INTRODUCTION

European missionaries to southern Africa during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries played a strangely ambiguous role in the history and affairs of the region. On the one hand they were driven by a strong desire to genuinely serve humanity and bring about material and social changes which would improve its quality of life. On the other hand they were possessed of a moral self-righteousness which led them to make hasty and uninformed judgments upon indigenous mores, norms and values they were scarcely equipped to understand. The first manifested itself in an involvement in local agriculture, irrigation and technology which, being environmental and hence independent of larger cultural issues, found a small measure of acceptance in rural society. The second sought to impose an alien morality and work ethos upon the local people without realising that these undermined their most basic social and cultural tenets and were therefore largely resisted. The dichotomy of this approach was not something which found separate expression in different individuals but was often incorporated within the same person. Casalis wrote at Thaba Bosiu, Lesotho, in about 1833, that:

"... we said that, wishing to provide entirely for our own subsistence, we must have a site where we could build houses and cultivate the ground according to our own ideas and habits. Our buildings and plantations would also serve as a model for the Basutos, whom we regretted to see dwelling in huts, and living in a manner so precarious and so little worthy of the intelligence with which they were gifted." (1889)

It is not for nothing that the statue of Livingstone in Edinburgh represents the missionary-traveller with a Bible in one hand and the other resting upon an axe (Warneck 1888). Ironically enough, in the long run it was found that changes wrought by missionaries at a practical and economic level did more to further their spiritual cause than any amount of moralistic sermonising ever did from the pulpit. Local acceptance of early missionaries in the eastern Cape hinged more upon their technological ability to introduce furrow irrigation into an otherwise drought-stricken land than upon their Christian teachings (Williams 1959). This was also borne out by the experiences of Moffatt in the northern Cape.

The ability of missionaries to make converts and hold them on their stations also seems to have been somewhat in doubt. Etherington (1977) stated that only 12% of people on mission settlements were there for "spiritual" reasons. The majority sought either material advantage or psychological security. Also, although some groups such as the Basotho and the Tswana openly welcomed missionaries, others like the Pedi, the Zulu and the Pondo vehemently rejected their presence as a matter of national policy. Despite Campbell's claim that:

"Missionary stations are surrounded by moral atmospheres, or have a moral and civilizing influence to a considerable distance around, beyond which it is extremely hazardous for white men to go." (1815)

they had strong objections to a missionary presence and often took appropriate action. Whole populations moved away from stations; individuals suspected of Christian leanings were administered magic and emetics; and converts were ostracized and quarantined to missionary settlements, thus being effectively purged from the group's polity and its social functions. Despite the continuing spread of a missionary presence into southern Africa during the 19th Century, by the time of the Anglo-Zulu conflict of 1879 very few converts had been won over to Christianity (Etherington 1977).

Copyright @ francofrescura.co.za