Biography
Robert Moffat was born on December 21, 1795, in Ormiston, East Lothian, Scotland, the son of a customs officer. The family was of modest means, and Robert was brought up in a Presbyterian home. At the age of fourteen, he left school and was apprenticed to a gardener at Carron, in Stirlingshire. He had a rough and independent character. He was a restless young man who was not religious. In 1812, he moved to Cheshire, to work as a gardener at High Leigh, in the home of a Mr. Smith. There he came under the influence of the Methodists and was converted. He was moved by the account of the missionary work in the South Seas.
In Cheshire, he met Mary Smith, the daughter of his employer, and they fell in love. Her father was against the marriage, as he did not wish his daughter to go to Africa. In 1816, Robert offered himself to the London Missionary Society and was accepted. He was ordained and sailed for South Africa. He arrived in Cape Town in January 1817. He was twenty-one. He was directed to go to the north, among the Namaqua people, where he worked for a time at a place called Afrikaner's Kraal. The chief, Jager Afrikaner, was a notorious outlaw who had been the terror of the area. Moffat won his trust, and Jager became a Christian. He was baptized and led a changed life.
In 1819, he married Mary in Cape Town. Her father had given way. They went to the interior, and in 1821, they settled at Kuruman, a station in the Kalahari, among the Batswana, which became the center of his life work. It was a dry and remote place. For many years, the work was slow and discouraging. The Batswana were suspicious and resisted the gospel. For eight years, there was hardly a convert. He and Mary lived in a poor house and suffered from hunger and disease. They persevered. In 1829, the first converts were baptized, and the church began to grow.
He took on the task of learning the Setswana language, which had not been written. He studied the tongue, and he created a written form of it. He compiled a grammar and a dictionary. He translated the New Testament, which was printed in 1840, and then the Old Testament, which was finished in 1857. He took the work to Cape Town and to England to be printed. He set up a printing press at Kuruman and printed a number of works there. The Setswana Bible was one of the first full Bibles in an African language, and it has played a central role in the life of the church and the language. He also translated Pilgrim's Progress and a hymnbook.
He also was a pioneer of exploration. He made trips into the interior, as far as the Matabele country, where he established a friendship with the king, Mzilikazi. This friendship was valuable to the missionaries who followed. He was a friend of David Livingstone, who came to Kuruman in 1841, and who married his daughter, Mary, in 1845. He was Livingstone's father-in-law and a source of inspiration. He wrote a book, Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa, published in 1842, which was widely read and which drew many to the cause of missions.
He had weaknesses. He was a stern and sometimes dogmatic man, who was impatient with those who differed with him. He had a lifelong disagreement with Livingstone about missionary methods. He also was a man who was strongly attached to the paternalist views of the day, and he did not think that Africans were ready for leadership. He did not do much to promote an African ministry. His work was also criticized for its close association with the British colonial power.
He returned to England in 1870 and spent his last years in Surrey. His wife, Mary, died in 1871. He lived until August 9, 1883, when he died at the age of eighty-seven. He had given fifty-three years to Africa. His life shows the work of a man who gave the Bible to a nation. The church in Botswana and South Africa owes much to him.