Blood Ground: Colonialism, Missions, and the Contest for Christianity in the Caoe Colony and Britain, 1799-1853

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McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 2002 - 499 pages
In Blood Ground Elizabeth Elbourne looks at the relationship between the Khoekhoe, the British empire, and the London Missionary Society in the early nineteenth century, a time of intense conflict in which different groups competed to mobilize Christianity for their own political ends. She explores the social history of the early missionary movement as well the political impact of British evangelicals, arguing that religious change in southern Africa can only be understood in the material context of ethnic conflict and bitter struggles over land and labour. In doing so she reintegrates the history of religion into the mainstream historical narrative of South Africa, offering a view of Christianity not as a monolithic system but as a language subject to interpretation and highly politicized conflicts over meaning.

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Contents

Terms of Encounter GraaffReinet the Khoekhoe and the South African LMS at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century
70
War Conversion and the Politics of Interpretation
110
Khoisan Uses of Christianity
154
The Rise and Fall of Bethelsdorp Radicalism under the British 180617
196
The Political Uses of Africa Remade The Passage of Ordinance 50
232
On Probation As Free Citizens Poverty and Politics in the 1830s
258
Rethinking Liberalism
292
Our Church for Ourselves
310
Rebellion and Its Aftermath
344
Conclusions?
376
Notes
380
Bibliography
450
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Page 1 - During supper Jesus took bread, and having said the blessing he broke it and gave it to the disciples with the words: 'Take this and eat; this is my body.

About the author (2002)

Elizabeth Elbourne is associate professor, history, McGill University.

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