Joseph Merrick (August 1808 – 22 October 1849) was a

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

Baptist Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compe ...

missionary A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

who, assisted by

Joseph Jackson Fuller The Rev. Joseph Jackson Fuller (1825–1908), Baptist missionary to the pre-colonial African Chiefdoms of the Cameroons, was one of the earliest slaves to be freed in Jamaica (initially under the partial freedoms of the "apprenticeship act") ...

, established the first successful

mission Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to: Organised activities Religion *Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity *Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...

on the

Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...

coast of Africa.

Biography

Merrick was born in August 1808 in

. Merrick began preaching in 1837 in JamaicaNgoh 352. and was ordained a full missionary in 1838.Fanso 102. In 1842, Reverend John Clarke and Dr. G. K. Prince, members of the Baptist Missionary Society of London, were seeking Jamaican lay missionaries to join them on an expedition to the Cameroon coast. Merrick signed on. The party reached England on 8 September 1842, and arrived at Spanish-controlled Santa Isabel on the island of Fernando Po in 1843.

Ministry

The following year, 1844, Merrick visited Bimbia and spoke to King

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

of the Isubu people to request permission to establish a church on the mainland. Despite some initial resistance, the king acquiesced. Merrick founded the Jubilee Mission in 1844–5, and over the next four to five years, translated parts of the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...

into the Isubu language, set up a brick-making machine and a printing press, and used the latter to publish his Bible translation and a textbook for teaching in Isubu. Merrick made excursions into the interior, as when he climbed

Mount Cameroon Mount Cameroon is an active volcano in the South West region of Cameroon next to the city of Buea near the Gulf of Guinea. Mount Cameroon is also known as Cameroon Mountain or Fako (the name of the higher of its two peaks) or by its indigenous n ...

and when he became the first non-African to visit the Bakoko people.DeLancey and DeLancey 174. In 1849, Merrick was in ill health. He set off for England on furlough, and on 22 October, he died at sea. On Merrick's death,

took charge of the mission station and congregation at Bimbia. Merrick's efforts also paved the way for Alfred Saker to make further progress – he made use of Merrick's printing press to translate and print the Bible in Duala.DeLancey and DeLancey 174; Ngoh 69. Joseph Merrick Baptist College in Ndu, Northwest Province, Cameroon, is named for him.

Notes

References

* DeLancey, Mark W., and Mark Dike DeLancey (2000): ''Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon'' (3rd ed.). Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press. * Fanso, V. G. (1989). ''Cameroon History for Secondary Schools and Colleges, Vol. 1: From Prehistoric Times to the Nineteenth Century.'' Hong Kong: Macmillan Education Ltd. * Ngoh, Victor Julius (1996). ''History of Cameroon Since 1800.'' Limbe: Presbook. * Sundkler, B. & Steed, C. (1993) ''A History of the Christian Church in Africa'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Merrick, Joseph Baptist missionaries in Cameroon Jamaican Baptist missionaries Translators of the Bible into Bantu languages Explorers of Africa Jamaican explorers 1808 births 1849 deaths 19th-century translators Jamaican expatriates in Cameroon Jamaican expatriates in Equatorial Guinea Baptist missionaries in Equatorial Guinea 19th-century Baptists Missionary linguists People who died at sea