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provide vital support to Ethiopia: Africa’s sole surviving Christian kingdom would have been extinguished in 1543 by a Muslim invasion, had it not been for their military assistance. However, a subsequent attempt by the Jesuits to impose Roman Catholicism got them thrown out. Missionary Activity Newly emerging Protestant maritime powers established bases of their own on the African coast. However, they rarely showed any interest in mission to non-Christians. Meanwhile, Islam was achieving large numbers of conversions, and any well-informed observer taking stock in the early decades of the nineteenth century would have confidently predicted that Africa was destined to become an all-Muslim continent. Nevertheless, those same decades saw an unprecedented awakening of missionary enthusiasm among both Catholics and Protestants. The missionaries saw themselves as ambassadors of God, but they could not help also being seen as emissaries of their home countries - particularly of Britain and France, where most missionary societies had their headquarters. African rulers often saw them as potential political assets, if only as a channel of access to advanced technology which could enhance their power and prestige. Both missionaries and indigenous Christians could also be perceived as a political threat - stalking horses for the annexing of Africa by Europe, which in due course came
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