“Am I Not A Man And A Brother?” – 1787 medallion designed by Josiah Wedgwood for the British anti-slavery campaign

Hi everyone.  Sorry to make this so late.

Tomorrow we will be covering the first three sections of Chapter 23: Slavery and Its Abolition: A New Christian Taboo, A Protestant World Mission: Oceania and Australasia, Africa: An Islamic or a Protestant Century?

Please answer one of the following questions:

1. Describe the changing attitude towards African slavery among Christians during the early 18th century.  How did certain interpretations of the Bible lead to justifications of the slave-trade and racist attitudes towards blacks in general?  When did this viewpoint change and why?  Describe the efforts of some Christians such as Samuel Sewall, John Newton, the Anglican Granville Sharp and the Evangelical William Wilberforce  in changing this racist attitude.  What was the Enlightenment’s contributions to abolitionism?
2. What was former slave Thomas Peters‘ role in the formation of Sierra Leone?  What was the political structure like at Sierra Leone?  What contributions did the nation make in the anti-slavery/abolitionist movement?
3. Discuss the missionary fervor that seized all of the mainstream British Protestant Churches during the late 1790s and early 1800s.  How did this zeal for missions, especially to the Pacific islands (ie Oceania), parallel Britain’s political and economic expansions?  What were the aims and ambitions of the London Missionary Society (LMS) in the Pacific?  Describe their missionary activities in Tahiti.
4. Describe the overall effects Christian missionary activities had on the Maori population in New Zealand and the aboriginal peoples of Australia during the late 1780s – 1845.  What was Tonga’s affiliation with Britain and the Methodist Church?
5. What was the state of Muslim nations like in the wake of growing European military successes in the late 18th century?  Describe the growth and spread of Islam throughout Africa.  How did Africa come to embrace Christian missions, particularly in the early 19th century?
6. Describe how familiar the stories of the Bible were to the Africans.  How did this contribute to the efforts of missionaries there?  What role did miracle workers and rain-making have among some African nations?  What about the long standing tradition of polygamy in Africa?  How did missionaries struggle with the issue of polygamy when the biblical patriarchs all practiced polygamy as well?
7. Describe the relationship among the Egyptian Coptic Church, the Evangelical missionaries in Egypt and Muhammad Ali, the Albanian Ottoman ruler of Egypt around 1805.  What did each group want to gain from the others?
8. Describe the importance of Ethiopia during the 19th century.  Discuss the efforts of Ethiopian rulers such as Tewodros, Yohannes IV and Menelik II.

Please submit your essays by tomorrow at 6:00 pm the latest.