The roots of Krio Christianity are to be found in a particular period of Nova Scotian religious history. The Black Loyalists, freed slaves, who had fought for the British during the American War of Independence on the promise of land and freedom, found themselves placed in Nova Scotia after the war was over. They arrived in the wake of Henry Alline, the prophet heralding the Great Awakening in Nova Scotia, and encountered an evangelical movement that went beyond the boundaries of the accepted evangelical tradition in Britain. They became involved, some to leadership, in Baptist, Methodist and Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion denominations and absorbed a particular strand of New Light teaching. When the Black Loyalists journeyed to Africa at the invitation of the Sierra Leone Company they brought with them their specific religious beliefs and set up, in 1792, what were in effect the first black churches in tropical Africa. Slaves, recaptured from the holds of slave ships by British squadrons - arrived into Sierra Leone after 1808, disorientated, and without possessions. The Church Missionary Society, already using Freetown as a base, began the specific task of providing Christian instruction, and schooling in the assurance that Sierra Leone would develop as a Christian and therefore civilised country. The formation of the Native Pastorate was seen as the climax of the development of Christianity in Sierra Leone pointing the way ahead for a 'native' bishop. But when a recaptive was appointed bishop it was to the territories beyond the Queen's dominions. Both Bishop Crowther, and Henry Venn, the architect of the self governing church, regarded the Church in Sierra Leone as too English a church for a 'native' bishop. In 70 years the Christianity had changed in character, a change that owed much to the dwindling numbers of Nova Scotians in the Colony and their corresponding decline as role models for the recaptives.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:649042 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | Currie Grant, Elizabeth |
| Publisher | University of Edinburgh |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/1842/27853 |
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