Botswana Travel Guide
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The missions

Botswana Travel Guide

The missions



Following the traders came the missionaries, and missionary societies, who were already active in South Africa. Robert Moffat of the London Missionary Society (LMS) established a station at Kudumane, which succeeded in bringing Christianity to the Batswana and in training African evangelists to spread the word. It was to Kudumane that David Livingstone came in 1841. In 1845 he married Moffat’s daughter, Mary, and they settled among the Bakwena.
Although ostensibly a missionary, Livingstone’s main interest was exploration and in 1849 Livingstone and his party became the first whites to see Lake Ngami. He died in 1873 while looking for the source of the Nile, in Zambia.
Khama and his Bamangwato family at Shoshong were converted by the missionaries of a German Lutheran society, although he later joined the London Missionary Society Church. Most missionaries tried to change local Setswana customs, which they considered heathen and inferior to European Christian customs. Most of all they fought against the medicine men, who defended the old traditional customs. However, despite leaders like Khama who abolished male and female initiations, rain-making and beer drinking, some customs still flourish because people like them.
The early missionaries affected disinterest in politics, although they inevitably supported Christians against non-Christians. Their position was always precarious because they needed to retain the goodwill of the chiefs to remain in their mission posts. However, during the Protectorate, missionaries who knew they had the backing of the British government became quite cavalier, demanding the removal of chiefs who resisted Christianity.
Although the missionaries tried to destroy local cultures, they also provided education and established the first schools. They introduced useful tools such as the plough and the wagon, taught gardening and crop irrigation. The missionaries’ wives taught sewing and baking and helped to nurse the sick and deliver babies.


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