Puzzling how a lot of ex-jw jump so readily in defense of secret societies.
Those who justify to feed Christians to the lions don't even deserve an answer.
To deny the involvement of secret societies in the development of world history goes beyond idiocy.
In regards to those who say that there were many cultures before Christianity that is certainly true, not that you would necesarily want to be a citizen in any of them or worse a slave. In fact if you wouldn't want to be a slave in them, it would be hipocritical of you to defend them.
Some Christian leaders may have commited abuses, but there are big differences between countries, so to an extent it must have something to do with the leadership in those countries. For sure Henry VIII, Luther and Napoleon had their own agenda to go against the Church.
Wasblind, I am very sorry about you not knowing about the culture of your ancestors, but Africa is still there, and so is its culture if you are curious about what they believed. The way the slaves were treated was inhuman but it had nothing to do with Christianity.
In any case it was mainly perpetrated by protestants whom had quite a barbaric track record from the very begining including witch-hunts and a tradition of secret societies, all-male, racist and misogynistic. So don't blame all Christianity for what this people did.