Admittedly, I knew nothing of Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a formerly enslaved as a teen first by the Fulani, then by the Portuguese. The British Navy intercepted his slave ship, and he was subsequentially “freed” and settled in Freetown, Sierra Leone. His exceptional intelligence was recognized early, and he excelled to become the first Black man to become an Anglican Bishop and earn a degree from Oxford.

Bandele’s novel chronicles Crowther’s life as a man in that era and doesn’t wax poetic about the famous firsts and barriers he broke. He includes the ugly politics of the day, the horrors of the slave trade, the ills of colonization – the immeasurable losses of life, resources, culture, etc. and glimpses the effects on the individual and the irreparable damage caused by it.

I was remiss in the details and didn’t realize this was a post-houmous release in which the manuscript was published with permission from the author’s estate. I suppose they left it mostly ‘as-is’ because parts are quite choppy, a bit wordy, and stilted. I found myself skimming through sections just to get through it.
However, this offering chronicles Crowther’s life, loves, challenges, and accomplishments with much respect and admiration.