Around 1821, in the village of Osogun in Yorubaland (modern Nigeria), a boy named Ajayi and his family were captured by Fulani slave raiders during the Yoruba civil wars. He was about twelve years old.
From Slave Ship to Freedom
Ajayi was sold multiple times, eventually ending up on a Portuguese slave ship bound for the Americas. But the British Royal Navy, enforcing the ban on the Atlantic slave trade, intercepted the vessel and freed its human cargo.
The liberated Africans were resettled in Sierra Leone. There, Ajayi was introduced to Christianity. In his own words, he came to understand that he had been saved "not from the slavery of man alone but also from that of sin." He decided to become "a soldier for Christ."
On December 11, 1825, he was baptized, taking the English name Samuel Crowther after a British minister. He became the first student admitted to Fourah Bay College, an Anglican missionary school.
God's Calling to Ministry
Crowther's linguistic gifts were extraordinary. He remembered much of his childhood Yoruba and went on to translate the Bible and Book of Common Prayer into the language. He published the first Yoruba dictionary.
In 1843, Crowther was posted as a missionary to Abeokuta, Nigeria. There, in a moment of profound providence, he encountered and recognized his own mother—more than two decades after their violent separation. In 1848, he baptized her.
First African Anglican Bishop
Henry Venn, the visionary secretary of the Church Missionary Society, saw in Crowther the possibility of truly African churches—self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating. In 1864, Samuel Ajayi Crowther was consecrated as the Bishop of West Africa.
He was the first African to hold such a position in the Anglican Church.
For nearly three decades, Crowther led the Niger Mission with an entirely African staff. His personal godliness was universally acknowledged. But racism within the colonial missionary establishment eventually undermined his work. Younger European missionaries dismissed and transferred his staff.
Crowther died of a stroke in 1891, having seen his mission dismantled but his faith unshaken.
Transforming Rejection into Leadership
The boy pulled from a slave ship had become the first African Anglican bishop. His Yoruba Bible remains in use today. His story testifies that God takes the rejected and makes them leaders.
