Blood Ground traces the transition from religion to race as the basis for policing the boundaries of the "e;white"e; community. Elbourne suggests broader shifts in the relationship of missions to colonialism B as the British movement became less internationalist, more respectable, and more emblematic of the British imperial project B and shows that it is symptomatic that many Christian Khoekhoe ultimately rebelled against the colony. Missionaries across the white settler empire brokered bargains B rights in exchange for cultural change, for example B that brought Aboriginal peoples within the aegis of empire but, ultimately, were only partially and ambiguously fulfilled.