The Farmerfield Mission

The Farmerfield Mission explores the history of a residential Christian community in South Africa established for Africans in 1838 by Methodist missionaries, destroyed in 1962 by the apartheid government when it was zoned as an exclusive area for white occupation, and returned to the descendants of the community under South Africa's land reform program in 1999. As a farm, a residential site, a Christian community on a violent frontier, and a ''black spot'' in a white area during the apartheid era, the history of the Farmerfield mission links the broad narratives of colonialism and Christian evangelism with the case study of a particular African Christian community. The genesis and evolution of Farmerfield over its 124-year history provide a distinct lens through which to view broader nineteenth and twentieth century debates about the African vernacularization of Christianity and assimilation of European cultural norms.