Literary issue as mission output: southern African correspondence in the archive of the London Missionary Society, 1736 - 1818.
This seminar paper showcases letters and documents written by southern Africans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in support of my argument that people in this region were highly literate in written verbal communication and debunk perceptions of their illiteracy in written verbal traditions. These texts were retrieved from printed missionary periodicals and handwritten correspondence held at SOAS Special Collections for the mission stations of the then Missionary, later London Missionary, Society, now Council for World Mission or CWM. Many letters are written in their own hand, in Dutch or English, some are certified copies. Incoming correspondence also contains records for mission pupils both at day schools and Sunday school classes, and the methods of instruction. The pupil cohorts were diverse in age, gender, ethnicity and first language as several populations moved regularly across the region. This paper will query the implications of these works for educational history and literary history of the southern African region, including that of the creation of literary wonts and wants, as we consider the first southern African generation to purchase texts, both secular and religious. Southern Africans were also employed within the literary realm, as teachers, translators, printers, typesetters - surprisingly, records also show that there were at least three printing presses in this region after 1801. The paper ends with a call to undertake much more research on the holdings relevant to the languages of other missionary societies.
Dr Joanne Davis is Research Associate at Centre for World Christianity, SOAS Dept of History, Religions and Philosophy.
- this seminar is free to attend, but booking is required.
This page was last updated on 25 June 2025
