ETHIOPIAN AND SEPARATIST CHURCHES

Compared with activities in the Americas and Asia, European colonization of Africa began relatively late, in the 1870s. In the 19th century, North American and European, especially British, Christians took missionary work very seriously (see MISSIONARIES). They also took their own superiority for granted, and they acted in ways that made their racist attitudes and presuppositions all too apparent. Many Africans found the message of Christianity attractive, and some of them joined missionary churches. But many also found the subordination that they experienced in these churches intolerable. For example, in 1890, the fi rst African Anglican bishop, Samuel Crowther (c. 1807–91), suddenly and unjustifi ably lost his position. As a result of such treatment, many Africans left the churches run by Europeans and North Americans and started their own churches. They called some of these churches "Ethiopian." Ethiopia provides a powerful symbol of African independence, because it has an ancient Christian church and was only briefl y colonized. The fi rst Ethiopian churches began in South Africa and Nigeria in the 1890s. Prominent among their founders in South Africa are an uncle and niece: Mangena Maake Mokone (1851–1931), originally a Methodist, and Charlotte Manye Maxeke (1874–1939), originally a Presbyterian. Both of them founded Ethiopian churches related to the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) churches in the United States.