Samuel Ajayi Crowther

Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, drawing 1888

Samuel Ajayi Crowther (* 1809 in Osogun , † December 31, 1891 in Lagos ) was a Yoruba-born missionary , bishop and linguist during the British colonial era in Nigeria . Crowther was the first bishop of the Anglican Church of black African descent.

Life

As a 12- or 13-year-old, Crowther's hometown Osogun in the Yoruba region of what is now Nigeria was attacked - probably by Muslims from Oyo and members of the Fulani people . He was abducted and sold to Portuguese slave traders. Shortly before, the British had banned the slave trade and began to go on patrols to enforce this ban on ships of other nations. Such a ship brought up the slave ship on which Crowther was and brought him, as well as his fellow prisoners to Freetown in the former British colony of Sierra Leone . He walked through the gate to the old Kings Yard there as a free man.

There he was educated by the Church Mission Society , baptized in 1825 and trained as a missionary. After baptism, he took the name Samuel Crowther. In addition to his Yoruba origins, he identified himself with Sierra Leonean Creole throughout his life . In 1826 he traveled to England . On his return to Freetown in 1827 he attended the recently opened Fourah Bay College (today's University of Sierra Leone ), where he learned Latin and Greek , but also the language of the Sierra Leonean Temne . He later taught at a school and married a baptized former Muslim woman who had been on the same slave ship as him.

In 1841 he first took part in a mission expedition into the hinterland of what is now Nigeria. The attempt to establish a permanent presence there failed, however, and Crowther moved his missionary work to the coastal towns of Badagry and Abeokuta . Crowther began to translate the Bible into his mother tongue, Yoruba , and the first parts appeared in 1850. In 1865 the New Testament was completed, and in the 1880s he completed the entire Bible. A grammar book was published by him as early as 1843, later a Yoruba version of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer followed and finally a dictionary of the Yoruba language.

In 1857 Crowther published a reader in the language of the Nigerian people of the Igbo millions (outdated Ibo ) and in 1860 one in the language of the central Nigerian Nupe . He also wrote a grammar and dictionary in Nupe, which appeared in 1864.

In 1843 he was ordained an Anglican priest in London. In 1861 he was appointed the first African bishop of the Anglican coast in Canterbury, and in 1864 he was assigned the " Niger River " diocese .

Crowther was an African nationalist and resisted various attacks by the British colonial government in Nigeria and the idea that the spread of Christianity should promote British interests in Nigeria. In 1890 he gave up his post as bishop on the Niger.

Honors

The private Ajayi Crowther University , founded in 2005 , is named after him. It is located in the city of Oyo .

Fonts

• 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 , London 1842 ( digitalisat )
• Iwe Adua Yoruba. A Selection from the Book of Common Prayer, According to the Use of the United Church of England and Ireland. Translated into Yoruba for the Use of the Native Christians of that Nation , London: Church Missionary Society 1850 ( digitized version )
• The gospel according to St. Luke, the acts of the apostles, with the epistles of St. James and St. Peter. Translated into Yoruba, for the Use of the Native Christians of that Nation. Lucas evangelista , London 1851
• A Grammar and Vocabulary of the Yoruba Language , London: Seeleys 1852
• The Gospel according to St. Matthew , translated into Yoruba , London 1853
• Journal of an Expedition up the Niger and Tshadda Rivers in 1854. Undertaken by Macgregor Laird in Connection with the British Government , London 1970
• The gospel on the Banks of the Niger. Journals and Notices of the Native Missionaries Accompanying the Niger expedition of 1857–1859 , London: Church Missionary House 1859

literature

• Dr. Adschai Samuel Crowther, the first evangelical negro bishop, or Mohrenland will stretch out his hands to God , Kaiserswerth: Diakonissen-Anstalt 1894
• Jesse Page, The Black Bishop. Samuel Adjai Crowther , Chicago 1909 ( digitized )
• A Second Narrative of Samuel Ajayi Crowther's Early Life , in: Soc. for African Church History , 1965
• JF Ade Ajayi, A patriot to the Core: Samuel Ajayi Crowther , Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria: Anglican Diocese of Ibadan, 1992
• Ype Schaaf: L'histoire et le rôle de la Bible en Afrique , CETA, HAHO and CLÉ, Lavigny 2000, ISBN 9966-886-72-9 , pp. 57-59

swell

1. ^ Dictionary of African Christian Biography. Crowther, Samuel Ajayi, Nigeria. Archived from the original on July 28, 2012 . 
2. ^ ^{A b} Toyin Falola , Matthew M. Heaton: A History of Nigeria. Cambridge University Press 2008, pp. Xxii
3. ↑ Good out of Evil (London, Islington 1852), quoted from Samuel Ajayi Crowther English Wikipedia
4. ↑ Ype Schaaf: L'histoire et le rôle de la Bible en Afrique , CETA, HAHO and CLÉ, Lavigny 2000, ISBN 9966-886-72-9 , pp. 57-59

Web links

• Page, Jesse: The Slave Boy Who Became Bishop of the Niger (1892) online version .
• Dictionary of African Christian Biography