page_title: Mpala
section_title: Christian kingdom
hierarchical_section_title: Mpala / Christian kingdom
caption_attribution_description: Cardinal Charles Martial Lavigerie (1825-1892)
context_page_description: Mpala is the location of an early Catholic mission in the Belgian Congo. A military station was established at Mpala on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in May 1883. It was transferred to the White Fathers missionaries in 1885. At one time it was hoped that it would form the nucleus of a Christian kingdom in the heart of Africa. However, after a military expedition had to be sent to protect the mission from destruction by local warlords in 1892, civil control returned to the Belgian colonial authorities. The first seminary in the Congo was established at Mpala, and later the mission played an important role in providing practical education to the people of the region.
context_section_description: The memory of the execution of Lusinga helped the priests, since the local chiefs did not want to suffer the same fate.
  However, the fathers inherited a difficult situation. Various chiefs had submitted to Storms, giving him authority over a territory that extended 100 kilometres (62 mi) along the lake shore and 20 to 30 kilometres (12 to 19 mi) inland. This came with responsibility for defense and for resolving disputes. The fathers led a military expedition against a rebel leader in which villages were burned and slaves captured. This was not the role of a missionary.
  The French soldier Captain Léopold Louis Joubert offered his services to Lavigerie, and this was accepted in a letter of 20 February 1886. Joubert reached Zanzibar on 14 June 1886, and reached the mission at Karema on the east shore of the lake on 22 November 1886. He remained there for some months at the request of the Vicar Apostolic, Mgr. Jean-Baptiste-Frézal Charbonnier, to protect the mission against attacks by slavers.  He crossed the lake and reached Mpala on 20 March 1887. Charbonnier had given him full authority as civil and military ruler of the Mpala region. He found that the priests had organized a police force of local warriors.
  Immediately after arriving, Joubert was thrown into the struggle with dealers in slaves and ivory. He engaged in skirmishes in March and again in August, where his small force of thirty soldiers armed with rifles came close to defeat.  Joubert again had to intervene in November 1887, and in 1888 defeated a force of 80 slavers, but his forces were too small to prevent continued attacks. The constant fighting also worried some of the missionaries, notably Father François Coulbois, who were concerned that the slavers might decide to attack the mission itself.  
  Joubert married Agnes Atakaye on 13 February 1888.
  She was the daughter of Kalembe, from Mpala.  They were to have ten children, two of whom became priests.
  When Mgr. Charbonnier  died on March 16, 1888, Coulbois became Pro-Vicar of Upper Congo.  He did not recognize that Joubert had civil authority, and imposed tight restrictions on his actions. Both men appealed for support to Cardinal Lavigerie. In response, Lavigerie said that the missionaries must have no involvement with military affairs, and the military leader must live at a distance from the mission to avoid being identified with the mission.
  The new Vicar Apostolic, Bishop Bridoux, arrived in January 1889. He confirmed that Joubert was both civil and military leader, but said that military operations must be purely defensive.  Joubert moved to St Louis de Murumbi, some distance away. 
  In January 1889 the mission was cut off from the outside world by Abushiri Revolt against the Germans in Bagamoyo and Dar es Salaam. 
  The mission suffered from repeated and deadly raids. 
  In 1890 the slavers Rajabu and Rumaliza launched a major attack on Mpala from the lake, but were beaten off.
  By 1891 the slavers had control of the entire western shore of the lake apart from Mpala and the Mrumbi plain.
caption: Cardinal Charles Lavigerie, who dreamed of making Mpala a Christian kingdom
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