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Contents contributed and discussions participated by morajane

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European missionaries in southern Africa: the role of the missionaries | South African ... - 10 views

www.sahistory.org.za/...thern-africa-role-missionaries

Bonolo Morajane Student no.222039298 History 2A

shared by morajane on 14 Apr 23 - No Cached
  • "Their bottomless superstitions, their vile habits and heathen customs - their system of polygamy and witchcraft - their incessant beer-drinks and heathen dances which are attended by unspeakable abominations - these present a terrible barrier to the spread of Christianity and civilization." (Wilkinson 1898)
  • The first manifested itself in an
  • stated that only 12% of people on mission settlements were there for "spiritual" reasons.
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      The conversion- the influence that the missionaries had
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • material advantage or psychological security
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      they used Christianity for their own gains
  • desire to genuinely serve humanity and bring about material and social changes which would improve its quality of life.
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      The purpose of missionaries
  • Without doubt it is a far more costly thing to kill the (indigenous population) than to Christianise them." (Warneck 1888)
  • No polygamist shall be allowed to become a member of this church. He who sells his daughter or sister treats her like a cow, and cannot be received into this church. No member of this church shall be permitted to attend a wedding if beer is drunk there, although he may have been invited to it. No member of this church is allowed to go where there is slaughtering for the departed spirits."
  • morajane on 25 Apr 23
     
    This article talks about the role of missionaries in the 19th century, how Christianity changed the way people in Southern Africa lived
morajane

Them Who Kill the Body: Christian Ideals and Political Realities in the Interior of Sou... - 3 views

diigo.com/0seln7

Bonolo Morajane Student no222039298 History 2A

shared by morajane on 25 Apr 23 - No Cached
  • considers the changing political significance of Christianity in the interior of southern Africa during the 1850s, focusing primarily on the views of Tswana rulers,
  • Introduction
  • 1850s
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      year of focus
  • ...35 more annotations...
  • southern Africa
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      Region of focus
  • With the expansion of European power, however, Africans were soon struck by a contradiction between the preaching and practice of Europeans, and they questioned how universal and
  • European missionaries
  • Impressed by the effectiveness of European skills, and respectful of the gospel’s humanitarian ideals, prominent Sotho-Tswana sought to appropriate Christianity as a supplemental source of politico-religious authority.
  • The 1850s also saw a significant change in how Africans perceived Christianity and its association with Europeans
  • Contrary to mission Christianity’s alleged role as a vehicle for imperialism, early British missionaries and Tswana converts operated under the conviction that Christianity could belong simultaneously to both Europeans and Africans, superseding their worldly divisions and selfish interests
  • altruistic Christianity might be
  • This article examines how the meaning and influence of Christianity changed in the southern African interior during the 1850s, focusing in particular on the views of Tswana rulers, converts and others within their communities.
  • The goal is to illustrate the debate and doubt that accompanied Christianity’s loss of its initial universalistic ideals as it became politicised by African-European competition.
  • European colonisation and the establishment of the apartheid state, with their attendant subjugation of Africans, gave rise to an understandable impression that European involvement in the region, including the introduction of Christianity,
  • Africans were usually more concerned with affairs within their own families and communities over which they felt some measure of control and responsibility.
  • The appropriation of Christianity by Tswana rulers in the far interior during the late nineteenth century, for example, was shaped by circumstances very different from those informing the efforts of Khoisan converts to assert their legal rights within the Cape Colony earlier in the century.
  • Christianity eventually became more instrumental in colonisation,
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      Christianity was used as a way to exploit people in southern Africa.
  • Escalating tensions in much of southern Africa during the mid-nineteenth century were accompanied by competing understandings of the relationship between religion and politics.
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      The growing tension between Christianity and politics.
  • By the mid-nineteenth century, Christianity had already acquired a presence in many Sotho-Tswana communities,
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      The spread of Christianity
  • The appropriation of Christianity by Batswana was evident at the very outset in their reception of the thuto (teaching) primarily as spoken text.
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      Christianity was taught.
  • The integrity and authority of Christians were severely challenged, and African converts as well as European missionaries confronted the apparent limits of God’s power and benevolence in a violent and politically divided world.
  • One major aspect of Christianity that appeared to resonate with Tswana views was its promise of molemo (medicine, goodness) for curing communal afflictions, such as drought and war, as well as more personal illnesses, making Christianity a form of bongaka (medical practice).
  • Some have sickness in the head, some in the feet, some in the heart, some in the liver, and some have the falling sickness. Jesus Christ tells us that all these sicknesses come out of the heart. Does your head ache? Here is medicine to heal it, and mend it, too, if it be cracked. [ ... ] This Book is the book of books: it has medicine for all the world and for every disease. 18
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      Preaching
  • Christianity offered access to a more comprehensible and tractable modimo, and the value of Christian beliefs and practices appeared, to some, to be demonstrated by the success of badumedi (believers).
  • Rulers took an interest in Christianity when it appeared to offer an additional source of politico-religious
  • support for their government, and they usually only allowed the establishment of a congregation after Christians and their prayers proved to be of some assistance to their communities.
  • As trade, warfare and migration across the interior intensified during the mid-nineteenth century, the macrocosmic reach of Christianity became particularly valuable
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      The spread of Christianity
  • missionaries frequently recounted the deathbed testimonies of believers who found great comfort in the
  • Christian promise of eternal life and preservation of their souls.
  • Conversion could not take place without adaptation of Christianity into Tswana terms, and the efficacy of its ‘medicinal words’ was tied to the peace and prosperity of a congregation and its community.
  • The Christian ideal of a humane, peaceful society under the guidance and protection of a benevolent God, difficult to achieve even under the most favourable circumstances, was especially unworkable amidst the rivalry of different groups during the mid-nineteenth century.
  • the moral authority of Christian precepts and the power of God to sustain their governments.
  • Tswana evangelists were able to present the thuto of Christianity in ways that gained the attention and interest of their fellow Batswana, beyond the reach of missionaries’ voices.
  • As Christianity was gradually appropriated by small numbers of Africans beyond the frontier of the Cape Colony, the threat that it initially posed to the stability of Tswana communities was not as an invasive book, tool or god of the ‘white man’, but as an internal threat, encouraging factionalism as it was embraced by some people and not others.
  • Tswana rulers ignored missionary calls for a separation of church and state, instead regarding religion and politics as an inseparable,
  • In virtually every Tswana community, leading Christians were connected in some way to the ruling family, and the kgosi expected any medicine that Christians wielded to be used in service to his reign
  • Most rulers managed to govern Christians within their communities through a careful mix of intimidation and negotiation, but they resisted becoming converts themselves.
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      People in the community were forced to convert to Christianity. Christianity was basically used to push propaganda.
  • Moshoeshoe disarmed the threat by allowing his close relatives to become leading Christians while securing their continued allegiance through a combination of patronage and coercion.
  • As Tswana rulers employed Christian bongaka for the benefit of their communities, they did so not only in occasionally following its precepts but, more evidently, in promoting the long-distance trade and interstate connections that accompanied the spread of Christianity.
morajane

Missionaries and Morals: Climatic Discourse in Nineteenth-Century Central Southern Afri... - 1 views

diigo.com/0sek0v

Bonolo Morajane Student no.222039298 History 2A

shared by morajane on 25 Apr 23 - No Cached
  • Georgina H. Endfield* and David J. N
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      Georgina and David have written about Missionaries and Morals
  • ents. This article employs a range of unpublished and published missionary correspondence and travelogues to examine two
  • key aspects regarding the conceptualization of and responses to climatic variability in the
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      Focus of the journal article Focus: Missionary correspondence
  • ...36 more annotations...
  • positioned climate variability within a moral economic framework and illustrate their attitude towards local drought myths and rainmaking superstitions
  • nge. Second, we examine the introduction of irrigation technology to the region by the missionarie
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      What is to be discussed (2)
  • nmental i
  • he local populatio
  • . First, we explore the way in which missionarie
  • most appropriate. Such moral obligations were, at the same ti
  • tu
  • er 1,850 individual lett
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      How they communicated
  • d. The number of items of correspondence per annum increased through? out the course of the nineteenth century as mission sta? tions and missionary activities became more widesp
  • gy, we focus on the way in which missionaries positioned cli? matic variability in this region within a moral economy that equated heathenism with environmental de
  • Promoters of colonization stressed the propagation of the Christian gospel and conversion of local people as majo
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      Promoters of colonization wanted people to convert to christianity and that was their main goal
  • For the missionaries, the upholding of this indige? nous set of beliefs was indeed evidence of fallen society; it also formed a barrier to Christianization, and it had to be dismantled before the civilization process could begi
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      The need for the Southern African population to covert to Christianity
  • ards
  • Africa was one of the earliest fields for missionary enterp
  • he United Brethren, more commonly known as the Moravians, had se
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      Because it was the most influential society in Southern Africa
  • miss
  • ssionary a
  • Africa in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The LMS disp
  • The populations of
  • , in particular, were regarded as being in urgent need of
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      What they thought about people in the central southern Africa
  • lvation. The missionary's work on behalf of African development was depicted as a generous endeavor and one that would save the "poor benighted" Africans from spiritual d
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      The spread of Christianity in Southern Africa
  • t soon became apparent, however, that the people of southern Africa did possess a reli
  • To begin with, in the absence of any belief in Chris? tianity it was assumed that there was no religion at all among the people ofthe reg
  • ccording to the government agent of the Eastern Cape, the people "had a regular system of superstition which answers all the purposes of any other false relig
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      They believed in superstitions as a form of religion
  • Kalahari region of central southern Africa in the nineteenth ce
    • morajane
      morajane on 25 Apr 23
       
      Region of focus
  • Among the most prevalent "problems" recognized by the missionaries was the adherence to superstitions con? cerning the human ability to induce or withhold rainfall and the employment of so-called rainmakers during times of prolonged drough
  • Many different mission? aries consistently attacked rainmaking practices in order to nullify, dismantle, or undermine the religious author? ity of these revered specialists
  • .. I must not dig my garden that day or the rain would not fall."
  • Similar links were drawn between the killing of cer? tain animals and rainfall variability
  • For some communities, missionaries appear to have been considered both the withholders and the bearers of r
  • stoms. The missio
  • ate a society and a
  • lations
  • ere incor
  • tice stood in th
  • Rainmaking was regarded as an obstruction to the uptake of C
morajane

missionaryII.jpg (420×300) - 7 views

i0.wp.com/...missionaryII.jpg

Zanele Adonisi

shared by morajane on 25 Apr 23 - No Cached
  • morajane on 25 Apr 23
     
    This is an image showing Christian missionaries in the 19th century
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