North Africa was an ancient center of Christianity, home of the great theologian Augustine. Many North African Christian communities were destroyed or suppressed by the rise of Islam, but the Ethiopian Orthodox and the Coptic Church endure. South of the Sahara, Christianity was planted much later. In the mid-1600s several Catholic Orders sought to establish missions along the western and southern coasts and in Madagascar. In the nineteenth century, overlapping with colonialism, missionary societies and Orders made a large-scale attempt to evangelize Africa. Missionaries found much of Africa torn by the slave trade, enmeshed in tribal wars, and embroiled in conflicts over European trade and control. Some missionaries were explorers, such as David Livingstone. More typically, missionary work focused on Bible translating, evangelizing, and the founding of churches, hospitals, and schools. Africans were instrumental in evangelizing Africa, through the work of indigenous evangelists such as Apollo Kivebulaya and Samuel Crowther (c.1807-1891), the first African Anglican bishop.