JOHN MACKENZIE SOUTH AFRICAN MISSIONARY AND STATESMAN - W. IN SOUTH AFRICA

 John Mackenzie South African Missionary and Statesman - W. Douglas - Negro University Press - 1969 - 564pp, Hard cover in very good, clean and tight condition. One of the most influential missionaries in South Africa. Brought up in a devout Church of Scotland family in northeastern Scotland, he volunteered for service with the LMS in 1855 and in 1858 was sent to South Africa. He served at Kuruman and at Shoshong among the Tswana peoples. Returning from furlough in 1871, he became tutor in the school for teachers and evangelists, first at Shoshong then at Kuruman. The Tswana peoples were threatened with the loss of their land to Afrikaners of the Transvaal or to speculators from the Cape. Mackenzie became a firm advocate of direct imperial rule of native territories to prevent settler takeover of the land so essential to the integrity of an African people. After a very long and complex struggle against the forces of both the Transvalers and of Cape politicians like Cecil Rhodes, he achieved success when in 1885 the British government declared the present Botswana a British Protectorate and preserved it from white settler occupation. In 1890 Mackenzie left the Tswana and spent his last years as pastor to the Cape Coloured people of Hankey, the last resting place of John Philip.