What is it about?
Rev John Mackenzie (1835-1899) was a Scottish missionary who worked for the London Missionary Society in southern Africa. He was also involved in southern African imperial politics. At this time southern Africa saw many violent conflicts particularly as driven by rapid colonial expansion. Yet Mackenzie dreamed about and talked about a southern Africa where peace prevailed. This chapter asks why and how peace preoccupied Mackenzie and what his thoughts can tell us about the justification of imperial violence in colonial thought.
Featured Image
Photo by Kien Do on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Rev John Mackenzie was a man of considerable influence in shaping public opinion both in southern Africa and in Britain due to his connections to missionary, indigenous southern African and secular imperial worlds. He was a prolific writer who aimed to shape public opinion through his speeches, books and articles. Whilst his thoughts on peace may be labelled dreams, they give important insights into the way in which imperial violence was thought about and to some extent justified in nineteenth-century missionary thought.
Perspectives
This article was written about ten years after I came across the Mackenzie in the London Missionary Society archives when I was doing my PhD. His prolific writings stayed with me as I started a new project, and I was glad of the opportunity to return to them for the 'Messengers of Peace' conference in 2018.
Esme Cleall
University of Sheffield
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: John Mackenzie’s “True Vision of the Future”: Imagining Peace in Nineteenth-Century Southern Africa, March 2023, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004536791_007.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
