James "Holy" Johnson, Mọjọlá Agbébí and the generation of Sierra Leonean returnee clergy who took mission Christianity, found it would not admit them to leadership, and built African churches instead.
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.
Di men inside dis file na di second generation of Yoruba Christianity: dem bon dem for Sierra Leone or for Lagos to liberated African parents, dem go school for Fourah Bay, Church Missionary Society train dem, and wen dem reach middle age, dem come face di fact say European missionary establishment no get plan to hand over authority give Africans. How dem treat Samuel Àjàyí Crowther for Niger show dis thing clear. Wetin dem come build take reply this, independent African churches under African leadership wey dey use African names, dress and ways, na im be di origin of large part of Nigerian Christianity today and one of di earliest ways wey anticolonial cultural nationalism show face for anywhere for Africa.
Dem still be di direct background for Samuel Johnson di historian, wey dey di next file, and for di Lagos intellectual world wey produce di first Yoruba writing about Yoruba people.
Saro na di Yoruba word for di liberated Africans of Sierra Leone and dia descendants wey return come Yorubaland from di 1830s dey go. Dia origin be like say dem reverse di Atlantic slave trade: people wey dem capture for Yoruba wars, ship dem from Lagos and Badagry, British anti-slavery squadron catch dem for sea, and land dem for Freetown, where dem settle dem, convert dem, send dem go school and give dem English names. From Freetown, plenty of dem come return go Abẹ́òkúta and Lagos from di 1840s, sometimes to find dia family people.
Dem reach there as people wey fit read and write, Christian, wey dey speak English and get commercial connection, enter towns wey non of those things exist one generation before, and dem come turn di clerks, traders, printers, teachers, clergy and later lawyers and doctors for colonial Lagos. Jean Herskovits Kopytoff study still remain di standard account about di group . Dia double position, Yoruba by origin and Victorian by training, na di main thing to note: e make dem become di most effective agents for mission work, and also di people wey dey in best position to see exactly wetin di mission deny dem.
Dem bon am around 1836 for Sierra Leone to liberated African parents wey be Yoruba by origin, e go CMS school and graduate from Fourah Bay Institution for 1858 . E teach school reach 1863, enter ministry, and CMS send am go di Yoruba mission, where e first serve for Lagos and later for Abẹ́òkúta.
Di posting for Abẹ́òkúta no go well, and di reason wey dey inside sources na im moral severity, wey also be where di nickname come from. "Holy Johnson" no be purely name of love. E hold strong standard for Christian behavior and apply am to church members, to colleagues and to European missionaries equally, and dis make people fear am and dislike am almost equally.
For 1880, e become pastor of Breadfruit Church for Lagos, di senior Anglican pulpit for di colony and di position wey run im public career . Wen dem separate Lagos from Gold Coast for 1886, Governor Alfred Moloney appoint am as one of two African unofficial members of di new Legislative Council, and dis make am one of di first Africans for Nigerian legislative politics .
Im importance dey for doctrine just as e dey for institution. E argue for Christianity wey fully evangelical for theology and fully African for form, and e reject di idea say to convert mean say person must adopt European dress, names, music and ways . Dis position, wey dem later call Ethiopianism after di verse for Psalm 68 about Ethiopia stretching out her hands go meet God, praise African capacity, insist say na Africans suppose preach give Africa, and openly stand against European culture while e still maintain orthodox doctrine . E dey prominent, along with Mọjọlá Agbébí, for di Lagos branch of di Aborigines' Rights Protection Society .
E still serve as correct balance to simple story, because wen Anglicans for Lagos pull out for 1891 go form United Native African Church afta di way dem treat Crowther, Johnson refuse to join dem . E argue say make African leadership come from inside di Anglican structure instead of outside, and e pay for dat choice.
For 1900 dem consecrate am as Assistant Bishop of Western Equatorial Africa with responsibility for Niger Delta and Benin, post wey e hold till e die for May 1917; Durham give am Doctor of Divinity for di same year . Plenti people that time see di appointment as deliberate way to bring am down: assistant bishop position, for one territory under anoda person, for di most senior African clergyman of im generation, nine years afta CMS take Niger comot for Crowther hand. E accept am.
E. A. Ayandele biography get title Holy Johnson: Pioneer of African Nationalism, and dat framing, say churchman be di pioneer of nationalism, na im be di argument .
Dem bon am as David Brown Vincent, for Ilesa, to one Yoruba Anglican catechist papa wey return from Sierra Leone . E leave CMS for 1880 and become Baptist around 1883.
For March 1888, e dey central to di founding of Native Baptist Church for Lagos, wey later turn First Baptist Church, wey people generally describe as di first indigenous church for West Africa . Wetin directly cause am na dispute inside di American Southern Baptist mission: di American missionary W. J. David sack di Yoruba pastor Moses Ládéjọ Stone without proper explanation, and di congregation refuse to accept am . Dis pattern match di Niger crisis exactly, three years earlier and for different denomination, and dat na di point: di problem na structural matter, e no be personal thing to Crowther.
For late 1880s and finally by 1894, e stop to dey use David Brown Vincent come take di name Mọjọlá Agbébí . Di change of name na plan on top purpose, no be say na ordinary wetin e like. E reason say, dem bin dey force African Christians to bear European names, wear European clothes, sing European hymns, and dey act like European people as if all dis things follow for di gospel, and say e dey necessary to comot all those things so dat Christianity go be African thing instead of foreign thing. E dey preach for Yoruba, wear Yoruba dress, and e push well well for African songs and way of worship.
Di 1902 Inaugural Sermon wey e deliver for Lagos na di statement of dat position wey people sabi pass, and e reach different parts of di world, even inside African American circles . E start di African Baptist Union of West Africa for 1898 and di Yoruba Baptist Association for 1914, and e present one paper for di First Universal Races Congress for London for 1911, wey put am for di same Pan-African intellectual network wit Edward Wilmot Blyden and W. E. B. Du Bois . E die for 1917, di same year wey James Johnson die.
Note about quotation. People dey always quote parts of di 1902 sermon for internet. Dis corpus never fit see verified full text to take check those small-small parts, na why e no quote am. Reader wey want di text suppose go check di reprint for BlackPast global African history archive or check di collection wey Ayandele and Agbébí self publish . Dis na example of di general rule for dis section: dem no dey use quotation wey people dey repeat plenty times if verified source no dey.
Moses Ládéjọ Stone, di Yoruba Baptist pastor wey di American mission sack, wey come cause di 1888 breakaway .
Jacob Kẹ́hìndé Coker (1866 to 1945), one rich Ẹ̀gbá farm owner and church member wey sponsor and arrange di African Church movement, and wey be di main person wey dey support dem pass .
Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832 to 1912) no be Yoruba person, na Caribbean-born West Indian wey go settle for Liberia and Sierra Leone, but no story about dis group go complete without am. Wetin e write about African personality and how Islam and Christianity relate wit African societies really direct di way Johnson and Agbébí dey think, and people read am across West Africa.
John Payne Jackson (1848 to 1918), editor of di Lagos Weekly Record, give dem di newspaper space wey carry di argument. Na inside di Lagos newspapers of di 1880s and 1890s dis generation do their public debate, and na archive wey people never use reach as dem suppose.
Di disagreement no be about church doctrine. By any standard, dis men na proper and strict Christians. Di mata na whether Christianity must carry European culture join body, and who qualify to hold power for African church.
Dem lose di institutional argument when dem dey alive, but dem win am afterwards. Di African churches wey dem start come grow; di mission churches later put Africans for leadership; and di position say African ways of worship na correct Christian ways no be wetin anybody dey doubt again for Nigerian Christianity today. Di bigger argument, about African capability and di right to rule theirself, comot from church go enter politics within one generation, and na partly di same families carry am go. Herbert Macaulay, wey be Crowther great-grandson, na di person wey connect di two.
For Yoruba Christian reader today, dis na di history for dis section wey person fit apply pass. Di question of wetin be di main faith for person Christianity and wetin be nineteenth-century English culture wey just follow am come, na wetin Yoruba clergymen ask, sharp-sharp and open-open, pass one hundred years ago, and dem leave di arguments for print.
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.
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.
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.
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 Kakanfò who went to war over a constitutional principle and lost his town, and the hunter who led the Ẹ̀gbá refugees to the rock at Abẹ́òkúta and governed them without a king.
How Abẹ́òkúta went from a chief without a crown to a crowned Aláké in 1854, and the attempt by returnee intellectuals and traditional chiefs to build a modern state there that collapsed in 1874.