MARCO TEÓRICO

The only means of rendering this colony what it was intended to be made, a truly Christian and civilized asylum of an outcast race of men, [was] the immediate engagement of at least one laborious Christian minister, of the most respectable qualifications; but above all, of the most ardent piety, and untiring zeal.591

Ignoring these brutalizing and dehumanizing conditions [of the slave trade], westerners persisted in the perception of the black man as degraded and consequently lacking in civilization – hence the need for combining the Christianizing mission with a “civilizing” effort. Such a perception led to the belief that the slave trade was a blessing in disguise. This is why American slavery was projected, in the thinking of providentialists, as a part of God’s plan to uplift Africa by bringing [its] degraded children into contact with the more elevated culture of the Americas.592

According to Dunn’s quotation (above), no amount of dehumanisation, torture, or abuse, whether through the slave trade, violent frontier battles, or massacres can ever make settler-colonists criminals because they are the true executors of God’s divine plan to Christianise and civilise Indigenous heathens. Given that they consider their own to be the one true monotheistic religion, settler-coloniser Christians do not acknowledge Indigenous religion in Australia and Liberia. Aboriginal religion has been viewed as myth, magic, superstition, rituals, and ceremonies but certainly not ‘in the sense of propitiation or conciliation of the higher powers’.593 _Although, according to Archbishop George Daniel Browne, as referenced by Dunn, some missionaries discovered their mistake, which was critical in converting believers of African Traditional

588 _{ABC News, ‘Rosalie Kunoth-Monks Inspires with Her Q&A Speech: “I Am Not the Problem”’ ABC News Q&A}

(Sydney, NSW), 10 June 2014 <http://www.news.com.au/national/rosalie-kunothmonks-inspires-with-her-qa-speech- i-am-not-the-problem/story-fncynjr2-1226949124486>.

589 _{Diane Bell, Daughters of the Dreaming (Spinifex Press, 3rd ed, 2002) 230.}

590 _{Reverend Jehudi Ashmun (1794-1828) the First Colonial Agent of ACS in Liberia. Caroline Bledsoe, ‘The}

Political Use of Sande Ideology and Symbolism’ (1984) 11(3) American Ethnologist 455.

591 _{D Elwood Dunn, A History of the Episcopal Church in Liberia, 1821-1980 (American Theological Library}

Association and The Scarecrow Press, 1992) 17.

592 _{Ibid 19.}

593 _{Ronald M Berndt, Australian Aboriginal Religion (Brill, 1974) vols 1–4, 1.}

Religion to Western Christianity.594 _{Irrespective of missionaries’ efforts to shrug off African} Traditional Religion, these beliefs are still real in the lives of many African Christians, a phenomenon known as African syncretism,595 _{where two or more different religious practices are} mixed or combined.596

Indigenous Peoples the world over have a strong relationship with their creator;597 however, this relationship is not considered valid by settler-colonists. Teah Wulah lists the different names used to identify the Creator in Indigenous Liberia. They are Gala, Ngala, Wala vo, Go, Zena, Abi, and Nyesoa.598 _{According to Wulah, when someone harms another in the village,} the villagers would say, Nyesoa mu jae (Kru) meaning God or our Creator will see you. When a child is born with any defects, it is believed to be the work of the Creator. The seat of their Creator is the Sky. She is inescapable because she lives everywhere.599 _{The belief is that the Creator made} good and evil, and whoever was bad was to go to her through death. The Creator also gives human intelligence, compassion, mercy, and conscience. When a person dies, their soul joins the company of their ancestors and automatically becomes a candidate for reincarnation.600 _However, settler-colonists to both Australia and Liberia believed in the truth and superiority of their own conception of a Creator, resulting in the denigration of Indigenous religious beliefs and practices. In a condescending tone, Basedow attests to the existence of Aboriginal religion in Australia:

It has often been written that the Australian aboriginal is without religious ideas and without religious ceremonies. Such assertions are grossly incorrect and by no means portray the psychological side of the primitive man in its true light. He has, to the contrary, religious institutions and obligations which verge on the basis of all modern conceptions and recognition of divine supremacy. If we can class Nature-worship, Ancestor-worship, and Sex-worship as the beginnings of all religious teachings, then the Australian aboriginal has certainly inherited by instinct and tradition a valid solid foundation from which we might trace the origin of many, if not most, of our most sacred beliefs in Christianity. At the same time, it must not be forgotten that it is really a difficult matter to distinguish clearly between mythological beliefs and what we class as religion.601

Although Basedow recognises a shared foundation between Christianity and Indigenous Religion, his assessment still portrays Indigenous peoples as ‘primitive’ and conveys the classification of practices as religious or not is within the purview of the settler-colonists. As a result of views like these, settler-colonists felt justified in embarking on a Christianising mission in Liberia and Australia.

594 _{Dunn, above n 591.}

595 _{Kasomo Daniel, ‘An Assessment of Religious Syncretism. A Case Study in Africa’ (2012) 2(3) International} Journal of Applied Sociology 10.

596 _{Emmanuel Dolo, Ethnic Tensions in Liberia’s National Identity Crisis: Problems and Possibilities (Africana}

Homestead Legacy Publishers, 2007) 91.

597 _{Patricia R Derrington, The Serpent of Good and Evil: A Reconciliation in the Life and Art of Miriam-Rose} Ungunmerr-Baumann (Hyland House, 2000).

598 _{Wulah, above n 169, 209.} 599 _{Ibid 210.}

600 _{Ibid 211.}

601 _{Herbert Basedow, The Australian Aboriginal (F. W. Preece and Sons, 1925) 257–258.}

Religion has always played a vital role in the civilising and Christianising of Indigenous Peoples in Liberia602 _{and Australia.}603 _{Modern Liberia derives, in part, from deep stirrings within} the American conscience about how to address questions of slavery and race. One of the factors that spurred religious revivals in 18th_{-century America was the situation of black slavery. These}

crusades paved the way for the Great Awakening of the early 1740s. Some white Christians began to look upon black people as objects ‘of God’s loving concern’, who were ‘entitled to share in His redeeming grace in alignment with white humanity’.604 _{The Reverend Robert Finley of New} Jersey was the apparent initiator of the debate with the founding of the American Colonisation Society, which spearheaded the return of African American settler-colonists to Liberia.605

Religious organizations engaged in the Christianising mission in Liberia began imposing their beliefs on Indigenous people when they arrived in Africa. Immigrants constructed churches almost as quickly as they built their homes. In 1859, news reached America that scores of children and youths had converted to Christianity. Christianity was but one element of a ‘civilised’ culture that the settlers struggled to preserve. The immediate influences of African society, many of which the settler-colonists considered unfavourably, forced the settlers to maintain an exaggerated, yet often a pompous alternative,606 _{that is, Christianity is next to civilisation and is} superior to Traditional African Religion. One of the dominant religious groups involved in Christianising Indigenous Liberians was the Episcopal Church.

The Episcopal Mission Church contributed significantly to Christianising Indigenous Liberians and affording ‘bush boys’ the white man’s education. Paul Degein Korvah’s narrates his experience regarding white missionaries replacing ‘country names’ with civilised Christian/Western names: ‘Father Patrick became interested in me because I was good in my catechism. It was he who baptised us, my friend Mawolo and me. He gave us the Christian names of Peter and Paul, respectively’.607 _{Christian missionaries went even further with disciplining} Christian ‘converts’ who entered the traditional schools or sent their children there. The new Christian mission schools also created competition for traditional schools. Indigenous children who entered the Christian schools were often withdrawn after brief periods to attend traditional schools. In fact, the majority of Indigenous Liberian children attended only the traditional schools in the early 1800s.608 _{Conflicts between Indigenous and Western educational systems persist to} the present day, challenging the effective education of Liberian children in both institutions. However, this conflict highlights that despite the imposition of settler-colonists’ values on Indigenous Peoples, traditional knowledge persisted. Unfortunately, the cultural violence of

602 _{Cassell, above n 53, 124.}

603 _{Christine Choo, Mission Girls: Aboriginal Women on Catholic Missions in the Kimberley, Western Australia,} 1900-1950 (University of Western Australia Press, 2001); Tony Swain, Deborah Bird Rose and Australian Association for the Study of Religions (eds), Aboriginal Australians and Christian Missions: Ethnographic and Historical Studies (Australian Association for the Study of Religions, 1988).

604 _{Dunn, above n 591, 13.} 605 _{Ibid 15.} 606 _{Shick, above n 170, 53.} 607 _{Korvah, above n 548, 111.} 608 _{Brown, above n 50, 62.}

stripping Indigenous Peoples of their Indigenous names and traditional education was not the only effect of the Christianising mission, as a policy of Christian superiority was also adopted by the State.

The settler-colonists of Liberia, borrowing from their slave masters, initially envisaged Liberia as a Christian nation with an evangelical mission. For example, a name considered for the capital city of Liberia was ‘Christopolis’. A close interconnection of church and state is implicit in the political ideology of the nation-building process in Liberia (e.g. Jehudi Ashmun, a missionary and administrator, was appointed as the first governor of the colony of Liberia from 1822 to 1828).609 _{In later years, former president Tubman (1944-1971) explained his stance as a} religious man: ‘[w]hen I state that the history of Church is coeval with that of the founding of the State I do not intend only to imply that that is a thing or fact apart but to give the impression that their respective fabrics are indissolubly interwoven…You may be assured that Liberia, having always been, shall continue to be a Christian state….’610 _{Meanwhile, adherents to the Muslim} religion have also always existed peacefully alongside Christians in Liberia, flanked by devotees of Traditional African Religion, save for a number of disputes in Lofa and other places in the past years. Arguably, like Liberian traditional religious practices, Islam was gradually pushed out of the cities and relegated to Indigenous communities such as the Vai, Gola, Mende, and Mandingo.611 _{Today, the Government of Liberia continues to claim that the country is a Christian} nation even though the country is 86 percent Christian, 11 percent Muslim and 0.5 percent Indigenous religious beliefs, according to the National Population and Housing Census 2013.612 In Liberia, Christian affiliation was the most conspicuous example of settler solidarity, but the settler elite also found other ways to insulate themselves and consolidate power.

Parallel to Christianity was the existence of fraternal organisations in Liberia, once again borrowed from colonial masters in hopes of building a ‘little America’ in Africa. The first independent Masonic Order of Liberia started in 1851. Undoubtedly, many settler-colonists were already initiated Prince Hall Masons when they came to Liberia.613 _{Several leading settlers} convened and established the Independent Restoration Grand Lodge. The first president of Liberia Roberts (1848-1856 and 1872-1876) held the first Grand Master position between 1869 and 1872.614 _{The conveners believed that they had full right and authority to act, noting that American} Masons had established the precedent when they broke away from the original English Grand Lodge after the American Revolution.615 _{A settler-colonists association, created through the order,} offered the opportunity to transmit the accepted societal values of Christian propriety, which

609 _{Arthur Orrmont, Fighter against Slavery: Jehudi Ashmun (J. Messner, 1966).}

610 _{The Article 1 and the Preamble of the Constitution of Liberia 1847 and 1986, respectively, acknowledge the}

goodness of God, the Divine Creator in the existence of a ‘Free, Sovereign and Independent State’. Also see,

Fraenkel, above n 39, 153.

611 _{Ibid 155–156.}

612 _{Government of Liberia, ‘Liberia Demographic and Health Survey 2013’, above n 313, 24.} 613 _{Shick, above n 170, 53.}

614 _Ibid. 615 _{Ibid 57.}

included good moral character and charitable nature. It also was clearly a political institution serving the needs of the settler-colonist elite in much the same way that the Poro and Sande

Societies functioned within traditional Liberia.616 _{The secrecy that shrouded the Masons as with} the Sande and Poro traditional schools probably lent additional legitimacy to the highly placed elites and gave them a safe forum to discuss differences of opinion.617 _{Whilst the fraternal orders} continued to exclude women from the political elite, the traditional societies also perpetrate cultural violence against Indigenous women and girls.

Although the Sande and Poro societies represent a valuable decolonising force in Liberia, some of their practices still adversely affect women and girls. Legalisation of the Poro and Sande

traditional institutions, previously banned as potential political threats to settler-colonists’ rule, appears to fortify traditional participation in national politics.618 _{However, as CEDAW’s} concluding statement asserts:

The Committee notes the State party’s efforts to address stereotypes and harmful practices by, among other things, issuing circulars banning certain practices that perpetuate discriminatory gender stereotypes. The Committee is, however, concerned at the persistence of adverse cultural practices and traditions, as well as patriarchal attitudes and deep-rooted stereotypes regarding the roles and responsibilities of women and men in society and in the family, which are perpetuated by secret tribal societies such as the Sande and the Poro. The Committee notes that such stereotypes contribute to the increase in child and/or forced marriage, the abduction of girls and polygamy, and hence to the disadvantaged and unequal status of women in society. The Committee is particularly concerned that the secret tribal societies continue to perpetrate harmful practices, including female genital mutilation, through their initiation rites, and that practices such as trial by ordeal for women and girls accused of witchcraft, as well as ritual murders, are rife.619

Therefore, this study further explores the effects of these harmful traditional practices on Indigenous women and girls in Liberia. Also, similar complex intersections of history, religion, and state institutions affect Aboriginal women and girls in Australia.

In Australia, according to Reynolds, missionaries, clergymen, and other humanitarians were inspired to lead Aboriginal Peoples in the 1830s and 1840s.620 _{Based on the premise that one} God created humankind as descendants from Adam and Eve, Reynolds asserts that Christian missionaries went out to redeem their ‘brethren’ from the scourge of everlasting torment in hell. Whilst some missionaries endeavoured to save Aboriginal Australians as equal heirs to the Lord’s kingdom (the ‘saviours’), many despised them with a passion (the ‘destroyers’).621 _{A case in point} is that of Reverend William Horton, the first resident Wesleyan Methodist minister to arrive in Van Damien’s Land in 1821. About Aboriginal Peoples in Tasmanian, he wrote, ‘I should affirm, without hesitancy that they are a race of being altogether distinct from ourselves and class them

616 _Ibid. 617 _Ibid.

618 _{J Gus Liebenow, Liberia: The Quest for Democracy (Indiana University Press, 1987) 57–58.}

619 _{Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Concluding Observations of the}

Committee on Combined Seventh and Eighth Periodic Reports of Liberia: Liberia, 24 November 2015, CEDAW/C/LBR/CO/7-8, para 21.

620 _{Reynolds, above n 418, 22.}

621 _{Reynolds, Dispossession, above n 177, 155–182.}

amongst the inferior species of irrational animals’.622 _{It is this twisted perception that armed} settler-colonists with boldness to dehumanise and denigrate Indigenous Peoples in the name of religion and civilisation.