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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
In the course of the past century the centre of gravity of the Christian world has shifted completely. Europe, once the centre, is now at best an outpost on the fringe of the Christian world, some would say an outpost likely to be overwhelmed. The great majority of Christians, and the overwhelming majority of practising Christians are, and are clearly going to be, Africans, Americans or Asians. And of these, the most startling expansion—the greatest Christian expansion since what were for Europe the Middle Ages—has been in Africa, where Christians have been increasing in geometrical progression, doubling their numbers every twelve years or so, for over a century. The greater part of African Church history, however, has still to be written. Hagiography we have in abundance, and hagiography, like mythology, is a valid literary genre; but (again like mythology) it is a poetic, not a scholarly category. Of missionary history we have a little, though very little in proportion to the vast resources which the missionary society archives supply; but missionary history is only one specialized part of African Church history; by far the greater part of African Christian life and African Christian expansion goes on, and has long gone on, without the presence, let alone the superintendence, of the European missionary.
Page 107 of note 1 This description is intended to distinguish it from those churches which derive directly from the ancient churches of Egypt and Ethiopia, or from Counter-Reformation missionary activity; and from the chaplaincies to European residents, which sometimes touched some Africans, in the forts and factories of Britain, Holland, Denmark and Brandenburg.
Page 108 of note 1 Wadstrom, C.B., An Essay on Colonization (London 1794), p. 338 Google Scholar.
Page 108 of note 2 On the Sierra Leone colony as a whole see the admirable History of Sierra Leone by Christopher, Fyfe (Oxford 1962)Google Scholar. Cf.Kuczynski, R. R., Demographic Survey of the British Colonial Empire, 1 (London 1948)Google Scholar.
Page 108 of note 3 Elliott, J. B., Lady Huntingdon’s Connexion in Sierra Leone: a Narrative of its History and Present State (London 1851), p. 14 Google Scholar.
Page 109 of note 1 Cf.Walls, A. F., ‘The Nova Scotian settlers and their religion’, Sierra Leone Bulletin of Religion, 1 (1959), 19–31 Google Scholar.
Page 109 of note 2 An Account of the Colony of Siena Leone, 2nd ed. (1795), p. 80.
Page 109 of note 3 Samuel Gamble, captain of the Sandown; see Kup, A. P., ‘Freetown in 1794’, Sierra Leone Studies, n.s., XI (1958), 163 Google Scholar.
Page 110 of note 1 Anna Maria Falconbridge, Two Voyages to Sierra Leone (London 1794), p. 201 Google Scholar.
Page 111 of note 1 July, R. W., The Origins of Modern Africa Thought (London 1968), pp. 48–66 Google Scholar; Hair, P. E. H., Christianity at Freetown from 1792 as a field for research, Urbanisation in African Social Change (Edinburgh 1963), pp. 127-40Google Scholar.
Page 112 of note 1 The outlines are in Groves, C.P., The Planting of Christianity in Africa (London 1948), 1, 208 ffGoogle Scholar.
Page 112 of note 2 Zachary Macaulay’s mordant account is in his journals, in the Huntingdon Library, California. A version appears in Viscountess, Knutsford, Life and Letters of Zachary Macaulay (London 1901), pp. 116 ffGoogle Scholar.
Page 112 of note 3 Brown, William, History of the Propagation of Christianity (Edinburgh 1854), II, 450 Google Scholar.
Page 113 of note 1 Stock, E., History of the Church Missionary Society (London 1899), 1, 82 ffGoogle Scholar.
Page 113 of note 2 CMS Archives, CAI | E5.
Page 113 of note 3 Bickersteth, E., A Memoir of Simeon Wilhelm, a Native of the Susoo Country in West Africa (London 1818(?), 6th ed. 1839)Google Scholar.
Page 114 of note 1 Dallas, R. C., History of the Maroons (London 1803), II, 221 ffGoogle Scholar.
Page 114 of note 2 Elliott, Lady Huntingdon’s Connexion in Sierra leeone; Thomas, Coke, An Interesting Narrative of a Mission sent to Sierra Leone.. .(London 1812)Google Scholar. Mel vill Horne, chaplain to the Company, estimated that 300 out of the 750 adults were ‘under a religious profession’ (i.e. what Coke calls ‘serious characters’), two-thirds of them Methodists, the other third divided between the Baptists and Huntingdonians (letter to Thomas Haweis in the possession of Mr Chris topher Fyfe). On David George, the much-respected Baptist pastor, see Kirk-Greene, A. H. M., ‘David George: the Nova Scotian experience’, Sierra Leone Studies n.s., XIV (1960), 93-120Google Scholar.
Page 115 of note 1 Armstrong, M. W., The Great Awakening in Nova Scotia, 1776-1809 (Hartford, Conn. 1948)Google Scholar; Barclay, W. C., Early American Methodism, 1 (New York 1949)Google Scholar; Findlay, G. G. and Holdsworth, W.W., History of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, 1 (London 1921)Google Scholar.
Page 116 of note 1 Warren, George in Methodist Magazine, XXV (n.s., IX) (1812), 317 Google Scholar. The originals of Warren’s two letters in the Methodist Magazine appear to be missing.
Page 116 of note 2 Ibid.; Cf. Coke, An Interesting Narrative, pp. 24 ff.
Page 117 of note 1 Cf.Marke, C., Origins of Wesleyan Methodism in Sierra Leone (London 1913), pp. 12 fGoogle Scholar. That recaptives were also in view is shown, e.g. by Methodist Magazine, XXV (n.s., IX) (1812), 639 (settler leaders introduceWarren to interested recaptives) and MMS Archives, James Wise and others to Wood, April 1816.
Page 117 of note 2 Warren, , Methodist Magazine, XXV (n.s., IX) (1812), 637-9Google Scholar; W. Davies to Buckley, MMS Archives, 20 February 1815 (all references to MMS Archives are to Sierra Leone Box 1).
Page 117 of note 3 Macaulay, journals (above, p. 112 n. 2): ‘One of the most humble Christians I have ever met with’.
Page 118 of note 1 Extracts from the Journal of the Rev. William Davies, 1st, when a missionary at Siena Leone, Western Africa (Llanidloes 1835), s.v. September 1815, 4 February 1816.
Page 118 of note 2 Cf.Bourne, F. W., The King’s Son: a Memoir of Billy Bray (London 1871, many editions)Google Scholar.
Page 118 of note 3 MMS Archives, Davies to Buckley, 10 August 1815.
Page 119 of note 1 Methodist Magazine, XXV (n.s., IX) (1812), 637-9.
Page 119 of note 2 Brown’s letter, dated 5 July 1806, indicates that he had made a similar request two years earlier but had received no answer. Coke, An Interesting Narrative, pp. 17 ff., says ‘many’ letters were received on this topic over the years.
Page 119 of note 3 Coke, An Interesting Narrative, pp. 24 ff.
Page 120 of note 1 Ibid. pp. 30 ff.
Page 120 of note 2 Methodist Magazine, XXV (n.s., IX) (1812), 638 f.
Page 120 of note 3 Cf. Knutsford, Life.. .of Zachary Macaulay, pp. 136 ff.
Page 120 of note 4 Methodist Magazine, XXV (n.s., IX) (1812), 638 f.
Page 121 of note 1 MMS Archives, Davies to Buckley, 20 February 1815.
Page 121 of note 2 Journal, s.v. 26 February 1815.
Page 121 of note 3 Journal, Introduction; Cf. letter from Sir C. MacCarthy, printed as appendix; and MMS Archives, Davies to Buckley, 19 December 1815. The schools’ daily orders are in MMS Archives, Sierra Leone Box 1.
Page 121 of note 4 Cf. MMS Archives, Hirst and Healey to Coke, 21 April 1812 (sic, though clearly a slip for 1813), and 16 June 1813; the same to Blanshard, 20 July 1814.
Page 122 of note 1 MMS Archives, James Wise and others to Wood, April 1816.
Page 123 of note 1 Cf.Harrison, A.W., The separation of Methodism from the Church of England (London 1945), pp. 29 ffGoogle Scholar.
Page 123 of note 2 Fyfe, History of Sierra Leone, pp. 69 f., 650.
Page 123 of note 3 Wise and others to Wood, MMS Archives, April 1816.
Page 124 of note 1 Davies, Journal, p. 37.
Page 124 of note 2 Ibid. The building used for the chaplaincy had no lights, which made it un suitable for evening use.
Page 124 of note 3 Davies, Journal, s.v. 7 February 1816.
Page 124 of note 4 Ibid. p. 53.
Page 124 of note 5 CMS Archives, CAI | E 5.
Page 125 of note 1 Cf. MMS Archives, Davies to Fleming, I January 1817.
Page 125 of note 2 MMS Archives, Brown to Entwistle, 31 March 1817.
Page 125 of note 3 The missionary Samuel Brown speaks of Davies’s ‘self-confident zeal’ (MMS Archives, 20 August 1818), and says that the basic objection of the society was to his ‘temper’ (ibid. 24 February 1817).
Page 125 of note 4 MacCarthy to Davies, printed as an appendix to the Journal.
Page 125 of note 5 MMS Archives, Brown to Entwistle, 31 March 1817. The CMS missionary Garnon speaks of the groundlessness of the charge (CMS Archives, CA 0126, 26 March 1817).
Page 126 of note 1 MMS Archives, Davies to Fleming, 13 June 1817.
Page 126 of note 2 Fyfe, History of Sierra Leone, pp. 139, 660.
Page 127 of note 1 Ibid. pp. 139 f., 201, 660, 669.
Page 127 of note 2 See Fyfe, C. H., ‘The West African Methodists in the Nineteenth Century’, Sierra Leone Bulletin of Religion, III (1961), 22-8Google Scholar.
Page 128 of note 1 On the development of Colony society see, e.g. Peterson, J. E., Freetown: a Study of the Dynamics of Liberated African Society 1807-1870 (Ph.D. thesis, Northwestern University 1963 Google Scholar; and now his book Province of Freedom (London 1969), chapters III-VII; Porter, A. T., Creoledom (London 1963)Google Scholar. Its missionary contribution to West Africa has been both neglected and misread (Cf. e.g. Stephen, Neill, Christian Missions (London 1964), pp. 305 f.Google Scholar; Foster, R. S., The Sierra Leone Church (London 1961)Google Scholar; but see Hair, P. E.H., The early study of Nigerian Languages (Cambridge 1967)Google Scholar; ‘CMS “Native Clergy” in West Africa to 1900’, Sierra Leone Bulletin of Religion,IV (1962), 71-2; ‘Freetown Christianity and Africa’, ibid, VI (1964), 13-21; ‘Niger languages and Sierra Leone missionary linguists’, Bulletin of the Society for African Church History, II (1966), 127-38; Cf. also Kopytoff, J. H., A Preface to modern Nigeria: the ‘Sierra Leonians’ in Yoruba, 1830-1890 (Madison 1965)Google Scholar.
Page 128 of note 2 It is clear that early missionaries in the Colony saw Nova Scotian evangelists as effective rivals in recaptive villages: Cf. of many, CMS Archives, CA 0126, Garnon to Pratt, 26 March 1817: ‘Now I see the need of your throwing all your strength into the Colony, so that each town may be possess’d by us, otherwise not only Mr Davies but a sad mongrel set of Baptists etc. will get there.’
Page 128 of note 3 See Dictionary of Welsh Biography, ad loc.
Page 129 of note 1 For the reconciliation, collapse of the building, and the rationale offered by-some, see C. Marke, Origins of Wesleyan Methodism in Sierra Leone, pp. 113 ff.
