Mormon Impressions: Locating Mormon Footprints on the South African Religious Landscape

Abstract

Since 1853, when the first three official missionaries arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, Mormons have been treading along the South African religious landscape, leaving in their wake a multitude of paths and trails filled with traceable footprints. These footprints have played a critical role in the formulation of impressions about Mormons throughout this church’s history in South Africa. This article’s main objective is to present a history of Mormons and Mormonism in South Africa which consequently relegates it spatially and structurally to the margins of both Mormon and South African religious studies. To further this marginalization the essay purposefully limits its investigation to exploring the external features of the South African religious landscape, subsequently providing the reader with an introductory, surface history concerned with locating the sources of knowledge about Mormons and Mormonism in South Africa.