François Coillard
François Coillard (born July 17, 1834 in Asnières-lès-Bourges , Département Cher , France , † May 27, 1904 in Lealui , Barotseland ) was a Protestant French missionary of the Société des missions évangéliques de Paris (SMEP), who long with the Basotho in today's Lesotho and - as the first missionary - worked with the Barotse in the west of today's Zambia .
Life
Childhood, education and work with the Basotho
Coillard was born the youngest of seven children. Both parents, François and Madeleine Coillard, were Huguenots . The father died in 1836. His son attended the Protestant school in Asnières-lès-Bourges, then the University of Strasbourg . In 1854 he began training with the SMEP under Eugène Casalis , who had worked as the first missionary with the Basotho under Moshoeshoe I from 1833 . Coillard was consecrated in Paris in 1857 and, like Casalis before, was to live with the Basotho. The missionary Adolphe Mabille accompanied him. Both reached Cape Town on November 6, 1857, and finally the Basotho area. As a result of the defeat in the Senekal war against the Boers , the Basotho had to move east; Coillard built a new mission station, in his spelling Leribé, near what is now called Leribe or Hlotse.
In 1861 he married Christina Mackintosh (1829-1891), the daughter of a minister from Scotland, whom he had met in Paris. She became his close associate; the marriage remained childless.
In 1865 Coillard was involved in negotiations between the Basotho and the British colonial official Theophilus Shepstone from neighboring Natal . The Boers occupied the station in Leribe in the Seqiti War in 1866. Coillard fled to Natal and was only able to return via Kuruman in 1869 after the British had declared the country a crown colony of Basutoland . He spoke Sesotho excellently ; In his time with the Basotho he published the hymn book Lipesaleme le lifela tsa Sione (for example: "The Psalms and Hymns of Zion"), which is still in use today under similar names and is the most widely used hymn book in southern Africa.
First trip to the Barotse
During his stay in Kuruman, missionary Robert Moffat suggested that Coillard move north to an area that David Livingstone had previously visited as the first European. From 1877 to 1879 the group of the Coillard couple, Coillard's niece Elise, four theologically trained Basotho and some cattle drovers and family members of the Basotho crossed the Limpopo . They came to Matabeleland , where the ruler Lobengula had them arrested for almost four months. Then they moved west to the British protectorate of Bechuanaland , where they converted the head of the Bamangwato Khama III. received at his headquarters in Shoshong . He sent them to Barotseland to the north. The Barotse living there speak Lozi , a language related to Sesotho .
In 1878 the group received permission to set up a mission station in Sesheke . The group returned to Basutoland in 1879. The Coillards lived in Europe from 1880 to 1882. During this time the mission station was hit by the Gun War .
Second journey and settlement with the Barotse
The Coillard couple set out again in 1882 with a newly formed group of over 30 people and several ox carts . They reached the area north of the Zambezi in early 1884 and started operating the station in Sesheke, which was operated by the missionary Dorwald Jeanmariet, who had meanwhile married Elise Coillard. François Coillard and his wife founded another mission in Sefula , some 300 kilometers north , which became Coillard's residence until 1892. At the nearby seat of the ruler of the Barotse, Lewanika, in Lealui , they were not admitted until 1886; Coillard slowly gained the ruler's confidence. Lewanika and Coillard tried to win over the British as a protective power for Bechuanaland as well as for Barotseland; the British South Africa Company under the leadership of Cecil Rhodes prevented this from economic interests. In 1889 Coillard's reports appeared as Sur le Haut-Zambèze: voyages et travaux de mission. In the same year Coillard founded another station in Kazungula . Christina Coillard died in 1891 and was buried in Sefula. In 1892 a station was built in Lealui, and in 1894 one in Nalolo . Coillard fell seriously ill in 1895 and lived again in Europe from 1896 to 1898. In 1897 his book Coillard also made known in Europe in the English version On the threshold of Central Africa . Catharine Wentworth Macintosh, another niece, had translated the book. Coillard returned to the Barotse via Leribe in 1899. In May 1904 he died there of hemorrhagic fever and was buried next to his wife in Sefula.
Works
- Lipesaleme le lifela tsa Sione (as co-author and editor). Digitized version of the 1861 edition (Sesotho)
- 1889: Sur le Haut-Zambèze: voyages et travaux de mission. Digitized version of the 1899 edition (French)
- 1897: On the threshold of Central Africa; a record of twenty years' pioneering among the Barotsi of the Upper Zambesi . Hodder and Stoughton, London digitized version (English translation from Sur le Haut-Zambèze: voyages et travaux de mission )
Others
Two stanzas composed by Coillard of a song written for schoolchildren have been used as the text of the Lesotho national anthem since 1967 . Three more stanzas, in which he wanted to dissuade the Basotho from traditional customs, have been left out.
See also
literature
- Catharine Wentworth Macintosh: Coillard of the Zambesi, the Lives of Francois and Christina Coillard, of the Paris Mission Society, in South and Central Africa (1858-1904). London 1907. Full text at archive.org
- E. Lobstein: François Coillard, the founder of the Zambezi Mission: To the jubilation d. 100 years Existence d. Paris Evang. Mission Society. Basler Missionsbuchh., Basel 1922.
- Edward Shillito: François Coillard: a wayfaring man. Student Christian Movement , Birmingham 1923.
- Eduard Riggenbach : François Coillard: The founder d. Zambezi Mission. Evangelischer Missionsverlag, Stuttgart and Basel 1932.
Web links
- Biography at dacb.org (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e biography at dacb.org (English), accessed on January 13, 2017
- ↑ a b Missionary work near the Victoria Falls at tothevictoriafalls.com (English), accessed on January 15, 2017
- ↑ Lifela tsa sione. morija.co.ls, accessed January 13, 2017
- ^ François Coillard: On the threshold of Central Africa; a record of twenty years' pioneering among the Barotsi of the Upper Zambesi . London 1897, p. 3 (digitized version).
- ^ On the threshold of Central Africa. Digitized , p. 4.
- ^ On the threshold of Central Africa. Digitized , p. 5.
- ^ Photo of the grave site , accessed on January 17, 2017
- ↑ Information at nationalanthems.info , accessed on January 16, 2017
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Coillard, François |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French missionary |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 17, 1834 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Asnières-lès-Bourges |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 27, 1904 |
| Place of death | Lealui , Kingdom of Barotse |