Chief Kama: the Christian collaborator

Chief Kama (1798 to 1875) of the Gqunukhwebe Xhosa was baptised in 1825 and remained a devout Wesleyan Methodist until his death in the mid-1870s.

His dedication to Christianity was deeply resented by other Xhosas, including his older brother and Gqunukhwebe paramount, Phato. This tension eventually prompted Kama and his followers not only to flee their ancestral homeland along the Eastern Cape coast, but to also collaborate with the British in two successive