Description
Book SynopsisProvides the first comprehensive overview of the impact of missionary enterprise on the Xhosa chiefdoms of South Africa in the first half of the nineteenth century, chronicling a world punctuated by war and millenarian eruptions, and the steady encroachment of settler land hunger and colonial hegemony.
Trade Review“Colonialism, Christianity and the Xhosa is an accessibly written and compelling synthesis that makes important contributions to several bodies of scholarship that have preoccupied generations of scholars interested in South African history as well as the intersections of empire and Christian evangelism.” - Fiona Vernal, University of Connecticut, author of
The Farmerfield Mission: A Christian Community in South Africa, 1838-2008“Timothy Keegan’s book offers a comprehensive assessment of the dynamic interactions between the Xhosa chiefdoms and the European colonial and missionary enterprise during the first half of the nineteenth century. It explores more fully the Xhosa side of this complex history—how they encountered, rejected, or inculturated Christianity in the rapidly changing world created by European colonial and capitalist expansion. Minutely researched and written in highly accessible prose, the book is a welcome addition to the historiography of South Africa’s coastal belt and should be read eagerly by specialists and non-specialists alike.” - Jochen S. Arndt, Virginia Military Institute, author of
Divided by the Word: Colonial Encounters and the Remaking of Zulu and Xhosa IdentitiesTable of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. The Meanings of Conversion
- 2. The Xhosa and their History
- 3. Colonial Contacts, Colonial Influences
- 4. The Missionaries and the Chiefs
- 5. Translations and Conversations
- 6. The Pull of the Mission
- 7. Moralizing Africa
- 8. Aftermaths and Conclusions
