Follow
South Africans who converted to the LDS Church and emigrated to Utah provide some of the closest modern links between the U.S. and South Africa.
History
The first Latter-day Saint missionaries to what is now South Africa, Jesse Haven, Leonard I. Smith and William H. Walker, arrived in Cape Colony at Cape Town on 19 April 1853. The first LDS branch was organized at Mowbray on August 16, 1853.[2] When the missionaries tried to organize meetings, mobs would disperse them. Local preachers told their congregations not to feed or house the missionaries and encouraged new LDS converts to leave the LDS church.
In 1855, the original three missionaries went home and encouraged their fellow Latter-day Saints to emigrate to Utah and helped raise funds for them to do so. When local boat captains refused to transport Mormons, John Stock, Thomas Parker, and Charles Roper of Port Elizabeth sold their sheep and bought their own boat. Between 1855 and 1865, some 270 Saints emigrated to the United States from Port Elizabeth. In 1858, only 243 local members remained. Missionaries to Durban and Pietermaritzburg in 1863 experienced harassment similar to the first missionaries, like angry mobs and little protection from local constables. The mission closed in 1865 because of government restrictions, and a lack of knowledge of Afrikaans, isolation from church headquarters, and local opposition to polygamy.
Most early converts were of British descent, and often people born in Britain because proselyting efforts focused on English-speaking individuals of European descent, since blacks were not allowed to hold the priesthood at the time and the missionaries did not know how to speak Afrikaans.[2] In 1905 Lyon baptized a man with the last name of Dunn who was the son of a Scottish father and a Zulu mother. Dunn is believed to be the first black African convert baptized in Africa, though he did not remain an active member for long. Another early convert of African descent was William Paul Daniels, who joined the LDS Church in 1915 while visiting relatives in Utah. He met on multiple occasions with Joseph F. Smith before returning to South Africa.
Mission Presidents
- William Holmes Walker 1852–1857
- Jesse Haven 1853–1855
- Ebenezer Clawson Richardson 1857
- William Fotheringham 1861–1864
- Miner Grant Atwood 1862–1865
Sources
- Early Mormon MIssionaries: South African Mission
- Wikipedia.org: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in South Africa