Bridgeheads of Empire? Liberated African missionaries in West Africa

Abstract

Sierra Leone's ‘New Christian Evangelists’ have sometimes been seen as a ‘bridgehead’ of imperial expansion in Nigeria, tying into the literature that sees missionaries as natural agents of empire. However, the expansion of a similar group into the Cameroons did not result in the expansion of the British Empire. This article argues that the ability to tie missionary and commercial interests to a perceived humanitarian cause—ending the slave trade—was crucial in creating the differences between Liberated African experiences of expansion in Nigeria and Cameroon