The Badagry Heritage: What you don’t know about the Atlantic Slave trade and Missionary activities in Nigeria
Daniel Aokwuru
In the years of slavery, our forefathers, mothers, including their children were abducted and sold into slavery. During this period, they endured horrific hardships in the hands of their brutal slave masters. While their lives were filled with misery, they retained their strength and dignity. They continued to hope that one day; they will be liberated from their cruel state.
They were forced through the Atlantic, as our youths today are forcing themselves to Europe through the Mediterranean. Some ends up in the belly of fishes trying to escape from the land filled with honey. A blessed land with all the natural endowment nature can provide.
According to Sabayo Abolore in “The Missing Link”, Slavery, which officially started around 1400 to 1807, occurred in many forms throughout the world. But the Atlantic enslavement, which forcibly brought more than 10 million Africans to the Americas, created a massive historical injustice and went a long way in distorting our self-esteem, history, economy, religion and future.
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Abolore noted that from the unheard stories captured on pictures, to chilling videos of “Voyage gone wrong”, many died in the heart of the sea. Many were kidnapped and tortured to death. Some died in prison; many were forced into prostitution in different countries.
Located in the ancient city of Badagry, Lagos, the Badagry Heritage Museum built in 1863, harbours and preserves artifacts and records from the transatlantic slave trade that was once in Badagry, and the historical record of Missionary activities that came to Nigeria.
A visit to the heritage will remind one of the barbaric trades that once thrived in Africa. It reminds us of our past. Most tourists usually come out with anger after seeing the nine galleries of the historian sobering. The final exit route used in the 17th and 18th centuries to transfer slaves to the point of no return at the tip of the Peninsula was the same route used by the missionaries that brought Christianity to Nigeria.
The heritage allows us to understand our past, which in turn allows us to understand our present. The economic importance of this museum is yet to be discovered.
Mr. Tunde Ajose, the Curator at the transatlantic museum, posited that the museum is a historical treasure waiting to be unearthed and explored fully. He emphasized the need for government to explore the rich heritage as a serious source of revenue to the state.
The abolition of the slave trade in southern Nigeria, 1885 to 1950, is a campaign waged by Great Britain in Colonial Nigeria from approximately 1885 onwards. It aimed at abolishing the slave trade in the Bright of Biafra and its hinterland known as Eastern Nigeria, Southern Nigeria, and the Eastern Provinces. It canvassed for emancipation to root the slave trade out.
Some notable facts that made Badagry a tourist destination were events like, the First Story building in Nigeria, built in 1845 by Reverend C. A. Gollmer. The house was built of sound African wood principally of what we call brimstones.
It is Ten feet raised from the ground on Twenty Six stout and durable trees called Cabbage trees and a species of coconut trees and on nine other smaller trees. The building is Forty Four feet in length and Twenty Six feet in breathe and wide. Still intact in the building are burnt bricks since 1842, Hinges since 1842, the first Yoruba Bible translated by Rt. Reverend S. A. Crowther in 1845 and the first English Bible brought by the C. M. S. Missionary, Revered Henry Townsend in 1842.
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The room of the first teacher in Nigeria Mr. Claudius Philips, who taught in the first primary school in Nigeria known as Saint Thomas Primary School, established in 1845 with forty men. The school was established by Mr. and Mrs. De Graft and was named Nursery of the Infant Church in 1843, before it was later moved to its permanent site in 1845 and was renamed St. Thomas Primary School.
Another remarkable scene in the building is the Miracle Well dug in 1842. According to Mr. Ezekiel Viavonu, the curator at the Missionary museum, he said that the miracle well dug by the missionaries was the only well water that served the people of the community.
He stressed that other well dugs by residents of the community has bad taste, colour, and it sometimes dries up. But that of the missionaries has good taste, colour, and has never dried up before. On the secret behind the name, “The miracle well”, he maintained that the tourists that had visited the well and drank from it testified that it cured their sicknesses.
Also located in Badagry is the Agia tree monument. Reverend Thoman Birch Freeman from Wesleyan Missionary first preached Christianity in Nigeria under the Agia tree on September 24, 1842. The first Christian service was jointly held under the tree by both the Anglican and Wesleyan Missionaries led by Reverend Henry Townsend and Reverend Birch Freeman. The tree fell on June 20, 1959, and was replaced with a monument.
The historical fact on emergence of Christianity in the heritage noted that it dated back to November 1839, when 23 librated Africans resident in Freetown, Sierra Leone, sent a petition composed in stilted English, to the Governor of Sierra Leone, praying for the Queen of England, Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, to help them to return to Nigeria, and establish for them, a colony in Badagry.
The governor communicated the message to Lord John Russell the British Secretary of Foreign Affairs. The secretary of State maintained that approving such demand has financial implication, as they cannot send them without providing security and protection. He maintained that they can go on their own if they wish to go.
The liberated slaves found their home back home at their own risk. Their known home was Badagry.
After a year of settling in Badagry, one of the librated slaves, James Fergusson sent a letter to the Methodist Mission in Sierra Leone, demanding that missionaries be sent urgently. The letter was further sent to London, which prompted them to send Reverend Thomas Birch Freeman to Badagry.
Freeman arrived Badagry on September 24, 1842, a day known as the origin of Christian Missionary in Nigeria. He proceeded to Agia tree and preached the first Christian gospel in Nigeria. The tree is about one hundred and sixty feet tall and about thirty feet circumference, it produced a tree called “Agia”.
The action of the Methodist gave birth to the Church Missionary Society (CMS), to also care for the emigrants of the Anglican missionary. At age 26, Henry Townsend was sent to Badagry and Abeokuta by the C. M. S. Townsend arrived Badagry same year, and they worshiped under the Agia tree on December 25, 1842, which was the first Christmas Service. Townsend latter proceeded to Abeokuta in January 1842. The Agia tree lived for three hundred years and came down on June 20, 1959, at 11:45am.
Mr. Viavonu also shares same view with Mr. Tunde Ajose. He said our leaders can make the Badagry Heritage the number one tourist destination in Nigeria, owing to the rich history and culture precedent. He said: “Our leaders go to Mecca and Jerusalem in mass.
They go there for tourism. These countries generate a lot of money from us in the name of tourism. They see history as one of their major source of revenue. If the Nigeria government can see beyond oil and explore the rich history of Badagry so as to maximise the economic profit, it can go a long way to boost our revenue generation. The history of slave trade and Christianity started here. Whatever you want to know is here”.
