Tr HERE is perhaps no aspect of the African experience that has been analyzed with less objectivity than the Christian missionary effort." But Melville Herskovits' statement' hardly applies to the location of mission stations in Africa, knowledge of which is basic to more ambitiously conceived studies in Missionsgeographie.2 Mission stations are a widely dispersed, more or less permanent cultural feature of rural Africa. With their chapels, residences, dormitories, schools, dispensaries, gardens, utility buildings, water-supply systems, and good access roads they stand in great contrast with their immediate surroundings. In the confrontation of Europeans with African ways of life these stations have been for the missionaries a refuge, a symbol of achievement, and a home; for the Africans they have been strongholds of alien ways from religion to agriculture, an intrusion but also a promise of help, of learning, and of a better Many stations founded in the nineteenth century continue to have central functions in the twentieth, and the forces behind their location are therefore of interest to the historical geographer. This article presents a preliminary and condensed overview of the pioneer distribution of Christian missions on the African continent south of the Sahara.3 The missionary expansion of the nineteenth century as a part of the white man's penetration into Africa is treated under (1) its possible relation to population densities, (2) the role of relay points during the coastal phase and of overland routes, (3) some effects Melville J. Herskovits: The Human Factor in Changing Africa (New York, 1962), p. 204. 2 A plea for a sozialgeographische missiology has recently been made by Angelika Sievers: Die Christengruppen in Kerala (Indien): Ihr Lebensraum und das Problem der Christlichen Einheit, Zeitschr. fur Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft, Vol. 46, 1962, pp. 161-165. 3 Reference will be largely to recent nonmission publications, which are more accessible than most of the literature of mission societies. Of this it has been said: "Many of the articles are written for popular home consumption with a view to the promotion of interest and support for the missions... This does not mean deliberate misrepresentation of the facts, but the student of missions must learn how to read between the lines or else have access to other materials in order to get a complete picture" (Norman A. Horner: Cross and Crucifix in Mission [New York, 1965], p. 15). > DR. JOHNSON is professor of geography, and chairman of the department, at Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota. This content downloaded from 197.184.183.113 on Wed, 26 Apr 2023 16:48:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN AFRICA of the slave trade on mission location, and (4) the concept of mission fields. Four individual case studies are then presented, in which these general aspects should be recognizable. Initially, however, there must be some discussion of available maps. CARTOGRAPHY OF MISSIONS IN AFRICA During the "Great Century" the journals of most missionary societies reported on many parts of the world. Primitive communities in Australasia attracted them. In India, under the protection of the British regime, and in China, with its weakening political structure, missionaries faced intellectually demanding tasks among civilizations with great traditions. In Latin America, after three centuries of Catholic penetration, the expansion of Christianity declined under the impact of revolutions. In Africa south of the Sahara missionaries often preceded, and later joined, colonial penetration, conceiving themselves to be civilizing as well as evangelizing messengers from mission societies that also wanted to combat the slave traffic. Only some of the literature in which the societies reported about their work includes serviceable maps of a specific field.4 But for continental coverage in Africa two mission atlases are the most helpful tools.5 The Protestant "World Missionary Atlas" contains a directory of Protestant mission societies by national origin, statistical tables of missions by countries, and four plates of maps on Africa, on which places where "one or more Protestant missionaries" were reported to be residing in 1923 are underscored in red. However, the distribution of stations under one society, the direction of expansion, and the presence of several Protestant societies in the same place cannot be identified. The problems of mapping the missionary enterprise were fully recognized by one of the authors in another publicatio