American Missions in Wartime French West Africa

There are a variety of understudied topics in the corpus of work on World War II in Africa that can be broached very well from the vantage point of the experiences of an Anglophone mission working in the Francophone colony of Niger.   The Sudan Interior Mission, staffed by British, American, Canadian, and New Zealand citizens, found itself caught up on the complex dynamics of Vichy Africa.  Tagged as “British,” by the French administration in Niger, the mission’s staff was highly suspect in the context of tensions with British Nigeria to the south and territories sympathetic to de Gaulle to the north and east.  However in many respects the religious orientation of the mission in American evangelical fundamentalism meant that in cultural style and philosophy it was rather “American.”  Misunderstandings between the mission and the French administration abounded, leading to the eventual detention of the head of the mission, David Osborne.  Osborne’s detention, the efforts of a French protestant group on behalf missions during the war, and the deliberations about missions during the Brazzaville conference provide glimpses into the different objectives, imperial styles, and understandings of secularism held by France and the United States.  The array of materials I would like to present include a letter written by David Osborne to the French administration to protest his detention; a letter from a French pastor, Keller; and excerpts from a report written by an African pastor, Marcel Brun, for the Brazzaville conference.  Finally I would close with a letter from Osborne to his supporters expressing his elation about the wonderful opportunities open to the mission in Niger in the post-war era.