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Some of the earliest migrant labourers which had missionary influence in
the Makgabeng-Hananwa vicinity were Solomon Maloba and Samuel
Modiba. In 1868, when Missionary E.B. Beyer of the Berlin Missionary
society built a mission station on the foot on Blouberg mountain with the
permission of Kgoši Matsiokwane, Maloba and Modiba had just returned
from the British colony of Natal where they had been on a stint of migrant
labour 518 . While they were in Natal, Maloba and Modiba had been converted
to Christianity under the influence of Wesleyan Methodist, Missionary J.
Allison 519 . Thus Maloba and Modiba were converted to Christianity while
they were migrant labourers in Natal, and they went back to their homes
where they preached their new religion. There was therefore a link between
migrancy and conversion because in addition to the missionaries’
encouragement of people “to pray and work”, most labourers met new forms
of religion where they went out to work.
In the Makgabeng-Hananwa vicinity, the missionaries, in addition to
spreading the Gospel, encouraged people to be wage labourers and to this
effect Christoph Sonntag, the Lutheran missionary in that area once wrote:
I once more called together the Christians and catechists
518 Anon, “Negotiating identity in contested space: African encounters with Germans, Boers and
Britons in the late 19 th century Transvaal”, Unpublished, p. 8.
519 Ibid, p.8.
296