Eugene Casalis

Eugene Casalis (1812-1891) was a French Protestant missionary who played an important role in Basutoland ( Lesotho since 1966) for twenty-two years before returning to Paris to head the House of Missions of Paris for twenty-five years. It is also known for his pioneering role in Lesotho's ethnography and linguistics of the language Sechuana, areas where work still refer.

Childhood and Youth

Eugene Casalis was born November 21, 1812 in an old Huguenot family bourgeois .
At his conversion, Eugene Casalis the belief that it is called by God as a missionary in 1830, he returned to the House of Missions of Paris, where after two years of schooling, he was ordained missionary.

On a mission

The Evangelical Missionary Society of Paris (SMEP), which depended on the mission house, had initially decided to send Eugene Casalis evangelize Algeria with two other students , Constant Gosselin and Thomas Arbousset , and they had done so learn Arabic and study the Qur'an . They were however forced to abandon this project at the refusal of all evangelization in Algeria by the military authorities, in order not to upset the religious leaders that they wanted to join . The SMEP then decided to send them to Bechuanaland to strengthen first missionary team, sent in 1829, composed of Lemue Prosper , of Bisseux Isaac and Samuel Rolland.
Arrived in Cape Town in February 1833, three missionaries were discouraged by Lemue and Rolland going to Bechuanaland , provoking ethnic unrest in this region of constant migration of people that made it impossible to evangelism.
Then they were then approached by a mulatto Basuto hunter sent by the King of Basutoland, Moshoeshoe , who wanted to come in the realm of "white friendly" which he had heard of concern about the proliferation of tribal wars, in fact he wanted to pacify and develop his country, and he was convinced that a Christian mission would be an effective aid.
Arbousset Gosselin Casalis and accepted the proposal and came in early June at Thaba Bosio, the capital of the Basuto, located in the mountains . They were greeted warmly by Moshoeshoe and they agreed on two locations for the missions, one near the capital, the other in plain, thirty miles from Thaba Bosio, a place which was appointed in July Moriah 1833 . He advised the king to bring the English and seek their protection to prevent an invasion of his country by farmers Boer , negotiations leading to the signing of the Treaty says Napier .
In 1838 , Eugene Casalis went to Cape Town where he married Sarah Dyke, the daughter of a merchant from England in Cape Town and in June 1849 he was forced to return to France in order to collect funds. Indeed, the economic crisis that preceded the Revolution of 1848 had dealt a serious blow to the finances of the SMEP who had been forced to close the House of Missions of Paris and several mission stations in Basutoland, the missionaries were not even paid elsewhere. In addition, Protestantism was going through a period of crisis in the theological, dividing the liberals and evangelical Protestants in the mission besides the last remaining link between the two groups. This tour was a great success because it was the first missionary to return to his country to testify .
In 1855, after four more years in Basutoland, Eugene Casalis finally left the country at a critical time, the Boers and the British posing threats increasingly vivid in the territory of Basutoland.
Eugene Casalis was called to Paris to head the House of missions that had been reopened. He will assume the office of Director of the institution, while being as pastor of the protestant church of Passy ^{ethnographer and linguist}

The three missionaries translated the Gospels Sechuana language and some fifty chapters of the Bible and Eugene Casalis later published in 1841, a binding assay of language and grammar Sechuana (Studies on Language Sechuana, Royal Printing , Paris I841.).
Later, after his return to France he published in 1859, The Basuto, or twenty-three years of studies and observations in South Africa, a seminal work of ethnography that does not fit in the style of the explorers of the time.

Related articles

• History of Lesotho
• Francis Coillard

Bibliography

• Zohra Ait Abdemalek, Protestants in Algeria, Protestantism and his missionary work in Algeria in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Olivtan Editions, 2004, ISBN 978-2-915245-17-2.
• Daniel C. Bach, France and South Africa, History, myths and contemporary issues, Credu-Karthala, 1990, ISBN 2-86537-269-3.
• Jacques Blandenier, The Rise of Protestant missions, volume 2: the nineteenth century to the mid twentieth century, Editions de Nogent Bible Institute and Emmaus, 2003, ISBN 2-903100-32-2.
• Eugene Casalis, Studies on Language Sechuana, Imprimerie Royal, Paris I841.
• Eugene Casalis, The Basuto, or twenty-three years of studies and observations in South Africa, Evangelical Missionary Society, Paris 1859 (translated into English by the author in I861).
• Encrev Andr (eds.), The Protestant Dictionary of the religious world in contemporary France, Beauchesne, 1992, ISBN 2-7010-1261-9.
• Alain Ricard, Eugene Casalis, traveler and ethnographer (1859): The Basuto, or 23 years of studies and observations in southern Africa e ( http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/ 11/25/65/PDF/casaexplo.pdf ).
• Alain Ricard, Eugene Casalis, the Basuto, poetry ..., Paper presented at the day of Ethnology in Bordeaux, Thursday, March 10, 1994, University of Bordeaux 2 ( http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr / docs/00/10/58/33/PDF/casalis.pdf ).

References

• Protestantism portal

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