Thread by @WendyLBelcher

The colonial encounter
between Europeans and Africans
did not always end with Europeans triumphing.
Either at first, or later.
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#colonialism
#AfricanHistory
#Blackhistory
#BlackHistoryMonth2019
#Ethiopia
#Ethiopianwomen
#AfricanChristianity

Thread # is #Africanarchive

Check out this fascinating moment
in the history of
colonial encounters between Europeans and Africans:

From 1557 to 1632,
#Jesuit missionaries from Portugal and Spain
endeavored to convert the #Ethiopians
from their ancient form of #Christianity
to Roman #Catholicism
2/9

After fifty years of failing to convert Ethiopians,
the Portuguese sent a new group of Jesuits to Ethiopia in 1603,
including a priest named Pedro Paez,
whose diplomacy and sympathy for the
tenets of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church
enabled him to convert the emperor.
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But when Paez died,
his successor, Alfonso Mendes,
was more aggressive about
eradicating Ethiopian religious practices
and a civil war broke out.

In 1632, emperor Susenyos
acknowledged defeat,
abandoned the effort to convert the country by force
& rescinded his edict
4/9

Susenyos then died and/or abdicated to his son,
and his son eradicated Roman Catholicism,
banishing all Jesuits.

This early encounter with Europeans
served as a prophylactic for Ethiopia,
which was never successfully colonized by Europeans.
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Often overlooked is Ethiopian women who were essential to turning the colonial tide.

Check out my article about them:
"Sisters Debating the Jesuits:
The Role of African Women in Defeating Portuguese Proto-Colonialism in 17th-Century Abyssinia"

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academia.edu/9135356/Sister…

You can also read the biography
written by Ethiopians
about the most influential Ethiopian woman,
a noble who became a nun
& lead a nonviolent resistance movement
against conversion away from #AfricanChristianity and
vs. the European incursion.

7/9
amazon.com/Life-Walatta-P…

You can also check out our translation of
the other side's view:
*The Latin Letters of the Jesuits (1603-1641)*
written by the missionary fathers in Ethiopia in the 1600s,
including Paez and Mendes' annual reports
from the mission to the Pope.

8/9
academia.edu/38728384/The_J…

In other words,
here you have an early colonial encounter
between Africans and Europeans
in which Africans triumphed,
and which is documented in
primary written sources
by BOTH Europeans and Africans
from the period itself.

The #Africanarchive is abundantly rich.

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