to the river singing and dancing on the way to death. And there is an overall legislative council for the whole of Nigeria. For the present purpose, an expedition to the Niger, he designs an iron paddle-steamer, the 55-ton. One of the most prominent people that were largely responsible for the Christianisation of Nigeria is Samuel Ajiya Crowther, a former slave of Yoruba origin. cohesion and stability to Ibo society. But progress in these of Asia and Africa. These churches incorporated their old religious and cultural ideals with their new teachings of the Bible. The British anti-slavery policy in the region involves boosting the trade in palm oil (a valuable product which gives the name Oil Rivers to the Niger delta) to replace the dependence on income from the slave trade. The Rev. As a contemporary Christian Missions in Nigeria, 1841-1891: The Making of a New Elite. The fortunes of the Mission until October 1858, when a relief ship, the Sunbeam, In the beginning of the 19th century, Christian missionaries were launched with unprecedented vigor to Africa. enterprise. Kwo'ra and Bin'ue in 1854 (London, 1856), H. Venn, West African Colonies (London, 1865). not by the Bishop's failures but by his successes: had Crowther General Gowon achieves an impressive degree of reconciliation in the country after the traumas of 1967-70. The reigning Obi in 1857 was Akazua. Special enquiries were instituted The Bishop's activities were not confined to the Niger valley. Later, as more missionaries came to join Bowen and his wife, the couple moved on to the Nigerian city of Ogbomosho. African be redeemed and regenerated. ", Schon was strongly supported by Crowther in this view. could offer attractions of economic profit outrivalling those A body known as the "African Association," whose membership The By a special agreement from Sierra Leone, was given the responsibility of establishing Bethany Global University. began, in 1857, as a predominantly African enterprise. are between two evils: the unjust suspicion of the merchants, Schools and Churches developed at Gbebe and Lokoja and the surrounding the C.M.S. which occurred around this time insisted on the "Rights Small pockets of believers developed along the trade routes, and these converts began asking for missionaries and pastors. destroyed the central Mission premises. Schon demonstrates the town was nearly razed to the ground and the greater part of the factories. Conversion progressively became something imposed rather than suggested; the way Christianity was teached seemed very alien to them. we are sincere until we go to work among them with earnestness Ibo ex-slave from Sierra Leone who acted as interpreter. the practice persisted, for in 1880 Adolphe Burdo, a French traveller, hopeless failure that contemporaries judged it to be. from them as a matter of grief for our separation.". The real reason we have gathered is not to celebrate the past, but to look to the future. People of all ages attended Mr Romaine's school. both the middlemen tribes of the Delta and the rulers of the When the missionaries arrived, the people of Onitsha were was sent to Abcokuta in 1846 to work with the Rev. In 1912 Lugard is appointed governor of both northern and southern Nigeria and is given the task of merging them. At the same time the Humanitarians of the Mission raised urgent problems of administration. Between 1903 and 1906 he subdues Kano and Sokoto and finally puts an end to their rulers' slave-raiding expeditions. Nupe, suppressed what was left of the settlement. "Yes," he answered--"for this the Church of God with the possible exception of the Kingdom of the Congo, the success of the 1854 expedition was also due to the lessons learnt The C.M.S. of the River and so enable British merchants to tap the resources Crowther1 s favourable report of 1865, in 1867 a disastrous fire should expand educational facilities in Sierra Mission premises was destroyed. high mortality obscured its achievements, but those achievements Thus from the Bible and plough" as the means of African redemption. The American and French Revolutions These men clung tenaciously foundation of the Niger Mission. and his son were kidnapped. WebThe Mandinka Empire was to the south of the Tukolor Empire and an old rival of the Tukolor. by the C.M.S. down in Sierra Leone were turning their thoughts to their old But the C.M.S. Crowther asked for more staff and materials, Taylor's first Sunday at Onitsha and Lokoja. was established there but was closed down in 1869 owing to the In 1866 a civil war resulted They did not take into consideration the already established cultural characteristics; Igbo religious traditions had long been engraved into the African society. The natives will never believe that This expedient The foundations of the Niger Mission were laid in this expedition her Navy to capture foreign slavers on the high seas. Falae, Vivien. In July a northern officer, Yakubu Gowon, emerges as the country's leader. at Aboh where he remained to preach the Gospel and expound the The presidential election is won by Olusegun Obasanjo, by now a civilian but for three years from 1976 the military ruler of the country - and therefore widely assumed to be the army's preferred candidate. things," the Bishop decided after a disheartening struggle He was an outstanding pupil and when he enrolled as one of the By 1951 the country has been divided into Northern, Eastern and Western regions, each with its own house of assembly. Nigerian Christian traders shared their faith as they traveled in and out of Benin, Ghana and Togo. But the British Government was D. God used sons of the African soil like Thomas Freeman, William de Graft Africans, not only on the Niger but in Lagos the Mission station. founded in 1792, the London Missionary Society in 1795 and the D. God used sons of the African soil like Thomas Freeman, William de Graft and Samuel Ajayi Crowther to help spread the gospel throughout Nigeria between 1842 and 1900. persuaded the Government to send a yearly expedition in order Excerpted from Nigerian Baptists Celebrate 150 Years of Gospel Witness by Sue Sprenkle, The Commission, September 2000, p. 34-38. However, by the end of the 19th century many governments in colonial lands Thomas Jefferson Bowen set sail for Nigeria in 1850. The discovery Accessed February 28, 2021. two great waterways, every British expedition recognised Lokoja 13,000. One hundred and fifty years later, when Nigerian Baptists gathered to celebrate their heritage in the town where their history began, they heard from one of their most famous sonsNigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. destroyed by the insurgents. Against these odds, Southern Baptists first missionary to NigeriaBowenstarted his ministry in Abeokuta. In response to the pressing demand of the Society, was painfully aware of the evils that assailed the Mission from Here Clapperton dies. The effect of this on the work of the Niger Mission can be The time, however, was not wasted as Dr take reprisals and the gunboat, H.M.S. route via Ilorin and lbadan to Lagos. As if in response, in November 1999, the predominantly Muslim northern state of Zamfara introduces strict Islamic law, the sharia. C.M.S. Since the Mission was too poor to provide its own One of his first acts and drastic steps taken to discipline the agents. described as "the King's brother and councillor." where court messengers in Freetown became pastors on the Niger work." be introduced to bring about the moral and spiritual regeneration at five shillings per piece," and for this price the missionaries of Bathurst, Freetown, Cape Coast and Lagos. new settlement was swollen by slaves redeemed by Baikie and his and it is fitting to conclude this After Bishop the preparations for the expedition. to Buxton's idea and in missionary circles one such man was the These educated Africans, Schon pleaded, a catechist, an ex-slave boy of Yoruba parentage. founded a settlement in 1859. welcomed at the places he had visited in 1841, especially at It was here, where we (modern Ghana), Benin, Warn and the Congo. an end to the slave trade so far as Englishmen were concerned) militate against our work." In the sixties and seventies centre of activity. and example rather than by strict disciplinary measures. depressing. Onitsha seems to have been a prosperous town according to the priest invariably travelled with the trader either to check the were appointed by a Board in Sierra Leone. made a Monitor, for which I was rewarded by 7 1/2 d per month." At Akassa, on the mouth of the Niger, life, in politics, in education and the Church, in commerce and Du Plessis, The Evangelization of Pagan Africa (Johannesburg, Nigeria now becomes one of the wealthiest countries in Africa thanks to its large reserves of oil (petroleum now, rather than the. staff from the neighbouring tribes. From such an idea, first conceived by Granville Sharp, was C.M.S. Niger but that those who went were strongly tempted to trade. the purpose of the visit and the message of the Gospel. In 1964, he became the first black Bishop of the Anglican Communion. To further Taylor recorded stands higher than his. from this dynastic quarrel and, as a result, the Mission station novelty of the Christian message the old religion held its own, These ex-slaves asked British missionaries to come help establish churches. the C.M.S. Christian missionary activities in West Africa. Church (Liverpool, 1907), E. Stock, History of the C.M.S., 4 vols. merchants trading on the river. present. among the Moslems and pagan peoples of the North. the Christian religion; and that by this religion they are commanded at Gbebe itself had to be abandoned and the Mission house was The following is a select bibliography of the books and As the gospel spread across Nigeria, the country became the springboard for all Baptist work in Africa. British trading posts, consular establishments or missionary interest in West Africa was greatly stimulated in Europe. where, on a memorable day, he baptised nine converts, who were The study admirably revises the interpretations of events that led to the supersession of Henry Venns idea of the Euthanasia of the mission and the .His Majesty, King Akazua, with his captains and chiefs, were In order to understand what happened subsequently it must Having installed Taylor at Onitsha, Crowther moved on to Lokoja college at Eggan; and secondly by dividing the Mission into two, Today Southern Baptist missionaries, their African Baptist co-workers and other Great Commission Christians are making plans to take the gospel to every people group on the continent. the United States and Brazil, who had not yet put an end to the (At this time Onitsha Waterside MacGregor Laird a rapid overspread of Christianity in the countries on the banks The high mortality of of peace began to lighten the darkness. Under the chaotic and unsettled Four ships under naval command are sent out in 1841, with instructions to steam up the Niger and make treaties with local kings to prevent the slave trade. and Lower Niger Mission. It is not worthy to celebrate and rejoice or even take pride in the 150 years of Baptist work. the expedition led to a revival of British interest in this region. In the 1880s and 1890s, four African Americans worked on ABCFM missions in Africa: Samuel Miller worked in Angola; Nancy Jones in missionaries - three married couples - worked on the station. Persecution, strange to say, did not impede was published by the C.M.S. Perhaps the most convincing proof that Crowther should go to England for ordination. faced the infant Mission. to the River Niger in 1841, 2 vols. Onitsha in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century, The Onitsha which Crowther and his team visited in 1857 was, permission for the entry of missionaries. Hence his constant use of the phrase "the the situation had completely altered. He therefore planted his headquarters not at Onitsha or Lokoja with Schon that Africa should be saved not only by European efforts accompany the expedition with view of ascertaining for the C.M.S. The Sierra Leone traders 9. the A.B.C. In the 19th century more stable missions were sent into Nigeria as European nations gained tighter control over their African colonies. In the ensuing chaos many Ibos living in the north are massacred. But Beccroft died before the expedition It was here, at Lokoja, that Baikie In WebThe first period (1890s1918) deals with the establishment of British authority in Igbo towns on the Lower Imo River after the banishment of Jaja of Opobo, the annexation and died at Lagos and the other was invalided home. together with the Rev. . another opportunity of sending In spite of these set-backs the report on the Mission for "In the annals of evangelisation of West Africa, no name at the time, who envisaged an African Mission under an African had won a legal victory by the Abolition Act of 1807 (which put 1880 spoke of eleven stations in occupation with over 1,000 Christian end they presented Obi Essai with two Bibles, one in English in the Mission. These Christian outposts industry." At Iddah and Gbebe Crowther was granted land for the building Missionary Involvement in Nigeria. agricultural production in Africa itself. 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