Editing Afrikaner Calvinism (section)

== Background ==
{{Unreferenced section|date=May 2025}}
White settlement in [[South Africa]] is traced to the 1652 arrival of the [[Dutch East India Company]] at the [[Cape of Good Hope]], seeking to establish a supply and refreshment station for its ships and crews bound to and from Indonesia.{{sfn|McNeill|1967|p=381}}{{efn|The Dutch administration at the Cape did not initially envision or desire a large European settlement there.}} From its headquarters in [[Amsterdam]], the Company recruited crew and equipped voyages for the Orient. Most of its Dutch employees were Protestant Calvinists, who were the majority of the population in the region, supplemented by other Protestants: a few Lutheran Germans, and numerous French [[Huguenot]] refugees who had fled religious persecution in France.{{sfn|McNeill|1967|p=381}}{{sfn|Greaves|2013|p=37}} Among their Afrikaner descendants, individual religious communities such as the ''Dopper''s became known for establishing their own doctrine in rifts with the [[Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK)|Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk]] ([[Dutch Reformed Church]]). By the late nineteenth century, the separatist churches of [[Reformed Churches in South Africa|Gereformeerde Kerk]] had developed in South Africa.{{sfn|Du Toit|1985|p=214}}