigerian slaves. The Freed Slaves Home in Rumasha was set up in 1909 and women missionaries arrived to run the home – Mary McNaught and Clara Haigh from Britain and the Stewart sisters from South Africa.  From 1916 they commenced the education of blind girls.

In 1909 Hans Vischer, an ex-Anglican missionary, was asked to organise the education system in Northern Nigeria. Schools were set up and grants given to missions in the Middle Belt. In 1914 there were 1,100 primary school pupils in the north, compared with 35,700 in the south; the north had no secondary schools, compared with eleven in the south. This was a significant imbalance which the SUM sought to redress.

The ability to read was absolutely necessary for the process of evangelisation and reading classes were provided from the outset by each mission station. It was also thought imperative that Africans themselves should be trained for evangelical work and a school was set up for this purpose in Gindiri. The training of native teachers commenced in 1933. The Faith and Farm project, started in 1937, concentrated on the training of Nigerian pastors with all activities based around a farming environment. In later years schools were opened for boys and girls – a Boys’ Secondary School, a Girls’ Boarding School and a Teacher Training School.  The first Nigerian pastors were ordained in 1938. They were Toma Tok Bot of Forum, Bali of Langtang and David Lot of Panyam. In 1953 the first Nigerian missionary was sent by Panyam Church to the Gwoza Hills area.

Much medical work took place among the lepers and a large clinic was set up in Vom together with village dispensaries distributed around the outlying areas. Two large hospitals were founded, one at Gwoza and the other at Vom. Dr Barnden began medical work in Vom in 1923, but the work developed apace and Maternity, Medical and Surgical wards were soon opened, followed by a Child Welfare Centre in 1945. By 1968 it had a Training School for nurses and was the largest mission hospital in Northern Nigeria.

The missions also played an important role in medical training and education, providing training for nurses and paramedical personnel and sponsoring basic education as well as advanced medical training, often in Europe, for many of the first generation of Western-educated Nigerian doctors. In addition, the general education provided by the missions for many Nigerians helped to lay the groundwork for a wider distribution and acceptance of modern medical care. The new medical facilities also provided significant jobs at all levels for the indigenous population.

In the period before 1960, the SUM was committed to the creation of a native African Church. The activities of the Middle Belt Movement (representing the multi-ethnic and multi-religious region of Central Nigeria which often played a crucial role in Nigerian politics) were very important in the emergence of a native African Church and the growth of nationalist sentiment; it has been described as ‘the midwife to an African Church’. SUM efforts made a significant contribution leading to the creation of the Church of Christ in Nigeria.  Education, nationalism and missionary activity were inextricably linked in Nigeria.

The different tribes of Northern Nigeria

The best known of the northern peoples, often spoken of as coterminous with the north, are the Hausa. The term refers also to a language spoken indigenously by savanna peoples spread across the far north from Nigeria's western boundary eastward to Borno State and into much of the territory of southern Niger.  It also refers to a common set of cultural practices and a people once governed through a series of Islamic emirates and their surrounding subject towns and villages. These pre-colonial emirates were still major features of local government as late as 1990. Each had a central citadel town that housed its ruling group of nobles and royalty served as the administrative, judicial, and military organization of these states. Traditionally, the major towns were also trading centers; some such as Kano, Zaria, or Katsina were urban conglomerations with populations of 25,000 to 100,000 in the nineteenth century. They had central markets, special wards for foreign traders, complex organizations of craft specialists, and religious leaders and organizations. They administered a hinterland of subject settlements through a hierarchy of officials, and they interacted with other states and ethnic groups in the region through a history of warfare, raiding, trade, tribute and alliances.

Throughout the north, but especially in the Hausa areas, over the past several centuries Fulani cattle-raising nomads migrated westward, sometimes settling into semi-sedentary villages.   Fulani leaders took power over the Hausa states, intermarried with the ruling families and settled into the ruling households of Hausaland and many adjacent societies. By the twentieth century, the ruling elements of Hausaland were often referred to as Hausa-Fulani. The Fulani continued to wander, so Hausa cultural borders were constantly expanding.  

The other major ethnic grouping of the north is that of the Kanuri of Borno. They entered Nigeria from the central Sahara as Muslim conquerors in the 15th century, set up a capital, and subdued and assimilated the local Chadic speakers. Attacked in the nineteenth century by the Fulani, they resisted successfully, although the conflict resulted in a new capital closer to Lake Chad, a new ruling dynasty, and a balance of power between the Hausa-Fulani of the more westerly areas and the Kanuri speakers of the central sub-Saharan rim. Even though Kanuri language, culture, and history are distinctive, other elements are similar to the Hausa. They include the commitment to Islamic law and politics, extended households, and rural-urban distinctions. There was, however, a distinctive Kanuri tradition of a U-shaped town plan open to the west, housing the political leader or founder at the head of the plaza formed by the arms of the U.   Kanuri cultural identity was also seen in the hairstyles of women, their complex cuisine, and the identification with ancient ruling dynasties whose names and exploits were still fresh.   Maiduguri, the central city of Kanuri influence in the twentieth century, was chosen as the capital of an enlarged North-East State during the civil war.  

The Middle Belt runs East-West across Nigeria and is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious area,   populated largely by minority ethnic groups. It includes the territories known as Adamawa, Taraba, Niger, Kogi, Plateau, Nasarawa, Benue, Kwara and the Federal Capital Territory. Throughout the modern period it has been a crucial to the politics of the region, as it swings between an uneasy attachment to the far north and sometimes an open or cautious solidarity and alliance with southern-based parties. The area runs from the Cameroon Highlands in the east to the Niger River valley in the west and contains 50 to 100 separate language and ethnic groups. These groups varied from the Nupe and Tiv, comprising more than half a million each, to a few hundred speakers of a distinct language in small highland valleys in the Jos Plateau. In the east, languages were of the Chadic group, out of which Hausa differentiated, and the Niger-Congo family, indicating links to eastern and central African languages. In the west, the language groupings indicated historical relations to Mende-speaking peoples farther west. Cultural and historical evidence supports the conclusion that these western groups were marginal remnants of an earlier substratum of cultures that occupied the entire north before the emergence of large centralized Islamic emirates.

The most common groupings in the middle belt were small localized villages and their outlying hamlets and households; they were autonomous in pre-colonial times but were absorbed into wider administrative units under British rule. Most often they were patrilineal, with in-marrying wives, sons, unmarried daughters, and possibly parents or parents' siblings living together. Crops separated this residence grouping from similar ones spread out over a small area. They cultivated local fields and prayed to local spirits and the ghosts of departed lineage elders. Descendants of founders were often village heads or priests of the village shrine, whereas leading members of the other lineages formed an eldership that governed the place and a few outlying areas, consisting of those who were moving toward open lands as the population increased.  Other areas, particularly those of the Nupe, organised themselves as Islamic emirates.

Missionaries and party politics influenced, but did not obliterate, these older units. Missionaries arrived in the 1910s and 1920s and were allowed into non-Muslim areas. They set up schools using United States or British staff to teach English and helped to create a sense of separateness and educational disparity between the Christianized groups and Muslim ones. From the 1920s to current times both religions competed for adherents.  

The Middle Belt came under increasing influence from the north and Hausa language, dress, residential arrangements, and other cultural features became more widespread towards the end of the twentieth century.  

Nationalism in Nigeria

The nationalism that emerged in Nigeria during the interwar period was prompted by individual tribal aspirations and broad Pan-African sentiments rather than from any sense of a common Nigerian nationality. Its goal initially was not self-determination, but rather increased participation in the governmental process on a regional level.

Political opposition to colonial rule often assumed religious dimensions. Many Europeans were surprised and shocked that Nigerians wanted to develop new denominations independent of European control. However the SUM actively encouraged the formation of a native African Church from the outset. The pulpits of the independent congregations provided one of the few available avenues for the free expression of attitudes critical of colonial rule.

The voice of the native church was complemented by those of other organisations that arose in the 1920s, such as the Nigerian Union of Teachers, the Nigerian Law Association, the Nigerian Produce Traders' Association, led by Obafemi Awolowo, ethnic and kinship organizations (eg the Igbo Federal Union and the Egbe Omo Oduduwa, a Yoruba cultural movement) and youth or student groups.  Most were ostensibly non-political, but nonetheless allowed for the expression of nationalist sentiment and criticisms of government policy.

The opportunity afforded by the 1922 constitution to elect a handful of representatives to the Legislative Council gave politically conscious Nigerians something concrete to work on. The principal figure in the political activity that ensued was Herbert Macauley, often referred to as the father of Nigerian nationalism. His political platform called for economic and educational development, Africanization of the civil service, and self-government for Lagos.  He aroused political awareness through his newspaper, the Lagos Daily News, while leading the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) founded in 1922.  It dominated elections in Lagos from this time until the ascendancy of the National Youth Movement (NYM) in 1938, with its call for dominion status for Nigeria and economic self-determination. Many participants in the movement were graduates of mission schools. However, the nationalists were often critical of the missions because of their links with colonial agencies, so the missionaries had to distance themselves from imperial policy or face rejection. 

In the post-war period, party lines were sharply drawn on the basis of ethnicity and regionalism. The nationalist movement splintered into the Muslim Hausa- and Fulani- backed Northern People's Congress (NPC), the Yoruba-supported Action Group, and the Igbo-dominated National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC, later the National Council of Nigerian Citizens).  The latter was the result of a fusion between the NNDP and NYM, with Macauley as president and Azikiwe as secretary general.  It was the first political party to have nationwide appeal.

Rapid moves towards decolonisation started in 1948 with many Nigerians tired of being excluded from the higher posts in society. They believed that even more emphasis should be put on education and over the next years much more money was spent in this area. The trade unions were improved, together with water supplies, sanitation, housing, electricity, roads and other aspects of the infrastructure. Nationalism now had a much wider audience and was promoted across Africa by Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and the Pan-African Congress.

A new federal constitution for an independent Nigeria was prepared at the Lancaster House Conferences in London in 1957 and 1958 presided over by the British Colonial Secretary. Nigerian delegates were selected to represent each region and to reflect various shades of opinion. The delegation was led by Balewa of the NPC and included party leaders Awolowo of the Action Group, Azikiwe of the NCNC, and Bello of the NPC; they were also the premiers of the Western, Eastern, and Northern regions, respectively. Nigeria became an independent country within the Commonwealth on 1 October 1960. Azikiwe was installed as Governor General of the Federation of Nigeria and Balewa continued to serve as head of a democratically elected parliamentary, but now completely sovereign, government.

Post-Independence Politics and Civil War in Nigeria

During the first three years after independence, the Federal Government was an NPC-NCNC coalition. However, the conflicting natures of the two partners remained a major problem. The former was regionalist, Muslim, and aristocratic; the latter was nationalist, Christian, and populist. In May 1962 bloody rioting in the Western Region brought effective government to an end as rival legislators, following the example in the streets, introduced violence to the floor of the Regional Legislature.

Civil War in 1966-1967 presented many challenges for the local churches and SUM workers in Nigeria, as documented in SUM newsletters and publications. The Federal Military Government sought to revise the constitution so as to enable an early return to civilian rule. Alas, the tempo of violence increased. In September attacks on Igbo in the north were renewed with unprecedented ferocity, stirred up by Muslim traditionalists with the connivance of northern political leaders. The army was sharply divided along regional lines. Reports circulated that troops from the Northern Region had participated in the mayhem. The estimated number of deaths ranged as high as 30,000, although the figure was probably closer to 8,000 to 10,000. 

The first elections under the 1979 constitution were held on schedule in July and August 1979, and the Federal Military Government handed over power to a new civilian government under President Shehu Shagari on 1 October 1979. Nigeria's Second Republic was born amid great expectations. Oil prices were high and revenues were increasing. Unfortunately, the euphoria was short-lived, and on 31 December 1983 the military seized power once again.

A new constitution was promulgated in 1989 and preparations were made for a transition back to civilian rule in January 1993. By 1994 events had turned full circle as Action Partners welcomed Nigerian missionaries to serve in UK inner cities, alongside British staff.

Sudan

From the beginning of the Anglo-Egyptian joint-rule in 1899, the British sought to modernize Sudan by applying European technology to its underdeveloped economy and by replacing its authoritarian institutions with ones that adhered to liberal English traditions. However, southern Sudan's remote and undeveloped provinces - Equatoria, Bahr al Ghazal, and Upper Nile - received little official attention until after World War I, except for efforts to suppress tribal warfare and the slave trade. The British justified this policy by claiming that the south was not ready for exposure to the modern world. To allow the south to develop along indigenous lines, the British closed the region to outsiders. As a result, the south remained isolated and backward. A few Arab merchants controlled the region's limited commercial activities while Arab bureaucrats administered whatever laws existed. Christian missionaries, who operated schools and medical clinics, provided limited social services in southern Sudan.

Following Kumm’s recruitment meetings in Australia, the Australian branch of SUM began sending missionaries to work in Sudan. Wilfrid Mills, the Trudingers and D N McDiarmid arrived in 1914. Three mission stations were opened and by 1936 there were thirty three Australian SUM missionaries working there.  Other missionary groups active in the south included the Verona fathers, Presbyterians from the United States and the Anglican Church Missionary Society. There was no competition among these missions, largely because they maintained separate areas of influence. The government eventually subsidized the mission schools that educated southerners. Because mission graduates usually succeeded in gaining posts in the provincial civil service, many northerners regarded them as tools of British imperialism. The few southerners who received higher training attended schools in British East Africa (present-day Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania) rather than in Khartoum, thereby exacerbating the north-south division.

In addition to this, nationalists and religious leaders were divided on the issue of whether Sudan should apply for independence or for union with Egypt. Missionary activity in the region has to be evaluated in the context of rival nationalist coalitions. The Mahdi's son, Abd ar Rahman al Mahdi, emerged as a spokesman for independence in opposition to Ali al Mirghani, the Khatmiyyah leader, who favoured union with Egypt. Later, radical nationalists and the Khatmiyyah created the Ashigga, which became the National Unionist Party (NUP), advancing the cause of Sudanese-Egyptian unification. The moderates favoured Sudanese independence in co-operation with Britain.

In 1942 the Graduates' General Conference, a quasi-nationalist movement formed by educated Sudanese, presented the government with a memorandum that demanded a pledge of self-determination after the war to be preceded by abolition of the ‘closed door’ ordinances in the south, an end to the separate curriculum in southern schools, and an increase in the number of Sudanese in the civil service. The Governor General refused to accept the memorandum, but agreed to implement a modernised system of local government.

The road to independence for Sudan continued to be protracted and difficult. The pro-Egyptian NUP boycotted the 1948 Legislative Assembly elections, which provided proper representation for both north and south. As a result, pro-independence groups dominated the Legislative Assembly and in 1952 its leaders negotiated the Self-Determination Agreement with Britain. Egypt repudiated this agreement and declared that its monarch, Faruk, was also king of Sudan. When Colonel Muhammad Naguib seized power in Egypt, overthrowing Faruk, he ended the deadlock.  Naguib accepted the right of Sudanese self-determination and independence eventually followed on 1 January 1956.  

A brief period of civilian government was followed by a military coup led by Ibrahim Abbud in 1958. The Abbud regime suppressed expressions of religious and cultural differences and bolstered attempts to arabize Sudanese society. In December 1962 all the SUM workers from Australia and New Zealand left the Sudan and mission work was left to indigenous Christian churches in Sudan, with external support.  Abbud then closed Parliament to cut off outlets for southern complaints. Southern leaders renewed the armed struggle and the rebellion was spearheaded from 1963 by guerrilla forces known as the Anya Nya.  

After various unsuccessful coups, Colonel Jaafar an Nimeiri seized power in May 1969, but the civil war with the southern insurgents persisted.  In 1971 Joseph Lagu, who had become the leader of southern forces opposed to Khartoum, proclaimed the creation of the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM), which continued the struggle.  In this increasingly desperate and turbulent situation, amounting to 22 years of civil conflict, there was great need for outside economic and humanitarian aid.  

SUM newsletters dating from 1940 to 1989 allow researchers an interesting window on these difficult times and include details of the activities of the Association of Christian Resource Organisations Serving Sudan (ACROSS), which SUM helped to found.  There is also pertinent information in the SUM Australian Branch Reports for this period. 

Other branches and related papers

The Sudan United Mission not only consisted of missionaries from Britain, but also developed other branches with missionaries from South Africa, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland and France.

The South African branch of the mission was set up after Kumm visited South Africa in 1907. Rev J G Botha and V H Hosking were initially assigned to Mbula, an area 200 miles from Ibi, and later moved to Salatu to work among the Tiv tribe. Many of the later South African missionaries came from the Dutch Reformed Church and they concentrated on the development of Bible Schools and Sunday Schools.

A branch of the mission was founded in the United States and missionaries recruited included Rev C W Guinter, who was to become one of the outstanding missionary leaders of the SUM. At first the Sudan United Mission worked together with the American Sudan Interior Mission, which had missions in Nigeria, but after a short time they decided to continue separately. There are two American branches: the EUB – The Evangelical United Brethren and the CRC – The Christian Reformed Church. The Canadian branch worked in French Equatorial Africa, concentrating on the youth movement and work amongst women.

The archives of the North American/ Canadian branch of the SUM are held at Calvin College in Michigan.

Kumm’s visit to Australia was successful in recruiting a significant number of missionaries for work in Sudan. As mentioned above, their work started in 1913, three mission stations were opened and by 1936 there were thirty three Australian missionaries working in the Sudan. Work continued to progress well until the expulsion of the missionaries in 1963.

The Danish (Lutheran) branch began work in Numan among the tribe of the Bachama. A Boarding School for Girls was opened and in 1946 thirteen new missionaries were sent out. Its activities are well documented in the Danish archives.

The Norway branch, founded in 1939, worked among the lepers in the Tikar and Rei-Bouba tribes in the French Cameroons.

The Switzerland branch worked in Chad and the branch founded in France in 1960 also worked in Chad and the Cameroons.

The papers of J Lowry Maxwell, one of the most significant pioneer SUM missionaries, are held at the Rhodes House Library in Oxford.

Nature and Scope of the Microfilm Project

The microfilm publication of the SUM Archive has been divided into the following parts:

Part 1: Manuscript Papers, 1898-1960

Part 2: The Lightbearer, 1905-1991

Part 3: Newsletters, 1940-1989, Publications and Annual Reports, 1908-1979

Part 4: Lantern Slides, Slides and Photographs

Part 5: Publications in Hausa

Part 4: Lantern Slides, Slides and Photographs

The visual part of the SUM archive is a fascinating record of SUM activities in Northern Nigeria, Chad, the Cameroons and Sudan and forms a very important part of the archive. Lantern Slides, used by the missionaries at home and abroad in the early days of the mission contain stunning views in colour of the African countryside, people and their daily life. Lantern slides, often used on recruitment drives, were discontinued in later years and regular slides were then used to record important events, mission life and other activities. They provide researchers with useful evidence on different mission stations, local tribes and customs, SUM initiatives amongst the indigenous population and the growth of Native African Churches. The many photographs in the archive are organised by location. Some are black and white and some are in colour. They depict life and missionary work in Northern Nigeria and Sudan.

Part 5: Publications in Hausa

This part contains all the publications printed by the SUM in Hausa for use in the mission stations in Northern Nigeria. They consist of books, pamphlets and beginners books all written in the Hausa language, notes on the Hausa language and literature and descriptions of the Hausa tribes.

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