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Bishop Ajayi Crowther - 1st African Anglican Bishop in Nigeria

12-year-old Ajayi was captured in the same war in which his father, was captured and nothing has been heard about his father since then. At Badagry, where the slaves were taken enroute their destination, the elderly man looking after them was said to have been favourably disposed to Ajayi. He sent him on errands and had wanted to keep him in Badagry but for the sudden arrival of the Portuguese slave traders.

Bishop Samuel Adjai (Ajayi) Crowther (C. 1809 - December 31, 1891) was a linguist and the first African Anglican Bishop in Nigeria. Born in Osoogun, Yorubaland, in today's Iseyin Local Government, Oyo State, Nigeria, Rev, Dr. Samuel Ajayi Crowther was a member of the Yoruba ethnic group but was also a Sierra Leone Liberated African.

Ajayi was captured by Fulani slave raiders in 1821 and sold to Portuguese slave traders. Before leaving port, his ship was borded by the British Navy, and Crowther was taken to Freetown, Sierra Leone and released. While there, Crowther was cared for by the Anglican Church Missionary Society, who taught him English.

He converted to Christianity, was baptized by Rev. John Raban, and took the name Samuel Crowther in 1825 after his master. While in Freetown, Crowther became interested in languages. In 1826 he was taken to England to attend Islington Parish School. He returned to Freetown in 1827 and attended the newly opened Fourah Bay College, an Anglican missionary school, where his interest in language found him studying Latin and Greek but also Temne.

After completing his studies he began teaching at the school. He also married Asano Susan, a school mistress, who was also on the Portuguese slave ship that originally brought Crowther to Sierra Leone and the union was blessed with three children, two females and male.

In 1841, Crowther was selected to accompany the missionary J.J. Schon, on an expedition along the Niger River. Together with Schon, he was expected to learn Hausa for use on the expedition. The goal of the expedition was to spread commerce, teach agricultural techniques, spread Christianity, and help end the slave trade. Following the expedition, Crowther was recalled to England, where he was trained as a minister and ordained by the Bishop of London.

Rev. Dr. Crowther began translating the Bible into the Yoruba language and compiling a Yoruba dictionary. In 1843, a grammar book which he started working on during the Niger expedition was published, and a Yoruba version of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer followed later. H also began codifying other language. Following the British Niger Expeditions of 1854 and 1857, Crowther produced a primer for the Igbo language in 1857, another for the Nupe language in 1860, and a full grammar and vocabulary of Nupe in 1864. In 1864, Crowther was ordained as the first African Bishop of the Anglican Church.

That same year he also received a Doctor of Divinity from Oxford University, Bishop Dr. Crowther's attention was directed more and more to languages other than Yoruba, but he continued to supervise the translation of the Yoruba Bible (Bibeli Mimo), which was completed in the mid 1880's, a few year before he death in 1891, Crowther suffered a stroke and died the last day of that year.

http://www.tribune.com.ng/09092007/for_d_records1.html

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