ABSTRACT
The ' historic connexions' between prophets and preachers, the founders of the Native and Welfare Associations and the organizers of mass nationalism, are beginning to emerge from the very interesting work being done on the political history of East and Central Africa. The nationalist and anti-colonial tendency in modern African historiography has tended to dispute the view of a hiatus between primary and secondary resistance, though so far without really demonstrating a continuity. In the various resistances to the establishment of colonial rule, there is no question that religious leadership played an important part. The African societies of East and Central Africa could draw in times of emergency upon a number of traditions of such charismatic leadership. Sometimes the establishment religion of an existing unit committed itself to resistance alongside the established political and military system. Sometimes the established religious officers resisted the movement of the established political authorities into a 'Christian Revolution'.
