Leselinyana la Lesothoand Sotho Historiography

On 3 November 1863 the first issue ofLeselinyana la Lesotho, datelined Morija, was published by the Revd. Adolphe Mabille of the Paris Evangelical Mission Society.Leselinyanacontinues to be published today. Its contents have been recently used by two biographers of Moshoeshoe and in the present paper I hope to suggest some other ways in which the materials in this publication can be of value to historians of the Sotho.Mabille had arrived among the Sotho in 1860 and had already published several small pamphlets written by himself on a small primitive printing press. The first issue ofLeselinyanacomprised just a single sheet containing two pieces of writing -- an editorial signed “Leselinyana la Lesutho” in which,inter alia, the newspaper introduced itself in the first person to the Basotho. The other piece was the first of what came to be a series of articles with the general title “Mogaogeli oa Moetsalibe” (“The Sinner's Pardoner”). From the beginningLeselinyanaemphasized articles of a religious and catechetical nature, clearly indicating its basic purpose as a vehicle for religious instruction and propaganda.According to Gérard the publication ofLeselinyanawas interrupted only twice. The first hiatus was from 1865 to 1869 when the Boers of the Orange Free State invaded and temporarily occupied areas west of the Drakensberg mountains, evicting the French missionaries who had supported the Africans there. The second occurred during the so-called Gun War of 1880/81 when the Sotho successfully resisted efforts by the Cape government to disarm them and to open Sotho lands to white settlement. In the following discussion I will touch briefly on a few representative materials inLeselinyanawhich suggest the richness of the paper as a source for historians, not only of the Sotho themselves but of their relations with the whites of the area and with the missionaries.