Even a European slave’s memoir could serve British colonial propaganda through translation

Evidence

“Master,” I replied, “I agree with pleasure to your conditions. In me, you will find a willing and obedient servant; and I hope I may have strength to enter upon my new duties.” … These lines were translated from the German by Sir Reginald Wingate, a persistent advocate of Britain’s formal colonization of the Sudan who became governor-general of the Sudan after 1900. With the translator’s political persuasion in mind, one sees how the words master and sire, uttered by a European to a Sudanese, hang in the air, always ironic apostrophes, particularly in the last paragraph of the passage. Slatin, with Wingate’s support, represents himself as if he were a character in a play. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 613

Categorization

• QUESTION: What other translated European captivity accounts in colonial contexts were shaped to serve imperial narratives?