Abolitionism and the Evangelization of Africa

The abolition of the transatlantic slave trade and the subsequent long drawn-out global struggle to emancipate the enslaved were the result of African resistance and primarily Christian-led movements in Britain and the United States. At the same time the modern missionary movement developed, one focus of its endeavour being sub-Saharan Africa. White and black Protestant and then Catholic missionaries from Europe and the Americas began evangelization which was then steadily promoted principally by African agency. Christianity brought transformative ideas and economic opportunities followed after c.1870 by colonial rule with accompanying racial challenges to church and state.