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Eckhard Möller, 2024

Matjamwo Mavanzilla, after his baptism: Paul Mavanzilla, was one of the people who were abducted from Africa as children in the 19th century. His more than ten-year stay in Germany left a lasting impression on him. He was born in 1875, according to other sources in 1873, in the residence of King Puto Muëne Kassongo near the confluence of the Ganga River and the Kwango River. In 1881, the leader of a German colonial expedition, Alexander von Mechow, captured the then six or eight-year-old boy and took him to Germany.

After five years in Berlin and Leipzig, Mavanzilla attended schools in Gütersloh and Lichtenstern (Württemberg). He was then trained to a missionary at the missionary schools in Basel and Barmen (now Wuppertal-Barmen) before being sent to Cape Town by the Rhenish Missionary Society (RMG). There he worked as a teacher at an RMG school until 1912. After a severe stroke of fate, he suffered a mental breakdown and died in 1912 at the age of not even 40.

The stations of Mavanzilla's life can be traced from reports on Alexander von Mechow's ‘Kwango Expedition’ to documents and letters in the estate of his German foster father in a Protestant parish archive, and on to the records of his family in South Africa.

Content warning: Paul Mavanzilla has experienced racial discrimination and alleged sexual violence many times in his life. His biography cannot be told without these experiences. We ask readers to decide for themselves whether they wish to read the following text.

Stationen

Colonial explorations along the Kwango River

From the Kwango River to Berlin

Years in Berlin and Leipzig

In Westphalia: Gütersloh and Mennighüffen

Preparation for the mission school in Lichtenstern

Missionary training in Basel

Missionary training in Barmen

Last years at the Cape of Good Hope

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