Restructuring: We’ve Been Here Before

Abstract

Two years ago, in 2019, Fr. Robert Danieluk of the Jesuit Roman Archives published a 21-page article in the journal of the Society’s Archivum Historicum on the history and development of the Jesuit Mission in Zambia, from the creation of the mission to middle Africa, entrusted by Father General Beckx to the English Jesuits in 1875, up to the year 1992 when the Province of Zambia-Malawi was established. The title of the article is “From Failure to Success: The Jesuit Mission in Zambia and the Sources for its History in the Jesuit Roman Archives”. Quoting an American historian of the Society, Danieluk notes that for the pre-Suppression Jesuits Africa represented “perhaps their greatest mission failure”. The article then goes on to recount the beginnings of the Zambezi Mission and in doing so highlights the tragedies and difficulties experienced by the first Jesuits in this part of the world: difficult and uncharted travel routes, shortage of men and resources, the adverse climate of the area, sickness and death, being treated by some local chiefs with reserve and not always in a friendly manner.