White Father Archives in Tanzania

Readers may be interested to know that there are several little-known depositories of African-related Catholic missionary journals in the United States and Canada. Since these materials were not usually disseminated very widely when published, they are almost never to be found in academic and research libraries, nor, therefore, in the standard locating tools like Union List of Serials and its supplements. Because of this an effort is now being made to find at least one location in North America for each of the more than four hundred relevant journals. Likely possibilities include provincial and mother houses, teaching seminaries, monasteries, and provincial archives, as well as the libraries of institutions of higher learning affiliated with particular missionary orders. Although this project is very far from complete (and almost certainly will never attain the rather quixotic goal mentioned above) some early returns are in and several important collections have been identified. This note discusses the most useful of these, which relate to the White Fathers, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the Scheutists, and the Verona Fathers. African historians need no introduction to the value of the published White Father materials. The White Fathers served throughout most of Africa and they published more than any other order on the peoples among whom they served. Many of their writings have been used by Africanists, but it remains true that the correspondence, reports, and articles which appeared in their own numerous journals have not been extensively consulted, no doubt because these journals are not widely available.

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“Black” Son, “White” Father: The Tragic “Mulatto/a” and the Haitian Revolution in Victor Séjour’s ‘Le Mulâtre’

Tropics of Haiti ◽

10.5949/liverpool/9781781381847.003.0008 ◽

2015 ◽

pp. 345-372

Author(s):

Marlene L. Daut

Keyword(s):

Haitian Revolution ◽

Tragic Mulatto ◽

The Haitian Revolution ◽

White Father

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The Most Opaque Sands Make for the Cleanest Glass, and: Origin, and: At L’Express French Bistro My White Father Kisses My Black Mother Then Calls the Waiter a Nigger, and: Eunuch

Prairie Schooner ◽

10.1353/psg.2015.0002 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 89 (2) ◽

pp. 113-117

Author(s):

Charif Shanahan

Keyword(s):

Black Mother ◽

White Father

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The Great White Father and the Antichrist

American Journalism ◽

10.1080/08821127.2001.10739323 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 18 (3) ◽

pp. 35-60 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Robert L. Kerr

Keyword(s):

White Father

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The White Father Archives at Mwanza, Tanzania

History in Africa ◽

10.2307/3172043 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 24 ◽

pp. 431-432

Author(s):

Kathleen R. Smythe

Keyword(s):

Social History ◽

Gold Mine ◽

Archival Collection ◽

Fieldwork Experience ◽

White Fathers ◽

Primary Focus ◽

Western Tanzania ◽

White Father

The White Fathers' (Missionary Society of Africa) Regional House outside Mwanza, Tanzania is the home of a small, but important archival collection for scholars researching those areas in Western Tanzania where the White Fathers lived and worked. The collection is relatively unknown, but for my research (social history with a focus on children) it was a gold mine of information. It also turned out to be the most pleasant archives to work in of all of the ones I consulted during my fieldwork experience.The archives in Mwanza contain some of the same information that can be found in Rome at the White Fathers' headquarters, but provide a cheaper and closer alternative for those already in Tanzania. In the Regional House library are the Rapports Annuels of the mission society from the 1880s to the late 1950s and a full set of Chronique Trimestrielle (which later became Petit Echo). The Reports Annuels contain compilations of statistics (including the number of missionaries, sisters, catechists, neophytes, catechumens, baptisms of various categories, marriages, confessions, confirmations, boys and girls attending school for each mission station), as well as general reports about the nature and progress of the missionaries' work. Having already read the particular mission diaries in Rome, these reports were particularly helpful as they conveniently summarized trends and problems that priests saw in their work. As its name implies, the Chronique Trimestrielle was published four times a year and contained a variety of information about the missions and their work, but a primary focus was education. In addition, the library contains works on the mission society, its founder, Charles Lavigerie, and some important works on the Sukuma people and language.

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