Church and State Relations in Colonial Eritrea: Missionaries and the Development of Colonial Strategies (1869-1911)

This article focuses on the complexity of church–state relations in Eritrea in the years1890–1911. The analysis is articulated at two levels. One level focuses on the theoretical production of the missionary and colonial authorities, dealing with procedural and strategic aspects of their presence in the African territory. A second level, probably the more intriguing, focuses on the complex interaction in the colonial territory between the theoretical instructions, the missionaries on the ground, the colonial administrators and the indigenous populations. The analysis of this interplay discloses a fascinating network of alliances and conflicts where the identity of the subjects concerned constantly evolves and which refutes the traditional stereotype of collaboration versus resistance as simplistic and superficial. From an Italian perspective Eritrea seems to have represented a unique opportunity to experiment with cooperation between church and state in a way which would have been unthinkable in the colonial metropolis. This was the case despite the antagonism between missionaries and colonial administrators, which was linked to the peculiarity of their background and training. From an Eritrean perspective both converting to the missionary model of Christianity and refusing to convert appear to have been part of a broader strategy for political survival in the changing world of colonial society.Through adopting such a strategy Eritreans seem to have often exploited the internal contradictions of the colonial society to their own advantage.