Do you know the first Christmas in Nigeria was celebrated in Badagry in 1842? Badagry is historical as well as ancient city in the Southwest of Nigeria. We share borders with the Republic of Benin, which also has substantial number of Yoruba people in the Beninoise areas of Ketu, Ajase and so on. In history, Badagry is one of the cities along the West Coast of Africa that had early contact with the Europeans like the Portuguese, the German, the British and other European countries. We have cordial relationship with those countries which came here mainly for business and missionary work. That went on and led to slave trade. How did a cordial relationship with a people as refined as the whites lead to slave trade in the way it happened? You know, following the discovery of the New World that is today known to be the United States of America, most Portuguese needed help and so wanted some able-bodied people to work on the plantations in the New World. That was early 15th century. Therefore the kings of Portugal and Spain sent emissaries to West Africa and when they came, Badagry was one of the cities they visited to make enquiries about how to get people to work on their plantations. Like I said, that led to the beginning of the slave trade and so, by 1473 or there about, the first slave trader came. He was a Portuguese or Brazilian trader known as Flamingo. He was the one sent to come to bring slaves from the hinterland. Gradually more and more slave traders came and they did it essentially within the old Oyo Empire and parts of the present day Abia State. Slaves were bought from those places and Badagry was a major centre for the slave trading activities because it was here they brought all the slaves they bought for onward transportation to the New World and parts of the Caribbean, including Brazil. That slave trade lasted for many centuries until it eventually stopped with the sending of 500 liberated slaves from Sierra Leone to Badagry to enable them go to their homesteads in Egba Land, Lagos and other places. Now those brought to Badagry were dispatched but there remained a group which lived in Furabay Compound, an oracle quarters here in Badagry. The compound is still there. While they were here they could not get any place of worship as Christians that they had now become having mingled with Christian faithful abroad. So they wrote a letter to the Church in Britain asking them to send missionaries so that they could establish a place of worship here in Nigeria for them to worship. That letter was dated 20th March, 1841 and I have a copy of it and it was published in a magazine. The following year, in 1842 particularly on September 23rd, the first missionary arrived at the beach and he came up here on the following day of September 24th and preached the first gospel under the …. So that was how gospel started in Nigeria and that happened also in Badagry. But in traditional African community of which Badagry features prominently, introduction of the gospel wasn’t said to be easy. How receptive was Badagry to the introduction of Christian religion? The missionaries didn’t find it easy to preach the gospel because we already had traditional people worshiping in their own way and they were against the establishment of Christian religion in Badagry. And there was collision between missionaries and our people such that at a stage in 1843 the missionaries sent a message to the governor of the old Gold Coast (now Ghana) asking him to send troops for their protection in Badagry. So the governor sent a sergeant and a few soldiers who then were giving protection to the missionaries. As a result of the collision, many of the missionaries left Badagry and went to Abeokuta, Lagos and other places and that was how Christian mission spread through Badagry to other parts of Nigeria. The Baptist missionaries also came into the country. It didn’t stop there; the Methodist missionary, Thomas Birch Freeman, was the first to preach the gospel on the 23rd of September 1842. He came with some people, for instance the ….couple who established the first primary school also here in Badagry in 1843. By the 17th of December 1842, a few months after the arrival of Freeman, Henry Townsend came. By the time Townsend arrived, Freeman had left Badagry for Abeokuta in pursuance of his missionary work. Towards the end of December and so the two of them jointly officiated at a (Church) service, which established the celebration of Christmas. So, Christmas was first celebrated in Nigeria on December 25, 1842 and it was in Badagry. You haven’t talked about how the slaves were collected and what the mode of collection was? When they were brought to Badagry, they were moved straight to Gberefu Peninsular, the small, small buildings built to keep them while awaiting shipment. The big ship would arrive and stayed in the deep sea but there were smaller boats in which they were moved into the ship and packed like sardine. After leaving the ports here, the ports opposite the Post Office, they were taken in canoes to Gberefu Peninsular and onwardly to their point of no-return. And it was called point of no-return because they never thought of returning home again and those points of return were Brazil especially the State of Bahia; Cuba; some parts of the Caribbean. There are some countries, therefore, in the Caribean where people are mostly Nigerians today as a result of the slave trade. For instance Barbados; there the population is largely Egba particularly the Egbado people from Ilaro. As a matter of fact, the office of the Prime Minister of Barbados is called Ilaro Court (pronounced as il’laro- kôrt).
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 08:28:38 +0000
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