Chitambo Mission : A history of missionary education and its impact on Lala society of Serenje District, 1906-1964

This study investigates the impact of mission education on Lala society between 1906 and 1964. the mission engaged in academic , industrial, medical and agricultural education. in addition the mission played a commercial role in the district by buying and selling African surplus of agricultural produce and its own surplus to a local market and by running a general store. the mission was also a source of employment. The interaction of these mission activities and mining capital in the Southern Africa region hastened the development of Serenje District into a labour reserve and seriously undercut the aims of the mission in the district. The mission's activities contributed to the entrenchment of a cash economy and resulted into a reorientation of the commercial patterns and trade relations in the district that undercut indigenous trade patterns and relations. The mission through its educational activities and employment undermined the traditional patterns of social status and prestige in the district that undercut indigenous trade patterns and relations.The mission through its educational activities and employment undermined the traditional patterns of social status and prestige in the district contributing new social categories hitherto unknown in the area such as teachers, clerks, and the clergy. The mission's educational system had the impact of producing a new political leadership pattern in the district that came to the fore on the local and nationalist politics, between 1930 and 1964.Having backgrounds that were not tied to the traditional elite this new leadership represented not a continuity but a break in the district leadership.