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David Livingstone and His Convert Sechele

Although Livingstone is known both as “Africa’s greatest missionary,” he is only recorded as having converted one African: Sechele, who was the chief of the Kwena people of Botswana. Kwena, is one of the main Sotho-Tswana clans, they are found in three countries namely South Africa, Lesotho & Botswana. Casey Campbell They are found in all the three Sotho-Tswana language groupings. Sechele was born in 1812, and at the age of 10, his father died and 2 of is uncles divided the tribe, which forced Sechele to leave his home for 9 years. When Sechele returned, he took over one of his uncle’s tribes. At this point in his life is when he met David Livingstone.

Livingstone was known through a large part of Africa for treating the natives with respect. Although the tribes he visited returned his respect with faith and loyalty, he could never get the tribesman to permanently convert to Christianity. Among other reasons, Sechele, the now leader of the African tribe, did not like how Livingstone could not demand rain of his God, like his rainmakers, who said they could. After long hesitation from Livingstone, he baptized Sechele and had the church completely embrace him. Although Sechele was now a part of the church, he continued to act like he always had in African culture, which went against the teachings of Livingstone.

Sechele was no different than any other man of his tribe by believing in Polygamy. He had five wives, and when Livingstone told him to get rid of four of them, it shook the foundations of the Kwena tribe. After he finally divorced the women, Livingstone baptized them all and everything was going well. However, one year later one of his exes had become pregnant and Sechele was the father. Although Sechele begged Livingstone to not give up on him because his faith was still strong, Livingstone left the country and went north to continue his Christianizing attempts.

Livingstone and especially his ability to read immediately interested Sechele. Being a quick learner himself, Sechele learned the alphabet in two days and soon called English a second language. After teaching his wives the skill, he wrote the Bible in his native tongue. Although Sechele nearly completely accepted the Christian faith, there were many aspects of his lifestyle and culture, which went against his new accepted doctrine.

After Livingstone left the Kwena tribe, Sechele remained faithful to Christianity and led missionaries to surrounding tribes as well as nearly converting his entire Kwena people. In the estimation of Neil Parsons, of the University of Botswana, Sechele "did more to propagate Christianity in nineteenth-century southern Africa than virtually any single European missionary". Although Sechele was a self proclaimed Christian, many European missionaries disagreed. The Kwena tribe leader kept rainmaking a part of his life as well as polygamy.

Sechele is a perfect example of how influential the African Diaspora was on the modern world today. Although he adopted Christian values, he maintained his African culture, which was combined in to some sort of African religion. In instances such as these is where the roots of many African-American churches get their beliefs, rituals, and practices today.