Colonial Possessions of Europe in Africa by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 29, 1914

Colonial Possessions of Europe in Africa

By W. A. S.

Review of Our Unentered Countries—No. 2

Colonial Possessions of Europe in Africa

A large list of unentered countries is provided by the colonial possessions and protectorates of European powers. The planting of our work in all the countries of Europe (save little Montenegro), and the development there of the strong and vigorously growing European Division Conference, together with the building up of the union conferences in South Africa and Australasia, have provided natural bases from which to push the work into these still unentered colonial countries.

Reviewing these countries by continents, we begin with Africa. The partition of Africa within the last twenty-five years, and the development of settled government and means of communication over so large a portion of its area, have made highways for the missionary advance in every part.

The countries under British administration in which we know of no representative of the advent message, with estimated population, are as follows:—

Uganda .................... 2,843,000 Zanzibar .................... 115,000 Somaliland .................... 300,000 Bechuanaland .................... 125,000 Swaziland .................... 99,000 Northern Nigeria .................... 9,269,000 Anglo-Egyptian Sudan ... 2,600,000

Total population ...... 15,351,000

Southern Nigeria, with its seven millions, would have been on this list a few weeks ago; but during the recent visit of Elder L. R. Conradi to West Africa, it was arranged for Elder D. C. Babcock

to pioneer the way in this colony. Our work is under way in regions close to all the countries named here, except Somaliland, on the Gulf of Aden, east of Abyssinia.

Of German possessions unentered, there are but a few, all on the west coast:—

Togo .................... 1,000,000 Kamerun .................... 2,720,000 Southwest Africa .................... 82,000

Total population ...... 3,802,000

The largest portion of Africa has fallen to the French republic, though it is the Sahara Desert that bulks largest in the area. France is developing its possessions, however, and even the Sahara is not altogether the barren region once pictured. The French colonies unentered are:—

French Kongo .................... 10,000,000 West Africa and Sahara .................... 11,000,000 Tunis .................... 1,923,000 Madagascar .................... 3,104,000 Somali Coast .................... 208,000

Total population ...... 26,235,000

Other countries altogether beyond us in Africa are:—

Belgian Kongo .................... 15,000,000 Portuguese Angola .................... 4,119,000 Portuguese East Africa .................... 3,120,000 Portuguese Guinea .................... 820,000 Cape Verde Islands .................... 147,000 Tripoli (Italian) .................... 1,000,000 Italian Somaliland .................... 300,000

Total population ...... 24,506,000

We do have, however, a Portuguese brother and his family in Angola, West Africa, doing what they can while engaged in business, and earnestly calling for a mission to be opened in that region.

Though usually counted with Continental Europe, we must keep in mind the Madeira Islands, belonging to Portugal, and Malta, a British naval base, islands off the African coast as yet unvisited by our work.

Interested as we are in every point of light that stands for this third angel's message, we were glad some months ago to hear that a representative of the message, a French sister, is on the island of Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar; and we know that the European Division is endeavoring even now to shape plans for placing its first worker in Madagascar.

These unentered countries of Africa represent a total of about seventy million souls, toward whose lands we must press in our prayers and our efforts, with our trust in the Lord, who is able to do things beyond all that we can ask or think.

The opening of Africa is one of the marvels of our own time. Our own work began there in 1885, in the call of some who had found the Sabbath truth, in South Africa, and in 1887 our first workers landed at Cape Town. A few years later the first steps were taken toward entering the vast field of native Africa. From those very times, we have seen the hand of Providence opening the doors and laying the highways of access. In the first paragraph of a work entitled "The Opening Up of Africa," published in 1911, Sir H. H. Johnston said:—

Why does special interest attach to what is styled in colloquial speech "the opening up of Africa"?—Because only twenty-five years ago Europe and civilized America were very slightly acquainted with the greater part of the geography, peoples, and products of Africa; . . . yet nevertheless since 1885 African discovery has proceeded at a rate so astonishing that there is nothing quite comparable to it in the history of human civilization.

Surely we should be blind indeed did we not see that the Lord has been preparing the way for the light of his Word and the sound of the closing message to penetrate Africa in these very last days. He who has so wondrously wrought in the beginning of the good work in Africa can finish and cut short his work for that dark continent in his own good time and way.

Of further unentered fields in Asia and other parts, we must speak in another article. W. A. S.