The life and work of George Thomas Basden (1873-1944) is a perfect case study of the shifting borders that separated missionary work, colonial administration and anthropology, and typifies the complex relationship that held between them in the first half of the twentieth century. At various times Basden, who held a Church Missionary Society post in the town of Onitsha, south-east Nigeria, from 1900, was involved in all three fields. As well as his longstanding missionary work which eventually saw him elevated to Archdeacon of the Niger, he published two large volumes on Igbo culture and custom which became standard works (Among the Ibos of Nigeria, 1921, and Niger Ibos, 1938), and was in 1931 appointed to the Nigerian Legislative Council as the representative of the Igbo people.

As van den Bursselaar (2006) has pointed out, the information and knowledge produced by missionaries ‘occupied a central, but also somewhat awkward place in colonial society’: missionary-produced knowledge was valuable for colonial administrations, but the occasionally tense relationship between missions and government and their differing priorities meant that missionaries were frequently disregarded as expert sources (van den Bursselaar, 2006, 434). Similarly, the major premises and objectives of missionary work put missionaries significantly at odds with the emerging discipline of anthropology, which sought to record precisely those beliefs which missionary work attempted to extinguish. Nevertheless, the in-depth knowledge acquired by missionaries over many years in field often left them with far greater familiarity with local cultures, languages and beliefs than most anthropologists were able to gain.

This was self-evidently the case before the advent of the first scientific anthropological expeditions, but remained true far into the era of professionalised ‘participant-observer’ anthropology – professional anthropologists still only remained in the field for a matter of a few years at most, whereas a missionary might remain living in a single area for decades. The missionary imperative to translate the Bible into local vernaculars, and preach in local languages, also meant that grammars and dictionaries were often initially the work of the church. The CMS also staged examinations for newly appointed missionaries in the languages of their area (Basden failed his first Igbo exams in 1901, which he had to retake). As a result, and despite fundamental differences, missionary-produced work was of great significance to anthropologists; as noted above, Basden’s initial work, Among the Ibos of Nigeria, became a standard work of reference, and is regularly cited in professional anthropological works on the area.

Basden himself seems to have deliberately courted several different audiences, and have modulated his style and attitude over time in relation to them. His first publication on Igboland – a map and description of the Igbo and their country – appeared in the Geographical Journal in 1912 (‘Notes on the Ibo people and the Ibo Country, Southern Nigeria’, Basden 1912), and was written in scientific mode, with little acknowledgment of his vocation. A later article in the same publication, ‘Notes on the Ibo Country, Southern Nigeria’ (Basden, 1925), bears the same scientific tone. However, the first of his large books, Among the Ibos…(Basden, 1921), is far more colloquial in manner, purporting to be an account ‘of some of the things a plain man may see and hear in Nigeria’ (ibid., 9), and reads as a combination of missionary text, travelogue and amateur anthropology. Though the wealth of factual information which quickly made it such a valuable tome – it was apparently widely read by District Officers in the area (van den Bursselaar, 437) – is largely presented in an academic manner, Basden does not shy away from anecdote and reminiscence, nor shrink from open moral judgement on matters which were considered church business (e.g. polygamy: ‘there can be no question that polygamy is a deadly evil…the dulling effect on the mind is such that a polygamist is rarely capable of any real mental attainment’; Basden, 1921, 107-8). By the time of his later long work, Niger Ibos (1938), Basden has become considerably more respectful, and appears to be directing his efforts specifically at an anthropological audience: he attempts punctilious objectivity with regard to local practices (rather than gawping, as he does regularly in Among the Ibos) and the weathervane issue of polygamy is treated with very great circumspection, and a marked lack of moralising (ibid., 228-33).

However, by 1938 anthropology was a far more professionalised discipline, with a largely standardised field methodology and many of its historically defining modern works already well established. There was less room for the observations of missionaries and colonial officials, however detailed and knowledgeable, and in general it is his earlier work that retains a reputation, despite being more amateurish in tone.