John Mackenzie’s ‘true vision of the future’: imagining peace in nineteenth-century Southern Africa

This chapter seeks to interrogate the meanings of peace, together with violence and war as its relational counterparts, in missionary thinking by focussing on the life and writings of Rev John Mackenzie (1835-1899). Mackenzie was an important London Missionary Society missionary to southern Africa and influential player in the late nineteenth-century missionary world. He was also a prominent speaker, writer and thinker in southern African politics, and although he found his political influence frustratingly limited, his many books and speeches circulated widely and played an important role in constructing ideas about southern Africa—both in late nineteenth-century Britain and in the colonies themselves. In this chapter I argue that as such, Mackenzie provides important insights into missionary thinking about the concept of peace during this period. Mackenzie’s significance partly reflects his sheer productivity, the broad dissemination of his writing, and the diversity of audiences he reached, which led to unusually wide engagement with his ideas. Though not a typical missionary in many respects, his thinking nevertheless drew upon a wider missionary heritage, and in turn shaped trajectories within contemporary missions. Given his stature and influence, Mackenzie’s repeated ruminations on peace therefore enable an exploration of the significance of peace in wider currents of missionary thought.