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An Appraisal of Thomas Coke';s Africa Mission, 1976–1811

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Warren Thomas Smith
Affiliation:
Mr. Smith is Senior Minister of First United Methodist Church, College Park, Georgia

Extract

Advancement in contemporary world missions has not come without heart-break, failure, defeat—prior to victory. One dramatic illustration of manifold blunders—and then success—is Thomas Coke's heroic attempt to establish missions in Africa.

Africa was coming more and more to the attention of thinking Englishmen. Abolition of the nefarious slave trade was being seriously discussed in humanitarian circles. The dark and mysterious continent caught Dr. Coke's imagination. In March, 1787, while in Charleston, South Carolina, he noted: “… Since my visit to the islands [West Indies], I have found a peculiar gift for speaking to the Blacks. It seems to be almost irresistible. Who knows but the Lord is preparing me for a visit in some future time to the coast of Africa?”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1971

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References

1. Extracts of the Journals of the Rev. Dr. Coke's Five Visits to America (London: G. Paramore, 1793), p. 67.Google Scholar

2. Coupland, Reginald, Wilberforce (London: Collins, 1945), p. 225.Google Scholar

3. See Dictionary of National Biography, “Granville Sharp,” Vol. 51, pp. 401404Google Scholar. Size of the colony is an approximation. See Banton, Michael, West Africa City (London: Oxford University Press, 1957), p. 3Google Scholar, note. The term Sierra Leone means “Lion Mountain.”

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7. Dated, November 21, 1791, in the Ezekiel Cooper Collection, Garrett Theological Seminary.

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9. Fyfe, pp. 51–52. In 1809 Coke published a reply to a harsh doctrinal attack by Home. See Drew, Samuel, The Life of the Rev. Thomas Coke, LL.D. (N.Y.: Soule and Mason, 1818), p. 329Google Scholar. Also see Vickers, John, Thomas Coke: Apostle of Methodism (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1969), p. 288.Google Scholar

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12. Booth, p. 54. Macaulay sailed on May 6, 1795, for Barbados. Also see D.N.B., vol. 34, “Zachary Macaulay” pp. 418–420.

13. Booth, p. 49.

14. Letter to Ezekiel Cooper, April 23, 1795. Ezekiel Cooper Collection, Garrett Theological Seminary.

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27. Booth, p. 58.

28. See Report of the Agency Committee of the Anti-Slavery Society (London: S. Bagster, 1832).Google Scholar

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30. Quoted in Etheridge, p. 356.

31. Etheridge, p. 356.

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34. Williams, George W., History of the Negro Race in America 1619 to 1880 (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1883) I, p. 90Google Scholar. Chapter on “Sierra Leone.”

35. Letter to Ezekiel Cooper, 1795.