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Christianity in Africa South of the Sahara
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Christianity in Africa South of the Sahara Homepage
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Protestant Missions 1890 - 1960
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William Wade Harris & Harrists
Simon Kimbangu & Kimbanguists
While European and American missionaries came later to Southern Africa than to West Africa, the hospitable climate of Southern Africa meant that they came thicker and survived longer.
The first black African Christians in southern Africa were slaves of settler Christians. The slave community, from which the modern Cape Folk (or "Cape Coloured") are descended, was an amalgam of Dutch, Khoi, Malay and Malagasy stock. Slave masters often encouraged Christian beliefs and principles among their slaves, but discouraged their baptism, since slaves who became Christians could not legally be sold and might eventually redeem themselves.
The initial set of Christian converts outside of settler South Africa came in response to the Zulu Mfecane (or Grinding) which displaced large numbers of their neighbours and squeezed them between the expanding Zulu to the north and the expanding European settlers to the south. The Xhosa, the southernmost of these displaced communities "enthusiastically adopted modernity in all its guises -- including Christianity, education, and commercial agriculture," [Isichei, History of Christianity in Africa, p 103] beginning in the second decade of the 19th century. The need for protection from both Zulu raiding parties and Afrikaner settlers led many displaced Christians to the mission village where the missionary offered a measure of saftey and security. In exchange the missionary expected the mission villagers to wear cotton clothing, to learn to read and write, and to put in a solid dayŐs work in the missionŐs fields -- or to set up farms themselves. By 1850 16,000 Africans out of a population of 400,000 lived in mission villages. Very few of them were Zulu, most of them were refugees and other marginalized people.
Tswana Kings, Robert Moffatt & David Livingstone
The Tswana, who lived along the Limpopo river, generally resisted converting to Christianity, despite the efforts of such famous missionaries as Robert Moffatt and his son-in-law David Livingstone, (another link) who turned to exploring out of frustration from lack of converts. The exceptions were a few rulers who worked to make Christianity their national religion, in part because of its links to modernization and in large measure to reinforce their authority over their people. Both Kgama and Sechele were examples of such Christian kings.
Perhaps the most significant barrier to the growth of the Christian communities in southern Africa lay in the competition between white settlers and black Christians. As Christianity came to be associated with commercial agriculture, black Christian farmers began to compete with white farmers, which the white farmers didnŐt care for at all. The white Christians prevented black people from being ordained to the clergy, thus depriving the black churches of their natural leadership. This, in turn, led to the proliferation of schism, when black Christians left the white mission stations in frustration, but maintained their Christianity while forming their own autonomous churches. (AICs)
This page was based on the following sources, which you can consult for more detailed information:
Adrian Hastings, The Church in Africa: 1450-1950. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994 pp. 197-221, 250-53, 358-70.
Elizabeth Isichei, A History of Christianity in Africa from Antiquity to the Present. London: SPCK, 1995. Ch 4
John Bauer, 2000 Years of Christianity in Africa (Nairobi: Paulines, 1994) pp. 188-214