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Africa during the Scramble: The Christian

I feel like there's a Graphic Novel/comedy series to be made in Sechele's creative interpretation of what Livingstone's trying to teach him there.

Also, when it comes to Southern Africa the thing that probably gets brought up the least is the fact that there were a great many within the Cape Colony who, once it had been granted Responsible Government, weren't particularly keen on annexing more land full of Black People because they wanted to maintain a nice coherent majority-white (or at least majority white/coloured) colony.
 
Also, when it comes to Southern Africa the thing that probably gets brought up the least is the fact that there were a great many within the Cape Colony who, once it had been granted Responsible Government, weren't particularly keen on annexing more land full of Black People because they wanted to maintain a nice coherent majority-white (or at least majority white/coloured) colony.

Yes, this is an important point. A lot of the British adventurism in the region was either driven by the efforts of individuals from outside the region with greater ambitious (Rhodes, Bartle Frere) or by the fact the Boers were already there and so London wanting to check them (which is the case in Botswana which Kruger had claimed control over). There was as much if not more division and conflict between the southern African whites as between the whites and blacks.

@Sulemain is the man who knows most about this and he's been kind enough to offer some guest articles to this series covering the white political perspective while I look more at the Black African leaders.
 
I feel like there's a Graphic Novel/comedy series to be made in Sechele's creative interpretation of what Livingstone's trying to teach him there.

Also, when it comes to Southern Africa the thing that probably gets brought up the least is the fact that there were a great many within the Cape Colony who, once it had been granted Responsible Government, weren't particularly keen on annexing more land full of Black People because they wanted to maintain a nice coherent majority-white (or at least majority white/coloured) colony.

Not just blacks-their was a general dislike of the Boers, the language culture, customs and religions amongst the Anglophone elite of the Cape.

Having said that their was a general split between the Afrikaners of the Cape and the Boers out in their various Republics. All Boers were Afrikaners; not all Afrikaners were Boers.
 
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Having said that their was a general split between the Afrikaners of the Cape and the Boers out in their various Republics. All Boers were Afrikaners; not all Afrikaners were Boers.
I tried to highlight this in LTTW via, in the absence of Britain taking over the Cape, there still being a conflict between those two groups. Of course, things then got more complicated with what happened to the Netherlands.
 
I tried to highlight this in LTTW via, in the absence of Britain taking over the Cape, there still being a conflict between those two groups. Of course, things then got more complicated with what happened to the Netherlands.

The first article I will be writing will be about The Jameson Raid but their are plenty of interesting PoDs regarding the Afrikaners.

In OTL their was a split between the Westerners and Easterners within the Cape Colony. The former were generally opposed to expansionism, and were politically if not socially liberal regarding race. The latter favoured expansion and were much more reactionary in their views. Both were fans of the British Empire, although they expressed in different ways. For a Westerner, being part of the British Empire meant commerce and self-government (which could include non-whites) whilst those in the East had a more militarized and racialised view of the Empire.
 
Yes, this is an important point. A lot of the British adventurism in the region was either driven by the efforts of individuals from outside the region with greater ambitious (Rhodes, Bartle Frere) or by the fact the Boers were already there and so London wanting to check them (which is the case in Botswana which Kruger had claimed control over). There was as much if not more division and conflict between the southern African whites as between the whites and blacks.

I have something of a loathing for Bartle-Frere. The man seemed to have this amazing ability to utterly destroy any semblance of good relations with everyone in the region. Like it genuinely feels like you could have averted the later Xhosa Wars, Zulu Wars and Boer Wars without him. Which is probably overegging it a bit on reflection but still.
 
I have something of a loathing for Bartle-Frere. The man seemed to have this amazing ability to utterly destroy any semblance of good relations with everyone in the region. Like it genuinely feels like you could have averted the later Xhosa Wars, Zulu Wars and Boer Wars without him. Which is probably overegging it a bit on reflection but still.

At the very least, he does seem like the only person on earth who actually wanted the anglo-zulu war (the next subject I'll cover) to happen.

It's not just that the Zulus desperately wanted peace. It's not just that the settlers on the ground largely did. It's that the British Government were repeatedly sending him desperate telegrams reminding him that they didn't want to fight another war.
 
At the very least, he does seem like the only person on earth who actually wanted the anglo-zulu war (the next subject I'll cover) to happen.

It's not just that the Zulus desperately wanted peace. It's not just that the settlers on the ground largely did. It's that the British Government were repeatedly sending him desperate telegrams reminding him that they didn't want to fight another war.

There's interesting mileage in 'no Anglo-Zulu war, the next conflict is both allied against the Boers' methinks.
 
There's interesting mileage in 'no Anglo-Zulu war, the next conflict is both allied against the Boers' methinks.

My own studies suggest that their is a time/space for a South Africa which doesn't treat non-whites like total shit: as you suggest at here it's in preventing white unity. Or at the very least, making "whiteness" not being the only source of rights.
 
Sechele seems a fascinating character and much more adept at taking into account cultural differences like the Jesuits did in China and Japan, than Livingstone was who I don't know much about other than he seems to have been the original fire-breathing Victorian, hence the success of one and not the other.
 
Sechele seems a fascinating character and much more adept at taking into account cultural differences like the Jesuits did in China and Japan, than Livingstone was who I don't know much about other than he seems to have been the original fire-breathing Victorian, hence the success of one and not the other.

Biographies of Livingstone often tend to end with something like this.

"Being a naturally modest man, Livingstone considered himself a failure as a missionary. But in actual fact, he was directly responsible for thousands of conversations and the spread of Christianity into new areas. So he was really a huge success."

And well yeah, kind of. He supplied Sechele with a bible and then baptised him. And then Sechele converted everyone else.

But like, also not at all.
 
Biographies of Livingstone often tend to end with something like this.

"Being a naturally modest man, Livingstone considered himself a failure as a missionary. But in actual fact, he was directly responsible for thousands of conversations and the spread of Christianity into new areas. So he was really a huge success."

And well yeah, kind of. He supplied Sechele with a bible and then baptised him. And then Sechele converted everyone else.

But like, also not at all.

Sounds to me that he played a role which should not be neglected but that by his own standards he was indeed a failure and that trying to say he wasn't also runs into denying Sechele his agency as is all too often the case when it comes to history of places running into the orbit of colonisers.
 
Sounds to me that he played a role which should not be neglected but that by his own standards he was indeed a failure and that trying to say he wasn't also runs into denying Sechele his agency as is all too often the case when it comes to history of places running into the orbit of colonisers.

Anywhere else you'd get a 'it would fall to other to carry on his legacy' summing up.
 
My great aunt's got a photo of her and Sir Seretse and Ruth on her mantlepiece, taken when she was a young traveller in the fifties.

Not really relevant, but that never stops me talking about random things on this site.


Anyway, I'm looking forward to this series: I doubt I'll have much to contribute outside any discussion of the maneuverings in the lead up to the South African War. Good stuff as always, @Youngmarshall.

And yes, Bartle-Frere has always struck me as existing to make George Grey look like a peaceful, cautious type content to rule within the bounds of the existing constitution.
 
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