This essay considers Christianity in countries in the region that belong to France and are French-speaking. The island nations of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Martin and Saint Barthélemy form the French Antilles, while French Guiana is the only part of the South American mainland that is ruled by France. Until 2019, the United Nations classification treated both Saint Martin and Saint Barthélemy as part of Guadeloupe. Since the statistics that inform the tables in this book are based on the UN 2017 classification, there are no separate tables for these two countries.

Two decisive developments have shaped the Christian presence: the colonisation that occurred in the first half of the seventeenth century and the changes that occurred in the region since the 1970s, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Both have had repercussions lasting to the present day.

The trafficking of enslaved people from Africa was authorised by Louis XIII in 1675 in order to replace white workers from various regions of France, including the Antilles. The Black Code of 1685 (published following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes) governed the practices of slavery, which continued until the mid-nineteenth century and marked the history of this part of the world. Both the Dutch and the French imported a significant number of enslaved Africans, in order to work on the cotton, tobacco and sugar plantations.

Christianity came at the same time as colonisation, introduced by Catholic missionary orders, including the Jesuits, Dominicans, Capuchins and Carmelites. Protestants and Jews, who had been arriving since the beginning of colonisation in 1635, were prohibited from conducting their worship services openly. However, the supposed conversion of the Africans was forced and was used as a justification for slavery. Resistance to slavery was punctuated by sporadic revolts and maroonism – the flight to places inaccessible to the owners.

As missionaries were paid in slaves to work on their own plantations, they were not inclined to support slave revolts. But, paradoxically, in all French colonial possessions, Africans showed strong adherence to worship and the sacraments (baptisms, Masses, various devotions to saints). These religious activities offered slaves a place of support and even refuge for African beliefs and, at the same time, they facilitated the organisation of resistance against slavery, thanks to gatherings in the different parishes of the region.