Harris movement

Harris movement, largest mass movement toward Christianity in West Africa, named for the prophet William Wadé Harris (c. 1850–1929), a Grebo of Liberia and a teacher-catechist in the American Episcopal mission.

While in prison for a political offense in 1910, Harris was commissioned in a vision to become a preacher; he then travelled along the coast, reaching Ghana by 1914. The response to his message so disturbed the French colonial government of the Ivory Coast that he was deported to Liberia in 1915. An estimated 120,000 followers discarded traditional ritual and magic objects, were baptized, adopted the sabbath, built churches, and waited in anticipation for the white teachers who, as Harris promised, would come to teach them the Bible.

In western Ghana the Methodists and Roman Catholics each benefitted by some 9,000 converts and catechumens in 1914–20, and a follower, John Swatson, pioneered Anglican work. British Methodism sent missionaries to the Ivory Coast in 1924 and had gained 32,000 members by 1926. Other Harris converts developed a wide range of Harris independent churches, such as the Church of the Twelve Apostles in Ghana, the loosely grouped Églises Harristes, which, in the 20th century, have some 100,000 adherents in the Ivory Coast, and other more syncretic groups.