6 - Adherents and Rebels: The Basotho and the Dutch Reformed Church Missionaries

Summary

The recent upsurge in Pentecostal Christianity has placed religion at the centre of politics of belonging in Africa as it creates new trajectories of belonging based on the doctrine of being ‘born again’. Its ambiguities notwithstanding, Christianity can provide adherents with something on which to build networks and solidarities. It creates a new form of identity for the converts, and engenders new notions of inclusion and exclusion. This has been the case with the Basotho, whose adoption of Protestant values over the years has been an important factor in their everyday interactions with other farmers. Religion is often intertwined with autochthony, ethnicity, identity and politics among other factors in the belonging matrix. Hence, it should be viewed as just one piece in the complex milieu of strategies of belonging.

In spite of having spent almost three decades enjoying the patronage of Dutch Reformed Church missionaries, when the Basotho moved from Niekerk's Rust and Erichsthal farms to the Dewure Purchase Areas in the early 1930s, they made a conscious decision to run their affairs with limited interference from the missionaries. This was a significant shift from the close relationship that the Basotho had established with the missionaries. This chapter explores the various ways through in the Basotho used religion, in this case Christianity, to construct and negotiate their belonging in the Dewure Purchase Areas. The chapter also analyses the interface between religion, ethnicity, ownership of land and notions of inclusion and exclusion and how it impacted on the relationship between the Basotho and their non-Sotho neighbours. It argues that below the veil of an amicable relationship between the Dutch Reformed Church missionaries and their Basotho converts were subtle mistrust, schisms and religious fault lines that found expression in the numerous disputes between the two. In the end, the Basotho expressed their desire to retain a measure of independence from the missionaries by refusing to accept missionary paternalism. The first section focuses on the colonial period and the unique challenges the Basotho faced in their dealings with Dutch Reformed Church missionaries and the second section is an analysis of the tensions within the Bethel congregation over the position of the Basotho within the local church.