Jerarquía de valores que manifiestan actualmente los

UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY

72

was appointed Superintendent of Charlotte village, the first liberated African to be appointed to such a post. Others, like John Bziidio, a ffupe, Willia* Pratt, an Ibo and Benjamin Pratt, a Yoruba, ware rlsint; young men, investing money in land, making oontacta with business houses in Europe,

supporting the missions fervently, seeking eood education for their children, trying to live as much as possible like

Wlctorian gentlemen.

Others were rising In mission employment, the moat

notable of whom was Ajayl, who arrived in the colony in June, 1822 and was baptised by Rev. J.f. Hub an. in 1625 as Samuel Crowther, after the Vioar of Christ Church, Newgate, a

prominent supporter of the C.’V'. He was an industrious, Intelligent, humble young man, the type beloved by mission­

aries. He learned to read and write; he learned some carpentry from K*.r. Weeks, the Industrial A ,ent of the mission, who later became Biehop; he went to England with Rev. end Hra. Savoy, in 1826 and spent some months at the parish school in Islington, He returned, in 1827, In time to be the first student enrolled for the institution that was

2

to beoome Pour&h Bay College. He taught in various oissioi 1. C.H. ?yfet "The Life and Times of John Sccidio" in

Sierra Leone Studies, new aeries no 4, June 1955.

2. Stooks, op.olt.. vol.i, pp.450-1.

UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY

/

73

■Ml government schools, probably halpin?.; Raban in collecting vocabularies of the Yoruba language, studying Greek and a

local language, fimna. By 1840 be bad become sufficiently important to sign petitions on behalf of other liberated

Africans, In iiuguat of that year, wiia one John Attara, ae addressed a petition to the special meeting of the local committee of the 0*M.3* about higher eciuoatiom

"We hear that the ooiamittee in England is very glad to do anything for our children in

vurope, but ia very much concerned about their health and life,

"We do not deny this* but still we have had many example® of boys who have been sent to England several of whom have already returned to the colony after many years spent in that country, which make(n) us hope for the best and therefore we are willing

to make our children an example, on our part.

"Our chief motive in writing to you on this important step is, should it please God, after they are qualified they say be usefully employed a® the servants of the Ghurch Missionary Society in this benighted continent," 1

He wan at the,, same time advocating the establishment of a model farm and the formation of an Agricultural Society, He added, incidentally, that he had invested his own and his wife’s savings in n plot of land.- It was probably by these nativities that he first showed his gift of leadership, his persistent advocacy of progressive measures and hi® unmis­

takable intellectual ability, ass well pa a firm, practical 1 Crowthar and -Vttara, Petition to Special Meeting of

L o o m Committee, (CMS CA1/M9). 17 Mg, 1840,

UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY

74

•^raaa. e\ 1 enl eTrp-r«ssftd in ft %laittl9ft« lift* >5011)31 O'!

home and in public office. When asked to join the Sigar expedition, he readily agreed, but when it was further suggested that be should emigrate, and be the cateohiat In charge of the settlers at the model farm at Lokoj», he

demurred, pointing out that he had a family, and recommending instead Thomas King, who was a widower with a daughter old

1 enough to be left with her uncle,

Jy To the majority of the liberated African#, however, success by no means came ao easily* Women were scarce;

markets, farming land, opportunities in general were restricte There wae rivalry at the top, with the Waroone and the Nova Scotians, and rivalry below, with the Eroomen and the Timne.

!,:any of them therefore began to look for opportunities beyond the colony. John Langley began trading with the peoples to the north of the oolony, but in 1P54 the Governor had to intervene to rescue him from jail when the Alkali of Port Lokko Imprisoned him for Beilin; gunpowder to his enemies,

the Meades. A little later, others, singly or in mutual aid groups, bought condemned slave vessels and traded down the coast as far as Badagry end Lagos. It was here that 1. ^arburton, Sec. of Local Committee to CMS Secretaries,

July 20th, 1P41. (C.K.S. CAL/Q3).

2.

c.H.

UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY

(

75

#ome of them found people they know and old family ties o

were renewed. Ab Crowther described it two years later,

"Some found their children, othera their brothero and slaters by who® they were entreated not to return to Sierra Leone. One of the traders has brought to Sierra Leone two of his grandchildren from Badagry to receive instruction, several of them had gone into the interior altogether. Othera in this colony have messages sent to them by their parents and relations whom the traders met at Badagry." 1

In November, 18i9* while Buxton's Remedy was still a secret plan being urged on the Government, twenty-three leading loruba merchants, led by fhoaas Will, presented to

Governor ooherty a petition which oont&ined idfiaa curiously liae Buxton's. fhe humble petitioners

"feel with muon thankful to Almighty God and the Oueen of England, who had rescued us from being in a state of slavery, ana has brought ua to this oolony and set us at liberty and thanks be to the

God of all mercy who has sent his servants to declare unto us poor oreaturea the way of salvation, which illuminates our understanding so we are brought to know we have a soul to save, and when your humble petitioners look back upon their poor oountry people who are no* living in darkness, without the light of the Gospel so we take upon ourselves to direct this our humble petition to your F/voellenoy.

"fh&t the Queen will gr&olously to sympathise with her humble petitioners to establish a oolony to Beds«?ry that the same may be under the Queen's Juris­

diction and bag of her Royal Majesty to send mission­

ary with us and by so doing the slave trade oan be abolished, because the salve dealers can be afeared to go up to the said place so that the Gospel of Christ oan be preaohed throughout our land

1. streets from Samuel Crowther’s Journal for the term ending June 1841 in C.M.3. 041/M9, p.438.

UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY

Governor Doherty recommended the proposal to the favourable consideration of lord Russell

"Tf it should consist with the designs of Her Majesty*s Government for the extirpation of the sieve trade and the civilisation of the continent to encourage the establishment of any settlements of this description*. 1

Tt xmrt be said, however, that these respectable

^enchants with landed property were not the people intending to emigrate. Rone of the twenty-three signatories of the petition is in fact known to have emigrated. By March, 1^40, Governor Doherty seems to have realised this, when he wrote another dispatch on the “pretty extensive and growing disposition* to emigrate that existed in the colony. The people concerned were smaller men and they were not waiting for the British Government to establish a colony for them.

Two parties of fourteen and twenty he said had left.

* At this moment not fewer than two hundred persons, belonging chiefly to the Housea country and the kingdom of Yarriba lyinr east and west of the Higer, having subscribed the amount of 4 dollars waoh towards the formation of a fund, have purchased with it a condemned priee-vesael, in which it was

their Intention to proceed to Badagry and from thence to seek their native homes at a distance of some

hundred miles inland.*

They were men who had not found opportunities in Sierra Leone t

"They allege that in this colony they are retarded in the career of improvement, that no op ortunity ie afforded them of increasing their means and further ameliorating their condition! and

UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY

77

certainly they receive little encouragement from the Maroons and settlers or from the Europeans themselves, who on all occasions prefer for employment the tribes of Kroomen and Timanees. The villagers complain that they are without a market for their produce.

And to these causes is, no doubt, to be added a restless spirit of change which appears to be natural to Africans”.

The Governor was certainly not as enthusiastic about this mass movement as he had been about the proposal for a British colony in Badagry. Of the two hundred people, he said that he issued passports to only forty-four men and seventeen women, as the others were intending to take about one hundred children with them and he could not allow the risk of kidnapping. ”1 have in vain cautioned them”, he continued :

”against the dangers to which they expose themselves in returning without protection to those parts of the continent, of being again made captives, and again sold into slavery. They reply that in their own

countries they are free persons and therefore not liable to be sold there unless taken in war; and that in travelling through other

territories in large bodies, they encounter no risk”. 1

Lord Russell commended his attitude j

”1 think you have done right to discourage the designs of those liberated Africans who projected to leave the colony with children:

but you may very well allow emigration to Jamaica, Trinidad and British Guiana”. 2 1 1. Doherty to Russell 20th March, 1840, cit Kuozynskl,

op,cit., pp.136-7.

2 ibid.

UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY

78

•■Setliar, /hen he was probably a till undecided whether to

-jiot. t Buxton*a pj.aa for the Niger Expedition, he had rejected

*"r.£ petition of the Yoruba merchants, on the grounds of crpenee, **?e cannot a end them", he Mnuted, "without

•'Tin them security and protection, which implies expense*

1

■ -t they can go if they wish," But even In ’larch, 1841, when the Niger Expedition was about to leave England, he w *3ore concerned with putting all aorta of preaaure, short of actual eoe c , on the liberated Africans to emigrate

2 to the '?eat Indies than in assisting them to go to Nigeria.

'"here wae evidently no connection in his mind between the Lrvjs, spontaneous emigration of people who, according to his Under*Secretary, did not appear "well-instrueted in the arts

3

of civilised life" and the ordered movement of civilising missionaries proposed by Buxton.

^ varies in Sierra Leone at first frowned on a movement leading their parishioners to forsake the means of Grace for a land of d-'iTknaas, 'The same opinion was later expressed at ibeokuta by Henry Townsend. By leaving Sierra Leans, ho ©aid, the emigrants had "left the country where Pod was known for this where Cod was not knownj thus

turning their backs upon the favours ana privileges Cod had L 1* »inut* on Doherty’s dispatch of 5Oth November, 1639,

op.cit.

2. Bussell to nov, J, Jereraie, 20th Earoh, 1841, oit Zuexynski, op.cit., p.138.

3* * ! S ? 2 M ® lth on Doherty1a dispatch of 3Qth

UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY

i«*rtowed upon theta”. However, ae Buxton*a ideas were

ru < i, the lajlaelonarios soon adopted « more conoilliaiory attitude. ’•It is well that this desire (to emigrate) be cherished", said the G.1,3. Secretaries In Deoeraoer, 1840,

’’but it ia requisite also that it should be carefully regulated and controlled, Tf any considerable nuafcar should move before arrange­

ments for their advantageous location in the countries on the Eiger, disappointment or, if not, something worse would ensue." 2

^/Nevertheless, the emigration continued, not to the Niger but to Badaery and the Yoruba country, and the failure of the expedition did not stop it. The Methodists, who had nlayed a less oonaulouous cart than the O.M.S, In the arrangements tor the expedition, were the first to adopt the emlgration wholeheartedly as an alternative way of penetrating into Nigeria. $m early as June, 1841, Rev.

Thomas hove, the Superintendent of the Methodist Mission in Sierra Deane, announced that he had received two letters from the emigrants in Badagry, one anonymous, the other signed by James Ferrusaon, inviting missionaries to visit

3

them urgently. In recommending the letters for action by the Home Constttee. Dove asserted that the desire of the emigrants for their country was 123

1. "Journal of H. Tbwneend while os a Mission of Research",

o p,pit., entry for Jen.5th, 1843.

2. C.M.3. Secretaries to 3ohon, Bee. 3rd, 1840 (CMS C41/D3).

3. Published in Math Missionary Sotioea new series no.l,