This book examines the relationship between Catholic missionaries and the colonial
administration in southeastern Belgian Congo. It challenges the perception that the Church and
the state worked seamlessly together. Instead using the territory of Kongolo as a case study
the book reconfigures their relationship as one of competitive co-dependency. Based on
extensive archival research and oral histories the book argues that both institutions retained
distinct agendas that while coinciding during certain periods clashed on many occasions. The
study begins by outlining the pre-colonial history of southeastern Congo. The second chapter
examines how the Church began its encounters with the peoples in Kongolo and the Tanganyika
province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Subsequent chapters highlight how
missionaries exerted significant influence over the colonial construction of chieftainship and
the politics of Congolese decolonization. The book ends in 1962 with the massacre of a number
of Holy Ghost Fathers in an event that signaled the beginning of a more Africanized Church in
Kongolo.'The author gratefully acknowledges support from the Economic and Social Research
Council in the completion of this project.'
