Thomas Arbousset

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Arbousset, c. 1870 to 1877, photograph by G. Jally, Paris

Thomas Jean Arbousset (born January 13, 1810 in Pignan ( Hérault ), † September 29, 1877 in Saint-Sauvant (Vienne) ) was a Protestant French missionary who worked for a long time with the Basotho in what is now Lesotho . There he was one of the first missionaries of the Société des missions évangéliques de Paris (SMEP) in 1833 . The church founded by him and his colleagues is now called the Lesotho Evangelical Church in Southern Africa after the Catholic Church the second largest religious community in Lesotho.

Life

Thomas Arbousset was born the ninth of 13 children. He decided to become a missionary after reading the Bible to a blind neighbor and telling him about the persecution of former Huguenots . A stay in Mazères with Pastor Gachon, who was a great admirer of the Moravian Brethren and their missionary work, confirmed his resolve.

Arbousset studied at the Maison des missions de Paris from 1829 to the summer of 1832 . Among other things, he took courses in linguistics and agriculture and was taught by a carpenter and a locksmith. The SMEP decided to send him to southern Africa . In December 1832 he sailed south with his colleague Eugène Casalis and the craftsman and lay missionary Constant Gosselin from Gravesend, England , on February 24, 1833 they reached Cape Town in the Cape Colony . They came over Port Elizabeth to Philippolis , where she learned about the invitation of the head of the Basotho, Moshoeshoe I. From him she received the permission mission Moriah to start, some 40 kilometers south of Moshoeshoes seat Thaba Bosiu . The missionaries soon played an important role as advisors to the morena Moshoeshoe, especially in questions of agricultural technology and diplomatic dealings with neighboring peoples. Arbousset made trips to the Maloti Mountains in 1836 and 1840 to find the sources of the Oranje and Malibamatso . He wrote reports about these trips, which are among the earliest written documents about the Basotho. On his second trip he was accompanied by Moshoeshoe. The research he carried out in the 1830s on Morena Mohlomi , who died around 1816, is the most reliable report on this “African philosopher”. He had asked Mohlomi's former favorite wife about this.

In 1837 he married Katharina (Catherine) Rogers from Cape Town , with whom he had nine children. In 1848 he founded a mission society in Morija, which should ensure contact with the other areas of the Basotho.

After 27 years with the Basotho, Arbousset returned to France in 1860. Shortly before reaching the English coast, his wife drowned in a failed rescue operation.

After the death of his wife and a serious illness of his older daughter, Arbousset wanted to live in Menton on the Mediterranean , but the SMEP asked him in 1863 to take over a missionary station in Tahiti with his son-in-law , which was helping out due to disputes with Catholics and the French administration needed. Queen Pomaré IV belonged to the community . Two years later, Arbousset finally returned to France. He wanted again a low-conflict congregation, but was seconded to Saint-Sauvant (Vienne), where Liberals and Evangelicals were in dispute.

Thomas Arbousset died in Saint-Sauvant in 1877.

Works

  • Relation d'un voyage d'exploration au nord-est de la colonie du Cap de Bonne-Espérance entrepris dans le mois de mars, avril et may 1836 by MM. T. Arbousset et F. Daumas, missionnaires de la Société des Missions évangéliques de Paris. Arthus-Bertrand, Paris 1842.
  • Excursion missionnaire dans les Montagnes Bleues; suivie d'une Notice sur les Zoulas.
    • Missionary Excursion into the Blue Mountains: Being an account of King Moshoeshoe's Expedition from Thaba-Bosiu to the Sources of the Malibamatso River in the Year 1840. Translated and edited by David Ambrose and Albert Brutsch. 1991.

literature

  • Henri Clavier: Thomas Arbousset: Étude historique, Recherche historique sur son milieu, sa personnalité, son œuvre, parallèle avec Livingstone. Société des Missions Évangéliques, Paris 1965.
  • Daniel C. Bach: La France et l'Afrique du Sud, Histoire, mythes et enjeux contemporains. Credu-Karthala, 1990, ISBN 2-86537-269-3 .
  • Jacques Blandenier: L'essor des missions protestantes; volume 2: you XIXe siècle au milieu du XXe siècle. Éditions de l'Institut biblique de Nogent et Emmaüs, 2003, ISBN 2-903100-32-2 .
  • André Encrevé (Ed.): Les protestants. Dictionnaire du monde religieux dans la France contemporaine. Beauchesne, 1992, ISBN 2-7010-1261-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f J. Dreyer: Thomas Arbousset and Francois Daumas in the Free State: tracing the exploratory tour of 1836. University of the Free State , 2001 (English), accessed on May 4, 2014
  2. ^ Name at huguenots-france.org (French), accessed on May 4, 2014
  3. ↑ a b Biography at dacb.org ( Memento from July 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
  4. ^ A b c Scott Rosenberg, Richard W. Weisfelder, Michelle Frisbie-Fulton: Historical Dictionary of Lesotho. Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland / Oxford 2004, ISBN 978-0-8108-4871-9 , p. 168.
  5. ^ Scott Rosenberg, Richard W. Weisfelder, Michelle Frisbie-Fulton: Historical Dictionary of Lesotho. Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland / Oxford 2004, ISBN 978-0-8108-4871-9 , p. 8.
personal data
SURNAME Arbousset, Thomas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Arbousset, Thomas Jean (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French missionary
DATE OF BIRTH January 13, 1810
PLACE OF BIRTH Pignan ( Herault )
DATE OF DEATH September 29, 1877
Place of death Saint-Sauvant (Vienne)