Captured as a boy at Òṣogun and sold three times in a day, he became the first African Anglican bishop, wrote the first serious Yoruba grammar and dictionary, translated the Bible into Yoruba, and was broken at the end of his life by younger European missionaries.
The Yorùbá wey dem quote, the proverbs, oríkì, ẹsẹ Ifá, word list headwords, Odù names and citations dey exactly as the corpus record dem, for every language.
Samuel Àjàyí Crowther, wey dem bon as Àjàyí for Òṣogun around 1809 and die for Lagos on 31 December 1891, na im bi di Yoruba pesin wey get influence pass for di nineteenth century, no mata how pesin look am. Dem capture am as slave wen im stil bi small boy, British anti-slavery squadron come free am, im go school for Sierra Leone, dem ordain am for England, make am di first African bishop for di Anglican communion, and im lead di Niger Mission for thirty years. Im stil produce di first beta grammar and vocabulary book for Yoruba language, translate Bible go Yoruba, and do pass any oda pesin to make sure say Yoruba bi language wey dem dey write. For im last years, European missionaries wey small reach im grandchildren collect di mission wey im build comot for im hand, base on race mata wey everybody dat time clear say na so e bi, and di reaction to dat tin na wetin bring independent African church movement.
Dem write plenty tins about im life well well pass ordinary, bikos im dey write every time, inside letters, journals, and reports wey still dey for Church Missionary Society archive, and bikos im write story of how dem take catch am, wey bi one of di few stories wey Yoruba pesin write wit im own hand about how dem enslave am.
Dem bon Àjàyí for Òṣogun for Ẹ̀gbá area for wetin bi Ọ̀yọ́ territory dat time, around 1809. Im papa name na Àyẹmí and im mama na Àfàlà . People wey dem describe as Fulani and Ọ̀yọ́ Muslim raiders destroy di town for March 1821, during di scatter-scatter wey happen afta di Ọ̀yọ́ revolution.
Im write im own story about wetin happen on 22 February 1837 from Fourah Bay, inside one letter wey im send go give Reverend William Jowett, wey bi secretary for Church Missionary Society dat time . Di way im take calm write am na wetin dey touch pesin bodi wen dem dey read am.
Di morning wey my town, Ocho-gu (Osogun), experience di same tin wey many oda towns don experience, weather dey fine and sweet.
Na so dem catch your humble servant wit im mama, im two sista (one na baby wey dey around ten months), and im cousin, as dem dey try escape.
Like dat, inside twenty-four hours, afta dem take my freedom and all my comfort comot, I become property to three different people.
Dem sell am again and again: for one time, to one Muslim woman; for anoda time, dem exchange am for tobacco and rum, and dem pass am dey go toward di coast . Dem put am inside one Portuguese slave ship for Lagos. Two British naval ships, wey im call Myrmidon and Iphigenia, intercept di ship on 7 April 1822 for Lagos river, and im write dat moment inside one sentence:
Dat same evening, two English warship come surprise us, and di next morning we see ourself for hand of new conquerors.
Im reach Sierra Leone on 17 June 1822 .
Notes on the text. Di letter dey in English, wey one man wey don spend fifteen years outside Yorubaland write to im mission secretary, so e carry di kind respect and tone of dat relationship. Di phrase "new conquerors" wey im use for di people wey free am no bi mistake. Na correct description of wetin happen to am from im own eye: dem no free am put for anything wey im choose, na anoda power carry am. Di corpus note say na so modern historian go understand am and say Crowther no explain pass dat for im own mouth.
Di three-layer translation rule no apply for here bikos Crowther write in English. Dat one sef na important fact: di most important Yoruba writer for dat century write im own life story for di language of people wey carry am, and afta dat spend decades dey build wetin go allow people write Yoruba in Yoruba.
Dem settle am for Bathurst village for Freetown area. Reverend John Raban baptise am on 11 December 1825, and im take di name Samuel Crowther, wey bi one English clergyman and CMS committee member, and im keep Àjàyí throughout im life . Im dey among di first students for Fourah Bay Institution, wey CMS start for 1827, where im study Latin, Greek, and Temne, and im stay back to work as ticha .
Im marry Asano, one Muslim woman wey dem also free from Portuguese slave ship for 1822, wey dem baptise Susan . Di people wey come from dem line include Dandeson Coates Crowther, wey become archdeacon of Niger Delta, and dia daughter Abigail, wey marry Thomas Babington Macaulay; di pikin from dat marriage, Herbert Macaulay, come bi di founder of Nigerian nationalist politics . Di line from di boy wey dem sell three times for one day go reach di man wey arrange di first Nigerian political party na only three generations.
Crowther join di 1841 British Niger expedition, wey bi attempt to stop slave trade by setting up normal trade and farming for river up country, as im travel wit Reverend James Schön . Di expedition bi big disaster for health mata, as plenty European people die of fever, and di biggest result from am na say Schön and Crowther join-bodi report argue say Africans na dem go have to preach gospel for West Africa. Dat argument, wey Henry Venn (di CMS secretary wey become Crowther patron) carry, come turn CMS policy wey dem call "native pastorate" and di goal to get African churches wey dey govern diasef, support diasef, and spread diasef.
Dem carry am go England for training for Islington and ordain am for Church of England for 1843, di first African wey CMS go ordain like dat .
Dem send am go di Yoruba mission, and for 1846 im open di CMS station for Abẹ́òkúta wit Reverend Henry Townsend . Abẹ́òkúta na di natural place to go: new town wey Ẹ̀gbá refugees form, wey get plenty people wey dia family members dey among di liberated Africans for Sierra Leone, and wey dey receive Saro people wey dey return from Freetown steadily.
Na there im see im mama, Àfàlà, wey dem separate from am for 1821. Dem baptise am, and im take the name Hannah. Nothing else for im life dey recorded with that kind strong coincidence, and na this event make am popular among the British missionary public.
Na this part of im achievement last pass every other thing, and na the part wey people dey often mention for one line pass am go.
When Crowther start, Yoruba language never get any settled way to write am. Missionary attempts to write am produce spellings wey no match, and the main thing be say, dem fail to show tone, wey without am the language dey bring confusion for book in ways wey no dey happen at all when person dey talk am. Crowther Vocabulary of the Yoruba Language come out for 1843, with grammar, and a much expanded edition for 1852 wey include collection of proverbs . Im work on the orthography wey, with later revision, form the foundation of the standard Yoruba writing system wey dem dey use today, including the sub-dot letters for the open vowels ẹ and ọ and for ṣ.
Im translate the Book of Common Prayer enter Yoruba and work on the Yoruba Bible, Bíbélì Mímọ́, wey finish for mid-1880s . Im also produce an Igbo primer for 1857 and a Nupe primer for 1860 with a grammar and vocabulary for 1864 . In reality, na im be the first professional linguist of West African languages wey be native speaker of one of them.
The translation questions wey this one bring up, especially wetin dey happen when a missionary translator must choose Yoruba words for God, spirit, sacrifice and sin, and the theological weight wey those choices carry go front and back, dey treated for the language section of this corpus. The short version be say Crowther choices, especially the use of Ọlọ́run for God, make the Yoruba Bible make sense inside the religious vocabulary wey Yoruba already get, and at the same time tie that vocabulary to Christian meanings. Neither the mission nor the tradition remain unchanged by am.
For 29 June 1864, Archbishop Charles Longley consecrate Crowther for Canterbury Cathedral as the first African bishop for the Anglican communion. Oxford give am honorary Doctor of Divinity .
The terms of the appointment na the problem, and dem do am deliberately. Im licence from Queen Victoria empower am as bishop "of the United Church of England and Ireland in the said countries in Western Africa beyond the limits of our dominions" Dem make am bishop of territory outside British jurisdiction and, in practice, outside the areas where European missionaries dey work. The European missionaries for Yorubaland, including Townsend, no gree accept im jurisdiction over them, and dem bin lobby against im appointment . So dem give the first African bishop a diocese wey dem carefully design to exclude the white clergy wey for obey am.
Im no get any European clergy under am, and im build the Niger Mission with African agents, mostly Sierra Leonean, wey dey work among Igbo, Nupe, Ijaw and Hausa communities along the river from the 1850s dey go. For roughly thirty years, na mission wey get African staff and African leadership, wey be exactly wetin Venn policy bin dey designed to produce.
Venn die for 1873. The CMS wey follow am na different institution altogether, wey the Keswick holiness revival, new generation of Cambridge-educated volunteers, and the strong racial theory of the late Victorian period shape. The Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 and the partition of Africa give am the political framing.
For 1887, dem appoint John Alfred Robinson, a Cambridge scholar, as joint secretary of the Yoruba and Niger missions . For 1890, dem give Graham Wilmot Brooke, wey be twenty-five years old, leadership of a new missionary party to the Niger, wey young middle-class Englishmen form, people wey take Hudson Taylor radical methods as their model . Dem come to purge wetin dem see as sin and laxity for the Niger church.
Wetin follow for Onitsha for 1890 dey documented inside CMS records and people no really dispute the facts. The new party check Crowther policies, methods and agents thoroughly, bring charges against African pastors, and call the finance committee meeting to examine them. Archdeacon Eden overrule the bishop as chairman and pronounce say dem suspend the pastors. Two European clergymen and one European layman suspend three African clergymen for the presence of the African bishop wey bin ordain them . Robinson circulate damaging reports about Crowther administration .
The charges concern laxity in discipline, financial irregularity, and say dem no dey strict enough. Some of the individual complaints get substance; mission stations wey dey run on tiny budgets across enormous distances dey bring that kind problem, and Crowther pass eighty years. But the standard wey dem apply no be the one wey dem dey apply to missions wey Europeans dey run, the men wey dey apply am just spend months for Africa compared to Crowther decades, and people of that time understand the framing in racial terms. J. F. Ade Ajayi assessment, wey set the foundation for later scholarship, be say the episode na the collapse of Venn policy of African church leadership under the pressure of late-Victorian racism .
Crowther resign im commissary functions for 1890 and get stroke for 1891. Im die on 31 December 1891 for Lagos . Dem bury am for Ajele Cemetery; dem later move im remains, an exhumation wey dem delay from 1971 and carry out for 1976, with cenotaph for Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos . No be im pikin Dandeson succeed am on the Niger, but na European bishop, wey be the point from the beginning.
Na from here the African church movement for Nigeria take start. Dem form The United Native African Church for 1891, the year wey Crowther die, and the Native Baptist Church, the African Church and others come follow. Yoruba Christians wey bin accept mission authority because dem believe say e go lead go church wey Africans dey control come conclude from how dem treat Crowther say e no go happen, and dem comot . James Johnson and Mọjọlá Agbébí, wey dem discuss for the next file, na the main figures for that generation.
Two judgement dey waka and the two of dem no complete.
The first one dey make am look like hero of African achievement, wey really be wetin e be, and e stop there. This version dey jump pass the fact say Crowther work inside and for mission work wey be part of British expansion, say e support making British influence spread as way to stop slave trade, say wetin im mission do help prepare ground for colonial rule for Niger, and say im translation work tie Yoruba religious vocabulary to Christian meanings for ways wey the language section of this corpus dey treat as ongoing problem.
The second one dey make am look like collaborator, person wey take the coloniser religion and name turn am against im own people. This version dey jump pass the fact say na pikin wey dem sell three times for one single day by people wey dey operate inside Yoruba and Muslim slaving economy, say e no get any way back to Òṣogun because Òṣogun no dey again, say the abolition wey e serve na wetin save im life, say e spend im whole career dey argue for African leadership against Europeans wey no want am, and say na the same institution wey dem dey accuse am say e serve na im destroy am for the end.
Wetin person fit talk without bending the matter: na man wey two systems of violence control im life, the Atlantic slave trade and European racial imperialism, but e use the space between the two of dem build achievement for language and institution-building wey none of the two systems plan for, and wey last pass the two of dem. Dem still dey read the Yoruba Bible. Dem still dey use the orthography. How dem dismiss am for Onitsha still be the main founding grievance for big part of Nigerian Christianity.
The pastor at Ọ̀yọ́ who wrote the book that made Yoruba history, the manuscript's loss and reconstruction, and the generation of Lagos men who first wrote Yoruba people into the record themselves.
How Yorùbá came to be written in Arabic and then Roman script, who decided the spelling rules, and why the subdots and tone marks are not optional.
How missionary and colonial translation produced the English words now used for Yorùbá religion, what Crowther's Bible did to Yorùbá religious vocabulary, how Èṣù came to mean Satan, and how to read older sources critically.
The CMS mission and Crowther, how and why Yoruba people converted to two world religions, the British annexation, indirect rule and what it did to kingship, and the making of "Yoruba" as one identity.
Samuel Àjàyí Crowther was an enslaved Yoruba youth who became the first African Anglican bishop, standardizer of the written Yoruba language, and primary translator of the Yoruba Bible.
The Yoruba people who came back, from Sierra Leone and from Brazil and Cuba, and what they built in Lagos: the mosques, the Brazilian quarter, the newspapers, and a babaláwo who carried Ifá back across the Atlantic.