INTRODUCTION

A remarkable number of Christians prominent in the formation of the African National Congress (ANC) emerged from the former colony of Natal, among them founding president John Langalibalele Dube and future president Pixley ka Isaka Seme, as well as Alfred Mangena, H Selby Msimang and his brother Richard – to name only the best known. What made Natal such a potent forging ground for African nationalism? This chapter argues that the war on black Christianity waged by the white supremacist regime of Natal in the decade prior to the formation of the Union of South Africa convinced Christian intellectuals that the hopes formerly held for equality before the law were unrealistic. Britain would not defend their rights in self-governing colonies and dominions. The Natal government's attempts to recruit assistance from other white settler regimes demonstrated that resistance would have to be conducted on a South Africa-wide basis. Christian evangelism in Natal was intricately entwined with political, legal and economic struggles. That is why the settler regime targeted black Christianity as its most dangerous opponent.

While the Natal Native Congress (NNC), founded in July 1900, has often been viewed as something of a precursor to the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), formed a dozen years later, the intervening period witnessed profound changes in relations between the colonial state and the African elite. The inaugural meeting of the NNC had assumed some of the trappings of a state occasion. GH Hulett, a prominent Natal planter and son of the serving minister for native affairs, J Liege Hulett, took the chair at a meeting where ‘after prayers and hymns, loyal resolutions were passed and votes of thanks proposed to the Queen.’ In this way the meeting accorded with the programme of Christianisation and civilisation articulated by missionaries and colonial officials over the previous half century.

But even as the hymns rose heavenward, forces had been set in motion that would blast African hopes that Christian respectability would earn them equal citizenship. On the contrary, their religious identity made them targets of suspicion. The ability of their ordained preachers to spread the gospel was severely circumscribed. The mission reserves, which had once offered the prospect of individual land ownership, were seized by the state.