Published: July 26th 2018, 9:32:02 pm
Background Info on Religions in Pre-Colonial Africa
It is not completely accurate to call Christianity a white man's religion. Though many African slaves were forcibly indoctrinated into a European version of Christianity, there was a Christian region of the continent before colonization. The first wave of Christianity struck the northeast sector of Africa between the first and fifth centuries. It spread through Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia. Islam arrived on the continent in the seventh century and expanded through North Africa in the sub-Sahara. Islam grew in popularity largely through trade and Islamic missionaries, not through forced conquests and conversions. Meanwhile areas like Eritrea and Ethiopia remained predominantly Christian. All the while pockets of Africa encompassed groups of people who practiced their own beliefs and forms of spirituality, referred to as African Traditional Religion by scholars.
When Portuguese missionaries arrived to Africa in the 15th century, they brought their own version of Christianity- one completely different from the orthodox version practiced in East Africa. There are a few things most people forget when denying that the Western Christianity slaves were introduced to was a white man's religion.
First, Christianity was not the predominant religion on the continent before colonialism. Islam was. Secondly, the Orthodox Christianity practiced in East Africa was largely apolitical and coexisted with numerous rulers and regimes and didn't enact forced conversions or religious wars. The same cannot be said for its bloodier Western cousin. Lastly the Protestantism that many American slaves were forced into derive from Catholicism... not from the Orthodox Christianity of East Africa.
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