Medical Mission Futures: German Protestant Missionaries and Modern Healthcare in Southern Highlands, Tanzania,1891–1940

The history of colonial missionaries in Tanzania is marked by a complex interplay betweenevangelical efforts and the provision of Western biomedicine, which functioned as crucialmechanisms for conversion and cultural transformation. Missionaries viewed theimprovement of African health as a project aimed at attracting converts and propagatingChristianity. However, the available data indicates that, instead of genuinely expressinginterest in converting to Christianity, the majority of Africans primarily sought missionmedical assistance for medical reasons while maintaining strong connections to theirtraditional beliefs and healing practices. This paper, drawing from archival documents,ethnographic accounts, and missionary writings, focuses on Southern Highlands of Tanzaniato explore how Protestant missionaries of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuriessought to integrate healthcare and religious conversion in their missions. This endeavour,however, did not unfold as missionaries had anticipated. It sheds light on the overlookedaspect of the failed trajectory of medical missionaries, often absent from the broadernarrative of colonial medical histories in Tanzania.