Missionary letters as a source for cultural history : American representations of the Zulu and Ndebele communities in the early nineteenth century

Abstract

This Mini Dissertation is concerned with missionary writings as a source not merely for studying the missionary experience in southern Africa, but more so, as a source for unraveling the meaning and the significance of Africans’ encounters with Europeans in the former’s own environment in the nineteenth century. In recent years numerous South African and international scholars have made groundbreaking contributions in this regard by investigating particular African communities’ interaction with particular mission societies during the course of the nineteenth century. Jeff Guy has published on the Colenso family and the Zulu, Paul Landau and John and Jean Comaroff have worked on the Tswana, Allen Lester and Elizabeth Elbourne have also published on missionary encounters in the British Cape Colony and in 2005 Alan Kirkaldy’s study of the Berlin missionaries’ encounters with the Venda will be published.