The God of the White Man and the Gods of Our Fathers”: Missionary Education, Cultural Alienation, and the Making of Efik Christian Identity, 1846–1960

Abstrak

The arrival of Presbyterian missionaries in Calabar in 1846 initiated a century-long process of educational transformation that fundamentally reshaped Efik society. Mission schools taught literacy in English and Efik, introduced Western curricula, and trained a new elite that would go on to play significant roles in the colonial administration, the nationalist movement, and the postcolonial state. But mission education also had profound cultural and psychological effects that have received less scholarly attention. This paper examines mission education as a process of cultural alienation, arguing that the curriculum, pedagogy, and disciplinary practices of Presbyterian schools systematically delegitimised Efik religious traditions, social institutions, and ways of knowing while valorising Western Christianity and culture as universal and normative. Drawing on mission archives, school records, and oral histories with descendants of early mission school students, the paper traces the experiences of the first generations of Efik Christians who navigated between the world of the mission school and the world of their ancestors. It analyses the psychological and cultural costs of this navigation, including the internalisation of negative evaluations of indigenous culture, the estrangement from extended family and community, and the production of a Christian identity defined in opposition to traditional religion. The paper argues that the effects of mission education continue to shape Efik Christian identity in the present, contributing to the Pentecostal assault on indigenous religion while also generating counter-movements that seek to recover and revalue ancestral traditions. The study contributes to the literature on mission education, cultural imperialism, and the psychology of colonisation.