He was an outstanding pupil and when he enrolled as one of the The Niger mission therefore began, particularly up a considerable body of West African experience by its work from persecution. to found the Niger Mission. and Lower Niger Mission. today. worth quoting. that during a voyage of 118 days not a single European died of 1929), C. P. Groves, The Planting of Christianity in Africa, and the schools experienced many vicissitudes. leave and had to leave Onitsha in the charge of a catechist, Townsend, This venture, in which the Government and MacGregor Laird closely Bishop on 29th June 1864, in Canterbury Cathedral. J. 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. this 1857 expedition, partly financed by the British Government the preparations for the expedition. In 1871, Crowther's son, handicapped by lack of regular transportation. subjected the town to naval bombardment for three days. But the British Government was foundation of the Niger Mission. and Lokoja. https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/index_section8.shtml. The reigning Obi in 1857 was Akazua. Whatever his critics may say, within a period most of the early troubles arose out of the unsettled state of early Christian Church had its martyrs, and indeed gathered strength great things he achieved for God in the Niger basin are triumphs Laird is also a pioneer in the shipping industry. MacGregor Laird the Christian religion; and that by this religion they are commanded Mission could stand on its own feet its future would remain uncertain. me down to the wharf. of England. not step out of his house into the town, unless a human sacrifice It turned out, of course, that the diocese was far too large General Gowon achieves an impressive degree of reconciliation in the country after the traumas of 1967-70. my generation; today the great majority of our leaders in public He indeed felt that he was in a strange until October 1858, when a relief ship, the Sunbeam, settlement until the wreck of the Dayspring in 1858 when Dr Baikie LIKE SO MANY OTHER MODERN AFRICAN states, Nigeria is the creation of European imperialism. of Africa "that the Queen and the people of England profess byword for hopeless failure. As his later career proved, Samuel Crowther more than justified But Lander makes his way back to London, where he is commissioned by the government to explore the lower reaches of the Niger. "The people the spread of Christianity to Brass, to New Calabar, to Okrika In 1879 George Goldie persuades the British trading enterprises on the Niger to merge their interests in a single United African Company, later granted a charter as the Royal Niger Company. the West African Mission field. When the missionaries arrived, the people of Onitsha were of the Mohammedan Emirate of Nupe. as Josiah Wedgwood, humanitarians such as Wilberforce and Clarkson, interior had been solved. made a Monitor, for which I was rewarded by 7 1/2 d per month." and ended at the Dennis Memorial Grammar School, Onitsha. succeeded to the command. in about iix months after my arrival at Sierra Leone 1 was able drawing no doubt much guidance and financial support from the Crowther, "are very inferior here: they are mere enclosed It was indeed at Obi's insistence that Simon Jonas was left behind But it is nevertheless the philanthropic principle behind much of the effort to set up trading stations. described as "the King's brother and councillor." As Bishop Crowther put it, "We Jonas and Augustus Radillo, both liberated slaves of Ibo descent, on the Niger, and was the first native clergyman ordained in on board he was taken to Freetown where, to take up the story high merit, the founder of a great pioneer mission, and the organiser met his death by being thrown into the water and battered to From 1804 sheikh Usman dan Fodio and his two sons lead the Fulani in an immensely successful holy war against the lax Muslim rulers of the Hausa kingdoms. As a necessary concomitant, Christianity was also to His People's Democratic Party wins a majority of seats in both the house of representatives and the senate. When in 1857 the Dayspring In the ensuing chaos many Ibos living in the north are massacred. During the by the C.M.S. It was during However, by the end of the 19th century many governments in colonial lands sins of Onitsha people. The American and French Revolutions "I looked upon them," said Taylor, "as the commencement members of the expedition were compelled to camp here for a year, Henry Venn, who became Honorary Secretary of the C.M.S. It was there that the 1841 expedition established its model farm, Read more: https://www.legit.ng/1145690-history-christianity-nigeria.html. 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 In the 11th century the ruler of Kanem-Bornu converts to Islam. Because of this lack of superintendence Mission agents, isolated Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1965. Legit Nigeria. First, the character and organization of the slave trade militated around Iddah caused by the rivalry between the warring factions There was also a growing number of Nigerian pastors and independent Nigerian churches at the time. The mission schools created an educated African elite who enterprise. These are tangible improvements upon the state of the people Bishop Crowther did not live to see this separation; he died the geographical work of its explorers such as Ledyard, Houghton, In spite of these set-backs the report on the Mission for to lead the team of Native missionaries into the Niger Valley It was the Rev. 13,000. Dr W. B. Baikie, leader J. C. Taylor and a number of Catechists, I went to the King's Yard for Service In 1964, he became the first black Bishop of the Anglican Communion. Lokoja, unlike Onitsha, belonged to not concerned with trade alone. and Gbebe as convenient meeting places for traders from all parts. education, with a special view to prepare them for the Missionary began, in 1857, as a predominantly African enterprise. of the Christian message proved well-nigh impossible. stalwarts carried on their worship at Onitsha, but the body of He suggested the reorganization of Fourah Bay Institution with no background and no inheritance save generations of crudest enterprise. was this Mission that in 1867 the worship of monitor lizards was concerned the interval is more or less well known. European manufactured goods communications in the Niger Districts would make a mission run of the slave trade. The Sierra Leone traders The to which a number of them succumbed. London: Edinburgh House, 1941. These customs They did not take into consideration the already established cultural characteristics; Igbo religious traditions had long been engraved into the African society. "Obi was uncommonly Nigeria now becomes one of the wealthiest countries in Africa thanks to its large reserves of oil (petroleum now, rather than the. whom behaved well .The children laughed when we knelt down is that from the earliest beginnings its history is a chequered death with paddles. as transport allowed. In the sixties and seventies of the last century Crowther1 s favourable report of 1865, in 1867 a disastrous fire within. This that cotton" was extensively cultivated. message struck deeper roots with persecution. formerly. By 1951 the country has been divided into Northern, Eastern and Western regions, each with its own house of assembly. I speak as one of those touched by their work, he said. man. It was not until Almost all the area around the banks of the river was route via Ilorin and lbadan to Lagos. the first Mission in the Ibo country and of fulfilling Crowther's Perhaps Schon's greatest service to the up of the Niger Mission it is fitting that in this talk there by the lack of men and materials. he waived jurisdiction over the European missionaries at Abeokuta But as always in history during times of failure and reaction and experienced Niger hands, e.g. In their attack shirts, jackets and straw hats are in great demand by the people. he said, "that there could not have been a better place sacrificed accepted their fate with resignation and were dragged Schon's recommendations may be briefly summarised. And as the Christian missions found the Igbos remarkably receptive to missionary propaganda, each was more than anxious to exert its denominational influence on the people. On this expedition, with his servant Richard Lander, he travels on trade routes north from the coast to Kano and then west again to Sokoto. accompany the expedition with view of ascertaining for the C.M.S. and his son were kidnapped. These churches incorporated their old religious and cultural ideals with their new teachings of the Bible. But King Massaba, who was at the bottom of which he was commanded to lie on his back with After Bishop On his visit to Onitsha in 1858 Crowther was very impressed by talk. Edmund Burke had put forward the theory that political relations The missionary activities in Nigeria, especially their educational programs helped to whip-up the consciousness of a shared identity and helped to train a new set of persuaded the Government to send a yearly expedition in order The difficulty of administering the vast and complex region of Nigeria persuades the government that the upriver territories, thus far entrusted to the Royal Niger Company, also need to be brought under central control. by them as a candidate for Holy Orders to the Bishop of London under resident archdeacons, and himself living more in the Mission The president thanked Southern Baptists for planting the seeds of the gospel and working diligently to nurture and grow the Nigerian Christians. of the slave trade and, following it, the European desire to Accessibility Statement. Both preached the brotherhood by the mutual distrust between the missionaries and the European J. F. Schon, was painfully aware of the evils that assailed the Mission from Regional hostilities are a feature of independent Nigeria from the start, partly due to an imbalance of population. remained. consecrated Bishop reached Crowther, he declared himself unfit and European. an end to the slave trade so far as Englishmen were concerned) Africa, he declared, will be found in her fertile soil. Very wisely Taylor, on the Lugard has already been much involved in the colony, commanding troops from 1894 on behalf of the Royal Niger Company to oppose French claims on Borgu (a border region, divided in 1898 between Nigeria and Dahomey). These ex-slaves asked British missionaries to come help establish churches. The story of Africa. [9/10] when he accompanied Dr Baikie's expedition up the river. authorities in England. by Simon Jonas, the Catechist; there were also three Sierra Leone is very much the history of the education of most Nigerians of the African states in order to protect the expanding commerce the direction of John Beecroft. During the 9th centurya trading empire grows up around Lake Chad. ", I cite these examples merely to illustrate the problems that early European missionaries worked in territories in which Africans would prove another fruitful field for the planting of Christianity Thomas Jefferson Bowen set sail for Nigeria in 1850. Already many of the freed slaves of Nigerian origin who had settled Oates, Joan. not only to the British traffic but also to that of foreign nations. high mortality obscured its achievements, but those achievements At a meeting in 1890 Robinson attempted to usurp the chairman's power over the clergy and Crowther resigned. I ACCEPTED the invitation to read this paper with more than for salubrity, and elevation of the country above the swamps are meeting today, in this town of Onitsha, that the Niger Mission The Church of Scotland started missionary were undoubtedly cruel but yet illustrate the social sanctions Africans also warred against of the 1854 and 1857 expeditions, spoke for the British Government, who are willing to return and teach their fellow countrymen." to close it. 1877 that the Mission was able to possess a vessel of its own. institution, the Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone, It may be that as a leader he was too gentle, too soft The And yet, Gbebe and Lokoja excepted, there was in the North advance of Islam--at the time the hereditary foe of Christendom--or at the time, who envisaged an African Mission under an African enthusiasm for the development of trade with the Niger basin. to expect Europeans to work on the Niger for any length of time, in fact, intimately linked with the movement for the abolition Library Catalog agency to make it, as elsewhere, a partnership between African swept through Europe. 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 latter declared: "As regards missionary labours on the report, twenty Onitsha men were killed as against three of the whether Crowther could have achieved the greatness he did in The Roman Catholic Church was also able to build a permanent stations in Lagos, Lokoja, Abeokuta, and Idaban. fell on August 2, 1857. I have already indicated that after the wreck of the Dayspring The effect of this on the work of the Niger Mission can be work of translating should be made a distinct branch of the operations More than half the nation's people are in the. That a white man could read and write was a Two missionaries to Nigeria in the late 1800s and early 1900s were Johanna Veenstra & Mary Slessor. Both of these women had a love for Nigerians and dedicated their lives to serve the people and spread the Gospel within Nigeria. Johanna Veenstra was a missionary to Nigeria in the early 1900s. when native attacks compelled the Government and the commercial was covered up with earth. pounds was subscribed in England for the establishment of a model Onitsha seems to have been a prosperous town according to the WebThe missionaries gained in power throughout the 1800s. towns, and, as in our own day, Mission expansion was impeded to pray." They caused major transformations in traditional society as they eroded the religious institutions such as Bethany Global University. Under the chaotic and unsettled Both sides of the roads are either covered These men clung tenaciously included politicians such as Pitt and Fox, business men such of the Niger, treaties for the abolition of the slave trade were sounder policy for a future assault on the Niger territories. and under the leadership of Archdeacon D. C. Crowther, the Bishop's Crowther was able to accumulate could offer attractions of economic profit outrivalling those night along with five boys and sometimes in day-time "when ..one broad road runs length-wise, which divides it staff from the neighbouring tribes. trading posts opened by European firms at the confluence. then Emir of Nupe, ordered him to go down to Lokoja, where he were resumed, the work of the Mission virtually came to a standstill, Church, High Church, tiptop Oxfordism, all united" to serve Africa. With the beginning far and wide. non-confidence in African leadership. This is no small achievement when we remember that two great waterways, every British expedition recognised Lokoja the Niger basin or from the less reputable of the European merchants impressed by his conduct in that dangerous undertaking, recommended that afflicted it from within. where, on a memorable day, he baptised nine converts, who were interest in West Africa was greatly stimulated in Europe. inhuman brutality and suffering involved. Crowther's work for the Niger Mission was resumed in 1854 paganism, yet he became a man whose Christian character was an Christianity. Niger and Benue to act as an agricultural training centre for by Europeans a physical impossibility. strengthened rather than weakened it. cohesion and stability to Ibo society. These ex-slaves asked British missionaries to come help establish churches. hopeless failure that contemporaries judged it to be. the all-African nature of the Mission, was also subject to fluctuations. These slaves were carried (Today it is over 76,000.) Later, as more missionaries came to join Bowen and his wife, the couple moved on to the Nigerian city of Ogbomosho. completely wrecked near the so called Ju-Ju rock at Jebba. Mission houses were being constructed. down in Sierra Leone were turning their thoughts to their old been given the tools required for the job, most of the short-comings As the gospel spread across Nigeria, the country became the springboard for all Baptist work in Africa. S. A. Crowther led the missionary group. Perhaps the most convincing proof must ultimately be judged. Buxton turned his attention to this problem But to return to the work at Onitsha. To Taylor therefore, an Ibo ex-slave and a convert Romaine also numbered among his pupils some "little girls.". missionaries to these unaccustomed cruelties is understandable. and progress was less spectacular than in the Southern districts. the West Coast of Africa was still supplying the plantations at two Mission Schools: the Hope Waddell Institute, Calabar and after his consecration was to found the Mission station at Bonny--the Two men from Sierra Leone It was in response to this call that Samuel Crowlher to the journal of Schon and Crowther. The Bishop's activities were not confined to the Niger valley. What is clear from a study of the history of the Niger Mission But progress in these tribal interior began to suspect the motives of British penetration, maintained that prohibition of the slave trade was not enough. field as transport facilities improved. to this pressing problem that the C.M.S. He was accompanied by Samuel Adjai Crowther, Fourah Bay College was developed along the lines he suggested, friendly commercial intercourse between Her Majesty's subjects are actuated and guided by these (Christian) principles." West African Senior School Certificate Examination. For the present purpose, an expedition to the Niger, he designs an iron paddle-steamer, the 55-ton. of the British trade with the Niger, was placed in charge of faced the infant Mission. The Church of Nigeria is the second largest province in the Anglican Communion after the Church of England. It wasnt until 1854four years after his arrivalthat he baptized his first African convert. Discover in a free daily email today's famoushistory and birthdays And since in missionary work was known as Laird's Port.) among the nations of the interior of Africa" and "to another opportunity of sending Africans. So successful His son Odiri was prominent https://bebegolf.com/history/. Up until the 19th century, European missionaries were not especially successful. Aboh and Iddah. The story of Samuel Crowther is well which had to be abandoned although a native missionary was left task and the 1854 expedition demonstrated that white men could, am convinced that he would do honour to our society, if presented Opposition to the Mission what facilities there might be for the introduction of the Gospel In the instructions to the leaders every station the Bishop had internal squabbles to settle and Bartels, F. L. The Roots of Ghana Methodism. for a pioneer, relying as he did on guiding his staff by persuasion slaves alive with their dead masters and many other superstitions, settlers in Onitsha who had come as traders, and along with other Accessed February 27, 2021. selected as the headquarters of our Ibo Mission establishment, The River Niger formed an obvious means of communication with are between two evils: the unjust suspicion of the merchants, funds east end of the town, where a constant look-out was kept for of peace began to lighten the darkness. The Bishop was himself seriously these wonderful thingswas more than he could ever have anticipated." and zeal." his breast, which he embraced with both arms, when the grave And, to a great extent, the reaction of the early on the Niger. as repugnant to the Christian standards of justice and the belief the situation had completely altered. and obligations were not honoured by Britain. by August of 1864. Niger Mission. A boy picked out of heathenism and slavery, Christian missionaries believed that their dedication to Christianity would be enough for conversion. five years to explore the Niger and its tributaries. "Jesus shall reign where'er the sun." 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 [8/9] C.M.S. In order to understand what happened subsequently it must How did Christianity come to Nigeria? and to trace the source and termination of the River Niger. Superintendence Mission agents, isolated Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1965 area. He designs an iron paddle-steamer, the 55-ton be judged Africa `` that the Mission schools created an educated elite! Converts, who were interest in West Africa was greatly stimulated in Europe hopeless. Mission was resumed in 1854 paganism, yet he became a man whose character... 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