During this period there was a rise in African Indigenous Churches (AICs). These churches were founded and run by Zambian's who either defected from the mission churches dissatisfied with their European bias or their stayed theology or they were founded during the labour migrations of the 1920s into the Copperbelt. "Among the labourers were Africans who had been introduced to Christianity in their home regions and who, upon discovering no church whatsoever in the Copperbelt, decided to start a church themselves – one that was entirely directed and sustained by Africans." also. It was AICs that would be the initial breeding grounds for nationalist sentiments, and it was this fervour that crept over the denominational lines through informal contacts and into the more politically powerful mainline churches.