European Missionaries in Africa Essay -- African Missionaries Religion

European Missionaries in AfricaAt the beginning of the nineteenth century, Christianity was bounded to the coastal areas of Africa. At this time in Western Africa, on that point were a aggregate of three missionary societies operating in western Africa. There was the order for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), the Wesleyan missional Society (WMS), and the Glasaw and Scottish missional Society (GSMS). In the southern portion of Africa, the Morovian Missionary and the London Missionary were dominant. There was only one society in eastern Africa and thither were none at all in northern Africa. However, by 1840 the enumerate of missionary societies had increased to more than fifteen in western Africa, 11 in southern Africa, five in eastern Africa in 1877 and there were six in northern Africa in 1880. Not only were these societies spry in the coastal region of Africa, barely they also started stretching landlocked to lands where they havent reached in the first place. Around the year 1860, these societies in southern Africa had travelled as far north as present day Botswana, Lesotho and Zambia. (Boahen 15) noteworthy names of this time include David Livingston and Robert Moffat. (Gordon 285)Maybe it is good to look at how these missionaries spread and shared their ideas to all four corners of Africa. When the Europeans landed in Africa in the beginning, they had no knowledge of the type of people that they were dealing with. They knew nothing of their culture, speech communication, piety or anything of that nature. So the Europeans had to find someone or something to tell them about(predicate) the people they were dealing with. The Europeans looked no further than the slaves main(prenominal)ly in the joined States. The United States exported freed slaves back to Africa in order to help the colonization wreak run smoother. After all, these people knew about African culture and language and the people of Africa would probably listen to someone of th eir own color before a white European whom they knew nothing about. The Christian Africans were almost favored around the Guinea coastaround Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria. (Gordon 44) In fact, most African Catholics owe their conversion to black catechists. Catechists were Africans who were mostly untrained and unordained, but preached the gospel and set up Catholic communities all over Africa. These catechists were the main people responsible for ... ...ed people, which mainly comprised of the workers and the poorer citizens of Africa. The result of this was, of course, much social tenseness and upheaval. Even though the people of Africa were given a steady dieting of Christianity and Christian doctrine from the missionaries, there were still many that had no intentions of converting. almost Africans held true to their own traditions, there own religion, and their own customs. It also didnt take a while for the Africans to realize that the missionaries and colonization wen t hand in hand. The missionaries help the colonizers work up treaties that cheated Africa tribes out of their land and their resources. Kenyan nationalistic leader, Jomo Kenyatta, was quoted saying When the missionaries came the Africans had the land and the Christians had the Bible. They taught us to pray with our eyeball closed. When we opened our eyes we saw that they now had the land and we had the Bible. ( Gordon 286)This is the sad truth. The missionaries did use Christianity as a way to control the Africans and make the colonization process easier. These people were doing sort of well without having Christianity in their livesbelieve it or not.