Page 164 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

A History of the Church in Africa

Somerset case…was a momentous social event.… It set in motion
a bitter campaign to get the slave trade abolished and slavery
itself made unlawful. (1983, 55)

During the eighteenth century, Africans advocated the advance of
the gospel and the abolition of slavery on the continent. Two Africans
living in England in the latter part of that century wrote books about
their experience as slaves. Ottobah Cugoano, a Fanti from Ghana, and
Oluadah Equiano, an Ibo from Nigeria called for the British government
to ban the slave trade. They also called for England to conduct legitimate
trade with Africa. Equiano wrote:

The population, bowels and surface of Africa, abound in valuable
and useful returns; the hidden treasures of centuries will be
brought to light and into circulation. Industry, enterprise, and
mining will have their full scope, proportionately as they civilize.…
Tortures, murder, and every other imaginable barbarity and
iniquity are practiced upon the poor slaves with impunity. I hope
the slave trade will be abolished. I pray it may be at hand. (quoted
in Sanneh 1983, 53)

Sierra Leone

As a result of the anti-slavery movement in England, as early as 1786,
some people devised a plan to send a group of freed slaves to West
Africa to form a Christian community. They intended for it to be a grand
enterprise that would eventually lead to the abolition of the slave trade
and the creation of wealth through lawful business practices. Although
the group tried to sail several times, it had to abort each time because
of sickness and weather conditions. As a result, some became faint
hearted but others persevered. In 1787, 411 freed slaves set sail under
the leadership of Captain T. Boulden Thompson. According to Sanneh,
“Fourteen of them died before reaching Sierra Leone and within three
months of arriving, a third of the entire party died. By March 1788,
only 130 of the original number were alive” (1983, 56). Many people in
England believed that if the former slaves could succeed in trade, they
could defeat slavery.

The new residents named the settlement Freetown because it was
here that they intended to model freedom from sin and slavery, and they

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