Page 136 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

A History of the Church in Africa

Interestingly, when Cão asked local residents the name of the river, they
answered, “Nzere, the river that swallows all others” (Edgerton, 9). The
Portuguese misunderstood the people and called it the Zaire.

When Portuguese missionaries arrived at Mbanza, Congo in A.D.
1491, the response was most gratifying because within a few years
many Africans were baptized. Among the first to convert to Christianity
was Prince Mvemba Nzinga, who changed his name to Alfonso I. He
agreed to send his sons, grandsons, and other adherents to Portugal
for religious training. Eventually, his son, Henrique was ordained and
became the first bishop of San Salvador, which is in Angola today.

Many churches were planted in the Kingdom of the Congo. Alfonso
became dependent upon the Portuguese for economic purposes. As
a result of his intertribal wars, which
produced captives, disposable people were
traded as slaves, which were needed by
Many churches the plantations in São Tome, Europe, and

were planted Brazil. Unfortunately, history indicates that
some missionaries lived immoral lives and
in the Kingdom assisted with the slave trade. Sad indeed!
of the Congo. However, when Alfonso died in A.D. 1543,
many people in his kingdom were at least
nominal Christians. By contrast, the kings
who succeeded Alfonso were not as faithful
to the church and Christianity began to fade because the conditions of the
church depended upon the attitude of the kings and queens.

In A.D. 1519, the Portuguese arrived in Angola, and in A.D. 1526 the
king of the Ngola people, who converted to Christianity, later returned
to paganism. Nevertheless, Jesuit missionaries persisted and a new king
embraced Christianity, as Kane indicates: “By the close of the century (1599)
there were twenty thousand Christians in Loando and Massagan” (70).

Of the Portuguese explorer Ruy de Sequeira’s arrival in the Bight of
Benin in A.D. 1472, Sanneh writes:

Then, in January 1480, two caravels made a voyage to the Rio
dos Escravos, “the Slave River,” in the Niger Delta, to obtain

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