Lamin Sanneh
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195189605
- eISBN:
- 9780199868582
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195189605.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Synopsis: This chapter continues the preceding discussion about Europe's rising star in its maritime expansion, describing repression of Indians in the transplant New Spain and Brazil. Strains soon ...
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Synopsis: This chapter continues the preceding discussion about Europe's rising star in its maritime expansion, describing repression of Indians in the transplant New Spain and Brazil. Strains soon showed, as exemplified in the criticisms of Las Casas and his defense of Indian rights. Capuchin and Jesuit missions became entangled with the slave trade, resulting in a setback to evangelization efforts in the Kongo and elsewhere. The chapter connects the American Revolution with Protestant missionary awakening, and with the evangelization of New World Africans. The antislavery movement teamed with trans‐Atlantic missions to establish a free colony of Nova Scotians in Sierra Leone. Following abolition, African recaptives began arriving in the colony, and thus commenced the real modernization of Africa, thanks to the new middle class raised in mission schools. The chapter concludes with the legacy of antislavery in Sierra Leone and of the post‐colonial debacle and ensuing civil war.Less
Synopsis: This chapter continues the preceding discussion about Europe's rising star in its maritime expansion, describing repression of Indians in the transplant New Spain and Brazil. Strains soon showed, as exemplified in the criticisms of Las Casas and his defense of Indian rights. Capuchin and Jesuit missions became entangled with the slave trade, resulting in a setback to evangelization efforts in the Kongo and elsewhere. The chapter connects the American Revolution with Protestant missionary awakening, and with the evangelization of New World Africans. The antislavery movement teamed with trans‐Atlantic missions to establish a free colony of Nova Scotians in Sierra Leone. Following abolition, African recaptives began arriving in the colony, and thus commenced the real modernization of Africa, thanks to the new middle class raised in mission schools. The chapter concludes with the legacy of antislavery in Sierra Leone and of the post‐colonial debacle and ensuing civil war.
Adrian Hastings
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198263999
- eISBN:
- 9780191600623
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198263996.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Church History
Covers the Christian crusades of the Portuguese in Africa in the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. The section on the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries has subsections ...
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Covers the Christian crusades of the Portuguese in Africa in the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. The section on the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries has subsections discussing the ancient kingdom of Kongo and its initial evangelization; Benin and Mutapa; and Kongolese Catholicism under Afonso I and his immediate successors. The section on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has subsections discussing the Diocese of São Salvador and the Jesuits; the Mission of the Capuchins; the battle of Ambuila, Kimpa Vita, and the Antonian Movement; the Kongo Church in the eighteenth century; Angola, Sierra Leone, Warri (a small state of the Itsekiri people near Benin), and Mutapa; and the slave trade and its implications. The final section is an evaluation.Less
Covers the Christian crusades of the Portuguese in Africa in the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. The section on the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries has subsections discussing the ancient kingdom of Kongo and its initial evangelization; Benin and Mutapa; and Kongolese Catholicism under Afonso I and his immediate successors. The section on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has subsections discussing the Diocese of São Salvador and the Jesuits; the Mission of the Capuchins; the battle of Ambuila, Kimpa Vita, and the Antonian Movement; the Kongo Church in the eighteenth century; Angola, Sierra Leone, Warri (a small state of the Itsekiri people near Benin), and Mutapa; and the slave trade and its implications. The final section is an evaluation.
Adrian Hastings
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198263999
- eISBN:
- 9780191600623
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198263996.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Church History
Gives an account of the church and Christianity in Africa from the 1780s to the 1820s. The different sections cover Equiano, the leader of the London Africans, the slave trade, and Protestantism; ...
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Gives an account of the church and Christianity in Africa from the 1780s to the 1820s. The different sections cover Equiano, the leader of the London Africans, the slave trade, and Protestantism; West African Protestant beginnings and the foundation of Freetown; the advance of Islam; Christianity in the ancient kingdom of Kongo under Garcia V; South Africa—mission villages and Protestantism; and the Khoi (Khoikhoi or Hottentot) leadership and Ntsikana, a Christian African prophet, poet, and pacifist.Less
Gives an account of the church and Christianity in Africa from the 1780s to the 1820s. The different sections cover Equiano, the leader of the London Africans, the slave trade, and Protestantism; West African Protestant beginnings and the foundation of Freetown; the advance of Islam; Christianity in the ancient kingdom of Kongo under Garcia V; South Africa—mission villages and Protestantism; and the Khoi (Khoikhoi or Hottentot) leadership and Ntsikana, a Christian African prophet, poet, and pacifist.
Adrian Hastings
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198263999
- eISBN:
- 9780191600623
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198263996.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Church History
Bishop Samuel Crowther was the first African bishop ordained by the Church Missionary Society in 1943. This chapter discusses Christian life during this age. Aspects covered are ‘Black Europeans’ (a ...
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Bishop Samuel Crowther was the first African bishop ordained by the Church Missionary Society in 1943. This chapter discusses Christian life during this age. Aspects covered are ‘Black Europeans’ (a reference to the fact that many Africans were more English than the English); Crowther and the Niger Diocese; Yoruba Christianity; the South African predicament of too many white missionaries; Buganda—conversion, martyrdom, and civil war in the 1880s; revival in the ancient kingdom of Kongo; and the Niger purge.Less
Bishop Samuel Crowther was the first African bishop ordained by the Church Missionary Society in 1943. This chapter discusses Christian life during this age. Aspects covered are ‘Black Europeans’ (a reference to the fact that many Africans were more English than the English); Crowther and the Niger Diocese; Yoruba Christianity; the South African predicament of too many white missionaries; Buganda—conversion, martyrdom, and civil war in the 1880s; revival in the ancient kingdom of Kongo; and the Niger purge.
CéCile Fromont
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781469618715
- eISBN:
- 9781469618739
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469618739.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, World Early Modern History
This chapter describes the Kongo in the 19th century. The architecture, devotional paraphernalia, political regalia, and rituals that central African artists had created since the late 15th century ...
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This chapter describes the Kongo in the 19th century. The architecture, devotional paraphernalia, political regalia, and rituals that central African artists had created since the late 15th century continued to play an influential role in the cultural and religious development of central Africa in the 1800s. Artistic, religious, and social remnants of Kongo Christianity endured throughout the period. Symbolic objects of central Africa, such as nail figures or carved ivory tusks, owe aspects of their form and significance to the Kongo Christian era.Less
This chapter describes the Kongo in the 19th century. The architecture, devotional paraphernalia, political regalia, and rituals that central African artists had created since the late 15th century continued to play an influential role in the cultural and religious development of central Africa in the 1800s. Artistic, religious, and social remnants of Kongo Christianity endured throughout the period. Symbolic objects of central Africa, such as nail figures or carved ivory tusks, owe aspects of their form and significance to the Kongo Christian era.
Jeroen Dewulf
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496808813
- eISBN:
- 9781496808851
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496808813.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
The fourth chapter serves to demonstrate how African American Pinkster celebrations in North America can be traced back to performance traditions that had developed in the context of Afro-Catholic ...
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The fourth chapter serves to demonstrate how African American Pinkster celebrations in North America can be traced back to performance traditions that had developed in the context of Afro-Catholic brotherhoods in parts of Africa with a strong Portuguese influence. The chapter entitled “Slave Kings and Black Brotherhoods in the Atlantic World” presents the history and importance of “black brotherhoods,” Afro-Catholic mutual aid associations that existed in Africa since the late fifteenth century and flourished in the Kingdom of the Kongo and Angola in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It also shows how slaves with roots in West-Central Africa and other parts of Africa with a strong Portuguese influence introduced mutual aid associations modeled upon Afro-Iberian brotherhoods in the Americas. In the context of these brotherhoods, they elected and celebrated their leaders or “kings” with Afro-Iberian performances.Less
The fourth chapter serves to demonstrate how African American Pinkster celebrations in North America can be traced back to performance traditions that had developed in the context of Afro-Catholic brotherhoods in parts of Africa with a strong Portuguese influence. The chapter entitled “Slave Kings and Black Brotherhoods in the Atlantic World” presents the history and importance of “black brotherhoods,” Afro-Catholic mutual aid associations that existed in Africa since the late fifteenth century and flourished in the Kingdom of the Kongo and Angola in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It also shows how slaves with roots in West-Central Africa and other parts of Africa with a strong Portuguese influence introduced mutual aid associations modeled upon Afro-Iberian brotherhoods in the Americas. In the context of these brotherhoods, they elected and celebrated their leaders or “kings” with Afro-Iberian performances.
CéCile Fromont
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781469618715
- eISBN:
- 9781469618739
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469618739.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, World Early Modern History
This chapter focuses on the sangamentos, a performance that gave rhythm to public life in the kingdom of Kongo. The Kongo sangamento evolved in form, nature, and purpose with the beginning of ...
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This chapter focuses on the sangamentos, a performance that gave rhythm to public life in the kingdom of Kongo. The Kongo sangamento evolved in form, nature, and purpose with the beginning of Catholicism in the 16th century. In the dances, the Kongo elite enacted mythological, religious, and symbolic local conceptions that merged with ideas from abroad to form a new Kongo Christian discourse. Christian king Afonso used mythology to combine and transform Christian history and central African traditions into Kongo Christian lore.Less
This chapter focuses on the sangamentos, a performance that gave rhythm to public life in the kingdom of Kongo. The Kongo sangamento evolved in form, nature, and purpose with the beginning of Catholicism in the 16th century. In the dances, the Kongo elite enacted mythological, religious, and symbolic local conceptions that merged with ideas from abroad to form a new Kongo Christian discourse. Christian king Afonso used mythology to combine and transform Christian history and central African traditions into Kongo Christian lore.
CéCile Fromont
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781469618715
- eISBN:
- 9781469618739
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469618739.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, World Early Modern History
This chapter describes Kongo Christian fashion. The Kongo elite expressed their status as Christian nobles and participants in the Atlantic world by combining local clothing with imported textiles. ...
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This chapter describes Kongo Christian fashion. The Kongo elite expressed their status as Christian nobles and participants in the Atlantic world by combining local clothing with imported textiles. The combination of local and foreign regalia gave the kingdom's elite a defined image that contributed to the promotion of the kingdom and became a motif in European imagery of overseas Christianity. The image of the Kongo elite in the early 17th century functioned in European missionary circles as a metaphor for the expansion of the church in Africa and in the world.Less
This chapter describes Kongo Christian fashion. The Kongo elite expressed their status as Christian nobles and participants in the Atlantic world by combining local clothing with imported textiles. The combination of local and foreign regalia gave the kingdom's elite a defined image that contributed to the promotion of the kingdom and became a motif in European imagery of overseas Christianity. The image of the Kongo elite in the early 17th century functioned in European missionary circles as a metaphor for the expansion of the church in Africa and in the world.
CéCile Fromont
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781469618715
- eISBN:
- 9781469618739
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469618739.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, World Early Modern History
This chapter discusses buildings, monuments, and movable objects that created a distinct Kongo Christian landscape in west central Africa from the 16th to the 18th centuries. The Christian ...
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This chapter discusses buildings, monuments, and movable objects that created a distinct Kongo Christian landscape in west central Africa from the 16th to the 18th centuries. The Christian architecture and visual environment of the Kongo kingdom not only manifested a political discourse of triumph and legitimacy for the ruling class, but also included a religious and cosmological dimension. Churches, crosses, and burial places defined a connection between the world of the living and the dead that structured the ritual, political, and religious life of the Kongo people.Less
This chapter discusses buildings, monuments, and movable objects that created a distinct Kongo Christian landscape in west central Africa from the 16th to the 18th centuries. The Christian architecture and visual environment of the Kongo kingdom not only manifested a political discourse of triumph and legitimacy for the ruling class, but also included a religious and cosmological dimension. Churches, crosses, and burial places defined a connection between the world of the living and the dead that structured the ritual, political, and religious life of the Kongo people.
CéCile Fromont
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781469618715
- eISBN:
- 9781469618739
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469618739.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, World Early Modern History
This introductory chapter presents textual, visual, and archeological evidence for the creation, use, and meaning of Christian visual forms in the Kongo between the 16th and 19th centuries. The ...
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This introductory chapter presents textual, visual, and archeological evidence for the creation, use, and meaning of Christian visual forms in the Kongo between the 16th and 19th centuries. The images, objects, and practices present how Christianity and its visual manifestations remained significant in the shaping of political and religious life in the kingdom of Kongo during civil and foreign wars and the transatlantic slave trade. It establishes dates and offers interpretations on the sources and historical significance of the iconography of two main visual corpuses: Capuchin didactic watercolors and Kongo Christian art.Less
This introductory chapter presents textual, visual, and archeological evidence for the creation, use, and meaning of Christian visual forms in the Kongo between the 16th and 19th centuries. The images, objects, and practices present how Christianity and its visual manifestations remained significant in the shaping of political and religious life in the kingdom of Kongo during civil and foreign wars and the transatlantic slave trade. It establishes dates and offers interpretations on the sources and historical significance of the iconography of two main visual corpuses: Capuchin didactic watercolors and Kongo Christian art.
Toni Pressley-Sanon
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780813054407
- eISBN:
- 9780813053141
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813054407.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
“Of Bociọ, Bo, Cakatú, Zonbi, Nkisi, and Pakèt Kongos” discusses how the methods and means of socio-political control in the form of several cultural artifacts: bociọ, bo, and cakatú in Dahomey and ...
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“Of Bociọ, Bo, Cakatú, Zonbi, Nkisi, and Pakèt Kongos” discusses how the methods and means of socio-political control in the form of several cultural artifacts: bociọ, bo, and cakatú in Dahomey and nkisi in Kôngo resonate in Haiti in the pakèt kongo, and the zonbi. Pressley-Sanon argues that these forms of oral and material culture embody historically significant memories and continue to be useful in disfranchised people’s resistance to contemporary attempts to silence and disfranchise them.Less
“Of Bociọ, Bo, Cakatú, Zonbi, Nkisi, and Pakèt Kongos” discusses how the methods and means of socio-political control in the form of several cultural artifacts: bociọ, bo, and cakatú in Dahomey and nkisi in Kôngo resonate in Haiti in the pakèt kongo, and the zonbi. Pressley-Sanon argues that these forms of oral and material culture embody historically significant memories and continue to be useful in disfranchised people’s resistance to contemporary attempts to silence and disfranchise them.
K. Zauditu-Selassie
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813033280
- eISBN:
- 9780813039060
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813033280.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
Toni Morrison herself has long urged for organic critical readings of her works. This book delves into African spiritual traditions, explaining the meanings of African cosmology and epistemology as ...
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Toni Morrison herself has long urged for organic critical readings of her works. This book delves into African spiritual traditions, explaining the meanings of African cosmology and epistemology as manifest in Morrison's novels. The result is a critical investigation of such works as The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Paradise, Love, Beloved, and Jazz. While others have studied the African spiritual ideas and values encoded in Morrison's work, the author of this study explores a wide range of complex concepts, including African deities, ancestral ideas, spiritual archetypes, mythic trope, and lyrical prose representing African spiritual continuities. She writes this book, not only as a literary critic but also as a practicing Obatala priest in the Yoruba spiritual tradition and a Mama Nganga in the Kongo spiritual system. She analyzes tensions between communal and individual values and moral codes as represented in Morrison's novels. She also uses interviews with and non-fiction written by Morrison to further build her critical paradigm.Less
Toni Morrison herself has long urged for organic critical readings of her works. This book delves into African spiritual traditions, explaining the meanings of African cosmology and epistemology as manifest in Morrison's novels. The result is a critical investigation of such works as The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Paradise, Love, Beloved, and Jazz. While others have studied the African spiritual ideas and values encoded in Morrison's work, the author of this study explores a wide range of complex concepts, including African deities, ancestral ideas, spiritual archetypes, mythic trope, and lyrical prose representing African spiritual continuities. She writes this book, not only as a literary critic but also as a practicing Obatala priest in the Yoruba spiritual tradition and a Mama Nganga in the Kongo spiritual system. She analyzes tensions between communal and individual values and moral codes as represented in Morrison's novels. She also uses interviews with and non-fiction written by Morrison to further build her critical paradigm.
Cécile Fromont
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781469618715
- eISBN:
- 9781469618739
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469618739.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, World Early Modern History
Between the 16th and the 19th centuries, the west central African kingdom of Kongo practiced Christianity, actively participating in the Atlantic world as an independent, cosmopolitan realm on a par ...
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Between the 16th and the 19th centuries, the west central African kingdom of Kongo practiced Christianity, actively participating in the Atlantic world as an independent, cosmopolitan realm on a par with European monarchies. Drawing on an expansive and largely unpublished set of objects, images, and documents, this book examines the advent of Kongo Christian visual culture, traces its development across four centuries marked by war and the Atlantic slave trade, and finally narrates its unraveling as 19th-century European colonialism penetrated Africa. By offering an extensive analysis of the religious, political, and artistic innovations through which the Kongo embraced Christian visual material, the book approaches the country's conversion as a dynamic process that unfolded across centuries, showing that the African kingdom's elite independently and gradually intertwined old and new religious thought, political concepts, and visual forms to shape a novel and evolving Kongo Christian worldview. The book sheds new light on the cross-cultural interactions that created the early modern world, highlighting cultural exchanges while also taking into account the countless men and women displaced by the slave trade from central Africa to all corners of the Atlantic world.Less
Between the 16th and the 19th centuries, the west central African kingdom of Kongo practiced Christianity, actively participating in the Atlantic world as an independent, cosmopolitan realm on a par with European monarchies. Drawing on an expansive and largely unpublished set of objects, images, and documents, this book examines the advent of Kongo Christian visual culture, traces its development across four centuries marked by war and the Atlantic slave trade, and finally narrates its unraveling as 19th-century European colonialism penetrated Africa. By offering an extensive analysis of the religious, political, and artistic innovations through which the Kongo embraced Christian visual material, the book approaches the country's conversion as a dynamic process that unfolded across centuries, showing that the African kingdom's elite independently and gradually intertwined old and new religious thought, political concepts, and visual forms to shape a novel and evolving Kongo Christian worldview. The book sheds new light on the cross-cultural interactions that created the early modern world, highlighting cultural exchanges while also taking into account the countless men and women displaced by the slave trade from central Africa to all corners of the Atlantic world.
Sterling Stuckey
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199931675
- eISBN:
- 9780199356027
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199931675.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century, Cultural History
This chapter looks at black identity and its evolution, and shows how the controversy over how African Americans defined themselves in the twentieth century had its roots in the slave condition of ...
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This chapter looks at black identity and its evolution, and shows how the controversy over how African Americans defined themselves in the twentieth century had its roots in the slave condition of the nineteenth century. West African naming ceremonies and the ritualization and celebration of names in Africa are contrasted with the uses of names as weapons against the humanity of slaves in America. The various uses over time of such designating terms as African, Afro American, colored, Negro, and Afro-Saxon are treated and related to black nationalist thought. The names controversy reveals the bases on which the confusion over identity rests—the economic, political, and social structures oppressing black people in America. The tendency is, consequently, for the better nationalist theorists to place relatively little value in engaging in debates over names.Less
This chapter looks at black identity and its evolution, and shows how the controversy over how African Americans defined themselves in the twentieth century had its roots in the slave condition of the nineteenth century. West African naming ceremonies and the ritualization and celebration of names in Africa are contrasted with the uses of names as weapons against the humanity of slaves in America. The various uses over time of such designating terms as African, Afro American, colored, Negro, and Afro-Saxon are treated and related to black nationalist thought. The names controversy reveals the bases on which the confusion over identity rests—the economic, political, and social structures oppressing black people in America. The tendency is, consequently, for the better nationalist theorists to place relatively little value in engaging in debates over names.
John W. Catron
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813061634
- eISBN:
- 9780813051086
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813061634.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Christianity’s influence among Atlantic Africans began as early as the fifteenth century, and endured as a largely indigenous movement over the following three hundred years. Discovering how they ...
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Christianity’s influence among Atlantic Africans began as early as the fifteenth century, and endured as a largely indigenous movement over the following three hundred years. Discovering how they came to be Christians, how many black Christians there were in Africa during this period, how contact with African culture changed Christianity, and whether Africans brought their version of Christianity with them to the Americas when they went there as forced migrants are the objects of this chapter. Led by African Christians such as Jacobus Capitein and Philip Quaque in the 18th century, Christianity’s history in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa actually extends to the fourth century CE and over the millennia has inspired the conversion of millions of adherents. Intriguing new evidence supports the idea that many Africans in the Diaspora were not only well acquainted with Christianity in places like Portuguese Kongo and Angola, but also knew about the black Christians of Ethiopia and Egypt and therefore thought of Christianity as an indigenous faith initially independent of and not wholly dominated by white slave owners, making them more likely to embrace it once in America.Less
Christianity’s influence among Atlantic Africans began as early as the fifteenth century, and endured as a largely indigenous movement over the following three hundred years. Discovering how they came to be Christians, how many black Christians there were in Africa during this period, how contact with African culture changed Christianity, and whether Africans brought their version of Christianity with them to the Americas when they went there as forced migrants are the objects of this chapter. Led by African Christians such as Jacobus Capitein and Philip Quaque in the 18th century, Christianity’s history in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa actually extends to the fourth century CE and over the millennia has inspired the conversion of millions of adherents. Intriguing new evidence supports the idea that many Africans in the Diaspora were not only well acquainted with Christianity in places like Portuguese Kongo and Angola, but also knew about the black Christians of Ethiopia and Egypt and therefore thought of Christianity as an indigenous faith initially independent of and not wholly dominated by white slave owners, making them more likely to embrace it once in America.
CéCile Fromont
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781469618715
- eISBN:
- 9781469618739
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469618739.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, World Early Modern History
This chapter talks about the cross as a central symbol in both Kongo and European religious belief. The cross as a symbol that allowed the two sides to determine the religious significance and ...
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This chapter talks about the cross as a central symbol in both Kongo and European religious belief. The cross as a symbol that allowed the two sides to determine the religious significance and epistemological common ground of the nature of the supernatural and its manifestations. The cross created an opportunity for Christian orthodoxy to recognize central Africa manifestations of immanence and for Kongo to broaden its religious belief to include the powers of Christianity. Kongo artists and patrons expressed their new Kongo Christian worldview through portable and elaborately crafted crucifixes.Less
This chapter talks about the cross as a central symbol in both Kongo and European religious belief. The cross as a symbol that allowed the two sides to determine the religious significance and epistemological common ground of the nature of the supernatural and its manifestations. The cross created an opportunity for Christian orthodoxy to recognize central Africa manifestations of immanence and for Kongo to broaden its religious belief to include the powers of Christianity. Kongo artists and patrons expressed their new Kongo Christian worldview through portable and elaborately crafted crucifixes.
CéCile Fromont
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781469618715
- eISBN:
- 9781469618739
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469618739.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, World Early Modern History
This chapter summarizes the visual, cultural, and spiritual universe of Kongo Christianity, which had an impact beyond the confines of the central African kingdom. Its influences reached the American ...
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This chapter summarizes the visual, cultural, and spiritual universe of Kongo Christianity, which had an impact beyond the confines of the central African kingdom. Its influences reached the American continent through the enslaved men and women who had witnessed its correlations and endured among their descendants a source of spiritual and political strength. Kongo Christianity is more than a singular historical occurrence that defined a part of the African continent, it is a phenomenon whose influence has resonated across the early modern Atlantic.Less
This chapter summarizes the visual, cultural, and spiritual universe of Kongo Christianity, which had an impact beyond the confines of the central African kingdom. Its influences reached the American continent through the enslaved men and women who had witnessed its correlations and endured among their descendants a source of spiritual and political strength. Kongo Christianity is more than a singular historical occurrence that defined a part of the African continent, it is a phenomenon whose influence has resonated across the early modern Atlantic.
Malyn Newitt
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190263935
- eISBN:
- 9780190492168
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190263935.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Portuguese have emigrated to Africa since the fifteenth century. Through intermarriage with local women a caste of black “Portuguese” emerged who played an important role as intermediaries in West ...
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Portuguese have emigrated to Africa since the fifteenth century. Through intermarriage with local women a caste of black “Portuguese” emerged who played an important role as intermediaries in West African trade and who developed distinctive creole languages. Portuguese culture also influenced the ruling elite of Kongo and gave rise to the creole ethnic group which dominated Angola for centuries and which has assumed power in the post-colonial era. The scramble for Africa led to increased Portuguese emigration to Africa and after World War II this received active state encouragement, although most Portuguese settlers left the colonies after independence either to return to Portugal or to move on to South Africa. Large numbers have now returned to Africa to find work in the booming economies of Angola and Mozambique.Less
Portuguese have emigrated to Africa since the fifteenth century. Through intermarriage with local women a caste of black “Portuguese” emerged who played an important role as intermediaries in West African trade and who developed distinctive creole languages. Portuguese culture also influenced the ruling elite of Kongo and gave rise to the creole ethnic group which dominated Angola for centuries and which has assumed power in the post-colonial era. The scramble for Africa led to increased Portuguese emigration to Africa and after World War II this received active state encouragement, although most Portuguese settlers left the colonies after independence either to return to Portugal or to move on to South Africa. Large numbers have now returned to Africa to find work in the booming economies of Angola and Mozambique.
