Samuel Crowther

In the last post I mentioned that Adjai Crowther was one of the first students to be educated at Fourah Bay College in Freetown. His story shows the fascinating interaction between the United Kingdom and West Africa two hundred years ago. At that time Freetown, founded as a home for liberated slaves in 1787, was also home to the British Navy because of its fine natural harbour. The West Africa Squadron liberated Samuel Crowther from a slave ship in 1822.

Adjai was born in Nigeria in about 1809 and when only 12 or 13 was kidnapped along with his mother and sister and  his entire village, by Muslim Fulani slave raiders. They never knew whether his father and other relatives were killed or captured. After being separated from his remaining family, Adjai was sold to Portuguese slavers. He was placed on a slave ship to be transported, but before the ship left port it was detained by HMS Myrmidon of the West Africa Squadron.

Liberated slaves arriving in Freetown

Adjai and many others were rescued and taken to Freetown, where he was educated at a missionary school for several years. On the 11th December 1825, he was baptised and took the name of Samuel Crowther.

Samuel had a gift for languages and learnt to speak English fluently; he also studied Greek, Latin and Temne, the major language in the North of Sierra Leone. In 1826 he attended Islington Parish School in London for a year, and then returned to study as a teacher at Fourah Bay, later joining the staff. He met another schoolteacher, Asano Susan, who had been rescued from the same ship as himself, and would later become his wife.

In 1841 he became a missionary on the Niger, but soon returned to London to train as a Minister. He was ordained by the Bishop of London in 1843 and returned to Africa to open a mission of his own in Abeokuta, Nigeria. Here he translated the Bible into Yoruba, wrote a Yoruba dictionary and published several books of his own on African languages.

In 1864, Samuel Crowther was ordained in Canterbury Cathedral as the first African Bishop of the Niger. Among those at the service was Sir Henry Leeke, the captain of the ship that had rescued him forty-two years earlier.  The same year he also received the degree of  Doctor of Divinity from Oxford University. He died on the 31st December 1891.

Samuel Crowther with his son, Dandeson.

The curator of a 2008 exhibition about Crowther in Islington commented on his importance. Cheryl Smith acknowledged, "Not only did he have to endure the traumatic aftermath of being captured by slave traders and separated from his family, but he was obviously a highly intellectual and spiritual person who achieved great things within the Church and followed through his convictions. He experienced and achieved so much in his life."