JOURNALS

ABSTRACT

Before, the advent of the colonial master and Christian missionaries in Igbo territory, there had been an existing system of administration and religions practices of the people. The Igbo people already had a way of serving their deities and ruling themselves. So, colonialism and Christianity being a foreign rule to the Igbo people which attracted resistance from them. Despite the resistance from the people, colonialism and Christian missionaries were able to make good impact which cannot be forgotten in the historical development of Igbo territory. They made a lot of impact in the development of Igbo nation through western education, school, churches, commerce, trade, human right protection and elimination of slave trade. Thus, this paper is aimed at examining colonialism and Christian missionary enterprise in Igbo territory. This study adopted expo-factor research design to collect data through the review of literature in textbooks, journals, records in the department of religion and internet. This research employed discourse analysis method to analyze the contents of the study. This study found that colonial government and the Christian missionary bodies work hand in hand in achieving their goals in Igbo territory. The colonial masters assisted the Christian missionaries through security, protection and transportation while the Christian missionaries reciprocated by training indigenous converts to work in various offices of the colonial administration. So, this interplay which existed between colonial government and Christian missionary contributed a lot in the development of Igbo society. Thus, this research concludes that colonialism and missionary movement in Igbo territory brought development in the form of urbanization, school, churches and hospital establishment, commerce, trade, human right protection and elimination of slave trade. Hence, the study recommends that that the lessons learnt from the cooperation between colonial government and Christian mission bodies in achieving their goals in Igbo territory should be emulated for future development of the Igbo society.