Social thoughts and medical missionaries in Yorubaland, 1900-1930

Abstract

The missionaries were the forerunners of colonization in Africa and elsewhere. They shared the same burden with their colonial allies, which included Christianity, Commerce and, Civilisation. This thesis examines how the activities of medical missionaries shaped indigenous medical thoughts of Yoruba land in the early twentieth century. By analyzing relevant primary and secondary sources, this thesis discovered that the deployment of medical factors to Christianise the Yorubas provoked a loss of trust in indigenous medicine and other cultural practices in early twentieth-century South West Nigeria. It, therefore, argues that missionaries played a substantial role in engendering adverse social thoughts of Yoruba medicine. Other research had focused on the social impacts of medical missions on Yoruba people without delineating how this impacted the social thoughts of the populations from colonial intercourse. A study of this caliber would throw new light on the interplay between the missionaries and colonial medicine in the contexts of colonized societies. It would further illuminate new understandings of the social role of medical missionaries of local populations.

Keywords

• missionaries
• south west nigeria
• yoruba
• indigenous
• medical mission
• yoruba medicine