AFRICANWARSAND WHITEINVADERS
thousand pounds a year and more to the colonial treasury, in the form of a
tax of seven shillings on everyone of their domestic buildings or huts. 65
In the absence of state support, missionaries were the only white people
who tried to help Natal Africans to adapt to the colonial situation. As has
been mentioned, missionaries got control of 175,000 acres ofland in Natal.
The most effectivewere members ofthe American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions, who began to arrive in 1835. By 1851, the ABCFM had
elevenstations and six outstations in Natal. Africans receivedthem enthusi-
astically at first, because the Shakan wars had disrupted their society and
discredited their methods ofcoping with disasters. The missionaries opened
elementary schools and medical dispensaries; in some cases, they mediated
on behalf of their proteges with the civil authorities. They even made a
number of converts, especially among fringe members of African commu-
nities. That was the beginning ofa process that was producing a new class of
Africans who eagerly adopted Western practices, taking English names,
learning the English language, wearing imported clothes, buying land from
white settlers, andabsorbing
Christian ideas of social and political justice.