Joseph Dupont

Joseph-Marie-Stanislas Dupont (23 July 1850 – 19 March 1930), nicknamed Moto Moto ('fire fire') by the Bemba people was a French Catholic missionary bishop, who was a pioneer in Zambia's Northern Province (then part of North-Eastern Rhodesia) from 1885 to 1911. He persuaded the Bemba, feared by the Europeans colonizers and by neighbouring tribes, to allow him to become the first missionary into their territory around Kasama. At the time the British South Africa Company (BSAC) chartered by Britain to administer North-Eastern Rhodesia was not in control of all the territory.

Origins Dupont was born in Maine et Loire, on 23 July 1850 to a peasant family. After a short and quite successful military service, he decided to become a member of the White Fathers missionary society, now called the Society of the Missionaries of Africa. He was ordained a priest on 21 December 1878, and took his oath as a member of the White Fathers the following year. He was then sent to teach at the College of Saint-Louis of Carthage at Thibar in the French protectorate of Tunisia, now in the Béja Governorate. He was later sent to the Karema Mission on Lake Tanganyika in 1892.

Early years in Africa The White Fathers had arrived at Mponda, west of Lake Nyasa, in 1885, and in 1891 had moved up the Stevenson Road which had been built to connect Nyasa with Lake Tanganyika, stopping at Mambwe Mwela. They attempted to set up in Bemba lands but the Paramount Chief of the Bemba, the Chitimukulu, was fiercely opposed to any incursion by missionaries. When Dupont arrived at Mambwe in 1895 he found that some of the independently minded Bemba Senior Chiefs were not opposed, and one of them, Makasa at Kayambi, gave Dupont a foothold in his area in 1895. Dupont tried to expand into the Bemba heartland and though gaining favour from many of the chiefs, was still opposed by the Chitimukulu.

In 1897 Dupont was appointed the first Vicar Apostolic of Nyassa, which covered today's Malawi and the whole northern half of present-day Zambia.

There are several versions of the origin of the nickname 'Moto Moto' (fire fire). One is that it was in recognition of his energy, another that Dupont smoked a pipe and was constantly calling for a light, another was that it was a Chewa war cry from the Nyasa area, another, more unlikely, that he had an early kind of motorbike. This provoked a crisis because, firstly, the coronation of a new chief required human sacrifice, and, secondly, a Bemba civil war threatened over the succession of the Chitimukulu. At first Dupont, who had become very knowledgeable about Bemba culture and traditions, agreed to act as chief to forestall trouble,

Despite the fact that this must have been one of the few occasions in history when a Frenchman pushed a territory into the British Empire, MacKinnon in particular was opposed to Dupont's presence in the country, not only because of the strife which it caused with the Chitimukulu, but also because Protestant missionaries of the London Missionary Society had set up in Mackinnon's district of Mbala and there were some rivalries with the Catholic White Fathers. To Dupont's amazement Mackinnon told him that he had no permission to remain there, according to orders of the new Administrator, Robert Codrington. Dupont protested that it was he who had opened up the Bemba to British control, and he stayed put. Codrington accepted the reality of the situation, and as a gesture of reconciliation and gratitude invited Dupont to sit beside him at the installation of the next chief in 1899.

1900–1930

In 1899 Dupont founded the Chilubula Mission enclave, which still stands today near Kayambi.

The Moto Moto Museum in Mbala is named in his honour.