Fuller Joseph Fuller battled successfully against African witchcraft.
JAMAICAN MISSIONARY Joseph Fuller was a pioneer of unusual cut. Apart from his blackness as a missionary to Africa (1845-1888) in pre-colonial times, he demonstrated remarkable character and was outstanding for his creativity and courage. A distinctive feature of his career service as a missionary in Africa was his handling of one of the biggest problems all foreigners faced - African witchcraft.
Las Newman, one of the Caribbean's foremost historians on West Indian missions to Africa in the 19th century, points out that missionaries in those days in Africa faced several peculiar cultural realities "that required adaptation and response". Yet, Newman says, that beyond all the difficulties Fuller encountered, none surpassed the hostile social environment, which was one riddled with superstition.
AFRICAN WORLDVIEW
The African worldview saw everything in terms of the spirit world. The spirits were needed for fighting enemies, for defence against other spirits, and to heal the sick. In every experience of life, spirits were invoked to assist in some way. Everything that seemed unusual was explained in terms of the work of spirits. Consequently, Newman says that even the indomitable attitude of Fuller led to the charge of witchcraft being levelled against him.
This came about when he ordered digging a well at a certain spot on the mission compound. After much depth was achieved, the results were negative. The workers began to protest against further energy being put into the vain effort, but he insisted against the expressed negative judgement of everyone else, and, eventually, water sprang forth. From then, many of the natives began to withdraw from him, fearing him to possess supernatural power. Newman comments:
"This posed a problem for Fuller at one point as people began to stay away from his mission church because he seemed to them to possess extraordinary powers. There were attempts at times to poison him or put charms under the stool they offered him to sit on in the local town square, in the hope that it might produce some sickness and end in his death" ("A West Indian contribution to Christian Mission in Africa: The career of Joseph Jackson Fuller (1845-1888)" by Las Newman, in Transformation 18/4October 2001).
UNEASE
Fuller came to experience a great deal of unease with the problem, for the natives were as persistent in their belief as they were profound in the fear. Fuller wrote in his diary:
"They set a watch on me and whenever I went on itinerant visits to the interior, the men I employed for the journey were always charged by their friends to see when I take my morning bath in the river if I wore any charms about my body which counteract theirs"
(Autobiography manuscript, BMS, Regents Park College, Oxford, p. 6)
The strength of Fuller's Biblical convictions is what made him so strong. The teaching of the Baptist grounded him strong in the Word of God as the antidote for every evil. Fuller was fully persuaded, therefore, that God was the chief of spirits and was greater that any other spirit, and particularly against evil spirits. Fuller was confident in the protection of God, who promised in the Great Commission (Matthew 128: 16-20) that he would be with his followers always, until the church's mission on earth is finished.
Fuller repeatedly commented that God knew everything that was going on, even when a single strand of hair fell from his head. He had a tremendous sense of the knowledge and power of God, and of God's superiority over evil forces, seen and unseen. Fuller trusted in God fully to protect him. Newman in commenting on the African witchcraft western missionaries encountered, said that they were "contemptuous of the practices associated with it, regarding it as superstitious".
Fuller's overall contribution to the missionary enterprise in pre-colonial Africa is phenomenal and is yet to be properly assessed. Nevertheless, what can be made needs to be made and that shall be the focus of the fourth and concluding part of this series.
