The Christian Encounter and European Racial Attitude(s) in the Jos Plateau Area of British Nigeria

Abstract

A significant part of the Christian encounter that took place in Africa, as a whole and the Jos Plateau area of Nigeria in particular, occurred during the period of European domination of the continent in the 19^th and 20th centuries. European Christian missionaries played important roles in the extension of European influence(s) in Africa during the period under study. In this regard, Christian missionaries were, on the one hand, precursors of European political domination in Africa and, on the other hand, cultural harbingers of European primacy on the continent. European political domination of Africa, in particular and the world in general, was hinged on Caucasian perspectives on race. European perspectives on race classified races of the world according to an anthropological stratification that placed Europeans at the top of the ladder and Africans at the bottom. This European perspective of race, that was prevalent in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, seeped into Christian missionary thoughts and practices. Hence, recorded events of the Christian evangelization of Africa show that Christian missionaries upheld the notion of European racial and cultural superiority in their interaction with members of local communities. As such, this study sets out to examine how European ideas of “race” affected missionary attitude(s) towards indigenous people, during the early part of the Christian and colonial encounter, in the Jos Plateau area of British Nigeria.