ABSTRACT
Ponchaud’s history of Christianity in Cambodia offers no support for the idea of missionary autonomy from colonial state objectives. Historians have not been kind with Lavigerie. Lavigerie eschewed any attempt at philosophical or rational justification for missionary claims, which would have been a required tool for a sustained attempt to win over distant elites. A basic conflict existed in Africa between state colonialism and anti-slavery campaigning. There was no need for such subordination or defensiveness in Rwanda and Burundi. The change from German to Belgian colonial overlords after World War One did not alter the Catholic missionary approach in Rwanda and Burundi in any essential way.
