Abstract:
South Africa General Mission (SAGM) missionaries evangelized the Chimanimani
District of Zimbabwe from 1897 onwards. SAGM missionaries focused exclusively
on this Ndau territory in the light of the pact between missionaries that did not allow
them to encroach into territories where other missionaries were already involved.
This was to avoid what the missionaries called ‘competing for souls’. This article
presents an emic study of this work that the SAGM missionaries initiated in Zimbabwe. The article follows a desk analysis approach (Chitando and Biri, 2016). It uses
primary sources in the form of the South African Pioneer, articles that were written by
several SAGM missionaries that were involved in this evangelization work. The article
finds that SAGM missionaries, like missionaries elsewhere, had a paternalistic attitude towards the Ndau people and as a result the Ndau were not very welcoming to
these “guests” at least in the first few decades of their work in Chimanimani District.
