This project will examine Christianity in the kingdom of Kongo in the early modern period. This question has resonance not only for African historians but also for scholars of the Atlantic world. In order to interrogate Kongolese religious belief,Christina Mobley(Assistant Professor, Corcoran Department of History) and her student, Nicholas Kumleben, will map where and when Catholic missionaries travelled in the Kingdom of Kongo. They will also use linguistic evidence found in an extensive dictionary created by missionaries on the Loango Coast found in the British Library to recover the words used to describe spiritual concepts the religious life of the Kongo zone in the eighteenth century.
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