The final quarter of the nineteenth century…

The final quarter of the nineteenth century in Southern Africa is marked also by the rise of new forms of political and religious organization as blacks struggle to attain some degree of autonomy in a world that is rapidly becoming colonized.

Because the right to vote is based on ownership of property rather than on race in the Cape, blacks can participate in electoral politics, and this they do in increasing numbers in the 1870s and the 1880s,   especially in the towns.

In 1879 Africans in the eastern Cape had formed the Native Educational Association (NEA), the purpose of which is to promote "the improvement and elevation of the native races."

This had been followed by the establishment of the more overtly political Imbumba Yama Nyama (literally, "hard, solid sinew"), formed in 1882 in Port Elizabeth, which seeks to fight for "national rights" for Africans.