Stefano Kaoze

In the following years, he wrote widely on a range of subjects connected to history, linguistics, ethnography and folklore of the peoples on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika with a particular interest in his own Tabwa ethnic group.

Kaoze was born in 1886 or 1890 and gained an education at a nearby mission station of the White Fathers and his intelligence was quickly identified.

[3] At the time, there was substantial turbulence in the region around the western shore of Lake Tanganyika as a result of the Arab slave trade spreading westwards from the Swahili coast and, from 1883, also the eastwards encroachment of European colonialism in the form of the International African Association and Catholic missions.

[2] As an adolescent, Kaoze moved with his family to the mission station, originally an orphanage and refuge for freed slaves, at Mpala which had recently been established by the White Fathers.

[3] Baptised a Catholic and taking the name Stéphane or its local phonetic rendering Stefano, he showed "exceptional intelligence" in the mission's rudimentary schools.

[4] He was then sent to continue his education at the major seminary in Baudouinville (modern-day Kirungu) where he proved extremely popular with his tutors.

[1] Immediately after his ordination, Kaoze was dispatched to teach at the minor seminary in Karema in Belgian-occupied German East Africa.

[9] Later in 1919 he travelled in Roelens' entourage to the headquarters of the White Fathers at Algiers in French Algeria and then to Rome to attend the beatification of the Uganda Martyrs in June 1920.

In the same year, he was among the first Africans to sit on the Governing Council (Conseil de Gouvernement) in Léopoldville (modern-day Kinshasa) which advised the Governor-General.

[14] During the Governing Council's sessions in 1947, he rejected a proposal to issue special cards for évolués that would grant them privileged status, instead arguing that the Belgians should treat the Congolese according to their developmental attainment.

[15] He also expressed his dissatisfaction with being forced to sit with Asians on segregated boats instead of his white fellow clergymen when traveling on Lake Tanganyika.