On the Portuguese Influence on the Early Development of African Catholicism: The Case of Annobon

In my book Afro-Atlantic Catholics: America's First Black Christians (2022), which will be discussed at a roundtable in the 2024 AAR conference, I present a new theory on the development of Black Christianity in the Americas. The goal of this paper is to complement this panel discussion with a presenation that debates the Portuguese influence on the early development of African Catholicism. It does so with a focus on the little-known African Atlantic island of Annobón.