Setshele I - Conversion To Christianity

Conversion To Christianity

In 1847 Sechele met David Livingstone at Tshwane. He and his people accompanied the missionary to the Kolobeng River where Livingstone set up a station. The establishment of missions was sometimes encouraged by local rulers because the missionaries gave them access to guns and gunpowder, which gave them an advantage over neighbouring tribes lacking such technology.

Sechele was eager to learn to read and write and was an adept student, learning the letters of the alphabet in two days. He was so keen to learn that he rose early and breakfasted before dawn. Once he had mastered reading, he taught his wives to read. The only book available in the language of the Tswana was the Bible. He later sent five of his children to be educated by another missionary, Robert Moffat, at Kuruman.

Sechele experienced several conflicts between local custom and Christianity. He had to give up his role as the local rainmaker. He fell into conflict with the Livingstone over his marriage to five women. At first Livingstone was inclined to be relaxed about it but feeling under pressure from other missionaries, he demanded divorce of four of the five. Sechele did so. As there were no further impediments, he was baptised in 1848.

However, one of his ex-wives became pregnant by him after this date. Also, because later he killed a European for judicial reasons, Livingstone denounced him as a Christian. This was despite Sechele's repentance and protestations of faith. Sechele told Livingstone, "I shall never give up Jesus. You and I will stand before him together".

During the time of their association, Livingstone urged Sechele to make peace with the uncle who ruled the other half of the Kwêna. Sechele sent his uncle a gift of gunpowder. The uncle was suspicious of the gift and set fire to it. His death in the resulting explosion enabled Sechele to reunite the tribe.

Sechele seems to have been a deep, independent thinker. His commitment to Jesus Christ (rather than European Christianity) was real, such that he made this commitment at a time when it was politically and personally inconvenient to do so and, after Livingstone left him, he continued as missionary to his own and other people. Whereas most African converts simply assumed the ideas of European Christianity, Sechele went back to the original source, the Bible, and tried to work out a more African kind of Christianity. There is still much debate about the quality of this, with traditional missionaries of the time calling him "half Christian, half heathen".