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Always on point and full of interesting information great read as usual, I had no idea that Catholicism was so deeply entrenched and aligned with that of the indigenous customs of the Bakongo kingdom. Not so different from Islam in Mali and a'lot of West African Muslim Nations interesting to think about, also makes me wonder had Christian Ethiopia and Bakongo ever by chance crossed paths how they'd interact.

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‘The baKongo Christians, who had adopted the religion on their own accord, ...’

This seems a difficult statement to back up. The Portuguese, as were many European colonizers, quite brutal in their treatment of slaves and enforcement of Christianity. Why would it be any different in Kongo?

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1- the Portuguese "brutal treatment of slaves and enforcement of christianity" was infact not why central africans adopted Christianity, the two major colonies of portugal in 17th century africa were Mutapa and the swahili coast, both of which didn't accept catholicism despite being under Portuguese colonial rule for as long as they would later be under british rule

2- the portuguese colonies in central africa such as Angola and Benguela were infact home to far less christian populations than in Kongo

3- Kongo was never under portuguese rule until the early 20th century, as i explained in the opening paragraph of the article, repeated portuguese attempts to colonise it in the 1622, and 1670 were defeated. and as its explained in the above article, the Portuguese play no role in these events, the capuchin priests are Italian and were brought into kongo especially for their neutrality.

4- Kongo adopted christianity and spread it through its population, largely on its own; this is covered in greater detailed in my earlier post https://isaacsamuel.substack.com/p/the-kingdom-of-kongo-and-the-portuguese

5- "brutality and slavery" is not a good strategy of converting masses, half of Africa is currently majority Christian because missionaries tried to present themselves as "abolitionists" and as a "humane" alternative to colonialists, if tying shackles around people's necks and legs is what got them to convert, then the 5 million slaves that were shipped to the americas by portuguese ships would have been sworn catholics on their arrival rather than the expert practitioners of African traditional religions like voodoo which survives today.

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I realize you’re talking about Africa, but it is difficult not to draw parallels between other continents. So do you think South America’s now heavily Catholic population wasn’t subjected to European ‘brutality and slavery’ or was their conversion not related to that? Burning their religious books, maiming the people, and subjugating the whole population to a variety of atrocities for practicing their native religions had nothing to do with submitting to Catholicism?

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Yes, i'm mostly talking about africa, i realise that both christianity and islam, in the Mediterranean empires (rome and the caliphates) did involve a measure of forceful conversion at the hands of what some societies (eg western europeans and north africans) may deem foreigners (eg roman emperors and arab caliphs). But in Africa's case, (subsaharan africa in particular) both of these religions didn't spread through colonial conquest but through peaceful adoption because most of this region of Africa was never brought under foreign occupation until the 19th century. If any forceful conversion was involved, it was between African states. so Kongo wasn't enslaved into becoming catholic, It chose to become catholic.

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