How much do you know about Samuel Ajayi Crowder?

Samuel Ajayi Crowther was probably the most widely known African Christian of the nineteenth century. He was a Nigerian linguist and the first African Anglican bishop in Africa. 

If you called him a man with a lot of first or a man with a lot of achievement you are very correct!

Starting from 1843 when he published Yoruba Vocabulary and began translating the Bible 

Again in 1857 he wrote the first book in Igbo language, Isoama-Ibo. 

As if that is not enough, in 1882 he wrote the "Vocabulary of the Ibo Language", the first detailed dictionary in Igbo.

Early Life

Ajayi (also Ajai or Adjai) Crowther was born in Osogun (in the present-day Iseyin LGA, Oyo State) in 1809. He was a Yoruba man who also identified with the Creole ethnic group of Sierra Leone. In later years, it was told that a diviner had indicated that Ajayi was not to enter any of the cults of the Orisha (the Yoruba divinities) because he was to be a servant of Olorun (the God of heaven). 

In 1821, at the age of twelve, Crowther was captured along with his mother, toddler brother and several other family members and sold into captivity. He was passed from one master to another six times before ending up at a major slave market where he was sold to Portuguese slave traders.

He contemplated killing himself rather than getting sold into the hands of white men: he tried to strangle himself with his waistband but his courage failed him when he held the noose in his hand.

After several weeks, he and one hundred and eighty-seven fellow slaves were loaded on a ship bound for Portugal. The ship set sail but was intercepted off the coast of Lagos by two British Man o' War ships positioned on the waters primarily to enforce the abolition of slavery. The master and slave-drivers were placed in irons and the Africans were set free but were not returned to Lagos; they were taken instead to Freetown, Sierra Leone.

While there, Crowther was cared for by the Anglican Church Missionary Society. While in Freetown, Crowther became interested in languages. He was taught English and exhibited significant aptitude in his studies and made good progress under the care of the Mission schoolmaster. He was baptised on December 11, 1825 by the Reverend John Raben, taking the name of Samuel Crowther. 

His Education Life

In 1826, he was taken to England to attend the school of St Mary's Church in Islington, London. He returned to Freetown in 1827 and enrolled at the newly-opened Fourah Bay College, an Anglican missionary school, where his interest in languages led to his studying Latin, Greek and Temne (one of Sierra Leone’s most widely spoken languages). He also added carpentry to his traditional weaving and agricultural skills. After completing his studies, he began teaching at Fourah Bay which eventually became the first institution to offer university-level education in tropical Africa.

Contribution to Education and Learning

Crowther’s natural aptitude for languages gave him a unique advantage in dealings with the chiefs and headmen of the various districts. As a result, he was selected to accompany the missionary James Frederick Schön on his Niger expedition which began on July 1, 1841 - a journey for which he learned to speak Hausa. 

During this voyage, he had busied himself with his translations, and had prepared a grammar and vocabulary of the Yoruba tongue, which was later useful in spreading the Gospel among his own people. He came to the Highbury Missionary College on Upper Street, Islington, which was then under the care of Reverend CF Childe.

His Missionary Career

Following his studies, he was ordained on June 11, 1843 by Charles James Blomfield (the Bishop of London at the time) and became the first of several African clergymen. He returned to Africa later that year and opened a mission in Abeokuta (in present-day Ogun State) with Henry Townsend, an English mission

In 1843, Crowther’s book Yoruba Vocabulary, which he started working on during the Niger expedition, was published. A Yoruba version of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer followed later.

The first primary school in Northern Nigeria, founded in Lokoja by Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther (1865)

After the British Niger Expeditions of 1854 and 1857, Crowther produced a primer for Igbo in 1857, another for the Nupe language in 1860 and a full grammar and vocabulary account of Nupe in 1864.

Crowther, his wife and an unknown clergy member

Crowther insisted that the translation should indicate tone – a departure from tradition. In vocabulary and style, he sought to promote colloquial speech by listening to the elders and noting significant words that emerged in his discussions with Muslims or specialists in Yoruba traditional religion. Over the years, he noted words, proverbs and various forms of speech; one of his hardest blows was the loss of the notes of eleven years of such observations and some manuscript translations when his house burned down in 1862.

Samuel Ajayi Crowther and son Dandeson

As Crowther began to ascend the ranks of the Anglican Church, white reverends – including many within the CMS hierarchy – vehemently opposed the idea of a black man becoming a bishop. Nevertheless, on St Peter's Day in 1864, Crowther was ordained as the first African bishop of the Anglican Church. That same year, he was also given a doctorate of divinity by the University of Oxford.

Contribution to Christianity and Yoruba Bible

Crowther's attention was directed more and more towards languages other than Yoruba, but he continued to supervise the translation of the Yoruba Bible (Bibeli Mimá), which was completed in the mid-1880s, a few years before his death.

 His death and successor

In 1891, Crowther suffered a stroke and died on December 31 at the age of 82. His grandson Herbert Macaulay became one of the first Nigerian nationalists and played an important role in ending British colonial rule in Nigeria.