HIST 368 Christianity and Colonialism: History, Accountability, and Reconciliation

In 2022 Pope Francis visited Canada to formally apologize for the Catholic Church's role in the residential school system established there, a system responsible for immense harm to Indigenous communities and cultures in that country. In doing so, he drew attention to the complex and painful entanglement of education, religion, and colonialism in the history of North America and the world. This class explores both that painful history and the possibilities for reconciliation and accountability in our present moment. Taking the Canadian case as a jumping off point, this seminar-style class explores the historical role of missionaries and other educators in colonized communities in North and South America as well as Ireland. We will explore the way many churches participated in colonialism, creating educational and missionizing programs that relied on and reinforced imperial power and inflicted severe trauma on Indigenous communities. We will also, however, explore the ways colonized peoples used these religions to critique colonial exploitation and preserve their communities, as well as how many members of churches from colonizing nations embraced anticolonial visions of their faiths. These stories lead the way into the second part of the class, which explores contemporary efforts by Indigenous and other colonized communities to seek accountability from churches and educational institutions associated with them as well as the efforts made by those institutions at reconciliation. Over the course of the semester students will research and write a paper dealing with a church of their choosing and a people, or set of peoples, affected by that church's colonial history.