The globalization of Christianity, its spread and appeal to peoples of non- European origin, is by now a well-known phenomenon. Scholars increasingly realize the importance of natives rather than foreign missionaries in the process of evangelization. This volume contributes to the understanding of this process through case studies of encounters with Christianity from the perspectives of the indigenous peoples who converted. More importantly, by exploring overarching, general terms such as conversion and syncretism and by showing the variety of strategies and processes that actually take place, these studies lead to a more nuanced understanding of cross-cultural religious interactions in generalfrom acceptance to resistancethus enriching the vocabulary of religious interaction. The contributors tackle these issues from a variety of disciplinary perspectiveshistory, anthropology, religious studiesand present a broad geographical spread of cases from China, Vietnam, Australia, India, South and West Africa, North and Central America, and the Caribbean.

DavidLindenfeldis Professor of History at Louisiana State University. Trained as a Europeanist, he has publishedThe Practical Imagination: The German Sciences of State in the Nineteenth Century(University of Chicago Press, 1997), and coedited with Suzanne MarchandGermany at the Fin de Siècle:Culture, Politics, and Ideas(LSU Press, 2004).

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments

Introduction.Beyond Conversion and SyncretismDavid Lindenfeld& Miles Richardson

PART I. CONVERSION AND ITS COMPLEXITIES

Chapter 1.Conversion, Translation, and Life-History in Colonial Central IndiaSaurabh Dube

Chapter 2.Conversion at the Boundaries of Religion, Identity, and Politics in Pluricultural GuatemalaC. Mathews Samson

Chapter 3.Christian Soldiers, Christian Allies: Coercion and Conversion in Southern Africa and Northeastern America at the Turn of the Nineteenth CenturyElizabeth Elbourne

Chapter 4.Hortons Intellectualist Theory of Conversion, Reflected on by a South AsianistRichard Fox Young

PART II. SYNCRETISM AND ITS ALTERNATIVES

Chapter 5.Santa Barbara Africana: Beyond Syncretism in CubaJoseph Murphy

Chapter 6.Inculturation, Mission, and Dialogue in Vietnam: TheConference of Representatives of the Four Religions Anh Q. Tran

Chapter 7.Concentration of Spirituality: The Taiping and the Aladura ComparedDavid Lindenfeld

Chapter 8.Acculturation and Gendered Conversion: Afro-American Catholic Women in New Orleans, 1726-1884Sylvia Frey

Chapter 9.Colonial Constructs and Cross-Cultural Interaction: Comparing Missionary/Indigenous Encounters in Northwestern America and Eastern AustraliaAnne Keary

Selected Bibliography Notes on Contributors