When Mary Kingsley wrote of the peoples of West Africa she expressed a very bitter criticism of the effect of missionary effort upon them. Old cultures which had been centuries in maturing were being ruthlessly attacked at the very foundations, with resulting disorganization, leaving the natives in a worse state than they were before they had been found. She thought of the process as the murder of cultures and contrasted the efforts of missionaries with the work of government officials, whose tolerance for the native mores stood out in marked contrast.