What if you were captured and taken to another country to be a slave? Of course, you’d be afraid. But what would you miss? Your family.
This happened to Samuel Adjai (Crowther’s spelling of his Yoruba name) Crowther at age 13. By divine intervention--through two British ships’ attack on the Portuguese slave ship Esperanza Felix--he was finally rescued. Having been sold six times and separated from his family, Ajayi (English spelling) was sent back, according to British policy, to Sierra Leone and eventually to Nigeria, where he found his family members. Like a sea version of the Joseph story.
“We could not say much, but sat still, casting many an affection look towards each other, an affection which 25 years had not extinguished,” Ajayi recalled.
In those 25 years, Ajayi had become a Christian in Sierra Leone.
Crowther was baptized by the Rev. John Rahan of the Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS). He took Samuel as his Christian name. Later when he baptized his mother, she took Hannah for its Biblical significance to her son’s name. He took the surname Crowther of an eminent clergyman.
Ajayi received an English education at Sierra Leone, as well as carpentry, weaving, and agricultural skills.
The CMS built and provided the colony’s first university, and Crowther was one of the first graduates from Fourah Bay College. He was very good in linguistics.
For that reason, he was chosen for the Niger Expedition in 1841. That was one year after David Livingston, a Scottish missionary, had left for southern Africa. British Christians referred to Africa as the White Man’s Graveyard. Fever killed many on the expedition. One ship after another was loaded with sick people and sent back. All but 15 of the original 145 died of malaria. Crowther was one of the 15.
J. F. Schon, a German missionary, urged the CMS to educate and ordinate Africans like Crowther for further work in Africa. He could see they were best suited physically for the area, as well as knowing the native cultures and languages.
Henry Venn, head of CMS, believed in overseas churches being self-supporting, self-governing, and self-extending. He wanted to see African priests and bishops working in the African churches.
Crowther returned to England to be ordained a priest on Trinity Sunday, 1843. Then he returned to Sierra Leone to preach in both English and his native Yoruba.
He had begun to write linguistic texts and sermons in his native language. This was probably the first time an African language had been used in liturgy and the first time the people had heard the Gospel in their own language. He worked on a how-to book for other books to be written in Yoruba. He helped with a Yoruba newspaper.
His biggest task was Bible translation. Not much significance was given to a Yoruba version of the Bible; it wasn’t the first Bible translation into an African language. The Yoruba Bible was, however, the first Bible translation by a native speaker. Crowther included tone in his version as well as vocabulary and style of the colloquial speech. He interviewed many elders and specialists of the old religion for this.
One of his hardest losses was when his house burned in 1862, also taking 11 years of notes of observations and other manuscript translations. No amount of any insurance would have covered that loss.
In 1854 a new Niger Expedition was sponsored by merchant McGregor Laird. The CMS sent Crowther. Within three years, Crowther and J. C. Taylor, a Sierra Leonean clergyman, had established a mission at Onitsha. Taylor stayed at the mission while Crowther went upriver. He was shipwrecked and stranded for months, so while there, he studied the Nupe language of those people and wound up beginning its mission.
Soon the structure for the mission force was made entirely of Africans. Many more books and language dictionaries were written.
Nearly 21 years had passed since the Rev. Samuel Ajayi Crowther had been ordained. He had proven, to himself and others, his ability and worthiness for missions.
Henry Venn of the CMS, wanting to fulfill the all-African ministry, sent Crowther to London to be consecrated as a bishop. On June 29, 1864, in a filled Canterbury Cathedral, Crowther became the first African bishop in the Church of England.
Crowther spent nine months of a year in Lagos, the CMS headquarters, which he didn’t like, and he was also dependent on the West African Company to travel upriver to the mission sites. English supporters purchased a steamer for his work and named it appropriately the Henry Venn.
Henry Venn died soon after that, and the new CMS administrator gave the boat to two white men with the authority over all Africans, even Crowther.
Eventually only three Niger Missions remained. Crowther protested but then was charged with violations. He died shortly after of a stroke on December 31, 1891.
A white bishop replaced Crowther, and not until 1952, 60 years after his death, would Africa see another African Anglican bishop.
Africans were outraged by Crowther’s treatment so they formed the Niger Delta Pastorate, independent of the Church of England. This organization helped to define African Christianity in the following century.
"O God, Thou Faithful God"