Indigenous-driven mission : reconstructing religious change in sixteenth-century Maluku

During the sixteenth century, tens of thousands of people in the region which the Europeans called Maluku embraced Christianity. Contemporary writers of both secular and mission chronicles celebrated this Christianisation as the work of Europeans, both colonial administrators and missionaries, who had won over the converts by persuasion, by godly attributes, and by military prowess. Though always focussed on European actors, these chroniclers also expected indigenous rulers to play a role in conversion. These kings and chiefs, once they had been persuaded by captains or missionaries to become Christians themselves, were understood to have the power to bring their subjects with them into the new faith in an effortless top-down process. Consequently, religious change was often reported as instances of passive and rather superficial 'mass conversion.' This representation of early Christianisation in Maluku has persisted in texts as divergent as reports written by seventeenth-century Dutch ministers, twentieth-century Catholic mission histories, and more recent works by secular scholars. During the past four decades, thousands of pages of contemporary letters and reports composed by colonial authorities, Portuguese merchants, and Jesuit missionaries have been published by the Portuguese Government and the Society of Jesus. Careful, critical reading of these primary source materials reveals that the Europe-centric view of conversion in sixteenth-century Maluku is mostly erroneous. In actuality, religious change in the region occurred as a consequence of an indigenous-driven mission effort. Interest in Christianity originated with indigenous people, not with Europeans, and not with missionaries once they arrived. Local individuals actively sought out opportunities to explore and embrace the new faith. They then aggressively attempted to draw Christian influence into their lands. Jesuit missionaries in Maluku served as appendages to the local mission effort, frequently told where they would labour and whom they would visit. In some instances, missionaries and other Europeans found themselves either held against their will or even traded like exotic goods. Although conversion to Christianity often generated strong opposition, it never occurred as the result of outside pressure. When faced with threats and intimidation from others, indigenous Christians stubbornly maintained the ability to act for themselves, in many cases prodding the Portuguese colonial apparatus to wield its power in support of Christian communities. Though religious change often appeared to be a mass movement, with villages or particular ethnic groups converting in totality, this was never the case. Conversion remained an individual act, resulting in a religiously diverse landscape. Despite persistent Portuguese expectations that mass conversion to Christianity in Maluku should occur as a consequence of the power of Christian rulers over their people, kings and chiefs who did convert lacked both the power and the will to impose a new faith on their subjects