Board of Trustees, Boston University

Missionary to the Malagasy: The Madagascar Diary of the Rev. Charles T. Price, 1875-1877 by
Charles T. Price; Arnold H. Price
Review by: Bonar A. Gow
The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 23, No. 3 (1990), pp. 562-563
Published by: Boston University African Studies Center
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/219636 .
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562 BOOK REVIEWS

MISSIONARY TO THE MALAGASY: THE MADAGASCAR DIARY OF

THE REV. CHARLES T. PRICE, 1875-1877.Edited by ArnoldH. Price. New
York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1989.Pp. 218 $48.00.

The period 1862 to 1895 was the heyday of the British Protestant mission societies
in Madagascar. Britons donated thousands of pounds for salaries and benefits,
travel, churches, schools, hospitals, and the training of local Malagasy and white
clergy. One of these clerics was the Rev. Charles T. Price, a member of the
Congregational London Missionary Society, and this book constitutes a snapshot
of one of the phases of his career in the ministry.
The first eighty-two pages of the book are devoted to the voyage to
Madagascar via Mauritius. The cramped quarters, the weather conditions, and the
monotony prompts Price to comment extensively upon the ship's routine and the
lives of his fellow passengers. Early on he develops an antagonism towards the
other missionaries on the ship, particularly a German-speaking member of the
evangelical Anglican Church Missionary Society, and descriptions of their petty
feuds are interwoven with details of life at sea. However, he is just as quick to
criticize, ridicule, and argue with members of his own society. When the ship
lands in Mauritius he makes a point of avoiding churches where any of the
L.M.S.missionaries are preaching.
Price is a sarcastic, vain man who is quick to pounce upon a colleague's
perceived shortcomings, sermons, singing ability, or social class. He makes no
attempt to hide his contempt for the beliefs of others, nor does he exhibit much
tolerance for a member of the ship's crew. Thus, the German missionary and his
family are termed "mongrels"(p. 59); one of the ship's cats, which messes in his
cabin, is "safely seen .... overboard" (p. 40); and all evangelical Anglicans are
labeled "the most inconsistent narrow-minded and yet haughty party in
Christendom" (p. 43). Upon his arrival in Mauritius the Anglo-Catholic
missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel also experience his
invective. One man, whose first and only contact with Price took place during
the short stay in Mauritius, preached a sermon at the Anglican cathedral. Price
subsequently described him as "worthless"and his sermon "dry and empty, as well
as a silly production" (p. 76). When they share the same ship for the passage to
Madagascar the Anglican missionary, whom Price now describes as "unfriendly,"
chooses to sleep on deck rather than in the cabin with Price (p. 82).
The remainder of his diary is something of a disappointment for the
reader who is hoping to learn more about Malagasy society. Once ashore Price's
energy is focused mainly on how he will be carried through the countryside in
his litter and by whom; who will greet and entertain him upon his arrival in a
village; the manner in which he will be housed by the local people; and the
nature of his menu. Consequently, he spends little time commenting upon the
people he came to convert.
Like many British missionaries, Price appears to have gained only a
superficial understanding of Malagasy society. One of his overriding concerns is
cleanliness, which he equates with godliness, and this near-obsession with the
presence of dirt and "dirty Malagasy" is found throughout his diary. His negative
feelings for the Malagasy, among whom he works in southern Madagascar,
surface shortly after his arrival. The Betsileo peoples are deemed incompetent in
singing, teaching, and worshipping in the European manner; considered to be

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 BOOK REVIEWS 563

universally corrupt; and unworthy of trust. Those Malagasy who anger Price
sometimes find his "contempt for [them] indicat[ed]... with a touch of [his] foot"
(p. 234). As a missionary to the unconverted Price is no St. Paul.
If it is approached as a potential source of information on pre-colonial
Madagascar, then Price's diary is of limited value. There are other, better, books
for this period already in print, and the reader would do well to consult them
instead.

BONAR A. GOW
Concordia College

SUDAN 1898-1989:THE UNSTABLE STATE. By Peter Woodward.Boulder: Lynne

Rienner Publishers, and London: Lester Crook Academic Publishing, 1990.
Pp. xiv, 273. $35.00.

The Sudan's instability would appear incontestable in light of a post-

independence history dominated by civil war. Interpretation of that history to
reveal causes of instability is the stated aim of Peter Woodward's new book. His
thesis-that there are inherent weaknesses in the Sudan's state-system-is
plausible, but it rests upon methodological, factual, interpretive, and technical
errors that provide an unstable basis for interpretation.
The reader's confidence is sapped by numerous errors of fact. A Glossary
(pp. vii-viii) in which durbaris defined without qualification as "tribal gathering";
mek as "native administrator in south"; and sufi as "member of an Islamic sect";
and in which 'ulama'is rendered "ulemma,"is ominous. Some examples of what
follows may be given. The Sudanese revolutionary leader was not "Ahmed al-
Mahdi" (pp. 13, 16, 34), and he did not die "at the end of 1885"(p. 14). Qadis are
judges, not "appointed religious officials" (p. 20). The Sudan government's Board
of Ulema [sic] did not supervise religious courts (p. 33). Sayyid 'Ali al-Mirghani
was not the "only Sudanese to be knighted before the First World War" (p. 34): it
is significant that he was knighted during it, in 1916.The Sudan railway did not
reach El Obeid in 1915 (p. 35), but in 1911.The Intelligence Department certainly
"decreased in significance" after 1924 (p. 54): it was abolished in 1925. The Sudan
government was not "bereft of a subsidy from Egypt" by the early 1930s (p. 55):
subsidy continued at (E750,000p.a. until 1938, and (E250,000thereafter until 1941.
Sir Stewart (not Stuart) Symes had not "served in Sudan from 1908 to 1919"(p. 57),
but from 1906 to 1916. Hubert Huddleston did not command the reconquest of
Darfur (p. 60). The Mahdists were not "first off the mark" in establishing a
political party in 1945 (p. 66): the Ashiqqa party was founded a year earlier. The
"verbatim account of the Juba Conference" to which the author refers (p. 248, n21)
does not exist. The Sudan Plantations Syndicate was not "nationalised" in 1950 (p.
79): its contract was not renewed. The Ansar riot on 1 March 1954 did not merely
delay the opening ceremonies of Parliament (p. 88): they were cancelled; and
Isma'il al-Azhari was not elected prime minister thereafter but long before (on 6
January). "The Anglo-Egyptian agreement of 1952"(p. 91) was of course reached
in 1953. 'Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi was not the leader of the People's Democratic

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