Negotiating Identity in Contested Space: African Christians, White Missionaries and the Boer Conquest of the Blouberg in Late Nineteenth-Century Transvaal

Abstract

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century the African communit ies in the north-west of the then Transvaal/South African Republic (SAR) were drawn into an existential crisis that came to a head in a mil i tary confrontation that resounded as far as L o n d o n I and locally left large portions of the formerly autonomous, cattle-owning Hananwa people of the Blouberg (Blue Mountains) dispersed and impoverished. The war of 1894 resulted from a number of contests that had evolved on various levels and interacted in intricate ways. Overarched by the macro-contest between British interests and the Transvaal Boers, new chiefs, sub-chiefs and potential chiefs, 2 whether acting as rivals or in alliance with one another, with their respective followers encountered whites from various walks of life: farmers, hunters, traders, labour-recruiting agents, tax collectors, land speculators, even gold prospectors and, of course, missionaries. In their official capacity these white people, who often formed communit ies of their own, were all consecutively or simultaneously affiliated to