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Biography of Samuel Adjai CrowtherName: Samuel Adjai CrowtherBirth Date: c. 1806 Death Date: December 31, 1891 Place of Birth: N/A Nationality: Nigerian Gender: Male Occupations: bishop, missionary Samuel Adjai Crowther The Anglican bishop Samuel Adjai Crowther (ca. 1806-1891) was a pioneer African missionary and the first African Anglican bishop in Nigeria.Samuel Crowther, of the Yoruba tribe, was enslaved in 1821 and put aboard a ship which was captured by the British navy. The freed slaves were sent to Freetown, Sierra Leone, where Crowther was baptized and, in 1827, became the first teacher to graduate from the Church Missionary Society's Teacher Training College at Fourah Bay. He joined the 1841 Niger expedition, sent out by England to explore the Niger River, combat the slave trade, and open the country for legitimate trade. Climatic conditions prevented success, but Crowther distinguished himself. He was invited to England for further training and ordained in the Church of England in 1843.Crowther worked as a priest in Sierra Leone but soon became a member of the Anglican Mission in Nigeria, first at Badgray and later at Abeokuta. There, by …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…by Oxford University.As a bishop, Crowther faced many difficulties. There was local opposition, both African and European; his duties and rights were not easily defined, and he was short of African helpers. Many of his African staff came from Sierra Leone and found it difficult to live in Nigeria. But the work prospered, and soon there were more than 600 Christians, with 10 priests and 14 teachers and catechists. His task was hard, but the fact that he was an African bishop inspired many African Christians in the years that followed. He died on Dec. 31, 1891, and was buried in Lagos. Further Reading A full-length biography of Crowther is Jesse Page, The Black Bishop: Samuel Adjai Crowther (1908). Two more recent evaluations are in J. F. Ade Ajayi, Christian Missions in Nigeria, 1841-1891 (1965), and E. A. Ayandele, The Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria, 1842-1914 (1966).Page, Jesse, The Black bishop, Samuel Adjai Crowther, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979. |