NATAL, APOSTOLIC VICARIATE OF. - The south-eastern coast of Africa, discovered around Christmas 1497 by Vasco da Gama and called Terra Natalis, was not touched by the Portuguese mission of Mozambique. Only in the 19th century, with the arrival of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, did missionary activity begin in this region. On 15 Nov. 1850 Pius IX erected the apostolic vicariate of N., assigning to it the whole of the English part of southern Africa not included in the two vicariates of the Cape Colony.
The Oblates of Mary Immaculate established there the first mission stations both among the whites of Burban and Pietermaritzburg and among the blacks. From here, despite the stubborn obstacles raised by the Boers, they extended their activity to the care of the whites in the Transvaal, in the Orange Free State and in the diamond city of Kimberley in Griqualand.
In 1861 they began the mission of Basutoland, which subsequently developed to the point of becoming the most flourishing native mission in southern Africa. For the mission among the blacks, Msgr. C. Jolivet called in the Trappists in 1880 (v. MARIANNHILL).
On 4 June 1886 the first division of the vicariate of N. took place. The apostolic vicariate of the Orange Free State was dismembered from it, and in 1918 it took the name of Kimberley, comprising also Basutoland, Griqualand and Bechuanaland, and the apostolic prefecture of the Transvaal, from 1904 an apostolic vicariate in the Boer state of the same name. From the vicariate of the Orange Free State the apostolic prefecture of Basutoland was dismembered on 8 May 1894, and was elevated to an apostolic vicariate in 1909. On 26 Nov. the apostolic prefecture of Kroonstad was entrusted to the missionaries of the Holy Spirit, and it became an apostolic vicariate on 2 Apr. 1935; this was divided on 12 Febr. 1948 into two apostolic vicariates, namely Kroonstad, entrusted to the Dominicans, and Bethlehem, which remained in the hands of the missionaries of the Holy Spirit. With the erection of the hierarchy, in 1951, the vicariate of the Oblates of Kimberley was divided into the archdiocese of Bloemfontein and the diocese of Kimberley. In the Transvaal the Benedictines, on 22 Dec. 1910, took the northern part under the name of Northern Transvaal, elevated to an abbey nullius on 13 June 1939 under the name of Pietersburg. On 12 June 1923 the eastern part of the Transvaal was entrusted to the Missionaries, Sons of the Sacred Heart, as the apostolic prefecture of Lydenburg, which became an apostolic vicariate on 9 Dec. 1948. The part remaining to the Oblates was divided on 9 Apr. 1948 into the two vicariates of Johannesburg and Pretoria. The latter was entrusted to the care of the secular clergy.
In 1886 there remained to the vicariate of N. the colony strictly so called, Zululand, Swaziland and some districts in the east of the Cape Colony. In 1914 the mission of Swaziland was entrusted to the Servites, and was subsequently dismembered, on 19 Apr. 1923, as an apostolic prefecture, erected as an apostolic vicariate from 15 March 1939. On 27 Aug. 1921 the apostolic prefecture of Zululand was separated from the vicariate of N., entrusted to the Benedictines of St. Ottilia, elevated on 11 Dec. 1923, under the name of Eshowe, to an apostolic vicariate, and on 10 Sept. 1921 the apostolic vicariate of Mariannhill, where the religious of Mariannhill, formerly Trappists, had laboured since 1880. With this the apostolic vicariate of N. remained restricted to the central part of the province of N., where the Oblates, being able to intensify the apostolic work, brought the care of the whites and the mission of the blacks to great development.
On 11 Jan. 1951, with the erection of the South African hierarchy, N. was elevated to an archdiocese under the name of Durban. With this erection of the hierarchy the Holy See established on the territory of the ancient apostolic vicariate of N., erected in 1850, 3 archdioceses and 12 dioceses.
The area is 56,800 sq. km. with a population of about 1,300,000 inhabitants, of whom 75,575 are Catholics, 1,976 catechumens and the others for the most part Protestants. Native priests 14, foreign 74, brothers 28, sisters 479, catechists 83, teachers 535, elementary schools 130; 15 secondary. Primary stations 43, secondary 130, churches 28, chapels 37; dispensaries 6, hospitals 4; orphanages 4.