Rhodesiana Reprint Library Memories of Mashonaland

Author Name Knight-Bruce G.W.H.

Title Memories Of Mashonaland

Binding Hardcover 242pp

Book Condition Very Good in Very Good dust jacket
Usual shelfwear,minor foxing, contents clean,
tight and crisp, crease to front bottom right dust jacket

Publisher Books of Rhodesia 1970

Rhodesiana Reprint Library

Volume 13 Gold Series

Facsimile reproduction of the 1895 edition

More images available on request.

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RECOLLECTIONS of the first Bishop of Mashonaland, the territory north of the Limpopo occupied by Cecil Rhodes's settlers in 1890. Educated at Eton and Oxford, Bishop Knight-Bruce was ordained in 1876. He ministered in the London slums of Bethnal Green before being consecrated Bishop of Bloemfontein in 1886. Two years later, having obtained the Matabele King Lobengula's permission, he journeyed to the Zambesi river, and covered some 1 500 miles visiting tribal cheiftains throughout Mashonaland, persuading them to accept "teachers". In so doing, he gained wide personal experience of the African people and their ways, and this book is especially informative on the domestic life, religious beliefs, customs and character of the Mashonas, and on the nature of their subjugation by the Gaza and the Matabele. Knight-Bruce believed that "christianising the natives" prepared them to "face the world of European immigration", and he justified his conviction by citing the example of Khama, who successfully stood up to Lobengula but who "dreaded the white man's drink more than the assegais of the Matabele". After the arrival of the Pioneer Column his ministry was extended to the new white settlements and, in 1891, he was appointed first Bishop of Mashonaland. He served as chaplain to the Column which marched against Lobengula in 1893, an event which he describes in detail.