At the age of 12, Ajayi (who hadn’t yet taken the name Samuel Crowther) was captured by Fulani slave traders from his home town of Osugun in what is now Oyo State, Nigeria. He ended up in the Lagos slave market, where he was sold to Portuguese traders who put him on a ship which was then attacked by a British anti-slavery warship. Of the 189 enslaved people on board, 102 died in the attempt to rescue them, but Ajayi survived and was taken by the British navy to Freetown, Sierra Leone. Here he was placed in a mission school, where he learned English and was taught the Scriptures. Along with many others, he decided to follow Christ and, in 1825, was baptized. At that time, it was common to take a new name at baptism and Ajayi took the name Samuel Crowther.
Crowther returned to Abeokuta in what is now Nigeria in 1843 and was reunited with his mother and sisters, whom he had not seen in 24 years. He now applied himself to the Yoruba spelling system, and then started translating the Bible. In 1843, he published his first Yoruba grammar and vocabulary, and in 1852 he published a translation of four New Testament books. Crowther and his assistant, Thomas King, continued to work on the Yoruba translation of the Bible for much of the rest of his life. He also researched and promoted significant work in Nupe, Igbo and other languages. His research eventually led to his receiving a doctorate from Oxford University. The whole Yoruba Bible was published in 1884.
Crowther acknowledged what he called ‘the vernacular principle’ in missions. That is to say, there is no special, sacred language nor one cultural expression of the faith.
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