This article analyses how African letter-writers in the missionary-edited Setswana newspaper Mahoko a Becwana (1883–96) sought to make sense of expanding European power during the ‘scramble for Africa’ and its accompanying social and political changes. The newspaper wrestled with readers’ opinions on a wide range of contentious topics, including ethnic identity, literacy, chieftaincy, colonial government, alcohol, adolescent initiation, marriage, religion and rational thought in general. The article questions the prevalent emphasis on European hegemony and highlights ways in which Africans managed to develop and maintain a separate discourse beyond European control or description as they critiqued and selectively adopted various elements of European culture. During the late 19th century, most Setswana-speaking people still regarded their populous chiefly capitals as the centres of society and relatively new European towns as peripheral, and they expected to maintain their autonomy while adapting to new circumstances. Those expectations would soon be severely challenged by rinderpest, war, industrialisation and the entrenchment of European power, but, building on their previous strategies, they initially pursued ways to accommodate European colonisation that preserved their existing communal strength.

中文翻译：

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“但我认识你，你不是上帝”：非洲在传教报上对欧洲殖民主义的回应

本文分析了由传教士编辑的Setswana报纸Mahoko a Becwana（1883-96）中的非洲信件撰写者如何在“为非洲争夺”及其伴随的社会和政治变革期间寻求扩大欧洲力量的意义。该报纸与读者就各种争议性话题进行了角力，其中包括种族认同，识字，酋长，殖民政府，酗酒，青少年时期，婚姻，宗教和一般理性思维。这篇文章质疑了对欧洲霸权主义的普遍重视，并强调了非洲人在批判并有选择地采用欧洲文化的各种要素时设法发展和维持一种超越欧洲控制或描述之外的独立话语的方式。在19世纪后期，大多数说Setswana的人仍然将人口众多的主要首都视为社会的中心，而将相对较新的欧洲城镇视为外围地带，他们希望在适应新情况的同时保持自治。这些期望很快将受到牛瘟，战争，工业化和欧洲势力的巩固的严峻挑战，但是，在他们先前的战略的基础上，他们最初寻求容纳欧洲殖民的方法，以保留其现有的公共力量。