Returning African Christians in Mission to the Gold Coast
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Date
2018-04
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Studies in World Christianity
Abstract
The transatlantic slave trade created an African diaspora in the Westernworld. Some of these diaspora Africans encountered and embraced thereligion of their Western masters. Life in the Caribbean diaspora providedan opportunity for the nestling of ideas that were to shape theestablishment of the Christian faith in Africa. Following the failures ofEuropean missionaries to make an impact in Africa in the earlynineteenth century, freshly emancipated Christians from the Caribbeanbecame agents of social transformation in the Gold Coast, Cameroun andNigeria. Using archival records from Basel in Switzerland and Ghana, thispaper explores the missionary initiative of Jamaican Christians whoworked under the aegis of the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society from1843 to 1918. It provides evidence that these Jamaican Christians becameprincipal agents for the success of the Basel Mission's enterprise in theGold Coast in the nineteenth century. The paper argues against aEurocentric approach to mission historiography that has obviated theroles of Africans in the nineteenth century and demonstrates the legacywhich these returning Africans have left the church in Africa.
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Keywords
Akuapem, Basel mission, Caribbean, Diaspora, Gold coast, Mission history, West Africa