Category: History – Civilization
-
By a Native of Aneho Eko Akete 22 February, 1924. Marcus Garvey stands out prominently as one of the greatest Africans of the age. The scriptures saith, a little child shall lead them. Garvey is comparatively a child, a youngman of thirty-four, aspiring to unite 400 million Africans and to found an African Empire. That…
-
Eleri-Onigbajo was the ancient Human right activist and warrior whose activities drew the curtain on the sixth Alafin’s reign. Also called the Gbonka, Eliri-Onigbajo had a reputation for rare bravery in opposing the King’s encroachment upon the liberties of the people. The Gbonka was nevertheless the best possible option to do the King’s bidding when…
-
Samuel Ajayi Crowther was a man from a simple West African village who as a lad, was rescued by the British Man-O-War to become in due course, the first African Bishop of modern times, and scholar, honoured by the Oxford University for his translation work. Ten times in seventy years he went to England. He…
-
Thomas Babington Macaulay was the founder and the first principal of CMS Grammar School, Lagos which is the oldest secondary school in Nigeria. He is also credited, alongside his father-in-law, Samuel Ajayi Crowther, and Thomas King, with translation of the Bible into the Yoruba language. Babinton was born 26 January 1826 to Yoruba Parents who…
-
Saro, a descriptive term apparently coined from “Sierra Leonean,” is a class of urbanized Yoruba former slaves that emerged in the nineteenth century following the 1807 British outlaw of slave trade. They were the ones, or children of those liberated by the British navy from slaving ships on the high seas. Many of these returnees…
-
Thomas Birch Freeman was a Methodist minister and first preacher of the Christian gospel in Nigeria. Freeman was a mulatoo of black and English parentage, born in 1809 in Hampshire, England. He arrived in West Africa in 1838, a year after he was accepted as a Methodist missionary. At this time, some Saros who had…
-
C.M.S. Grammar School is Nigeria’s first secondary school, established in June 1859 by Church Missionary Society, a Christian organization dedicated to the promotion of the faith. Herbert Macaulay’s father, Thomas Babington, as founder, had served as the school’s first principal. Primary schools in Lagos at this time were not up to ten. Expectedly, it was…
-
Nathaniel King was the first Nigerian to practice modern medicine in his own country. Nathaniel was born 14 July 1847 in Freetown to a Yoruba Clergyman, Rev.Thomas King, who together with Ajayi Crowther, translated several catechisms and portions of the Bible into Nigerian dialects. Nathaniel King returned with his missionary father to Abeokuta where he…
-
Thomas King was an indigenous missionary and collaborator in the translation of catechisms and the Bible into Nigerian languages. King was kidnapped as a child in an Egba homestead in 1825 but was freed and brought to Sierra Leone. Twenty-five years later, he was reunited with his mother at Abeokuta. He moved from Sierra Leone…
