Background
Joseph Booth was born in Derby on February 26, 1851, into a very religious home. He was of an independent, inquiring mind and very early questioned his parents' religious faith.
(Joseph Booth penned his appeal in 1897 in protest of the ...)
Joseph Booth penned his appeal in 1897 in protest of the racist stereotpying of the Africans by the colonisers; and witnessing the unjust and inhumane exploitation of the native peoples, for the sole benefit of the Europeans. He drew his ideas from the social and political messages he inferred from the Gospel and his appeal was published only thirteen years after European leaders met in Berlin to divide up the African continent. This now seminal text was republished in its centenary year and has continual relevance to debates about race and development in Africa. It is edited to include explanations of local and contemporary political references, biblical references and the sources of the author's citations.
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Joseph Booth was born in Derby on February 26, 1851, into a very religious home. He was of an independent, inquiring mind and very early questioned his parents' religious faith.
Booth educated himself through extensive reading.
In the 1880s Booth was a sheep farmer in New Zealand and a Baptist lay preacher in Australia. In 1891 he developed a scheme for self-supporting industrial missions in Africa to be run by lay people with practical educations, the aim being to foster independent African leadership. He traveled via England to the newly declared British Nyasaland Protectorate, where, in 1891, he started the Zambesi Industrial Mission near Blantyre. His first convert and friend was John Chilembwe, whom he baptized in a river. His ways of working aroused the suspicion of settlers, other missionaries, and the colonial government. He could not work with others sent to help him, and in 1896 the supporters of the Zambesi Industrial Mission broke with him.
With John Chilembwe, Booth visited the United States in 1897-1899, during which time they parted ways. In 1897 Booth published his book Africa for the Africans (he was the first known to have used this phrase). He then joined the Seventh-Day Baptists and returned to Malawi. In 1899 Booth and a group of Africans petitioned Queen Victoria on behalf of all Africans for education, political participation, and justice. Their actions caused the colonial government to pressure him to leave the protectorate about 1902.
Thereafter Booth worked with various organizations for the purpose of fostering African leadership and independence, mostly using South Africa as a base. He introduced the Watch Tower movement into Central Africa and used the mail and migrant workers to spread its literature and beliefs, thereby causing the colonial governments serious concern.
In 1915 John Chilembwe lost his life in an African uprising in Malawi. Although Booth was far away and had had nothing to do with Chilembwe for 15 years, his name was linked to the uprising and his ideas were considered the seed which led to it. He was therefore deported from South Africa in December 1915. In England he took part in independent religious activities until his death at Weston super Mare in 1932.
(Joseph Booth penned his appeal in 1897 in protest of the ...)
He became a restless, self-educated man and in the course of his life was an agnostic, a Baptist, a Seventh-Day Adventist, and a member of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Strangely enough, it was the reading of Thomas Paine which led him to the Christian faith.
He was strongly pacifist with a critical attitude toward all authority.
He married his first wife, Mary Jane née Sharpe, (who he first met on 1868) in 1872. In March 1896, Booth married his second wife, Annie née Watkins, during a short visit to Britain. Booth's second wife died in 1921, and he married his third wife, Lillian in May 1924 when he was 73 and she about 49.
His daughter, Emily, would later write of their experiences in Africa.