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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Class, violence and gender in early colonial Malawi: the curious case of Elizabeth Pithie
Author:McCracken, JohnISNI
Year:2011
Periodical:The Society of Malawi Journal
Volume:64
Issue:2
Pages:1-16
Language:English
Geographic term:Malawi
Subjects:white women
colonial period
missions
biographies (form)
About person:Elizabeth Pithie
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/41289177
Abstract:This paper tells the life story of Elizabeth Pithie (subsequently Mrs Fenwick, later Mrs Hetherwick, 1861-1945). The first unmarried white woman to work in the Malawi regions, the 18-year old Elizabeth arrived at the Blantyre Mission in July 1879. There she was confronted with a double sense of alienation: as a European exposed to an unfamiliar cultural environment and as a young single woman in a community dominated by males. Her subsequent journey, which she began as a marginalized teacher and ended as the wife of one of the most respected Scottish missionaries of his day, can be interpreted as a simple story of domestic achievement. But this is to ignore other episodes in Elizabeth's life: her disastrous first marriage to the violent elephant-hunter, George Fenwick, and her brief appearance, as a sacrificial victim, threatened with enslavement or death as the result of her husband's murder of the Makololo chief, Chipatula. Later came the gradual transition from the ignoble position of semi-servant to that of one of the most loved and respected members of the missionary community. Elizabeth died in Scotland in 1945. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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