Name Daniel Coker | ||
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Daniel Coker (1780–1846), born Isaac Wright, was an African American and the first Methodist missionary to the British colony of Sierra Leone. Coker is one of the founding organizers of the African Methodist Episcopal Church as well as the founder of the West Africa Methodist Church.
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Early life
Daniel Coker was born enslaved in 1780 in Baltimore, Maryland, to Susan Coker, a white indentured servant, and Daniel Wright, a black slave, in Baltimore. Coker was to serve 31 years of servitude because his parents relationship was illegal in the state of Maryland. Coker received a primary school education because his white half brother refused to go to school without him. When he became a teenager he escaped to New York where he became a Methodist. After receiving his license to preach from Francis Asbury, he moved back to Baltimore and passed as his brother. Friends helped purchase his freedom so he could teach at a local school for black children.
Methodist minister
In 1802, Francis Asbury ordained Coker as a deacon in the Methodist Episcopal Church. He actively opposed slavery. In 1810, he published Dialogue between a Virginian and an African minister. He participated in organizing the national African Methodist Episcopal Church meeting in Philadelphia in 1816 on behalf of Bethel A.M.E. Church in Baltimore, (founded 1787/1797)
Emigration to Western Africa
Early in 1820, Daniel Coker sailed for Africa on board the Elizabeth. He was part of 86 emigrants assisted by the American Colonization Society (ACS). This voyage of the Elizabeth marks the beginning of what is now Liberia. Coker is one of the first African American missionaries to go to Africa. While in transit, ten days after the ship left New York, he organized the first foreign branch of the AME Church. The ACS planned to settle a colony at Sherbro. Swampy, disease-ridden conditions soon claimed the lives of all but one of the twelve white colonists and many of the African Americans, as well. Just before his death, the expedition's leader asked Coker to take charge of the venture. He helped the remaining colonists get through their despair and to survive.
Descendants
Coker, his wife, and his children settled in Hastings, Sierra Leone a newly established village for Sierra Leone Liberated Africans. Coker became the patriarch of a prominent Creole family the Cokers. Coker's son, Daniel Coker Jr. was a prominent man in the town of Freetown and the Cokers and their descendants still reside inside Freetown as one of the prominent Creole families. Henry McNeal Turner elaborated on this when he said 'It would seem, from all I can learn, that Coker played a prominent part in the early settlement of Liberia. The first Methodist Church established here was the African M. E. Church; but by whom established I cannot say. Tradition says it was afterward sold out to the M. E. Church. Besides the probability of Rev. Daniel Coker's having established our church here, he also played a mighty part among the early settlers of Sierra Leone. His children and grandchildren are found there to-day.'