The emergence of African Independent Churches in South Africa around 1900 occurs in an urban context defined by labour migration of native Africans to the emerging industrial centres of the region. In this context thousands of natives converted not to missionary churches but to "sects" (so the disregarding vocabulary of the colonial society) under the leadership of their own fellow people. In an attempt to control the native society, authorities introduced different legal obstacles on the way to the formal recognition of these religious societies. The result was that out of dozens of them almost non could achieve state recognition and remained for decades in a legal grey zone with consequences for their institutional development and the treatment of their members in the colonial context.