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People of Africa's Past: Robert Moffat |
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Issue 23
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Man with a Mission 1795-1883
Robert Moffat, son of a humble Scottish gardener, is perhaps best remembered in history for his mission station at Kuruman, for the publication of the New Testament in Setswana and for his relationship with Mzilikazi, the Matabele King.
[IMAGE1] Moffat arrived in South Africa in 1817, having qualified for service with the London Missionary Society through part-time studies. After two years at Maropeng, the kraal of a notorious Batlhaping chief, Moffat went back to England to get married. On return, he and Mary moved 14km north of Maropeng to establish Kuruman Mission. They began by building a dam and from it a 4km-long furrow to draw water from the "Eye of Kuruman", one of the largest natural springs in the southern hemisphere. This enabled them to create a lush, irrigated 372ha oasis amid the vast, arid veld. When the church was completed in 1838 it was the largest building in Southern Africa outside Cape Town. Alongside the school, workrooms, stable, packhouse and homesteads, it still stands today beneath a canopy of large acacia and pomegranate trees. Inside, valuable books, paintings, photographs and other memorabilia are on display. Perhaps most moving, however, is a plaque in the church. Dated 1825, it commemorates the death of Robert Moffat junior, aged five days, and is said to be the oldest example of written Setswana.
Moffat's mammoth achievement in translating the whole of the New Testament into Setswana was to occupy him over the next thirty years. During this time he lived for a while in a remote Tswana village, to learn the language. He then spent three years back in England, raising funds and support for his projects. He returned with a small printer upon which he was to produce hymn books, excerpts from the scriptures and teaching texts in the local language. All this involved creating words for concepts not known in Setswana and the compiling of a dictionary and grammar guide. Later he even brought Bunyan to the Batlhaping, through a translation of The Pilgrim's Progress.
Despite witnessing the violence and bloodshed of the Zulu Diaspora in the 1820s, Moffat established a remarkable relationship with Mzilikazi. He visited the king a number of times during the 1850s, joined him on an unsuccessful trek to the Zambezi River and was given a royal present of a cartload of ivory and fifty draught oxen. Mzilikazi sought and often acted on Moffat's advice, even when it was against his own personal interests or inclinations (in permitting Moffat to establish a mission at Inyati, for example). However he kept John, Moffat's son, and his two fellow missionaries waiting several months before allowing them to erect, in 1859, the first permanent white settlement in what was to become Rhodesia.
By the time the Moffats retired after nearly fifty years' work at Kuruman, new missions, schools and hospitals had been established all over the surrounding territory. They returned to London in 1870, but Mary died shortly afterwards. Robert continued preaching, writing and lecturing and was the first pallbearer carrying the coffin of his son-in-law David Livingstone for burial in Westminster Abbey. He remained alert and active until he died, 88 years after his birth, in the little Scottish village of Ormiston. |
