Editing Afrikaner Calvinism (section)

==Settlement period==
{{Unreferenced section|date=May 2025}}
The Dutch settlement of the [[Cape of Good Hope]] was the first colonial success in South Africa. The company established strict rules for trade between the settlement and the native population. Only a Company administrator could authorize trade or [[Christian missionary]] ventures among the Africans. Settlers were forbidden from stealing or shooting [[cow|cattle]], which were a form of wealth and sustainability for the Africans. The early Europeans were shocked by the differences in the customs, clothing and appearance of the Africans. False rumours that the natives were cannibals reinforced the motive to avoid unnecessary contact. The Cape was a walled garden, with Africa on the outside and Europe within. This strict order minimised conflicts with the Africans during the early settlement period.

But many settlers believed they had arrived with a missionary motive, which included spreading the superiority of European culture. These factors contributed to the settler practice of indenturing the native Khoisan population to serve as workers and servants. Within that master/servant relationship, the Europeans would teach the Bible to them in hope that the message would filter back through the servant's family (along with reports of the superiority of the European way of life) and thus bring about conversion.

The farmers who lived outside the physical walls of the towns had a different arrangement with natives than did the townspeople. To them, occupation meant ownership, and ownership implied the right to protect their property. As they settled into the seemingly unoccupied territories surrounding the Cape, they enforced their assumptions about ownership and its rights against the wandering hunters or herding tribes who crossed the [[Fish River, Eastern Cape|Fish River]] into farm territories. The settlers considered the farms to be an extension beyond the towns of the separation between the white and the black occupants of the land.

Separation and rules of exchange were opposed very early in the Afrikaner mind to invasion and conquest. And, this [[anti-imperialism]] extended also to the theory of missionary obligation that developed within the [[Dutch Reformed Church]]: the [[Kingdom of God]] will grow within the sphere of influence assigned to the church by divine providence, as children are taught the Gospel by their parents and family. If God deems it fitting for the Gospel to be received by the natives, and taught to their children, then this is his glory. Toward that end, Christians have a defining role given them from God, a calling, or covenantal responsibility as God's people, to keep themselves pure in the faith and just in their dealings with the heathen, and to be absolutely unyielding in their protection of what has been legitimately claimed in the name of the [[Trinity|Triune God]].