In the Belgian Congo, the 1918-19 influenza pandemic significantly altered the colony’s medical and religious landscape. This uncontrollable and unresponsive disease brought to the fore varied reactions from individuals seeking to cope with and overcome its shattering effects. As European missionaries struggled against the compounded dislocations of influenza, war, and famine that shaped the period, Kimbangu emerged proclaiming he had received divine instruction to heal his people.
By 1921, Kimbangu demonstrated an ability to heal all maladies, attributing this newfound capability to an authority bestowed upon him by God. He simultaneously treated the sick by drawing from traditional Bakongo practices and modelling the works of Jesus Christ. However, his healing ministry was short-lived. Awakening the attention of the Belgian administration, Kimbangu was quickly accused of insurrection in September 1921 and later sentenced to life imprisonment. Confined to solitary confinement until his death in October 1951, and with thousands of his followers either jailed or exiled, the six-month ministry was quickly extinguished.
By exploring Kimbangu’s varied healing methods, this paper will ask: how did a black Congolese man claim authority within a rigid medico-religious landscape and how was he received by his colonial counterparts? I argue that the period of profound crisis brought forth by the pandemic exposed the inadequacies of Western medicine and enabled Kimbangu to masterfully co-opt the dual roles of religious leader and medical practitioner previously occupied by British and American missionaries.
Marielle Masolo is a DPhil student whose research examines the entangled histories of faith, medicine, and colonial power in the Belgian Congo. She is especially interested in prophetic figures and how they reimagined what it meant to heal amid pandemic and empire. Marielle holds a BA in History from Queen Mary University of London and an MSc in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology from the University of Oxford.
