Invisible Agents

      Spirits in a Central African History

      David M. Gordon

      ohio university press athens

      new african histories series

      Series editors: Jean Allman and Allen Isaacman

      Books in this series are published with support from

       the Ohio University National Resource Center for African Studies.

      David William Cohen and E. S. Atieno Odhiambo, The Risks of Knowledge: Investigations into the Death of the Hon. Minister John Robert Ouko in Kenya, 1990

      Belinda Bozzoli, Theatres of Struggle and the End of Apartheid

      Gary Kynoch, We Are Fighting the World: A History of Marashea Gangs in South Africa, 1947–1999

      Stephanie Newell, The Forger’s Tale: The Search for Odeziaku

      Jacob A. Tropp, Natures of Colonial Change: Environmental Relations in the Making of the Transkei

      Jan Bender Shetler, Imagining Serengeti: A History of Landscape Memory in Tanzania from Earliest Times to the Present

      Cheikh Anta Babou, Fighting the Greater Jihad: Amadu Bamba and the Founding of the Muridiyya in Senegal, 1853–1913

      Marc Epprecht, Heterosexual Africa? The History of an Idea from the Age of Exploration to the Age of AIDS

      Marissa J. Moorman, Intonations: A Social History of Music and Nation in Luanda, Angola, from 1945 to Recent Times

      Karen E. Flint, Healing Traditions: African Medicine, Cultural Exchange, and Competition in South Africa, 1820–1948

      Derek R. Peterson and Giacomo Macola, editors, Recasting the Past: History Writing and Political Work in Modern Africa

      Moses Ochonu, Colonial Meltdown: Northern Nigeria in the Great Depression

      Emily Burrill, Richard Roberts, and Elizabeth Thornberry, editors, Domestic Violence and the Law in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa

      Daniel R. Magaziner, The Law and the Prophets: Black Consciousness in South Africa, 1968–1977

      Emily Lynn Osborn, Our New Husbands Are Here: Households, Gender, and Politics in a West African State from the Slave Trade to Colonial Rule

      Robert Trent Vinson, The Americans Are Coming! Dreams of African American Liberation in Segregationist South Africa

      James R. Brennan, Taifa: Making Nation and Race in Urban Tanzania

      Benjamin N. Lawrance and Richard L. Roberts, editors, Trafficking in Slavery’s Wake: Law and the Experience of Women and Children

      David M. Gordon, Invisible Agents: Spirits in a Central African History

      Acknowledgments

      This book has been supported, sustained, and inspired by many communities. Zambians answered my questions with patience and care. Kampamba Mulenga was a wonderful companion in our journeys across Zambia’s Northern Province. I have fond memories of weeks spent with the members of Chinsali’s New Jerusalem community who introduced me to the power of their faith. A community of Africanist scholars pushed me to refine many of my ideas. Allen Roberts, Dan Magaziner, Kairn Klieman, Paul S. Landau, Stephen Ellis, Clifton Crais, Tom Spear, Anne Mager, James A. Pritchett, Karen Tranberg Hansen, Parker Shipton, Nancy Jacobs, Megan Vaughan, and Heather Sharkey helped with their insightful discussions and questions following many conference presentations. A community of Zambian scholars, associated with the Network for Historical Research in Zambia, hosted Zambia-focused symposia, which allowed me to fine-tune the details of the book. Marja Hinfelaar, Giacomo Macola, Walima T. Kalusa, Chris Annear, Miles Larmer, Mwelwa C. Musambachime, Jan-Bart Gewald, Bizeck J. Phiri, and several others have all contributed to an invigorated Zambian historiography. Marja Hinfelaar deserves special mention for her work in making available new archival resources that provide the empirical depth to sustain my ambitious arguments. The New African History series editors, Allen Isaacman and Jean Allman, and Ohio University Press’s Gillian Berchowitz had confidence in the book, and offered suggestions for improvement.

      Bowdoin College provided an unmatched intellectual community. Students, especially in my seminar on Religion and Politics in Africa, inspired me with their enthusiasm and sophisticated thinking about issues unfamiliar to many of them. Discussions with colleagues, over lunch and during faculty forums, helped in conceptualization, writing, and revision. Allen Wells, Rachel Sturman, John Holt, and Elizabeth Pritchard read and provided insightful comments on parts of the book. The interlibrary loan staff, especially Guy Saldanha, persevered in tracking publications obscure to them but essential for my research. Eileen Johnson drew the map. The generous research support and sabbatical leave provided by Bowdoin College contributed to the timely completion of the book.

      Academic nourishment alone does not sustain a good book. Arguments about politics and religion with my family, especially my siblings, are frequent; this is yet another stab at a discussion that will always be part of our lively dinner-table conversations. My mother and stepfather are not only supportive but interested in the details of my research. My brother Ryan helped to refine the images. In the ten years that I have been researching and writing this book, my love for my wife, Lesley, has inspired all of my most valuable accomplishments. Love does shape life. While I was nearing the book’s completion, my father died. My grief, and my knowledge that he lives on in so many ways, further convinced me of the power of our emotions, our hidden spirits, and our invisible worlds.

      Abbreviations

      AMU African Mineworkers Union

      ANC African National Congress

      ARC African Representative Council

      BSAC British South Africa Company

      CAF Central African Federation

      CCZ Council of Churches in Zambia

      CfAN Christ for All Nations

      DC district commissioner

      DRC Democratic Republic of Congo

      EFZ Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia

      ICOZ Independent Church Organization of Zambia

      MMD Movement for Multiparty Democracy

      MUZ Mineworkers Union of Zambia

      NRR Northern Rhodesia Regiment

      PC provincial commissioner

      RLI Rhodes-Livingstone Institute

      UCCAR United Church of Central Africa in Rhodesia

      UCZ United Church of Zambia

      UMCB United Missions of the Copperbelt

      UNIP United National Independence Party

      UPP United Progressive Party

      ZANC Zambia African National Congress

      ZCTU Zambia Congress of Trade Unions

      ZEC Zambia Episcopal Conference