South African Choral Music (Amakwaya): Song, Contest and the ...

6.1 The Establishment ofAdams College
.6.1.2 Amanzimtoti Mission and Adams College
Figure 6.3: Church atAdams Mission ca. 1903 (KCL, Brueckner Papers)
The first mission station that Dr. Newton Adams opened in Natal was situated in Umlazi where he
worked for almost a decade as preacher, doctor, and teacher. 20 In the 1840s, the settlement at Durban
was growing rapidly and the influence of white settlers on the mission station at Umlazi, which
was close to Durban, grew increasingly unsatisfactory.21 Consequently in 1847 Adams transferred
his station further down the south coast to the Amanzimtoti area where he had established an outstation
some time before. At Amanzimtoti Adams built a larger day school and a church for the
congregation. Seeing the great potential of "Native helpers", he made plans to start a training seminary.
In order to get funds for his plans, Adarns applied for a grant of £60 in 1849. 22 But the Board
turned down his request and his plans were realised only four years later after his death in 1852, by
his successor Rev. Rood. Rood's instruction were to open a school for those who were capable of
education beyond the level provided in the normal day school. Up to that point, the government
had made no significant effort to provide state education for the African communities of the colony.
The missionaries, by contrast, had developed fairly elaborate schemes to foster the education
of their converts. The establishment of the Amanzimtoti Institute or the Amanzimtoti Seminary (as
it was called before it became known as Adarns College) was one such scheme. The idea was to
train African ministers and later teachers for the mission work of the Board, and thus to create selfgoverning,
self-supporting African Congregational communities. Up to 1849 missionaries had
20 Newton Adams was born on August 4, 1804 at East Bloomfidd, Ontario County, New York State. He was the eldest
child of Joseph and Eunice Adams, who originated from Connecticut. In 1829 Adams qualified as a medical doctor and
practised as a physician for about five years in his hometown. Only a few months before leaving to South Africa, he
married Sarah, a schoolteacher in Clevdand, Ohio. (Shids, R. A. Thefirst American Medical Missionaries in Southern Africa:
Newton Adams and AlexanderE. Wilson, unpublished manuscript, Cape Town, National Library of South Africa).
21 See Mary W Tyler Gray, Stories rif The EarlY American Missionaries in South Africa, Oohannesburg: P. C. Westwood,
[ca.]1935): esp. 43f; further details about the history of Adams College can be found in Susan M. Du Rand, From Mission
School to Bantu Education: a History rif Adams College, M.A. Thesis, University of Natal.
22 Iso LlmuzjVol. 4 Oune 1935): 20.
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