Samuel Ajayi Crowther

Crowther briefly attended school in Islington, London, before returning to Freetown. There he entered Fourah Bay College in 1827, the year of its founding. He later taught Latin and Greek there. It was at this time that he met Asano, the woman who was to be his wife of 50 years, a Muslim-background believer who had also been enslaved. She had taken the baptismal name Susan. He also helped the CMS missionaries in their study of African languages. His reputation grew such that when, in 1841, CMS decided to launch its Niger Expedition, Crowther was asked to be part of the company. However, the expedition was considered a disaster. Europeans could not yet safely venture inland, and 40 of the 45 Europeans on the expedition died of malaria.

This experience prompted James Schön, a CMS linguist, to recommend in his report that ‘Africans be used for evangelism amongst their people’. Crowther was consequently ordained in London in 1843 and then returned to Abeokuta in what is now Nigeria. Here he was reunited with his mother and sisters, who he had not seen in 24 years. He now applied himself to the Yoruba spelling system, and then started translating the Bible.

In 1843, he published his first Yoruba grammar and vocabulary and in 1852 he published a translation of four New Testament books. Crowther and his assistant, Thomas King, continued to work on the Yoruba translation of the Bible for much of the rest of his life. He also researched and promoted significant work in Nupe, Igbo and other languages. His research eventually led to his receiving a doctorate from Oxford University. The whole Yoruba Bible was published in 1884.

Crowther was consecrated in 1864 as the Anglican bishop of ‘West Africa Beyond the British Territories’ (a region around the Niger River). There was opposition to this, even from close collaborators. One such, Rev Henry Townsend, drafted a petition stating that ‘no matter what the worth of an African bishop would be, he would lack the respect and influence necessary for such a high office’. He held the appalling belief that God had, in his words, ‘given talent to the whites’.³

Even the argument ‘for’ making Crowther a bishop was expressed in ways we would find unacceptable: ‘men such as Crowther, with British habits and education grafted upon their African constitutions, will become pioneers throughout Africa, and raise the emulation of their brethren by showing them that ability, though covered with a black skin, was appreciated and rewarded.’⁴

Achievements discarded

Crowther was successful in many different ways, but colonial and racist attitudes were in the ascendancy by the 1880s. The Berlin (‘Scramble for Africa’) Conference had taken place and the discovery of quinine to treat malaria meant Europeans were no longer dependent on local people to travel inland. Rev J A Robinson had been appointed secretary of the Yoruba and Niger Missions in 1887. He wrote in a report that ‘the Negro race lack every sign of ruling prowess’.⁵ In 1890, Crowther resigned in protest at comments like this. He died the following year. An Englishman took his place as bishop.

This ending to Crowther’s story is all the more disturbing because everything in the 1820s seemed to point in a better direction: rescue from slavery, completing a fine education and stepping into church leadership and translation work. These achievements were all discarded by those who followed. In the next 90 years, there would be less progress in Bible translation in Nigeria than there had been in the previous 30.

‘With the use of African languages in Scripture, prayer, worship, and study, Crowther formulated terms for Christianity as an African religion.’

The importance of Bible translation

Crowther, along with his friend and CMS General Secretary Henry Venn, acknowledged what they called ‘the vernacular principle’ in mission. That is to say, there is no special, sacred language nor one cultural expression of the faith.

Towards the end of his life, Crowther reflected on his Bible translation work, ‘The more I think of it, the more I feel its importance, that it is the base of the spiritual success of all our missionary operations, for the “Sword of the Spirit” [the Bible], placed in the hands of the congregations, in their own tongue, will do more to convince and convert them than all our preaching, teaching and meetings of so many years put together.’⁶