This study examines the Church of Sweden Mission and the encounter between Swedish missionaries, African Christians and evangelists in Natal and Zululand in the early twentieth century. The ambition with the present study is to demonstrate that the mission enterprise was dependent on and an integral part of developments in society at large. It attends to the issue of how the idea of folk Christianisation and the establishing of a territorial folk church on the mission field originated in the Swedish society and was put into practice in South Africa. It describes how the goals implied attempted to both change and preserve African society. This was a task mainly assigned the African evangelists. By closely focusing on the particular regions where the Church of Sweden Mission was present, conflicts between pre-capitalistand capitalist, black and white societies are revealed. The 1906 Bambatha uprising became a watershed. The present study demonstrates how the uprising differently affected different regions and also the evolving -Zulu church. in the one region where Christianity was made compatible with African Nationalist claims, it was demonstrated that it was possible to be both a nationalist and a Christian, which paved the way for both religious independency and nationalist resistance and, eventually, large scale conversions.

In Natal and Zululand Swedish missions had precedence through the Church of Sweden Mission from 1876 on, the Swedish Holiness Mission from 1889 on, and the Scandinavian Independent Baptist Union from 1892 on. Between 1876 and 1902, thirty-six women were active in these South African missions. The history of all these women are explored on an individual basis in this, for the most part, empirical study. The primary goal of this dissertation is to find out who these women missionaries were, what they worked at, what positions they held toward the colonial/political situation in which they worked, and what positions they held in their respective missions. What meaning the women’s mission work had for the Zulu community in general, and for Zulu women in particular are dealt with, though the source material on it is limited. Nevertheless, through the source material from the Swedish female missionaries, Zulu women are given attention. The theoretical starting points come, above all, from historical research on women and gender and from historical mission research about missions as a part of the colonial period. Both married and unmarried women are defined as missionaries since both groups worked for the missions. In the Swedish Holiness Mission and in the Scandinavian Independent Baptist Union the first missionaries in Natal and Zululand were women. The Church of Sweden Mission was a Lutheran mission were women mostly worked in mission schools, homes for children and in a mission hospital. Women were subordinated in relationship to male missionaries. In the Swedish Holiness Mission and in the Scandinavian Independent Baptist Union women had more equal positions in their work. In these missions women could be responsible for mission stations, work as evangelists and preach the Gospel. The picture of the work of female missionaries has also been complicated and modified.