Richard Miles was a Motswana (
Tswana
Tswana may refer to:
* Tswana people, the Bantu speaking people in Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and other Southern Africa regions
* Tswana language, the language spoken by the (Ba)Tswana people
* Bophuthatswana, the former ba ...
)
catechist and
preacher
A preacher is a person who delivers sermons or homilies on religious topics to an assembly of people. Less common are preachers who preach on the street, or those whose message is not necessarily religious, but who preach components such as ...
"to the native tribes beyond the border" in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
.
[Morris, D. 2001. Who was Richard Miles? ''Now and Then: Newsletter of the Historical Society of Kimberley and the Northern Cape'' 8(1):6.][Morris, D]
Richard Miles: Motswana preacher "to the native tribes beyond the border
Origins
Nothing definite is known of Richard Miles's origins, except that he was born a Motswana (
Tswana
Tswana may refer to:
* Tswana people, the Bantu speaking people in Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and other Southern Africa regions
* Tswana language, the language spoken by the (Ba)Tswana people
* Bophuthatswana, the former ba ...
), and as a youth was in the employ of the apothecary
John Harfield Tredgold in
Cape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
.
[Ashworth, M.G. 1974. ''The life and fortunes of John Pocock of Cape Town, 1814-1876''; Tredgold, A.1990. ''The Ardernes and their garden''. Cape Town: Arderne Book Trust.]
Tredgold was Secretary of the
Cape of Good Hope Philanthropic Society "for aiding deserving slaves and slave children to purchase their freedom", and maintained regular association with mission activities. He would have been well acquainted with the
London Missionary Society
The London Missionary Society was an interdenominational evangelical missionary society formed in England in 1795 at the instigation of Welsh Congregationalist minister Edward Williams. It was largely Reformed in outlook, with Congregational m ...
Superintendent, the
Revd Richard Miles (who was also on the committee of the Philanthropic Society). The Revd Miles occupied the position as Superintendent at the Cape temporarily in the late 1820s, while
Dr John Philip was in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
.
It is presumed that Richard Miles, the Motswana, had been one of the many individuals displaced by turbulence in the frontier in the 1820s - when, indeed, through the so-called ''inboekseling'' system, many women and children in particular were "apprenticed" into a life of virtual slavery on colonial farms. It seems possible that the Philanthropic Society had rescued one such Motswana youth from that fate, who then took on a name in honour of the temporary Superintendent. Evidently he lived for a time in the Tredgold household in Cape Town and benefited by an education, before returning to beyond the frontier to teach and to preach.
An important source in support of some of the above is the diary of one John Thomas Pocock, Tredgold's assistant, who described a party given by the Tredgolds on 1 September 1836, adding: "Much enjoyed the evening during which Mr T. amused the company by reading aloud Richard Miles's letters. While the quaint expression elicited continual laughter, the spirit of the whole pleased us all." Miles was "a Bechuana boy formerly in the employ of Mr T. but now an itinerant preacher to the native tribes beyond the border".
At Bethanie and Bethulie in the Free State
In 1834, Richard Miles travelled, as interpreter, with the
Berlin Missionaries to establish a station amongst the
Tswana
Tswana may refer to:
* Tswana people, the Bantu speaking people in Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and other Southern Africa regions
* Tswana language, the language spoken by the (Ba)Tswana people
* Bophuthatswana, the former ba ...
in the interior (they joined
Andrew Smith's "Expedition into Central Africa" at
Graaff-Reinet
Graaff-Reinet is a town in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. It is the oldest town in the province. It is also the sixth-oldest town in South Africa, after Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Simon's Town, Paarl and Swellendam. The town was the ...
).
In the event,
Matabele incursions into
Tswana
Tswana may refer to:
* Tswana people, the Bantu speaking people in Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and other Southern Africa regions
* Tswana language, the language spoken by the (Ba)Tswana people
* Bophuthatswana, the former ba ...
territory persuaded the missionaries that work amongst the
Korana
The Korana is a river in central Croatia and west Bosnia and Herzegovina. The river has a total length of and watershed area of .
The river's name is derived from Proto-Indo-European ''*karr-'' 'rock'. It was recorded in the 13th century as '' ...
- at the place they named
Bethanie - would be a better idea. And so Miles's interpretive skills were tested to the limit: some of the Korana had a smattering of
Setswana
Tswana, also known by its native name , and previously spelled Sechuana in English, is a Bantu language spoken in Southern Africa by about 8.2 million people. It belongs to the Bantu language family within the Sotho-Tswana branch of Zon ...
, while Miles himself soon learned the basics of their language. An early encounter with local
San stumped both the missionaries and their interpreter. (It is on record that Miles spoke "the most fluent Setswana" when a group of Batswana visited the missionaries in August 1834).
[Schoeman, K. 1985. ''Die huis van die armes: die Berlynse Sendinggenootskap in die OVS, 1834-1869''. Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau.]
In 1848
Carl Wuras obtained permission to employ "the Bechuana Richard Miles" - formerly interpreter - as "school assistant" - "the same man who came with our first missionaries from Cape Town to Bethanie". Later, in 1850, Wuras described how three Batswana had learned the Articles of Faith in one evening, having been instructed in their own language by the assistant Richard Miles. Miles assisted at this period in providing education to children as well as adults.
In March 1850, when the government of the
Orange River Colony
The Orange River Colony was the British colony created after Britain first occupied (1900) and then annexed (1902) the independent Orange Free State in the Second Boer War. The colony ceased to exist in 1910, when it was absorbed into the Unio ...
sought to appoint a headman or ''Kaptyn'' for Bethanie, it was Richard Miles whom Wuras recommended to Maj Warden: "a Bechuana by birth and assistant at the school, who could understand and speak English, Nederlands, Setswana and Korana". And thus it was that the British Resident appointed Miles as Kaptyn of Bethanie in the name of His Excellency the Governor of the Cape.
By the late 1850s Miles was with the
French Missionaries, and acted as agent for the Tswana Chief Lephoi, at
Bethulie
Bethulie is a small sheep and cattle farming town in the Free State province of South Africa. The name meaning ''chosen by God'' was given by directors of a mission station in 1829 which the town formed around. The mission building is the oldest s ...
. Here he became embroiled in land speculation, with one George Donovan, which led to the loss of land by Lephoi and the missionaries, and the beginnings of the white town of Bethulie.
On the Diamond Fields
Lewis and Edwards, in their 1934 ''Historical Records of the Church of the Province of South Africa'' (
Anglican Church of Southern Africa
The Anglican Church of Southern Africa, known until 2006 as the Church of the Province of Southern Africa, is the province of the Anglican Communion in the southern part of Africa. The church has twenty-five dioceses, of which twenty-one are loc ...
), state that "The mission to the natives in
Kimberley was set on foot about 1870 by a Mochuana called Richard Miles, and after his death it was carried on by Rev. E. Lange".
[Lewis, C & Edwards, G.E. 1934. ''Historical records of the Church of the Province of South Africa''. London: SPCK.] Miles possibly went to the
Diamond Fields
Kimberley is the capital and largest city of the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It is located approximately 110 km east of the confluence of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. The city has considerable historical significance due to its ...
region under the auspices of the
Berlin Missionary Society The Berlin Missionary Society (BMS) or ''Society for the Advancement of evangelistic Missions amongst the Heathen'' (German: '' Berliner Missionsgesellschaft'' or ''Gesellschaft zur Beförderung der evangelischen Missionen unter den Heiden'') was a ...
at their station at
Pniel.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miles, Richard
History of South Africa