La cartographie missionnaire en Afrique

摘要

The role of missionaries as explorers, interpreters, guides, naturalists, and amateur anthropologists is well known. However the maps that recorded their presence in distant places have tended to be overlooked by scholars of cartography. Aware of this omission, historian J.-M. Vasquez has completed a broad survey of 'mission maps' of sub-Saharan Africa and many of its component parts for the period from 1870 to 1930. Teaching in Lyon, he looked to archival sources in that city and to publications produced by the CEuvre de la propagation de la foi that was founded there in 1822 in order to raise funds for missionary work. The CEuvre supported several periodicals, including Les Missions Catholiques that provides a particularly rich source of printed maps relating to mission work. Some of these illustrated regular articles about missionaries in specific regions, whilst others were much larger and were coloured in attractive tints for sale as souvenirs for the faithful, or as posters for use in catholic schools and at exhibitions. From these Lyonnais materials Vasquez extended his frame of analysis to include manuscript maps sketched by missionaries and religious atlases prepared by higher authorities, located in specialist collections, including those of the Vatican.