ABSTRACT
This paper examines the occupation and subsequent expulsion of the priests of the Societé des Missions Africaines de Lyon from the Portuguese fortress of Ouidah, West Africa, in the 1860s. Competition between the French and Portuguese Catholic missionary projects shrouded national colonial interests, but also an old ecclesiastical dispute between the Portuguese Padroado and the Roman papacy. The contextualization in the long duration of this event seeks to understand how the local Aguda community -including Portuguese, Brazilians, and freed Africans returned from Bahia- reacted to such international geopolitics. The data suggest variable alignments of the Aguda, not exempt from an apparent racial tension marked by the stigma of slavery.
Keywords:
Catholic Missions; African Catholicism; Aguda; Mina Coast; Ouidah