Samuel Ajayi Crowther
Samuel Ajayi
Crowther | |
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Oxford University |
Samuel Crowther (c. 1809 – 31 December 1891), was a
Crowther was freed from slavery at a coastal port by the
Biography
A grandson of King Abiodun,[6] through his mother, Afala, Ajayi was around 12 years old when he and his family were captured, along with his entire village, by Fulani slave raiders in March 1821 and sold to Portuguese slave traders. His mother Afala, who was later baptized with the name Hannah, toddler brother, and other family members were among the captives. His father, Ayemi, was most likely killed in the raid of his village or shortly afterwards.[7]
The
While in Sierra Leone, Crowther was cared for by the Anglican
While in Freetown, Crowther became interested in languages. In 1826 he was taken to England to attend the school of St Mary's Church[10] in Islington, which had established a connection with free Africans in the 18th century. He returned to Freetown in 1827. He was the first student admitted to the newly opened Fourah Bay College,[11] an Anglican missionary school. Because of his interest in language, he studied Latin and Greek of the classical curriculum, but also Temne of West Africa. After completing his studies, Crowther began teaching at the school.[2]
Crowther's missionary journey to Yoruba country (present day Nigeria) began in 1841. He represented the missionary arm of the Niger Expedition,[12] alongside Rev. J. F. Schön. Crowther was ordained a priest and selected for the CMS[13] project in the Yoruba mission on his second visit to England in 1843, after his brilliant account of the expedition and the rare qualities he displayed. In 1846, Crowther and Rev. Townsend opened the CMS mission in Abeokuta. During the 1854 Niger Expedition, Crowther had a hand in the founding of the missions in Niger.
Marriage and family
Crowther married a schoolmistress, Asano (i.e. Hassana; she was formerly Muslim), baptised Susan. She had also been liberated from a Portuguese slave ship as mentioned in Crowther's 1837 letter.[14] He writes: "She was captured by His Majesty's ship Bann, Captain Charles Phillips, on the 31st October 1822." Asano was therefore among the captives resettled in Sierra Leone. She had also converted to Christianity. Their several children included Dandeson Coates Crowther,[15] who later entered the ministry and in 1891 became archdeacon of the Niger Delta.[16]
Their second daughter, Abigail, married Thomas Babington Macaulay, a junior associate.[17] Their son and Crowther's grandson, Herbert Macaulay, became one of the first Nigerian nationalists.
Mission
Crowther was selected to accompany the missionary James Schön on the Niger expedition of 1841.[18] Together with Schön, he was expected to learn Hausa for use on the expedition. Its goal was to stimulate commerce, teach agricultural techniques, encourage Christianity, and help end the slave trade. Following the expedition, Crowther was recalled to England, where he was trained as a minister and ordained by the Bishop of London. Schön wrote to the Church Missionary Society noting Crowther's usefulness and ability on the expedition, recommending that he be prepared for ordination.[19]
Crowther returned to Africa in 1843 and, with Henry Townsend, opened a mission in Abeokuta, in today's Ogun State, Nigeria.[15]
Crowther began translating the Bible into Yoruba and compiling a Yoruba dictionary. In 1843, his grammar book, on which he had begun working during the Niger expedition, was published. A Yoruba version of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer followed later. Crowther also compiled A Vocabulary of the Yoruba Language,[20] including a large number of local proverbs, published in London in 1852.
Following the British Niger Expeditions of 1854 and 1857, Crowther, published an Igbo primer coded by a young Igbo missionary named Simon Jonas, who travelled with him to Aboh in 1857. He published one for the Nupe language in 1860, and a full grammar and vocabulary of Nupe in 1864.[21]
Crowther had become a close associate and friend of Captain James Pinson Labulo Davies, an influential politician, mariner, philanthropist and industrialist in colonial Lagos.[22] The two men collaborated on social initiatives in Lagos, such as the founding of The Academy (a social and cultural center for public enlightenment) on 24 October 1866. Crowther was the first patron and Captain J. P. L. Davies was the first president.[23]
Merits
In 1864, Crowther was ordained as the first African bishop of the
In March 1881, he and his son
Crowther is celebrated with a feast on the
on 31 December.Death, burial, exhumation, and reburial
Crowther died of a stroke in Lagos, on 31 December 1891, aged 82.[15][30] He was buried at Ajele Cemetery in Lagos.
In 1971 the
Notes
- ^ a b DACB.
- ^ a b Igbadiwei, Ebimoboere (8 December 2020). "Samuel Ajayi Crowther: First African Anglican Bishop in Nigeria". Nigerianhistoryonline.com. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
- S2CID 191868030. Retrieved 31 December 2021.
- ^ "Ajayi Crowther: Legacies of a legend". The Sun Nigeria. 29 April 2021. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
- ^ "Samuel Ajayi Crowther, 1890 · Slavery Images". slaveryimages.org. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
- ^ Posted by Otedo News Update on 23 February, 2011 at 9:58pm in Useful info; Discussions, View. "Yoruba Enslavement of African Ancestors, Major Blocks on W.African Transatlantic Slave Trade". ihuanedo.ning.com. Retrieved 22 January 2020.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ "Crowther, Samuel Adjai [or Ajayi] (c. 1807–1891) | History of Missiology". www.bu.edu. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
- ^ Falola & Usman 2009, p. 67.
- ^ Walls, Andrew (January 1992). "The legacy of Samuel Ajayi Crowther" (PDF). International Bulletin of Missionary Research: 16.
- ^ "Our heroes past: Samuel Ajayi Crowther". The Guardian Nigeria News - Nigeria and World News. 7 April 2019. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
- ^ Herskovits 1965, p. 35.
- ISBN 9781139004398, retrieved 31 December 2021
- . Retrieved 31 December 2021.
- ^ Adegbamigbe, Ademola (25 August 2019). "Ajayi Crowther's 182-year old letter: How I was captured, sold into slavery". The News Nigeria.
- ^ a b c Buckland 1901.
- ^ "Ecclesiastical Intelligence". The Times. No. 33232. London. 27 January 1891. p. 12.
- ^ "Macaulay, Thomas Babington (1826 to 1878)". Dictionary for African Christian Biography. Archived from the original on 19 August 2014. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
- ^ Church Missionary Society 1896, pp. 23–64.
- ^ Page 1888, p. 64.
- ^ Crowther & Vidal 1852.
- ^ Oluniyi 2017, p. 132.
- ^ Elebute 2013, p. 169.
- ^ Adedeji 1971, pp. 25–45.
- ISSN 0009-658X– via UK Press Online archives.
- ^ "Samuel Crowther: The Slave Boy Who Became Bishop of the Niger, by Jesse Page (c. 1892)". Project Canterbury.
- ^ "Bishop Crowther". Watford Observer. 30 July 1864. p. 4 col F. Retrieved 9 February 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
- ^ "The Story of Africa". BBC World Service.
- ^ Crowther 1900.
- ^ James, DrRaphael. "THE MOST REVEREND SAMUEL AJAYI CROWTHER CRIES OUT FROM HIS GRAVE". Retrieved 29 April 2020.
- ^ "Death Of Bishop Crowther". Nottinghamshire Guardian. 2 January 1892. p. 4 col G. Retrieved 9 February 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
- ^ "Crowther awaits reburial". The Nigeria Nostalgia Project 1960–1980 on Facebook. Daily Times of Nigeria. 1971. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
- ^ Ukeh & Anokwuru. "83 year old Orewande Januario". NBF News. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
References
- Adedeji, J. A. (1971). "The Church and the Emergence of the Nigerian Theatre, 1866-1914". Journal of Historical Society of Nigeria. 6 (1): 25–45. JSTOR 41856915.
- Elebute, Adeyemo (2013). The Life of James Pinson Labulo Davies: A Colossus of Victorian Lagos. Kachifo. ISBN 978-978-52057-6-3.
- "Crowther, Samuel Ajayi, Nigeria, Anglican". Dictionary of African Christian Biography. Archived from the original on 11 July 2014. Retrieved 1 September 2014.
- Oluniyi, Olufemi Olayinka (2017). Reconciliation in Northern Nigeria: The Space for Public Apology. Frontier Press. ISBN 9789789495276.
- Herskovits, Jean (1965). A Preface to Modern Nigeria: The "Sierra Leonians" in Yoruba, 1830-1890. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 9780608115924.
- Falola, Toyin; Usman, Aribidesi Adisa (2009). Movements, Borders and Identities in Africa. Rochester studies in African history and the diaspora. Vol. 40. University Rochester Press. ISSN 1092-5228.
- Page, Jesse (1888). Samuel Crowther: The Slave Boy who Became Bishop of the Niger. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company. p. 64. Retrieved 12 April 2015.
- Hair, Paul Edward Hedley (1967). "The Early Study of Yoruba, 1825-1850". The early study of Nigerian languages. Cambridge U. P. in association with the West African Languages Survey and the Institute of African Studies, Ibadan.
- Page, Jesse (1892). Samuel Crowther: The Slave Boy who Became Bishop of the Niger. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company.
- Walls, A. F. (January 1992). "Samuel Ajayi Crowther (1807-1891) Foremost African Christian of the Nineteenth Century" (PDF). International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 16 (1): 15–21. S2CID 147655489.(subscription required)
- Buckland, Augustus Robert (1901). Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography (1st supplement). London: Smith, Elder & Co. . In
- Childe, A. F. (1852). Good out of evil, or, The history of Adjai. London: Wertheim and MacIntosh.
- Noll, Mark A. (2009). The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 978-0-8308-2847-0.
- Lewis, Donald M. (2004). Christianity Reborn: The Global Expansion of Evangelicalism in the Twentieth Century. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8028-2483-7.
- Crowther, Samuel Adjai (1900). Bibeli Mimọ Tabi Majẹmu Lailai Ati Titun. (Holy Bible in Yoruba.). London.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Crowther, Samuel Ajayi; Vidal, Owen Emeric (1852). A Vocabulary of the Yoruba language, Together with Introductory Remarks by the Rev. OE Vidal. London: Seeleys.
- The Church Missionary Atlas: Containing an Account of the Various Countries in which the Church Missionary Society Labours, and of the Missionary Operations. Church Missionary Society. 1896. p. 23.
Further reading
- Oluwatayo Adeuyan, Jacob (2011). The Journey of the First Black Bishop: Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther 1806-1891. AuthorHouse. ISBN 9781463407322.
- Iheukwumer, Okechukwu. "Anglicanism In Igboland". Igbo Youth Choir of Washington, DC. Archived from the original on 9 March 2005.
External links
- Works by Samuel Ajayi Crowther at Biodiversity Heritage Library
- Works by Samuel Ajayi Crowther at Open Library
- Works by or about Samuel Ajayi Crowther at Internet Archive
- "Crowther, Samuel Ajayi". Dictionary of African Christian Biography. Boston: Boston University School of Theology. 2002. Archived from the original on 11 July 2014.
- Forgotten Books website Journals of the Rev. James Frederick Schön and Mr Samuel Crowther, who, with the Sanction of Her Majesty's Government, accompanied the Expedition up the Niger in 1841, in Behalf of the Church Missionary Society (1842) (online copy)