African Nationalism and Religious Independency in Cape Colony

Abstract

In two recent issues of this journal Wallace G. Mills has discussed the religious component in early African nationalism in South Africa. In his first article he claimed that 'the roots of African political and nationalist movements in the twentieth century can be found in the revivalism which emerged in I866' in Cape Colony. In the second he asserts the the 'difficult decades' between 189o and I9IO 'saw the emergence of ...religious separatism and African nationalism', but that they were in no way linked; the contention that religious separatism was 'a precursor of and contributor to African nationalism... is, as far as South Africa is concerned, quite erroneous.' 1 In making this latter assertion, Mills believed himself to be challenging the view that religious separatism was 'the first manifestation of secondary resistance at the Cape.' For this view he cites a seminar paper I wrote in 1969 in which, wrongly according to Mills, I looked to religious independency for some of the roots of twentieth century African nationalism in South Africa. 2 Aware, however, that most separatist churches have in the twentieth century adopted an apolitical or anti-political stance, I spoke of religious separatism developing 'into a rival channel for black aspirations in the twentieth century' and pointed out that most Christians who occupied positions of leadership