Colonial and Confessional Encounters in South AfricaEdition 1

In the wake of the arrival of the East India Company and its settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, also the Christian faith came to South Africa. In a series of biographical studies, this book looks at the lives of men and women, including the enslaved people, and their relation to the Church.

Based on extensive archival research from both the Netherlands and South Africa, the book uncovers the story of young men and women, freeborn or enslaved, in the emerging society at the Cape, a halfway station for ships between the Low Countries and the Indonesian archipelago. It is the first book to provide such indepth research to uncovered sources. The author demonstrates that the face of the Church was surprisingly broad in confession and policy as it also counted emancipated slaves among her members.

Telling the story of two early decades at the Cape, the book will be of interest to researchers in the history of society and Church in the seventeenth century of colonial Europe and Africa and the history of colonization, slavery, and South Africa.