3

THE DIOCESE OF SÃO TOMÉ – LOWER GUINEA

3.2 Elmina and the surrounding coast

The Portuguese period (1471-1642)

In their exploration of the West African coast the Portuguese reached in 1471 a place in present day Ghana called Shama at the mouth of the Pra river.^[1] A short distance to the east they came to a place called Adina, which the Portuguese dubbed “A Mina”, meaning “the mine” becuase of the gold available there. The place was later called Elmina because of a Dutch transformation of the name.^[2] On Sunday, 20 January 1482, the feast of Sts. Fabian and Sebastian the first Mass in this part of Africa was celebrated under a tree at Elmina, and in the same year the fort of São Jorge (St. George) was built on the spot as a permanent trading post.^[3] Christopher Columbus visited this fort in 1485 before he made his voyage discovering America.^[4] In 1503 another fort was under construction at Axim, some 100 klms to the west of Elmina, and in 1526 one was built at Shama.

These forts were provided with chaplains who tried to interest the neighbouring people in Christianity. In 1503 Xeryfe, the ruler of the Komenda people to the west of Elmina, became Christian with many of his people. So also did Nana Sasaxy and many of his Efutu people just northwest of Elmina. In 1513 a new Efutu chief is reported to have been baptized.^[5] In 1514 three priests were reported resident in Elmina.^[6] There was some trouble with the king of Efutu at that time, but the Portuguese tried their best, especially in a diplomatic drive in 1519-20, to win the good will of these people as well as the Asins, Akans and Aburas.^[7] But Portuguese diplomacy and the school for African boys started at the initiative of King João III in 1529^[8] resulted in no substantial progress of the faith because trade was the dominant concern. Between 1514 and 1525 this included the sale of slaves from Congo and Benin to the Africans of Elmina.^[9] Moreover there were repeated complaints that the chaplains of Elmina were more interested in trading and making money than in spreading the faith.^[10] To remedy the situation in 1554 the Jesuits were invited to come,^[11] but they declined. Martin Frobisher, an Englishman captured and brought to Elmina in 1555, said that no attempt was being made to acquaint the Africans with Christianity.^[12]

A serious effort to evangelize the country surrounding Elmina began in 1572 when four Augustinians came. The next year two more arrived and they divided the work so that two were chaplains at the fort while two worked among the Komenda people and the other two among the Efutu. A letter of 1550 refers to “King João and his son Luis” of Efutu, and in 1576 the Augustinians baptized a new king and his six sons. Shortly after this date some incident occurred between the Portuguese and the Africans and all the Augustinians but one were killed.^[13] A chaplain continued to reside in the forts of Elmina and Axim, except when quarrels with the captains prevented them.^[14] In 1607 there was a vicar in Elmina of the Order of Christ with five assistant chaplains, four in Elmina and one in Axim,^[15] but these did little if anything for the surrounding peoples.

Throughout the 16th century the Portuguese beat off English and French attempts to trade on the West African coast, but after the Dutch became independent of Spain they began to move in on the West African trade. In 1598 they built a fort at Morsee.^[16] The Portuguese tried to dislodge them but could not. The Dutch took the offensive and attacked Axim and Elmina in 1607.^[17] In 1615 Elmina sustained three attacks.^[18] The Dutch put up another fort just to the west of Elmina in 1617,^[19] and in 1618 the Portuguese were complaining that the Dutch had taken over the gold trade by underselling the Portuguese and providing goods of better quality.^[20] In 1625 Elmina held out against an attack by 2,000 Dutch and African soldiers, but the end was only delayed.

The religious state of the people at this time is described in a report to Propaganda Fide in 1632.^[21] The few African Christians were poor in knowledge and practice of the faith and secretly consulted the traditional religious experts who gave them protective holy water and advice based on fire divination. They also took part in an annual festival at a sacred rock on the beach.

A brighter side of the picture is given in a report of Raphael de Nantes, the Capuchin provincial of Brittany, based on the testimony of eye-witnesses.^[22] In 1632 the new governor Pedro Mascarenhas brought to Elmina statues of Mary, St. Francis and St. Anthony of Padua. As the ship neared Elmina the hands and face of the St. Francis statue turned black, which was interpreted to mean that St. Francis had become African to win the Africans through his spiritual sons the Capuchin Franciscans. Later a man man escaped from his relatives near Elmina and went into the bush. After 15 days he was given up for dead and the customary funeral rites were held. Later the man returned completely sane and asked for baptism. He pointed to the statue of St. Anthony and said that this man appeared to him in the bish, healed him and told him to leave his worship of spirits and embrace the faith of the Gospel. He was baptized and led an exemplary life for the rest of his days, dying before 1641, the date of the report.

The Dutch pressure on the coast kept up and in 1637 Elmina fell, followed in 1640 by Shama and in 1642 by Axim, Portugal’s last post in this part of Africa. The principal aim of the Dutch was to get slaves for Brazil, which they had taken from the Portuguese, and other markets in tropical America.^[23] Under the Dutch the slave trade swelled enormously, but their monopoly was soon broken by the entry of the Danes, the French and especially the English who made their headquarters at Kormantin in 1631, moving to Cape Coast in 1663, and by the end of the 18th century had half the trans-Atlantic slave trade in their hands. These nations had forts or trading posts interspersed almost every 10 kms along the coast from Ghana to Nigeria. They very often had Protestant chaplains, but only exceptionally did these interest themselves in converting the Africans. Rev. Meynaert Hendricksen planned a school for African children at Elmina in 1641 but could not get a teacher.^[24] Rev. Wilhelm Johann Müller, a chaplain for the Danes in 1661, planned Scripture translations in the Efutu language and the training of African preachers, but this project too did not get off the ground.^[25] The official Protestant theology of the time discouraged mission work because Africa had rejected the preaching of the Apostles and now God’s wrath lay on its peoples.^[26]

The French and Castilian Capuchins (1637-84)^[27]

In 1633 Colombin de Nantes with another Capuchin from Brittany went on a French ship which visited West Africa as far as Cape Lopez. He wrote a description of the places he saw, including Benin, whose people were very polite and skilled, and Devil’s Mountain, just west of Winneba, where a man with the Muslim name Amadou performed gruesome rites.^[28] Propaganda Fide was impressed by Colombin’s report and his high hopes for spreading the Gospel, and authorized the Capuchin province of Brittany to evangelize West Africa. In 1637 a group of five Capuchins and one diocesan priest arrived at Assinie.^[29] They were enthusiastically welcomed because the French ship had goods to trade and promised that more ships would come to continue the trade. A plan was made that four Capuchins would remain at Assinie and Fr. Bernardin, the other Capuchin, and Fr. Bénédict, the diocesan priest, would open another station further down the coast. The two boarded the ship but both died from fever within a few days together with four members of the crew. Frs. Angélique and Samuel went by foot to Allé, an area east of Assinie, and opened a station, but both died within a short time.

Frs. Colombin and Cyrille, left alone in Assinie, noticed the attitude of the people gradually cool. A year passed and no ship returned, no doubt because there was no harbour and a landing had to be made by canoes from the anchorage point over rough waves to the shore. The people’s coolness turned to hostility. The priests’ goods were stolen and they were subjected to insults and mockery. Without having baptized anyone, they fled one night and made their way some 115 kms east to Axim.

At Axim the Portuguese received the Capuchins kindly and they began to work with much success among the Africans. In spite of the people’s great devotion to prayer in the “house of Christ” and to learning about the faith, the Capuchins had to cope with a few difficulties. Once the village church burned down and the people bravely rescued all the furniture and paraphanalia, disappearing with it to their houses. No entreaty would bring the items back until the people were told that Christ himself would punish the guilty ones. In bargaining for food the Capuchins eventually had not enough to offer in exchange for what they needed to eat. Then they found that by asking in the name of Christ they were given all they needed. In 1639, after fourteen fruitful months, difficulties with the Portuguese forced the Capuchins to leave for São Tomé.

From São Tomé Fr. Colombin left the same year for France to report on the situation and recruit for the future mission in Warri, Benin and Yoruba country.^[30] He came back to São Tomé with three companions early in 1641. Another group of five followed behind, but before they arrived the Dutch took the island and put Fr. Colombin and his three companions on ships for Brazil. One of them died, and Colombin and the other two settled to work in Brazil.

The group following behind went to Komenda where they opened a station.^[31] By a year’s time all were afflicted with guinea worm and died from infection except for Hugues d’Ancenis who, after baptizing two prominent Africans, left for Brazil.

A group of Castilian Capuchins stopped at Takoradi in 1651 and preached for twenty days. Headed by Ángel de Valencia, who formerly worked in Congo, they were on their way to Benin. The people of Takoradi asked them to stay but they had to go on. Off Elmina the Dutch governor of the fort deceptively invited the captain and others on the ship to visit the fort, saying that he was a secret Catholic. Once there he laid hold of his guests intending to capture their ship. Some of the men escaped back to the ship, but Frs. Ángel and Tomás were held with some of the crew and eventually set free and allowed to go on another ship.

In 1658 the king of Ardra (or Allada) sent two ambassadors to the king of Spain. The king was mainly interested in trade, but some Castilian Capuchins instructed the ambassadors in the faith and baptized them. Moreover they collaborated to write and publish a catechism in the Ga language. Eleven Capuchins went with the ambassadors taking copies of the catechism to Ardra in 1660. But the king by then was not interested in the faith and even one of the baptized ambassadors apostatized. Five of the Capuchins died over a period of a year before the other six boarded ship and left.^[32] In another disappointing mission two Capuchins from Brittany went to the Ghana coast in 1671 or 1672, but died almost immediately.^[33]

In 1681 Fr. Célestin of Bruxelles and another Capuchin from Brittany went to Whydah and were well received by Chief Bangaza. Fr. Célestin saw the founding of schools for children as the best way to plant the faith. He wrote eloquently for help, but within two years his companion died and the French gave up their post at Whydah. He returned to Europe and died in 1684 at the age of forty.^[34]

The French entered into contact with Komenda in 1685 and an ambassador was sent to France. He had to wait six months in La Rochelle where he became a friend of the bishop who led him to the faith. A solemn baptism was arranged for in Paris, but on the way the ambassador died after receiving an emergency baptism. As for the Capuchins, they never revived their West African mission.

The French Dominicans (1686-1704)

In 1685 the French revived their interest in establishing posts for the gold and slave trade in West Africa and founded the Compagnie française de Guinée for that purpose. At that time Gonzalez François OP was looking for transport to join his Dominican brothers working in the French West Indies,^[35] and could find no other way than by a ship of the new company which was going to trade and prospect along the Gold Coast before going on to the West Indies. The first stop was to be Assinie, where they arrived at the beginning of 1686. But the Africans would not go near them, nor did the French dare land, because a French ship once kidnapped Africans who had come aboard with gold to trade. The Dutch, who wanted to keep a monopoly of the Gold Coast trade, did their best to spread the reputation of the French as pirates.

The Africans themselves, however, had not been idle during their nearly a century of contact with different European powers. The traders and officials had learned European languages and were astute in taking advantage of competition among the European countries and playing one against another. The Komenda people eagerly welcomed the French and filled their water casks, hoping to counterbalance the Dutch in the area. Leaving the Komenda people to suffer reprisals from the Dutch for this act of kindness, the French ship then moved on to Whydah.

At Whydah Fr. François went ashore and was invited to a dinner with Chief Bangaza, during which the chief obliged the French Dominican’s susceptibilities by replacing his nude female attendants with some male servers. The chief then got down to business and offered every accommodation if the work of the Capuchin Father Célestin had abandoned a few years before could be revived. Fr. François made up his mind to ask the Master General of the Dominicans to change his assignment to West Africa. His intention was strengthened when he reached São Tomé and met the sole Capuchin on the island, Francesco da Monteleone, who showed him a letter from the Oba of Benin asking for a priest.^[36]

Fr. François returned to France at the beginning of 1687 and asked to be sent to Whydah with other Dominicans who would open stations also at Assinie, Komenda and Benin. The Master General and Propaganda Fide approved the project, and Gonzalez François set out immediately with three other Dominicans, two of them priests. The ship stopped at Sierra Leone where a chief asked if one of the Dominicans could stay. He could only be told that hopefully one would be sent later. The next stop was Assinie, where the French had made peace with the people and restored the kidnapped traders. The king welcomed the French and Fr. François agreed to let Fr. Henri Serzier remain there with five French traders and teach the Assinie people. An inaugural Mass was celebrated on Christmas 1687. The king also sent his “boy” Aniaba and another young man with the French to greet Louis XIV.

The ship went on to Komenda where another French ship had anticipated them and already built a compound with a church. A third ship arrived bringing two more Dominican priests, but these were contracted to stay on ship as chaplains. While the Dominicans waited on their ships at anchor they saw the whole new compound go up in flames, the work of Komenda’s enemies armed and instigated by the Dutch. One of the ships stayed to try again, but Frs. François, Melchior Vacher and Bro. Antonin Poulallion decided to continue on to Whydah.

At Whydah the Dominicans met Chief Bangaza once again and enjoyed his full cooperation in building a church and a school to teach religion and secular subjects as well. But French plans in West Africa were interrupted by Louis XIV’s war with the League of Augsburg from 1688 to 1697. All the Dominicans and those French traders who could not get home died, Gonzalez François by 1689 (A Mass on the occasion of his death was celebrated at Valence, France, on 4 January 1690) and the rest shortly afterwards. No one returned to tell the story.

Another sympathiser who celebrated Mass for Gonzalez François was the Prior of Rodez, Gabriel-Pierre Caumels. He probably wanted to go and replace his deceased brother but, because of the war with the Dutch who were so entrenched in West Africa, went to the French West Indies instead. As he died in the Virgin Islands in 1694 he requested Godefroy Loyer to go and revive the West African mission. Fr. Loyer returned to France in 1695 or 1696 with dysentery. In 1700 he went to Rome, ready to go to Africa. The Master General approved his going with four others. Fr. Loyer then bypassed the normal procedure whereby the Master General would ask Propaganda Fide for authorization, and wrote directly to Pope Innocent XII for permission. The matter was referred to Propaganda Fide anyway, who first checked to see if the Capuchins were still interested in this territory for which they had once been given responsibility and since abandoned. The Capuchins were not in a position to do anything; so Fr. Loyer was made Prefect Apostolic. Early in 1701 he was ready to travel.

In the meantime the two young men sent to France from Assinie made their acquaintance with Louis XIV and his court and were put with the Dauphin under the tutorship of Bishop Bossuet. In 1691 Aniaba was baptized, with King Louis as his sponsor. The other young man was apparently baptized later and was sent back to Assinie in 1695. In 1700 Aniaba heard that his “father” had died and that he should come back and be king. First Aniaba wanted to found an order of knighthood. At a solemn service held at Notre Dame in February 1701 before the French court and Bishop Bossuet Aniaba received the insignia of his Order of the Star of Our Lady from the hands of Cardinal de Noailles, Archbishop of Paris. In April, leaving a stack of debts and children from various French women behind, he departed for Assinie with Fr. Loyer.

Fr. Loyer went with only one other Dominican, Jacques Villard. For some reason he excluded the other three who were to go. French intelligence in West Africa had discovered as early as 1692 that both young men sent to France were only slaves captured in war as boys. The French kept the secret and went on with the pretence in case they should have to support him against a rival unfriendly to their interests. When the ship arrived at Assinie in June 1701, Akasini, the supposed regent, welcomed Aniaba and the French and hoped the Dominicans would instruct the people in the faith. Some time later Aniaba announced to the French that they must thenceforth carry on all business with him and not with Akasini. But Aniaba alienated the French as well as the Africans by his unbearable haughtiness. The French captain Damon, to tip the balance in favour of Akasini, arranged a meeting with both of them and asked Akasini who really was king of Assinie, since Akasini seemed to be king but Aniaba claimed that he was. Hearing this, Akasini lunged at Aniaba and if Damon had not intervened would have taught Aniaba something then and there. Akasini left no doubt that he intended to be the sole master of Assinie. Aniaba then became the sworn enemy of the French but was powerless to do them any harm.

A fort was soon constructed at Assinie and in September Damon departed for Whydah, leaving behind the two Dominicans and 28 other men. Fr. Loyer, who later wrote a description of his experiences in Assinie,^[37] from the beginning had difficulty relating with the people. He had no answer for their strong attachment to “fetishes” and his teaching about an eternal destiny in the next life sounded ridiculous to them in the light of their belief in reincarnation. Fr. Loyer moreover appeared to them as just another Frenchman, and was not exempted from theft of his belongings. He could not wait to leave the place but over a year passed and no French ship came. Supplies ran out, and in November 1702 the Dutch attacked the fort but were beaten off. In March 1703 a Portuguese ship came to buy slaves. Fr. Loyer boarded it, but because of shipwreck, sickness and war did not reach France until July 1706.

The remaining Frenchmen, together with Fr. Villard, were evacuated from the fort in June 1704. Fr. Villard then spent four months at Whydah where Chief Bangaza begged him to stay or at least return. When he arrived in France and did not find Fr. Loyer all the Dominican communities celebrated a funeral Mass for him on 13 March 1705. When Fr. Loyer did arrive over a year later Fr. Villard begged him to return with him to Whydah, but Fr. Loyer did not seem to have been interested, and in 1710 Fr. Villard became prior of the community of Chambéry and had to give up the idea. Well over two centuries passed before Dominicans returned to West Africa.

Protestant efforts (1737-1800)^[38]

At the beginning of the 18th century, a time when the slave trade was at its fiercest, Protestantism was affected by the movement of Pietism and consciences were being roused to bring the good news of Christ to less fortunate peoples. Yet the high mortality rate of Europeans in West Africa led the Churches very early to emphasize the training of Africans for the work of evangelization. Nikolaus Zinzendorf, founder of the United Brethren or Moravian Church, in 1735 found in Copenhagen a boy named Christian Protten, born in Accra of a Danish father and an African mother. After two years of training Christian Protten was sent to Accra with another Danish missionary who died shortly after arrival. The Moravian Church was disappointed in their expectations of Rev. Protten because in three approximately six year stays at Accra he did not go out of the fort to the Africans and did not seem able to manage his personal life either.

The Moravians in Holland came across a young slave boy from Ivory Coast, instructed him in the faith and gave him every opportunity for educational advancement. J.E.J. Capitein was the first African ordained in a Protestant Church. He distinguished himself at Leyden University and returned to Africa in 1742, running a school at Elmina until his death in 1747.

In the same period another slave brought from Axim to Holland came to Brunswick, Germany. Anton W. Amo won a degree at Wittenberg University, wrote books in Latin on international law and logic and lectured at the Universities of Jena, Wittenberg and Halle. He and several other such Africans became celebrities in Europe but had no direct influence on their countries of origin.

Frederick P. Svane, half Danish, half African from Accra, was sent to Copenhagen for education in 1726. He returned as a missionary in 1735 but, when preaching to his own Ga people, found that, although he remembered his language quite well, he could not express Christian religious ideas in it. For this reason and for lack of support he gave up and worked as a catechist in the Danish fort of Accra from 1736 to 1746.

The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel sent the Englishman Rev. Thomas Thompson to Cape Coast in 1751. Although his preaching among the Africans was negative and fruitless he had the merit of promoting the education of the Mulattoes among whom he afterwards worked. Of the several he sent to England one of them, Philip Quaque, was ordained for the Anglican Church in 1765 and returned the next year to Cape Coast. During his eleven years in England he had distanced himself from his Fante language and when preaching he used an interpreter. Yet almost all his energies were concentrated on school and chaplain work with the English and mulattoes at Cape Coast. Rev. Quaque was one of great numbers of West Africans at this time who were schooling in England. This fact contributed to the replacement of Portuguese with English as the trade language of the West African coast and laid the base for greater British influence.

A disappointing side of some of these preachers was their position on slavery. Thomas Thompson and J.E.J. Capitein all wrote tracts in defence of the practice, although Anton Amo expressed some objection to it.^[39]

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^[1]Variantly Samma, Sama, Saama; the proper name is Esma; cf. Wiltgen (1956), 2, note 6.

^[2]The original name is variantly written or pronounced Adena, Edina, Adana, Odena, Edena; cf. Wiltgen, 3, n.9, and 53, n.84.

^[3]MMA, I, 10, 20; cf. Wiltgen, 1, note 1 on the date.

^[9]MMA, IV, 136; Blake (1942), I, 59-60; Debrunner (1967), 20.

^[14]MMA, III, 454 (for the year 1592); V, 261 (for 1605).

^[29]Variantly spelt Asseny, Isseny, Issinie, Issiny, Issyny, Isgny, Issigny, a name given 30 years after the Capuchins arrival. They knew the place as Besnè, Bené or Abiany. Cf. Wiltgen, 36-7 and notes 22 & 24.

^[31]According to Jadin, 451, this was in 1641. Wiltgen, 45-6, places their coming in 1638, following a letter of Colombin quoted in the Capuchin Acta.

^[32]Debrunner, 34, mentions an earlier mission of Brittany Capuchins to Whydah in 1644, quoting Rocco da Cesinale second hand. The latter, III, 488-9, mentions no date and does not say the Capuchins were from Brittany. He says the Capuchins travelled with Du Casse and that one factor in the failure of the mission was counter-propaganda by the Dutch and the french. Du Casse became captain of a ship only in 1675 (Wiltgen, 60, note 109). Rocco da Cesinale evidently had confused information and I see not reason why this mission should not be identified with the one of 1658.

^[36]On the identity of the Capuchin see Wiltgen, 71; Jadin, 464-5.