Hogs and Cannon-Shot

“The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon me; because Jehovah hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound” — Isaiah 61:1 (ASV)

In Lagos, Ajayi was bought by Portuguese slave-traders, “the eighth in number.” By then, he said, he had become “a veteran in slavery” and “patiently took whatever came.” The captives were kept in a room with one door and no windows, the men and boys chained together by the neck. When the men pulled the chain tight to lie down, the boys’ necks were bruised. They lived like that for nearly four months.

Then, at night, they were taken out to a ship: 187 people. The crew didn’t feed them that first day, and most were seasick. “On the very same evening,” Crowther wrote, “we were surprised by two English men-of-war.” It was 7 April 1822. The warships were HMS Myrmidon and HMS Iphigenia of the Royal Navy’s anti-slavery squadron, which patrolled the West African coast to stop ships like this one.

Ajayi and five friends were rowed over to the Myrmidon. There they saw meat with white skin hanging up, which they had never seen on a pig, and rows of iron cannonballs on the deck. They worked it out: the white men had eaten the other captives, and those were their heads. Then “a close examination of the flesh with cloven foot, which resembled that of a hog,” and “a cautious approach to the shot,” showed them the truth: it was pork, and the balls were iron. Crowther told that story against himself for the rest of his life. It is funny, and it is also not foolish: the people the white men bought had never come back.

Within days the boys were “quite at home in the man-of-war.” The sailors gave them clothes. Then the Portuguese owner was brought on board in chains. Ajayi walked up to the man while he was being shaved and hit him on the head. He recorded it honestly, and judged it just as honestly: “an act, however, very wicked and unkind in its nature.”

That is worth stopping on. Who could blame him? But years later, as a Christian, he didn’t defend it as justice. He called it wicked. Revenge feels like freedom for about four seconds. Crowther learned that real freedom is something else.

On 17 June 1822 the Myrmidon landed its rescued captives at Sierra Leone, a British colony for people freed from slave ships. Ajayi was sent to a hill village called Bathurst. People told the new arrivals that they were free, “and we very soon believed them.”

When Jesus began his ministry, he stood up in the synagogue and read the verse at the top of this chapter: he had come “to proclaim release to the captives.” The captain of the Myrmidon didn’t know he was freeing a future bishop; he was doing his job. But that bruised boy would spend the rest of his life proclaiming a deeper release, from a deeper slavery, to his own people.

One thing to do this week: notice one moment this week when you want payback, even a small one: a comeback, a cold shoulder, a screenshot. Don’t act on it. Instead, ask yourself honestly what Crowther asked himself: is this justice, or is it just me wanting to hit back?