Was Christianity a Means of Deafricanization and Social Control of Slaves?

A comparative study on the impact of Christianity on both free and enslaved blacks in Africa and the United States. Adefila, focuses on the efforts of Christian missionaries and slave owners to de-Africanize and control the West African slaves and non-slaves with Christianity. Rather than examining how Africans acculturated or appropriated parts of Christianity, Adefila challenges the ‘closed system thesis,’ which stipulates that slavery was a totalitarian cultural institution and instead emphasizes the Africans’ responses to the use of Christianity as a means of control.