Shadow and Light / An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century

by Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

The year 1861 will ever be a period from which date results momentous in behalf of civil and religious liberty for the Negro. It was the beginning of the end of Negro slavery in the United States and the permanent establishment of religious freedom in Madagascar. Queen Ranavalona had a long reign of thirty-three years, but in that year it became evident she could not reign much longer. Natives give details of her last days. The aged Queen had for some time been suffering in health; diviners had been urgently consulted, charms and potent herbs had been employed, with no avail. Late in the summer of 1861 it became generally known that the fatal moment could not long be delayed. Mysterious fires were said to be seen on the tops of mountains surrounding the capital, and a sound like music was rising from Iatry to Andohalo. The Queen eagerly questioned those around her as to the meaning of these portents. But while the dying Queen was anxiously praying to the idol in which she placed her trust, there were those who whispered to the prince that the fire was the sign of jubilee to bring together the dispersed, and to redeem the lost, and so the event proved.

The aged Queen passed away during the night of August 15, 1861, and early on the morning of August 16 the news spread rapidly through the capital, and her son was proclaimed as Radama II. One of the first acts of the new sovereign was to proclaim religious liberty. The chains were struck off from the persecuted Christians and the banished were recalled. Many came back who had long been in banishment or in hiding, and their return seemed to friends who had supposed them to be dead like a veritable resurrection.

The joy of the Christian was intense. The long season of repression had at last come to an end. Now it was no longer a crime to meet for Christian worship, or to possess Christian books. On that first Friday evening some of the older Christians met and spent the night in prayer, and Sunday services were begun in eleven private houses; but these were soon consolidated into three large congregations. Radama II eagerly welcomed intercourse with foreigners and gave Christians permission to write at once, urging that missionaries be sent out, himself writing to the London Missionary Society making the same request. The society responded promptly with a large band of men and women missionaries, twenty or thirty thousand copies of the Bible, New Testament and tracts.

The result of three-quarters of a century of Christian work in Madagascar has been that the Christian religion has taken firm hold on the people. Manifest and noticeable are the number and prominence of church buildings in and around the capital. There are four stone memorial churches, built by the friends of the London Missionary Society to remind coming generations of the fidelity of the martyrs, and a very fine and well situated Roman Catholic cathedral in Ambodin Andaholo. Prominent as Christian agencies in Madagascar are "The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel," who sent out Bishop Kestel Cornish and James Coles; "The Norwegian Missionary Society," "The Roman Catholic Missionary Society," and "The Society of Friends in England."

To summarize, approximately there are now 110 foreign missionaries on the island; over 2,000 congregations, with a total of 400,000 adherents, which include 100,000 church members; while the Protestant schools contain 150,000 children. No statement of the Christianizing agencies and influences would be just or correct that did not include that of the Roman Catholic Church. "No one," it has been truly said, "can be long in Madagascar without learning to admire the self-denial, patience and heroic fortitude with which its work is carried on." It has been thus fittingly described, a few years ago, by an English visitor: "In 1861, when Catholic missionaries landed on the shores of Tamatave there was not a Catholic on the island; but little by little, by dint of unwearied labor, suffering and preaching, they won over not hundreds but thousands of pagans to the love and knowledge of our Lord and His truth, so that their pagan converts number over 130,000. They have built a magnificent cathedral, which is the glory and pride of Antananarivo. They have also 300 churches and 400 or more Catholic stations scattered over the island, where 18,000 children are taught and trained by a large and elevated staff of Christian brothers and sisters of St. Joseph, and 641 native teachers. They have also created industrial schools, where various trades are taught by two devoted brothers, Benjamin and Arnoad, and at Ambohipo they have a flourishing college for young Malagash. They have also on the island four large dispensaries, where thousands of prescriptions are distributed gratis to all who seek to relieve their sufferings. They have also established a leper hospital at Ambohivoraka, where the temporal and spiritual wants of 150 poor lepers are freely administered to, and have already opened another such establishment, in Betsilio land. Prison visitation, dispensing rice, clothing, and spiritual instruction to half-starved and naked prisoners under the Madagascar rule; their catalogue of books devotional, literary and scientific; a dictionary, all of which have been edited and published in the Madagascan language, are among the golden contributions for civilization by the Catholics in this far-off island continent in the Indian seas."

In referring to their labors, and to which, comparatively, I have made but brief reference, Mr. Cousins says: "To much in the Roman Catholic system we may be strenuously opposed; but to their zeal, their skill, their patience, their self-denial, we render the homage of an ungrudging admiration."

The foregoing were the labors and results of missionary effort up to the date of the French taking absolute possession of the island. It is to be hoped there will be no retrograde movement lessening the efficiency of these civilizing agencies. Although it is alleged that French control and influence in Tahiti and other South Sea islands have been averse to both morality and evangelical Christianity, and hence there are not wanting those who predict incumbrances in missionary work, now French authority is established. But in this age of progress along all the lines of human endeavor the French Government will undoubtedly see the justice and utility of governing with a regard to the advancement of these wards that the prowess of its arms have committed to its care. It is not unreasonable to expect, and the promise should be flattering, that with the European ideas of the proper functions of government, the incipient steps for the mental culture of the natives, present evidence of large expenditure and introduction of the most modern applications for the physical development of the island, the Madagascan people will attain in the future a higher degree of human advancement from contact with the civilization of the French than it was possible they could have under "Hova rule." And in this connection it is gratifying to note that "The Native Race Protection Committee," headed by Mr. Paul Viollet, of the Paris Institute, in June, 1899, addressed an appeal to the Colonial Minister in behalf of the Malagash, entreating him to shorten the forced labor, to reduce the taxes, and to annul decrees, which greatly re-established slavery.

The appeal dwelt on the fearful mortality occasioned by forced labor on the roads, which threatened to reduce the most robust population of the highlands as to de-bar colonists from commercial and agricultural enterprises, and very pertinently asks "Is it not better to be without roads than without a healthy population?" The appeal also denounced arbitrary acts. "The native," it is said, "is arrested and imprisoned for months without a trial, and this with all the less forbearance, as the prisoner is always utilized as an economic laborer." The justice of this appeal and prompt reception and accord with the French conscience was evidenced in the public announcement to the natives by Gen. Gallieni, the Governor of Madagascar, a few months later, that forced labor would be discontinued after January 1, 1900, and thereafter they could work for whom they pleased, and if for government they would be paid wages agreed to.

It is needless to say that this proclamation was received by the natives with tumultuous rejoicing. Forced labor is now abolished, and the natives rejoice in a jubilee from a servitude the most galling.