Early Civilizations and Colonization

Connections between religion and politics in southern Africa stretch to early periods of human habitation in the region, first by speakers of Khoisan languages, and later by Bantu speakers who arrived in the early centuries of the common era. Ancestral spirits figured prominently in the religions of these peoples, with elites serving both as religious and political leaders. These traditional religions remain influential in South Africa, often in combination with the country’s majority religion, Christianity. Christianity arrived first with Portuguese explorers, and later with permanent white settlement in 1652, when the Dutch East India Company established a settlement that would become Cape Town. Most of the company's employees were members of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), which became an important force in colonial politics. In subsequent decades, French Huguenot refugees assimilated into the Cape region, and Germans established an independent Lutheran Church. Collectively, these groups form the Afrikaner (Boer) segment of today's population. When Cape Town became a British colony in 1806, the first Anglican clergy to minister regularly in the region accompanied the British troops and settlers. Tensions emerged between the Boers and the British Anglicized elites, and many Boers undertook a northern migration (the "Great Trek") to escape British control. Within the new Boer republics, the Cape Dutch Reformed Church was seen as an agent of the Cape government and a new branch of the church, Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk, was founded in 1856.