Spread Of Christianity In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

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In Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”, during chapter 15 a group of missionaries came to Umuofia to spread Christianity in the tribe. The people first laughed at them and thought they were crazy. Now that they had given them a chance to prosper, they soon find that the Christians are causing problems with their way of life. Some people think the missionaries mean no harm as they are good people. While others say that they need to leave as they are breaking up the clan. Provided with a list of reasons, we will try to figure out if the missionaries have a positive or negative presence in Umuofia. When the missionaries first came, they only wanted a place to build their church, so the tribe gave them land in the Evil Forest. After they lasted 28 days, which was unheard of if you stepped foot in the forest, they gained more people. The leader of the missionaries, Mr. Brown, was a very nice man to the people. He visited the different villages often and he talked to one of the highly respected men of the village about their religions and he respected that they stood by it no matter what. Knowing this information, Mr. Brown decided to build small hospitals and schools to appeal to the tribe, to make them want to convert to Christianity. This attempt made people send their children and slaves to the school, and once they saw the …show more content…

Not realizing that they were being set up, the men were quickly handcuffed and told that they had to pay a fine in order to leave. After the fine was paid, they all left and that night the elders called a tribe meeting. In the morning they all gathered around and said that the missionaries had to leave. The court messengers heard about this and when they told them to stop Okonkwo killed one of them with his machete. The people were confused as to why he did it and the next day they found him