Microsoft Word - PhD Thesis Final.pdf - University of Limpopo ...

diplomatic issues. The missionaries found themselves in a situation where
they were unable to focus purely on religious issues. They regarded
themselves as guardians of Black communities who had to intervene in
other aspects of the lives of the Makgabeng communities when they felt it
was necessary. Of all the missionaries in the Makgabeng area, Christoph
Sonntag, as will be shown later, became the most involved in political and
diplomatic affairs. This was because Sonntag arrived in that area when
tensions between the Boers and the Bahananwa were at boiling point.
Because of this approach, the Black communities soon came to suspect
that the missionaries were having the same goals of undermining their
sovereignty as the colonial settlers. There was widespread suspicion that
missionary effort was deliberately directed towards the undermining of
chiefly authority; that the Black families moved to mission stations in order
to organise political opposition to the chief; that missionaries were acting as
informers for colonial governments (as, indeed, they often did). The
Bahananwa chief, Matsiokwane, who became wary of the missionaries once
lamented:
I like very much to live with the teachers (i.e. missionaries)
if they would not take my people, and give them to the
Government; for they are my people. Let these school
people pray for me. How is it that the Government takes
them to spill blood? How is it that your teachers take them
away? Whenever one believes, he goes away from me.
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