The English Wesleyan Methodists, through the influence of the Rev. Dr. Coke, sent a missionary, in 1811, to the Nova Scotia free blacks, in Sierra Leone; and, in the course of a year, the converts were reported at 60.[[32]] In 1831, twenty years after the commencement of the mission, it included but 2 missionaries, 294 church members, and about 160 pupils in its schools. The Wesleyan Mission, like the Episcopal, progressed slowly at first; but, as it collected the elements of progress within its bosom, it also, began to expand, and is now advancing prosperously. Its stations have been extended westward to the Gambia, and eastward to various points, including Cape Coast Castle, Badagry, Abbeokuta, and Kumasi. In connection with these missions, the Wesleyan Methodists, in 1850, had 44 chapels, 13 out-stations, 42 days-chools, 97 teachers, 4,500 pupils, including those in the Sabbath schools, 6,000 communicants, on trial 560, and 14,600 attendants on public worship.
But these colonies of Recaptured Africans, are too important an agency in the redemption of Africa, to be passed over without further consideration; so that their position and that of Liberia, in this respect, may be clearly comprehended. In addition to Sierra Leone, they include several minor stations; two of which are on the Gambia, and the others on the coast east of Liberia.
From documents presented to Parliament, it appears, that, in 1850, there was a Christian population, in Sierra Leone, of more than 36,000, out of about 45,000. In this population, it was estimated, that there were representatives of no fewer than one hundred different tribes, speaking different languages and dialects; so that there are already converts prepared, as far as the knowledge of the languages is concerned, to go forth in every direction, and to explain to their countrymen, in their own tongue, the truths of revelation. Since the subject was before Parliament, Bishop Vidal has commenced his labors, and this question has received particular attention. It has been ascertained that no fewer than 151 distinct languages, besides several dialects, are spoken in Sierra Leone. They have been arranged under 26 groups; but there still remain 54 unclassified, which are more distinct from each other, and from all the rest, than the languages of Europe are from one another; thus unfolding to the view of the Christian philanthropist, an agency, in the course of preparation, which, under Divine Providence, may carry the Gospel to the unnumbered millions of immortal souls inhabiting the continent of Africa.
A few facts will show that this is not an idle speculation, but that she has successfully entered upon her great mission.
Among the Recaptured Africans introduced into Sierra Leone, and brought under the civilizing influences of its Christian institutions, none have made such rapid progress as the people of Yoruba, a country lying eastward of the kingdom of Dahomey. Their first appearance in the Colony was about 1822. Many of them soon acquired a considerable amount of intelligence and a little property. In 1839, they had become quite numerous, and a party of them purchased a vessel, hired a white captain, and commenced a traffic with Badagry. This town is at a point on the coast from which the Yoruba country can be most easily reached. The trade thus begun soon led to a rapid emigration from Sierra Leone, and the planting of missions at both Badagry and Abbeokuta, the capital of Yoruba.
Abbeokuta is a walled city, founded in 1825, from the fragments of the tribes of the kingdom of Yoruba, who escaped the invading armies of the Fellatahs, while this powerful people were the principal “slave hunters” for the traders of the western coast of Africa. It contains the remains of 130 towns, and at present embraces a population of nearly 100,000. Badagry, in 1850, contained about 11,000 inhabitants. The Sierra Leone emigrants, at the former city, numbered three thousand, and, at the latter, several hundred. At the period when the emigration commenced, and for several years afterward, the slave-trade prevailed on the coast; and the people of Badagry and Abbeokuta were engaged in supplying the market with slaves. This led them to wage frequent wars, and kept up feelings of hostility throughout the country. In these slave hunts, the people of Lagos bore a conspicuous part. This town is about 36 miles to the eastward of Badagry, is large and populous, and had hitherto been the head-quarters of the slave-trade in the Bight of Benin. The river Ossa, a lagoon, running parallel with the coast, unites these two places.
The Episcopal Mission at Sierra Leone, sent an exploring committee to Abbeokuta in 1842, and early in 1845 its first missionaries landed at Badagry. In both instances they found the Wesleyans in advance of them. Being unable to reach Abbeokuta, on account of existing wars, a mission was founded at Badagry. In 1846, a noted slave-dealer of the coast, forced the warring tribes to cease hostilities, that he might collect his slaves from the interior; and the missionaries, embracing this moment of peace, were enabled to reach Abbeokuta.
Among the Episcopal Missionaries, was the Rev. Samuel Crowther, a native of Yoruba, who had been captured by the Fellatahs, in 1821, and sold to the traders at Lagos. Shipped on board a slaver for Brazil, recaptured by an English cruizer, educated at Sierra Leone, ordained to the ministry of the Gospel in England, he had now returned, after twenty-five years of sanctified captivity, to proclaim the way of salvation to his relatives and countrymen; and he had the inexpressible gratification of finding his mother and two sisters, soon after his arrival, and of being instrumental in her conversion to Christianity.
The chiefs of Abbeokuta received the missionaries with kindness; and, no wonder, as some of them had relatives of their own, sitting by them, who had been liberated by the English.
With the favorable regard of the chiefs, and the co-operation of many of the emigrants from Sierra Leone, the Gospel, for a time, had free course in Abbeokuta; and its population listened with a willing ear to the offers of eternal life. But, in 1848, the native priests, priestesses, and slave-catchers, stirred up a spirit of persecution against the converts, and the Gospel was greatly hindered. This persecution continued, with some intervals in its violence, throughout the two succeeding years. In January, 1851, the British consul, Mr. Beecroft, visited Abbeokuta, and his presence had a salutary effect in overawing the enemies of Christianity, and disposing the chiefs to abandon the slave-trade. He gave them notice, also, that the king of Dahomey had projected an attack upon their city, in his next campaign for capturing slaves, and that his Amazons had doomed it to destruction.